Garden Guardians

The garden/yard of Adventure Farm has a small water feature that has served to enhance the human experience as well as attract many of the area wildlife. I give much credit to my native plants and my little pond and waterfall for the beauty and entertainment I find in my garden each day. Not only do I have toads, snakes and dragonflies that are obviously drawn to the water, but also some not so welcome garden and pond visitors such as raccoons, squirrels and rabbits.  I love my snakes as anyone who knows me will attest, and I can't wait till spring to hear the toads gathering at my pond from around the neighborhood. The dragonflies are awesome too, and do a great job of taking care of the mosquitoes, both larval stage and flying, which leads me in a round about way to a recent standoff between two of my very favorite visitors and guardians of my garden. These two are at the top of my list of favorites, and at least one does a nice job of keeping some of the not so welcome guests at bay.

        Dragonfly on Garden Peas

For many years now I have had a pair of cooper's hawks that nest in the neighborhood and visit my pond frequently. One year I also had the pleasure of their fledglings hanging out in the yard for about 24 hours stumbling around like drunken teenagers as they were leaving the nest and learned to get around on their legs and wings, but that's another story. All summer at least one, the male I think, claims this neighborhood as his territory. According to Wikipedia and some birding friends, their primary food choice is birds. However, they also are known to eat small rodents and lizards, frogs and snakes. Not exactly what I want in my backyard with my friendly snakes and toads, but none the less, I'm crazy about this bird.  He guards my yard during the day and I suppose has gotten many a tasty bird meal from my yard as well.

As evening comes I have another guardian who arrives. This past spring we had a pair of barred owls nest in a wooded area on the next block. They too would use our pond and hang out around our yard into the evening. I became accustomed to hearing the call of the barred owl around 5:30-6:00 in the evening as I watered my garden and would often see one silently arriving to sit in a neighbor's tree overlooking our yard. It became a lovely ritual that I looked forward to. I began to think of the hawk and owl as taking shifts, one going to bed as the other took over.

Last week I learned how possessive one hawk is of his work shift. I was out in the garden one morning picking tomatoes before heading off for my work shift when I startled, and was startled by, the owl getting a drink from the pond before he retired for the day. He hopped away and stood staring at me. I crept back into the house to share the experience with Guy. When we returned he allowed us to observe him for a few more minutes before fluttering a few feet to the top of our backyard fence where he quietly sat watching us. Of course, the bluebirds were not so quiet. They were shouting the alarm and getting louder. I can only imagine what Mr. Cooper thought when he heard the ruckus that was not directed at him. But when he discovered the "problem" he went absolutely crazy. He drowned out the bluebirds with his screech and swooped down at the barred owl hitting him on the head. I swear he was shouting about Mr Barred taking his shift. The owl ducked and then flew to a more protected area of the fence where there was some vegetation to hide in. Actually, he didn't seem all the concerned, just annoyed. In fact the harassment went on for 15-20 minutes with the hawk swooping or sitting nearby staring, but the owl seemed unconcerned and at one point was actually looking down at the ground as if he was looking for a mouse to snack on. Guy and I were having a great time watching all this and took pictures like crazy.  After a while the hawk got tired of harassing the owl and getting no response and Guy and I decided it would be a good idea to get to our work, so we left Mr Barred on his perch and left for our day. I haven't met the owl in the morning since, but I sure hope to see him around again soon. I need him to keep those bunnies and squirrels out of my garden.

Backyard Stand-Off

Barred Owl (left) Cooper's Hawk (right)

Eating close to home

It has been a great summer as we learn how to eat closer to home and the Earth. We have been learning more about growing our own food and buying from our local farmer's market. This past weekend I also learned a little more about foraging for wild foods.

Saturday I spent the day with a close friend foraging for mushrooms at a wonderful farm just outside of St. Louis. The weather has been a little too dry for mushrooms, but the hot weather and the promise of a lake to swim in, drew us both to the country.  We started the day by walking through the woods in the hope of finding chanterelles. Karen, my foraging buddy, had recently had great luck finding chanterelles, which she kindly cooked and shared with both Guy and me.

This day we weren't 50 feet into the woods before we spied our first chanterelle. Excitedly, we looked all around the area and only found one other dried up chanterelle. We continued to explore the area stopping now and again to admire flowers, ferns and the occasional scat. Yes, we actually do admire scat from time to time.  In this case it was very fortunate that we enjoy this rather peculiar activity since as we were examining some particularly interesting scat we looked up to spy a real treat. Attached to a rotting log was a shelf mushroom called Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) also called Sulfur Shelf. This is a beautiful and, I was soon to find out, delicious mushroom that is found on rotting wood. It is an absolutely beautiful orange and white that looks like something you would find snorkeling and not in a humid Missouri woodland.  Thank goodness we found this lovely and rather large mushroom since we would have looked pretty pathetic returning with our one tiny chanterelle. However, after a lovely swim in the lake we returned home the successful hunters.

Pictured here is our delicious Sunday dinner.

Blue bowl: contains potatoes dug a few hours earlier from the garden, onions (not from the garden) boiled and thickened with flour with salt and pepper seasoning. 

Maroon bowl: Chicken of the Woods mushroom, garlic (garden), scallion (not from the garden) and thyme (not from the garden).

Yellow bowl:  yellow and zucchini squash, okra, garlic (all from the garden) sauteed in olive oil. 

Bread: home made with non-local ingredients but also no preservatives. 

Hunting for Adventure Farm

The search has begun. This past Sunday we took our first trip to look for a place to call Adventure Farm.  This piece of property is in St. James, MO.  A couple is selling a large parcel of land broken into a wide variety of pieces that you can mix and match in all different ways. I had a great time and decided the whole experience was amazingly fun. Guy, on the other hand, found it “interesting.” 

The land is for sale by owner, which means that we got to meet the folks who owned the land. It was a wonderful first experience.  This couple spent almost four hours with us wandering the property and endlessly discussing the possibilities despite the fact that they knew most of the pieces were out of our price range.  I’m amazed at their generosity.

This first experience was a great exercise in looking for what we need.  We now know a little more about what we are willing to give up and what we absolutely can’t live without.  I can say with confidence that Deanna’s needs are much different than Guy’s, which should guarantee an awesome piece of property but a property that will probably take some time to find.

Here’s a quick run down of “can’t live withouts” for both of us. 

Guy’s needs

Hills

Blackberries-they were ripe on this property, and Guy was hungry :)

Trees -

• a stand of trees that can be used for a challenge course
• open grown trees for recreational tree climbing
• a grove of trees for tree houses, a big swing and just to enjoy

In other words; trees, trees, trees.

Deanna’s needs

Water (stream, pond, spring…)

Ummm, not quite what I had in mind. 

Flat open land for growing food

No highway noise

A house NOT a mobile home

• Southern exposure
• Fireplace
• Big kitchen
• Without the cheap, tacky remodel, please
• It can be “As Is” if it has character, is structurally sound and has the above characteristics.  For the right price, of course. Actually, for the right price we could build. Although building is not our first choice.

 An "As Is" with potential, but DEFINITELY the wrong price.

The Shining Star on the property. Maybe we could live in the barn.

This place had a lot of what we want, but the price and a few missing "must haves" made it just a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. So, if anyone knows where this dream property is, send us a note. Deanna, for one, can’t wait to look some more!

           

  

Introduction to the Invasives

Living in an urban area has its conveniences but also many challenges. One of those challenges is dealing with the invasive plant species that have been introduced by well meaning gardeners.  Here are several we are continually battling.

Bush Honeysuckle (Lonicera morrowi)

Bush honeysuckle is a native of Asia and extremely invasive. The berries are eaten by birds, which transport them all over. They easily end up in our area parks and woodlands where they take over.

Bush honeysuckle was planted along the edge of our yard before I moved in. It took me quite some time to become informed about this invasive, and I have been fighting it since. They are extremely hard to kill. It cannot be done without herbicides, which I carefully dab on the cut stumps to try and avoid contaminating anything around it.  Every spring I am continuing to pull seedlings that pop up in my yard.

If you discover bush honeysuckle in your yard, please take it out and consider replacing it with native plants.  If you live in Missouri, the Missouri Department of Conservation has an excellent brochure, which gives wonderful native alternatives.

http://mdc4.mdc.mo.gov/Documents/15700.pdf

Wintercreeper  (Euonymus fortunei)

This plant has been used as a ground cover all over St. Louis. You can also find many “euonymus trees” in the area as people let the vine grow up the tree. When allowed to stay on the ground it can usually be kept confined to a given area. However, when this vine is allowed to climb up trees and on fences it will flower and produce berries, which, just like the bush honeysuckle, the birds eat and spread. Wintercreeper is being found in our local parks and woodlands where it chokes out the wild flowers and kills small trees reducing the diversity in any area it grows.  At Adventure Farm I find wintercreeper in my gardens on a regular basis.

Some lovely MO native ground covers that can be used in place of wintercreeper include:

Squaw-weed (Senecio obavatus and Senecio ampullaceus)

Native ferns

Rose verbena (Glandularia canadensis)

Purple poppy mallow (Callirhoe involucrate)

May Apple (Podophllum peltatum)

Canadian Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense)


Sweet autumn virginsbower  (Clematis terniflora )

This is one of our biggest problems. This clematis blooms in the fall with beautiful showers of tiny white flowers. I can understand the attraction. However, it is highly invasive and hard to get out. I pull and pull this stuff every year and try to make sure it doesn’t bloom and go to seed in the fall.

Unfortunately these are not the only invasives in our area and that trouble us at Adventure Farm.  There are more than I could possibly list here, but a short list of sometimes surprising invasives include:

Burning Bush

Butterfly Bush

English Ivy

Periwinkle

Rose of Sharon

Japanese honeysuckle

Please take some time and become familiar with your native alternatives. A nice place to visit online for MO natives is the Grow Native website at http://grownative.org/

Grow native is a program developed jointly by Missouri Department of Conservation and the Missouri Department of Agriculture.

If you don't live in Missouri, I'm sure there are many resources in your area to help you become informed, too. Get Googling :)

The Vegetables

This is my third year growing food, and I learn a lot every year. For instance, I learned last year that vegetables need much better soil than the natives. We worked all last fall hauling leaf mulch and horse manure along with anything else that we thought would help the soil and that we could get for free. One thing we are determined to do is get the best soil for as little cost as possible. Hopefully, soon we will be able to add nutrients to the soil just using the compost generated from the garden waste coming from the property along with composted chicken manure. That would be the most sustainable way, and our goal. However, our soil has been depleted for too long and needs some outside help at first. Plus, we are not ready to add chickens to the site, so we haul what we can find for free to our little plot of land. 

You may be surprised at how easy it is to find free resources for improving your soil.  Many of the St. Louis municipalities offer free leaf and wood mulch if you are willing to haul it away. We got plenty of both last fall and I suspect will continue to need to add more for a few more years. You can also find people with horses in the St. Louis area who are happy to have you haul off as much soiled bedding as you would like. Another opportunity we have found is from garden nurseries who use straw bales for decoration in the fall. These bales become wet and moldy and perfect to cover those freshly made garden beds. This past fall we were able to build raised beds that included layers of leaf mulch, garden compost and horse bedding and then covered them with a thick layer of moldy straw. The straw helped to insulate the new bed during the winter and the earthworms and other soil organisms had a party all winter. This spring when I started to plant the veggies, I found beautifully composted soil full of worms. The work we did in the fall and the work the soil detritivores and decomposers did in the winter is paying off big time this summer. Things are looking way better than last year's sorry crop. 

 Most of our seeds this year came from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. in Mansfield MO.  We used them last year too and had good success. We enjoy supporting a more local seed supplier and using heirloom seeds.  For more information you can go to their website at www.rareseeds.com. 

While I'm thinking about it, another local supplier is Morgan County Seeds, www.morgancountyseeds.com  They are located in Barnett, MO and have great prices. Their site isn't as pretty as Baker Creek, and I often have to go elsewhere to get more details on a product they are offering, but most of the time the price is worth the extra effort. A word of warning though, they are a small business and during the busy times of year ship REALLY slowly. They'll tell you this, but if you aren't prepared and need something right away, it's a bit of a bummer. Be sure you plan ahead when ordering from them.  

Introduction to the Natives

 Much of the land at Adventure Farm has been converted to areas with native plants.  Missouri has a history of flora diversity, which includes the wetlands along the largest river in the continental US, the Ozark mountains, and large expanses of prairie. In this small space we have included species found in all those areas.  As a result of planting and nurturing these natives, we have also observed the change of animal species who visit our backyard. Among the many fauna that make regular visits to our yard are cooper hawks, barred owls, garter snakes, American toads, bats, flickers, goldfinch, raccoon, and opossum among many.   While we still have many squirrels and rabbits, I am convinced that there are less because of the owls and hawks. The insect pest population is definitely reduced from the bats, snakes and toads.

Recently I was reading an article written by Dr Doug Tallamy, “Gardening for Life”, published in the Wild Ones Journal.  Dr. Tallamy does a wonderful job promoting the importance of planting natives in our yards. I would recommend this easy read to anyone who is the least bit interested in a yard with less lawn. For those of you more interested, I would suggest Bringing Nature Home: How Native plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens also by Dr. Tallamy.

You can find a copy of the above mentioned article at: 

http://for-wild.org/download/Gardening%20for%20Life%20Doug%20Tallamy.pdf

Farming at Adventure Farm

Growing things at our urban farm started as a passion for native plants and a desire to attract and help sustain local wildlife. Since that time, many years ago, our focus has expanded to include the desire to grow our own food and make this small plot of land in St Louis county a place that helps to sustain the humans as well as the native plant and animal species.  This is a continuing learning experience that we hope to share on this blog.