By Eliza Cross, on June 1st, 2013%
If you’re a pea plant trying to grow in our garden this summer, you’ve had your share of challenges. First, you had to endure two snowstorms with hard freezes. Then, just as you were beginning to thrive and feel good about life, a rabbit snuck in the garden and ate most of your foliage and tender shoots. What’s a pea plant to do?
Because I’m trying to be a frugal gardener this year, after surveying the damage this morning I was determined to try and solve the rabbit problem without spending any cash. So I rummaged around in the shed and found some bamboo stakes that I drove between the openings in the wire fence, about four inches in the ground.
Then I placed a fierce looking owl (or tacky plastic owl, depending on your point of view) to guard the plants.
Finally, I sprinkled some black pepper on and around the nibbled plants.
I got this tip from the Rutgers website, which also recommended bone meal or, um, blood as rabbit deterrents. (They don’t say where one might obtain this blood, and I really don’t want to know.) I’ve also heard that cayenne pepper will do the trick. Other rabbit deterrents I’ve read about–but have no experience with–include spraying hot pepper sauce around the garden, planting marigolds or cilantro around the border, and scattering dog hair (something we always have plenty of around here) near the plants. Seems kind of unsightly, but it just might work!
I love seeing the bunnies in the back yard, I really do, so I hope these measures deter them from eating our peas and other garden plants.
How about you? Are you dealing with critters in your garden, and if so, have you found any solutions that work?
Enjoy the weekend and happy digging,
Eliza Cross is a full-time writer and the author of five books about home design and food. She has been blogging about simplicity and sustainable living since 2006.
By Eliza Cross, on May 27th, 2013%
 Heirloom tomatoes – photo by mrsdkrebs Last summer was a tough year for growing tomatoes here in our Colorado garden. After buying six large tomato plants for the garden and lovingly planting them in soil I had enriched with store-bought compost, a hail storm on June 7 destroyed all the plants – along with our cedar shake roof.
After replacing all the plants (and the roof), the summer of 2012 broke all our previous records for heat, with more than 70 days of temperatures over 90 degrees. I tried mulching, drip lines and shade fabric, but all of the tomato plants in that full-sun garden were droopy and produced only a few smaller fruits. I also later learned that the commercial compost I bought was probably contaminated. We probably spent about a hundred dollars between all the plants, compost, water and more – for about a dozen garden tomatoes.
A new gardening year is upon us, and I’ve been thinking about how to maximize our output without spending so much cash. One of the best money-saving strategies, of course, is to grow your own plants from seed. Alas, I wasn’t that organized this year but here are some other thoughts:
1. Has your gardening zone changed? Climate change has caused a general warming trend, and you may want to consult the latest U.S. hardiness zones from the Arbor Day Foundation. Choosing the best plants for your particular zone is a whole lot easier than trying to force things to grow where it’s too hot, cold, dry or humid.
2. Watch for sales on less-than-perfect plants. Dig a nice deep hole, add plenty of good soil, give the plants regular water to establish them, and cut off any dead leaves or blooms. I bought a full flat of bedraggled fuchsia petunias last week for just $2.34, and they perked right up with a little TLC.
3. Got old seeds that didn’t get planted last year? Try planting ‘em now and they might just sprout. Scientists planted centuries-old Anasazi beans and – surprise! They sprouted just fine.
4. Swap plants and seeds with friends. Or ask for a slip of a plant you admire and try establishing it with rooting powder.
5. Evaluate what’s thriving and what’s not. Keep notes in a gardening notebook, so you can move plants around next spring.
6. Get creative about adding edible garden plants to your landscape. If you’re going to spend time and money on water and upkeep, the area might as well be producing food, right? We’ve got rhubarb, strawberries, herbs and currants tucked in the front yard landscaping.
7. Install rain barrels to save money on water. Or save “gray water” (like the water used to rinse dishes) to water your garden plants.
8. Make your own compost. You’ll reduce waste, save money and have complete control over the soil-enriching product.
9. Visit a botanical garden. Our beloved Denver Botanic Gardens is always a feast for the eyes and soul, and a great place to stroll around and see what native plants thrive in our particular region.
10. Explore other nearby neighborhoods and find gardens that appeal to you. See what the professional landscapers are planting. Observe the combinations of colors, textures and heights, and make notes about what you like.
11. No new plants in the budget this summer? Maximize what you have. Prune your bushes and tidy up the spaces. Perhaps you can divide some of your perennials and help them produce more. Dig out unwanted weeds. Edge the garden paths. Sketch and plan your dream garden.
What money-saving strategies are you taking in your garden this summer? I always love hearing from you. In the mean time, here’s to a happy Memorial Day. We are deeply grateful for the men and women who sacrificially serve our country.
xo,
Eliza Cross is a full-time writer and the author of five books about home design and food. She has been blogging about simplicity and sustainable living since 2006.
By Eliza Cross, on May 2nd, 2013%
Springtime in Colorado is always an adventure, but this spring has been a doozy for gardeners. After record-making snowfall of 20.7 inches here in Denver during April, I was pleased to see the pea shoots finally emerging, somewhat timidly, on April 30:
But the forecast called for snow and a very hard frost, so that night I pulled the cages out of the ground and covered the pea shoots with a lovely pink knit fabric remnant. I chose this fabric because it’s soft and also 100% polyester, which I hoped would help insulate the plants.
It’s a good thing the peas were covered with their polyester blanket, because this is how our back yard looked when we woke up yesterday, which happened to be May Day:
 Happy May Day! Here’s the garden where the peas are planted:
We had record-breaking low temperatures last night of 19 degrees F, which smashed the old record of 22 degrees set in 1954. But today? The snow’s melting fast. Here’s the same scene 24 hours later:
 Happy May 2! Once the sun had warmed the ground and most of the snow had melted, I pulled back the pink polyester fabric to check on the peas and was relieved to see that they had survived another hard frost:
Have you planted seeds or plants yet in your garden? If so, are you having to deal with wild weather? I’d love to hear how you’re coping, and here’s to hardiness and resilience—not only for our plants, but for those of us trying to help them grow!
Hugs,
Eliza Cross is a full-time writer and the author of five books about home design and food. She has been blogging about simplicity and sustainable living since 2006.
By Eliza Cross, on April 10th, 2013%
If you’re a gardener, you have to roll with the punches. Mother Nature gave us the ole’ one-two this week with a spring snowstorm. We’re used to late-season snow here in Colorado, but not the cold. We tied a record last night with a low temperature of just 7 degrees F, and some of the flowers are protesting.
Here are the hyacinths on Monday:
…and today:
The daffodils were perky on Monday:
…but face down today:
How’s the weather in your part of the country? How are you adapting with your garden, given the extreme weather that seems to be increasingly the norm? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.
C’mon, spring!
P.S. Congratulations to Tammy, who won The Mini Farm Guide to Composting. More giveaways to come!
Eliza Cross is a full-time writer and the author of five books about home design and food. She has been blogging about simplicity and sustainable living since 2006.
By Eliza Cross, on April 4th, 2013%
“To dig one’s own spade into one’s own earth! Has life anything better to offer than this?”– Beverley Nichols
Here in Colorado, it’s tricky to know exactly when spring planting season begins. We’ve been known to get snow into late May, but last year we broke a record on April 24 with a high of 87 degrees. I’m probably a little late planting the peas, but we’ve had snow the last two weeks. After a nice rain Tuesday night, yesterday seemed like the perfect day to get the seeds in the ground.
If your yard has heavy clay soils like ours, take heart! As they say on the commercial, “It gets better.” After seven years of working our homemade compost into the dirt, never stepping on it and sifting out rocks and clay clumps, I really noticed a difference in the kitchen garden soil this year. You can see in the photo above that the spade easily turns the dirt.
The pea seeds soaked in filtered water all day, which will hopefully help them sprout a little faster.
I only planted a third of the seeds in the package yesterday. I’ll plant another third in a week, and another third a week after that. Who knows if they will all make it or if the weather will be too hot, but if we’re lucky the harvest will be staggered and we’ll have tender peas for several weeks.
Gardening is such an act of faith, isn’t it? We have to trust that these little seeds:
…will eventually look like this:
 Photo: Penelope Waits The seeds we planted are Seeds of Change organic Sugar Pod 2 Snow Peas, a bush variety, but I added some old tomato cages near the seeds so they’ll have something to hang onto if they want to.
Have you started planting yet? What’s growing in your garden? We’d all love to know.
Happy digging,
P.S. Have you entered the giveaway for a free copy of The Mini Farm Guide to Composting book yet? The drawing closes next Monday, April 8, at midnight MST.
Eliza Cross is a full-time writer and the author of five books about home design and food. She has been blogging about simplicity and sustainable living since 2006.
By Eliza Cross, on April 1st, 2013%
If you’ve got a certifiable case of Spring Gardening Fever, I’ve got a book that will help. The Mini Farming Guide to Composting: Self-Sufficiency from Your Kitchen to Your Backyard by Brett L. Markham is a comprehensive guide to making your own rich, cost-effective compost. Markham makes a compelling case that the best way to enjoy enhanced nutrition and save money with a home garden is to make your own soil-enhancing compost.
I wholeheartedly agree. While we don’t do it on a large scale here, we do get enormous satisfaction in the cycle of composting leaves, kitchen scraps, grass, etc. and seeing the mixture morph into a rich organic matter that we can use to greatly improve our garden soil.
After an introduction extolling the virtues of making your own compost (it’s cost effective, increases soil fertility, reduces bacterial and fungal diseases, and more), The Mini Farm Guide to Composting logically begins with a chapter on evaluating your own soil so you know how to best improve it. Markham provides detailed information about soil testing and the additives and processes that can make your dirt more fertile, Myrtle. (I just had to say that.)
Other chapters break down the science of composting and various options – Anaerobic Composting (a simple compost pile is a good example), Aerobic Composting (I always wear a leotard and leg warmers for this), Indoor Mesophilic Composting (Markham’s method for an indoor bucket composting system), Vermicomposting (the farmin’ of worms, Vern), Sheet Composting (some call this lasagna gardening because of the layering involved) and more.
The Mini Farming Guide to Composting is 200 pages and retails for $14.95 USD. Skyhorse Publishing has generously provided a complimentary copy for one lucky Happy Simple Living reader.
To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment below about your current composting situation. If you don’t compost, would you like to try? If you do compost, do you use a pile, or one of those fancy twirling composters, or something in between? Are you havin’ trouble with your worms, Vern? Or would you like to produce more compost, or learn how to speed up the process? Let’s dish about compost, shall we?
The giveaway closes next Monday, April 8, at midnight MST, and is open to residents of the United States and Canada.
Here’s to diggin’ in the dirt, Bert,
Eliza Cross is a full-time writer and the author of five books about home design and food. She has been blogging about simplicity and sustainable living since 2006.
By Eliza Cross, on March 24th, 2013%
 Sugar peas at the LaGrande Farmers’ Market, LaGrande, Oregon If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably interested in eating organic foods whenever possible. But let’s face it—availability isn’t always predictable, and prices can sometimes be 100% higher or more for organics.
Since I wrote last week about the “Dirty Dozen”—the 12 fruits and veggies we should try to eat organic whenever possible due to heavy pesticide loads, I was curious about whether certain produce types typically have lighter pesticide residues. Indeed, the Environmental Working Group has published a list of the safest conventionally-grown crops to consume from the standpoint of pesticide contamination:
- Onions
- Sweet corn
- Pineapple
- Avocado
- Cabbage
- Sweet peas
- Asparagus
- Mango
- Eggplant
- Kiwi
- Cantaloupe (domestic)
- Sweet potato
- Grapefruit
- Watermelon
- Mushrooms
Of course, in my humble opinion the best produce of all includes the herbs, fruits and veggies we grow organically in our gardens. Check back this week for another great gardening book giveaway!
Hugs,
Eliza Cross is a full-time writer and the author of five books about home design and food. She has been blogging about simplicity and sustainable living since 2006.
By Eliza Cross, on March 5th, 2013%
I’ve learned much about permaculture after reading a very interesting book. Permaculture is a method of growing food and building homes in a manner that works with nature instead of against it.
Author Nicole Faires has written a hands-on guide that takes the reader through every step of the permaculture process. The book is divided into nine sections:
- Overview
- Energy
- Water
- Homes and shelter
- Gardens
- Cooking and preserving
- Zones
- Community
- Plants
Faires lays out a common-sense approach for sustainable living, and while some of the ideas aren’t applicable to those of us who live in urban areas (how to build an underground house or breed cattle, for example), the ideas are nonetheless fascinating and interesting to read.
Maybe because it snowed again in Colorado yesterday I’ve been in full-out garden dreaming mode, so the gardening sections in this book were especially interesting to me. Faires includes an extensive list of plants to consider for your own homestead, from perennial food crops to interesting edibles like JuJuBe and quinoa.
She also includes a very useful 16-page chart of companion planting ideas. The idea is to group plants in communities or guilds, taking advantage of their growing tendencies and the way they use nutrients, so that the plants support each other. It’s a concept that seems so simple and smart – but one which, admittedly, I’ve rarely considered other than in terms of aesthetics.
If you’re interested in learning more about self-reliance and living off the land, the book is packed with ideas, illustrations, photos and tips for topics like worm farming, designing a greenhouse, conserving water, extending the growing season, cold storage, building a chicken coop, composting, preserving food, finding your right career and much more.
The Ultimate Guide to Permaculture is 330 pages and retails for $16.95 USD. Skyhorse Publishing has generously provided a complimentary copy for one lucky HappySimpleLiving.com reader.
To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment below and answer the question “What is one step you would like to take towards sustainability or self-sufficiency in the next 18 months?” The giveaway closes next Tuesday March 12 at midnight MST, and is open to US residents.
Hugs,
Eliza Cross is a full-time writer and the author of five books about home design and food. She has been blogging about simplicity and sustainable living since 2006.
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