Square Foot Gardening, Gardening healthy

     Well, we have endeavored to put a "square foot garden" into practice. I'm not certain how I heard about it, but it may have been my naturalist friend Carrie, who was pointing out several different "sections" of her property devoted to planting various vegetables, mainly. And she loaned me the "new square foot gardening" book by Bartholomew  and it provided a lot of helpful info in it , as well as a workshop/meeting I went to on it.
     So we needed to get together the 3 ingredients necessary: compost, peat moss, and vermiculite (perlite if you don't have the last, but it's not half as fine). I put off doing this till the first week in June because we didn't have much of a compost heap -- it was mostly sod (which Carrie told me was a no no but my husband wouldn't listen to this), which had not been turned much at all. With compost you are supposed to mash it AND turn it. But the spouse had put worms in it so I couldn't do much mashing and the  organic stuff I was putting in (cut grass, vegetable peelings, tea bags, coffee, egg shells) was taking a while to break down. So I thought we could get the other "ingredients" to put in this garden later.
    A "square foot" garden is "supposed" to be square or rectangular in shape, and easy to maintain. The three ingredients are mixed together and are "supposed" to be loose in a square structure,  6 to 12 inches high, and the plants planted in squares in the 4 by 4 cedar wood (we got 2 kits from Home Depot we put on top of each other). I don't think our inner squares were exact and the following day we put them in they were a bit wilty looking because they weren't watered much. In some ways a square foot garden is like a plant out on the porch or deck -- it seems to need a fair amount of water. But we've had rain the past few days and that  has been a good thing.
     We actually planted it below deck because we have a wooden fence in back and an oak tree, neighbors' maple tree, and our own house providing a lot of shade. But the deck has this "black stuff" on it and now we can't blast it off, because of the garden below. Fran(k) has suggested scrubbing it but I don't know with what!
     There is another little garden on the other side of the wood fencing (it only covers part of the yard -- that's what the house came with, not my idea) and it seems to be getting enough sunlight. It has tomatoes with green "fruit" on them, pepper plants, zucchini plants and onions. And they are all really growing. I suspect the square foot garden will be our second crop, maybe the end of July or August crop. I hope to attend a "old water" canning workshop to learn more about preserving tomatoes if we get a lot.
     So, if you don't have a lot of space or only sun in a certain spot, maybe you should consider a square foot garden. The initial investment was great ($200+) for the container and 2 of the 3 organic materials and plants (some of the plants being on sale we got them so late). We could have bought materials on sale maybe sooner in the season, but we bought them when we needed them, so that was that. We'll see if it was worth it.

Cancer Walk, How do we solve cancer?

    They tried to be amusing, with kids singing and clogging and otherwise distracting those who had taken a respite from walking. It was supposed to be an "all night" walk, this RELAY for cancer benefit, but how many stayed that long? I certainly didn't. I was surprised to see that you had to walk "12 times" around our elevated indoor track in order to make just a mile, though others were planning on walking several miles. Though not me.
    I wanted to exercise but was not that ambitious. AND, the spouse was going to pick me up and was not all that ambitious about walking either. Of course, when you are walking around with an old high school injury to your knee, PLUS you are diabetic, then walking whenever and wherever you want becomes problematic --- for him, at least. But he was my ride so I couldn't stay all night (it would be past his bedtime).
    I think these fundraisers are a good way for former cancer patients like myself to come together, but where the heck does the money go? Into finding new, more targeted cures? Toward helping someone afford a wig or some of those 'yucky' health drinks ( I never found Ensure to be palatable when I was sick)? Where does all the daggone money go? How about helping me afford healthcare NOW, like seeing a nutritionist or someone to help me de-stress?
     Cancer funds should go toward alternative treatments and cures, and cancer prevention. Does the American Cancer Society even "try" to promote prevention? I believe it should be one of their goals.

RU "tree walk" and Wytheville "foraging" food walk

                                       Violets are good for eating raw in a salad or dip flowers in sugar.

     It was a warm spring day, something we'd looked forward to for a long time. It's been a weird spring, with high temperatures one day and cold air and snow the next. But finally, toward the end of April,  my R.U. classes gathered for our "leaf collecting" expedition.
     This time of year the leaves out there are actually pretty small. At the fountain where we started out I began by pointing out the small 5 pointed maple leaves -- this is the leaf on the Canadian flag. Specifically, our fountain was surrounded by a circle of sugar maple, the tree used for making maple sugar, with a ratio of 30 gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup.
     Actually, at a "foraging" spring walk at Gordon Wright's farm in nearby Wytheville (about a week later, without my students), visiting edible plants biologist Craig Russell, who'd actually gotten to know Euell Gibbons, who'd written Stalking the Wild Asparagus, pointed out many different trees can be tapped or "sugared" in order to make syrup. Norway and red maple can be tapped, along with the sweet birches, black walnut and hickory. The tree needs a diameter of 10-12 inches in order to qualify for one "spile" to be pushed in 2-4 inches. And Russell recommends that you cook this down outside the house if you don't want to get your kitchen walls all sticky. Of course, the students weren't interested in this. I think they were glad to have an outdoor class where they didn't need to turn in an assignment.
     On campus, I showed them something I'd saved for this special day -- refrigerated little light green brains, the fruit of Osage orange. I wasn't certain whether the Osage Indians had been named after the tree or vice versa. According to an Arkansas website, the "sky people" brought us the Osage tribe. They lived in the Midwest and so I think the Osage orange tree is originally from there as well. But we only have male trees on the RU campus -- the "female" trees produce this big orange (in size) fruit with a lot of little grooves in it, like our own brains, only more so. I was told there were once female trees on campus, but the students liked to toss the fruits around and make a big old mess. One student wondered how these trees could survive without a female tree. Well, they are probably pollinated by wind and if there is no female tree nearby then those male trees stay alone (and frustrated maybe).
     Other notable trees on campus are a big ol' oak tree that would make a great climbing tree, ginko biloba (the tree that provides brain power supplements -- but not that one in particular), and the very attractive redbud tree. In April the redbud produces pretty, very small blooms that start out a purple, then get to light purple in shade, then finally light pink. They are never actually "red," so I've no idea why they are called "red" buds. A shorter name than purple bud? And I asked the class the legend -- of course they didn't know.       
     The reason that they are a small, ornamental size tree is that supposedly, after Judas betrayed Jesus, he regretted it. So he hanged himself (yes, hanged, not hung, which you do with a picture on the wall) on the redbud tree. In shame, the tree never again has grown to a big, thick tree someone could hang himself  from. And they aren't. Even the tall ones are spindly and not too wide.
    I pointed out on campus that violets and dandelions are edible, but at the Wytheville spring foraging walk on the farm and in the woods violets and dandelions were "gathered" and we ate them. The violet flowers and leaves can be put in a salad. Or you can dip the flower in egg white and sugar, or just wet and dip in sugar, for dessert! Other edibles in the spring include watercress, wintercress, garlic mustard (wild mustard family), poke weed (you need to boil the redness out of it and it will be okay to eat), goose foot, and the white innards of cattail stems. Good to know if you are ever lost in the woods. But a guidebook and some instruction about edible "foraging" plants would be most desirable.
     With our commercially grown vegetables containing less and and less concentrated nutrients, learning spring and fall foraging is a good idea for your health. I didn't tell the students that but maybe they will take more an interest in nature as they grow older.
   

Did You Know Violets are Edible? Foraging helps health

   At a gathering of like minded souls, we had the opportunity to feast on raw violets, fried fern fiddleheads and munch on cooked poke weed covered in cheese sauce. Yes, we had poke weed -- and didn't get sick.
    It doesn't hurt to go "foraging" for raw vegetables on a farm and in the woods. Our commercially grown vegetables have been produced in the same soil year after year and aren't "half" as healthy as goose foot, violet flowers and leaves or even dandelion. We try to obliterate dandelion with pesticides. What a waste -- they contain vitamin A, can be put in a salad and are good for "detoxing" your liver.
     I learned most of this from Craig Russell, an edible food biologist from Pennsylvania. He came to Wythe County (VA) to Mr. Wright's farm to show a group of us "nature foodies" what is edible on the lawn and in the woods. Dandelions, violets, chickweed, watercress, wintercress, the inner white stem of cattails, can all be eaten raw. The cattail innards can also be put in soup, like onion. It tastes like a cross between cucumbers and celery.
    Yes, what you can forage in the woods is jam packed with nutrients. It would be a good idea, though, to get a guide book on edible plants and maybe even attend a class if you are not sure about a plant. And poke weed: you can eat the young shoots and put ripe berries in a jam. With the shoots you cook them (boil) till the redness goes out of them and into the water. Then toss some cheese sauce on them. Yum.

Early Spring is here and showed my students!

                                           Barely blooming "saucer magnolia"

      It was cold for the 5:00 class, but we bravely met on the steps in front of the college library so I could show them "a bit" of nature on campus. By nature I mean budding and not even really in bloom trees, a type of "cedar waxwing" that had flown into one leafless tree, and places to sit and relax on campus.
     When the wind is a cold whip of air at your back (and front too!) there is little time to sit still and relax. So we didn't. I took them to a quiet place, the Alumni gardens, and pointed out the peeling bark maple, and then we saw a fairly dirty koi pond (the koi and goldfish were "under" a grate that was covered with rotted leaves and some litter people had tossed in). And pointed up to a squirrel's nest very high in the tree sitting next to the pond.
     I also pointed out what will soon be the "prettiest" flower on the campus (see photo above). The soulange or saucer magnolia has these huge flowers, which look like big, elongated tulips with almost wine red and white stripes. They were getting ready to open and you could see some red, but were not open yet--- aw shucks! We have had a long, cold winter in Virginia and we really needed a break from the cold. Hopefully, in the next week these pretty, pretty blooms will make an appearance. I look forward to these classes with my students. They are too connected to technology and should enjoy this bit of outdoors when they can. Put down that durn cell phone and enjoy nature!

An old fashioned train arrives

   One of my students mentioned in class the fact that an old timey locomotive would be arriving in town from Bristol, TN/VA. My husband received even more info -- it would arrive near the Glencoe Museum in town!
    Well, partly yes. I had taken my temperature a second time (the first time, around 9 AM, it said 100.2 degrees)and it was now down to 98.2 and so we went. We arrived close to noon at the road behind the museum. We heard the plaintive "waaaa,   waaaa" of the train whistle and it disppeared. But someone walking back from the sighting said we could still see it, and headed to the old main street depot. We parked a bit past the old depot area as the parking lot was already packed. There were brownies out selling cookies, a customed Yogurt yelling to come to the yogurt shop, and some people selling food and jewelry and book marks at a makeshift farmer's market. WE pulled into the parking lot generally reserved for the red college commuter buses, which were also near the depot area, and got out.
    We took a lot of pictures, me with the digital camera and Frank with his ipad, of the front of the train, the old timey black engine with the white and also grayish smoke/steam coming out, a symbol of a bygone era. Behind it were two modern diesel engines pushing the old locomotive, and a string of Norfolk Southern wine colored passenger cars. I'll bet they haven't been regularly used since the seventies. But gas is so expensive. Should we go back to using trains?
   

Still awaiting medical test results, neurotic cat

    Don't you just hate it when doctors take forever to get back to you? It's been about 10 days since my abdominal ultrasound, and I haven't gotten any results back. The xray of my hips didn't seem to turn up anything unusal, according to the report I just got in the mail. So I don't have ovarian cancer? What about my liver and lungs (still have a soreness in my back)?
    Once you've had cancer once you can get it again, it seems. And as I am typing this the cat is at my feet and trying to get into something (the closet, a space near a drawer) or into my lap. the spouse says she is neurotic because the dog is gone. Possibly. But in the winter she is "in and out" and in and out of the house, though there is a "cat door" in one of the porch doors so I don't have to get out in the cold to get her all the way outside.