The Garden of Misfit Plants

Every year I seem to have an unconventional garden set-up. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I don't actually have a garden where I live. Why a landlord would decide to pave over any empty space in the backyard I will never understand, but the only option it has left me with is to find garden space elsewhere. Luckily, the Cornercopia Student Organic Farm that I am an intern at this summer offers it's interns a 10ft x 12ft plot to do with what they wish. Jackpot. After figuring out how to work the tiller, weeding out the plot and raking it flat, I was good to go. I had a few things of my own (mostly tomatoes and a lonely zuchetta plant) to put in the plot, but those only took up a small portion of the space I had at my disposal. 

My zuchetta plant which I started from seed is doing rather well.

This is where my orphaned plant garden began. Working on a farm, you often don't plant every single transplant that you grow out in the greenhouses. Usually it's a matter of growing too many transplants and not having enough space in the field for all of them. I've always had a soft spot for plants that aren't doing so great. I always feel so bad for them and just want to give them a fighting chance, instead of just watching them waste away in unwatered pots. This was the case with a good number of the plants I acquired. The basil, peppers and calendula were all leftover plants that were eventually going to get composted. 

One of the orphaned sweet peppers.

The other plants were the runts of their respective trays. Most of the melon plants were large and had several of their true leaves on them. The runts, however, barely had one or two true leaves, as you can see in the picture below. 

One of the runts of the Sweet Dakota Rose watermelon litter.

The last plants are brassicas that somehow ended up sprouting in the pepper plant flats and no one really knows what they are (my guess is they're broccoli). I popped them out of their adopted flats and put them in my plot just to see what they'd do.

So, in list form, my garden currently has:
-Tomatoes (5 plants, varieties can be found here)
-Sweet Peppers (4 plants)
-King Arthur Sweet Peppers (3 plants)
-Unidentified Brassicas (2 plants)
-Sweet Dakota Rose Watermelon (2 plants)
-Muskmelon (1 plant)
-Zuchetta (1 plant)
-Basil (5 plants)
-Calendula (5 plants)

I have a few more of my own Roma tomato plants and a pepper plant to add to the mix, but we'll see if I end up adding anything more to the mix. I'm glad that I have the opportunity to garden again this summer, no matter how unconventional it is. I'm also happy I can satisfy my inner nurturer that just wants to save as many orphaned plants as I can. I never want anything to go to waste in gardening, plants included. I never thought I would grow melons or brassicas this summer, but these misfit plants definitely changed my mind. I just hope all of them end up making it!

World Cup Flowers

Scrolling through my Twitter feed this week, I couldn't help notice the Royal Horticultural Society's tweets about the national flowers of the countries participating in the world cup. They would ask their followers to "vote" on which team they wanted to win based on which flower they preferred, a much better way of doing things in my opinion because I often have no idea how to choose who to root for in soccer matches. I always get interested in our history with plants and how we come to choose flowers to represent different things, countries included, so I thought I'd dive into the history of the national plants for the four quarter-final teams and why they were chosen for their respective countries.

Brazil

Tecoma chrysostricha (left) and Cattleya labita (right)

According to sources that I found, Brazil seems to have two flowers it holds in national regard. The first, Tecoma chrysostricha is called the "National Flower Emblem" of Brazil. The second, Cattleya labita, is often called the "State Flower" of Brazil. Slightly confusing, but I guess the ust couldn't decide between the two. Tecoma chrysotricha, also known as Ipe-amarelo (caled so by the indigenous peoples of Brazil) is the flower of a native, broad-leafed tree that is found in the decidous forests of South America. It belongs to the tropical family of bignonias that has over four hundred species found in Brazil. It gained prominence when it was made the national flower emblem by President Quadros.

Cattleya labita, also known as the corsage orchid, is very popular in festivals in Brazil. It primarily grows in the northeastern part of Brazil where it was discovered in 1818. 

Germany

Centaurea cyanus, also known as the blue cornflower, is the national flower of Germany. It is thought that this is in part because of the story that Queen Louise of Prussia, who was fleeing Berlin pursued by Napoleon's forces, hid her children in a field of cornflowers and kept the quiet by weaving wreaths for them out of the flowers. It also became associated with Prussia because it was the same color as the Prussian military uniform. When Germany became a unified country in 1871, the blue cornflower symbol stayed. Other ties to German history include becoming a political symbol, with members of the Freedom Party wearing it at the opening of the Austrian parliament in 2005, and being the favorite flower of Kaiser Wilhelm.

Argentina

Erythrina cristina galli, also known as the ceibo or Cockspur Coral Tree, was declared the national tree and flower of Argentina on December 2nd, 1942. This species in the Fabaceae family usually grows in forests along waterways and in swamps and wetlands. The tallest varieites are found in the Argentine provinces of Salta, Jujuy and Tucuman.

Netherlands

The tulip is the obvious national flower of the Netherlands. Even though the tulip is not "official" (there hasn't been any decree of any sort to make it the national flower) it's the flower that the country is best known for. The Netherlands produces three billion tulip bulbs a year, making it the most prominent producer of tulip bulbs in the world. Tulips were first introduced into the Netherlands by Carolus Clusius in 1573. The tulips he planted at Leiden University began the infamous "tulip mania" where some single tulip bulbs were said to cost ten times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. Tulip mania ended when the tulip market crashed extraordinarily. In the Netherlands today, the tulip has come to symbolize the briefness of life and tulip festivals are held annually.

Sources:
http://www.brazil.org.za/national-symbols.html#.U7h63fldWSo
http://nationalflowers.info/2010/12/21/national-flower-brazil-cattleya-labiata/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurea_cyanus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythrina_crista-galli
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/netherlands/nlsymbols.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

Random Farm Knowledge: Part 1

Working on the organic farm at my university this summer has quickly taught me a lot of things. Lesson Number One is to ask A LOT of questions. I feel like asking questions is part of my job. I've also started to accumulate a lot of random bits of knowledge. Most of this comes from my amazing supervisor who's been with the farm since it started and did her Horticulture undergrad and Ag Education masters at my university. Other stuff comes from trial and error (aka: Abby makes a mistake and then doesn't make that mistake again). This is the first part of the Random Farm Knowledge series that I'll try to do every so often.

1. White Dutch Clover makes an awesome row cover and cover crop. Why spend time weeding pathways when you can just seed it with clover and let that grow up instead? It also makes awesome pollinator habitat and just looks so darn pretty.

2. Cucumbers, watermelons, squashes, zucchini, etc don't like their roots touched. These plants can often be finicky transplants, and a big reason why is that if you touch their roots too much when transplanting, they get kinda upset.

3. You can eat lambsquarters. I've been pulling this weed out of gardens my whole life, not knowing that the small plants can be eaten in salads. Crazy.

4. Speaking of lambsquarters, quinoa is in the same family as the common weed, so herbicides that kill lambsquarters can also harm quinoa.

5. YOU CAN MAKE JELLY OUT OF DANDELIONS!!  You only use the yellow petals and it makes an amazing jelly. Our supervisor made it and we tried it on gingersnaps, which was awesome.

6. You can grow cold-hardy kiwis. So that's pretty awesome.

That's it for now! But hopefully I'll accumulate some more Random Farm Knowledge soon!

Daily Dose of Adorable

For the past three weeks, I've been going into a local K-12 charter school to teach Horticulture to 3rd and 4th grade students. Our 3-week long project was growing microgreens in each of the classrooms to teach kids about germination, parts of a plant and how we can eat plants in different ways to make meals healthier for us. The first time we went into the school and explained to the kids what we'd be doing and that we'd get to eat the microgreens on the last class day, there were a few "Well...I probably won't eat them..." mutters from a few of the kids. They think green, they think vegetable and they immediately throw up the red flag. However, you will probably hear this from anyone who grows food with kids, but if the kids grow something themselves, they have a MUCH larger chance of eating it. And I found this to absolutely true. The last day came, we harvest the microgreens (peas and sunflowers) and they went to town. They devoured the microgreens, going back for seconds and thirds. They were so excited at how good the greens tasted. "I didn't know you could eat sunflowers!" they squealed and some grabbed handfuls asking for a plastic bag to take them home in. I would consider that a success. 

So, for the second part of my cute story, here's all the thank you notes me and my teaching partner received. They're great artists, and I was so happy to see some of them say that they were more inspired to garden. This solidifies my opinion that kids are more likely to garden when they have a teacher or mentor help them along. Do you help any of the kids in your life work in a garden and grow plants? I'd love to hear about it!

How to Graft Your Own Tomatoes

Some of you may have seen grafted tomatoes cropping up in garden centers over the past couple of seasons. But what really is the difference between a grafted tomatoes and non-grafted tomatoes? Grafted tomatoes have turned up for many of the same reasons that we graft other plants. Tomato grafting first because practice in the 1960s when grafting was mainly done to make the tomato plants more disease resistant. Now, grafting is done for a number of different reasons. Sometimes growers graft tomatoes so that they are more resistant to abiotic stresses (salinity, drought, flooding) or they choose rootstocks that are better suited to their growing conditions (soil, temperatures, etc). This hardier rootstock is then attached to a scion (aka "the top part") of a variety that the growers want. In some cases, grafting can also cause the tomato plant to be higher yielding, extending it's growing season at the beginning and the end.

One common factor among grafted tomatoes that you'll see when you're shopping around your garden center this spring is that, usually, these plants are more expensive than your normal tomato plants. For some, the cost is worth it for the higher yield and higher tolerance to several factors. But if you want to try your hand at grafting and skipping the higher prices at the register, here's a step-by-step tutorial for grafting your own tomato plants.

Suddenly, Tomatoes

I may have gotten in a bit over my head today. After potting up tomatoes for the Student Organic Farm here at my university, there were dozens of extras left over. I maaaay have snagged six seedlings on top of the four seedlings I'm already attempting to germinate at home. And, oh yeah, we grafted some tomatoes earlier in class, so that's two more if both the grafts heal. So that's potentially 12 TOMATO PLANTS worth of fruit that I'll have to find something to do with this summer. Anyone know how to can?
There is a reason, however that I snagged all these seedlings. They're really cool varieties that I just couldn't pass up. The best part? All the plants come from organic seeds.

The new plants that have taken up residence on the kitchen windowsill are:

Sunrise Bumblebee: Props to whoever named this one because there's no way you could forget a tomato name like that.

Fox Cherry: This one you can find through Seeds of Change and is a vine variety.

Lemonade: Sadly, it's very difficult to find a picture of this tomato. Google only gives me recipes for tomato lemonade. It'd be helpful if I could remember what company supplies it, but I saw a seed packet once a month or so ago...


Indigo Rose: I'm really excited to grow a deep purple (or black, since that sounds more impressive) tomato. Another exciting part is anthocyanins, the chemical that causes the dark color, are powerful anti-oxidants.


Sun Sugar: This tomato has been named a favorite for sweetness and is an incredibly vigorous producer. 

Striped Roman: This one not only looks awesome, but is the best sauce tomato the farm grows.

So, as you can tell, I'm pretty excited about growing all of these varieties. On top of these, if those grafted tomatoes hold up, I'll have Marvel Striped tomatoes to add to the list. I also just started some regular Roma tomatoes and some Amana Orange from seeds I already had. It's going to be a big tomato fest this summer and I can't wait to get started!

The SEPOS Orchid Show

Now that I've concluded my posts on my trip to London, I'll do one post on a trip I went to just last week. I was fortunate enough to be able to travel with the University of Minnesota Hockey Pep Band to the NCAA Frozen Four in Philadelphia. For this of you who aren't hockey people, this is the end to the National Championship Tournament and determines the National Champion for the year. The best thing about the trip is that was totally sponsored by the University of Minnesota, meaning I didn't have to pay a dime. Our job was to play at pep events and the games and we got to stay for 6 whole days. We won the semi-final with and AMAZING game ending buzzer-beater goal (I'll add a link if you want to watch it at the end of the post) but, sadly, lost in the final game.

BUT that's not what I'm going to be writing about. The 5th day in Philly I got to go to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Orchid Society (SEPOS) Show at the Museum of Natural History. I was blown away with the sheer number of orchids and the elaborate displays set up by the participants. If you're into orchids, this is the post for you. I've also included a few fun facts I learned at one of the panels about caring for Phalanenopis orchids (aka moth orchids). Keep reading to find out a few.

Visiting Kew Gardens

After our first day of teaching, our group journeyed a few tube stops further to visit Kew Gardens. This Royal Horticulture Society Garden is AMAZING. We only had time for two of the glass houses, the palm house and the Princess of Wales Conservatory, and only a small fraction of the garden. It's just so big! And the highlight was the private tour we got to take of the science division (no pictures of that, sadly) and their MASSIVE herbarium. 

Teaching Days

The primary goal of our trip to England was to teach lessons at four different schools. The first was Brandelhow Primary School. I got to co-teach in a 3rd-year classroom where we did a lesson about apples. We read a story and had kids act out the different parts and showed kids the star in the center of an apple. We also had them taste apples. We're not allowed to take pictures with the kids for obvious reasons, but I've included a few pictures of their schoolyard garden.

England Post #1: Wisley Gardens

Hello everyone!
I've been back from my trip to England for a few weeks already, but I took so many pictures that it took me that long to find time to go through all of them. So this is the first of a long series of photo posts where I'll share most of what I saw while over in England. This trip was for a class titled "Successful School Gardens" and there were several days in which we went into schools to teach children about gardening topics and the importance of horticulture. We did, however, have several free days and a few group outings to famous gardens around London.
This first post is all my pictures from our first destination: Wisley Gardens. We literally got off the plane and got on a bus to go to Wisley and it had to be the best cure for jet lag EVER. The day was warm and sunny and felt just that much better since we had come from below freezing weather to mid-60s weather. Or whatever that is in Celsius...
So enjoy the pictures! I'll have much more for you soon!

The Minnesota Schoolyard Gardens Conference

This past Friday I had the amazing opportunity to attend the Minnesota Schoolyard Gardens Conference at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. I was even more lucky to have my attendance paid for by my university department. The whole conference was incredibly eye-opening to me because until now I haven't really been terribly sure where I want to go with my degree. Hearing all the speakers and connecting with people in the field that is schoolyard garden education has given me a better focus on what I might be able to do for a career. I've always known that educating people about growing their own food and helping them learn about how to care for the earth was something I wanted to pursue. Now I'm not only affirmed in that, but I have been given more of a direction towards what I might be able to do specifically.

The day started out in the largest hall in the Arboretum where, from 8:30 to 11:30, all of the attendees listened to a few short speeches (two of which were given by the heads of the State Department of Agriculture and the State Department of Education) and the keynote speaker, John Fisher of Life Lab. He not only had some amazing stories about what that organization had accomplished, but also really drove home why we need to reconnect kids to where their food comes from. Kids who grow their own food are much more likely to eat that food. Doesn't matter if it's strawberries or arugula. Kids who garden also have a much better understanding of nutrition which is incredibly important in a country where 17% of youth are obese. Gardens also introduce curiosity into their classes which, in turn, fuel the 4 C's: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication and Collaboration. After John Fisher, a young entrepreneur from the Twin Cities, Immanuel Jones spoke about his venture, Eco City. It was incredibly inspiring for me to see someone my age going out and starting a movement to get kids in not the best area of town back to the earth and growing food for themselves and their families.

After the first half of the conference was over, we broke for lunch. This was a great time to sit down and discuss the opening speakers with my classmates and explore the Arboretum visitor center a little more. A few rooms were reserved for organizations and schools that set up tables and presentations so we browsed those and got some awesome free stuff along the way. Some seed catalogs, a gorgeously bound copy of the Minnesota Agriculture in the Classroom School Gardening curriculum, free zuchetta seeds, and some promotional material. I also explored their little glass conservatory where tons of orchids were in bloom. I've included my pictures at the end of the post.

See more below!!

The rest of the afternoon was organized into three sessions where you could choose which talk you wanted to attend. The first presentation I went to was by the garden educator for the Columbia Heights School District. She talked about you can literally teach everything with a garden. Math, English, sciences of course and social studies in a garden in very creative ways. The second session was partially presented by Midwest Food Connection and was part presentation, part brainstorming session about how you can incorporate diversity and culture into a school garden. Both of these presentations were incredibly eye-opening to me because it shows how creative you can get with a school garden and still teach to the graduations standards of your home state.

I also met some really incredible people from all over the state and country. Emily Kitchen from Cornell University connected me to an awesome group of people who've organized themselves into the group Emergent on Facebook. The garden educator from Columbia Heights really gave me a good idea of what I might have to do to with my education to get into a field like this (can you say teaching license and Master Gardener certification?).
If you're interested in learning more about school gardens, look up your local school districts and see if they're doing projects to get gardens into their schools and districts and if they need help doing so. In the meantime, enjoy my pictures from the arboretum.

One of my favorites: The Happy Dancer orchid.

The main lobby of the arboretum visitor center.

Fairy gardens!