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February 10, 2019February 25, 2019

My Missouri Garden

About 10 years ago I was living in Missouri with my wife and our rather vocal Black Lab, Buddy. If it could be properly barked at, Buddy had it covered and believe me, out in rural Missouri, there are a lot of things for a young pup to bark at. The barking could be incessant at times. We will revisit this feature a little later.

We were renting a house out in the country on about four acres, surrounded by trees, fields, cows, and not much else. Life was pretty good. Our first spring there we decided to attempt a small vegetable garden in the Missouri soil, which in actuality is more of a sticky, red clay and requires a slight departure from traditional garden bed prepping. I tilled down as deep as I could, and brought in some topsoil and compost to help bulk things up. After this, I mounded everything into neat little rows, and started planting. We planted various types of tomatoes, squash, peppers, lettuce, sunflowers, onions, and carrots. Just like anywhere else, some vegetables grew well, others, not so much. Tomatoes, which love hot and sunny weather, thrived and I soon found myself having to get creative in order to support plants that were exceeding five or six feet tall. Sunflowers also fared well, growing to seven or eight feet. Carrots, we discovered, when planted in clay soil have a tendency to grow about two inches long, and about four inches wide. If anyone has a desire to grow carrot pancakes, dense clay soil is key. All in all, we were looking at reaping a pretty good harvest.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, Buddy was a bit of a barking enthusiast. Early one morning I was jolted out of a deep sleep by the deafening sound of….silence. I sat up and looked around the room, no Buddy. I got out of bed and stepped out into the living room, still no Buddy. I turned the corner and there he was, sitting by the sliding door in the dining room, attentively surveying his domain. I followed his gaze, and then I saw them. My dog, who will bark at a buzzard flying half a mile away, had not let out a peep about the dozen or so cows now tromping through our garden.

The damage was extensive- pepper and tomato plants uprooted, my neat little rows flattened, and cow crap everywhere, but we learned some valuable lessons that morning. We learned that cows enjoy a nice country garden just like anyone else, and we also learned that a fence will protect that garden much better than a cow-shy Black Lab.

Peter Reed 2/9/19

February 8, 2019February 25, 2019

Why Does My Dog Have To Bury Everything…

It’s the beginning of April and my mom is doing her yearly trip to the local Home Depot. She gets into her Rav4 and heads down the street. On her mind is just one thing, how to make her garden the best it has ever been? She drives the 10 minutes it takes and heads on in, eyes pointing at the gardening center.

She arrived and immediately went to work. She picked out vegetables and flowers of all kind. Her favorite was her little cherry tomatoes. She would buy six or seven of those a year and wait until they were ready to be put into her salads. When she arrived back home, got all of her gardening tools out and did her thing. She had two different gardens on each side of the yard. One was about the side of the fence and the other of the side of the house. It took her a record 2 hours to do what she was waiting for all year. I knew with that excitement it was going to be a good year.

After my mom cleaned up her mess of dirt and little shovels. This whole time watching her clean up I was wondering in my head where my dog was. I then forgot that my dad took him to get groomed at the pet store. He gets grooming about once every two months. My dad spoils the crap out of that dog. He is a lemon beagle named Baxter and is probably the laziest thing ever. He sleeps from 9 am too at 5 pm. I once saw my dad give him 2 slices of pizza.

Once my dad brought my dog back from the groomer he lets him out into the backyard where the gardens are. I saw him wander around for a little bit until he laid on the ground. Once he sat there for a second, something must have popped into his head that he forgot. He had a bone sitting on the edge of the deck. I watch with my very eyes as he grabbed the bone and ran off next to the house. I thought nothing of it as he always takes his bones and hides them in a safe place. But little in my head did I remember that my mom just planted her new garden on that side of the house. I go inside and sit on the couch. A few minutes late my mom opens the door to let my dog in. She then screams ” Where the Hell where you”. I rushed up to think I was in trouble for some reason and I see on the floor dirt all over my dog. At that moment I had known what had happened. My mother raced outside to see both of her knew gardens were all torn apart. My dog must have not liked one and decided to do damage on the other. The look of shock and anger ran across her face. She knew that this was going to be a battle for years to come.

Nick Conley 2/7/19

February 3, 2019February 25, 2019

Garden Boxing…uh… I mean, Boxes.

A few years back, our family garden turned into a competition, as most things in my family turn into one way or another. It was as warm April morning, and my family was on our way back from church when we passed by a farm supply store. We often got our gardening and yard care supplies from there, so we stopped into to see what was in stock. A half hour later, we all emerged with bags of seeds, bulbs in burlap sacks, and furrowed brows. Determined to beat the other in growing the best veggies.

The Infamous Summer Squash (Photo Cristina Sanvito)

My sisters took on garden box A (pictured below, left) growing summer squash, bell peppers, and lettuce. I see they were probably going for the quantity over quality route, since summer squash grows so large and rapidly that it rivals crabgrass as a backyard nuisance.

The Garden Boxes in Mid-Winter (Photo John Lovell)

I decided to tackle something a little more exotic. I carried out seed packets of Anaheim peppers, Big Boy tomatoes, and purple cabbage. If I was to succeed in this challenge, I wanted the fruits of my labor to be rewarding and to carry a special meaning, as well as special taste.

Anaheim Peppers (Photo Bob Brown)

While Mom and Dad pledged to be neutral, growing their potatoes and cucumbers in another plot, I knew they secretly were rooting for my sisters. My eldest sister subcontracted my father to water her plants every morning at 6 am, and mom would routinely help my littlest sister weed each day after work. I was left to tend to my plot by myself, although I enjoyed the independence and the challenge. September 1st arrived, and while they grew a greater quantity of crops, we all benefitted from a backyard labor day barbecue featuring the freshest fruits and veggies from our garden. I guess we all won that summer in a way, but if anyone from my family were to ask, I came away with the superior green thumb.

Danny Lovell 2/2/19

January 26, 2019January 26, 2019

High-Yield, Low Work “Perennials”

This inaugural Warrior Fresh post highlights three easy perennials that should be in more gardens. First time gardeners often plant annual vegetables. For the cost of a few vegetable six packs, you can put in pest-resistant plants that offer food for decades.

Raspberries

My family’s first foray into growing berries seemed off to an abysmal start. I received 12 black raspberries canes (Allens and Bristols) for my birthday in September of 2010. My husband and I hastily dug up some grass and planted them in “garden beds” that were about a foot wide and contained no added nutrients. Because of our shoddy work, only 3 plants survived that winter in western New York.

But this story has a happy ending: those 3 plants thrived, growing long canes that gracefully bowed over and took root to produce many offspring. I may have watered them twice in my life. I never pulled a weed and only cut back canes when they became too disorderly.

At peak harvest time, the berries would rain into our baskets. We gathered gallons: freezing some, baking a pie or two, but mostly eating them fresh. Any scrapes from wayward bramble thorns were well worth the sweet rich taste of berries that cannot be bought in a store .

A Perks harvest of black raspberries and red raspberries from Fairport, New York in 2014.

Asparagus

“Half a pound from a crown.” It’s not the start of a British nursery rhyme; it’s the yield from an asparagus plant. After we moved to New Hampshire in 2016, I quickly readied a bed for these perennials. Ten Jersey Giant and ten Purple Passion asparagus crowns arrived in the spring and sent up their ferny fronds. The crowns cost roughly $30.

I’ve faithfully weeded, fertilized, and mulched while the asparagus plants built their strength for two summers. The harvestable part, the spears, emerge early in spring and can be cut before opening into ferns. 2019 is our year for fully mature plants and a big harvest–up to 10 pounds. That’s worth $30 in the grocery store (well, $29.90 if you’re really precise). Ten pounds is way more than my family can eat…so my friends are in luck come April. With proper care, these asparagus can produce for up to 20 years.

Garlic

It’s not a perennial, but allow me this exception to the rule. Here’s how growing garlic works: you buy seed garlic in the fall, break a full head of garlic out into individual cloves (ideally, with paper wrappers still on), plant cloves about 2 inches deep (pointy side up), throw some mulch over top, watch sprouts emerge in spring, harvest in summer. To keep the cycle going, just select several of your biggest cloves to plant again in the fall.

Deer, squirrels, woodchucks, (and vampires) leave them alone, so no fencing is needed. And I’ve never had another pest, fungus, or blight bother my garlic plants. Plus, you can make a pesto from the curly garlic scapes that grow out of the plant early in the summer.

Attleson Farm garlic scapes. Photo by Eli Duke.

Biding its time underground through winter, spring, and summer, each little clove eventually matures into a full head of garlic. When several plant leaves have turned brown (usually mid-July in New Hampshire), gently dig up garlic and let it “cure” in a cool dry place for a few days before storing for months. We’re still eating this year’s harvest.