Spring Plant Exchange

The Spring 2010 issue of Country Gardens magazine highlights what I think is a WONDERFUL idea - a PLANT EXCHANGE - especially an Heirloom Plant Exchange! It's been a really long time since I've been apart of a plant exchange but must admit reading the article brought back fond memories. After this, I may just have to organize one for our community.

If you'd like to organize a plant exchange as well, the article mentions several ways to go about hosting one. Here are several things to consider:

Time of the Year:

1. Since Saturday's are convenient for most people, it's recommended an exchange is hosted at that time in the early spring.

Location:

1. Select a location with access to plenty of parking like a park, recreation center at a community park or a school.

Partner with Your Local Parks & Recreation Department:

1. If you can get your local parks and recs department to allow you to host it on their grounds, they might consider helping to promote the event by sending out details to their mailing list, placing an ad in their community bulletin or newsletter.

Promote:

1. Be sure to post announcements of your exchange in libraries, community centers, grocery stores, garden centers and farmer's markets.
2. Include instructions (how many plants to bring, whether they should be planted within a container, with or without labels, descriptions and directions on caring for the plants, bring boxes or bags to take plants home in).

Setup:

1. Before the time of the event, post signs providing direction to the exchange, arrange the area where the exchange is to take place.
2. You can even have signs for each type of item being made available such as 'bulbs', 'herbs', 'trees', etc.
3. If you want to communicate in the future, make sure to place a sign-in sheet so you can send out notifications about future events.

Design Instructions for Participation:

1. Provide instructions on the process;
2. Provide popsicle sticks and adhesive labels for anyone who might need to label their plants;
3. Review the rules before the exchange begins;
4. Have participants select 1 plant at a time before moving on to the next area of selection;
5. Invite everyone to help themselves to any leftovers that remain at the end.

Be sure to take pictures. Let me know if you host one and how well it does. I'm more than happy to post photos on the blog of your successful event. Hopefully, it will become an annual affair for your community. Seems like a great way to pass on traditional heirloom plants.

Have fun!

Native American Corn

A bunch of us are trialing beans and corn in 2010 so I've been reading up on the different types and interesting varieties. Seed catalogs with diverse heirloom and open pollinated varieties often list flint corn along with sweet corn and I've always focused on the sweet corn merely out of convenience. But, I've often pondered the differences and how they coule be used. In reading through 'Heirloom Vegetables' by Sue Stickland she notes some really interesting points:

In the Native American culture, there are six colors of corn which directly correlate to what they consider their six directions: black, red, white, yellow, blue and multi-colored corns relate to north, east, south, west , zenith (sky) and nadir (earth).

Northeastern Indians use white corn for breads.

Southwestern Indians use blue corn which have evolved an association with beneficial soil fungi making the soil 10 times more efficient at utilizing the nutrients in the soil.

There are some fascinating details in this book:

Heirloom Vegetables: A Home Gardener's Guide to Finding and Growing Vegetables from the Past
By Sue Stickland
Publisher: Fireside or Gaia Books Limited, London, 1998
Pages: 191

2010 Heirloom Club Trials :: Corn & Beans

Now, it's probably a ridiculous concept to trial corn and beans to most since this has been done time and time again. But, there are more bean and corn seeds that were part of the 2009 master garden plan than were actually planted in the garden. There were about 15 varieties of corn and about 20 varieties of beans.

Brother...

I germinated about 10 of those varieties and only 2 varieties made it into the ground. Oh, it wasn't because there was anything wrong with the plants, I just couldn't find the time to do the gardening I wanted to do. It seems the recession made stable businesses panic as much as those that were on the brink and as a result, we got worked close to the brink of not having a life.

Sadly, there are just as many bean and corn seeds on the new 2010 order list so this means we're going to need a little bit of help. It would be great if we could have our own bean and corn trials where we each take a variety and report back to the club on which was best and why. I'm growing more Country Gentlemen since we never seem to get enough and I'm thinking about a popcorn variety - just for the fun of it.

Let me know if you're interested and if you are, I'll post the list of varieties that are available that I can send to you.

By the way, I had just as many tomato and pepper plants too. They've managed to continue growing amidst the winter chill. And the saddest part? Most of those corn and bean plants grew mini vegetables in the small containers they were started in. Some of them were given away before the plants matured in their small cells but many, unfortunately, produced Barbie sized vegetables. Got to give them credit for being tenacious.

By the way, did anyone plant sweet peas this year? The plants seem to be exceptional this year and I haven't quite figured out why.

Butternut Squash

Image by found_drama via Flickr

Last year a neighbor grew some of the most delicious butternut squash. Now, originally, my thought was squash is squash...but oh how I was completely misguided. I've had butternut squash before but never fresh from the garden. Wow was that a pleasant surprise. We roasted it and it was sweet and nutty and almost like eating a sweet potato.

Anyone have any interesting recipes? We just roasted ours with a dab of butter and drizzled it with creamed honey. Mouthwatering delight!