This and That

The seeds I ordered have arrived which is always exciting to this Midwestern gardener. And now down to work. The leeks have been peeking up out of the seed tray I started them in, but so far that is all I have started. The “grindstone” awaits me. Let us hope this farmer’s granddaughter doesn’t tire of it.



Because if Anne doesn’t tire of it, she will be eating potatoes from the garden next March. This is what I had for dinner last night, banana fingerling potatoes from 2009. Maybe they have seen better days, but they still tasted fine. And they are organic (since I spray nothing—I’m too darn lazy and ornery and cheap) and local (about as local as you can get since my vegetable garden is about 30 feet from my back door).

I guess I was trendy before I knew it. Maybe I will take it a bit further. Do two horses and a plow await my future? Perhaps a cow for milk. Or some chickens to peck at me. I wonder how much the neighbors can put up with on this small city lot I live on.

Garden Day took place at the Horizon Center here in Saginaw, Michigan on Saturday March 27th. This is such a good way to segue into spring. I helped Susan and Gloria work the Saginaw Master Gardener table at the event and managed to sell some of these fine cow pots and hopefully inspire a few gardeners to take the next class being offered in the fall. Actually Gloria was the great sales lady who convinced folks to buy the pots, and Susan kept me on tract to give folks the right change since I was foolishly put in charge of the money.



In the coming months the Master Gardeners will be out and about volunteering in the community, educating and working on beautification projects everywhere we can. It is a wonderful way to show support for the community we live in and care for this good earth. Call it what you want to: the good earth, soil, humus, peat, compost, or my favorite word which is dirt. I ordered some “dirt” which arrived last week and I was just tickled pink to get it. This “dirt” is actually germinating mix, the soilless type that is great for seed starting since it is so porous. I also ordered transplant mix and have some special potting mix I bought at Abele’s last year that I will use for the Cannas I wintered over.

The next few weeks I will share my kitchen, my bedroom , my desk etc. with pots and seed starting trays that I can hopefully be devious enough to keep the cat away from. I do have a gro-light system for seed starting that a friend’s husband made for me, but it never seems to hold everything I want to start. I bought the cat some wheat seeds which I will start in hopes that she will attack it and leave everything else alone.



Okay, here is the beast and she says hi in the only way she knows how-- by hiding every time another human voice passes my threshold. Some folks don’t believe she exists, but I know she does since the food disappears and the litter box fills up.

To everything there is a season

And this is the season of March in Michigan. Crocuses in bloom one day, snow the next. It doesn’t matter since spring will get here eventually, along with asparagus, which is always something to look forward to.



My brother recently mentioned having watched the movie Food Inc. He was utterly appalled at where our food comes from. His stepdaughter recommended the movie to him and her mother and now he feels that he needs to pass the word on. If you have not seen this movie, you must see it. You will never feel the same way about the grocery store again. It is a must for all people who care about this earth and what our system of supplying food to people in this country is doing to us.

So what is a person to do? Well, here are some suggestions:

When you shop at the grocery store, read the labels. Food producers are required by law to tell you everything that is in the product they are selling. Be aware of the fact that corn syrup, which is not a health food, is in a considerable number of products in the grocery store. If you can’t pronounce the word that is in a product, you are probably better off not buying it. Put products that have fewer ingredients at the top of your list. Browse the perimeter of the store—that is where fresh produce tends to hang out. Buy as few processed foods as you can. Visit health food stores, specialty food stores, look for the organic label. Ask your grocery store to carry more organic and locally grown products. Be aware of the fact that other countries may not have laws against the spraying of DDT. If you buy products from the United States you at least know they haven’t been sprayed with DDT since DDT is illegal here.

Better yet, shop at your local farmer’s market. Don’t know where that is? Go to http://www.localharvest.org/ and find one near you. I know that for many people this is only available at certain times of the year, but the advantage of shopping at these markets is that you can buy food in season which always tastes better. I just bought some locally grown greens (he grows them in a hoop house) from the farmer’s market in Lansing, Michigan yesterday, a day with a light snow on the ground! Truly amazing that this is possible!



I used to eat strawberries from my grandfather’s farm as a little girl-in June of course. Were they ever heavenly! After grandpa sold the farm the strawberries I ate from the store were hard as rock with absolutely no flavor. When I planted my first garden I planted strawberries because I wanted the memory of those strawberries with flavor and juice galore back in my life. They are definitely worth it. Do we want our children to eat their fruits and vegetables? Yes! How do we get them to do this? By eating in season when the fruits and vegetables are at their tastiest.

And finally, you can plant your own garden. You can even grow tomatoes in a pot if you don’t have a lot of garden space. What you need is at least 6 hours of full sun per day. You can feed your plants lots of compost (cheaper than fertilizer, especially if you make it yourself), keep them mulched and watered and you will have abundance. If Anne Birkam can do it, so can you!

Dill, Herb of the Year

Some folks count on the yellow blooms of witch hazel to let them know that spring is on the way. I planted this last year so I can let you know in a few years how true a harbinger of spring it is. For now, my harbinger of spring is the conference held each March by the Michigan Herb Associates on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing. And like each conference that has preceded this one, I have returned home just geared up to go in garden. Not to mention with a few new plants, one of them being dill, the herb of the year.




Now I don’t need any more dill in my garden. Dill is such a reliable herb I can always count on it to return for me, year after year after year. It pops up in surprising places, some a nice surprise, others not so, but it always returns. I could not, however, resist the lure of a variety of dill that grows almost as tall as I am. Long Island dill is supposed to do just that—growing to 5 feet tall. I also bought a variegated sage, stevia, a Mexican sage and a Vicks plant. Now the task is to keep the cat away from them.

Stevia can be used to replace sugar as a sweetener. The Vicks plant has a minty smell (not surprising considering it is in the mint family) and variegated sage will be a nice touch near the other sages I already have.

Tina Marie Wilcox and Susan Belsinger were the keynote speakers at the conference. We were able to sample many of the fine recipes Susan prepared for us and laugh when Tina’s wry wit was on display. They talked about herbs in cooking, healing and household cleaning so I was able to bring home many tips to use in the future. I have been using vinegar to clean for years now. This next year I plan to add a bit of lavender to it as suggested.




I also learned how to make cheese and am anxious to try it myself. I have made paneer before (an Indian type of cheese). Now I am ready to try some other recipes. And believe it or not, it isn’t that hard to do. More and more folks are returning to the tried and true of a previous century. No more factory farm products for me! I either buy what I need from someone I trust or I try to do it myself from now on. I don’t care to eat vegetables that have been sprayed with DDT which is what happens in countries that do not regulate against it. So, the best advice I can give folks at the grocery store, read the label, know what you are eating! It really does make a difference.

Mary Birkam’s Dill Weed Dip Recipe

1 pint yogurt
1 ½ cup salad dressing
1 Tablespoon dill weed
1 Tablespoon instant onion
3 Tablespoons parsley flakes
1 Tablespoon chives
1 Tablespoon Lawrey’s salt
Mix all ingredients. Chill several hours

Back to the Future: Gardening in the 21st Century

This past week I sent in an order for heirloom seeds to the Seed Savers Exchange. I have ordered some herb seeds that I have never tried before. Black Cumin (also known as Roman Coriander) is supposed to be a nice ornamental with bluish white flowers. The seeds are ground and used like pepper. Sweet Mage (also known as Spanish Tarragon) has anise scented orange flowers. I always enjoy trying new herbs I have never grown before.

I have also ordered pinto beans, Hidatsa red beans and some climbing french beans. I am trying a cucumber called Mexican sour gherkin. Seed Savers is where I got the White Beauty and Great White tomato seeds last year. Those tomatoes were extra sweet. I am hoping for good luck with these beans and cucumbers as well.




I think that by ordering some heirloom seeds I am connecting to my past. My grandfather, Peter Donnelly, was a farmer in a small town called Allen in the southern part of Michigan. Born in the late 1800s, Peter attended Hillsdale College before taking up the plow. And I mean two horses and a plow. In the early 20th century that is how a farm was managed. No expensive fertilizers, no pesticides. Just hard work and horses to feed and take care of. Not to mention the cows and chickens. There was once a cow who shall remain nameless, but said cow once chased my mother and some of her siblings up a tree. And the chickens used to peck at her something fierce when she had to get the eggs from them.




Such was life on the farm. My mother wasn't much for being a farmer's daughter. Her brother once told her she was the only person he knew who lived on a farm but didn't know she lived on one. Avoiding the outdoor chores was something my mother did if she could. Which is why she irons and cleans much better than I ever have.

Well, I do not have a farm and I garden on a small city plot. No room for horses and plows where I live. I wouldn't mind having a few chickens (although I suspect I wouldn't like getting pecked at any more than my mother did). I am lucky enough to have a coworker who raises them so I buy my eggs from her.

I do believe it is worth the effort to return to the soil what came from it to feed my plants. I don't use fertilizers or pesticides. I am simply a lazy gardener who prefers to add compost on top of my garden each spring and plant in it. I find that this old fashioned way of garden does a pretty good job of preventing weeds from germinating and is a lot easier on the back than digging is.

What I have found in the past 25 years of gardening is that we seem to be returning to the tried and true when it comes to growing our food. My grandfather created a pretty good life for his family using these old fashioned methods and I have come to realize that it isn't such a bad way to garden in the 21st century. Suffice it to say that everything old is new again.

Vacation Plants

One of the best things about winter is getting away from it all. The snow, the sleet, the rain, the thaws, the worry that because of the thaws the plants won’t survive—yes even in Michigan (especially in Michigan) we experience these bleak winters of dark and gray and no snow. So of course it is necessary to take a vacation somewhere warm and sunny and not gray at all. There may be plant death in Belize, but it won’t be because of lack of snow to cover those iffy plants that may not tolerate the cold, but will do just fine if the snow covers them.

I only managed to spend a few hours in Belize, but they were magical hours spent at Altun Ha, one of the many Mayan ruins that inhabit Mexico and Central America. Altun Ha is about an hour north of Belize City where my cruise ship dropped anchor 18 miles from shore. And what did I take pictures of when I got there? Well of course the ruins, but the pictures you see here are of some of those plants that I just can’t grow in Michigan. Not unless I want to bring them indoors. Of course I have a curious cat and she isn’t too bright. Whether a plant is poisonous or not doesn’t seem to faze her. The Dieffenbachia left my house quite awhile ago. So I will just have to enjoy these tropical plants in the pictures I took.




Unfortunately I was not able to bottle any of the warmth and sunshine to bring home with me. However I do have a cousin charged with finding out how to do this and will let you know if she succeeds.




It was a wonderful vacation with much good music from the likes of Emmylou Harris, John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett and Brandi Carlile. I also got to know some great music of lesser known artists like Katie Herzog, Chuck Cannon, Lissie and many more. There were 29 musicians on this cruise and I would do it again (assuming I can afford it).