Update: June 2014

Garden is finally in good shape (I think) for the year.

It was a late spring.  There I was, planting a tomato, eggplant, pepper and two basil plants in May simply because it was, well, May.  But the temperatures were still April-ish.  I think the Genovese basil and Early Girl tomato will be fine, despite stunted growth.  The Thai basil, pepper and eggplant look pretty pathetic.  I've got plenty of dried Thai basil, so I'll probably just get another eggplant.  Also a few peppers.

But on the bright side ...

Strawberries were a first this year, and they were successful (and delicious).  Black raspberries are looking awesome, and red are producing, yet have brownish leaves.  Corn is up, beans just planted today, as well as okra and a muskmelon experiment.  As of this hour, the garden is officially weed-free.  Tomorrow that won't be the case, but that's ok.  My little plot is looking pretty nice, neat and fertile.  A neighbor gifted me several tomato varieties I hadn't heard of, and they're now planted and caged.

I made a makeshift deer fence on a small budget.  So far it has worked, even though it looks just as flimsy as it actually is.  I've been eating strawberries and red raspberries, so that's already an improvement over last year.  Wish I'd thought to bring my camera, but today was all about getting caught up!

three sisters

By 2008, I'd made up my mind to plant the area around Ed and "Mintania" with corn. There was enough space, and the general gardening rule of thumb I've learned is you either choose between crops or weeds. There is no such thing as a dead zone. You simply make a decision on what you prefer. In the first two years, I chose weeds because I didn't have the time to keep plowing them up.

Corn is probably one of America's most prolific and subsidized crops, hence the rise of the ethanol industry. But it's damn good and it's more versatile than wheat since you don't have to mill it in order to consume it. It's useful fresh or dried.

Some time ago, I got interested in Native American culture and history. This intensified after I discovered "the family secret" on my maternal grandmother's side. I think we're part Cherokee. Now I have an answer whenever people ask me if I'm part Asian. Seriously, they do sometimes. But back in 1920's Virginia, when you could only classify yourself as either "white" or "colored," and that determined where you lived, went to school, jobs, etc., if you could pass for white, then that's what you said you were. My great-grandmother Lelia (pictured) was a remarkable woman with many gifts. If I ever have a daughter, I hope to pass her name along.

Anyway, Native American agriculture was based upon the "three sisters" system of planting corn, beans and squash together. In summary, the corn stalk provides a pole for the beans to climb. The beans add nitrogen to the soil. And the squash spreads out in between and crowds out the weeds. Nice and harmonious. So this is what I set out to do.

My first attempt faltered. I planted the corn in rows, you know, like every good farmer does. That crowded out too much sun for the squash and often left one corn stalk shouldering all the weight of the bean plant. Then, after seeing how it's supposed to be done at the National Museum of the American Indian, I wised up and did circular clumps of 3-4 corn plants spread out in mounds, with a bean plant in the middle, and squash (I like zucchini) in the wide patches between the mounds. Much better.