Rain, Rain...Come Back...

I'm really not a whiner. Really. But my poor little seedlings need rain. When I planted my snow peas (Snow Green) and snap peas (Sugar Sprint) the last of March, I was later than I should have been, but still on time. When my friend Jim--once an ag. teacher in Cecil County and later an administrator--told me he'd already planted his peas but they hadn't come up, I congratulated myself on waiting out the wet weather. Within 10 days, my peas started to sprout. First one, then two, then three, then...nothing. There may be other culprits in the Great Pea Failure. From my office window, I have seen robins scratching and pecking around. I am a big bird lover, but I've been opening my window and yelling at them almost daily, for all the good it has probably done.

Yesterday, trying to be optimistic, I scratched a shallow trench between my three sad little sprouts, and replanted. It's still early spring, right? O.k., maybe mid-spring. The weather is still cool. O.k., today it's 75. Even as I look out my window now, I see a robin hopping around one of the rows. I'm not going to bother yelling anymore. The peas will come up, or they won't. "Crops which develop in hot weather have lower yield and the peas are less sweet and tender." At this point, I'll take whatever I can manage to grow. And I so love snow peas! Oh well.

The bigger problem is the lack of rain. My nursery-grown broccoli transplants are showing signs of wilt as well. I can't remember exactly when we had our last measurable moisture, but looking back two posts ago, I figure it was about April 8th. We expected some on Sunday to Monday, but each time I looked at the satellite radar, there was a line of rain showers running from northwest to southeast in Maryland, neatly cutting off the northeast corner where we are. So yesterday, I began watering from my trusty rain barrel.

We've had a rainwater collection system for about 10 years now. Actually, it's a converted trash can with a spigot and a hole in the lid for the rain gutter. Earlier this month, in between rain showers, my husband Carl added a second barrel to catch some of the overflow. God bless him, because I've already used up the first barrel. You can purchase rain barrels for $100 and up, but I think Carl's design is ingenious and probably costs about $20: the price of a trash can, a spigot and a few other parts. See the bottom of this post for his plan; and here is ours in action yesterday.

Most of the time in spring, I am grateful for my light, sandy soil. I spent some time researching my soil type using the web soil survey tool, and learned that there are several soil types in my area, including Butlertown, Matapeake and Woodstown silt loam, and the highly-desirable Sassafras sandy loam--the State soil (yes, there is such a thing). Soil science has a language all its own, but it is clear that all of these soil types promote moderate to good drainage. Excellent for a rainy spring, not so great for a dry one. Looking at my soil, you can see a pictorial definition of another characteristic of my soil: friable. Actually, I think friable is intended to be a positive characteristic of good garden soil, but it sounds all bad to me. Loamy means good, rich, light textured soil. Friable would imply it is easily broken apart, or reduced to dust. That's what I'm seeing. I'm used to this in the summer, but by then I would have the soaker hoses down with a thick covering of straw to hold in all the moisture. At this point, every drop of moisture is evaporating into the spring sunshine. Once everything has emerged from the soil, I'll try to get that layer of straw down earlier than usual. Until then, it looks like my garden will be getting a daily sprinkling from the watering can.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

Asparagus (and Spring) Are Finally Here

God and nature, once again, have given me ample reason for hope. I have been shamed out of last week's pessimism about the lack of sun and warm temperatures by the emergence of a dozen or so spears of asparagus, several beautiful days and the promise of almost 80-degree temperatures by the end of the week. While I have been clipping spinach leaves from last fall's crop (we enjoyed a tasty spinach and tomato cream sauce over penne last week) and the new greens will be ready soon, the asparagus will be my first true harvest of the 2008 season. Already, I can taste it. I've found new recipes for a spring vegetable risotto and an asparagus and ham frittata that will be on my dinner table soon.

My impatience for asparagus has already gotten the best of me, however, and I purchased some less-than-local spears several times in the last month. I am using a new roasting technique that is simple and tasty. I just heat up a 1/4 sheet tray drizzled with a tablespoon of olive oil in a 400 degree oven while I wash and snap the asparagus to the width of the tray (about 6 inches). Remove the tray from the oven, tilt to distribute the oil, and arrange the asparagus in a single layer. Shake the tray gently to roll the asparagus back and forth in the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and perhaps a little garlic or garlic salt (just be careful the fresh garlic doesn't burn and become bitter). Roast until the spears are to the desired tenderness. I like them crisp so it takes less than 10 minutes, depending on the thickness. Grilled asparagus is even more wonderful.

My 12x12-foot asparagus patch is about 12 years old. I grow Jersey Giant, a disease-resistant, all-male hybrid that is supposed to be a better producer than older varieties. I am tempted to try some heirloom asparagus, but have been loathe to break sod on another bed. Asparagus is a perennial, and it takes patience--typically you have to wait four years for a full harvest. Conventional wisdom is that a "well-maintained" asparagus bed will last 10-15 years, keeping the plot as weed free as possible and applying compost each year. But my bed shows no signs of giving up, despite a plague of wild strawberries (see picture above) and the encroaching shade from our ever-larger white pine trees.

I have good reason to be skeptical that my asparagus only has a few more years to live. First of all, the ditch banks along nearby roads produce a decent supply of pick-your-own asparagus each year. According to my husband, Green Giant used to grow asparagus for market in these fields in the 1970s. With both irritation and delight, I watch each spring as folks take their lives in their hands to stop along our narrow country freeway to snap off free spears. I'm irritated because more than once I've had to come to a sudden stop to avoid a head-on collision with a car coming from the opposite direction and because, well, that's MY asparagus growing along the ditchbank-- but apparently others feel the same way. I'm delighted because the asparagus has survived decades growing amongst brush and thorns, making my weedy bed look "well-maintained."

Another reason for skepticism is that my grandfather's asparagus bed remained productive for some fifty years. He was a small-scale "truck" farmer, growing vegetables and small fruits for the local market and canneries. The small plot I remember was behind his garage, probably about 30 by 40 feet. In contrast, at Trumpington in nearby Kent County--the case study in my book--the family cultivated about 10 acres. The patriarch of the family recalled picking, bunching (see picture of antique buncher) and packing asparagus before school for weeks to ship to Baltimore in the 1930s--a lucrative business. No one can recall the variety my grandfather grew, but I don't think it was an heirloom. About 15 years ago, my aunt who lives on the family property began to mow down the asparagus. She had retired and liked to travel, and who could blame her for not wanting to weed 120 square feet of garden! By the time she told me about it (I tried not to look horrified), she'd been mowing for several years and it had just about finally given up. Once again, my asparagus plot comes out looking pampered. I figure I have at least 40 more years.

I did make a small addition to the perennial portion of my garden: MacDonald rhubarb. I planted three crowns in a slightly raised bed at the end of the asparagus bed (hoping to deter the wild strawberries). There will be no harvest this year, and only a light one next year. Until then, I am on the lookout for recipes because I've heard it is quite tasty. Mildred Strong, the current owner of Trumpington, says rhubarb is good in pie and you can stew it much like applesauce. Seventy years ago, the nuns at her Catholic school served it to the children almost daily. I didn't get the impression she wanted me to bring her any when it was ready to harvest. So my rhubarb, like asparagus, will require some patience. According to the growing directions from Johnny's, "a well maintained patch will last 10-15 years...or longer." I'm trusting it will last longer.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Spring is finally here...or is it? When it comes to the warm weather, I am impatient. As anxious as I am to get the garden started each year--I like to spend early January days deciding what to plant three months later--I am a wimpy gardener. Even when its in the low 50s, I'll be outside in my flannel pants, wool socks and fleece hat with earflaps. Yet, as I drove home from my parents this past misty Sunday morning, I felt like I could see the landscape bursting into green as I drove up the highway. The sun was trying to come out, and through the filter of light rain, everything seemed clean, perfect, idyllic. Fields are greening up, flowering trees are in full bloom, and daffodils and narcissus are abundant. The proof of spring is everywhere, I just might have to wait a little longer for the sunshine.

Really, I should be grateful to have soil that can be worked when everything is cold and damp, even in February. Where I am in Cecil County, the soil is a light, sandy loam. Even after a torrential rainfall, the ground drains enough in a day that I could work the soil for planting. In Dorchester County, where my mother gardens, it can be late April and her heavy clay soil is typically so mucky that she sinks down past her ankles when she ventures out into the garden. That is not to say I don't have problems with soil fertility. My yard is located on an old farm field, and while a portion of it received a good layer of topsoil when our house was built, some of it is a powdery mixture of pebbles, stones and sand. Occasionally, I remove grass for a new bed to find a layer of orange fill dirt. Trying to grow anything in that stuff is like trying to cultivate crops on the beach.

I have been working compost into my plot annually for over 10 years. While some folks I know feed everything with Miracle Gro mid-summer, I know I have to get that compost into the soil early and I have to pay for it with lots of shoveling and with cash. We are fortunate to be fairly close to the mushroom growing regions of southeastern Pennsylvania, where "mushroom soil" is readily available, a dark mixture of composted horse manure and straw used as a growing medium. It is truly beautiful stuff, and has a very mild odor that quickly goes away after it has been incorporated into the soil. For two or three years, my Amish neighbor got a tractor trailer load of mushroom soil (no exaggeration) , which she used simply to top dress her growing crops. This requires less effort than working it into her large garden, and I have no doubt it worked well in the end.

Of course, I have my own compost pile which I turn regularly, but not religiously. I had enough finished compost from last year to dress my new raised bed for the lettuce and to work into the soil when I moved all of my Hull thornless blackberries in late February. Two weeks ago, with onion sets and potatoes imminent, I made my run to the local stone and dirt lot for my first truckload of mushroom soil. After years of gardening organically, I only add about an inch of compost each year. A few years ago, I thought I could get away with neglecting one portion of the garden. My tomatoes that year were sickly and stunted, with the exception of two thriving plants. These grew adjacent to my new raised strawberry beds which had received about 3 inches of mushroom soil. Never again will I deprive my garden of its annual dose of compost!

Though the weather has been cool, the garden is on its way. I have been more on top of things than many years, but not as early as I should have been. I seeded the lettuce (green and red leaf, oakleaf, butterhead) and spinach (smooth and savoyed leaf) in the middle of March, although I could have had them in much sooner if I'd gotten the hoop house ready. This batch I covered carefully with PVC pipe topped with greenhouse film, but by the next week I threw it all off. The seeds had sprouted and although the weather was too cool for me, I knew the leafy crops liked it. I had visions of my efforts to keep my precious lettuces warm resulting in the earliest known leaf crop to bolt in mid-April. Then I'd just look foolish.

Last week, I tilled the garden and worked compost into about half of my rows. I am trying a new system of permanent rows and paths this year, so I applied all of my compost to three foot wide rows and raked the soil off the two-foot paths to make low, hilled planting areas. This is an old habit I probably got from my mother, who would use a hand pushed, wheeled cultivator to "throw up" her rows. I suspect there was a benefit when it came to drainage, and I remember her applying fertilizer in the trenches along each row. When my kids were small, it helped me explain where they could walk and where the plants were supposed to be. Now, I just think I like the way it looks. I plan to mulch my paths with newspaper and straw.

The forecast for later this week is sunny skies and temperatures well into the 60s. I pray that will be the case. There is another truckload of mushroom soil to unload and potatoes to plant. But for now on this gray, 45-degree day, I am inside huddled by my computer, looking out over my garden where signs of spring are everywhere.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

How I Got Here...Back Where I Started

I've never been one to journal, but anyone who knows me will agree that I have plenty to say. Mostly, I'm full of the stories I've heard from family, friends, and people I've met and interviewed during my 37 years living on the Eastern Shore. I grew up surrounded by my family's history, from the Victorian house built by my ship's captain-great grandfather in 1887, to the little Methodist church with my ancestor's names emblazoned on the stained glass, to the family graveyard(s) where I routinely played (yes, played) as a child.


My grandmother, Cleora--a powerful, loving, giant of a woman--loved to tell stories about her days on the farm, to sing songs and to play cards and dominoes as they always did during the slow days of winter. By the time I reached high school, I was bursting with her tales, determined to become a novelist. I was already an avid genealogist by this time, and found it easy to trace my family's history since they'd been in Dorchester County and on the Shore since 1659! But names on a page proved unsatisfying to me...I wanted to know who these people were, how they lived, what was important to them.

I went off to Washington College in Chestertown, and by my senior year set about writing the great American novel in a third floor studio of the Literary House--I was Jo from Little Women. My novel, ironically, was about a young woman trapped and tormented by the traditions of her Eastern Shore home. Not exactly autobiographical, but I had that desperate need to show that I was more than just a girl from the 'Shore, part of the first generation to go off to college. My writing adviser called my stories of local life "dead wood." He wanted me to write something contemporary. I didn't think I could, or wanted to.

My novel failed to win me the coveted Sophie Kerr Award , while my senior thesis about the Federalist Party in Maryland (snore) earned me a history award. So I went with my backup plan: history. In graduate school at the University of Delaware, I rejected the academic track to specialize in museum studies. I gravitated toward research and writing, even though my professors wanted me to go on to teach. But I had a strong desire to make history as compelling to the general public as it was for me. Tamara Hareven, the prestigious family historian for whom I was a research assistant, once said to me in horror, "You're going to give tours?!"

After graduate school, I landed the perfect job as curator at the Delaware Agricultural Museum & Village in Dover. I was in my element, responsible for interpreting and furnishing 17 historic buildings taken from sites throughout Delmarva, including a farmhouse and a country church. As I researched the farm implements in the exhibit hall, I gained a new understanding of the physical labor it entailed for my ancestors to till, plant and harvest the land. Their daily activity, I learned, was connected to the cycle of the seasons. Each month brought new bounty from the garden, and new work to be done.

As my mother will tell you, I hated to garden as a child. Although I remember having my own plot with carrots or radishes or some such vegetables as a small child, by the time I was a teenager I had a deal with my mother that I would clean the house or cook if she would not make me weed. These days, she receives endless delight from the fact that I'm obsessed with gardening. I'm sure she'd always wanted to share with me the joy that comes from sweating over the soil and bringing forth edible treasures. That is her heritage too, after all, and she never left it behind.

These days, as I prepare my loamy Cecil County soil for planting, it occurs to me that I never really rejected my heritage either. I've studied it, explained it, novelized it and honored it. Ultimately, I think that is my goal. To honor my rural roots by understanding it to the fullest extent possible, planting some of the crops my grandfather planted, using the tricks my mother taught me, feeding my family the fruit of my hard work. I don't think life gets any better.


Photos: My family home in Church Creek, my grandmother Cleora Willis Brannock, a walking cultivator from the late 1800s, the Willis family on their farm in the 1910s.

© Jenifer Dolde, 2008