Little River Food Forest and Educational Center

05/13/2022

Our friend calls these "sour pickles" because the seed pod is....you guesed it... Sour! This oxalis doesn't have the same benefits for nitrogen as clover, but it sure does add a tasty treat to garden work!

Sour foods stimulate digestion- they add a pep to salads and are non-acidic. We are always looking for locally available alternatives to sour lemon amd lime. This one is a winner!

04/22/2022

Day 2: thankful for 20 more trees in the ground.

Today a volunteer and I spent a couple hours planting underneath Hackberry canopy, in two different types of soil. Couldn't have had better help!! He taught me to protect my sapplings (which are less than a foot tall each) by piling logs around the new plantings. Seems it could help the moisture too.

Time to water, and mulch. This is the last care these babies will get.

03/14/2022

Im not going to lie. Thinking big isn't always an asset when you're planning a garden.

Bigger is better as the saying goes. But bigger also means more gardens to tend to. More places to water. More steps to get from the tool shed to the garden.

This year we are really trying to use our common sense and nurture Zone 1. It's the zone closest to the house. It's the place you plant herbs and other items you'll need often in the kitchen. It's the place you're likely to water because you walk by it every day.

Here's to this year's first zone 1 crop: cabbage.

07/12/2021

We are happy to grow sunflowers for the bennefit of the Silvery Checkerspot Butterfly. Enjoy, little caterpillars. Grow big and strong and flourish!

05/17/2021

This beast of a Swiss Chard is about to flower and we couldn't be more excited. It survived the incredibly frigid temperatures last winter, making it an excellent specimen to save the seeds from.

05/08/2021

It's the second year for sheet mulching our front bed, which is working to improve soil while smothering honeysuckle, bermuda grass and vinca.

Today, I'm adding an extra 4 feet to the north side by simply covering the daylillies with at least 3 layers of cardboard then mulch. While we may eventually turn the daylillies into garden bed, our plan for now is to use this path as access to our tomato plants, which are planted at the edge of the garden to save space.

05/07/2021

Update on our storm door cold frame- it's turned out successful so far! Spring peas, spinach, swiss chard and as much lambs quarter as we can eat!

I love that stuff, such a simple green that grows as a "w**d" but packs a nutritious punch

03/23/2021

We spent our spring equinox weekend making small improvements and planting seeds for the future in our new cold frame.

It was great timing to recieve a new screen door on our front porch, because it gave us an old one to use for a new cold frame.

Earlier in the season we got radish, lettuce, spinach and celery going under a cold frame made from an old window.

This cold frame, temporarily attached to our fence, is much larger and gave us a chance to plant cold season crops such as snap peas, lettuce and spinach with some swiss chard which will last us through the season.

To combat our mole problem, we also dug Lirope to surround the bed. Moles won't typically dig through the dense roots of this plant.

03/05/2021

Does anyone else store their seeds in teacups? No...just me?

02/17/2021

Where will you be gardening this year?

We are building our network of gardening pals as we begin dreaming about the warm weather of spring. Sharing resources such as land allows people to also share the benefits of having many hands on deck to water, w**d, mitigate insect issues and (our favorite part) harvest and enjoy!

For people who have their own yard, starting a garden is easy. But for those who don’t have easy access to land, starting a garden takes a little more effort.

02/11/2021

As we daydream about our plantings, one thing that keeps coming up is Wild Cherry. The bark is used in cough syrups and in tincature form to support respratory health. While it'll be a few years before we are ready to start harvesting wood from and planting the edges of our bottom lands, this native tree is at the top of our list!