Category Archives: gourds

Oct24

Autumn’s Alter-Ego

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A hard freeze tonight is in the weather forecast. Up until this week, we wondered when autumn was here to stay. Each night it gets colder. Farmer Dave from the 550 AM radio show says the growing season is offically over in Missouri. We have moved 95% our plants to the shelter of our home and garage in the past 2 weeks. The gourd vines are almost all dried up, so the big gourds will come off their shriveled, withered vines. They will sit in the screenhouse to collect mold on their skin to complete their curing process for future crafting projects during this winter. The little gourds will go to the farmers’ markets this weekend. Great autumn decorations for your harvest table. Our roma tomato plants will die off after tonight’s freeze. We have three huge tomato plants in portable planters, so they now grow under the plant lights of the garage. I wonder how long we will have our organic tomatoes this autumn and winter?! I forgot about my terra cotta planter sitting at the corner of our 1/4-acre plot at Boone Hollow Farm, greets us when we come up the hill to the greenhouse. It houses a solar light post and plants. The geranium, swedish ivy, and vinca may live their last day today. We will not make it the greenhouse tonight with our work schedules, watering, and securing light source for the other plants. But then maybe the solar light will provide a bit of heat to keep temperatures above freezing near the terra cotta plants? Dean and I learn more about caring for plants during the experience rather than just reading about it. Hands on learners. Our plants are science experiments. This blog is our gardening journal. With the crisp nights and early mornings come the glowing autumn foliage. This weekend is to be the peak color weekend. Autumn has an alter-ego I can live with.
FavoriteColor

Sep26

Identify The Gourd

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Digital Gourds chart © Dan Dunkin 2003
This chart is used courtesy The Gourd Reserve


It’s that time of year, gourds and pumpkins decorate the stores and houses in our neighborhoods. They are autumn, and create the autumn ambiance. Which variety do you see based on the above chart? Our gourds are huge and colorful! This is Deanna Greens And Garden Art’s first year growing them, and it has been most enjoyable! We have one tall teepee trellis of gourds with 4 different varieties, plus ornamental eggplant which looks like a gourd. The vines have not dried up yet, so we sit tight and not pick yet. Patience! Even if the fruit has stopped growing, the vine provides nutrients to the gourds’ shell to thicken and strengthen. When the vine dries up, then the gourds are ready for harvest. We hope to have gourds available for a couple of farmers’ markets in October and November. Artisans beware, gourds are a great canvas for creative arts and crafts! And many are used for practical purposes. “Every house there is surrounded by a garden, and when the gourd dries in the sun, it hardens and it can be used for everything,” artist Chisseko Kondowe says. Here are the lyrics to an old song, The Drinking Gourd :

When the sun goes back
And the first quail calls
Follow the drinking gourd
The old man is waiting
For to carry you to freedom
Follow the drinking gourd

Follow the drinking gourd
Follow the drinking gourd
For the old man is waiting
For to carry you to freedom
Follow the drinking gourd

Riverbed makes a mighty fine road
The dead trees will show you the way
And it’s left foot, peg foot traveling on
Follow the drinking gourd

The river ends between two hills
Follow the drinking gourd
There’s another river on the other side
Follow the drinking gourd

Follow the drinking gourd
Follow the drinking gourd
For the old man is waiting
For to carry you to freedom
Follow the drinking gourd

I thought I heard the angels say
Follow the drinking gourd
The stars in the Heavens’
Gonna show you the way
Follow the drinking gourd

Follow the drinking gourd
Follow the drinking gourd
For the old man is waiting
For to carry you to freedom
Follow the drinking gourd

Follow the drinking gourd
Follow the drinking gourd
For the old man is waiting
For to carry you to freedom
Follow the drinking gourd

Sep2

Gourds Galore

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Deanna Greens And Garden Art has gourds growing, gourds galore! We started from seed, planted our seedlings in our freshly made rich organic soil from our kitchen and plant scraps and recycled organic soil. Birdhouse, long dipper, tri-color, and hard-shell bowl varieties were planted. But some seedlings did not live more than a week after the transplant in the summer heat, while others have thrived. Survival of the fittest. Growing gourds is new for us, so not sure if the hard-shell variety survived yet. The others are huge, and seem to grow 1 – 2 inches a day along with their broad leaves and vines. These are growing on a teepee shaped trellis behind the greenhouse. The delicate white blossoms of the birdhouse variety attract the bees. An autumn harvest is not too far away. Next year, we are considering this inside our greenhouse. Colors and textures in contrasting green vines. See the photo below.
GourdsGalore

Aug5

Remnants Of The North

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We had crisp mornings and evenings during our Minnesota vacation, as usual for the end of July into August. It is like Missouri’s September into October season. Apparently, Missouri has experienced the change in the air while we traveled back from the north country last weekend. The signs of autumn are in the air. Others feel it too. Talk of the “f” word, “frost” was on the 550 AM Farmer Dave’s radio show this week, talking like it may come earlier this year. At the spice shoppe visitors are buying apple butter, mulling spices, teas, chili powder, and soup mixes like autumn is here. I am enjoying a cup of hot tea every morning, my newest sensation is Stash brand chai white tea. I think remnants of the north followed us home.
Our vacation antique finds include a couple boxes full of Mason jars to make non-electric lanterns. $5 for the whole load of them. Love those bargains at the annual Crazy Days Sale in Park Rapids, Minnesota. Dean will repurpose the jars and design into lanterns to use alternative energy, solar and/or battery-operated lights. We will market at the Lake Saint Louis and Chandler Hill Vineyard’s Farmers’ Markets starting in September along with some beautiful perennials baskets. I cannot wait to use these lanterns on our patio and at the greenhouse. I also found a set of four tea cups with tea snack platters in my favorite farm color, leaf green. Included in the price of the Mason jars! These will go to the greenhouse for my tea time while working at Boone Hollow Farm. Just the simple things in life to make my day artsy and colorful.
Our plants are loving the milder temperature, greening up nicely before going dormant in a few short weeks. We just put all the greenhouse plants in the screenhouse a month ago. And I have another crop of herbs to sow before harvest. Our gourd plants need some warmth and sunshine to produce their fruit. I hope they get big enough before frost blankets the Missouri earth. Local weathermen talk like St. Louis may not hit 100 degrees this summer. It would be the first time in many years. Plenty of rain now, with more coming everyday this week. If you remember my blog posts from last year at this time, it was so blazin’ hot and Missouri was in a severe drought. What a difference a year makes! But is summer over?

Jul11

Garden Paraphernalia

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“Paraphernalia” is an underused word. In most cases it conveys “drugs”. According to Widipedia, it is “apparatus, equipment, or furnishing used for a particular activity”. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphernalia.) For me gardening is a necessity of life. As the Thomas Jefferson quote states, “no culture comparable to that of the garden.” It is my therapy, and I relish the fruits of my labor. A greenhouse, leather gloves, muck boots, dresser planters, troughs, a weather vane, and even writing this garden blog are paraphernalia. They are not necessary for a garden, but they each make the gardener’s or farmer’s chore easier, more enjoyable, gives life. Plus gardening becomes an art form, an expression from the heart as St. Francis of Assisi told us hundreds of years ago. Cooking from the heart with what I receive from my garden is an art form, too. Just as writing on this WordPress blog.
Dean and I are northward bound in 8 days. We will have a 7-day visit with friends who are family to us. The birth of a book has taken place at this destination. More of the family story will be told to us. While in Minnesota we will take a country day-trip to peruse some local antique shoppes and flea markets. We are looking for a unique, artsy weathervane to place atop the teepee-shaped trellis we made with repurposed steel poles for our gourds vines. We will scout out some narrow wooden troughs for window boxes to plant our overabundance of airplane plants and wandering jews. What garden “paraphernalia” do you enjoy?

Jul2

Herb Harvest

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Our dill is daintily charming, and so fragrant. Yesterday evening we harvest our 1st crop, and will put in a 2nd crop after the 4th of July holiday. Wild sunflowers and sprigs of dill fill a green vase today. Our chef son-in-law will use this 1st crop of dill to make pickles with his homegrown cucumbers. Maybe a jar or two of Hannahway Farm sun pickles are on our way?! The patriarch spice shoppe owner says in Europe dill is used in just about every dish. I love it with my baked fish and potato salad dishes. The 3rd crop of dill will go in early autumn, with plans to take as show-n-tell farm products to the City of St. Charles preschool classrooms Farmer Dean and I visit in November. Our 1st crop of basil screams pesto! Served with veggies, chicken, bread, and pasta, I cannot wait!
Dill
This week’s other farm chores include straightening and cleaning the screenhouse, putting extra pots and trays together in somewhat orderly fashion, and throwing broken items in the recycle pile. One recycled dresser is filled with “tea room” stuff, as well as a recycled tile-top table put aside for our meal and snack times. Another recycled dresser holds pots of blooming geraniums. We are making space in the screenhouse in case we need to move our plants to this cooler side of the greenhouse structure. Last year at this time the heat wave and drought was well underway in Missouri. The extreme heat required us to water two times a day, early morning and early evening. Our plants were housed under the shelter of shade trees in our yard while the greenhouse reconstruction plans were being modified until autumn when the heat subsided. The lack of rain has not been an issue this spring and early summer, thank you God! The growing gourd plants will go into the ground this weekend.
Growers, what are you harvesting now? What are you putting in for an autumn crop?

Jun13

Sprouts Forthcoming

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Fresh sprouts forthcoming ~
gardener learns life lessons
patience, faith, hope, love.
I was inspired yesterday morning to jot down these words, another word garden. Haiku poems flow for me as I experience nature, life, and love. A few days ago I planted more seeds, gourd seeds. Seems late once again, but I am a part-time farmer with a full-time heart. Once these seedlings grow their second set of leaves we will plant into the ground along side the teepee poles Dean and I bent from repurposed steel poles. This summer and autumn we hope some children come visit our greenhouse at Boone Hollow Farm, and play under the gourd vine teepees. With patience, faith, hope, and love some crafty garden art will be created from the long-neck, birdhouse, and bowl gourds, the fruit of these vines. Next week more seeds to sprout for microgreens to create yummy crunchy summer veggie wraps in the not too far future, another type of garden art.
Microgreens

Veggie Wrap

Apr24

Off To Market We Go

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This coming Saturday Deanna Greens And Garden Art will be at the Lake Saint Louis Farmers’ and Artisans’ Market for the first time this market season. We hope the weather holds out. Another cold front arrived yesterday with wet snowflakes overnight, and yet more storms on Friday evening into Saturday. 14″ coco-lined baskets of various ferns, swedish ivy, moses-in-the-cradle, and variegated airplane plants will be featured, if the weather stays above 45 degrees. A few small pots of the same will be available. I would like to showcase our cactus displaying her red blossoms. Fair warning: our inventory is 1/3 the amount we had last year. This is intentional. With a long winter and no electric, we have managed to keep most of the inventory alive in semi-heated garages. Miracles happen every spring. One of our tropicals, a bird-of-paradise is blooming beautifully and an elephant ear has sprouted, surrounded with lush green swedish ivy. In case this is your first visit to this blog, my husband Dean and I bought a greenhouse full of houseplants and perennials in November 2011, more than we can handle while working full-time jobs. The type of plants we will grow is changing. We want more annuals and herbs. In autumn I hope to harvest bird house and long-handled dipper gourds for the market, which will be grown near the greenhouse at Boone Hollow Farm on teepee trellises. They take a long time to grow, and even longer to dry for multi-purpose use.
The past 2 months we have propagated more geraniums, swedish ivy, moses-in-the-cradle, bridal veil, and wandering jews to make some beautiful terra-cotta planters and moss baskets. Our ferns and succulents have been transplanted into natural pots as well. The coco-lined hanging baskets offer a natural alternative to the plastic pots, what Deanna Greens And Garden Art strives for. Dean will be at the market all morning this Saturday, and I for the set-up and a prayer for cooperative weather and sales. Our annuals such as zinnias, marigolds, nasturtium, and various herbs have just been sown this week, so it will be a few weekends before bringing them to the market. No tomato or pepper seedlings this year. Not enough warmth in the garages. I shared our heating pads with my chef son-in-law, Mick. He will have a CSA that includes heirloom tomatoes. Some tomatoes may make their way to the farmers’ markets as well. Check in with chef and farmer Mick at TheBentPig@gmail.com. One of the other features this year will be “hanging herb and greens gardens”. More on this later.