Someone's been eating my sprouts

After work Abe and I went to enjoy some peace and quiet in the greenhouse. Instead we discovered an infestation of caterpillars. They arrived overnight in hordes. They didn't go for the swiss chard (God knows we have enough swiss chard to share): They went straight for the good stuff, because nothing is sacred when you're a caterpillar.  Brussels sprouts are my favorite, and I'm closer to successfully growing them this year than ever before.

So it's on, Caterpillars. Did you think you could hide from me, skulking around on the underside of leaves like the cowardly tiny pests you are? I knew you White Butterfly Caterpillars right away after a thorough search of my Rodale's Guide and the internet:  your attraction to my brassica was a dead giveaway!  And now you're dead, too.

As it would happen, chickens like caterpillars almost as much as caterpillars like vegetables in the cabbage family.  I tried to get a picture, but it was such a feeding frenzy that my tired camera couldn't keep up, and all I could manage was this blurry photo where you can vaguely see something green in the ferocious beak of our Buff Orpington.

My brussels sprouts aren't the only thing getting eaten, and the caterpillars
aren't the only ones to feast in our backyard. 

Guerillas in your midst

When we first became interested in producing our own food, we guerilla gardened.  Abe (always the adventurer) discovered a floodplain behind the apartment complex we lived in.  Getting there involved a walk through the woods, a healthy respect for copperheads, and a balancing act across a creek (good practice, maybe?).  But it was land no one was using, and our narrow third floor balcony hardly had enough sunlight to grow a few cherry tomatoes.  We cleared a small patch of ground and dug in.

It wasn't exactly an ideal garden site. The spot was a trek from our apartment.  The land was swampy, and we got itchy red bumps to prove the gardening bug wasn't the only one to bite us. There was the chance of falling in the creek (Sorry, Dad). The area's deer had also discovered this little wilderness and helped themselves to most of what we planted. We may or may not have been voilating the city's flood plain regulations.  Still, we enjoyed a few skinny carrots and our first real taste of vegetable gardening.

Now, two years too late, I'm glad to have come across a land access toolkit by the East Bay Urban Agriculture Alliance.  They provide great advice on negotiating land use for those who might not already have access to a garden site.

havin' a grape weekend

Cash checks the progress of our muscadine grapes. So much to look forward to!

The Locavore's Guide to Mother's Day

We're fortunate to live 15 minutes from the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market, and unfortunate to work late on Friday nights. It's hard to get up by farmers o'clock!  When I do drag myself out of bed in time (for the cabbages if not for the spinach, broccoli or snap peas), I love the beautiful produce, all the Real Farmers, the freshly baked scones, the $3.00 six ounce drip coffee.

Between our own garden and the CSA share that we have through the restaurant where I work, we don't need much produce from the farmer's market this year. But this week is Mother's Day, so I thought of a few ways to celebrate your mom and show your local love too.

Treat your mom to brunch or breakfast in bed.  Breakfast foods are simple to make and lend themselves wonderfully to "localizing." The strawberries are beautiful this time of year. Try to find eggs and potatoes (maybe even bacon or breakfast sausage) at the market, and make a frittata with spring onion, asparagus and spinach. Add goat cheese, if you're able to find it from a nearby farm or creamery. Get pastries from a local bakery.  (Don't cook?  Look for a farm-to-table restaurant in your area, like our very own Harvest Moon Grille in Charlotte.)

Our farmer's market has an entire building devoted to handicrafts: homesewn aprons, fancy tea towels, natural bath & body products, wood carvings and charming pottery. Last week someone in the greenery shed was selling incredible wreaths and "living pictures" made from moss and succulents.

Even small farmers markets have items with great gift potential, like:

• handmade soaps
• raw local honey (You can cover the jar body with pretty paper & tie with a ribbon, or cut a circle of fabric and tie it around the lid)
• a selection of preserves or jams
• young tomato plants or herbs (Transplant them into a hand-painted terra cotta pot or tie a strip of fabric around the pot they came in)
• flowers
• artisan chocolates

Explore a nursery (but first ask if they grow their own plants, since some nurseries purchase plants grown elsewhere and ship them to your local store for sale).  A few years ago my sister and I gave our mother a young magnolia.  It's now a beautiful tree that gives her flowers on a regular basis (so we don't have to).

If you know your mom is up for the challenge, rescue a local cat or dog for her to love.  From experience, First Make Sure The Pet Does Not Have Cancer.

Find a local seller on etsy for jewelry, cards or other handmade gifts (or if you live in Charlotte, buy my cards at the Sleepy Poet Antique Mall).

Leave a comment if you have a suggestion for other local ways to celebrate your Mother.

I'd love to incorporate your ideas to make a master list for next year!





Slacker

I've taken seriously my promise to try to find my stride post vacation.  See?

shortly before I fell directly on my face

I would offer that slacklining with chickens is not the best way to get your groove back, since chickens have excellent balance despite their strange proportions.  Habitual roosting means they're very well practiced.



Chicken sexing

While we were away, our pullets grew exponentially.  The largest is possibly now the size of all the chickens we saw in Haiti combined (which may hint something about wheat-based diets and obesity problems).

Our young chickens ate their way through the bag of feed Abe left and by the eleventh day, they were looking for more. We got back from Haiti on a Monday at 7:30 am, and we were running to the feed store by 10:30.

Like adolescent boys, growing roosters will eat you out of coop and home... not that we're trying to raise roosters. When we bought our chicks, a crusty old man - wearing crustier overalls -  sexed them to make sure we chose only hens. I knew that sexing chickens is notoriously difficult (never saw myself saying that in public), but our man turned out to be exceptionally incompetent.  Out of 11 chicks, 4 are increasingly rooster-like, making him wrong nearly half the time, almost as often as I am). This week I've heard several early attempts at crowing, so we'll be having coq au vin real soon.

I have mixed feelings about the codes that strictly forbid roosters within the city limits of Charlotte.  On the one hand, our young man-birds are growing more handsome by the day, and I know a rooster would be a great addition to our flock. But on the other, I'm grateful that none of our neighbors are permitted a yard full of birds who announce the arrival of the sun or potential predators loudly and at all hours.

Welcome back

You probably had no idea that Abe and I spent 10 days in Haiti last month, because for the first time ever I was a good blogger and scheduled posts for my time away. 

They say you shouldn't advertise your vacations online, in case you're being stalked by burglars. Although I flatter myself to imagine I could attract that kind of attention, now we all know that while I may be a fairweather blogger, I'm no sucker when it comes to cyber crime.

We were visiting my amazing sister and her awesome husband who live in Port-au-Prince.  It was possibly the best vacation anyone has ever had.

You may be wondering where I've been since we got back.  On our trip, I fell more in love with Haiti than with blogging about our wannabe North Carolina urban farm.  It's been hard settling back into our usual life, and I've been struggling to find my passion for catching up at work, several sick days apiece, seventeen thousand loads of laundry what I do here.  Bear with me - I know I'll find my stride.