Sunday, June 21, 2015

Stewardship and Ethics in the Home Garden

This is a difficult post for me to write, because it's both self-critical and centering around controversial native landscape ethics. Yes, such a topic does exist, and is constantly evolving due to the "science" of restoration and issues of colonialism and sovereignty. There's a lot you can read about it on a large scale but for me the question is - how do stewardship and ethics apply to the home garden?

As you can see in my yard list we have about 100 native species and 50 food species of plants growing. Landscaping with native plants in Illinois gives you a lot of options - literally hundreds of plants. You can try to grow as close to your local genotype of possible - for me that would be growing exclusively Champaign County plants and only once sourced from Champaign County. You can follow the advice of climate scientists and start planting things that come from traditionally warmer places, like Southern Illinois in my case. Depending on the condition of your yard you might need to go with sun, shade, wet, or sand loving plants. And then of course your budget - native plants are not cheap! Some of the rarer plants can be quite expensive and only found in seeds, which can be very hard to establish based on their need for fire or freezing conditions or a combination of those.

So how do you make decisions? I can't say I've done it all correctly, having started very haphazardly from a local plant nursery. Yes they had big bluestem, blazing star, and coreopsis, but they had cultivars of those species. I was overeager to get started on landscaping my first house that I didn't really consider the source. My next big purchase came from Prairie Moon Nursery, which I love and has the greatest variety in the midwest, but still isn't quite local. Recently I've been buying almost exclusively from Grand Prairie Friends (my local land trust) and Possibility Place (an illinois-sourced native plant nursery).

Still, how do you choose plants!? There are two additional sources I've recently turned to -

- The USDA Plant Database - search for any plant in the US to find out it's county distribution and general needs
- The IDNR "Illinois Threatened and Endangered Species List" - self explanatory

Using these I've been able to learn more about what plants should be dominant in my area and what plants need all the help they can get. It's this latter category that concerns me most and leaves me wondering if I'm doing the right thing. Here's the list of the 5 Illinois endangered and threatened species I'm growing in my yard and 1 bonus food plant at the end.

1) Black Cohosh

This was the first state endangered plant I put in the yard. Given to me by a friend this is the plant with the least ethical concerns in my mind. It's a shade plant that seems to enjoy life next to the house and rain barrel.



2) Queen of the Prairie

Another one with little to be concerned about. I got this at the Grand Prairie Friends sale and it produces huge pink flower heads (it's also called the cotton candy plant). It's great for attracting pollinators.



3) Kankakee Mallow

Jumping to the one I'm most concerned about, here's the Kankakee Mallow. This plant is only found on one island in the middle of the Kankekee River making it one of the rarest plants in the lower 28. So why is it in my yard? A good question.

My pride and native plant obsession draws me to things like this, to the questionable idea that I'm doing great work by preserving these species. If it grows in more places there will be little pockets of populations to draw from if it ever became extinct in the wild. That's the theory anyway though I'm less and less sure that it's accurate. Would the mallow in my yard ever be transplantable back to Kankakee if it needed to be or would it have adjusted to life with different sun, soil, and moisture conditions?

Clearly I made a choice because I have it in the yard, sucking up water where the sump pump lets out. I had nearly decided I should not grow the plant in my yard. And then I was at a nursery west of Chicago with my parents and there was a tray of it. For $4 per plant. One of the rarest plants in the country, buried in with trays of purple coneflower and columbine, with no explanation of how unusual or special it was. Of all the people shopping there I couldn't believe many would recognize it for what it was. So we got one for my parents, one for the friend who gave me the cohosh, and I took two home myself. You can be sure I'll be keeping an eye on these and collecting seeds whenever possible.

A final note on the mallow - there's an attempt to make it the state flower of Illinois!



4) American Chestnut Tree

Another tough decision, but for a slightly different reason. American Chestnuts are technically extirpated from Illinois due to a blight. You can get some but they're usually crossed with the asian chestnut species to try to increase resistance. Possibility Place has found a source of what they believe is pure american chestnut that somehow survived on a secluded farmers property.

The trouble with this plant is that it might die at any moment. But for $26 it was absolutely worth it to try and bring this beautiful tree back to Illinois and support a variety of bug species that consider it a host.



5) Royal Catchfly

This little beauty I started from seed last year in my front yard nursery. A lot of those plants haven't sprouted but these are abundant! I have several friends to give some to and then several to keep for myself. The seeds came out of the local yard that I've been helping maintain. An easy way to get a couple dozen of an endangered species!



6) Bonus - Bateekh Samara Melon 

The one food species that I know is endangered. This melon comes from Iraq and I was very excited to be able to grow it. Upon further thought I've been torn because this smacks of colonialism. It's "so cool" that I get to grow an endangered melon from Iraq. But why do I get to do that? How does it help Iraqi farmers who might be trying to save the species? It probably doesn't. The best I can say is that it's introducing me and my family to new foods and giving us more reasons to respect the earth that communities everywhere are trying to protect.



In the end I think I'm asking the right sorts of questions but not always making the best decisions. Part of that's excitement and part is an ever-growing set of knowledge about what I'm doing here. My promise is to keep learning and making better decisions about how to steward the little piece of land I call home.

Saturday, May 9, 2015

2015 Updated Yard Plant List

The 2015 growing season is in full swing! There's been a lot of changes in the yard and I wanted to have an updated plant list. I'll work on a map later this season, but here's the new list!


Prairie Plants = 52
  • Big Bluestem 
  • Little Bluestem 
  • Indian Grass 
  • Fox Sedge 
  • Wild White Indigo 
  • Indigo Bush 
  • Black-eyed Susan 
  • Brown-eyed Susan 
  • Purple Blazing Star 
  • Prairie Coreopsis 
  • Hairy Mountain Mint 
  • Cardinal Flower 
  • Purple Monarda 
  • Prairie Dock 
  • Cup Plant 
  • Four types of aster (new england, aromatic) 
  • Pale purple coneflower 
  • Rattlesnake Master 
  • Stiff Goldenrod 
  • Germander 
  • Golden Alexander 
  • Butterfly Weed 
  • Sullivant's Milkweed 
  • Partridge Pea 
  • Hoary Vervain 
  • Missouri Ironweed 
  • Silvermound 
  • Spiderwort 
  • Whorled Milkweed 
  • Purple Milkweed 
  • Eastern Prickly Pear Cactus 
  • Common Milkweed 
  • Swamp Milkweed 
  • Early Goldenrod 
  • Prairie Blazing Star 
  • Nodding Wild Onion 
  • Purple Joe Pye-Weed 
  • Prairie Cinquefoil 
  • False Aster - boltonia asteroides 
  • Bellflower 
  • Northern Sea Oats 
  • Swamp Candles 
  • Maximillian Sunflower 
  • Foxglove Beardtongue 
  • Side-oats Grama 
  • Groundnut 
  • Queen of the Prairie 
  • Kankakee Mallow
  • Gray-headed Coneflower

Shade Plants = 21
  • Wild Strawberry 
  • Wild Garlic 
  • Jack-in-the-Pulpit 
  • Prairie Trillium 
  • False Solomon's Seal 
  • True Solomon's Seal 
  • Wild Geranium 
  • Columbine 
  • May Apples 
  • Black Cohosh 
  • Virginia Bluebells 
  • Wild Ginger 
  • Bloodroot 
  • Poke Milkweed 
  • Dwarf Crested Iris 
  • Big-leaved Aster 
  • Jacob's Ladder 
  • Bellwort 
  • Shooting Star 
  • Celandine Poppy 
  • Wild Blue Phlox 

Ferns = 3
  • Maidenhair Fern 
  • Ostrich Fern 
  • Cinnamon Fern

Shrubs/Trees = 11
  • Winterberry 
  • Ninebark 
  • Juniper 
  • Illinois Prairie Rose (Rosa setigera) 
  • Sandbar Willow 
  • Bladdernut 
  • Shrubby St. John's Wort 
  • Smooth-leaved Hydrangea 
  • American Hazelnut 
  • Prairie Crabapple 
  • American Chestnut tree 

Total Successful Native Plant Species = 87

There's an additional 14 species that are being worked on by seed, and I think a few of each type of plant will work.

Total Potential Native Plant Species = 100

And then the food plants! These are a lot more "in progress" than the natives, as some might not make it to maturity.

Perennial Food Plants Growing = 6

  • Apple trees 
  • Peach tree 
  • Blackberry bushes 
  • Asparagus 
  • Strawberries
  • Stanley Plums 
Annual Food Plants Growing = 35
  • Sweet Onions 
  • Shallots 
  • 5 types of Garlic 
  • Yukon Gold Potatoes 
  • Arugula 
  • Spinach 
  • Boston Lettuce 
  • Kale 
  • 3 types of carrots 
  • Zucchini 
  • Yellow Scallop Squash 
  • Pie Pumpkins 
  • Big halloween pumpkins 
  • 3 types of tomatoes 
  • 3 types of peppers 
  • Sugar Snap Peas 
  • 5 types of melons 
  • 2 types of beans 
  • Sugar beets 
  • Pickling cucumbers 

Herbs Growing = 7
  • Peppermint 
  • Sage 
  • Thyme 
  • Oregano 
  • Lemon Verbena 
  • Cilantro 
  • Fennel

Total types of food being grown = 48

Totals altogether -

Successful natives + food plants = 135
Total plant species in progress = 131

Sunday, December 7, 2014

The Native Seeds

Several weeks ago I promised a list of the seeds that I have planted in the yard to overwinter. Here it finally is!

This is the front bed with the bags of soil. 22 species total, with a little variety in heights, blooming time, and sun requirements.


There are a few that I'm really excited about.


Poke Milkweed is a shade milkweed. It's a little bigger and less showy than the other milkweeds, but still good for nectar production and feeding caterpillars. I'm going to enjoy it because of how much shade I have in the yard. 


Doll's Eyes. They're weird. That's all the reason I need. 


Prairie Smoke, which I think is beautiful. It should add a nice splash of pink to the yard.


Similarly, Queen of the Prairie. I got these seeds from my friend Savannah, and I trust that they're locally sourced seed.


This is an unusual one - Late Figwort. It's not very showy, but apparently has an amazing nectar production late in the season to help migrating critters. It also tolerates part shade, which I'm always in need of. 

I also threw several species into pots in the backyard, since I was out of room in the "beds" we'd created. These will require some more intensive managing as I'll probably have to re-pot them early in the season.

Gray Headed Coneflower
Germander
Prairie Dock
Goldenrod (probably early)
Milkweed from neighbor’s yard (shady – poke?)
Prairie Dropseed
Lead Plant
Ironweed
River Oats
Culver’s Root
Goldenrod (probably late)
Mountain Mint
Vervain

Coneflower (probably pale purple)

I may also offer up some services creating rain gardens for folks, if there's interest. I'm guessing around $100 for planting 20 plants (4-5 species) at a site of your choosing, plus 2 rounds of weeding over the summer. There are also some things I expect to give away for free no matter what - like the Common Milkweed - and then possibly hold a mini-plant sale/garage sale in the early summer. If you want any of these, let me know! 

Monday, November 10, 2014

Nursing Native Plants

This year I dedicated myself to collecting native plant seeds wherever I could find them. By the end of the summer I had permission to gather seed on four yards in my neighborhood, not to mention my own collection at home. I carefully dried, packaged, and labeled them, giving second life to a lot of milk storage bags that no longer had a use. I had about 50 species collected or purchased from Prairie Moon Nursery, which was lovely, but I still didn't have a plan for how to actually grow all of them.

I owe a lot to this inspiring article from Houzz, about being your own wildflower nursery. The basics were that you should fill a lot of pots with soil and leave the seeds in them over the winter. Easy. Most native plants need that period of cold to germinate; some are more complicated and need a period of hot followed by a period of cold, or even need exposure to fire in order to sprout. I'm hopeful that most of what I collected is the simple "period of cold" type of plant.

I didn't want to just have a lot of pots around (though admittedly I have a lot of garden pots), and so I set about trying to transform the wasted space of the easement in front of my house. The city of Champaign had confirmed for me that I couldn't really plant a prairie there due to height limits in plantings, which led me to thinking that if I just started plants there I could put the space to use. I also invested in several shorter species (dwarf blazing star, new jersey tea) that I hope will be anchors for a real planting in the front.

Several months ago I noticed a big pile of unused wood next to my garage that was leftover from the previous owners. Wood being expensive I decided that we would use this to build the frames of our plant nursery. It didn't matter much if the wood had been treated as we weren't growing food plants, and if it fell apart in a few years I wouldn't be heartbroken because we hadn't spent any money on it. Since it was basically a series of squares it wasn't hard to put together in a few afternoons (mostly done by the husband, as I tended the baby).


The end results is an entirely passable raised bed for native plant seeds. Filling it in with enough dirt was my major concern, but as I bought more bags I realized they fit perfectly in the squares we'd established.


Each bag contains a different species and is labeled with these fantastic metal, imprintable tabs with the name of the plant engraved in it (you do this yourself with a pen or pencil). In the spring, I'll cut away the plastic and let the seeds do their thing.


This method served multiple purposes - it will kill the grass below, contain the seeds over the winter, and provides somewhere for the labels to be affixed. Theoretically perfect for now, though we'll see if there are any complications in the spring. Now I just need to cover the whole thing in straw and let it sit!


I do also have multiple pots of seeds started, as the raised bed currently only holds 22 species. Here's another 8 that I got into pots yesterday afternoon. I have probably another 25 I should do the same with. Awesome!

Species list coming this afternoon when I have time!

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Fall and Winter Planning

Perrennial foods
- New apple tree - DONE
- trimming blackberries
- paw paw/persimmon trees?
- Hazelnut bushes - requested for Christmas

Annual Foods/Raised Beds
- Soil prep
- Winter greens
- Garlic planted - DONE
- Potatoes from harvest
- Strawberries

Native plants
- Gift card from Prairie Moon - DONE
- easement plans - DONE
- moooore milkweed - DONE

General Progress
- getting rid of mulberry trees in back
- Landscaping fabric for paths and patios - DONE
- BRING IN THE GOLDFISH - DONE

Seed Saving
- Veggies - DONE
- Natives - DONE

Homefront
- Painting - dining room, bathroom, kitchen DONE
- New light fixtures - bathroom and front of house
- New/updated furniture - couch, china cabinet

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Making Lists

Gardening season is well under way, and I've already had an amazing year in the yard. Not being pregnant has done wonders for our ability to get things done. Surprising, I know.


The baby and St. Bernard in the yard

We've moved so fast and expanded so many things that I wanted to take a moment and catalog everything we've got in the yard right now, at the end of May 2014. I have a lot of variables to thank for this, including the Grand Prairie Friends native plant sale at the beginning of the month and multiple generous colleagues who are also passionate about native plant gardening. I only hope that in the next year or two I can repay their kindness by trading back some species they don't have yet.

Here's the list as I remember it right now:

Prairie Plants = 46

  • Big Bluestem
  • Little Bluestem
  • Indian Grass
  • (Fox?) Sedge
  • Wild White Indigo
  • Indigo Bush
  • Black-eyed Susan
  • Brown-eyed Susan
  • Purple Blazing Star
  • Prairie Coreopsis
  • Hairy Mountain Mint
  • Prairie Clover
  • Cardinal Flower
  • Purple Monarda
  • Prairie Dock
  • Compass Plant
  • Cup Plant
  • Four types of aster (new england, aromatic)
  • Pale purple coneflower
  • Rattlesnake Master
  • Stiff Goldenrod
  • Germander
  • Golden Alexander
  • Butterfly Weed
  • Sullivant's Milkweed
  • Partridge Pea
  • Vervain
  • Missouri Ironweed
  • Silvermound
  • Spiderwort
  • Purple Joe Pye-Weed
  • Whorled Milkweed
  • Purple Milkweed
  • Eastern Prickly Pear Cactus
  • Common Milkweed
  • Swamp Milkweed
  • Early Goldenrod
  • Prairie Blazing Star
  • Nodding Wild Onion
  • Purple Joe Pye-Weed
  • Prairie Cinquefoil
  • False Aster - boltonia asteroides
  • Bellflower 
  • Northern Sea Oats
  • Swamp Candles
  • Maximillian Sunflower

Shade Plants = 17

  • Wild Strawberry
  • Wild Garlic
  • Jack-in-the-Pulpit
  • Prairie Trillium
  • False Solomon's Seal
  • True Solomon's Seal
  • Wild Geranium
  • Columbine
  • May Apples
  • Black Cohosh
  • Virginia Bluebells
  • Wild Ginger
  • Bloodroot
  • Poke Milkweed
  • Something purple...I can't remember the name
  • Dwarf Crested Iris
  • Big-leaved Aster
The front of the house, with the Winterberry and Juniper shrubs


Ferns = 2
  • Maidenhair Fern
  • Ostrich Fern


Shrubs/Big Plants = 7

  • Winterberry
  • Ninebark
  • Juniper
  • Illinois Prairie Rose (Rosa setigera)
  • Sandbar Willow
  • Bladdernut
  • Shrubby St. John's Wort


Total Successful Native Plant Species = 72


In Progress (meaning I expect them next year, from having distributed seeds or am currently germinating) = 5
  • Spring Beauty
  • Dutchman's Breeches
  • New Jersey Tea (babying one plant this season)
  • Sweet Joe Pye-Weed
  • Wild Golden Glow
  • An additional 20 overwintering as seeds

Total Potential Native Plant Species = 97

Holy cow, you guys. At the end of last year the number of species was 28. It's still only the start of the growing season and we've already doubled the number in the yard. I would be shocked if my self-control lasted long enough for me to not invest in any additional species this year. I have some plans for paw paw and oak trees, as well as shrubby St. John's wort and spicebush. I want to work on some larger plants in the back weedy corner of the yard to help get that cleaned up. 

It's probably wise to touch on the food producing plants too, as we've been having a similarly great year there. 

Perennial Food Plants Growing = 6
  • Apple trees 
  • Peach tree (no fruit this year after the nasty freezes)
  • Blackberry bushes
  • Asparagus 
  • Strawberries (in their first year, fruit next year!)
  • Stanley Plums
The long bed, with at least 10 species in it
Annual Food Plants Growing = 16
  • Sweet Onions
  • Garlic
  • Yukon Gold Potatoes
  • Arugula
  • Spinach
  • Boston Lettuce
  • Kale
  • Baby carrots
  • Zucchini
  • Pie Pumpkins
  • Butternut Squash
  • Cherokee Purple Tomatoes
  • Beefsteak Tomatoes
  • 2 types of peppers
  • Sugar Snap Peas

Herbs Growing = 8
  • Peppermint
  • Sage
  • Thyme
  • Oregano
  • Basil 
  • Two types of lavender
  • Lemon Verbena
Total types of food being grown = 30

We've already harvested about a pound of the greens, which were delicious. I expect we'll soon have the garlic harvested. The surprising thing is that the tomatoes are failing to thrive, when they were the stars of the yard last year. We'll see if they're just starting slowly or if I need to give in and buy plants from a store instead of starting my own from seed this year. 

Hoping all of you are doing well in your gardening and growing!

Total plant species in progress = 127

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

A 2013 Yard Retrospective

Well, hello there readers! It's been over a year since I updated this, for good reason as you know. So we'll start out with an obligatory picture of the nursery, for record-keeping's sake. It matches the domesticated theme, after all.

The Sanctuary of Evie B.
The reason I wanted to post, though, was to reflect on the progress we made in the yard during 2013. When I left you in December 2012, this was the way the yard looked.

The yard as of December 2012
We had our fruit trees and blackberry bushes in place, the first bit of the prairie patch, a random juniper bush by the garage, and still a whole lot of crap throughout. We also tried to seed the alleyway in prairie seeds, an effort that unfortunately led to nothing due to the awful weed problem back there. Really, weeds and vines still had a strong presence throughout this year and made our work harder. Still, I was surprised to see just how different my little yard looked when I made up the 2013 year-end version.
The yard as of December 2013
Pretty fabulous progress! The brown lines were paths we laid down and mulched, and all the color is new plants. Remember that I do my best to only plant things native to Central Illinois or for food production. Here's what we accomplished, in exceptionally wordy paragraphs, from the front of the house to the back.

The winterberries and junipers at the front of the house
The most obvious difference was what we managed along the front. The pink dots are a native species of wild climbing rose (Rosa setigera, the Illinois Rose), which I've been slowly twining into the fence. They should produce fragrant pink flowers in the summer. The red dots are winterberry shrubs, which are in the holly family, and the two green dots are miniature juniper bushes. The more purplish one off to the left is a ninebark, which should have some lovely white flowers and then contrasting purple leaves. Heading back further into the yard are two tiny maidenhair ferns that I picked up late in the season. They're supposed to be excellent shade plants, and love water; I've placed them where they can hopefully soak up some of the run-off from the gutters and the sump-pump. Lastly, the orange-y block is a patch of prairie plants that I think did a good job of rooting and should round out the perennials in the front. The patch includes little bluestem grass, black-eyed susans, coreopsis, mountain mint, and a light purple ground aster.

We're also planning to put up a Little Free Library in the space, once Nick finishes its construction.

The prairie patch at the front of the house
Along the left side of the house, between two trees that were already established when we got here (non-native mullberry and maple trees), we're trying a few new shade species. We very informally set down bricks and filled that with dirt. With any luck we'll be enjoying native wild strawberries, wild garlic, and geraniums. Due to a very generous co-worker, I also have geraniums and solomon's seal on the opposite side, along the deck. With all of these, the thought is that they'll spread naturally and fill in the spaces, and that I can dig up and redistribute some of them as they grow. 

The prairie patch in June 2013
The prairie patch was my pride and joy going into the season until the Great Woodchuck Infestation got in the way. The little jerks ate pretty much all of my flowers, and I'm not very confident about what will grow back next year. Here's what we've planted so far though (that I can remember right now): big bluestem grass, little bluestem grass, indian grass, mountain mint, prairie clover, black-eyed susans, coreopsis, two types of aster, pale purple coneflower, purple blazing star, rattlesnake master, cup plant, compass plant, goldenrod, and two sort-of yarrows that I don't know the name of. 

I've got a few plants on the backburner, too. Virginia bluebell seeds are cooling in the refrigerator for another month, and there are seeds for cardinal flowers and milkweed out on the deck for the winter. We'll see if they sprout at the right times and can be transplanted this spring. 

The prairie patch in September 2013 (with an indecent amount of crabgrass)
Along the garage I tried to plant an herb garden. This was probably the biggest failure of the season. I was completely wrong about when to harvest things and ended up leaving them in place too long. The weeds (mostly crabgrass) were also overwhelming, and by the time I was 5-6 months pregnant I just couldn't keep up. Add in that there wasn't enough sun and the easy conclusion is I won't be trying to plant herbs there again. I'll probably be doing mostly container gardening for the herbs. 

The weedy area behind the garage during the April 2013 blizzard, after Nick took down 85% of the plum trees
The gray area is where we continue to battle an extensive weed problem. It was like this when we bought the house, with the addition of many dead plum trees. Nick was able to take most of the plums out by himself, and we've gotten some patches to open ground using weed-killers. This winter I'm trying to drown out more of it with cardboard boxes and piles of leaves. They'll have to stay in place through next season to try to stamp out the roots, in the hopes that we'll be able to grow something for real in 2015. 

The last few plum trees coming down in July 2013
The food production area was really pretty stunning this year. The fruit trees produced beautifully for their first season and nothing made us happier than to eat a few apples and peaches that we'd grown ourselves. The blackberries grew like (good) weeds, and I think they'll produce a lot next year (this years canes produce next years fruit). We also added two formal vegetable beds made from cedar wood, and 6-7 containers full of vegetables as well. The woodchucks did a fair amount of damage in this area, eating all of my beans, peas, zucchini, broccoli, kale, and carrots. I had a gorgeous pea crop that was just right for picking, but unfortunately the woodchucks agreed and were faster than I was. I think I'm going to need to do more vertical gardening if they remain a problem, and put things out of their reach. 

For 2014 I already have garlic planted, and we'll see how it does. I bought several large bulbs from our local farmers market and divided them up. I failed to grow garlic last year by starting them too late, so I'm hoping it works better this year. 

The two peaches we got to eat - delicious!
The monstrous tomato plants
I weighed almost every piece of produce that we brought into the house. We didn't manage to eat all of this before it spoiled, but we froze the vast majority of the tomatoes at least. I'm only counting produce that was technically edible here; we grew a ton of "sweet" corn that ended up being disgusting so I won't count them.
  • Peaches: 1 pound
  • Plums: 2 pounds
  • Apples: 4 pounds
  • Roma Tomatoes: 1.5 pounds
  • Heirloom Tomatoes: 38.25 pounds
  • Green peppers: 1.5 pounds
  • Total pounds of food: 48.25
The tomatoes were the obvious success story of the summer. I froze 10 bags of processed tomatoes in preparation for the winter that I can just pull out at any time for making pasta or chili. The fruit trees were a pleasant surprise, since we didn't expect to get any sort of harvest out of them this year. This was likely the result of it being an amazing growing season in Champaign County, especially for fruit.

Here are the yard totals for 2013:
  • Native plants species: 28
  • Permanent food production plant species: 3 (apple, peach, and blackberry)
  • Annual food species grown successfully: 3 (roma and heirloom tomatoes, green peppers), plus several herbs harvested during the growing season
My goals for 2014 are to maintain what I've already got and nurture the new shade plants and shrubs. I also want to majorly expand food production with some squash, melons and beans, and growing more tomatoes since they did so well. A lot of this is unfortunately dependent on a lack of woodchucks and I'm pretty confident we have one hibernating under our deck. I might have to give in and get them relocated if they reappear next year.

I'd also really like to put more art out in the yard, but that's always the last priority at the moment. We need to fix our rain barrel, plant a male winterberry bush, and find out if we need to replace the sick apple tree (and decide if we'd rather have cherries or pears instead). Mostly, I intend to spend a lot of time in the garden with my little girl. She'll be 6 months at the start of the growing season - a perfect time to be digging in the dirt and enjoying some sun!

Lots of things to look forward to in 2014!