I should've suspected something like this existed but the thought never really crossed my mind. Apparently Veganic Farming (or Gardening) is on the rise.

What is Veganic Gardening? Its basically the organic gardening method minus any animal fertilizers or byproducts.

Its not surprising with the relatively recent salmonella outbreaks that this farming method is catching some buzz.

A few resources:

• a more detailed explanation
• an organization that certifies Veganic Farms
• you can even get the book

As for my two cents, I'm not sure I'll be jumping into Veganic Gardening anytime soon. I'm not opposed to the idea, just haven't thought much about it yet.

With regards to minimizing the spread of disease, for me its more about growing/eating locally and using local resources. Disease is a lot less likely to be widespread if a contaminated crop is only consumed by people within a certain vicinity of the farm as opposed to being shipped all over the entire country.

I also think using local animal byproducts is another step toward the prevention of widespread disease. For instance, I use my rabbits manure as a fertilizer. Unlike the cow manure I get at Lowes, I know where her manure has been, I know what she ate to make that manure and I'm always aware of her health (so I know the manure is not from an unhealthy animal).

Although, I'm interested to hear if anyone else here is practicing Veganic methods and/or what your thoughts on them are.

And I actually mean plants not people. This year I've had an unusually high number of volunteer plants. I've been embracing most of the non-weed ones. To me it only makes sense to let these volunteer veggies and herbs have a chance. If they are able to seed and grow with little attention from me then the must have some sort of resilience that the pampered grown in a nursery plant sometimes lack.

My couple of exceptions to letting them live include:

1. Super invasive plants like mint
2. Volunteers that may take away from the existing plant (ie, tomatoes are heavy feeders and may steal nutrients the other plant could use)
3. An attempt to keep the area they choose "neat" and uncluttered

There may be more but thats all I could think of for now.

After a little bit of googling, I discovered people are really divided on letting them live. Some people love volunteer plants:

"I love to discover volunteers sprouting in the garden because it’s like a surprise gift of healthy plants"

while others would prefer that they weren't so prolific.

Here are a few of mine:

Maybe this is a volunteer watermelon? Anyone have any ideas? Aaron says the plant is not "viney" enough to be a watermelon.

The leaves look like they might have a little bit of powdery mildew , so I'm looking forward to giving Claire's recipe for this a try.

This is a volunteer tomato plant growing near the mailbox garden. Cherry tomatoes possibly?

More tomatoes growing at the base of our front steps. I have no idea how these are growing there. The ground is as hard as a rock and they are growing up through a crack.

These are the volunteer tomatoes that are next to my bleeding heart. And right next to my Solomon's Seal. I've been really conflicted about keeping this tomato plant. I feel like it might be too much for the Solomon's seal but it looks so healthy I can't bring myself to get rid of it.

I also have another plant - not picture here - that looks like some sort of squash plant. Although its flowered and flowered but shown no signs of fruit. I'm eager to know what it is.

We've also had a variety of smaller volunteers scattered through the yard including: tansy, yarrow, poppies and an herb Aaron grew last year that I have yet to ID.

I am interested to hear who else here likes to hang on to their volunteers and if you've had good luck with them.

Well, flea season is here again. This year I've decided to take a more proactive approach. Some of the methods I'm applying fall in line with my general belief that "everything you need is right here on earth." Since that statement can be easily misinterpreted I guess what I really mean is that you can really grow (or finding growing) all the things you need for remedying life's problems.

For instance, rosemary hydrosol is the best hair conditioner I've ever had, hyssop tea has cleared up my sinuses like no other medicine, and valerian has helped my husband get the rest he needs.

It really is amazing that life's "solutions" don't have to come prepackaged at your local pharmacy.

Anywho, I've been hunting through all of my natural cleaning and pet care books for flea solutions. Tonight I made Shiloh a flea repellent herbal pillow. To make this I threw a variety of dry herbs into a bowl, broke them up with my hands and then stuffed it all into a folded over cloth that had been sewn together on three edges.

The herbs I used included rue, sage, lavender, rosemary and mint. These herbs were part of the suggested herbs for repelling fleas list found on page 240 of Better Basics for the Home.

I've also been applying a cornstarch + rosemary + mint powder to the cats and dog. I got this recipe out of the same book. I've also been doing the typical wash bedding on hot and vacuum often, but I thought it would be to share how plants can help reduce flea problems.

Oh and I almost forgot, tansy is a great flea repellent and I happen to be growing a lot of it.

I've yet to try it out on shiloh but I'm guessing its good! Hopefully its doing some good in the yard. Deterring fleas from your yard helps a lot too.

As part of this past weekend's Ashevillage Building Convergance  I went on the  Urban Plant Walk in  Asheville's very own Edible Garden.

One of the neatest things about  being in Asheville is that even though I've been here for many years, there are still so many things that I have yet to discover. All in all the garden tour was great and I'm going to attempt share as much as I remember here. Actually I'll probably end up covering the walk over several Journal Entries.

One of the first plants we looked at was Comfrey. I actually didn't picture this plant because I am already familiar with it, but it was interesting to learn that comfrey is commonly used in compost teas. I've heard of compost teas before but have never tried to make my own. We've primarily used comfrey in salves for treating  skin conditions/irritations.

Another plant we saw early in the walk was Violet (only the leaves).

Sorry about the less than optimal image quality. While looking at this plant we primarily learned about its Demulcent properties, which basically means that it creates a soothing film. This makes it good for treating coughs. I believe you can eat this straight but it would most likely be made into something else....as coughs are probably more common when this is not growing.

With regards to eating any kind of healing plant, they are best consumed when they are young. Or sometimes you might only clip off and consume the newest growth. Its best to use/harvest most medicinal plants prior to flowering.

Right next to this Violet patch was a Yellow Dock plant:

Its kind of in the middle of many other plants, but looking at the picture above its the plant with a long stem that is arcing to the left.

Yellow Dock, commonly harvested for its root, has many "knees" or "nodes." Those are essentially little bumps along the stem. And as the name suggests, the root of this plant is yellow. In terms of properties this plant is astringent and has a bitter flavor. It may also have a sort of tart flavor. Its also in the same family as the sheep sorrel. And for anyone that has had sorrel, it can also be kind of tart.

Then mention of this family then lead to a conversation about the importance of learning scientific names. Learning scientific names allows you to more quickly learn what plants belong to what families. For instance, I had no idea Valerian and Sunflower were in the same family. It'd be interesting to learn what they have in common.

Our guide recommended the Newcomb's Wildflower Guide for identifying plants and their properties.

So thats only a snippet of yesterday's walk. I have lots more to tell but don't want to miss out on today's sunshine. More to come soon!

Since we've polished off the cherries. (There are currently no cherries left)

...and blueberry season has started.

...my mini orchard has gotten less attention. Aaron mentioned that my plum tree was growing funny one day and I didn't think much of it. I was so un-alarmed by his comment that it was a couple days before I actually looked at my tree.

Its main branches are drooping! When I first discovered this I just thought "well the fruits are too heavy for the branches and just making the branches a little droppy."

But today I thought I'd take a closer look. I lifted the branches again it really didn't feel like the fruit alone could be causing this. So I took a look at the base.

I had the camera vertical but I'm also standing on the hill so I don't know if the above picture portrays an accurate angle. With that aside the base of the tree is really at an angle!

So I'm guessing I should be staking the tree? It really seemed past the staking stage but I'm guessing letting it be at this angle could eventually be problematic.

Its also not looking the healthiest. Some fruit is coming in just fine and other looks more like this:

Not sure if its just deformed or getting eaten or what. All in all I think my plum tree needs some love! I may try to rescue it tomorrow. Maybe stake it, give it some compost, and treat it with a fungicide. Any other words of wisdom would be great.

Unfortunately right behind this tree is a patch of poison ivy. So working near that is going to make helping this tree a little more difficult.

Kind of on a tanget, but to add to the spring/summer of fruit we've be having, the blackberries have come in and will be ripening soon!

This patch is behind the plum tree and poison ivy. I really need to borrow a goat so I'll be able to pick blackberries without getting poison ivy.

Inspired by a recent tweet from our fellow twitterers at Vegan Bits, I thought I'd dig up a couple pictures from a past trip to Jamaica. They mentioned the fruit Cherimoya and got me thinking about how much amazingly nutritious food is found on this earth. Just observing health food trends, for the longest time Noni was all the rage, then Acai Berries became the must have fruit and in the past year Goji berries have taken the spotlight. Currently, I feel that goji berries may be fading but have yet to identify they next must eat healthy fruit.

Thinking about all these different "super fruits" makes me really curious about what else is out there. I dream of doing a fruit/veggie tour our the world.

In the mean time I can only reminisce about my adventure to Jamaica, where we import many of the fruits commonly found there.

I was pretty excited to see a mango tree for the first time. While we were down there mangoes were actually my breakfast of choice. I'd casually peel back some of the skin and eat the fruit right off the pit. It was messy but really good.

And every morning I got my bag full of fruit and vodka bottle of fresh squeezed OJ from the same place...Ms.Rose's fruit stand. It was always so good. And this stand was coincidentally diagonally  across the street from the little place we were staying at.

When were in Jamaica we stayed in Negril and had a great time, but I'm hoping to stay in the mountains on our next journey there.

The countryside is so lush, green, and probably full of plants you wouldn't find on the shore.

Oh and I didn't snap any shots but we did get some glimpses of some veggie gardens during our travels. And from what I saw they were much more causal than our typical garden. No fancy rock borders, no raised boxes, and really not too many raised beds. "Gardens" just seem to be veggie plants plopped into the ground in no particular pattern. It may not be fair to say all Jamaica gardens are like this, but it was interesting to see this really casual form of gardening and to see it working! They plants I saw looked healthy.

I feel like I've come across more first time gardeners this year than ever. While I'll gladly answer any questions thrown my way, I can only answer so many questions in the context of a brief conversation.

With that in mind a common question becomes what book can I use to get started. I actually gardened a few years without a book (or books). I just kind of winged it and occasionally looked up things on the internet.

When I became more interested in having a real veggie garden with decent size crops, I purchased John Jeavon's "How to Grow More Vegetables." I was actually turned on to this book by my friend Jules. She was following this method to a T and was having amazing results. As soon as I saw her garden, there was no doubt that this was the book I needed.

I must admit I was a little skeptical before purchasing this book. With it covering topics like gardening with the moon, I was afraid it was going to be kind of fluffy and not helpful. Although once I got the book in my hot little hands (I ordered it off of amazon) I was impressed. The information, garden plans, companion planting charts,  and statistical information on the growing conditions of different plants blew me away. It quickly became apparent that the author does have a very methodical and tested approach to gardening.

Completely inspired by this book, I bought one for my neighbors who were new to gardening. Although I'm not sure that it was the book for them. I never talked to them about it directly but I have a feeling his methods may be intimidating to the new gardener. Even though this book may be fairly technical, I still think its a must have. I encourage any new gardener picking up this book, not to expect to be a master biointensive gardener overnight but to apply his methods as you learn them.

To compliment this book I would also recommend getting something thats like an encyclopedia of plants. While John Jeavon's book is good for developing a gardening method, his plants charts don't always include all the plants I'm interested in growing. For a plant reference I would recommend the Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening or the Seed Starters Handbook.

Or if you happen to be browsing books in a bookstore, you might just start with whatever inspires you. Keeping up with a large garden requires a lot of time and work and any resource that drives your passion for gardening will do good for you and your garden. :)

And my final tid bit of advice to new gardeners. Don't be afraid to try. You'll be surprised at how often you can end up with a bountiful plant with little effort and no experience.

I was admiring my ripening cherries today...

..when it dawned on me that I should actually collect them instead of eating them straight off the tree in their ripe but tart state. Even though I previously dismissed them as too small to do anything with, I think I want to make something with them.

Since the amount I collected only fills a 4" clay saucer

I'm kind of limited in what I can make. I was thinking about throwing them into a smoothie but am afraid their flavor would get lost. I think they would be most enjoyable if I sweetened them somehow. Maybe there is enough to make them into a small batch of syrup? Or I guess I could toss them into a fruit salad or some yogurt. Actually I may have to eat them fondue style. The chocolate would sweeten them up and I wouldn't have to prep them by de-seeding and de-stemming. Well, I'm still open to other suggestions about what you can do with a handful of cherries. :)

So I harvested my garlic today! Which was exciting and not exciting. I love having homegrown garlic but it was still really to early to harvest my garlic. But considering most of the foliage had died off I had no choice.

Here's the bunch right out of the ground:

I then proceeded to pull off the outer dirty layer of each bulb.

While the above bulb is pretty and whole, that was not the case for over half of the garlic I pulled.

As you can see there is no nice outer skin and its more like a cluster of cloves than a bulb. Although fortunately I planted enough garlic that my "good harvest" wasn't too shabby.

I also attempted to braid the good garlic, but with this being a hardneck variety it didn't braid too easily. I may have to let them sit for a little bit before I'm able to get a nice braid.

I'm excited to have homegrown garlic again and can't wait to try some! With the bulbs being so freshly picked and peeled, my kitchen already smells strongly of garlic. yum!

For the past two days I've had flowers pop open overnight. The more dramatic of my new flowers are my poppies:

I love how unique and textured this flower is. I actually didn't intend to grow these this year. i planted some prior to creating my front veggie and flower garden. I thought I had cleared them out, but apparently some of them still managed to re-seed.

The other exciting discovery for this week are a couple of red cherries!

These are actually tart cherries so they are not just-picked-off-the-tree yummy. And they are unfortunately too small to bake with, but I'm still excited that my tree even produced cherries for it only being the second year we've had it.

Finally I spent a good portion of my morning collecting and arranging flowers for the restaurant. I think I liked the previous batch better. Having more pink and purple accent flowers really made the yellow pop. Even though I have more yarrow, I decided against adding them because they seem to fade quickly.