The Three Sisters Minus the Beans

We had a good workday on Saturday. Jan P. was there helping to thin out the radishes, which have beautifully and wonderfully appeared encircling our eggplants, which I think are doing much better minus most of the flea beetles. Cindy stopped in and helped plant lots of Yellow Onions, Nantes Carrots, and Detroit Red Beets and then companion planted them with yummy Garlic Chives. George came by and got started planting the Summer & Winter Squash Patch, after he helped us make sense of how to plant Onions and strongly encouraged us not to plant Pumpkins, which would be growing into 15th Street by harvest time! Lori was there planting Melons and more melons in these tidy little mounds. I started the Corn, finally, and got through one, short row before tuckering out completely. I met Becky & Carla who are so excited to be a part of our Companion Garden. Becky had some great ideas for a Sunflower Teepee that she learned from her Uncle. We also had a friendly visit from a neighbor who gave us a few of his heirloom tomato seedlings and said that he was so excited to hear that Niles was starting Community Gardens. He may join us next year.

Onions, Potatoes & Beans, Oh My!

Between Nancy, Lily, Jan P. & Jan J., the Onion & Lettuce Beds are prepared and the Spanish Red Onions are snuggled two inches in the soil!

Meanwhile, over in the Potato & Bean Bed, Lori put in two rows of Lima Beans, a row of Bush Beans, and finished the companion flower & herb planting around the patch!

It was a beautiful evening and many hands do indeed make light work.


A big thanks to Mark T. for continuing his work on the paths and for hauling away another bucket of trash that was hiding underneath the surface!

Keep digging. You never know what you'll find.

Our First Visitor: The Jumping Flea Beetle

Nancy Clough, our Companion Garden's Master Gardener, created a little elixir for our First Bug, who would eat little holes in all of our Eggplants and possibly Tomatoes unless he had a little bit of a real strong drink. Using Jerry Baker's Yard & Garden Mix Solution recipe as a base, here's the solution that is made into a spray for the "flea beetles" or any leaf-eating bug.

leaf eating elixir

here's what you'll need:

2 separate containers larger than 1 quart

large sieve

coffee filter

1 hand-held sprayer bottle

6 cloves of garlic

1 small onion

1 tsp ground hot pepper or cayenne pepper

1 quart of warm water

3 drops of baby shampoo




here's what you'll do:

1. Machine chop garlic and one small onion
2. Scrape the chopped onion and garlic into one container
3. Add ground hot pepper or ground cayenne into the remaining container
4. Add warm water to the pepper & stir

Let both of these mixtures set separately overnight. The next day, strain (use a coffee filter inside a large sieve) the garlic and onion mixture to separate the solids from the liquid.  Pour the liquid into the pepper and water mixture. Add 3 drops of baby shampoo to the liquid. Pour this liquid into a hand-held spray, shake, and go get those little fleas.

some more thoughts: 

Use this spray early in the morning before the sun hit the plants or later in the evening so as not to burn the plants leaves. Wait a few days to see if any flea beetles are left before applying the mixture again.

Flea beetles do not like a wet or damp environment. You can overhead water or use row covers to discourage them, but you will have to repeat the overhead watering as soon as it drys out again. 

You can use this recipe for all kinds of leaf-eating bugs! After the bottle sprayer is empty, rinse 3 times before using it for other solutions.

Paths, Peppers & Potatoes

We got grass! Lots and lots of grass! You should see the paths that are being put down in the garden -- they are beautiful. Last night, I drove by the garden and saw Mark, Lily, & Jan J. working like little bees buzzing up and down the paths carrying mulch and grass clippings to lay down on the garden paths. These chemical-free grass clippings not only make for nice paths, but also feed the ground with nitrogen and minimize the risk of weeds!

While Lily & Mark carried on working on the paths, Jan J., Jan P. & I finished out the Pepper bed, watered the Tomatoes, Potatoes, & Raspberries.  Jan P. cut out the bottoms of cups to make little safe houses for our Peppers so they don't get eaten up by hungry cutworms. Thanks Jan J. & Jan P.! See you at the Garden!

Zoe & Momma with Shovel

Bless her heart. Do you see how pink Zoe's cheeks are? Can you see that she is standing on the shovel and not on the ground? She saw Mrs. Razzano and I digging trenches for the potatoes, and she wanted to use her feet on her shovel (the one indiscriminately tossed to the side) to dig into the ground like the older girls. Well, digging trenches with a trowel didn't work very well, so I let her have a go at using her feet on the "big girl" shovel. She did great. Potatoes and beans for everyone!! (Well, at least potatoes. We haven't got the beans planted yet, but I am hopeful!) Pray for rain.

P.S. A big thanks to Frank for continuing to till the rest of our beds!

Eggs & Coffee, Anyone?

Crushed egg shells add valuable nutrients to soil.Calcium is essential for cell growth in all plants. Calcium is especially important for fast growing plants because they quickly deplete the surrounding soil of calcium. Egg shells should be washed before you place them in a compost or into your garden.

Make sure you crush the egg shells before you add them to your garden. Egg shells that are not crushed will break down very slowly.

Ways you can use egg shells grounds in your garden:
Instead of throwing eggs shells away, put them in the bottom of plant pots instead of stones. Egg shells are much lighter than stones and they are a great source of of nutrition.

Place egg shells in a circle on top of the ground surface around tender plant stems such as peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage to deter slugs and cutworms.

Place egg shells in the soil near tomatoes. Calcium is very useful to tomatoes because the extra calcium will help prevent blossom end rot.


Can egg shells be used along with coffee grounds?

Yes. Egg shells provide calcium to your garden while coffee grounds provide a high content of nitrogen to your garden. Calcium and nitrogen supplements (egg shells and coffee grounds) will help keep your garden soil and plants healthy.

Rock Star Razanno

Um, can you say, "Rock Star?" Lori, Mike and I went to the garden this morning. Did you hear that it reached a high of 88 degrees? We finished the companion planting for the Pepper bed, fought with a big sprinkler (we won), dug a couple potato trenches, watered the Raspberries, and Lori roto-tilled the Potato and Bean Patch...and the two Lettuce Patches ... and one of Mike's Plots! What a Rock Star!

We had a good, long, hard & hot day, as did Mike who planted his personal plot with many tomatoes for his many grandkids!

See you at the Garden.

After The Rain

One of the most delicious times to garden is after a good, long rain. This morning, Bruce, Jay, Zoe, Audrey and I headed over to the garden to finish up planting the herbs and flowers for the Tomato Family. We put in basil, chives, german chamomile, & marigolds to help attract the good bugs and distract the not so good bugs. 

Thanks to Bruce for trimming a tree that was in terrible need of grooming. Jay mowed the lawn, & Zoe helped water some new flowers that were donated by Trixwood Nursery out of Berrien Springs. Thanks Audrey & John for coordinating this donation!

Lily with Robin Egg

I love this. 

Lily was in the garden last night helping make plant tags and raking up clump after clump of sod. She walks up to me and says, "Look." I stopped planting teeny tiny radish seeds and took a look. 

I love robin egg blue, especially when it exactly matches the color of Lily's shirt.

More than robin egg blue, however, I love hearing the voice of a child saying, "Look."

Keep growing.  

The First Plant(ing)

What a beautiful day we had for planting the first of many plants. There was a cool breeze, warm sun, friendly faces, and helpful hands all around. The tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, parsley and the first row of raspberries are officially and lovingly planted. Most of the tomato cages are up and the final tilling is happening a little each day. We may have been a little short over there and a little long over here, but we got there in the end.

Audrey & Merrill clean the place up!

Frank keeping the soil loose and fluffy.

Nancy & Mike preparing the string that will help keep it all straight!

Mark measuring the distance into the plot.

Audrey & Jan learning the tomato planting process from our fearless leader, Mark V.!

Our first plant in the ground!

Audrey & Lori planting more tomatoes!

The Evening Crew begins to plant the peppers! 

Jan P., Zoe, Kelsey, Tanner, Madison, Julie, Tim, Lily, Mark T. & Jan J.

begin to plant the peppers!

Look at those pepper plants!

George's beautiful raspberries!

Madison, Tanner, Kelsey & Lily rocked hard hauling clods of grass to the compost!

In the Beginning

Well, we're going to garden this year, big time, and I am so excited! I am helping to start three new Safe Earth Community Gardens this year in Niles, and Williams Lumber & Hardware are sponsoring one named: Williams Companion Garden at 15th & Main. In our case, Companion means two things. One, Companion Planting is where you plant things together that help attract the good bugs and keep away the not-so-good bugs, so our part of the earth stays a little safer from harmful sprays.

Second, Companion Planting also involves strangers growing into Companions as they plant and work alongside each other toward a common end, so our part of the earth stays a little safer from harmful relating. I like that word Companion. Encouraging and accepting differences for the sake of the larger good, both with plants and people.

Zoe is so excited about this gardening project that every time we drive by our 100 x 100 plot -- she says, "There's our garden. We are going to grow vegabuls." And, each time we drive by, there is another development that we've been a part of together: the staking out of the garden's corners, the tilling, the composting, the green manuring, and even the digging for a water spigot (isn't that a fun spelling?!) by the wonderful Niles Utility Workers. Each time we drive past the garden, Zoe updates me...."Look, Momma, the garden is all dug up... Look, Momma, there's the poop...Look, Momma, we have a water pigot now!"

It's all very exciting to be a part of something much bigger than what we could do by ourselves. We are meeting all kinds of new people, talking seeds and plants with Master Gardeners, and looking so forward to planting food to eat for ourselves and to share with the hungry. Watch this space. Watch how things are going to move from the earth to our table, slowly but surely. Watch how so many different people, from so many different backgrounds come together to stand behind a common goal: to help grow our own safe earth food and to share it with others.