Fifteen Minutes of Fame

      Most often our "15 Minutes of Fame" opportunities are most unexpected.  I was about to leave the park three days ago with an armload of overgrown Pak Choi that was to be lunch for the chicken flock of a new gardening friend Laura.  At that moment, a stranger pulled up alongside the gardens and asked me to hold on a moment.  The guy got out of his car, and I saw that he had both an ID and a camera hanging from around his neck.  I recognized him as Fred Comegys, the very well known and respected photographer from the Wilmington News Journal.  We had a lengthy conversation, and I learned that he was retiring from the paper in two weeks, after a very full 53 year career!  He asked me if he could take some shots, to see if something would turn out for the daily special 360 Degree shot headlining the local section.  Who was I to refuse.  So on this third morning of anxiously checking the paper, voila, there it was.  Here is the link to DelawareOnline.  You need to scroll down over half the page to find the shot labeled Bellevue 360:

http://www.delawareonline.com/

      After a very nice conversation with Fred, I took the clump of greens home to await a visit from my two youngest grand daughters.  We took the greens over to Laura's garden, and visited with her flock of thirty chickens, her huge but very friendly Great Dane, and her millions of toad tadpoles in the goldfish pond.

A treat for the chickens

      This is one of the pak choi plants that have gone to seed.  The whole thing goes into the chicken coup, where it disappears in a short time of appreciative cluck clucks by the chickens.  And yes, they love chick weed, and even have added their name to that plant.  So rather than throwing away weeds and overgrown veggies, feed them to the birds.

Laura's happy flock

Back Yard Cold Frames

      Most of my pictures and stories about cold frames have been about the frames at Bellevue Park.  Most of the cold frame activity is there, because there is full sun to warm the frames.  My big pin oak near the back yard garden creates a lot of shade even after the leaves have fallen.  Yet it is convenient and fun to have something going in the back yard, so I still have these two frames.

Cold Frames, 11/7/11

Various lettuce plants

      This frame above is one of my first attempts at cold frames.  It was constructed with the salvaged cedar lumber from our old privacy fence.  I still have some pieces from the newer fence that will make another frame.  The three fine leafed plants in a row near the top are frisee, actually a mild flavored chicory that tastes and acts like a lettuce.  The frilly darker green lettuce at the bottom is Tango lettuce, a very delicious and cold hardy variety.  One plant survived on its own outside a cold frame last year.  So it is quite happy living the winter inside a frame.

Made from Trax lumber

      Pictured above is a new frame that my son-in-law Rob helped me build.  It is made from the recycled plastic stuff called Trax.  I thought it would be great because it would not rot.  Yet it is heavy, bends too easily, and screws pull out easily.  As I was putting it together in the driveway, I had it standing up.  But not for long, as it started bending and pulling out screws.  Had to take the ultra heavy thing apart, and move it piece by piece to the back yard.  I was going to put a slider door on top, but that would be too heavy and would probably pull out the screws.  So it is covered with three pieces of single pane glass.  I will pass on any future attempt on using Trax for cold frames.
      At the top of this frame is pak choi, as it can grow pretty tall.  There is a nice red lettuce, scavenged from the compost pile at the park.  On both sides of the red lettuce, are small heads to be of Winter Marvel Bibb lettuce.  They will be so pretty when they have formed.  At the bottom of the picture is tatsoi, a chinese green that forms a rosette that stays close to the ground.  In the bottom right corner is minutina, a very cold tolerant green.  I tortured the plants over the summer by never having taken them from the cell packs where I had started them from seed.  But they survived a summer of neglect, so I thought it only fair that they finally get a spot of their own in the good earth.