visit http://www.harmonygardens.blogspot.com, and make an effort to go and see Dr. Calvin Bey’s garden tours this weekend.  Even if you don’t garden or don’t have any desire to garden, you should see it anyway, it’s a work of art.

Meet David Perreault.

He is a neighbor of mine who lives up the hill in the Wedington Woods area.  This year he started a garden in his front yard after coming down a few times with his family and asking some questions.  David said that he has tried two years in a row to grow vegetables in his yard with no luck at all.  Being intrigued by the raised beds, he ordered his own dirt and with a little help of some ice storm debris, he constructed his own.  He also amended his soil with compost and added some mulch.  

David has installed a U-shaped bed and added some drainage ports at the lower sloped areas of the bed.  He started all of his plants from seed in his garage.  He mentioned that a lot of his transplants sat in the ground for a bit, doing nothing, until the heat set in here in Northwest Arkansas.  In this region we experienced rain for a month which caused everyone’s plants to suffer and delay their growth.  

In his family’s garden they are growing:

Snap peas           Cucumbers

Corn                     Watermelon

Pole beans          Pumpkins

Bush beans         Summer squash

Carrots                 Potatoes

Bell peppers        Jalapeno peppers

Broccoli               Tomatoes

Lettuce/Kale       Onions

Sunflowers

Bell peppers/Jalapeno peppers

Tomatoes

Yellow crook-neck squash

Watermelon

His girls picking snap peas

It looks easy doesn’t it?

Potatoes

Carrots

Onions

Broccoli

This is Henry their garden mascot.

Bush beans

This is Corinne, sorry if I misspelled your name.  She was very proud to show me the flowers her and her sister planted for their mom for Mother’s Day.

You see, you don’t need that much space to grow a fantastic garden full of fresh produce.  The best part is, it only has to travel a few feet to get from your garden to your plate!  Thank you David and family for setting an example for  us all.

I believe this to be an isolated incident, I don’t believe all were affected by this the other night, but in my neck of the woods, Hwy 16 west, we received 15 minutes of hail followed by a torrent of rain.  It didn’t make sense to me, because it was 90 degrees that day.  The rain and hail came at about a quarter of two in the morning.  I forget that things like hail develop thousands of feet up, where it’s colder, go figure.  It was an experience though.  The only hail I have ever experienced in my life has been small pea-sized hail, the kind you see and go “Oh, it’s hailing!”.  This hail was quite large and it was as if it were being shot out of a gun at the ground.  Paul ran outside when it let up a little and grabbed a few pieces of it and took a picture.  All I could think was “PLEASE don’t break a window!” wether it be car or house.  Ahhh the midwest and it’s whack weather phenomenon’s!

Our babies, not so much anymore, received their first taste of the outside the other day while I cleaned out their temporary living quarters.  Oliver was really excited because he was able to hold onto one of them.

This photo looks a little strange, that’s not te chicken’s eye, it’s a little mohawk it’s getting on top of its head.

A temporary home for them.  They loved being outside!  We are working on making a temporary home for them in the existing chicken yard, it’s in the works.

For a limited time only, you have the opportunity to purchase and enjoy fresh, local potatoes which only had to travel 9 miles to the natural food store, Ozark Natural Foods, in Fayetteville Arkansas.  There were about  a half a bushel a piece of red and white potatoes.  And my goodness are they delicious!

Greetings Gardeners<

Just a reminder.

1. Garden Tours at our place are at 9,10,11,1 and 2 on June 20. Open to all. No charge. Tours begin on the hour.

22. Next Gardening Classes are August 8 and August 15.

See harmonygardens.blogspot.com for details or email.

Feel free to pass this on to others.

Regards, Calvin Bey

 

Here’s your chance to see the master’s work.  You should totally do it.

An email Paul received from Calvin Bey, local gardening hero.

 

 

When I teach Organic Gardening classes I talk about the abuse of our land with pesticide and chemical (high salt) fertilizers, and why our produce today has 20-70 percent fewer nutrients than it did 50 years ago. This is all documented. Unfortunately few Dr’s know anything about this or about nutrition. I thought this example of what happened to Angela, one of my recent students was interesting. Calvin Bey

Subject: Re: Tours and Classes

Calvin:

Something happened to me recently that I thought would interest you. My 2 year old son has what looked like eczema on his body for months. Then it got worse and looked like ringworm so we swabbed it with iodine. I broke down and took him to the doc. She said it was eczema and prescribed steroid creamwith lots of refills because he would probably need it for the rest of his life.

I was not willing to accept this and had my mom make an apt. with doctor that she sees in Pineville MO. Dr. Smith. He took a brief look at the rash and said it was a silica and iodine deficiency. That since WWII when farmers started using fake fertilizer everyone was silica deficient. He also said that the fluorine and chlorine in our water blocks iodine somehow and lots of people are deficient. We got some liquid silica that we apply to the rash and give him some to drink as well as some special iodine that he gets one drop of a day.

I swear that the rash is already better in one day. It just reminded me of what you talked about with the nutrients not being in vegetables any more.

By the way- my uncle has artichokes already. He lives on Wedington. You should stop by his place sometime and see them . I am sure he would love to show them to you. Paul Marinoni.

Happy gardening- Angela

Today, Thursday, some produce managers from our local food coop, Ozark Natural Foods came to the farm to take a peek at our practices.  Pauline and Jeff toured around with Paul as he shcmoozed and sashayed them amongst the goods.  I was happy to know that they were very impressed with what we were doing.  It looks like they are definitely interested in some of our potatoes and whatever else we might have extras in, sans tomatoes and peppers.  It’s great to have that option, I’m glad that they are promoting local produce.  To all of you other local Fayetteville farmers and beyond, consider giving Pauline or Jeff a call at the store and have them come out to sneak a peek at your “op”.

Yes, they even wore the “farm” hats.  When you come over to visit, you can wear one too.

We have a new friend here on the ole’ farm.  On several occasions he or she has visited and allowed me to get close enough to take these pictures.  

The kids have named this new pal “Hootie”.  Hootie is a barred owl, 21″ long.  He is perched on a log that is crossing the creek behind my house.  I was standing in the backyard when I took these pictures.  He was about 12 ft.-15 ft. away from me.  

The first time we met Hootie, my kids were “Hoo-hooing” their little hearts out right at him.  He was even closer that time, and he/she never moved.  I think it was amused by their attempts.

Pretty neat huh?  Owls during the day!  High-definition living!

There were four new rows added to the farm this year.  With pumpkin and watermelon dreams, you need a lot of space, so space is what we made.  Josh and I were the idea people in this endeavor and Paul was the action man, if it weren’t for him saying “Hey, the space doesn’t exist, if you want to do this, we’ll need more dirt”, then they still might be just dreams.  Paul and Josh got to work, ordered dirt, shoveled dirt, planted, mulched etc…  So we are on our way to pumpkin and watermelon bliss.  I have also started sneaking more pumpkin seeds here and there.  I have two sugar-pie plants in my backyard (pie pumpkins) and more in the old compost zone.  I have also sneaked a few extra of the Howden variety (carving pumpkins) around.  Again, we’ll see.  As far as watermelons go, we have Sugar-baby, Charleston Grey, and All sweet varieties.  

Install.

From this picture, I’m assuming there will be a few cantaloupe as well.

Watermelons are really something that Josh is passionate about.  His Grandfather was a watermelon farmer in east Arkansas, so needless to say, this is his baby.