Earth Day is Thursday April 22nd but celebrations will be held in various cities this Saturday April 17th and Nashville will be one.  The Nashville Earth Day celebration will be held at Centennial Park from 11am to 7pm. Parking will be a premium and vendors with freebies usually run out before the end of the day so show up early! There will be food (I hear there will be vegan options this year) and plenty of fun.  Hope to see you there, keep an eye out for me!

For those of you who don’t know me, I am Nashveggie’s other half. This is my first foray into the blogging world.  I think the regulars call it a blogosphere.  I am not up on all the computer/pop culture terms; so if I offend anyone, let me know. I will be making semi-regular posts about baking and green cleaning tips.  Tonight I am attempting a new/old dessert called a pandowdy. It is basically a cobbler with the crust smushed into the filling half way through the baking process.  I am not sure how the mango and apple will taste together, but we will see. I will probably make some soy cream to go along with it. YUM! Speaking of soy cream. There is a fabulous book out there for those of you with a huge sweet tooth.  The Vegan Scoop by Wheeler del Torro is an absolutely fabulous book full of you guessed it-vegan ice cream recipes. So far we have tried the vanilla (yum), chocolate (even more yum), and peanut butter (oh my goodness).  Creamy and light and very easy, if you don’t mind making a custard ice cream base that you have to cool before putting in your handy dandy countertop ice cream maker.  Well, dinner awaits and I love our beautiful arrangement.  (He cooks and I bake!) Though I did make a great skillet corn with roasted tomatoes.

A quick post to update on the garden.  Everyone grows tomatoes, so much so that I have decided to grow only six plants this year.  I always get bags from others and never get around to canning.  That can leave more space for other tasty morsels like okra and squashes.  Of the six tomato plants three are varieties new to my garden,  Mortgage Lifter and German Johnson.   My yellow squash is blooming and there are little squashes appearing on the vines.  I am a big fan of fried squash, simple with just a little onion.

I have too much kale and need to give it away before it gets bitter so I can plow it up to make room for cucumbers and possibly cantaloupe.

Russian Kale

Yellow Squash

Blueberries

Peaches

You should always wear gloves when working in the garden, not just to lessen your chances of a blister here or there, or a splinter, but you never know what might be lurking around under that rock or log you’re about to lift.  While rearranging our herb gardens yesterday and moving rocks around in the process I picked up the largest of one corner in order to make a new garden on the other side.  I walked about ten feet with the rock and flipped it over in the psot where I wanted it and noticed two plump black spiders on the underside.  At first getting a closer look I realized I had never encountered these spiders before and went to grab something to contain them.  When I returned, the smaller of the two had gotten away but I managed to get the larger of the two into a ziplock bag.  I looked around and finally found the other one scurrying underneath the rock again and put him into his own bag realizing that what I may have found were indeed Black Widow spiders.   After getting them both into the bags I looked on their bellies to find the red hourglass defining detail.

Male Black Widow Spider (click to enlarge)

Female Black Widow Spider (click to enlarge)

At this point I am sure most would be ready to kill them, but while I don’t want them inhabiting my gardens I felt no need to crush them.  I looked for more, after putting my gloves on, and found no egg sac.   I need some type of natural, organic remedy for their locating in my oregano.   I don’t think I want those in my marinara.

Today I took them on a trip to a secluded creek and released them, the male a good distance from the female but only after telling him, “She’s not worth it, man.  Just walk away.”  Yeah, I talk to bugs.

It is the time of year to get ready to grow those tomatoes, beans, squash and other veggies to keep you from having to spend so much at the grocry store.  Whether you will be plowing up a spot in your backyard or filling planters on your deck or patio, have you stopped to ask yourself if your garden is vegan?

There are many additives and soil conditioners found on the market today promising massive productivity from your garden and some of these are even mixed into the pre-mix soils you buy in bag form.  Miracle-Gro states on the back of the bag that the mix contains manure and poultry droppings.  Some others contain blood meal and bone meal, both which are slaughterhouse by-products.  Bone meal has also been found to be a carrier of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease).  For these reasons it is a good idea to read the labels of the pre-mix soils, if you decide to use them.   Beware of the “Organic” soils as they contain as much or more of the additives mentioned.   I have found that Scott’s brand soils usually contain no additives.

So, what do you fertilize with if you want to avoid these animal by-products?   A compost bin is a great way to re-use certain waste from your home while feeding your garden with essential nutrients at the same time.  For calcium deficient soils a treatment of lime will put an end to tomato blossom-end rot, but the treatment is best done the season before planting.

Of course you will always have the bird droppings from fly-overs and a rabbit dropping here or there.   That’s ok, those are naturally occuring.

What’s that rabbit doing in the garden anyway?  He’s stealing your carrots!