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Help ID my little oak trees

Who can help?

I'm not quite sure if these are little bur oaks or little swamp white oaks. (I've ruled out red oaks because their leaves are very pointy.) These little trees don't have acorns, so I can't use them to help in identification.

The large bur oaks have already turned plain brown and lost their leaves. These little trees are turning red and still have their leaves.

Swamp white oaks have this shape of leaves and turn crimson in the fall, but I haven't found any adult swamp white oaks in our neighborhood.

Doing the right thing ain't easy

Eating well and eating "right" continue to become more and more complicated. Ali's blog, Henboggle, alerted me to the article "The Vegetable-Industrial Complex," published Sunday, 10/15/06 in the New York Times. The piece addresses the reactions and potential long-term effects of the packaged spinach E. coli outbreak.

The article touches on several topics of interest: The potential for more regulation and inspection of the produce industry; industrialization of both meat and produce production; globalization of food distribution, including "natural" and organic foods; and, the potential detrious effect of heavy regulation and testing requirements on small farmers.

The bottom line is that it made me, once again, think hard about where my food comes from and what I can do to support the most sustainable farming practices possible. One of my pet peeves is that some people tend to support the idea of "organic" over all other issues. While I prefer to eat organic, I also like to take into consideration the overall sustainability of the process. For me, purchasing something that is grown locally but not necessarily organic can often outweigh purchasing something that is organic but grown several hundred or thousands of miles away.

The most difficult issue, however, is confronting the fact that I live in Minnesota but want fresh vegetables throughout the winter. Our farmers markets are pretty much done by now, and won't re-open until April. CSA's may deliver into December, but then they close for the season. Yes, I garden, but it's recreational - I don't have the time (not to mention the resources) to set up my own greenhouse for winter greens production.

So what's an ecologically minded gal to do? Even though I live in the middle of a major metropolitan area, there are no co-ops near my house. My local grocery store, which is less than 1 mile from the house and on the way home from work, has been expanding their organic choices exponentially, but they still don't buy locally nearly as often as they should. If I want to shop at a co-op, I have to drive at least 10 miles away from both home and work. While the end result would be 100% organically and/or sustainably grown - and often local - food, the expense of my time and the fossil fuels required to shop at a co-op don't seem to tip the scales in favor of shopping at a co-op.

So, for now, I fret and worry and continue to shop at my local grocery store. The moment a solar-powered greenhouse farm somewhere near the Twin Cities that offers a CSA program for the winter, I'll join up. Until then, though, the only thing to do is to continue to be aware and to make the best choices possible.

First Snow

I wasn't planning another post for today, but one must mark the first snowfall.

Here's what the yard and garden looked like this morning before work. Not as pretty as at Sand Creek yesterday, but worth remarking because it's just too damn early.

Yesterday I wrote about the lone zucchini I harvested this year. This morning, I find it might not have been so lonely if only the plants didn't take five months to mature. Look at the two little squash just starting to grow.

A few statistics from the Minnesota Climatology Working Group at the University of Minnesota:

• Average first 1" snowfall in the Twin Cities - 11/18
• Latest 1" snowfall - 1/9/1945
• Earliest 1" snowfall - 9/26/1942. Oh, my, god. However, the next earliest is 10/10/1977.
• In my lifetime, there have been only three times we've had 1" snowfall before November 1st (10/10/77, 10/12/69, 10/18/76)
• On this date in 1960 we had 2" of snow

But to put it all in perspective, October 12th, 1918 was a tragic date, not because of snow but because of fire. Per the Minnesota DNR daily weather almanac: "On this day in 1918: Dry fall weather set the stage for a dangerous fire threat. Several fires roared through large area[s] of Carlton and St. Louis County. Hardest hit were the towns of Cloquet, Moose Lake and Brookston. The Carlton County Vidette called it a 'Hurricane of burning leaves and smoke.' At least 453 people died, possibly as many as 1,000. Over 11,000 people were homeless."

So I guess I'll stop griping about a few snow flurries.

Lone Zucchini

I'm not sure what I did wrong, but a zucchini harvest was not in the cards this year. All year I've had two puny zucchini plants that produced prolific flowers - both male and female - but produced no fruit. At first I thought it was squash vine borers, but the plants actually did okay. Then I thought maybe it was a lack of pollinators, but in the middle of the summer as I watched the bees attack the zucchini and the adjacent oregano, I knew this wasn't true.

So, I just left the plant be and figured maybe it just wanted to present me with pretty yellow-orange flowers all summer. Then, this past weekend as I started my fall clean-up, much to my surprise I found my first - and only - two squash, on October 2nd.

As I made the clean-up rounds on Tuesday afternoon, I cut off the "larger" of the two squashes and brought it inside. It's all of 4" long.

   

(The squash has weird phallic overtones in both pictures - I get a little embarrased looking at them.)

What a change . . . .

There's been a huge change in the weather overnight. Right now it's 34 degrees with a few snow flurries. From what I understand, there are snow flurries all over the Midwest.

In anticipation of not only our first frost, but our first hard freeze, I left work early yesterday to clean up what remained in the vegetable garden and to plant garlic.

The bean trellis and bean tepee came down, I pulled out the drying beans by the roots to hang in the house, I dug up the remaining Purple Viking potatoes (the fingerlings are still out there), and started organizing the various planting implements for fall storage.

In an act that seems almost sacreligious, I dug out the asparagus crowns and planted garlic in that bed (the bed directly in front of the shed above). This was the second year in a row that something - probably deer - ate the asparagus fronds to the ground. Even before they were eaten this year I wasn't thrilled with their production. I had bought the "asparagus in a bag" at a garden center, and I think they were not of the best quality. So, this winter I will reevaluate the asparagus situation. And if I decide to plant again, I'll order crowns from somewhere reputable, like Johnny's.

But I'm very excited about the garlic! I planted 12 bulbs each of Music, Chrysalis Purple, German Extra Hardy and Siberian (all from Seed Savers). This will be my experimental crop. Once I've grown and tried them all I'll narrow it down to (probably) two varieties. From what I understand, the garlic gradually changes flavor as it adapts to a particular soil over the years.

As I was looking at the carrots, trying to decide whether I should pull them all or leave them until the weekend, I found this: Black Swallowtail caterpillers. Now I'm not sure if I should just leave the carrots alone or what. I've never had good luck with carrots before, and I already know that these are short, stubby little things. Maybe I'll just leave them for the swallowtails.

Perfect Fall Day

Saturday was the perfect fall day. Not a cloud in the sky, almost 80 degrees - perfect.

Spouse munched up the leaves with the lawn mower (he's there - waayyy in the back).

Dog chewed up sticks and laid around.

Me - All I did was gather up any remaining vegetables. Nothing on my ambitious list from my last post. Just enjoyed the day.

Some fall moments . . . click to enlarge. Maple tree, pagoda dogwood leaves, maple leaves on walkway.

Time to Get Serious

We have three more days of perfect fall weather, then the weather gods will remind us who's really in charge. Per the StarTribune website this morning: "Summer rerun: 70s on Saturday with gusty south winds - cool frontal passage may come through dry on Sunday. Big changes? Long range computer guidance hinting at the first snow flurries of the season for much of Minnesota by the end of next week."

(Note: I didn't use the "s" word - the StarTribune did.)

This will be the perfect weekend to clean up the vegetable garden. I'll get the last of the pole beans and tomatoes, dig up any potatoes still in the ground, figure out what to do about my still-not-dry drying beans, and plant my garlic. I'll also make a pact with myself to decide where the spring greens will go so that I can put down compost now instead of waiting until spring. (As I re-learn every spring, it would be better to have pre-composted so that I don't have to wait for the soil to dry out before digging in the compost. That always means waiting an extra week or so before planting.)

It's still too early to mulch - that will wait until at least mid-November. Up in this part of the world, mulch is meant to keep the ground frozen so that the spring freeze/thaw cycle doesn't heave the plants out of the ground.

Even without mulching duties, the work I have to do should keep me outside for most of Saturday and Sunday, soaking up the sun and listening to the birds.

Fairy Rings

We have fairies in our yard. Either that or elves, or pixies, or maybe even witches!

Actually, a few fairy rings that have popped up in the last week or so. These are arcs or circles of mushrooms that appear in the lawn. Wikipedia says that according to English folklore, fairy rings were caused by fairies (or pixies) dancing in a circle. Us good old Scandihoovians said they were caused by elves. And the somewhat dour Germans said the rings represented the area where witches held their gatherings.

I always figured they were following a decaying tree root underground, but I was wrong. The mushrooms are the above-ground representation of the edge of an underground mycelium (fungus). The best description I found on the web was from Utah State University.

In any case, as we get closer to Halloween it's good to know that some mythical beings are using our yard for their magic!

Garden Blogger's Book Club

Most people seem to know about this already, but I thought I'd pass the word along. Carol over at May Dreams Garden has volunteered to start The Garden Blogger's Book Club (most recent post). What a great way to keep the garden blogging community going through the winter months!

Right now I'm reading two garden-related books. The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan and The Essential Earthman by Henry Mitchell. The Essential Earthman is a collection of Mitchell's newspaper columns, so is a great book for just before bed. The Botany of Desire is a bit more "scholarly" (although not at all onerously so) but very enjoyable.

Goldenness

Fall continues its march toward the next season (which shall not yet be named). I was out of town most of last week for a conference, and came home Sunday to sun and 84 degrees. While I was gone, Spouse was under direct orders to make sure the remaining beans and tomatoes didn't succomb to frost. Luckily for all involved, there was no frost while I was gone.

In our neighborhood, fall is golden. Most of the trees turn yellow in autumn - green ash, basswood, elm, cottonwoods. As we progress further into the season, we'll see the native oaks - bur, red and pin - turn to burgundy and brown.