The Snarky Gardener knows how to turn weeds into allies. Or at least keep them from being a problem.

On the Mother Earth News blog, I wrote an article describing my techniques to bring your weeds down to a dull roar. There I listed 5 different ideas to mitigate garden weeds (including eating them). I personally think “weeds” are misunderstood. Unless an unwanted plant is literally shading out one that needs the sunlight, there is no reason to remove them. Most of my weeding is preventative, meaning I remove plants going to seed that I believe I have plenty of (grass and quickweed for example).

So here’s the list:

1. Low till – tilling brings up weed seeds
2. Mulch – to keep weeds from growing in the first place. I usually use fall leaves or straw, especially with my potatoes.
3. Utilize them – many “weeds” are edible
4. Cover crops – keeps the soil covered while enriching it
5. Make Your Own – turn your seedier veggies (like lettuce and turnips) into edible weeds
6. Plant closely (especially beans) – closely planted vegetables naturally shade out other plants

I left out number 6 from my Mother Earth News blog post mostly because including it didn’t occur to me until after it was released. It’s worked with green beans but I might try it with bush zucchini also. Just have to find the right sweet spot between crowding and too weedy.

The Snarky Gardener welcomes Brooke the Cook to the blog. She has created a recipe to use up his abundance of sunchokes, potatoes, and turnips.

Photo Credit: gkdavie cc

Turkey Cottage Pie: is it a shepherd’s pie or pot pie?

Inspired by the bounty of root vegetables at Snarky Acres, this recipe combines the rich filling of a shepherd’s pie (sans sheep), the abundance of turkey left-overs available after the holidays, and is topped with low-glycemic white root vegetables to balance the body.

I recommend pairing this delicious casserole with a side of steamed asparagus or green beans, and a fresh salad of mixed greens.
Serves 6.

Ingredients:

• 4-5 cups root vegetables (choose low GI: (Jerusalem artichoke/sunchoke, celeriac, white turnip)
• 1 potato (see note below)
• 2 stalks celery
• 2 carrots
• 1 large onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 cup sweet peas, fresh or frozen
• 1lb / 450g turkey
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder or reduced sodium Old Bay spice
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup flour (all purpose, gluten free or chickpea)
• 1 cup white wine (or filtered water)

Topping

1. Roughly chop the root vegetables and potato. Boil in 3 cups of water until soft (15-20 minutes). Partially drain and set aside.

Note: Russet potatoes will give it a lighter-fluffier mash. Yukon Gold will give a smooth but heavy texture. Red or white skin potatoes can quickly turn gummy. For the best texture use a masher. Do not use a mixer or it will go gummy.

Filling

2. Finely dice the carrot, onion, garlic and celery. Sauté for 5-7 minutes, or until soft. Sprinkle flour and add wine and spices. Stir well and cook for 3-5 minutes more. Set aside in a dutch oven or oven-proof casserole dish.
3. Scramble fry ground turkey, drain. If using left-over roast turkey, chop finely 1-2 cups and pan fry 3-5 minutes to warm. Add the turkey to the vegetables. Note: For a vegetarian option, replace the turkey with 1-2 cups of cooked lentils and/or quinoa, combined.

Assembly

4. Mash root vegetables with a pinch of salt. Beat until smooth. Spoon evenly over the filling. Bake 40 min at 375F. Let stand 5 min.
5. Serve with steamed asparagus or green beans, and a salad.

What’s your favourite way to use up left-over turkey?

In health and friendship,
Brooke

Brooke loves to cook, hence the nickname. She is passionate about eating for pleasure and nutrition. Her recipes are health-conscious, though she does enjoy a satisfyingly-rich dessert. If you like what you read, please leave a comment below and subscribe for new recipes at weekbyweek.ca.

The Snarky Gardener has plenty of seed starting tips and tricks. Please enjoy.

I recently guest blogged on weekbyweek.ca, a weekly recipe food blog called “Brooke the Cook”. Starting seeds can be intimidating but it’s not too difficult if you follow my helpful advice.

Remember: your starts are basically baby plants. They will need your constant care until they are planted (and then a little more after that).

The Snarky Gardener lists 7 skills you need to take your gardening to the next level.

To be an avid gardener, you need to develop special abilities. Do you have what it takes? Are you willing to stretch outside your comfort zone? It will take hard work and dedication.

Here are my 7 mad gardening skills:

1. Alertness
2. Creativity
3. Forgiveness
4. Humility
5. Patience
6. Planning
7. Sharing

Discover them in my latest Mother Earth News blog post “7 Mad Gardening Skills“

The Snarky Gardener has several hugelkultur beds at Snarky Acres. Here’s his Mother Earth News article on them.

Hugelkultur beds are built using buried wood and other organic material. These ingredients break down over time, providing your plants with nutrients and moisture. Breaking down over the next 5 to 10 years, the wood will eventually transform into rich beautiful soil. I recently wrote about my hugelkultur beds at Snarky Acres for Mother Earth News, including what veggies I planted on them and how they are working out for me so far.

The Snarky Gardener was interviewed on the Urban Farm podcast. Listen to him talk about Snarky Acres and his projects.

I had the privilege of being interviewed on the Urban Farm podcast. We discussed my beginnings as a gardener, why I grow food, my favorite book, and my current project (writing my first book “The Snarky Gardener’s Veggie Growing Guide for Ohio and Beyond”). So it was pretty much all about me, someone I know a great deal about.  I didn’t mention the Snarky Girlfriend and haven’t heard the end of it by far. There will be other podcasts in my future, so maybe I’ll remember to talk about her then.

It took me a week, but I finally got up the nerve to listen to my own interview. I obviously was there for the recording, but wasn’t sure how my voice would sound. You can tell I was a little nervous at the beginning but really came on strong by the end. It’s easy to talk about something I’m so passionate about. As you can tell by this blog, growing food is very important to me.

What I really like about urbanfarm.org is that they consider anyone who grows food and gives or sells it to others is a farmer. This definition probably expands the number of farmers in the world tenfold.  We can all contribute to the local food supply even with a “simple” garden. Those overwhelming zucchinis people complain about every summer? Perfect for donating to those who don’t have enough food. Then you too will be a farmer.

The Snarky Gardener loves to plan his garden planting and GrowVeg.com is what he depends on year after year.

When it comes to my garden, I’m a planner. I love to design it over the winter when the snow’s on the ground, obsessively moving plants around over and over again. GrowVeg.com lets me undertake this without issue. Each year is represented in its own plan with the previous year copied over onto the next one so to include perennials and mark the previously planted families (nightshades, legumes, spinach, etc).

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Shown above and below is the planner’s interface. The garden displayed is my 50′ by 30′ fenced backyard garden as of July 2015. Another nice touch is the ability to not only represent the various fruits and vegetables via graphic (notice the strawberries to the upper left?) but to also attach the variety to the plant. You can even add your own varieties if they are not listed (looking at you Snarky Orange Cherry tomatoes).

Monthly charting is easy and straight forward.

Another plus of using an online garden planning site such as GrowVeg.com is that you can see your garden’s progression through the season. Here’s an example of my garden from April to September 2015. See how the spinach disappears (because it bolted and when to seed) and others come in to take their place. Succession planting at its best. In June the Swiss chard, eggplants, and peppers are planted. and in July, beans (both green and dry) to fill out my garden. Note: the brown rectangles represent my raised hugelkultur beds.

Pros:
Plant Families with previous 3 years
Varieties
Perennials
$45 for 2 years
Publish to Web
Plant List includes location based planting and harvest times
Ability to add your own varieties
Detailed growing information on each plant.

There are some downsides to GrowVeg.com

I do really love the ability to publish my plans out to the web, but there are limitations to the size you can show. Of course this is because if you get too wide, the detail will be difficult to see, but it’s a restriction nonetheless.

You can also notice by the graphical nature of the software, it’s really easy to tell when I’m not working on work at work. I’ve had many a curious co-worker as me what I was planning on planting. It’s so obvious to those who don’t even garden. Guess I’ll just have to plan at lunch time or at home (which isn’t a bad idea anyways).

As shown earlier in this post, I do enjoy the month-by-month tracking of my garden. My only wish is that I could go week-by-week instead. I’m a detail oriented person, and knowing which week something was planted or removed would help immensely.

Cons:
Size limitations if you use Publish to Web
Co-workers know that I’m not working
Wish for more granularity (weeks instead of months)
More plants (missing yarrow for example)

A valuable tool to plan your garden.

So as you can see, GrowVeg.com has many features to let you design the perfect garden. Month-to-month and year-to-year representations of your plots are available at your fingertips.

The Snarky Gardener is now a Mother Earth News blogger! His first post is an adaptation of “Permaculture While Renting” with more gardening and less permaculture.

It’s not easy being a gardener who rents or a renter who gardens. In “Gardening While Renting“, I discuss the trials and tribulations of putting in permanent infrastructure (fences, raised beds, and improved soil) while knowing the stay could be quite temporary. Spoiler alert: it’s all about the relationship between renter and landlord.

This is the first of many blog posts on Mother Earth News. I’ll be writing under the “Organic Gardening” topic area with new posts coming out twice a month. I’m excited for this wonderful opportunity to expand my reach and bring other snarky gardeners into the fold. “What does this opportunity pay?” you ask. No cash per se, but it does give The Snarky Gardener unprecedented exposure that doesn’t involve an embarrassing “wardrobe malfunction”.

The Snarky Gardener (aka Don Abbott) is a gardener, blogger, author, educator, speaker, reluctant activist, and permaculture practitioner from Kent Ohio. Professionally he’s a software developer but spends his spare time producing food at Snarky Acres, his rented .91 acre urban farm. His blog – thesnarkygardener.com – assists others with growing food in Northeastern Ohio and beyond. He is also the founder of the Kent Ohio chapter of Food Not Lawns. In Spring 2015, he received his Permaculture Design Certification from Cleveland Ohio based Green Triangle. Please like him on Facebook as he likes to be liked. https://www.facebook.com/thesnarkygardener/

Please contact the Snarky Gardener at don@thesnarkygardener.com

The Snarky Gardener has a new experiment for the winter. He’s growing jalapeno peppers at his office.

I’ve had much success growing indoor plants with my AeroGardens over the years. An AeroGarden is a small hydroponic garden with a grow light attached at the top. It’s designed so the light comes on first thing in the morning and shuts off 16 or 17 hours later. Once your seeds are started, just add water and (unfortunately chemical) nutrients every two weeks or so. Pretty straight forward even if you don’t know much about gardening.

Over the last 10 years or so (has it been that long? Wow!), I’ve grown a variety of edible vegetables and herbs in my 4 AeroGardens. The list includes cherry tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, basil, lettuce, spinach, thyme, chives, and arugula. They also have an insert you can use to grow starts for your outside garden. I’ve even started leeks and Swiss chard this way, so growing some peppers should be no big deal.

The twist this year is that I brought my AeroGarden 3 into work. This is the smallest of the AeroGardens I own, and fits in my cubicle nicely. Most of my co-workers know that I have a gardening blog and that I’m “the Snarky Gardener”. I had kept that fact under wraps for the longest time until this summer. People knew I was an avid gardener, and often ask me lots of questions (which I don’t mind at all). Once everyone heard about my blogging and such, it sort of hit a whole new level. It’s my own darn fault for passing out my Snarky Gardener business card to my boss.

My experiment this time is a social one. I’m seeing how my co-workers react to having peppers growing in the office. I chose peppers because people know what they are when they see them. Added to this is the fact they are fruit, so there will be flowers and tiny little peppers. I also like that pepper plants are prettier than tomatoes (at least in my opinion). Basil was my second choice, but wasn’t sure I wanted to be smelling basil every day.

The Snarky Gardener has been inspired to write a very short fictional story of around 500 words known as “flash fiction”. And of course it takes place in a garden.

Biological Warfare

I just love “managing by walking around” outside in my vegetable garden. Checking on every single object in the garden; making sure nothing is out of place. Order is everywhere just like it should be. The straight lines of the broccoli and turnips. The weedless barren soil between the rows, how beautiful. If only the rest of life could be that way, then my world would be perf . . .“Ow! What the hell!” My hand jerks instinctively to my right arm. discovering a wet juicy welt. Glancing down, I find a rotten tomato smashed on the ground. Looking in the direction of the strike, I see no one. “OK jerks! Come out and show yourself!” Has to be one of those damn neighborhood kids. Really? Who throws tomatoes?

Boom! Another projectile strikes the back of my head. Over grown yellow and green zucchini pieces splatter all around me. I quickly duck down, removing myself from the firing line as another zuke flies overhead. Can’t spot where this stuff is coming from but seems to be pretty close. Standing up quickly, the view is unchanged except for some moving tomato vines. I walk a few steps in that direction as I get a fleeting glimpse of something under my plants, Suddenly I stumble and flail back into the black raspberry thicket. “Ahhhhh!” Sharp thorns tear my clothes and skin. Swear I was pushed but again nobody there.

I ungracefully roll out of the brambles and onto all fours, wincing as I move. Don’t trust my feet at this juncture. Crawling slowly, more objects are launched from several directions, some striking my back and legs. Red liquid streams from my wounds; the acid from the tomatoes causing them to sting. Dragging myself along with heavy breathing, I make progress towards the garden gate. Just a little farther and I’ll be in the clear.

Squirming past a flawlessly mulched straight line of jalapenos (oh the perfection), a cloud of pepper spray fills the air, burning my eyes and taking my breath away at the same time. Frightened and disoriented yet defiant, an adrenaline surge hits my system. Rising up quickly, I pull my soil knife from its sheath. In the past, I’ve brandished this “weapon” playing He-man garden warrior, but today it’s for realsies. Wished I had something more formidable as I sense true danger here. The blade’s sharp serrated edge will have to make do.

Stepping backward slowly, pumpkin and cucumber vines trip me up, causing my substantial body to strike the ground hard. “Ohhhh” I moan with a deep searing pain coming from my left side. As I remove the 6 inch steel shank, a river of blood pours out. I struggle to get back on my feet but to no avail. As a black fuzz surrounds my compromised sight and consciousness fails me, a single thought passes through my mind, “They warned me about planting those GMOs.”

————————————————————————-

So, what do you think? Has the Snarky Gardener lost his mind? Should he stick to writing gardening and permaculture non-fiction? Would you like to see more fiction in the blog?

Let him know at don@thesnarkygardener.com