Gardening in November

Friday, November 24

...it's probably time to harvest most of the greens and put a period to things before another Arctic storm comes along and makes its own conclusion. I'm not looking to set any outdoor records, just to keep eating our homegrown stuff as long as we can.

Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of a Growing Season

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

Many species of sunflowers, asters, and goldenrods bring up parade’s end in September and early October, some flowering well after the first autumn frost. Canada goldenrod, with a plumelike flower head, and rigid goldenrod, with a flat-topped flower head, are two of the most common species. Four species of asters are often abundant in central Iowa.

Carl Kurtz, A Practical Guide to Prairie Reconstruction

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

In many tallgrass prairies, the break between forest and grassland was shockingly abrupt. A man would walk through forest among many of the same flowers and trees that he had known in Pennsylvania…. He would break through a narrow belt of sunflowers, and then out into an open world of limitless sky and distance. At his back were the familiar trees and flowers of the Old States; out front were prairie coneflowers and compass-plants, and a vast sea of grasses in an entirely new plant association. In ten strides he had passed from one world to another, across what was probably the sharpest, clearest boundary between any of the major floristic provinces of the New World.

John Madson, Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

For an hour or two this morning, when I was thinning and transplanting the young broccoli and cauliflower seedlings, the sun was shining and the eastern portion of the sky was mostly blue. So vivid and inviting outside after yesterday’s gloomy pallor, I could hardly keep myself at the kitchen sink stuffing each of the seedlings into its own slot and filling them up with a wet transplanting mix. And two or three times, I couldn’t resist the temptation to go outside in my pajamas and take stock of things in the back yard.


Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of a Growing Season

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

Within the prairies were many landscapes…. There were hanging bogs with strange calcareous flora, “walled” lakes with cobble beaches and orderly shorelines of glacial boulders, waves of flowers advancing with each stage of the growing season, and myriad patterns and textures of grasses that varied moment by moment with sun and wind and the cloud shadows that drove across the land. There were a thousand worlds within this one world of grass. Some men sensed that at once; others never did.

John Madson, Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

Champions of grass-roots biodiversity must face the realization that in much of the United States, local plants and animals do not stir deep emotions; paddlefish, while having a certain appeal all their own, are not pandas. Nevertheless, I suggest that if you can care about pandas, you can care about paddlefish or amphibians or dragonflies or even clams.

Michael J. Lannoo, Okoboji Wetlands: A Lesson in Natural History

Interested in living off the land?

Today's post comes to us from Housekeeping: Knock Out Dirt and Clutter For Good.

As grocery stores continue to raise food prices, more people are turning to their own land to produce food instead of purchasing it at the store.  Whether you want to grow your own herbs, harvest your own fruits or vegetables or raise cattle, there are many ways you can maximize your land as a food source. These 25 blog articles will dig into how you can live off the land.

How to Do It

There’s no way that one blog could give you all of the information that you need to live off the land, but combining these five blog entries can give you some ideas on how to go about starting the adventure.

• Live Off Your Land—Fifteen Steps You Can Take to Get Out of the Cubicle and Onto Self-Reliance
• Infographic: How Much Backyard Do You Need to Live Off the Land?
• The Floyd Eco-Village: Living Off the Land with an Economic Plan
• Tough (and Valuable) Lessons from the Homestead
• Rural Free Delivery: Living Off the Land, Almost

Meat

Hunting isn’t the only way to have meat on your dinner table if you are living off the land.  Many folks choose to raise their own livestock to butcher for food.  A family of four can eat for several different meals from the meat that comes from a whole pig or cow.  If you live by water, you can add fish or other seafood to your diet.  These five blog posts will share some of their insights with you.

• Living Off the Land
• The Year in Oysters
• Living Off the Land
• Abandon the Office: Be a Hunter-Gatherer
• Living Off the Land – And Sea—In Kotzebue

Vegetables

Probably one of the easiest ways to start saving money and living off the land is by growing your own garden.  For instance, one tomato plant will yield about one bushel of tomatoes. These tomatoes will allow you to make and can your own tomato sauce, stew tomatoes and make salsa, in addition to eating them fresh.  Just think of all that you could do if you had more than one plant.  Making your own salsa is a snap when you grow your own onions, jalapenos and cilantro, and you don’t have to step foot into a grocery store.  These five blog posts will give you some ideas for getting started.

• A British Town Relearns How to Live Off the Land [Video]
• Garden Prep [What I’m Doing to Prepare for Spring Gardening in DECEMBER]
• Gardening in November?
• The Progressive Garden—Living Off the Land
• Living Off the Land

Off the Grid

Some people have taken ‘living off the land’ one step further and have decided that they are going to live off the grid as well.  Living off the grid means that you don’t pay for electricity from a company; instead, you create your own by using solar, wind or water power.  Or you could go completely electricity free.  Take a look at these five blog entries to see what others are doing to get off the grid.

• Living Off the Grid, Urban-Homesteading Style, With the Dervaes Family
• 16×9—Off the Grid: Living Off Land Hour from Vancouver
• Living Off the Grid—In a Bus
• Living Off the Grid: Could Decreasing Energy Dependence Ultimately Make Life Easier?  (Video)
• Living Off the Grid

Little House on the Prairie Living

When you were a kid you may have read the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder or watched the spin-off TV show.  If you did, you may remember how hard life was on the prairie and how the Ingalls family survived by living off the land for the most part.  Read these five blog posts to learn a bit more about living like they did back then.

• It’s ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Up In Here
• The Meteorology of Little House on the Prairie
• In Search of Little House on the Prairie
• The “Historical Pa” (Little House on the Prairie, Controlling Love Etc…)
• Little House on the Prairie and Djibouti

Iowa Public Television show featuring Linda & Robert Scarth

Linda & Robert Scarth, photographers of DEEP NATURE, spent a day with Chris Gourlet, from Iowa Public Television, where he videotaped them as they worked.

They will be featured on his show “Iowa Outdoors: From the lens of one wildlife photographer to the handlebar view from our state's biking enthusiasts, we explore springtime in Iowa.”

See it today!!

Show times:

Saturday, May 11, 8:30 AM on IPTV

http://www.iptv.org/iowaoutdoors/

Butterfly of the Week: Dun Skipper

Dun Skipper

Euphyes vestris (Boisduval 1852)

Status: Common breeding resident.

Flight: Adults observed in flight from late May through late September, with most encounters occurring in the first half of July. While this species likely has multiple broods, collection records do not clearly indicate when these might occur. Perhaps there is only a single brood, which emerges over an extended period in the summer.

Distinguishing features: This is a uniformly dark brown skipper. Males have a black stigma, and females have few white spots on the upper fore wing. Females often have a faint crescent of light brown spots on the mid hind wing below. It differs from the Little Glassywing and Northern Broken dash by having reduced light markings (if any) on the upper fore wing. Wingspan: 3 cm.

Distribution and habitat: Map 219. Common throughout the state in a wide variety of open habitats.

Natural history: The larval hosts are unreported but are believed to be various members of the sedge family.

Questions: What are the larval hosts for this species in Iowa? How does it overwinter? What factors have allowed it to become the most abundant member of its genus in the state? 

The Butterflies of Iowa, by Dennis W. Schlicht, John C. Downey, and Jeffrey C. Nekola

Iowa Public Television show featuring Linda & Robert Scarth

Linda & Robert Scarth, photographers of DEEP NATURE, spent a day with Chris Gourlet, from Iowa Public Television, where he videotaped them as they worked.

They will be featured on his show “Iowa Outdoors: From the lens of one wildlife photographer to the handlebar view from our state's biking enthusiasts, we explore springtime in Iowa.”

See it tonight!!

Show times:

Tuesday, April 30, 6:30 PM on IPTV

Saturday, May 11, 8:30 AM on IPTV

http://www.iptv.org/iowaoutdoors/

Excerpt from The Raptors of Iowa

The species' recovery that blows the door off all other raptor recoveries is the bald eagle. No bald eagle nests were known in this state from 1906 through 1976. In 2012 there appear to be more than three hundred active nesting territories within, at least, ninety-three of Iowa's ninety-nine counties. To put this species' recovery in perspective, Iowa now holds two-thirds as many eagle nests as existed in the entire lower forty-eight states in 1963. While outlawing use of DDT in this country in 1973 was a major coup for this species, so were other federal laws, like the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. But even with these protective laws, I suspect no one could have predicted the huge population recovery that this species has shown. Iowa's recovery goal was to have ten active nests by the year 2000; there were at least one hundred nests that year!

Certainly there were widespread efforts in the 1980s and 1990s to assure that every active Iowa eagle nest was protected and watched over, but it was particularly encouraging to discover that this species was apparently adapting to living in close proximity to humans. Numerous eagle nest trees in Iowa are located within fifty yards of people's homes or outbuildings. At least two are located above parking areas at boat ramps. It appears that eagles are adapting to human activity. Perhaps a mutual benefit has grown out of this relationship, since most people who have eagle nests on their property are absolutely delighted. The world-famous Decorah nesting eagles that are featured on Bob Anderson's webcam certainly seem to have improved the status of the bald eagle as well.




From the essay by Jon W. Stravers in The Raptors of Iowa , paintings by James F. Landenberger

Iowa Public Television show featuring Linda & Robert Scarth

Linda & Robert Scarth, photographers of DEEP NATURE, spent a day with Chris Gourlet, from Iowa Public Television, where he videotaped them as they worked.

They will be featured on his show “Iowa Outdoors: From the lens of one wildlife photographer to the handlebar view from our state's biking enthusiasts, we explore springtime in Iowa.”

See it today!!

Show times:

Saturday, April 27, 8:30 AM on IPTV

Tuesday, April 30, 6:30 PM on IPTV

Saturday, May 11, 8:30 AM on IPTV

http://www.iptv.org/iowaoutdoors/

Be sure to see Robert & Linda Scarth's photography show at the Des Moines Botanical Center March 1-April 30. 

Hoverfly on fringed gentian at Becky's Fen

Fly agaric

Buckeye on New England aster

Jack-o'-lanterns

Deep Nature, photographers Robert & Linda Scarth

For more from Robert & Linda Scarth visit their website!

Iowa Public Television show featuring Linda & Robert Scarth

Linda & Robert Scarth, photographers of DEEP NATURE, spent a day with Chris Gourlet, from Iowa Public Television, where he videotaped them as they worked.

They will be featured on his show “Iowa Outdoors: From the lens of one wildlife photographer to the handlebar view from our state's biking enthusiasts, we explore springtime in Iowa.”

See it tonight!!

Show times:

Thursday, April 25, 8:30 AM on IPTV Learns

Thursday, April 25, 2:30 PM on IPTV Learns

Saturday, April 27, 8:30 AM on IPTV

Tuesday, April 30, 6:30 PM on IPTV

Saturday, May 11, 8:30 AM on IPTV

http://www.iptv.org/iowaoutdoors/

Iowa Public Television show featuring Linda & Robert Scarth

Linda & Robert Scarth, photographers of DEEP NATURE, spent a day with Chris Gourlet, from Iowa Public Television, where he videotaped them as they worked.

They will be featured on his show “Iowa Outdoors: From the lens of one wildlife photographer to the handlebar view from our state's biking enthusiasts, we explore springtime in Iowa.”

See it tonight!!

Show times:

Monday, April 22, 9:30 PM on IPTV

Thursday, April 25, 8:30 AM on IPTV Learns

Thursday, April 25, 2:30 PM on IPTV Learns

Saturday, April 27, 8:30 AM on IPTV

Tuesday, April 30, 6:30 PM on IPTV

Saturday, May 11, 8:30 AM on IPTV

http://www.iptv.org/iowaoutdoors/