Map of the Day - March 18th

Thanks Tin Can Tabloid for the inspiration for today's map.

Tin Can Tabloid: CNN Races Fox To The Bottom...

They switched San Fransisco and Los Angeles. What a bunch of morons. They are off by 350 miles....with two of the largest metro areas in the United States. And San Fransisco is kind of hard to mess up...it's got that huge body of water with a very particular shape..call SAN FRANSISCO BAY. 350 miles...that's not a small mistake. That's like mistaking Miami for Jacksonville.

Perhaps I should get a job at CNN. My degree in geography would qualify me. Actually, my ability to throw darts at a map seems to qualify me.

Where to put your compost pile

I am a compost convert...I am completely sold on the idea of closing the nutrient cycle of everything that grows and comes onto someones property. Of course apartment dwellers can't do this easily, but so many people live on suburban lots. There are lots of excuses why people don't compost and most of them are crappy ones. Basic knowledge shouldn't be one of those excuses. You can find all kinds of advice...everything from detailed scientific or pro-farmer experiences all the way down to average yokels like me. Here is one simple lesson.

Where to site your pile is a common question. Common pointers: not near trees (roots will suck nutrients), not in the shade (heat helps decomposition), close to your garden (for convenience). Sometimes they add "close to your kitchen." Well...guess where mine is? Not close to my kitchen. Look below:

All the way at the back of the lot near the corner of the neighbor's fence.

Do you know why they recommend putting it near the kitchen? Because this is what you collect to put in the pile:

Not exactly what you want lingering in your kitchen.

Now Northwest Arkansas has mild winters...but this one was extreme. We had four snows in a six week period. The first was the dusting above.

The second was several inches..okay, normal. And usually it melts off fast.

The third was a very decent snow by our standards. And some very cold weather to go along with it.

The fourth snow was 14 inches at our house. A record during my lifetime for Fayetteville. And BITTER COLD for days. (don't the raised beds look like shallow graves covered in snow?)

Well guess what happens when you don't want to trudge through knee high snow at 4 degrees?

PILEUP!!!!!

Lesson learned.

The Garden Awakes!

After a bitterly cold winter with far above average snows, Northwest Arkansas is getting a taste of a traditional spring. We had several warm days that saw 70 degrees and sun. We have had several VERY rainy days complete with thunderstorms and hail. Cloudy, mild days into the 50s feel like normal. It's enough to warm the hearts of gardeners and the soils of their gardens. Seed orders are coming in and we are already procrastinating on the indoor seeding. I took a walk around the garden and realized that it has awoken, despite the hard winter.

Garden looks pretty boring here...depressing even. Notice the newer beds on the outer edges. These additions add 176 sq ft of raised beds, bringing the total close to 400 sq ft.

Garlic is up and ready for warm days. As opposed to last year, I got these in the ground in the late fall rather than waiting until the spring. That is the way it is supposed to be done evidently. These overwinter just fine. I have a challenge among a few friends for the best garlic to be pulled on July 4th.

Parsley overwintered just fine and is starting new growth. Curly leaf parsley on the left, flat leaf (Italian) parsley on the right. You can't see it but behind the parsley the chives are pushing up mounds of soil in their effort to break through.

This bed is the permanent strawberry bed. It was started last year with just one row up front of everbearing plants. The rest of the box was filled in the late fall with first year transplants from our friend's borrowed box in our garden and his pots. We needed to dump a lot of new compost in his bed and I feared the small pots would not protect the plants during the winter. The potted strawberries also had many runners that had rooted into the rest of the box. The whole thing was a mess....the friend hadn't visited his plot in months. So his have now filled the back of the bed. Some were everbearing and some June. Kyle added 3 or 4 inches of compost right on top of the plants and the existing mulch.....I feared that this would hurt the strawberries, but I think it actually provided great insulation. He was careful to make sure he gathered the plant leaves up and spread the compost all around them. I imagine as perennial plants with quick rooting, the strawberries will just gradually raise their root level and thrive. Let's hope.

Brand new growth of strawberries. They are ready for spring!

Mint. This is a 2x5 raised bed that is completely segregated from the rest of the garden. Mint can be very invasive, so we planted it away...in the shade...and we kind of ignored it as it is just far enough out of sight and hard to reach with the hose. It didn't do very well at all last year, but we sort of don't mind. We dumped 3 or 4 inches of compost on top and just let it sit during the winter. All kinds of new growth...but we may have killed one or two of the varieties planted in this box. We will see.

Is anything waking up in your garden/farm?

Map of the Day - March 6th

Sure...it looks like just a map of "Western" Europe. But there is something super groovy about it. Take a closer look at the title block.

Perhaps it is too small to notice. This map is from 1950. It's a classic from NatGeo. I saw it on the wall of a new friend's living room. I knew it was old from first glance, but then I saw something that excited me even more. This map has the Allied occupation zones of post-WWII Germany delineated. This map reminds me of three ideas of geography...or history...or whatever. The third is my favorite of the three.

1) The victors write the history books. Notice that this map cuts off right at Berlin on the east side of the map? The definition of "Western" Europe was written by the non-communist Allies....and it doesn't include East Germany...oh ya, except for Berlin....only because the non-communist Allies all controlled territory in Berlin.

2) History repeats itself. Those occupation zones really make it evident that maps tell stories...and they are biased. This map says that who "occupies" a pseudo-sovereign nation is important. Check out the occupation zones in Iraq in 2003.

3) The transmission of information through people keeps happening...accurately or not. THe zone of occupation for the United States was in the south of Germany. That area includes Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemburg, and High German language. You may not recognize any of that...but I bet you will recognize a few other things. Lederhosen...strudel...snowy mountains...yodeling...nutcrackers...cuckoo clocks...the Black Forest. Those are all "German" things that really are centered in the south of Germany...not ALL of Germany. Whether you learned it in basic grade school texts or from movies like Heidi or The Sound of Music or National Lampoon's European Vacation, you probably learned a biased image of German culture.

Why does understanding regional differences and history matter? Let's start with Germany. It could be as simple as what you will imbibe if you go to Germany. Germany=beer, right? It is true that all of Germany has high beer consumption, but the south has far higher wine consumption than the north. You may go over thinking beer but come home with a suitcase full of wine. Remembering past divisions is important to understanding the political environment as well. Former communist East Germany is the home of the current German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Chancellor Merkel grew up in a country that was far less developed than the rest of Germany and still to this day struggles. It's like the American South after Jim Crow allowed respectable companies to enter from other parts of the United States. Surely hailing from the "backwoods" colors one's perspective on national politics.

Now back to Iraq since I mentioned it previously. Iraq is not as simple as one outlined box of sandy beige on a (mislabeled) Fox News map. Northern Iraq is far different from central Iraq and Baghdad. The Kurds aren't even Arabs...and heck, they aren't even just in Iraq. There are more Kurds in Turkey than Iraq and probably more in Iran than Iraq as well. Knowing that the Iraqis in Kirkuk have more cultural similarities to their brethren over the borders in Turkey and Iran than to their compatriots in Baghdad is an important thing. It certainly has mattered in the occupation of Iraq. It wouldn't be a perfect comparison, but imagine this: Mexican-Americans whose families have lived for 150 years in south Texas may share more cultural values with Mexicans across the border than they do with Lithuanian-Americans in Chicago.