I am a farmer at heart. I know this. I have known this for many, many years…as a child even, before I knew what I was feeling. An attachment to the land and its elements….its beauty, sounds, fragrances and textures. As a four year old, I enjoyed digging in the dirt in my Daddy’s vegetable garden, letting it sift through my tiny
fingers, enjoying the smell and feel, and marveling at how you could drop a tiny seed into a hole made with your finger, add a bit of water and in a matter of days there would be something green sticking its head up through the brown earth, seeking the warmth of the sun. My Daddy told me it was all part of the Magic of the Universe, part of God’s Plan. That he and I were witness to it together made it all the more magical to me.
I remember beans, peas, asparagus, squash, eggplants, cucumbers and tomatoes growing in those garden plots, and the summer supper table being set with the wonderful fresh bounty. There is nothing like a sandwich made with a freshly sliced homegrown tomato!
We also had a few chickens scratching around, providing us with eggs and sometimes meat. I didn’t care much for the smell of wet, burnt chicken feathers or the plucking, but the resulting crispy fried chicken pieces cooked to a perfect reddish-brown from the Crisco and cast iron skillet on the Sunday dinner table was certainly worth the price of the unsavory preparation. Chickens from the grocery stores these days do not taste like those free rangers did, and it is not just nostalgia telling me this.
And so, throughout the decades from then until now, I have longed to be settled on a farm and have a vegetable garden that would ultimately provide me with what I needed to live a healthy life. I moved around quite a bit during those years, but here and there I was able to work a garden of some sort into my life as well as chickens, guineas, ducks and geese. Those experiences served to reinforce my connection to the land and my desire for rural life and self-reliance grew to where it was becoming hard to contain it.
In 1998, I moved to my present home here in East Texas due to circumstances in my life that I had little control over, and I knew when the choice was made to move, it had to be to a spot where I could fulfill that desire that I had nourished all those years. I would put down roots at last and so I did, but still a full time job to pay the bills and taking care of my elderly parents, as well building a barn and fences and hand shearing upwards of 25 llamas some years, got in the way of any serious gardening until a few years ago when my son
and I built two 4’ x 16’ raised beds and tried out square foot gardening.
That was a great learning experience, but once again circumstances necessitated that I concentrate on other aspects of my life and it was not until this past spring (2013) that I was able to return to those two raised beds, pull a magnitude of weeds, turn over the soil with some llama “beans”, and plant a vegetable crop.
My veggies included crookneck squash, okra, cucumbers, Ichiban eggplant, bell peppers (red, green, purple and chocolate), Cherokee Purple slicing tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, and a several types of cherry tomatoes. I planted two basil plants, a little rosemary “bush”, and some oregano. And I planted white, green, and two shades of brown cotton. Yes! I might have been a bit more excited about my cotton plants, to tell the truth, but I can tell you that I ate a lot of fresh, grilled, roasted and sautéed produce over the summer months and into early fall!
So why plant cotton? Well, I am a spinner and this year at our annual Wildflower Fiber Retreat we learned about growing and spinning cotton and were given seeds for white cotton and Sea Island Brown cotton to plant if we wanted to try our hand at growing our own spinning fiber. Many of those that attend the Retreat each year raise fiber animals like angora goats and rabbits, llamas, alpacas, and various breeds of sheep, but less than a handful had ever planted a cotton seed to harvest. And so, for me, the year of learning to spin cotton began in March, 2013, and included planting cotton along with my vegetables. If I was going to do it “right”, I wanted green cotton, too, and online I found Earline’s Green Cotton, and also some Nankeen Brown seeds to order, which I did without hesitation.
I planted about 5 or 6 white, 15 green, 10 Sea Island Brown, and 12 Nankeen. The latter did not do as well as the others because I planted them too late, I think, in a new bed quite a way from the others. Still I got a nice bag of lint from those 12 seeds. With the others, however, I got a bumper crop and I will never have to purchase cotton seeds again! I discovered that each individual boll produced about 20 seeds and each plant produced at least 12 bolls (all from 1 seed!). If you would like some, contact me and I will share!
The plants and blooms are lovely. Cotton is related to okra, hibiscus and marsh mallow plants. The blooms start off white and end up pink, yellow or red before dropping. The bees love them, and the natural colors of the cotton lint are gorgeous! Cotton plants are frequently grown in pots as ornamentals and in the far, far South can even be perennials, but mine were victims of the first serious frost in early November this year.
Currently, I am spending the majority of my evenings during the week hand-ginning my cotton bolls and looking forward to spinning the lint...maybe even dying some of the white. Next year I plan to expand my cotton planting to several new beds in various places around the farm. I need more practice with spinning cotton!
fingers, enjoying the smell and feel, and marveling at how you could drop a tiny seed into a hole made with your finger, add a bit of water and in a matter of days there would be something green sticking its head up through the brown earth, seeking the warmth of the sun. My Daddy told me it was all part of the Magic of the Universe, part of God’s Plan. That he and I were witness to it together made it all the more magical to me.
I remember beans, peas, asparagus, squash, eggplants, cucumbers and tomatoes growing in those garden plots, and the summer supper table being set with the wonderful fresh bounty. There is nothing like a sandwich made with a freshly sliced homegrown tomato!
We also had a few chickens scratching around, providing us with eggs and sometimes meat. I didn’t care much for the smell of wet, burnt chicken feathers or the plucking, but the resulting crispy fried chicken pieces cooked to a perfect reddish-brown from the Crisco and cast iron skillet on the Sunday dinner table was certainly worth the price of the unsavory preparation. Chickens from the grocery stores these days do not taste like those free rangers did, and it is not just nostalgia telling me this.
And so, throughout the decades from then until now, I have longed to be settled on a farm and have a vegetable garden that would ultimately provide me with what I needed to live a healthy life. I moved around quite a bit during those years, but here and there I was able to work a garden of some sort into my life as well as chickens, guineas, ducks and geese. Those experiences served to reinforce my connection to the land and my desire for rural life and self-reliance grew to where it was becoming hard to contain it.
In 1998, I moved to my present home here in East Texas due to circumstances in my life that I had little control over, and I knew when the choice was made to move, it had to be to a spot where I could fulfill that desire that I had nourished all those years. I would put down roots at last and so I did, but still a full time job to pay the bills and taking care of my elderly parents, as well building a barn and fences and hand shearing upwards of 25 llamas some years, got in the way of any serious gardening until a few years ago when my son
and I built two 4’ x 16’ raised beds and tried out square foot gardening.
That was a great learning experience, but once again circumstances necessitated that I concentrate on other aspects of my life and it was not until this past spring (2013) that I was able to return to those two raised beds, pull a magnitude of weeds, turn over the soil with some llama “beans”, and plant a vegetable crop.
My veggies included crookneck squash, okra, cucumbers, Ichiban eggplant, bell peppers (red, green, purple and chocolate), Cherokee Purple slicing tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, and a several types of cherry tomatoes. I planted two basil plants, a little rosemary “bush”, and some oregano. And I planted white, green, and two shades of brown cotton. Yes! I might have been a bit more excited about my cotton plants, to tell the truth, but I can tell you that I ate a lot of fresh, grilled, roasted and sautéed produce over the summer months and into early fall!
.jpg) |
| Cotton plant seedlings in front, okra in rear |
So why plant cotton? Well, I am a spinner and this year at our annual Wildflower Fiber Retreat we learned about growing and spinning cotton and were given seeds for white cotton and Sea Island Brown cotton to plant if we wanted to try our hand at growing our own spinning fiber. Many of those that attend the Retreat each year raise fiber animals like angora goats and rabbits, llamas, alpacas, and various breeds of sheep, but less than a handful had ever planted a cotton seed to harvest. And so, for me, the year of learning to spin cotton began in March, 2013, and included planting cotton along with my vegetables. If I was going to do it “right”, I wanted green cotton, too, and online I found Earline’s Green Cotton, and also some Nankeen Brown seeds to order, which I did without hesitation.
I planted about 5 or 6 white, 15 green, 10 Sea Island Brown, and 12 Nankeen. The latter did not do as well as the others because I planted them too late, I think, in a new bed quite a way from the others. Still I got a nice bag of lint from those 12 seeds. With the others, however, I got a bumper crop and I will never have to purchase cotton seeds again! I discovered that each individual boll produced about 20 seeds and each plant produced at least 12 bolls (all from 1 seed!). If you would like some, contact me and I will share!
.jpg) |
| Early bloom |
.jpg) |
| Old bloom |
.jpg) |
| Bees love the blooms |
The plants and blooms are lovely. Cotton is related to okra, hibiscus and marsh mallow plants. The blooms start off white and end up pink, yellow or red before dropping. The bees love them, and the natural colors of the cotton lint are gorgeous! Cotton plants are frequently grown in pots as ornamentals and in the far, far South can even be perennials, but mine were victims of the first serious frost in early November this year.
.jpg) |
| Cotton boll forming |
.jpg) |
| Cotton lint |
.jpg){kind=spacer} |
| Harvested bolls |
Currently, I am spending the majority of my evenings during the week hand-ginning my cotton bolls and looking forward to spinning the lint...maybe even dying some of the white. Next year I plan to expand my cotton planting to several new beds in various places around the farm. I need more practice with spinning cotton!
No comments:
Post a Comment