This Sh%# is BANANAS!

Image blatantly from Amazon, where you can buy these seeds

The USDA released a new, updated plant hardiness map this week, for the first time in years.  According to the new map, we are now in zone 6a instead of 5b!  For those in warmer climates, you might not understand how exciting this is in terms of the plants we can grow here (although not exactly thrilling because of the broader implications of climate change!).  I can't even count how many times through my relatively few years of gardening that I've wistfully looked at some plant or another in a seed catalog and wished I could grow it here, but it just wasn't possible, at least not outdoors.  When I saw this change in hardiness status, I had to see what I could add to my possibilities.

Some, like avocados and lemons were decidedly long shots and, as expected, it is still much too cold here (give it 50 years or so) to grow these in Michigan.  I did have one super exciting discovery of something I could grow here: bananas!  That's right: it is possible to grow bananas in Michigan.  Not all varieties, mind you, but there are one or two edible varieties that will put up with the cold temperatures and possibly (with a much increased chance, now that we are considered zone 6!) of actually bearing fruit.  After doing a big of research, I decided I wanted to grow Darjeeling bananas.  From what I've read, it is hardy up to zone 5, but is unlikely to produce fruit in anything lower than a 6 or 7.  Sounds like a worthwhile gamble to me (especially since a reader of this blog was generous enough to fund this project)!

Pretty, too!

Here's a minor hitch though: according to the lease, I can't plant trees, bushes, or shrubs (notice: nothing in the lease says I can't have a garden, like some people who stop by this blog from time to time seem to have trouble wrapping around their brains) without management approval and I don't know that banana trees are part of their vision for the trailer park.   However, containers are allowed.  That's why there isn't an issue with my blueberry and raspberry bushes, because they are in planters.  So, I'll be growing bananas in planters.  Yes, it is possible.  Apparently, a 15-gallon or larger planter is a suitable home for these banana-beasts.  That will also give me more options for winter storage.  I can either mulch the heck out of it (building an insulated box around the base or something to keep the roots warm too) or move it into a warmer location, like inside an out building like a garage or barn.  Plus, when we move, assuming I (or the cold) haven't killed it off, we can take it with us!  How's that for bananas?

I do have one confession though.  I don't like bananas.  I don't see that as a problem with this project though, since A) everyone else in my family loves bananas, B) these are not the same variety as store bought bananas, so I'm sure they would taste different, and C) if you'd only ever had a store-bought tomato, could you actually say that you didn't like tomatoes?

One last thought, further proof I've gone bananas:  I'm also going to grow pineapples this year, but more about that in a future post.

When Zombie Chickens Attack (Part 1)

Vegetarian and vegan friends and readers, you may want to skip reading this post.  Don't worry, you won't hurt my feelings on this one.

Hey, meat eaters, where do you think you're going?  You need to stay here and read this.  If it icks you out too much to think of your meat as being dead animals, you probably should get over it or stop eating meat.  Because that's what meat is: D-E-A-D A-N-I-M-A-L-S.  I've long held the idea that people who eat meat should, at some point in their lives, either observe or, better yet, participate in the process of turning living animals into food, specifically animals you intend on eating personally.  I find the disconnect that so many people have of meat just being meat extremely disrespectful to the animal that gave its life for human consumption.  After all, how can you be grateful for its ultimate sacrifice, if you can't even acknowledge what it is?  Not to mention that if you think animals come in nice, clean, pretty packaging in the store, how do you know under what conditions that animal lived and died (hint: it was far, far worse than what I'm going to describe here if you are buying factory farmed meat at the store!)?

drawing by Patricalynn of Allure of Hearth and Home

This past weekend, on my birthday, I was given the opportunity to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and to help harvest the chickens that the relative I get eggs from no longer wanted or needed in his flock.  Since I've felt like I have about really knowing where your meat comes from, and because I was offered a share of this meat for free for my assistance, I jumped at the chance.

When I first got there, I didn't know what I was doing.  I quickly discovered that I was glad not to be the person actually killing the chickens, not because of any sort of moral dilemma, but because the method being used was to poke them in the brain before slitting their throat, something that my sensitive stomach churned at, even though it is supposed to be a more humane way to do it, since they are braindead by the time they bleed out or something.  My mom was also helping with this project, and had some prior experience with chicken butchering, so she was taking the lead on showing me what to do.  In the meantime, when she was working on the first chicken, the owner of the chickens, who was doing the actual slaughtering, handed off the next one to me, by the feet, so its head was down by my thigh. 

I was watching my mom and trying to learn what I was supposed to do, but my mind sometimes wanders.  If you ever have seen the television show Scrubs, that's the kind of mind wandering I'm talking about.  I was just contemplating zombie chickens and half expecting the chicken I was holding to come back to life and bite my thigh on its way to going for my brains (since it didn't have any brains anymore.  See how that kind of makes sense?), when the zombie chicken attacked for real!  Okay, so it didn't really bite me or go for my brain, but you know how the expression "running around like a chicken with their head cut off" is based on reality?  Well, this chicken couldn't run anywhere, since I was holding on to its legs, but it sure was trying to go somewhere!  It was flapping like crazy!  You know the expression "that scared the crap out of me?"  Okay, in this case, it really was just an expression, but it scared the something out of me!  It took me a good long while, and another zombie attack, before I could finally came down enough to hang it up to be processed.

This post is already getting quite long, so I think I'm going to save the rest of this two day adventure for another day, if you are interested, that is.  Would you be interested in reading a Part 2 of When Zombie Chickens Attack?  This was all in the first half hour of the adventure, so there is plenty more I could share!