This Morning’s Haul

I was worried that I’d crowded my Japanese eggplants in the bed. I needn’t have been concerned. The 7 plants are in a bed 30” wide and 5 ft. long. We picked 51 of them on Sat. morn, just before the photo was taken. I could have picked another dozen, but I’ll get them tomorrow and another 30-40 in addition. They grow fast. Each plant produces over 100 of the lovelies over the season.

I’ll use about 200 of them in making 50-60 lbs. of Eggplant Parmesan. I make about 20 lbs. at a time, cut it into 1 lb. squares right in the pan after it’s cooked. I put the whole pan right in freezer, pop it out and wrap the individual one lb. pieces, and it’s totally a comfort food meal throughout the winter. We just heat it up one of the 1 lb. squares, and in January or February, there’s no finer dinner.

The corn is always a problem. I only plant 40 seeds in the 5’ x 8’ bed, which gives us about 100 ears—but it all comes ready over about a 10 day period. We don’t much like frozen or canned corn, so we feast on it every night for those 10-14 days. That leaves about 60 ears for our daughter’s family.

What about all the cucumbers? Melissa has made about 30 quarts of various kinds of pickles—the best!

Yellow zucchini is everybody’s favorite, so I planted 3 seeds early in a bed 5’ by 8’. The 3 plants are so big that it’s hard to walk on the sidewalk around them, and one side is completely cut off. We’ve taken at least 100 lbs. from the 3 plants.

This year I planted about 20 pole bean seeds. We’ve taken about 15 lbs. already, and the plants haven’t yet reached their peak. Pepper, our dog, is a green bean freak! He loves all the vegetables, but picking beans with him nearby—and he’s always nearby, is an ordeal. He fixates on what you’re doing with an intensity it’s almost scary. He dances around, focused, and makes it very clear that he wants nothing more than one of those beans. It’s impossible to not give him 2 or 3 during the course of a bean harvest.

If you aren’t growing a few-or literally tons of vegetables like I, you might be surprised at the enormous array of personal rewards that come with growing your own pure, fresh food.

Kook Fringe

I find it interesting—and hilarious, that organic farming and gardening methods fully developed and used over the last 10,000 years have now been dubbed “unconventional.”

Around 1910, German scientists first learned how to chemically make nitrogen, cheaply, and in quantity. From that point until about the 1950’s, with the help of the boys in the chemistry labs, cheap chemical products—fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, “---cides” (as in sui-“cides”) of all kinds became the order of the day. During those 50 years all the farming and gardening wisdom of the past 10,000 years was tossed aside in favor of fast and cheap. Very slowly over the last 50-60 years we’ve been becoming more and more aware of the destruction we’ve heaped upon ourselves, our plants and animals, our water and air. The chemical and drug companies would have us believe these are “conventional” methods -- and that organic methods are “unconventional.”

Yes, I find that very hilarious. Sickening, but hilarious. You can be sure that the more the petro-chemical industry feels the loss of sales of their poisons, the more ridicule will be heaped upon those of us who grow, buy and demand pure food. They can campaign against organics with funds that would be the envy of any political candidate. There's big money in poison. The media are not going to want to offend their biggest advertisers. We'll be more and more the butt of criticism, false data and false reporting.

I'm seeing more of that nonsense and lies every day. I don't mind being in this "kook fringe" that doesn't want poison on my dinner table. In fact, I take a lot of pride in it!

Potatoes and Zucchini

Zucchini's are sometimes eaten raw, although they have a very mild flavor-my take on that is, 'why bother?'

Sometimes I'll grate part of one, raw, or slice off thin strips with a potato peeler and add them to a salad. You can't much taste it, but it really adds a beautiful color to a salad.

Sometimes we just slice and steam them until soft in a steamer basket, add butter, salt and pepper--really excellent. Mostly I slice them and quartered slices of my Walla Walla onions-any onion will do, put them in a frying pan, add some olive oil, a little salt and pepper, turn the burner on high and toss them a bit, letting some of them get browned on one side, then cover the pan, turn it down to medium or low, and let them soften. Wonderful stuff! We usually have it every night for a week or two when it first starts coming in.

I think one could steam it for a few minutes, plunge in salted ice water and then pack them in zip lock bags for the freezer. I've never done that, but it should work okay. Mostly we have so many from 2 or 3 plants that we give away far more than we use. My daughter's family will take all they can get, but even sometimes she cries, "No mas!" I usually try to keep a couple of plants going into the late fall, and I've just started some more seeds to take over when the current plants have run out their life-span. Everybody raves about how good they are--and everyone is amazed at how fast they grow.

I started growing potatoes many years ago. We've always kept our potatoes in a cupboard, along with onions. Onions, bananas or apples will all give off a gas that makes potatoes sprout much faster than they might. I didn't know that back then. I simply buried them in the garden--found fresh dug potatoes to be about the best food on earth, and I've been growing them ever since.

When I'm doing potatoes on purpose, I put them on the shaded patio for a week or two, to let the skins turn green. Then I put a couple bananas, apples or onions along with them in a brown paper bag. In a week or two, they sprout. I sometimes plant them whole, but if I'm going to cut one into 2 or more, I dip the cut end in wood ashes and let them dry for at least a day. Dig a hole about a foot deep, put one in the bottom, put about an inch of dirt over it. When it comes up 2-3 inches, I push dirt up to just under the leaves, and keep filling in the hole as the plant grows. By the time the hole is filled back up, the potato is growing very rapidly. I sometimes dig them right after they blossom, but usually I wait until the plant is dying or dead, at which time they're as big and fully developed as they'll ever be. Baked or boiled, if you've never had a freshly dug potato, you're in for a very nice surprise.

Weed Killer

"Roundup" is the big seller, at around $25 a gallon. The label says it does the job in about 12 hours.

The effective ingredient is glyphosate, which has been found to…”cause reproductive harm, including damaged DNA in mice and abnormal chromosomes in human blood. Evidence from epidemiological studies has also linked exposure to the herbicide with increased risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and laboratory studies have now begun to hone in on the mechanism by which the chemical acts on cell division to cause cancer. A Canadian study has linked glyphosate exposure in the three months before conception with increased risk for miscarriage…” http://www.panna.org/node/466

(Monsanto, the maker of glyphosate, doesn’t bother you by putting all that technical stuff on the label.)

I killed a variety of weeds this morning. They were on their way to dead immediately, and a few hours later were dried up and ready to be swept away.

It cost me about 80 cents make a one-quart spray bottle of it. If I had needed a gallon, it would have cost me about $3.50.

Recipe:

¼ cup salt

1-teaspoon liquid detergent

1-quart cheap white vinegar

Pour the salt, liquid detergent and vinegar in the spray bottle, shake it up, and you’ve done yourself, your family and your environment a big favor—even your weeds. They’ll die a faster, easier death.

The liquid detergent can be any kind of liquid soap. It's only purpose is to make the solution adhere better to the plant leaves.

You can omit using salt if you're going to be using a great deal of it, especially if you're going to be spraying over garden soil. Most of the salt should remain on the plants your going to kill, but of course you don't want salt on your garden soil.

And be careful of over-spray around plants you don't want dead! I only use it to kill weeds that grow up between my patio bricks, through cracks in the concrete, etc. Weeds in the garden beds should be pulled up by their roots.

Hi Lee -

Thank you for all your help with Betty! It has been so fun! I remember when she arrived at the office and today I picked the first squash. Thanks again for all your help. ~ Karen

Garden Coach

Vegetable gardens in back yards haven’t seen such popularity since the Victory Gardens of World War II. The problem created by that 60+-year gap in gardening is a major shortage of people with knowledge and experience.

The relatively few of us who have been gardening for many years find ourselves inundated with questions and e-mails from people needing information on every subject from soil preparation, fertilizers and starting seeds, to getting rid of aphids and rats. Some want more extensive help, from “how to” start a garden to re-building cutely designed, but non-functional, raised beds. None of it is at all complex or difficult, but it does take some learning.

In my observations of people who start gardens for the first time, the foremost problem is simply a lack of confidence. That someone has a “green thumb,” and someone else doesn’t, is silliness. You either want to do it and know you can, or you give up at the first setback. A “green thumb” is nothing but the commitment and desire to have the freshest, best organic food possible for your family. With information and help available on the I-net, answers to every possible problem or question abound. Some of the data is non-sense; some garden gadgets and products don’t work-but make money for the sellers. I’ve been duped more than once myself.

Ten thousand years ago people first began domesticating animals. Since they didn’t have to constantly follow the herds of wild animals, they began staying in one place long enough to also begin growing plants for food. By 5,000 years later, the Greeks had pretty well mastered vegetable growing and were even using raised beds for greater production. The gimmicks and gadgets available today, the powerful deadly pesticides, the “revolutionary” new methods, are really unnecessary. Gardening is simple, easy, and if you have a little understanding, it’s a total joy.

Problem solving is part of the activity. Every once in awhile I encounter a pest or other kind of problem that I’ve never had to deal with. When I do, I have a good idea how to handle it. It always comes right back to the basics of keeping it simple-and organic.

People with no experience at vegetable growing hire me from time to time, either to build gardens for them, to examine their gardens advise them on how to solve a problem, or how to actually get their vegetables plants to produce vegetables.

Not much is more rewarding to me than to help someone produce his or her own organically grown food. It not only helps them, the environment is well served.

Answers for your Questions

(I have at least 100 of these.)
Q. About organic seeds

I get most of my seeds from www.groworganic.com.
More and more retailers are carrying organic seeds, but be sure you see the "Certified Organic" emblem on the package. Man has not genetically modified any that are “certified organic”.
Such certification even precludes hybrid seeds, of which I do use some. They may be organically grown, but as they're a hybrid, they can't be certified as "organic."
One of my favorite things is yellow zucchini. I don't like green, but love the yellow--which is a hybrid.
I also get some seeds from www.totallytomatoes.com, but many of theirs are also hybrids. They do carry a variety of certified organic seeds as well.
I think both companies are extremely ethical.

Q. About legumes
* Alfalfa hay will serve just as well as legumes. I'd use about 1 lb. per sq. ft. of bed surface area. It's hard to dig in, but don't worry about it all being covered. You'll have some stems and strands of it here and there on the surface-no worries. If you can dig in 2 lbs. per sq. ft., so much the better. If you thoroughly shake it up as you spread it over the surface it will be easier to dig into the soil. After digging it in, thoroughly saturate the bed, and if you can cover it with 6 ml clear plastic for a week or two, sealing the edges as well as you can so that the heat build up doesn't escape, it will really speed up the composting of the alfalfa. You can get the 6 ml clear plastic in the paint section - under drop cloths. Be sure you get the 6 ml. The box contains a sheet 10' X 25,' in a roll. I re-use it and it generally holds up for 2-3 seasons before it starts to break down. Clear plastic allows the suns rays to radiate deeply into the soil, while the black plastic only heats the surface.
* I'd mix any kind of compost-the cheapest is about as good as the most expensive, and even though the label says "Organic," it isn't--about half and half with bags of topsoil. Again with top soil, I wouldn't fall for the promo. Nobody regulates compost or topsoil to certify that it's organic. I'd try to buy any that comes from a reputable source. You'll be okay with that. Then mix in your alfalfa, the meals as below and you'll be fine.
* Mr. Bartholomew may not be aware that the roots of most vegetables are within 12" of the surface. If you have 2' of topsoil, you'll be much better off. Realize that if you put the mixture he calls for to a depth of 6", by the end of the season that 6" will have settled to 3". That also means that 2 ft. of mix described above will settle to about 15-18" by the end of the season. Vermiculite and all the "lites" have no nutrient value to the soil. Alfalfa hay will accomplish the same purpose of creating air space and moisture retention.
* This year I'm using "Super Guano" for nitrogen, and "fish bone meal" for phosphorous and calcium. The kelp meal is very important for the loads of trace minerals-mostly long absent from our soils generally. I get all of those from www.groworganic.com I buy it in quantities that last for 2-3 yrs, for the economy of it, but you may not have storage space to do that.
* If you use plenty of alfalfa, no worries about the worms. They love the stuff, and believe me, they'll find it. I've never worried about the worms, never added any, etc.
* I've tried the various brands of drip equipment, but the only one I'd recommend is Rain Drip. OSH carries it, but I don't think Ho. Depot does. Just be careful to get all the right size fittings. If you get the 1/2" feeder line, be sure to get 1/2" parts. They often mix the 1/2" parts with the 5/8" parts--and it creates nightmares when you try to put it together.
* No, I'd never use a timer. Some veg's take more, some take less, and some parts of my yard get more sun than others, so the evaporation rate varies. I almost always use a "moisture meter," but also check by digging down a bit, just so I know that the meter means what I think it means.
It depends on the heat and humidity-and which veg's need more or less water, as to how often I water. Sometimes I won't need to water my tomatoes for 10 days or so, at other times I may need to water them every 2-3 days. Generally I leave the water on for no more than 30-40 minutes, whether I water every 2-3 days, or once a week. It really just depends on the bed itself, and what's growing there.
Nothing elementary about your questions, Christy! Good ones, all. Don't get intimidated by the complexities and don't fall for the gimmicks--it's really very simple. I've seen some TV shows, and read parts of some books on gardening that truly amaze me, some that were absolutely hysterical; all done with a straight face.
Keep it simple and you'll have fine results. Let me know any questions or problems? Always glad to help.
Best Regards,


Q. About fertilizers
Yes, exactly the same fertilizers on everything. I only add some dry milk--a handful in a 3 gal. bucket, and feed the tomatoes about 2 gal. ea., once after they've been in the ground a week or two, and another feeding of that when they're starting to produce. It's not really necessary, probably, but it's an old habit I picked up in the beginning, before my soil was at all prepared right and I thought I could grow something in clay. It's a cure for blossom end rot-- that I've not had in 25 years.
I add my fertilizers early in the spring, when I first turn over my beds getting ready for spring planting--a week or two before I plant, and I do the same again, in the fall, after the summer plants are over, preparing the beds for fall crops and legumes.
That's Black Seeded Simpson lettuce. I've found that it handles the heat and the cold better than any other leaf lettuce--and it's our very favorite, too! I buy it by the 1/4 lb. from www.groworganic.com, for about $10. If you buy the little packages, you pay about $2. for a few seeds-I'd need 4-5 packages to plant a bed the size of the one in the photo. A 1/4 lb. will plant 20 beds that size, so it's a huge savings. (Always keep your seeds in the fridge.)


Q. About white flies
White flies are tough. They can be controlled with rubbing alcohol-about 1/2 cup to a one qt. spray bottle of water, and add about a teaspoon of liquid detergent. You'll need to spray them every day. If they're on your vegetables, don't spray during the heat of the day, as you might burn the plants. Evening would be the best time. You could also just use a fairly strong spray of water and wash them off. Whichever way you go, they'll need to be sprayed every day for a while. (If you use the alcohol and detergent, just try a small area of the plants to see if it's going to burn them before spraying everything.)
Horn worms--and all the green caterpillars, are much more easily handled. "Bacillus Thurengiensis, Kurstaki strain," is the active ingredient you're looking for. "Safer" is the brand I see just about everywhere organic products are sold. It says, "Caterpillar Killer" on the label, comes in a concentrate in a small, dark green plastic bottle. Use about a tablespoon in a 1 qt. spray bottle, and it'll do the job. It's a bacteria, and apparently it pretty much lasts forever. I think this is the 3rd year I'm using one little bottle, and it's still working just fine. I use it on my lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes, tomatoes, etc., and just don't have a problem with any of the green devils.
It's harmless to any other pests or beneficials, completely non-toxic, etc., but you won't have any caterpillar problems. I spray anything susceptible to caterpillars about once a week early in the year. As summer progresses, I find I just don't need to use it at all.
Let me know how you do with that?