Watch and Listen to Mother Nature-Not the Salesmen

Thirty years ago there was the “Australian Tomato Tree.” About a million suckers, including me, made the fellow rich-until he went to jail for mail fraud. A few years ago it was the “Hanging Tomato Plant,” that nobody I heard of was happy with. They sold like hot cakes—one season. There was “Square Foot Gardening,” which is probably a good way to get newbies interested in gardening. This year it’s the “No Till Gardening,” that’s all the rage. No Till has been around forever. Mother Nature has been practicing it for over a billion years. Why do you think each plant produces hundreds and thousands of seeds? It takes that many for only a few to find purchase in the soil, put down roots and survive long enough to re-produce.

My dad, who never actually worked the soil but was always reading the latest fascinating farming curves, had us plant our very best 25 acre field in buckwheat. We were to plant after only slightly breaking up the surface-just enough so the seed would have contact with the soil. It grew well. It was a great looking crop-one of our best. When the harvester arrived with his combine and looked over the ground, he asked, “What kind of idiot would plant in rough ground like this?” My dad sheepishly replied, “This kind.”

The crop couldn’t be harvested at all. That was 60 years ago. I had spent any number of evenings after school lightly disking that field and a long weekend planting it. I was 12 and that buckwheat was my pride. My beautiful crop was useless.

Some of the arguments for “no till” are obviously committed by guys like my dad. New roots are going to be a lot happier in loose soil. Breaking up the soil to add organic matter gives the sub surface a big shot of oxygen. Once the microbes get that blast of air they go on a feeding-breeding-reproducing frenzy. They’ll be breaking down organic matter much more quickly. It needs to be broken down by the microbes before the plant can absorb those nutrients.

Before you waste a growing season, money and hard work, think through the whole process of what you’re trying to accomplish. If it doesn’t seem logical, it probably isn’t. New methods, gimmicks and fads always seem to be popular for at least one season. I’ve yet to see anything “new” that isn’t a spin on what we already know.

There’s no substitute for standard gardening. There are no shortcuts, magical cures, miracle solutions, nor is there a way to avoid the simple basics. You can simplify and speed the basics by speeding up the compost process, building raised beds, using drip irrigation, planting at just the right time, timing when to put down mulch so that you miss the breeding season for your typical pests, and a variety of other little things that are helpful to understand.

Sometimes a hanging tomato plant is just the ticket and the only option. Just don’t get the idea that it’s the ultimate in tomato growing. If you’re going to grow a tomato, a tulip or turnip, you’re probably better off to watch how Mother Nature does it; rather than the guys who want to sell you something that you can’t possibly do without. 

Seeds and Not Seeds

Sometimes over the years my “Yellow Zucchini” plants produced green zucchinis. As soon as I've seen the tiny green ones setting on the plant I've taken them out, bought another company’s seeds and replanted. I could only hope that these would be what the package said they were. Similar things have occurred with other seeds. It isn't the cost of the seeds being wasted that’s so upsetting; it’s that I've wasted much of the growing season before finding out that my yellow corn seed was in fact a sugar filled white corn. Some people like sugary corn. They wouldn't buy yellow corn seed. They would buy white corn seed. We like yellow corn. That’s why I buy yellow corn seed.

This year the package of 10-12 inch Burpless Cucumber seeds that I planted turned out to be some kind of Asian cucumber-- and some kind of Straight Eight hybrid. It’s the first time I've found not only the wrong seeds in the package, but 2 varieties of the wrong seeds in the same package!  

The first corn harvest was another disaster. My corn is always fabulous. This year, there were about 3 regular stalks with the usual ears. The other 40 or so produced almost nothing. My stalks are always 8-11 ft. high. These stalks ranged from 2 ft. to 4 ft., except for the 3 regulars. Instead of the usual 80 ears, we had about 12.  

The seed companies promise your money back if you aren't happy with their seeds.  That’s the limit of their liability. We should be able to sue the negligent scoundrels for the value of our time and the value of the priceless vegetables we were duped into believing we were planting. 

 At least my Beefmaster Seeds were in fact Beefmasters. I just made my first harvest this morning. I have 6 plants this year. I just picked 14 tomatoes. The largest was 2 lbs. and the total weight was 20 lbs., or 22 oz. per tomato average.  My Tomatoes are okay. I’m at peace with the world. I shall carry on my war with unscrupulous seed companies-- they don’t belong in the world I live in.

Fungicides & Such

I used to stress and try to battle powdery mildew and molds of various kinds. I tried almost everything. I could never find an organic cure that worked on such things.  When I finally figured it out, I laughed out loud at my silly self. Any molds and mildews only appeared after the productive life of the plant was over. Like every life form, when it has reproduced, lived its life and had its day in the sun, disease of some kind or another usually sets in and ends its life. And there was arrogant me. I must make this wonder of nature live and produce for 3 times its life expectancy. What then? If I did manage to cure the mold or mildew, what then?  You got it. Something else killed it off; some other disease, some other mold or mildew.   With molds and mildews of various kinds, the best remedy is to not plant too close together, don’t water in late afternoon or evening, never water from above, and make sure there is enough room around the plant that it has good air circulation.  Unlike dragons, plants don’t live forever. The best gardener in the world can’t make an eggplant that is genetically able to produce a maximum of 50 fruits produce 51 eggplants. That plant is going to start getting weak. It comes with age. It will be beautiful for a while, produce beautiful flowers, bear fruit, and then weaken. As it weakens, bugs move in, or disease or mildew or mold sets in to take advantage of the weakening plant. Whatever you put on a plant at that stage of life isn't going to help, at best. At worst, some of whatever you tried to cure the plant with, is now in your soil.  Give the little darlings a happy life--- but when it’s over, let ‘em go. Mother Nature set it up that way. Stop trying to interfere with her. She’s been sorting all this out over hundreds of millions of years with no help from me or you.

RATS!

Every now and then someone mentions to me that they’ve put poison out for their rat problem.

Now and then the poisoners also happen to kill their dog or their cat.

How many hawks, falcons, cats, dogs, owls, etc., that eat the poisoned rats and then die, is an uncomfortable mystery to ponder. If you’ve never seen a rat, cat, dog, owl or hawk dying of rat poisoning, trust me, you don’t want to see it.

When rats spoil my tomatoes or get into my basement to spoil stored food, I want them promptly and humanely as dead as I can make them. I don’t believe in catch and release when it comes to rats. I wouldn’t relocate my rats to your neighborhood, and I don’t want you to relocate your rats to my neighborhood. When it comes to rats and other disease spreading or dangerous critters, you’ll find me in the, “People for the Ethical Treatment of People,” group.

A good friend of mine, after his dog ate the rat poison that he had put in his garden, came up with the cleverest and best way ever to catch a rat in a snap trap – without a miss. His vet bill to save his dog was $3,000. I think that is a good gauge of the value of his invention.

What you need is a snap trap, available in any hardware store, and a peanut. Victor brand rat and mouse traps are available everywhere. And you need a peanut. Roasted and salted seems to work faster than raw peanuts. If you only have raw peanuts, that works. If I only have raw peanuts, I put a little peanut butter on a tooth pick and push it inside the shell after I’ve broken it in two. I want the stronger smell of roasted peanut on the raw peanut. The peanut butter pushed inside the shell handles the smell and the rat will have to work for it.

The following pictures are pretty much self-explanatory. Always hold a set trap so that if it goes off accidentally, you don’t break a finger. Even if you don’t break it, it will feel like you did.

The two pictures involving pliers show how to set the trap with a hair trigger, or to increase it if you get it so lightly set that it goes off when you breathe on it.

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Sweet Potatoes are Fun!

I grow Sweet Potatoes, the whitish ones, and Yams, the darker reddish variety with the deep orange flesh.

Very few people that I’ve talked to have ever had what we call “Yams,” other than covered with syrup or marshmallows or in some other ghastly form. Mostly, people that have only had them that way have a strong dislike for “Yams,” the darker variety of Sweet Potatoes. When they eat them in a medley of roasted vegetables, or rubbed with olive oil, sprinkled with Kosher salt and baked like a Russet potato, they’re amazed.

Related to Morning Glory, they grow very fast in warm weather. As a ground cover, no ornamental vine compares.

Loaded with vitamins and minerals, one of the most complete foods in the garden, they’re very easy to grow in warm climates. Here in Los Angeles, I get them started in late April. Almost all of them come up as volunteers, left over from the year before.

One little sprout, piece of sweet potato or whole small one, that was left in the soil, will have a re-birth in the late spring. I transplant them or take cuttings. Cuttings, put in a glass of water at room temperature, will sprout roots in just a day or three. Put them in the ground and that’s that. Not much water is required for a big crop. You don’t even need to get the cuttings rooted. Just cut off a branch and stick in the bed. It will play dead for about three days. As soon as it has sent out roots, you have a new vigorous plant.

The following pictures tell the whole story. From these, on 3 May 2013, we’ll be having Sweet Potatoes and Yams through about January. When we want some, I’ll just reach down into the bed. (I have very soft dirt in those beds-having created a mix of about 1/3 peat moss to 2/3 soil by volume.) From the 2 beds, one 55 square feet and one 65 square feet, I’ll take about 300 pounds of the lovelies from August through December, and into January.

Volunteer Sweet Potatoes

Last year's Sweet Potato sending up new shoots called Slips

Slips sprouting form one looked over last year

Slips ready to go into the bed

What they'll look like in 2-3 months

Tomato Question

Dear Lee,

While back East I was talking to a Gal about growing tomato plants and she asked if I ever heard of hitting the plants with a stick!........she claimed that while in Italy she saw a man do this with the end result, twice as much fruit when all was said and done.

     

If true I know I would not want to do to my beautiful plants, but what is your take?

-W.

Hi W. -

Sure, we do that---but not with a stickl. We're not so brutal. We shake the cages, which shakes the plant, which causes more blossoms to be pollinated. Tomatoes are self-pollinating-they don't need no stinking bees. Wind accomplishes the same thing, causing more pollen to drop into the pistil. Commercial growers, in huge greenhouses, have fans that go on automatically for 5-10 minutes a couple of times a day to accomplish the same thing as the Italian with the stick-or us with the shake of the cage.

Have a swell day!

-Lee
 

Just Do IT!!

Aren't you convinced yet that the people you've trusted with your food supply all your life simply can't be trusted? There are hundreds of thousands of cases of food borne illnesses, some fatal, every year. We spend bzillions in taxes to monitor, regulate, legislate, politicize this stuff every year.

What do we get? We get sick- and some of us even die.

If you have only a few square feet, you can start there. Just start. You'll be amazed at much fun it can be, how relaxing and extroverting it can be, and with a little luck and less effort, you'll get some real, untainted, fresh, high nutrient actual food!

Don't know where to start? Get the DVD's. They have everything you need to know, start to finish. Have other questions? Write to me. I've just spent the last 2 hours answering gardening questions; what's yours?