Timing is Everything

This time of year, where I live, we are in the middle of the season of preparation for planting, and early spring gardening. January was the time to send our soil samples to our local extenstion agency for analysis (to learn what needs to be adjusted and added) to plan our garden, and to order seeds. Winter is the time for making the recommended adjustments and additions to the soil, so that we know it will be fertile and loamy and properly prepped for the tiny baby seeds we can't wait to pop into it.

As the above illustration shows, knowing the proper timing of things is important. Many people think only in terms of a summer garden, with plants such as tomatoes, cucumber, and squash. Those plants are only put into the ground after all danger of frost has passed. But did you know that there are some plants that can be planted well before the last frost date? Besides sweet peas, cool weather crops include onions, carrots, beets, turnips, parsnip, cilantro, dill, collards, kale, chard, bok choi, cabbage, and many more. These plants thrive in the cooler weather and will actually not do as well in the hot weather of summer. There are also plants that are perennial such as asparagus, strawberry, blueberry, and blackberry, that are planted now (while they're dormant), from transplanted bare-root plants. 

If we put seeds in the ground too soon, early spring frosts may kill them. If we wait too late (especially in my climate that gets very hot, very fast), the fruits and vegetables we plant may not ripen in time for a good spring harvest. What does it take to know and understand this timing? For one, it takes educating one's self. Each of us, if we are interested in gardening, needs to learn about the average date when the last frost occurs where we live. This average date will determine when we plant things that would be killed by such a frost. 

 If we go get a bit more sophisticated, we can get a soil temperature gauge and measure the temperature of our soil. The germination of seeds is dependent upon the temperature of the soil. Each plant has a different germination temperature. We can time our planting to correspond with the best soil temperature. Many serious gardeners also get a jump start on their spring garden by planting the seeds for their summer crops indoors (often with grow lights and special plant heating pads), so that the plants are actually seedlings several inches tall by the time it's warm enough to plant them outside. If we are industrious, we can also raise the soil temperature and protect tender seedlings from frost damage by covering our garden rows with plastic (called row covers). Row covers capture warmth from the sun and holds it in (raising soil temperature) and also protect young plants from the cold night air. I hope this post will encourage you to plan your garden and to think in terms of a bit longer growing season!

 To extend our growing season, we just need to know what seeds to plant when, and also can expand this timing by starting some seeds indoors under grow lights, under row covers or using other "season extenders," so that they'll be larger by the time of the last frost date.

 

English peas (and sugar snap peas and snow peas also), can be planted in the garden as soon as the ground "can be worked." (This means they can be planted as soon as the soil is no longer freezing temperature.) White potatoes can be planted any time the soil temperature is above 45 degrees F (7.2 degrees C). Other "cold tolerant" plants include collard greens, kale, turnips, rutabaga, chard, cabbage, beets, carrots, bok choi, and arugula. Spinach and lettuce can be planted after the soil is a little warmer.

 Don't take my word for it! To learn more, first learn your planting zone by clicking HERE. Then, do a google search for a "planting calendar," but naming your particular planting zone. I live in planting zone 8b. My planting calendar (pictured above) will look very different from someone who is in a colder planting zone (such as 4A) or a warmer planting zone (such as 9B). But in the meantime, no matter what your planting zone, it's virtually never too soon to prepare your soil, plan your garden (what you want to plant, where and when) and order or acquire your seeds!

Being aware of the importance of planning ahead is also a really good way to approach other tasks in life.  Think about where you want to end up (Veggies in June? Well adjusted children successfully launched? Term paper six weeks from now?), and then back up the steps and the timing that will help you get where you want to be, at the time when you want to be there.  

Earthbound

"To understand Jesus properly, we have to appreciate how his living makes possible the transformation of our own. God became incarnate in Jesus Christ to show us and welcome us into what creaturely life is ultimately about and for. This means that salvation is not about 

Life Doesn't Wait

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 is the famous Biblical passage which declares, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: ... a time to plant, and a time to uproot ...."  My garden is a reminder this week that (1) timing is important, and (2)  the proper time for planting is not a matter depending on convenience for me.  Ecclesiastes is right, after all.  There is, indeed, a time to plant. It's spring. For most of us, the time is now.

By June, we can expect some days over 100 degrees F here. I've learned that trick where I live is to get an early start on spring gardening, so that plants have time to produce a crop before the summer heat sets in and they are unable to cope with the heat. (For instance, tomatoes no longer produce flowers or fruit after the temperature reaches 95°.) I had set a goal to have my seedlings in sprouting pots very early, so that they could be set out at the earliest date after there was no danger of frost anymore.

In terms of gardening timing, once again I've been a failure. I didn't make the cut! Even though I started numerous veggie seeds indoors on March 1st, that wasn't soon enough!  It is already late, in terms of having nicely filled out seedlings ready to put out into my garden by the time of the last frost.  The little plants I put out this week look like tiny sprigs instead of baby bushes!

Broccoli Seedlings 3/28/17

 

Procrastination is easy.  I've been so busy this spring on other things! So many excuses!   It's cold outside in the mornings, I'm out of the habit, I'm busy, etc., Yet, excuses have no meaning in terms of real life effects. . It doesn't matter how busy I am. With regard to my garden and the need to work in it, time was still moving forward, no matter what my other plans were.

 Photos from last year are indictments of my tardiness! Some things simply are time sensitive. If we miss an opportunity, the opportunity is indeed gone. By this time last year, I had lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, broccoli, kale, all well underway for spring dining.  

Fortunately, the consequences for me are relatively inconsequential since I'm still able to purchase food in the grocery store or produce market. No one will starve on account of my failure.

Failure: 

The purpose of this post is not really to talk about the timing of garden plantings, but really to talk more about failure and how I cope with it. We all fall short of our own expectations from time to time.

One of my first inquiries is to ask, "Who did I fail?" If I failed someone else, I may need to do something to undue harm or to prevent harm to them. I may need to apologize.  In the garden situation, I'm spared this step because the only person I've failed is myself. My expectation was that I would have been keenly aware of the timing of planting my seedlings to get a great start on my Spring garden. I set a goal to watch my calendar and be very proactive this spring. I failed at that. 

I don't like failure. Does anybody? What do we do about it, when we fail at our personal goals?  Well, one thing is that in order to learn from any failure, we must first acknowledge that it  happened.  Another step is to analyze what went wrong and fix things so they don't happen again.  A third, obvious but sometimes more difficult step, is to pick ourselves up and move on. 

In terms of learning from failure, it is important to understand what went wrong.  Keeping a diary of what works and what doesn't work in my garden is a great idea. Based on my records, I know that this time last year I had little lettuces,  spinach, chard, broccoli, kale, and Chinese cabbage, all well along toward providing Spring harvest. Setting goals, documenting our progress,  and providing ourselves with yardsticks to measure by is a good way to keep track of how we are doing. (Last year, I killed some plants by applying too much fertilizer.  Oops, won't do that again!)  Whether we fail or succeed, measurements and documentation help us learn from both our successes and our mistakes.  

Dates and Labels help with documentation and identification later

Another thing I know is that, while it is helpful to learn from mistakes, beating myself up mentally and dwelling on the past will not help me. The only option real option  is to move forward from where I am now.  I cannot really make up for lost time, I cannot undo the consequences. All I can do (besides making amends with those whom I've wronged) is to make the best decisions I am able to make from this point forward. 

I am pleased at the thought that my gardening this season is (so far at least) not yet a total failure. There is room for redemption!  I do have broccoli seedlings and tomato seedlings and artichoke seedlings and pepper seedlings ... They are not as far along as I would like, but it's better than nothing and hopefully not futile to plant them. Here's to moving forward. 

 

Broccoli Seedlings 3/28/17

Eggplant Seedlings 3/28/17

 

Starting Your Straw Bale Garden

So much has already been written about using straw bales as a medium for vegetable gardening,  that you will have no trouble finding information about how to create a straw bale garden.  

The purpose of this blog article is not to teach you how to create a straw bale garden, but to let you know that if you're thinking about it, now is the time to start!  It takes at least six weeks to condition bales to get them ready for planting, so you must to start the process six weeks before you hope to put plants into the bale. The time to do that, is now!

 

The basic idea of straw bale gardening technique is that you set a bale of straw (not hay) upright, with the cut side facing the sky.  Ideally, the bales will be braced to keep them from falling over, and they will also be equipped with soaker hoses so that plants grown in the bales are easily watered. Then, nitrogen fertilizer is applied and soaked through the bale. The nitrogen super-stimulates good bacteria that make the interior of the bale decompose and turn into mulch that plants can grow in.  Nitrogen is applied just about every other day during a six week process of rapidly composting the internal part of the bale.

The original straw bale gardening book was written by Joel Karsten. If you are interested in straw bale gardening, check out one of the several books he has written about it. Another book I like is called Straw Bales For Dummies. 

 (This photo from my home garden last spring shows one row of bales that has already been used for one growing season, and a second row of bales that is newly placed and ready for conditioning.)

Straw bale gardening offers significant benefit for the small scale, urban or suburban vegetable gardener. For one, you don't have to prepare soil, hoe, or till. You don't even need dirt! (You can set the bale directly on a patio!) It also offers automatic weed-free space. A third, fine benefit is that it automatically creates a raised gardening space, so that not nearly as much bending is required to cultivate your plants. (The main drawback is probably cost of materials, which you can learn more about in the books above.) 

Straw bales do not last forever. They continue to decompose and, over time, become clumps of mulch. Here is a photo taken this week of what is left of the straw bales shown in the illustration above. As you can see, there is nothing left! However, the remains of the bales do contain lots of earthworms and hummus and greatly improved the soil from the pure sand that was there last year.

 

It is time to be putting seeds into flats for spring planting, and it is time to be getting your bales ready to receive those little baby plants! Here is a photo of some bales currently being conditioned in another part of my garden: 

 

Happy gardening, everyone! 

What to Sow in Plant Zone 8 in March

For planting zone 8, our last average frost date is March 15th. It's time for spring planting! 

Plants that tolerate cool weather can be planted outside now and include: 

Asparagus, beets, bok choi, broccoli (and other brassicas such as broccolini and Chinese broccoli), cabbage, carrots, collards, lettuce, mustard greens (and any other type of green, leafy vegetable such as spinach), onions, radish, turnip, Swiss chard, white potatoes. 

It's getting a bit late, but English peas could still be planted this week. (ideally, English peas are planted as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring.) 

 Perennial food plants that can be planted now include artichoke, asparagus, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries. 

Herbs that can be planted now include parsley, thyme, oregano, cilantro. 

Seeds that should be started indoors now (under lights or in a sunny window) include tomatoes, peppers, eggplant. 

It Takes Good Soil

I harvested my first cantaloupe today. 

I ordered heirloom cantaloupe seeds from a  specialty supplier. They promised a delicious, sweet, fragrant fruit of superior quality. 

I started the seedlings in a flat growing tray.  I used sterile, fertile soil made that was formulated especially for starting seeds. I tended them carefully, making sure they got optimal sun during the day and were sheltered from cold weather at night.  When the seedlings were well-established, I transferred them to a nice, sunny spot in the garden. I faithfully watered them every day. I fertilized them occasionally, too. 

I don't know why I was so surprised when the vines first grew pretty yellow flowers, and then I noticed little cantaloupes growing! I was so excited!

I was expecting the fruit to grow much larger, so I thought harvest was a few weeks away.  But then, several days ago, one of them started to turn yellow. Yesterday, I thought I would check to see whether it might be ready to pick. To my surprise, when I touched the cantaloupe, it rolled right off the stem!  

I picked up the little thing in my hand and smelled it. It had a mild fragrance that smelled like a fruity perfume. I took it inside, along with the rest of what I picked that morning.

I could hardly wait to cut it! But I decided to wait and share it with my family for breakfast.

So, this morning when I prepared breakfast, I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, and peeled and sliced the little thing. Then, we sat down to to eat this cantaloupe,  fresh from our garden. I was  imagining how much better it would be than the store-bought variety. I was so excited when I took the first bite of this cantaloupe I had grown in my very own garden!

Boom! What a disappointment! 

Not only was it not sweet, not fragrant, and not particularly flavorful, but the flavor it did have seemed to taste like chemicals! If it had been a store-bought cantaloupe, I would have thrown it away immediately! Instead of throwing it away immediately, I ate a few more bites and made my child take a taste. Then I said, "OK, we have tried it! We can put the rest in the compost heap!" 

But I also thought, there really is a lesson in life here. Not just for growing cantaloupe, but for growing anything! Here is the lesson: 

GOOD SOIL IS IMPORTANT! 

You see, I had planted the cantaloupe in sand. Yes, I had watered it.  Yes, I had fertilized it. But these measures were  not enough to overcome the original deficiency of the soil it was planted in.  I had supplied some water and some nutrients.  The plant survived, but it didn't thrive as it could have. It didn't receive the rich variety of nutrients and minerals, in just the right amounts, that would have made this plant strong and the fruit delectable.  Without good soil, it was impossible for the plant to reach its full potential.  

I now, if I may, let me carry this a bit further. It is not just fruits and vegetables and things we grow in gardens that need good soil. Children need good soil, too!  

Whether we are parents, or not, all of us have opportunity to help create the soil that the children of our world grow in.  Will we provide an environment where they will thrive, or will we merely throw in enough nutrients that they survive?  That is a choice we make not only as parents, but as a community and as a society. 

On a personal level, we can nurture children by supplying the good soil of positive comments, positive guidance, constructive discipline, encouragement of their interests and abilities, providing them with opportunities. On a community level, we can volunteer to help with activities related to children.  We can mentor.  We can tutor.  We can personally support the schools and teachers,  churches and community organizations that provide services to children. On a national and policy level, we can take positions and advocate for policies that protect our children and serve the interests of nurturing the next generation.  We can even (heaven forbid!) lobby on behalf of the social institutions that support and protect our children.  

Think about it. Our children are our future. They are relying on us to provide the soil that is needed for their optimal development. Yes, we can throw some fertilizer and throw some water on the seeds and think we have done a good job, but have we really? Have we really plowed the earth and created an environment that is nurturing for every child? Or have we instead merely paid lip service to the idea of doing what is right?

Attack of the Squash Vine Borers

The first time I ever tried to grow squash on my own was the summer of 1982. My squash plants sprouted. They grew. They were beautiful. And then, boom! Over the period of one or two weeks, every one of them wilted and died.

When I examined the dead plants, their roots seemed rotten. The next time I tried to grow squash was a few years later. I was careful not to overwater. The same thing happened. At the time, I had no idea why these beautiful plants would suddenly just rot at the root, keel over, and die. I gave up on trying to plant squash.

When I started my garden this year, it had been a long time since I had grown a garden. Due to the effects of faded memory, and lured by the thought of delicious, fresh squash, I forgot that I had no green thumb when it came to squash. I planted three different varieties in my garden. 

I planted a yellow crooked neck variety purchased from a garden shop, a zucchini called "green tiger," and another zucchini called "early bulam." 

My six yellow squash did not thrive particularly well. One or two wilted and died. I attributed it to my lack of green thumb. The rest, however, grew and began to produce little squash. 

To my amazement, the green tiger zucchini really took off! They turned into big, bold plants that could have been used in ornamentals in a landscape.

When I planted the zucchini, I put them in the same space as English sugar snap peas.

My thought was that by the time the zucchini plants were large, the peas would be done producing and it would be time to pull them out. This, in fact, did happen.

At some point, the peas were dying, and also shaded out by the squash, and the squash were crowded and needed more room. I removed the peas from the bed. This disrupted the squash a little bit, but the most significant thing was that it prompted me to notice the squash closer to their roots. I saw that the same rot that had affected some of the yellow squash was beginning to afflict the tiger zucchini. No! I turned to my new friend, the Internet, to investigate squash diseases. 

That is when I learned about squash vine borers.   When I looked closer, indeed, this is what I discovered was  infesting my plants! I speculate that it was probably the cause of death of all my squash plants in my previous garden endeavors!

You can read about squash vine borers on the Internet, and you can also watch YouTube videos about them. (As an example, the University of Minnesota extension service has a great web page about vine borers: HERE). My goal is not to duplicate that information here. Rather, I want to raise an alert about what vine borers are and share how I have kept my plants alive this year (so far). 

The adult squash vine borer is a flying moth that is brightly colored and shaped a little bit like a wasp. It lays its egg on the stalk of the plant, near the root. When the egg hatches, the tiny grub immediately bores into the hollow center of the squash leaf stalk. Once inside the stalk, it is not reachable by predators such as birds or pesticides. It tunnels inside the stalk, eating and growing. Eventually, it grows so large and eats so much of the stalk that the root becomes disconnected from the top of the plant (which then dies). When the vine borer grub has reached full size, it exits the plant and goes into the soil, where it pupates for a year before emerging as an adult month.

The first line of defense for vine borers (and many other flying pests) is to use landscape netting over your plants that lets light and water in but keeps insects out.  This prevents the adult from laying eggs on the stalk. Internet resources say that some people also put foil and wrappings around the stalks where the insects lay eggs, to create a barrier there. Neither of these is practical for me. Pesticides that kill the insect can help, but I am trying to avoid pesticides. 

If prevention does not keep borers at bay, the only remedy is to find and kill the grub. A method discussed on Internet resources is to slit the stalk until the grub is located, and then kill it.  Each plant may have several grubs. They must all be located and killed. (They might be tiny and hard to see, too!)  Home remedies also involve burying part of the plant above the site where the grub has been removed, so that the plant can grow new roots above the spot where the old root has been destroyed.

Back to the story of my garden.  

When I found the squash vine borers in my squash, it turned out that it was a big benefit to have the squash planted in well decomposed straw bales. The loam they were planted in was so loose that I could use my hands to scoop out a large chunk of planting medium, pull out the entire plant (roots and all), excise the vine borer, and then replant the squash after its "surgery" to remove the borer. 

My observation was that healthy plant tissue was firm, whereas areas affected by the borers were mushy and rotting. Following this cue, I found it easy to use a tool to dig out the infected tissue, and to locate and destroy the borer. After experimenting with various knives and metal objects, I found that my favorite tool to use is a wooden barbecue skewer. The pointy tip can be used to scrape at and remove diseased tissue, and it also provides a fine point to use with some precision when locating and digging out the grub.

Here are some photos: 

The stick I am using here to show the rotten root is a long, heavy duty wooden barbecue skewer. The rot is my cue that there is a vine borer inside. 

I have scraped away rotten tissue and the grub is now exposed. This one is about half the maximum size, but much larger than the tiny ones that must also be caught and removed. 

It turns out, there were four grubs in this plant. All connection to the leaves on the top had already been destroyed. 

Even though the connection to the root had been destroyed, this is what the top of the plant still looked like.

A grub, and the rotten area all around it. 

Fortunately, the root part of a squash plant will root very readily. The first time I dug a grub out of a plant, I brought the plant inside, trimmed off the rotten part of the roots, and set it in a cup to root. Within a week, the plant had nice new roots, and I was able to replant it outside in the garden.

Locating and digging out the vine borers, has been my least favorite part of growing my garden this year, so far.  The rotten roots are yucky, and digging the grubs out is gross. I would guess that of the plants that have been infected, I have been able to save about 75%. 

I have treated some without digging them up, just by using the wooden skewer to gouge and scrape into the rotten part, and finding the grub and destroying it. After I was certain that all grubs had been destroyed, I re-covered the root portions of the plant so that they would re-root. Some of the plants actually re-rooted in two places, effectively bypassing the areas damaged by the grubs.

Of the plants that had more severe damage, I was only able to save a few. Here is one (shown below). 

A plant with root damage does not need to be focusing any energy on fruits or losing water from leaves. I removed the fruits from this plant, but when I replanted it originally, the leaves looked fine. There was so much root damage, however,  that the leaves could not get water from the root, and they died. After they died, I snipped them off with sterile scissors. Notice that the plant is now putting up new leaves from the center.

The trellis around the plant is supporting a piece of cloth that I am using to shade the plant from the sun, to reduce stress from transpiration. 

At present, squash plants are on sale at a local garden shop for one dollar each. It may have been easier just to pull these up and go get new ones.  However, there are a couple of reasons I did not. These plants are many weeks old. It would take a new plant a long time to catch up to where these ones already are. Additionally, the tiger zucchini is not available locally, and I am out of seeds. At present, these plants are producing about 10 zucchini squash per week.

From what I read, vine borers have a definite time frame, and after that time frame they are no longer active and don't pose a threat in the garden. I am hoping that the measures I've  taken will pull my plants through until the threat from borers has passed. 

I also note that plant parts that might be infected with grubs should be removed from the garden completely and not composted. After the vine borer finishes growing inside the plant stalk, it exits into the ground and pupates for a year, before emerging as an adult. Since I have tried to salvage my plants rather then completely remove them, I probably have pupa inside my straw bills. I will not try to grow squash there next year! 

A "harvest" from my garden last week. Photo shows yellow squash and the tiger zucchini.

Learning to be an Organic Gardener

When I was growing up, penicillin was considered  a wonder drug. It was widely prescribed to save lives and reduce morbidity.  Similarly, pesticides were considered to be a farmers friend, widely used to reduce loss of food to insects and improve quality.  I'm painting with a broad stroke here, but suffice it to say that the benefits of pesticides in improving the food supply were considered to outweigh the negative aspects associated with their use.

In my earliest memories of gardening, DDT was still in use. After it was banned due to its harmful effects on the environment, my family switched to using sevin and malathion. We considered it a blessing to have food unblemished by the ravages of insects and grubs. We were always careful, however, to use the recommended concentrations for each plant and also not to eat the plants until the appropriate time had elapsed since the last time the point was sprayed. Knowledge of the application schedule of the pesticide enabled us to refrain from eating the food while it still had pesticide residue in it. 

Monitoring pesticide use is not something one can do in when foods are purchased from a market. Any market, not just a large commercial one.  Just as an example, I went to a farmers market last week and purchased beautiful, yellow squash from a farmer who had grown them himself, locally. I told him that squash vine borers had attacked my squash. I asked him what he used against them. He replied that he has never had a problem with vine borers, because he sprays with sevin.  How much sevin?  When?  If he's spraying the stems down where vine borers get, that means he's also spraying the fruit!  Anytime we purchase food from a third-party, we are relying on everyone in that chain of distribution to have engaged in safe practices, which we must largely accept on faith. Sometimes that faith is warranted, and sometimes it is not.

This has been a long and winding way of explaining that I was not raised as an organic gardener.  Even if one is not organic, the benefits of knowing what and when has been sprayed are significant.  However, there are a lot of other reasons to go organic, and I've tried over the years.  I haven't always known what I was doing, and so I've had mixed success.  For example, a memorable moment was the time I invited my grandparents for a meal of veggies all cooked fresh from my garden.  I don't remember everything I cooked, but I remember how proud I was, the care I took in preparation and presentation, and then "the moment."  My grandfather pointed out to me the worms that were in the carefully grown, washed, and prepared broccoli.  In spite of my care to search the broccoli for worms, they had been the same color as the plant, and I had not seen them.  During cooking, they grew lighter and were now clearly visible!!!  I'm glad we could laugh about it, and it was indeed a learning experience!!    The techniques of organic gardening are something I've had to learn on my own, gradually and through trial and error.

Insects seem to love the plants in my garden as much as I do!  When one is gardening on a very small scale, one simple measure is to take the time to inspect each plant daily. It is somewhat yucky, but when a caterpillar, grub, or insect is found on each plant, take it off and destroy it. Sometimes caterpillars are very well camouflaged. A close inspection is needed, including looking for telltale signs of their presence. For example, look underneath leaves for eggs and squish the eggs, and also watch out for little black specks on the plants, which can be a sign of caterpillar poop. The larger one's garden, or the less time one has, the more bothersome this daily chore becomes.  One wishes for a bit more efficient method .... especially when there is a full scale, frontal attack as has happened this year to me. 

The first assault on my garden this year was the attack of the flea beatles on all of my brassicas (bok choi, broccolini, etc.), as shown in the photo below.  I learned, too late, that the best way to protect my crop from them was by using netting that lets sun and water in but keeps insects out.  Once they were on my plants, it was too late. to stop the assault from the air.  Some other plan of action was needed. 

My first move was to go to the store and purchase some Insecticidal Soap.  Marketed as safe for organic gardeners, it worked like a charm.   I later learned there are also sticky traps that catch the beetles when they jump or move from plant to plant, but I didn't pursue that because the soap had already done the trick.  (After these dudes do their nasty work above ground, another part of their life cycle apparently involves becoming grubs and eating the roots of plants!)  Then, aphids attacked my sugar snap peas.  Cabbage worms attacked my broccolini some more.  Various bugs began chomping on other plants.  It looked like I was going to be needing a lot of the stuff!  After purchasing and using up three small spray bottles of insecticidal soap, I began looking for a recipe I could make from home and reuse the spray bottles. 

The Internet is such a great resource. I use it all the time to look up information about gardening. I just happened upon this webpage, for instance, which has 12 recipes that are helpful for a home organic gardener:  http://www.veggiegardener.com/12-homemade-natural-remedies-for-the-garden/ 

The recipe I followed this morning for insecticidal soap is from a different webpage, slightly different from the webpage above. The key ingredient in both is a small amount of liquid soap mixed into a quart or gallon of water (depending on quantity needed). The ingredient must be soap, and not detergent. This is because the fatty acid in the soap is what kills the insect. Detergent does not have the same ingredient.

Insecticidal soap is safe for humans, plants, animals and the ecosystem.  Using ingredients that are found in an ordinary household, it kills bugs by dissolving their outside covering and entering their vulnerable cells. Insecticidal soap works best on small insects with soft bodies.

If you have a small garden, you can re-use a hand pump spray bottle.  If you have a large garden, I recommend a pump sprayer devoted to your garden "chemicals."  (Be sure to label your chemicals appropriately,  as well, include a yucky face picture so small children will know not to drink it!)

Here is one recipe for insecticidal soap.  I am thinking that because it makes the plant taste like hot pepper and soap, it might also be a deterrent for other critters like rabbits or deer, but I can't make a guarantee of that! 

Measure four cups of water into a container.  (I suggest using a container you can pour from, like a pitcher.)  Then, add the following:

• 1 teaspoon liquid Murphy's Oil Soap
• 4 Tablespoons of ground cayenne pepper
• 2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil

 Mix well.  Use a funnel to pour it into a spray bottle.  

Anything that's not good for one biological creature is likely not to be beneficial to another.  Meaning, the chemicals contained in the soap are not particularly friendly to the leaves on your plants.   As you can see, nothing in the soap itself is inherently poisonous, but your body would not be too happy if you drank it.  Similarly, your plants may thank you if it protects them from getting eaten alive, but the chemicals in the soap is not what a plant would naturally choose to be bathed in!   If insecticidal soap is put on plants that are stressed, or if it is mixed in a form that is too concentrated, it can damage the leaves of your plants!

Before applying insecticidal soap, it would be wise to test it on a small area of a plant to make sure it doesn't burn the leaves of your particular plants.  Additionally, time of day of application can make a difference.  Apply insecticidal soap after plants have been well watered, during a cool time of day, when the plants are not stressed by sun, heat, or drought.  

Also, don't spray insecticidal soap on flowers or on the good insects that you are relying on as pollenators for your garden.  Bees and other pollenators are most active in mid-morning.  Spray insecticidal soap either very early, or late in the afternoon after the bees have gone to bed.  This will also coincide with the time of day when your plants will not be stressed by intense sun.

A bee on a cucumber blossom in my garden

Insecticidal soap will be washed off in a rain or every time you water your plants.  Use this information to your advantage.  If it rains, you may need to reapply.  Similarly, once it does its job of killing bugs, you may choose to wash it off the plants.  

My 2016 Tomato Selections

Enjoyment of delicious, homegrown tomatoes is one reason to grow a kitchen garden. Some people who have room to grow only one item in a pot choose to devote their space to a tomato.

In the Deep South, where I live, people love their "'mater sandwiches." The simplest way to make one is to smear white bread with mayonnaise, add a giant, sick slab of fresh, homegrown tomato from a giant tomato, and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Of course, there are variations. Some people toast the bread and add bacon and lettuce to make a BLT (bacon, lettuce, and tomato) sandwich. I personally enjoy adding fresh basil and a slice of fresh mozzarella cheese to my tomato sandwich, with a touch of balsamic vinegar.  In the Deep South, we also enjoy slicing a tangy, firm, green tomato into thick slabs, breading it with some salted cornmeal, and lightly frying it, to make fried green tomatoes. Fried green tomatoes are usually served with a topping similar to hollandaise sauce. 

When I was a child, my mother grew cherry tomatoes, in addition to the larger ones. To me, these tasted sweeter as well as tangier. I could never get enough of them. As an adult, I compensate by growing extra. As many get eaten in the garden as make it into the kitchen.

While common varieties that ship well (and hence can be sold at markets) are adequate, connoisseurs rave over this or that heirloom variety.  While some heirloom varieties are also available in farmers markets, they are also expensive. People who grow their own tomatoes don't just save on cost. They also get to savor the superior texture and taste that can be achieved from a home garden.

Tomatoes take at least 75 days to produce fruit from seed. They require warm temperatures to germinate, but they stop producing when temperatures go above 90 or 95 degrees F.  (When choosing varieties, pay attention to heat or cold tolerance, something I learned this year.)  Because of these temperature demands, most gardeners either start their seedlings indoors (when it's still too cold for them outside) or purchase plants in order to get a head start on the growing season. If they can be kept alive, tomatoes also produce fruit when temperatures are cooler in the fall, up until the first freeze. In addition to nitrogen, they like potassium, phosphorus, and magnesium in their soil.

This year, I purchased a half-dozen Better Boy tomato seedlings from Lowes (some are shown in the picture below). 

I also ordered some heirloom varieties that I started from seed, outdoors after the weather was warm enough. 

Relying on the Better Boys for basic red tomatoes, the seeds I ordered were Prudens Purple, Aunt Ruby Green, and Blueberry. The skin of the "blueberry" tomato is actually blue when ripe.  I also purchased one each of a Cherokee and a yellow plum (cherry) tomato at a specialty garden shop. Hence, if all goes well, I will have tomatoes that are red, yellow, green, purple, and blue! 

More of the ongoing tomato saga to follow later .... 

Three Personal Benefits to Me of Growing a Kitchen Garden

In two previous blog posts I have discussed practical benefits of kitchen gardens (cost, health, and taste) and collective benefits (environmental, sustainability, and building community). Today, I would like to discuss six more personal, intangible factors that keep me returning to my habit of kitchen gardening.

Slower Pace

I have a "day job" that can be fast paced and stressful. Committing a half hour per day to gardening helps me carve out personal space, engage in an activity very different from my other vocation, and restore a work life balance.  

Introspection Time

 For me personally, gardening time is quiet time. It is a long moment of silence. It is a time to look at some item in detail, whether it is weeds or bugs or dirt or new plants. It involves focusing attention on something that is not related to work or stress or other things in life. It allows for creative interruption and regrouping of ideas in a way that benefits the way I think in other areas of life.

Connectedness With Land

Watching a garden grow, on a daily basis, sometimes feels akin to waiting for a pot to boil. (I am alluding to the adage, "a watched pot never boils.")  Indeed, gardens grow even slower than the water boils! They take months, sometimes years, to reach maturity! Yet, grow and change they do!  Inexorably, plants grow, mature, wilt, and die. It doesn't hurt us to experience this cycle of life, change, and death, on a different pace than what we see in our daily, hectic, industrial lives. It is good to remember that even when things seem to be standing still, they are in fact moving forward. This leads to seasonality and connection with changing seasons, as well. Gardens remind us of seasons. They remind that seasons are real, that there are times for doing things and times for refraining.  They remind us to be patient. And they also remind us that fruit comes to those who do their part and wait. 

Self Sufficiency

There is something simply satisfying about providing food for the table. Whether it is a sprig of basil on a sandwich, parsley in a tabouli, or a curry made all from home grown vegetables, there is a satisfaction that comes from being able to say, "I grew this." 

Connectedness With Heritage

My first memory of gardening was when my mother showed me how to weed the corn seedlings that were popping up in our garden. She showed me which plants to pull up and which to leave in the ground. Then she sent me to work on my row, while she did hers. When she came back, I learned that I had pulled up all the corn seedlings and left the weeds! Fortunately, there was still time to replant, and one must admit that it was a memorable mother daughter time! Other memories of gardening involve my grandparents, my uncles, my father. All passing along their collective wisdom and a heritage that includes growing plants and living a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. This is not the only connection with the past, however. My grandparents learned their farming practices from their parents, who learned from theirs, etc. When I pick up a hoe to weed, I imagine many ancestors before me who used an almost identical tool to do almost the same thing. The fact is, that I am a hobbyist whereas they were working to provide table sustenance through long winter months. Nevertheless, gardening connects me with them, with that heritage, and with the skills of self-sufficiency that they passed along to me.

Connectedness With Future

Just as my parents and grandparents passed their skills and ideas along to me, so I also want impart those to my children. I have wonderful memories of sharing the preparation of soil, planting of seeds, harvesting, cooking, and eating garden produce with my own children. As such, the heritage of my past lives on into the future, passing memory and family story to the next generation. Gardening facilitates the sharing of values and things that I value with those whom I particularly value.

Community Benefits of Growing a Kitchen Garden

In an earlier blog post, I listed cost, health, and taste as three basic reasons to start a kitchen garden. Those are individual benefits.

Today I want to mention a few ways that our kitchen gardens benefit our communities.  This is significant, because collectively our kitchen gardens increase sustainability in a world where it's important for each of us to live lives that reduce drain on world resources. 

As of 2016, the world population is close to 7.4 Billion people. We can't help it that each of us needs to eat, but if we live more sustainably, we collectively can stretch the earth's resources and maintain our blue planet as a place of beauty for all people now and for future generations. Current industrial agricultural practices don't do that. 

The list of damaging industrial agricultural practices is too long to write about here! If you didn't know it already, in the USA the traditional model of the small time, family farm is dead. It was impossible, economically, for the small scale farmer to compete cost-wise, with large scale, industrial agriculture. 

 To make farming profitable, large scale Ag relies on planting fields of crops that are genetically homogenous, often with genetic modifications that enable them to resist herbicides so that herbicides can be applied that will kill weeds but not the genetically modified plants. Machines and / or low cost labor are used in a relatively highly mechanized way, to tend and harvest the crops, which are then sold to commercial distributors. These distributors then ship from their hubs to far flung distribution centers, where they are then purchased by third party sellers. Even the guy who stocks your local roadside stand more than likely purchases some or all of his produce from a distributor. 

Our current system results in unprecedented efficiency and a steady supply of relatively safe food. However, it also has significant negative environmental impacts and relies heavily on petroleum products. Individual gardeners, acting collectively, can retain benefits of industrial agriculture (e.g. have access to strawberries even when they're out of season here), while reducing reliance on big agriculture, thereby reducing  environmental impacts and also increasing sustainability. 

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

The pesticides and herbicides used by industrial agriculture to prevent pests also get into the ecosystem and cause collateral damage to the environment. For instance, it's estimated that neonicontinoid pesticides are contributing to decimations of bee populations  worldwide. We are hearing that residue from the Monsanto herbicide "Roundup" is appearing throughout the food chain.  We can fight against this by purchasing organic and non-GMO foods at the store, but we also collectively can have a significant impact when we adopt environmentally friendly practices in a home garden. Individually, I am just one person, but if enough of us make small changes the impact can be significant. 

SUSTAINABILITY 

In recent decades, California farms have been some of the most productive cropland in the world, supplying USA consumers with bountiful vegetables and fruits, which are shipped to every corner of the United States. Unfortunately, this appears to be coming to an end. Why? Because irrigation has been used in an unsustainable way. Groundwater that has been used for irrigation has been depleted to a point where it soon it will be no longer available.  If you don't believe me, do a Google search for "drought in California." For purposes of this blog post, take my word for it! 

After the plants are produced on these large scale farms, harvesting and getting the produce to market relies on machinery and shipping, which requires fossil fuels.  And then there's the packaging. And sometimes there are abusive labor practices.  These practices all have negative impacts. 

Growing veggies in our home gardens enables us to bypass much of the negative, unsustainable side of industrial agriculture, even more so when we compost and reduce our reliance on chemical fertilizers.  We increase long-term sustainability when we grow food ourselves (or when we source locally and from small suppliers), when we use heirloom varieties of plants, when we implement more sustainable agricultural practices in our own sphere, when we increase plant genetic diversity, when we provide safe habitat for bees and butterflies, and when we reduce reliance on the fossil fuels used for shipping. 

COMMUNITY 

Another benefit is obvious: the opportunity to share. We build up communities and each other not just by sharing food with our neighbor or our local food bank, but by sharing knowledge and seeds and mentoring and visits with friends in our gardens.  Indeed, in this sense of building community, the garden itself can become a community activity, cultivating leaders as well as plants. To see a longer list of benefits of community gardening, check out this site:

http://www.gardendallas.org/benefits.htm

In summary, in addition to being cost-effective, healthy and tasty, growing a home vegetable garden reduces the environmental impact of industrial agriculture, contributes to a more sustainable footprint, and builds local communities!  So now, in these two blog posts,  I have given you six pretty good reasons to think about growing your own kitchen garden (on whatever scale you wish, small or large). These six reasons are: cost, health, taste, environment, sustainability, and community.  In my next blog post, I will talk about some things that are more personal to me which add enrichment to my own gardening experience.