Planet Veggie Garden

We’re growing the traditional green zucchini and another summer squash variety called ‘papaya’ – a cute yellow squash shaped like a papaya.

I was scanning the NYT health section and came across two delicious sounding zuchinni recipes that I would love to try:

Greek Zucchini and Herb Pie

Provencal Zucchini and Swiss Chard Tart

Let me know if you try either of these. I need to wait for the zucchini crop to explode…

A good article in today’s paper on companion gardening.

We’re planning on trying out the 3 sisters out in our front yard. A bit behind in planting but hopefully we’ll get it in on Sunday. We do have 2 of the sisters going in the back – corn with red noodle beans. They seem to be happily sprout up together – as long as the squirrels leave them alone!

What happens to plants when they are deficient in minerals? Oftentimes, as in humans, they exhibit the symptoms commonly associated with disease. They do not do well…stunted growth, yellowing leaves, curling leaves, blossom end rot…just to name a few. Amending the soil and rotating crops can help prevent deficiencies but what happens when your plants start to exhibit yellowing leaves for instance.

Here is a great pictorial online source aptly called The Diagnosis of Mineral Deficiencies in Plants

I’m using this to figure out why my romano bean plants are yellow when everything else (peas, lettuce, cilantro, dill and Italian parsley) are all doing well.

Check it out.

well, Winter is long past and we are nearly a month in to Spring. It was hard to get out into the garden (whine, whine) in the cold damp winter so we just let nature do it’s thing.

In the Fall, we had planted: garlic, carrots, beets, daikon, watermelon radishes, kale, chard, mustard, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuces, spinach, sorrel, italian parsley, favas and english peas. We had mixed success due to inexperience, the ongoing battle with rats and the eternal “short on time.”

Out of Hibernation
So far this Spring we have been enjoying lots of mustard, chard, lettuce and kale. A little bit of favas and english peas. Carrots are coming out in the next few days and sadly I waited too long before picking the beets and radishes so while the roots were a bit fiberous we had lots of the green tops.

We’ve been busy working in the garden most weekends and I’ve been lucky enough to have some time during the week (but not as much as I want!:( .)

The biggest chore is weeding. We started weeding about 6 weeks ago and managed to fill 5 – 90 gallon green bins. Some of the contents came from pruning and yanking up dead plants but most of it was the result of back breaking weed pulling. Phew! There are still some weeds lurking about but that part of preparing the garden is done.
We have a call into our local tree trimming company to drop off a load of free wood chips next time they are in the neighborhood. This will get spread between the raised beds to cut down on the weeds next year.

Next up, amending the beds and irrigating.
After pulling up the previous crop, we amend each bed with horse manure (which we had gotten from the stables in the Fall and let age under a tarp in the corner of the garden over the winter), compost from our kitchen scraps, bone meal, humate, azomite and a bit of potash. Don’t ask me how I came up with this – I read a bunch here and there and decided this is what I will do – it’s all an experiment. If anything, Compost is probably the most important.
There are still 3 more beds to clean up and amend but that can wait until next weekend.
This weekend I will work on setting up some beds in our front garden and laying out the drip irrigation. This is a big job and may extend into next weekend. Always so much to do!

Irrigation is simple soaker hoses and a mish mash of drip using odds and ends parts. Last year, I spent a lot of time hand watering everything – this year the garden is even bigger so having the drip will save a lot of time and make for hopefully a bigger crop due to a more consistent watering schedule.

Planting!
This weekend calls for warm weather so we will plant half of what we plan to grow. The other half will go in in a few weeks.

• Veggies from seedlings (transplants): tomato (early girl, cherokee purple, roma, yellow pear cherry and celebrity), cucumber, butternut squash, zuchinni, bell pepper, basil, japanese eggplant

• Veggies from seeds direct into the ground: beans (green and yellow romano, red noodle) went in last week, peas, dill, cilantro, basil, lettuces, dino kale, chard and radishes

In the next few weeks, as the weather (hopefully) continues to warm, the south facing front garden will get the heat loving veggies such as the melons (honeydew, watermelon and bitter melon) and we’re trying out corn this year. That should be a sight – corn stalks in the front yard! -Most of these will be seeds direct into the ground.

Now I just have to remember to record where I am planting everything so that we can rotate next year! Knowing how well things stick to my brain these days I have to resist the temptation to tell myself, “I’ll remember…”

That’s it for now,
What’s happening in your garden?

Bill Moyers recently interviewed Michael Pollan. The conversation primarily focused on Governments role in how and what we eat as well as some suggestions for the Obama administration.

Pollan called food the “Shadow Issue” as it influences our health, climate change, energy security and environmental pollution.
We tend to only think of food in an isolated way. 

You can watch the two-part interview here. 

Now that the US Presidential election is done, we have a President-elect who enjoys Arugula – or “Rocket” lettuce.

Sign the petition from Eat the View to replace part of the White Lawn with an organic veggie garden… really fresh Arugula and more.

Under normal (non gardening) circumstances, chances are those two words would evoke warm fuzzy feelings…not so when it comes to the Brassica family living in Planet Veggie Garden. What do those two words mean to our cauliflower, kale, broccoli and mustard?

Imported Cabbage Worm.

They are kind of cute – plump velvety and green…but wow do they have an appetite.

It began in late summer with lots of white ‘butterflies’ (really moths) flying around the garden. These innocent moths began to lay little yellowish oval eggs on the undersides of the brassica’s leaves. In no time at all, leaves began to have big chunks eaten out of them with lots of green pellet like ‘poops’ left behind.

I’ve been plucking them off infested plants ever since. Some tiny and some up to 1 inch long…eeewwww. I usually grab a nearby twig and stab the bugger resulting in a bright green ooze…double eeewwww!

There has got to be a better way…

So off to googling I go and what do you know? There are many better ways…

Prevention

• Use row covers for your brassicas during the late summer so the moths can’t lay their eggs on the leaves.
• Hot pepper spray! I guess this stuff irritates the little critters. Blend 1/2 cup of the spiciest peppers you can find with 1 pint of water. Strain and put into a spray bottle.

Kill Them

• Hot pepper spray – repels and kills (see above). Spray every few days to burn up every last one of them.
• Dilute soap solution – this acts by drying up the worms. I make my own using a tablespoon of dish soap in a quart spray bottle of water.
• Poke them with a sharp stick (not for the squeamish)
• Spray with the bacteria, Bacillus thuringiensis aka BT. This is an organic method where the bacteria kill the worms but do no harm to you. You’ll need to spray every 7 days or so until all the worms are gone. I’d reserve this method for those that have lots and lots of infested brassicas

Well, that about sums up methods to dealing with cabbage worms. Now were is my stick…

When it rains we get ants. Often MANY ants… inside and outside.

We’ve been using a citrus based spray and were fairly pleased with it. Recently I was contacted by the manufacturer of a new line of organic insecticides for home use: EcoSmart. They offer an Ant & Roach spray, a Flying Insect spray, a Wasp & Hornet spray and an Insect Repellent application.

Their products use natural oils like peppermint, wintergreen, cinnamon, and rosemary and are safe to use around kids and pets.

I tried the ant spray inside. It definitely worked… quickly. While the smell was pleasant rather then chemical, it was a bit strong.

They also have a blog with an extraordinary amount of insect information.

If you’re looking for a safe insecticide solution you may want to try out their products. The website will give you a list of retailers in/near your zip code.

The US presidential elections happened on 4.November. Here in California we had proposition on the ballot titled “Standards for Confining Farm Animals”.

The proposition passed (63% in favor) enacting the “Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act”

What does the law prohibit?
Simply it prohibits confining farm animals in a way that does not allow them to freely turn around, lie down, stand up and fully extend their limbs. (My cats do most of that to me when I sleep… but then I’m not a farm animal )

Basically this outlaws “veal crates”, “battery cages” and “sow gestation crates”.

The law becomes effective on 1.January.2015 so farmers using these methods have 6 years to change.

The folks who put the proposition on the ballot want to end what they consider cruel practices. They also contend that these practices allow more disease and encourage greater use of anti-biotics.

The folks opposed to the proposition cite that it will dramatically increase the price of food.

Those in favor do not deny that it will increase the cost of certain food (eggs, veal, pork products). Tho, how much of an increase is debatable.

My sense was that most people understood voting yes would increase their food costs. And they still voted yes. It could be they were convinced by the couple of commercials that showed some of the conditions.

What about the rest of our “cheap” food. Those “efficient” farm practices that put cheap food on the grocery store shelves require heavy doses of pesticides and insecticides… not good for the person eating it, or for the environment being polluted by it, or for the workers on the front line with it.

So the question is: are we willing to spend more for more “humanely” farmed food?

It’s doubtful you could create an advertising campaign featuring an in-humanely treated bunch or broccoli to “gross us out” into to voting against the current factory farming practices. So what kind of campaign would it take to convince us to adapt more humane crop farming practices?

What other states and countries have done

There were bills in 2004 and 2007 to curb some of the cruel animal farming methods that never got through the California Senate.

In 2002 Florida passed a state Constitutional Amendment (Amendment 10) banning pig gestation crates.

In 2006 Arizona passed Proposition 2004 banning veal crates and pig gestation crates.

In 2007 Oregon Governor Kulongoski signed a measure prohibiting pig gestation crates.

In 2008 Colorado Governor Ritter signed a State law phasing out veal crates and pig gestation crates.

Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and Austria have all banned battery cages for egg-laying hens.

The entire European Union is phasing out battery cages by 2012.