Free Mulch is Falling October 30, 2009

 

Using a tarp to collect leaf mulch makes life easy and saves your back

I found that for an easy low impact mulch for vegetables there are two options. Leaves and grass clippings. During the summer months using grass clipping that you collect from your push mower is a great free mulch that offers nitrogen to your vegetables. It is readily available and easily acquired for free. But now its fall and the grass is about to hibernate for the next 6 months. We’ll need a mulch for the winter to protect our soil and help retain moisture in the ground through the winter so that it’s available early spring. Just in time is the falling of the autumn leaves. You may not need to drive some of Seattle’s Maple and Elm lined avenues to collect all you need for your garden this year, you might be lucky enough to actually have enough in your backyard or sidewalk. Last weekend I visited a friend on 20th Ave E and found two laborers and two home owners collecting leaves all bound for the yard waste bin. They were more than happy to have me take them away. My truck wasn’t quite full so I kept raking. One home owner actually came out and gave me a bottle of wine for raking his sidewalk! I’ll be using the sidewalk leaves in my veggie beds next season. I left the street leaves for obvious reasons. Leaves decompose more readily than wood chips do and don’t steal nitrogen like their woody counter-parts

 

 

Leaf mulch doesn't look half bad does it?

Wood chips are great for perennial beds. Save your back and have your local arborist drop a load of chips. They have to get rid of them and rather than paying for the dumping fees they are happy to unload their days work on to you. The trick is you may not be able to dictate what kind or how much you are getting. You should also be careful not to get fruit wood if you are mulching fruit trees. The fruit wood that is being chipped rarely is just pruned out stems and branches. When an arborist is called in to do work it often revolves around disease. When using diseased wood chips it is important not to mulch trees in the same family. An easy way to get around this is to use conifer chips on fruit and fruit chips on conifers. Pine needles are also good mulch but have a tendency towards acidifying the soil which works well for some berries like Evergreen Huck and Blueberry which both like acidic soil.

Arborist Chips

 

 

Once you know what you need, this is the time of year to start collecting your mulch from your neighborhood.

Abundance in Shade October 16, 2009

I love going to a client’s house for an initial consultation and walking the property. Inevitably there is a north side and sometimes a shady side too. Their response is commonly the same, “Well, this is the shady side. I wish we could grow food here. Is there anything else we can do with it?” What about growing some grub? I’m not just talking about growing mushrooms or fiddlehead ferns, which might be a common solution. I’m talking about berries and fruit as well.

There is a whole host of plants that actually produce better in the shade. Yes mushrooms do grow well in the shade and there is nothing better for the epicur-ious than a mushroom garden with a variety of mushrooms. But here are a couple others to consider. If you have the room put

Evergreen Huckleberry and Salal share a bed

in a hedge of Evergreen Huckleberry (Vacciniuum ovatum). In the shade V. ovatum can get 6 – 8 feet tall, while in the sun it only gets to 3′. It even produces better in the shade. By pruning and trimming it into a hedge you encourage it to branch more and thus fruit more. Plus its native.

Also native, but not as tall is  Salal (Gaultheria shallon). Known for its berries, which can be used as a thickener, sweetener and wine as well as eaten fresh, Salal also has tender young leaves that can be eaten as well. I haven’t tried them, I’m more likely to use them in flower arranging if I ever take up that hobby. I use the berries in combination with the evergreen huckleberries for jam and really want to give the combination a go as a wine.

Actinidia kolomikta isn't called Arctic beauty for nothin' (A. kolomikta seen here doing it's climbing thing)

Here’s another berry, technically. Kiwi. Hardy Kiwi specifically. Kiwis are vines and vigorous ones at that growing up to 30m into trees.  Actinidia species arguta (this link says they are flavorful…don’t believe ‘em) and kolomikta fall into the hardy category. They will tolerate temps to -20F. As producing vines kolomikta needs warm spring temps with little to no chance of surprise frost, while the arguta flowers later and has a better chance of not losing their buds to a spring frost. This makes them a good choice for Western Washington and similar temperate climates around the world. Actinidia deliciosa, the fuzzy kiwi that we find in the store, is a different species with a to-the-point latin name, but don’t let the lack of “deliociosa” in the hardy kiwi names deter you, they are amazing and can be found at the farmer’s markets right now. Keep in mind that Kiwis plants are dioecious so you will need a male and a female for fruit.

I hope this inspires you to find some shade and play with it. There are, count them, 1 – 2 – 3 edible nurseries between Washington and Oregon that sells these fruits. They have a number of varieties. All three will mail the plants to you in a reasonable time period for a reasonable cost.

eat well. live well. be happy!

Fried Green Tomatoes October 6, 2009

Sorry. It’s over. Tomatoes no mas, my friend. At least not the ripe ones. I’m three days away from pulling what’s left of my tomato plants out of the ground and prepping the soil for some garlic, and I’m saving everything I got. I love tomatoes. Growing them in Leavenworth I always had too many to know what to do with. but this season I had a really small area to play with and so I didn’t quite get my fix, so I’m fixin’ to try somethin’ new. Fried Green Tomatoes. I may be the last one on the planet to have tried this but I’m putting up the recipe anyway. I figure if nothing else it might be at least a new recipe for you to try. Enjoy!

• 4 to 6 green tomatoes
• salt and pepper
• cornmeal (or amaranth flour if you’re allergic to corn and wheat)
• bacon grease or vegetable oil (OOOO! I <3 bacon drippin’s!)

Slice the tomatoes into 1/4 – 1/2-inch slices. Salt and pepper them to taste. Dip in meal and fry in hot grease or oil about 3 minutes or until golden on bottom. Gently turn and fry the other side. Serve as a side dish – delicious with breakfast!

I’m going to try mine with 21 Season Salute.

Interested in reading more about urban farming and the trials of growing food as a low income young (or not so young) person with two jobs, a band, a social life? Watch the trials and tribulations unfold at my other blog dirtygardenerNW.wordpress.com. I will be recording my work at my rental in Wallingford and how I manage to make things happen there. I am also now on twitter dirtygardenerNW@twitter.com. This article and other articles will show up on both. Have fun and happy frying! -Kris

Garlic (Allium sativum) September 22, 2009

Alright! It’s time to start thinking about next year’s garden! One of the greatest parts of growing your own grub is that you can grow varieties of crops that you simply can’t find in most grocers. Garlic is so completely prized as a culinary mainstay that most of us have never bothered to ask about the kinds of Garlic we have to choose from. We are usually content to consider purchasing only one variety, Silverskin and it’s various strains. Like much of what we purchase in grocery store, Silverskins are prized for its long shelf life. And they need it, because they have traveled a long way to be here. Most garlic (77% or 23 billion pounds) is grown in China. Chinese ag standards are a lot lower than ours, which is reason enough for you to be growing your own. if that’s not good enough growing your own garlic gives you more diversity too. In May the scapes (stems) of the garlic are cut to prevent the flowering head to get too much of the energy from the plant. The energy is transferred to the bulb increasing the size of the head and thus the cloves. This also helps storability with varieties other than Silverskins. Filaree Farm in Okanogan County has dozens of garlic varieties to choose from and experimental packs to play with. The trial packs give you a few varieties to whet your palette towards becoming a true garlic connoisseur. There is not enough room here to go into the joys of garlic. Books have been written about the wonder and glory of this bulb. But if you want to plant it you need to order soon. Once it comes wait until the 3rd or 4th week in October to plant. Break a part the head of garlic being careful not to break the basal plate, (see insert top left) which is the hard part of the garlic clove that is at the bottom. That is where the new roots are coming from so it’s important that it’s intact. Prepare the bed with compost and loose soil for good drainage.  Plant the largest cloves with the basal plate down at a depth of 3” and a distance of 6” from each other. Cover with soil and then mulch well with straw or leaves before the frosts. In Seattle we don’t need to worry much about the ground freezing and expanding and thus pushing the garlic out of the ground but we do have to worry about nutrient depletion due to the rain. In June the garlic will be ready for harvest. If you want to let them go to seed they can offer a nice architectural piece to your edible garden in the frosts of next fall.

Plan for Extending the Seattle Fall Vegetable Garden September 16, 2009

Ready. Set. Sow!

Leafy Greens, Broccoli, and radishes can all go in now

On average we’ve got 30 days until the first frost.Radishes, Chives, bunching onions starts, brocolli, heirloom leaf lettuces, mustards, spinach, and european greens like minutina can all provide a harvest before mid October. Even though this very well could be an “Indian Summer” with a little added protection and a raised bed you may even be able to extend your harvest into the winter months. Plants grow most efficiently at 55 degrees, but as long as moisture and frost is kept off sensitive leaves the plants will preserve and the harvest can continue through to nearly spring…sans an invasion of slugs. If you’re up for a work party and haven’t already put in raised beds here’s an project for you this week. To help the soil maintain heat faster during the day build your self a raised bed out of some reclaimed lumber (8′ x 4′ x 1′). At many garden stores you can find your next set of materials: hoop house plastic (painter’s plastic is a cheap alternative) and some bamboo poles about 6 feet in length. Even better if you can find these things around the house. The width of the plastic should be about the same as the length of the bamboo poles. Once you build up you raised bed and have filled it with the kindest soil you can find for growing vegetables (40% compost , 60% 3 way top soil from Sky Nursery) stick the bamboo in at the edge of the bed making half circles. Space your bamboo  supports every two feet or so. You may want to attach them to the boards of the raised bed so that they are secure. Plant your garden, water it in, set up your old soaker house between the rows and cover it with the plastic so that it is a little green house. Our greatest hindrance to growing in the northwest is not lack of heat as much as it is lack of sunlight. Plastic does not degrade over time, so the up side is that you can use it for a number of years as long as you take care of it in the off season.  It will also hold the heat and the moisture in better than the agricultural cloth. If you can find it I would also recommend transparent plastic sheeting between 4 and 6 mil thickness. With this set up you should be able to extend your season two to six weeks of growing and a few more months of harvest.

Prozac in the Soil August 26, 2009

There’s supposedly caffeine in Seattle’s drinking water. That could be urban myth. What’s not myth is that there really is a bacterium that occurs in most soils that is very akin to famous Eli Lilly anti-depressant, Prozac.

Two years ago the Journal Neuroscience published an study titled “Identification of an Immune-Responsive Mesolimbocortical Serotonergic System: Potential Role in Regulation of Emotional Behavior”. The article essentially confirmed what avid gardeners have known for a long time. Gardening is really good for your health. Besides the obvious exercise value from horticultural activities we can now add a bacterium called Mycobacterium vaccae which was found to activate a subset of serotonergic neurons resulting in an increase in immune system health and overall happiness in mice. By inhaling the bacterium or getting it in our system via touching or ingesting the soil directly or via produce we can get the effects which are much like prozac, overall happiness and calm. Depressed? Anxious? Stick your hands in the soil. This also seems to confirm something I had heard about a while ago. the synergistic effect of small doses of virus, bacteria, and fungi found in soil may actually help the early development of immune systems. In complimentary contrast the over-sanitization of our world with all of its anti-bacterial soaps and hand wipes may being doing us more harm than good by killing the viruses, bacterium, and fungi that we come in to contact with regularly leaving us more susceptible to allergic reactions.

So get dirty! It’s good for you!

Two Out-of-Print Classics Republished July 10, 2009

The last time that food issues and edible landscaping swept the nation was in the seventies during the energy crisis. During that time many were traveling the world to learn from obscure agricultural practitioners and others were looking to the urban areas and what they could produce. Out of that time period came two food production classics: The One Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka and (Designing and Maintaining) Your Edible Landscape Naturally, by Robert Kourik. Both went out of print in the late eighties and early nineties, but have been recently republished for the benefit of the times we are in. This is part two…

Part 2:

(Designing and Maintaining) Your Edible Landscape Naturally

By Robert Kouri

Early on in my education in “whole systems design” I became infatuated with the world of Permaculture (a design system for creating sustainably-integrated human settlements). One of the first major influences on my design style wasn’t a Permaculture text per se. Permaculture seemed to approach sustainability and design aesthetic in a way that shunned the art of formal garden design. Kourik’s seminal text on the other hand seemed to embrace sustainability and edible landscape design as just another approach to an ancient tradition (and human need) for both domesticating and beautifying the natural world around us. Kourik was also a pioneer in the sense that his work was one of the first to explore temperate edible landscaping while other were still working out techniques in tropical and subtropical climes. Your Edible Landscape Naturally really is a text and reads pretty much like one, though Kourik balances his vast knowledge with a fun sense of humor, insight and wit. The book is full of practical advise, tables, design examples, maintenance techniques and reminders and a whole host of reference tables for the edible landscape designer. The only point of note that I would make is that unless the book has undergone a revision some of the ideas and advise may be a bit dated. Still, coupled with any great design workbook, this text is an absolute essential for anyone interested in taking on task of design their own edible home garden.

The way we produce our food has the potential to collapse or sustain our society. Both The One Straw Revolution and Your Edible Landscape Naturally have paved the way for that sustainable future. Each in their own way helps us to understand the importance of food security and the great field of the unexplored in both urban and rural agriculture. Both books leave the reader inspired to create a world that will sustain itself into the future. Like a perfect guide, neither texts pleads. Both state, “We can do this. We can maintain this. We can have our beauty and eat it too. The only thing stopping us is us.”

two classics republished June 27, 2009

The last time that food issues and edible landscaping swept the nation was in the seventies during the energy crisis. During that time many were traveling the world to learn from obscure agricultural practitioners and others were looking to the urban areas and what they could produce. Out of that time period came two food production classics: The One Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka and (Designing and Maintaining) Your Edible Landscape Naturally, by Robert Kourik. Both went out of print in the late eighties and early nineties, but have been recently republished for the benefit of the times we are in. In this two part post I will review two of the most influential books in my life and hope they inspire you as they did me.

Part 1: The One Straw Revolution

The ultimate goal of farming is not the cultivation of crops but the cultivation and perfection of human beings. – Masanobu Fukuoka

As a young twenty-five year old man working in disease and insect control Masanobu Fukuoka became fatally ill and nearly died. After gaining his health back he had a realization that lead him to re-examine the world around him. He, not knowing how to proceed, but knowing enough to know that there was nothing and everything to learn, returned to his father’s farm. Over the course of a few years he began farming rice and fruit in ways that betrayed conventional agricultural science and in the process produced the same if not more yield per acre than his neighboring conventional farmers. His Zen / Taoist like approach to food production caught the attention of many influential agriculturalists including Wendell Berry who wrote the introduction to Fukuoka first work of prose. The One Straw Revolution serves us one part agricultural and one and a smidge part philosophy text drawing from Fukuoka’s revelations and insights during his 30 years of “do-nothing” farming near Matsayuma, Japan. The book reads the way that I imagine Fukuoka reads the land. It acts as a guide to influence and inspire the reader. There is a little bit of how-to tucked in among Fukuoka’s philo-spiritual revelations leaving the reader refreshed and rejuvenated the way that you might feel after splashing your face with cold water at dawn before a day’s work in the field or floored by the weight and truth of his insights:

To the extent that people separate themselves from nature, they spin out further and further from the center. At the same time the centripetal effect asserts itself and the desire to return to nature arises. But if people merely get caught up in reacting, moving to the left or to the right, depending on the conditions, the result is only more activity. The non-moving point, the point of origin, which lies outside the realm of relativity, is passed over, unnoticed. I believe that even “returning-to-nature” and anti-pollution activities, no matter how commendable, are not moving toward a genuine solution if they are carried out in reaction to the over-development of the present age. – M. Fukuoka

Feed the Hungry…Plants June 10, 2009

It’s time to fertilize if you haven’t already. Many of you put tomatoes in the ground alng with other summer crops a couple of weeks ago and now their hungry! As an organic gardener I often see people cringe when I mention that I fertilize. There’s a cultural association that some folks make with feritilizing and chemicals. But there are many types of fertilizers that are plenty organic and don’t pollute ground water or pose potential risks to wildlife.

In general we can pretty much assume that natural materials suck as pulverized rock, marine plants, animal waste and by products are all safe to use in moderate amounts, granted precautions are taken so that you don’t inhale or ingest the stuff. I know its tempting, but don’t eat the compost! The reason that organic fertilizers are superior is that they slowly release what the plants need so that the plants get what they want when they want it. Many synthetic fertilizers on the other hand release the nutrients all at once or very quickly giving the plant the equivalent of a near fatal dose of steroids. Sure your plants might be walking and talking like the Jolly Green Giant, but now you’ve got to feed the beast. Who’s the master of the garden now?

Slow release fertilizers can actually help plants, especially perennials establish themselves and slowly wean themselves from needing food much at all. Annual vegetables on the other hand could use a good feeding every couple of weeks. To get a real sense of the difference between the dosage of fertilizer that you are giving your plants with chemical vs natural fertilizers, compare the labels. The 3 numbers on the bag (or box) refer to Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus(P), and Potassium(K). Another way to think about it is Shoots(N), Roots(P) and Fruits(K). As an example a synthetic grass fertilizer concerned solely with shoot (leaf) growth might read 50-0-0. 50 parts N, 0 parts P and K. Natural materials rarely read over 10 parts of N P or K. They don’t need to because most of it stays put and releases slowly and naturally. Often times excess of any one of the three elements compensates for loss of fertilizer moving quickly through the soil. This brings me to another point.

I prefer granular fertilizers over liquid for most applications (below I will post my favorite granular tomato fertilizer recipe). I have found that for bi-monthly fertilizing you have a better chance of not burning your leaves if you sprinkle granular fertilizer and cover it well with mulch. Liquid fertilizers like kelp meal and fish meal are great in a diluted spray solution that is intentionally applied to leafs. Plants can actually feed through their leaves, so diluted fertilizers like “compost teas” can give your plants a boost. Compost teas actually do a whole lot of things for your plants, but more on that later. For now sprinkle a little fertilizer from the recipe below around your plants every couple of weeks and keep it covered with mulch. And remember no matter how tempting…don’t eat the compost!

Complete Organic Fertilize by Steve Solomon

4 parts seed meal (cotton or canola)

.5 part lime (mix of agricultural and dolmite)

.5 part rock phosphate or bone meal

.5  part kelp meal
A cup of this under your tomato plants will do them just fine. Side dress every two week with a cup and it’ll be like attack of the killer tomatoes!

Your Very Own All-You-Can-Eat Salad Bar May 16, 2009

this is not what we're talkin' 'bout here. EE-GADS!

Remember Sizzler? It was basically the highlight of my suburban California childhood. How cool were those postcard-perfect all-you-can-eat buffets with the mountains of heart attack snacks. Was it really coincidence that the chocolate jello-pudding and popcorn shrimp were strategically placed right next to the kin-of-cardboard vegetables? I think not my friends, I think not. From behind the bread batter, the shrimp seemed to wiggle with life whispering, “Sure you could eat some of those tasteless vegetable-wannabes, but then again you could dip me in the pudding. Follow your heart kid.” OH the temptation! Well I grew up, a guilty conscious finally trumped my heart’s desire for self destruction and I eventually indulged in the salad bar. But the shrimp were right, you needed a whole lot of dressing to make those veggies worth eating. And let me tell you.

Sizzler Italian? Yeah, it doesn’t hold a candle to chocolate pudding.

The thing about salad bars, and not just Sizzler salad bars, is that they’re great in theory, but it’s impossible to find flavorful, let alone fresh (let alone organic) produce occupying the bins. So here’s one solution. Bring the salad bar to your home. Build a three foot tall 10’x 3’ raised bed with reused materials and plant it with your favorite salad veggies. Or do two salad bars: one for salad greens and shade loving edibles and another for the heat lovers. The height of the “bar” makes for easy maintenance, reduces chances of slug damage, and helps with ripening because (at least for the heat lovers) the large raised bed acts as a thermal mass, which translates to warmer soil for the plant roots, quicker ripening, and nearly a month of extended season.

Okay, so you still need a sneeze guard because, really, what salad bar is complete with out one? (see pic) By using thin bamboo poles (instead of PVC) as supports build your self a little hoop house. Viola! Multipurpose sneeze guard! In the mid to late winter use the bamboo ribs to cover your veggies with transparent plastic for season extension or even germinating the starts that will later occupy your more established beds. Then move to using agricultural cloth to protect from those early spring frost nips. And once summer hits cover your shade needy plants with a shade clothe and use your bamboo supports to hang misters to keep those greens nice and succulent. Trellises can go up the back to support cucumbers, peas, snap beans and indeterminate tomatoes. Nastursiums and squash plants can flop over the side to provide edible blossoms. If you really want to push the limits of salad bar sanity, build the sides out of 2” x 2” stainless 1/8” hog wire and stuff it with compost with a layer of sphagnum peat moss nearest the hog wire then plant it with a patchwork of ever-bearing strawberries. I guarantee you’ve never had a better salad.

Eat your cardboard-artichoke heart out Sizzler!