Organic Produce in the News

Organically produced foods are in the news today, but not necessarily in a good light and in a way that's rather misleading.

Apparently, a group of British researchers just published the results of a study that say that organic foods aren't any better than their "conventionally" produced counterparts. But most news reports that I'm looking at (so far) are stating it just that way. 

Farther down in most of the articles they are saying that there are only very minor nutritional differences between "organic" and "conventional" produce. And that's fine. Except. Journalists know that most folks don't get past the first paragraph. And very-damn-few of these articles point out that the study doesn't address the point that the "conventional" produce may contain pesticide residue or other chemical contaminants. And I haven't yet seen an article that mentions the level of damage to the soil, beneficial insect life, and the environment in general that is done when using "conventional" methods.

Mind you, I don't generally buy the "organic" produce at my "local" chain supermarket. I have a hard time justifying the extra cost. On the other hand, I do grow my own produce using "organic" methods -- in part because I have a hard time justifying the extra cost. In this case, I'm talking about the extra cost of buying chemical fertilizers, buying pesticides, and the cost to the environment.

I encourage folks who have the extra budget to support organic growers. I also encourage the use of Farmers' Markets (especially where they call out that the sellers are local farmers and extra especially if they are local organic farmers). And, if you live in an area where there are such things still standing, I encourage the use of local Mom 'n' Pop markets that sell the products of local producers (farmers, bakers, butchers, florists, and so on). While it might be an extra trip or two to visit these places, the quality and the price usually make it well worth the trip.

Vertical Gardening

In my last post I talked about many of the different gardening topics I've learned over the years. One of those topics -- vertical gardening -- is the subject of today's veggie gardening discussion.

The whole idea of vertical [vegetable] gardening is that you grow your crops up a trellis rather than letting them sprawl all over the ground. Advantages include using less ground space, keeping the mud off your produce, and not having to bend and stoop so much to check on and harvest your crop. 

But the advantages weren't readily obvious back when I was first gardening. For example, let's look at green beans. The farmers that produce green beans for canning, freezing, and selling fresh in the market grow bush beans. Rows and rows and rows of bush beans. Why? Because they put on and ripen a single crop all at once that can be easily harvested by a mechanical harvester. The home gardener that grows bush beans knows that, if hand harvested and left in place, these bush beans will continue to produce cyclic crops of ever decreasing returns, but will continue to produce some beans periodically.

However, pole beans (beans that vine and can be trained to climb a pole or trellis) tend to produce a smaller yield at any one time, but they continue to produce continuously over the course of the whole summer and frequently into the fall. And you only need one or two rows of pole beans to produce all the beans you can eat all summer where you need to "succession plant" (planting another row or two every couple of weeks) many rows of bush beans to maintain a constant supply.

Then there's tomatoes. Would you believe that home gardeners used to grow tomatoes the way the farmers grow tomatoes? No cage, just the tomato "bush" on a hill. The ripening tomatoes would get heavy and sag down to sit on the dirt, sometimes to rot. Now home gardeners grow their tomatoes in cages to keep the fruits up and accessible.

But, like their bean-y counterparts, tomatoes come in two types analogous to "bush" and "pole." The "bush" version of the tomato is called "determinate" which just means that it puts on a set amount of branches and greenery and grows basically one crop of fruits. (Again, like the bush beans, it will continue to produce fruit on what plant structure it has, but with diminishing returns.) The "pole" analog is called "indeterminate" which means that the branches just keep going and going and going... Again, the indeterminate version just slowly keeps producing fruits till it dies in the frost of winter.

But these vertical crops are fairly obvious. What about cucumbers? When I started growing cucumbers, everyone I knew (even the ones who were starting to cage their tomatoes) grew them sprawling on the ground. You had to go carefully stepping between the vines to harvest your cukes. And, if you had any gophers in the area, chances were that they would have dined on your cukes the day before you harvested.

Then I learned about vertical gardening and that you could actually train your cucumbers up a trellis! No more carefully stepping between vines. No more muddy fruits. No more mildewy foliage because a little mud splashed.

Here's a small row of cucumbers growing up a trellis on my garage wall along the front walkway. These vines are blooming wildly and are just starting to produce cucumbers. Consider how much ground these bad boys would be covering by the end of the growing season if they weren't growing up a trellis!

This is all pretty nice, but consider the possibilities for growing some of the squashes, small pumpkins, cantaloupe, or mini-watermelons up a trellis! 

Even if you only have a small patio from which to grow veggies, you can combine a few large planter boxes and trellises to grow all sorts of yummy, fresh veggies. And, if you plan your space well, you can grow some lower-growing veggies at the feet of the tall veggies. You could plant some basil or carrots at the feet of your tomatoes, maybe some beets or scallions at the feet of your cucumbers. There are plenty of possibilities to explore.

Vegetable Garden Memories

My early memories about gardening are mostly about learning to grow veggies. 

In grade school, our class (like just about every other grade school class in America) did a spring project of watching beans and corn sprout in jars lined with paper towels. (Who knows what happened with those sprouts after about the third or fourth week?) In grade school, we were only interested in watching the seeds swell, sprout a tail (root), sprout their first leaves, then start growing. Then it got boring. Well, boring to third graders.

We didn't learn that the first leaves were called cotyledons. We didn't learn that the pairs of cotyledons of the bean gave it a categorization of "dicot" or that the single cotyledon of the corn gave it a categorization of "monocot." We were just intrigued by watching the growth process through the side of the jars in which they were sprouting.

Later, at home, I asked Mom (our resident gardener) if we could plant some corn. So, we planted a row of corn. Yep, one long row of corn. (OK, about 10 feet of corn.) The experienced gardeners out there are already chuckling mightily. They're chuckling because they know that what we got from the long summer of carefully tending those stalks was something that looked a lot more like popcorn. They know that corn has to be planted in blocks -- multiple rows planted side-by-side -- for effective pollination to occur. Hey! It was a learning experience. 

As the years went by I learned to plant corn, carrots, strawberries, zucchini (good lord!), bush beans, herbs, and more. Each year I learned a little more. I learned what worked and what didn't. I learned how to effectively amend soil for veggies. I learned about compost. I learned about composting in piles, bins, and sheets. I learned about the traditional "kitchen garden" (the garden planted for food for the household as opposed to the rest of the landscaping or crops for sale) and the "Victory Garden." I learned about "square-foot gardening" (where you have ultra-rich soil and plant a succession of crops shoulder-to-shoulder and cheek-by-jowl for quick growth and harvest) and organic gardening. I learned about vertical gardening (where you grow vining crops up a trellis rather than letting them sprawl across the ground). I learned about "companion planting" (where you plant things together that actually enhance each other's growth and plant things apart that would otherwise hinder each other's growth). I learned about planting in raised beds. 

Yes, I've learned a lot of things about growing vegetables (and fruits), but I continue to learn more every year. I wonder what I'll learn this year?

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, 15 July 2009

Here we are again at Bloom Day. This morning I found a link that explains how all this Bloom Day thing got started (read down a little). 

Today I'm going to take a different approach, something hopefully a bit simpler and shorter than last time. Tell me what you think.

The following are flowering in my yard as of today:

• Tuberous Begonia - I bought this "annual" eleven or twelve years ago and it's still going strong.


• Western Columbine - A few days ago I was worried that I wouldn't have an decent-looking blossoms of this California Native to show today, but they proved me wrong!


• Coral Bells - This non-native (tho' closely related to our native Heuchera species) is fading fast on me. Actually, I'm surprised they've lasted this long in the recent heat wave.


• Nasturtium - Also non-native and also getting pretty ratty... um... fading fast. The hummingbirds still give them a good working over.


• Canna Lilies - Again, non-native, but they make really inviting red flowers for the hummingbirds.


• Lobelia - Again, non-native, this lobelia is a volunteer of unknown pedigree, but it makes for a pretty, lacy, blue-and-white contrast to the broad leaved, yellow flowered Seep Monkeyflower below.


• Seep Monkeyflower - This California native has really found a happy home under the bird bath.


• Western Virgin's Bower - This California native vine is working hard at completely taking over the the fences in the back corner of my lot... and the roof of the pool house behind me.


• Love in a Mist - Non-native wildflower that is trying to take over the yard. At first it was cute -- mostly because it looks so alien -- but now it's getting a tad invasive. I'll be working at removing it for a while.


• Hollyhocks - Another volunteer, non-native, traditional European flower.


• Chrysanthemum - I planted these (non-natives) one fall ten or eleven years ago, supposedly as annual fall color. It's still hanging on. And blooming in non-fall timeframes.


• Calendula - Again, I planted a few seeds one fall ten or eleven years ago. This one re-seeds itself quite freely. This is another plant that I will need to start pulling early and often to be rid of it.


• Various Roses - I have a climbing red rose; an unknown, cream with pink unknown florabunda; and a single old-fashioned rose that's covered in thorns. Two weeks ago they were all covered in lush blooms. With the heat wave, they're mostly looking sad, but they are also all putting on new buds.


• Fibrous Begonia - This was a bedding plant that I put in the first spring I was in this house back in 1998. Most people have to replace these every year because they mostly die off over the winter. Not this guy!


• Parsley - Not native, not on the "oooh!" chart for blooms, but like all of its relatives, it attracts lots of insects that the birdies like.


• Redwood Sorrel -  Our native oxalis! Yes, it's related to the yellow, sour-grass, Bermuda Sorrel that covers the hills in the spring, but it's not nearly as invasive and has much more interesting foliage. Plus, the flowers are a pretty pink.


• Impatiens - I planted one. I swear. And this Jamaican native is supposed to behave like a native here and is supposed to be sterile, but no......


• Geraniums - I have some Ivy Geraniums hanging in pots on the deck and a pink geranium in the ground.


• White-Flowered Vine (Solanum rattonii?) - This thing is almost always in bloom. Not native.


• Clarkia, Farewell to Spring - Now that it's summer, this native Clarkia is, indeed, bidding a farewell to spring. These are the last of the blooms.


• Sticky Monkeyflower - I'm beginning to think that this native monkeyflower is also a perpetual bloomer.


• Blue Elderberry - This native elderberry tree has massive hands of ripening berries, yet it insists on continuing to put on new blossoms.


• Cucumber - Not native, but tasty! I have planted cucumbers along the south-facing garage wall to climb a trellis. Given the number of blossoms, I'm going to have to be making a lot of cucumber salads, cucumber soups, cucumber...


• Rosy Buckwheat - This little native is so pretty that I wish it would do better at getting big, spreading out, putting on more flowers, ...


• (Sulfur Buckwheat) - Psych! It's not actually putting on new flowers. This native puts on light yellow flowers that slowly fade to browns to a very nice effect.


• Plumbago (vining and creeping) - Neither are native, but they put on pretty blue flowers and they came with the house.


• California Poppies (second or third flush)


• Sunflowers


• Miscellaneous DYCs (Damned Yellow Composites), aka "Weeds"

Elderberries

I seem to be easily excitable. A few days ago I walked out front and noticed the changes to my Blue Elderberry tree. Yes, it has added yet more blossoms. Yes, the last sets of blossoms are now becoming green berries. But the truly exciting part is that the early sets of green berries are turning BLUE! Woohoo! My less-than-a-year-old Blue Elderberry has gone from a little twig in a one-gallon pot to a small tree with masses of ripe elderberries!

These berries are supposed to be the beloved of the birds, tho I haven't yet seen the birds around the tree. I've tasted a few of the berries. Some are quite flavorful and some of those are actually getting sweet. If the birdies aren't careful, I might just beat them to the punch.

The vast majority of the wildflowers under and around the elderberry are gone for the year. Some of the clarkia are still blooming, but, for the most part, they're just about finished for the year. I'll be keeping an eye on the seed pods to see about harvesting them.

In the meanwhile, the areas where I cut back the California poppies have poppies starting to grow again from the bases of the seemingly dead, whacked-off plants. One has even put on a fresh blossom... and it's pink!

I still have plenty of hacking and hewing to do out there because it's summer and the spring wildflowers are looking quite seriously sad.

Hummingbird Ablutions

A while back I did a post wherein I regaled you with the sights and sounds of the early morning. Near the end of that post I mentioned that I frequently get to see hummingbirds (yes, multiple) bathing at the hanging birdbath, but that I never see them at any other time of the day, hence no photos.

Well, yesterday the hummingbirds made a liar out of me!

They decided to visit the birdie spa around 9:30 AM and have a water fight. These two were mostly unsettled about sharing the bath, but had an uneasy truce.

And they were very thorough about making sure they got a good soaking.

These two little guys hung out for about 15 minutes, jockeying for position, flinging water about, and having plenty of good, clean fun. Near the end of their time they were joined by a House Finch. They decided that it was time to leave when every bird in the neighborhood decided that it was time to have Spa Day.