They don’t need to be staked up and they are not deterred by the heat and humidity here in the Mid-South. There is one caveat however, they don’t do well clay, but then again what does? So if you live in a region where there is clay and no topsoil, then you are going to have to build a raised bed or get creative if you are going to cultivate these delicious tubers.

This year I have decided to try something a little different. I have been intrigued by some of the results that I have seen my friends around the country achieve with growing in various containers and grow bags. Last Winter I had the idea to build three large raised beds and use four foot high wire fencing and then lining the side with landscape fabric and just keep adding mulch as they grew.

I knew I would have to begin on a raised bed foundation to get the needed drainage they would require but as I began pricing metal fencing, I quickly dismissed that option. Buying new plastic trash cans and then spending my time drilling in a bunch of drainage holes did not make a lot of sense to me.

Since I had already begun using hydroponics grow bags for many of my vegetables this year, I decided to use what I had left over and experiment with my heirloom potatoes as well. These bags have a black interior and a white exterior and are 6 ply thick and come with about a dozen or so holes in the bottom to allow for drainage.

I put in about six inches of white sand into the bottom of the bag. The bags tended to be a bit unruly and did not want to stand up very well, so I just rolled the top down a few inches to make it easier to deal with.

After I had all the heirloom potatoes chitted and ready to plant, I laid the seed potatoes on the sand and then covered them with a few inches of compost that I had made over the winter in my raised beds.

As you can see by the accompanying photos they have taken right off. Now that they have grown up, it is time to add some mulch to “hill them up” and unroll the top of the bag to it’s full height. Mulch is probably a misnomer to be honest.

When we talk about mulch we are usually referencing shredded wood that we use around shrubbery and the like. In this case when I say mulch, I am talking about is a light mixture of organic matter made up of some combination of hay, grass clippings, leaves and even saw dust. Ideally I would like to have used a mixture of grass clippings, leaves and a bit of saw dust.

Unfortunately I used up all my leaves in my raised beds last year and I have not used my table saw in quiet some time, so I am forced to just go with grass clippings. (I am making a mental note of that to remember this come fall)

Since my tractor does not have a bagger installed I am going to have to use my push mower to get some grass clippings. With the temperature already pushing one hundred degrees this morning I am not very excited about that but I will just have to chalk it up to tuition expense and try to plan a little better in the future.

Okay! I mowed the side lawn and got just enough grass clippings to fill in the most pressing needs. The grass clippings will quickly turn brown and break down in the heat and in doing so will lend their nutrients to the bag.

Why do I need to hill up potatoes? There are a couple of reasons for this whether they be grown in a garden with suitable soil or in a raised bed.

The predominant reason being that your plant is going to develop “tubers” on the stem.

Think of these tubers as “buds” that will eventually grow into an adult potato. The more tubers, the more abundant your harvest. Hilling or “earthing-up” your potatoes not only helps encourage a larger harvest but will protect them from exposure to the sun, which will turn the skin green.

Contrary to popular belief, eating these are not going kill you (or I would have long since departed) However they can have a biter taste. In areas where they are sown directly into suitable soil, hilling up your plans will also help keep the weeds down.

Watering throughout the growing season on a regular basis is a must for a healthy plant and a productive harvest of nice looking spuds. If they get dry for an extended period of time the skin can crack you can get some strange looking growth. Sudden watering after a long drought can also cause knobs to start growing. These are not going to hurt your spuds, but it can make peeling a challenge.

I have mini sprinklers and bubblers set up my raised beds. I simply do not have the time or inclination go out and water on a consistent basis, especially with the sweltering heat we get here. They would quickly burn up without a cool drink a couple times a day. You can now purchase mini irrigation systems most anywhere and for the cost they just can’t be beat. For about $40 (not including a timer) you can build a decent no-frills system to take care of an average sized garden. They come in mighty handy especially when it’s time to for you to go on vacation.

Seed starting is easy if you have the right setup. When we planned our raised bed vegetable garden, we also set up a seed starting station. We went to the local hardware store and purchased a 3 shelf wire rack that’s about 3 1/2′ wide, a fluorescent light housing and a grow light bulb, and some chain to hang the light from the top rack. We hung the light and left enough chain so that I could easily raise or lower the light as the seedlings grew. We put the whole thing outside in the screened in lanai. In Florida, that’s acceptable, but you northerners need to set up your seed station where it’s reasonably warm. Seeds need warmth to germinate, and seedlings don’t tolerate cold well at all. You’ll also need a timer for the light, to ensure that the seedlings get a full 14 hours of light daily.  Or, you can purchase a ready-made light station like this table top one.  You can click on the photos for a link to the Gardener’s Supply site.

I have tried several different seed starting kits, along with making my own little seed pots out of styro cups. Because I like to start about 120 plants every season, I’ve come to love the 2″ pots in this kit.  This system is also  reusable from year to year. It’s a complete system with bottom tray, water wicking mat, and pot holder insert with, of course all the pots. The smallest size works best because three of them fit under my grow light, and each one holds 40 seedlings. (I like to plant several extra plants of each variety in case I lose a few.) All you need to add to this kit is a bag of potting soil. The kit was actually designed to transfer tiny seedlings into; I don’t see the point of starting them in separate containers.  I plant once into the pots, then transplant into the garden 8 weeks later.

After filling the pot with soil, using a pencil tip, poke a little hole in the soil about twice as deep as the size of the seed. Using the same pencil tip, pick up the seeds and drop them into the soil.  I always plant two seeds per hole in case one doesn’t germinate. Once the seedlings are about an inch tall, I cut the smaller one off at the soil level with a pair of scissors. Plant the seeds directly in these little pots, stick a label in them and put them all in their holders under the grow light. Water daily and fertilize with a liquid kelp fertilizer once a week.

It’s a good idea to draw out your garden plan. I make a separate grid plan for every bed. I know what I want to plant and where I want to plant it before I even order my seeds. That way, I don’t get carried away and buy seeds that I won’t have the room to plant. When planning, try to keep the tomatoes and peppers in a different bed than the broccoli and cauliflower. I do a cruciferous bed every year and move it from bed to bed, rotating the crops to avoid disease and other problems that occur when crops aren’t rotated.

I like to start at least 6 of each variety of tomatoes, peppers, and most other veggies. It’s important to label your plants when you sow the seeds. Those little plastic plant markers work well. Make sure you use a Sharpie or other waterproof pen to label them. When it comes to planting, it’s important to know your varieties, as Roma grow only abut 4′ tall, while beefsteaks can grow up to 10′ tall!  When they’re seedlings it’s impossible to tell the variety, so take the time to mark the variety on all your seed pots.

Make your plan, buy your seeds and seed starter kits, and get those seeds planted.

Happy gardening!

I’ve never canned anything before, so I relied heavily on advice from a friend, but some of the items were not easily available, like the wide mouth Ball canning jars. The quart sized jars I got had the regular sized openings. This proved to be a problem, necessitating cutting the cucumbers into slices, spears, and chunks to pack them into the jars.

The adventure began at our local farmer’s market where I purchased 60 Kirby cucumbers, a nice, crisp pickling variety. The farmer’s market had no dill (Even though my plant had 25 flower heads on it, it had very few of the fern-like leaves, so I wanted extra dill.) The cukes cost about $20. Off to Wal Mart.

Wal-Mart, I was told, was the best place to find all of the pickling supplies. Not true. The problem was that none of their workers (we actually only found 2 workers on the sales floor) knew where the jars and accessories might be. After wandering around the super center store for what seemed like hours looking for canning supplies, we finally found them in the “home” department.

They were out of wide mouthed jars, so I got the regular jars. They had very few pickling or canning supplies. So much for the “super center.” Next time I’ll shop around to get the wide mouthed jars so I don’t have to cut up all the pickles. I also found the canning salt there (this is similar to kosher salt – it has no iodine or free flowing chemical agents in it) as well as a little kit for filling the jars and processing which included a gizmo that lifts the filled, hot jars out of the boiling water bath, another gizmo that has a magnet on one end for lifting the jar lids out of the hot water, a funnel that fit snugly into the non-wide mouth jars, and another plastic thing that I was probably supposed to use to measure 1″ from the top of the jars. I thought I had everything I needed.

When we got home, I ran a clear wash through my washing machine with a couple of cups of vinegar in it to help get all the fabric softener residue out of the machine.  Then I put in the pickles along with a few towels, set the washer on the delicate cycle for 4 minutes. It did a beautiful job of cleaning the cucumbers really well. The hardest part was getting 60 pickles out of the washer, untangling them from the towels, and only being able to grab 2 at a time. I thought my back would break.

I had read an article on Clemson University’s site that said you can eliminate the alum (which I forgot to buy anyway, and later found out contains aluminum, which is toxic) if you cut the blossom end off the pickles then soak them in ice water for 4 hours. Alum is mainly for crispness, and the trimming and ice soak are supposed to help keep the pickles crisp. I got out the cooler, put a double layer of trash bags in it, dumped in the trimmed pickles and ice water and let them soak while I sanitized the jars in the dishwasher.

This may have been a mistake because when I packed the cukes into the jar, they were quite cold. This lowered the temperature of the water bath, perhaps too much. Clemson’s site also said to keep the garlic from turning green, try to use water with no minerals in it like distilled or reverse osmosis water. I used RO water; the garlic turned bright green almost immediately. Bob said if green garlic bothers me, then I shouldn’t look at it. Good advice. So much for Clemson’s integrity, at least on this subject.

I got a friend to help me pack the jars. Into each jar went 2 heads of dill and 2 smashed cloves of peeled garlic. I also tucked a cayenne pepper into 2 of the jars. It was impossible to put whole pickles into the jars because of the small mouths, so we started with spears, then advanced to long thick slices for sandwiches and finished with chunks to fill in the gaps. We shoved as many pickles as we could into the jars. Then I made the brine.

I didn’t know how much brine to make so I started out with 3 quarts of vinegar, 6 quarts of water, and 2  1/4 cups of salt.  This proved to be more than enough for 12 quart sized jars. I brought the brine to a boil, then started pouring it into the jars. As each jar was filled, I put the lid and ring on.

When all 12 were filled, I brought the processing pot with about 4″ of water in it to a boil – this took forever; we have a really crummy stove. By the time the water bath got hot, the pickles were not. Oh well. I stuck them in the pot with the lid on and processed them for about 10 minutes. The water never did boil. I wondered if I was going to kill whoever ate these pickles because the water never boiled.

Then I figured that the brine had enough vinegar and salt in it to keep bacteria from growing; that they’d probably be ok. I hope so, anyway. (The next time I do this, I’ll have the processing water already hot while I’m filling the jars, and will only process 2 or 3 jars at a time.) Bob said the water should be boiling the entire time the jars are processing. Oh well.

After processing, my brother said to remove the rings, dry off the top, and use the Food Saver jar sucker to vacuum seal them. That was the most frustrating experience of all. The sucker wouldn’t shut off readily with the “stop” button, so I kept sucking juice up into the Food Saver.

Even though the liquid was a good inch below the top of the jar, I kept sucking liquid into the machine. When this happened, I’d disconnect the tube, blow out all the brine, wipe out the Food Saver and try again. Two of the jars never did seal; I don’t know why. Those 2 jars I put in the fridge and by morning they had sealed themselves (at least the little dimples were down).

I had a few remaining cukes that I’d already cut up, and had brine left over, so I combined the two, brought them to a boil and shut them off. When they were cool, I removed the cukes from the brine because they tasted too salty to me, and put them in the fridge. In the morning I added water and vinegar in a 2:1 ratio to them. We ate them for lunch and they were really great. So that’s how you can make instant pickles.

The remaining jars should be ready to eat in a few weeks. What an adventure! This was a LOT of work, but it was fun; I’ll probably do it again….some day.

Happy gardening!

One summer a friend of my parents invited us up to his cabin for a vacation.  On his property, he had planted a corn field.  With instructions to his wife to get the pot of water boiling, we hiked out to his garden to harvest some sweet corn for dinner.  Each corn stalk sported one or sometimes two ears of corn.

 We plucked what we needed, and then we kids were given the ears of corn and told to run back to the cabin.  With all of us shucking corn, we were able to get the corn into the boiling water within 10 minutes of picking it.  It was so sweet, I remember it to this day, decades later. From the moment it’s picked, the sugars in corn begin turning to starch.  When you grow your own corn and can cook and eat it fresh, it is the sweetest corn you’ll ever eat.

Corn is an interesting crop. It’s best to plant it in blocks to facilitate pollination. Each ear of corn sends out silk. Each strand of silk is attached to an undeveloped kernel of corn on the cob. If that strand of silk does not get pollinated, that kernel of corn will not develop.

The pollen forms on the tassels at the top of the stalk.  It’s large and looks a little like wild rice.

When the wind blows, the pollen drops from the tassel onto the silk, which hold it long enough to pollinate the ear.  If you grow a single row of corn, it’s going to be difficult to pollinate, even if you do it by hand.  You can pull the loose kernels of pollen off of the tassels and sprinkle it onto the silks manually if you want to help it along.

You can plant corn in a staggered pattern that will yield 4 to 6 ears of corn a week for four weeks.  Here’s how:

To grow a little corn field in a 4×4’ bed, you’ll want to plant one row at a time for a staggered crop.

Corn likes to be planted deeply, so get 16 disposable cups that are about 6” tall and cut the bottoms out of them. Divide your bed into 16 square feet.

Beginning with the northernmost row, dig a hole in the center of each square so that you can put one of the cups in it, with the top of the cup even with your soil line.

Now, take a pencil and poke a hole into the dirt in the bottom of each cup so that it’s about 4” deeper than the bottom of the cup. Place two corn seeds into the hole, push them down with the pencil, and fill in the little hole at the bottom of the cup.

Fill the cup with water and move on to the next square. When the corn sprouts and grows above the soil line and the top of the cup, remove the cup and fill the hole in with soil.

If both seeds have germinated, cut off one of the plants below the soil line. You now have one row of corn planted at a 10” depth, which will give added stability to the plant.

As soon as the seeds germinate and the seedlings are about 2” high, it’s time to plant the second row. Don’t wait too long, or you’ll have pollination problems later.

Continue with the next 2 rows, planting as soon as the seedlings from the previous row germinate. What you’ll end up with is a tidy little corn field, with each row producing 4 to 6 ears of corn, and they’ll mature at a staggered rate as you planted them.

Corn loves nitrogen rich soil, and beans are a wonderful companion to corn. Beans develop nitrogen nodules on their roots and are considered a “green” manure.  As you plant your corn, you can plant 4 to 6 beans of the vining variety in a circle around each cup. The corn stalk will provide a support for the beans, and the beans will provide nitrogen for the corn. The corn stalk roots grow deeply; the bean roots are shallower so they won’t compete for space.

You will thank me for this if you do it.

Happy Gardening!

So What is Organic Food?

The first thing to know about organic food is to understand how it is different from non-organic food. Why has organic food gained so much attention in recent years? The answer is simple. As the farming industry changes and shifts into using more artificial pesticides and turns to science to produce higher crop yields through artificial and industrial farming techniques, we have had to begin distinguishing between the foods that are harvested using these techniques and the foods that are not.

In the past decade, there has also been a rise in genetically modified foods (GMO’s). These are the same foods we are familiar with, but have been modified genetically in laboratories so that they will either be resistant to poisons and pesticides, repel insects that naturally feed on them in the natural ecosystem, or otherwise behave differently than they would in nature.

These farming practices are relatively recent in human history, and have already been shown to have significant impacts on human health, and the health of the ecosystem we rely on for our food and farming. This is why it is so important to understand the differences between organic and non-organic food sources, and their impacts

Nutritional Benefits

As there is an increasing amount of non-organic food on the market, it has become necessary to distinguish from organic foods to understand the impacts of these new farming and food harvesting techniques. As there are more and more non-organic foods on the market, it is now possible to begin observing the nutritional differences between organic and non-organic foods.

What studies are now beginning to show is staggering: organic foods not only have better flavour, but they are also higher in nutrients and vitamins. There are many reasons for this. Pesticide use decreases flavour, and many of the non-organic foods available on the market are also harvested before they are ripe and shipped across long distances. As a result, they are not mature and have less flavour and nutrients.

Environmental Benefits

Organic foods are not only about producing healthy foods, but they are also about doing this is harmony with the environment. Studies now show that organic farming causes less pollution by shipping more foods locally, and contributes less to the effects of dead zones in our oceans, which are caused by widespread use of pesticides that leach into the water supply and drain into rivers and oceans.

The impact of pesticide farming in the environment is huge when it comes to fruits and vegetables, but can also apply to meats and animal farming. Organically farmed foods do not rely on the use of antibiotics for animals and treat disease naturally, and also highlight the importance of treating animals with dignity. Organic meats are therefore not only more flavourful, but also more healthy for human consumption, and do not leach large amounts of antibiotics into our water supply through manure and other animal waste.

Health Benefits

Widespread intake of pesticides present in farming and non-organic foods is also toxic to humans, and can affect our health. There are studies linking non-organic foods, pesticide use and GMO’s with health issues such as autism, birth defects and reproductive problems in humans, among the most prominent health concerns.
There are so many reasons to value the importance of organic foods, so visit your favorite organic grocery store today!

There are many health and nutritional benefits to consuming organic foods on a regular basis rather than conventional or non-organic foods. Beyond the added bonus of improved flavour and health benefits, increased nutrients and absence of poisons such as pesticides or use of questionable practices such as genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) in our food supply, there are many reasons to go for organic food if you’re generally interested in reducing your ecologically footprint, or are interested in farming practices that are beneficial to the environment rather than depleting to the ecosystem.

Pesticide Use

Conventional farming relies heavily on the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which can destabilize the ecosystem. When we buy non-organic foods, we encourage the production of these types of foods and the farming practices that make them possible. The danger with widespread pesticide use is not only that they are harmful for humans, but that they are then present in the environment and can be upsetting to the flora and fauna, while also affecting the ecosystem as a whole

Pesticides sprayed into farm land enter the water supply, and can trickle down into the rivers and oceans, affecting the animals along the way. This is a huge contributing factor to the dead zones in the ocean, where animals and plants die on a large scale due to the presence of these toxic chemicals in their environment.

Fortunately, it appears that these effects can be reversed over time once the pesticide use ceases, but this will only take place once we turn to organic farming and reduce the amount of these toxic chemicals in the environment. Buying organic foods helps encourage these more natural farming practices to reverse this toxic trend.

Local Organic Farming

Most organic foods are produced and consumed locally. This can have a huge impact on reducing your ecological footprint, simply by affecting the amount of transportation involved in getting the foods from the farm to your dinner plate. Locally grown foods are not only delicious, but by supporting local organic farmers you are helping reduce the overall trend of transporting under-ripened foods for miles and miles to be consumed once they have ripened outside of their natural environment.

The amount of pollution involved in transporting foods is staggering and even a small contribution to reducing this can have a huge impact on reducing green house gases, and preventing further depletion to the ozone layer of the earth, which protects our environment from harmful ultraviolet rays.

Reduce The Use of Water

It takes 10 times more water to produce non-organic foods as it does to produce crops organically. This is because of the need for irrigation and because organic farming works with the ecosystem and feeds the soil so that it retains more water. Organic farming practices work with the environment and reproducing the environment’s natural diverse ecosystem and produces stronger soils that remove the need for excessive watering. By choosing organic foods, you are also choosing to protect the use of clear water.

Reduce The Use of Grain

If you are meat-eater, choosing organic meats not only reduces the amount of water required to produce the meat source, but also reduces the amount of grain required to feed the animals. With organic farming, animals can feed more naturally off the environment and are also not over-fed to compensate for unhealthy farming techniques and the use of antibiotics which leach into the ecosystem and become integrated into the human diet.
Biodiversity

Finally, organic farming works with a more diverse and naturally occurring environment for crops to grow. Rather than having entire plantation of a single crop and using harsh chemicals to fend off insects, organic farming works with these conditions to produce healthy and fresh crops in a more biodiverse environment, which protects the environment from plantation disease and all the chemicals that are used to artificially remove them.

Even though further research needs to be done to gain a better understanding of the benefits of organic food, there is still much valuable information to share with you.

Before we discuss the actual health benefits of eating whole food, lets take a look at the advantages it has over non-organic food.

It’s a fact that this food is highly nutritious and contains higher levels of vitamins and minerals. Vitamin C and minerals like magnesium, calcium and iron are just some of the nutrients organic food contains higher amounts of.

Whole foods also contain higher amounts of antioxidants, which help reduce the risk of developing cancers.

You may be surprised to know, but the vegetables we eat today are nowhere near as nutritious as they were 50 or even 15 years ago. Farmers tend to take shortcuts when growing food, and the fastest way is generally not the best way to do something. This trend is expected to continue, so if eating highly nutritious food is important to you, looking into organic foods is something worth considering.

If you were wondering why organic food hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm, it’s mainly due to the extra cost associated with organic growing. Demand is greater than supply and as a result, you can expect to pay about 20% extra for this kind of food..

Numerous studies have been conducted to find out the benefits whole foods can provide us humans. Many results are still fairly inconclusive however there have been many reported cases of benefits when animals are fed organic food.

The reason for the vagueness in health benefits is due to many reasons such as: incorrect method of testing and the lengthy time it takes to determine results of this nature. However several studies have shown benefits such as:

• Decline in colds and other conditions
• Improves dental health
• Improves flow of your overall system
• Greater chance of sprains and fractures
• Reduces chance of injury
• Better over health

As mentioned, the subject of organic food vs non organic food is very iffy and many researches believe that this food provides little to no health benefits.

Thinking about it logically, surely food that has been grown as it was intended to and that contains no added toxic chemicals has to be considerably healthier for us.

Whether the extra cost associated with organic food is worth the money is entirely up to the person. There is insufficient evidence to say something like “eating whole foods will reduce the likelihood of getting heart disease”.

I thought it was a great question. This was one I had struggled with trying to make ends meet on a teacher’s salary as a stay-at-home mom. What was the difference between conventional and organic? Is it enough of a difference to justify the extra expense? I wanted to do what was best for my family, but wasn’t sure what that was at the time.

A Brief History of Organic

Up until the middle part of the last century, all food was organic. Chemical agriculture was just really catching on then, which changed the way farming was managed in this country. Up until that time, careful management of the soil and smaller crops were the norm, along with crop rotation or growing certain plants together to support the growth of the others. It was also common for each family to have their own garden. When chemical fertilizers made their way onto the scene, farmers could grow much more food with less effort. They could kill the pests that would have devastated their crops in the past. It seemed like a great plan.

But with the addition of the fertilizers, pesticides, and less attention to the quality of the soil, the net result was food that was no longer as nutrient dense, and had the added disadvantage of toxic chemicals. Micronutrients that used to abound in the soil were no longer present, which resulted in food that didn’t taste as good. Ask anyone who is older than about 50 if produce tastes different than they remember it tasting when they were young. Most likely, the answer will be yes. Nutrients taste good. That apple with no taste has very little nutrition.

During the 1980’s, the word organic began popping up in health food stores, but there was no standard for what could be called organic and what couldn’t. During the 1990’s, the first standards for organic foods were set. In 2007, more legislation was passed to more clearly define what was acceptable for organically grown foods and what wasn’t. In the meantime, organic foods have become big business and many companies that were formally conventional have now started organic lines, like Dole. The advantage was that organic foods were now readily available at most grocery stores. As organic became more commercially available, prices started to go down, but the intention behind the movement shifted into making money, rather than doing what was ultimately best for people and the environment. Consumer confidence in the organic label dropped as incidents formally known to only affect conventional crops started happening with the organic crops.

As a side note, some farmers are now producing what is called biodynamic produce. These crops are considered even better than organic and special attention is paid to the soil for optimal health of the plants and high nutrient content. Like organic, it also must be free from synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Organic is better than conventional, but biodynamic is even better than organic.

Why is organic better than conventional?

Chemicals used to protect food from pests are harmful to young children. Young children’s bodies have difficulty removing the chemicals ingested through food and children tend to eat more produce per pound of body weight than adults. However, the “safety” criteria often sited is based upon adults, not children. By eating several of the most contaminated produce in a day, your children are exposed to an average of 15 pesticides per day. You can reduce that by around 90% by simply eating more of the least contaminated foods. Organic food, by definition, must be free of synthetic chemicals. More attention must be paid to the soil in order for organic foods to grow, so they also tend to be more nutrient dense.

My favorite story about organics is taken from a zoo. They were feeding the monkeys a mix of organic and conventional bananas. The zookeepers discovered that the monkeys always peeled the conventional bananas, but ate the organic bananas whole, peel and all, which is normal for them. Even the animals know the difference!

Why are pesticides so bad? Don’t they just wash off?

Pesticide ingestion has been found to contribute to the following health problems, according to numerous animal and human studies:

• Cancer
• Fertility problems
• Brain tumors
• Childhood leukemia
• Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
• Hormone or endocrine system problems
• Nervous system damage

Read that last one again: Nervous system damage. Most pesticides are designed to attack the nervous systems of pests! I couldn’t understand how anything that attacks the nervous system could ever be considered “safe” for anyone, let alone children.

Keep in mind that pesticides are not just on the outside of fruits and vegetables, as is commonly thought, but are taken up inside the produce through the soil. Even when you wash the outside or peel the skin off, though this will lower the pesticide exposure, it will not remove all pesticides. However, by removing the skin, you are also losing valuable nutrients found in the peels and outside layer of the fruit or vegetable.

Collect all the information you can to gain understanding of what and when things should be done.  Common sense goes a long ways, add that with your personal observations, and you have all you need to get a good start the best usage of your time to gain the most results.

Evaluate and make your plan.

Step back and look closely at how the landscape is performing, both functionally as well as aesthetically.  Ask these questions: What goals do I have?  Do I want a dual purpose garden? Will it provide mental respite as well as healthy crops?  What features lend themselves to a focal point (dominant feature) or pleasant walkway for planning around?  How do pole beans or upright sweet corn set the stage?  How do the oregano and mint textures (leaf and stem) harmonize with the colors, silhouettes and shapes of their companion plants?  What type of lighting and shadows from the sun at various stages of the day as well as the evening moon’s rays do you see to add to the excitement of the view?  These are just a few considerations that may bring greater enjoyment to that bell pepper’s flavor or the pie grandma made from your rhubarb, or mint in your glass of ice tea, or maybe a fruit salad with hand-picked blueberries and strawberries.

Mark, stake, label, or flag to indicate the exact locations of seeds, vining plants, watering and fertilizing sites are.  As your squash vines start sprawling over this will help you not get lost as to where the hose end went.

Planting your future food:

If you started your tomato plants indoors or purchased them, you will want to transplant them one inch or deeper (to the first set of leaves).  Put stakes or cages up now so you don’t have to hassle with it later and risking damage to your plant.

Sweet potatoes are good to plant this month in the Midwest.  Replace cold season plants with warm season varieties such as beans, egg-plant, and pepper.  Work up the space, add some organic matter then plant after last harvest of your cold season vegetables.  Keep proper spacing for sweet or pop corn to ensure proper cross –pollination and room for mature growth.

Care towards your good harvest

Shad from direct sunlight allows for a longer harvest time.  Cool season leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach and others will benefit from a shade cloth or fabric with the density of window screen over them.

After you cut and enjoy asparagus spears (not beyond stalks reaching pencil sized), allow the plant to grow and fern out (opening of leaves).  Thin out and remove plant seedlings of beans, anise, and peas from any situation to avoid overcrowding.  Select, if possible, the weakest plants to discard.   New growth, tie up on vines as they need to avoid breaking stems and damage.

Watering good yet do so responsibly:

Keep as much moisture off the plant leaves, therefore minimize overhead watering.  To continue watering from over head increases the chance of disease.  If you must water from overhead, do it as early in the morning as you can so the leaves may dry during the day.

Food for the food- Fertilizing

Grapes need a balance of (12-12-12 or similar) fertilizer.  One quarter cup around each vine installed earlier this year.  Apply fertilizer to older vies as the bulbs swell.  Use one cup for two-year-old vines.  One to One-one half cups for three-year-old vines and one to two cups of plant food for each year of growth on older vines.

Tomatoes need tomato fertilizer with an analysis 6-24-24 or similar product.

The first number is low so minimize adding nitrogen.  Nitrogen encourages foliage and minimized fruit formation.

For your apple trees you will need to fertilize the ones which have been in place one year or longer.  Administer one pound of 12-12-12 each year.

Pruning:

To save the energy of the rhubarb plant, cut off flower and seed stalks.  Flowers from any squash and any fruits at the time of installation pinch off (remove). The plant will spend its energy trying to develop and keep fruit growing but it needs time to acclimate and establish in the garden.

Disease:

Watch for asparagus beetles and striped and spotted cucumber beetles.  These pests chew and transmit diseases in specific plants.  Apple trees signs to watch for are codling moths; the caterpillars are leaf eaters.

Caterpillars start showing up on many crops this month, especially cabbages and broccoli.  Inspect leaves for chewing, remove or apply a safe chemical control directly on the caterpillar.  You could use Bacillus (Bt) biological spray per package directions.

Several insects that disrupt fruiting will visit your grapes; control them with insecticidal soap to lessen the impact.

Grape foliage with blackened or gray film on it will need to be thinned out so air movement can be increased through the plant.  Check the base of grapevines after a severe winter for unusual looking growth.  Cut vines to ground. Retrain the new growth onto the arbor or trellis.  If the leaves appear pale or stunted, the nutrient level may be unbalanced or inadequate.  Take a soil sample to your local garden center if you are unsure.

Blueberry bushes with a yellowing discoloration on the leaves are a sign of iron deficiency or unavailable nutrients.  Iron sulfate at the label rate of application can be used to begin the recovery process.  This may take a few seasons.

Helpful Hints

An insect identification guide with color pictures can greatly help identify unknown infestation problems.  You can purchase these at local garden centers or nurseries.

This keeps your vegetables from going to waste in your garden if you plant many vegetables and have more than you can eat at one time. You can also freeze your vegetables from your garden to preserve them. Vegetable gardening is so beneficial to people and especially in today’s economy with people trying to save money.

Vegetable gardens can save any individual a lot of money during the year growing their own vegetables in their garden. This type of gardening is becoming more popular all the time for the convenience that it provides having your food readily available at your home. It saves people money from not having to go to the grocery store to purchase vegetables. Vegetable gardening is a fun hobby for the homeowner. The entire family can get involved in planting and watching the vegetables grow.

Key Advantages Of Home Vegetable Gardening

Just about everyone can appreciate vegetable gardening for all the benefits that it can provide. People have had vegetable gardens as far back as one can remember. This type of gardening never seems to lose its popularity. People can plant vegetable gardens no matter where they live by just doing a little research on how to get started.

You can even have a vegetable garden if you live in an apartment. It may be a smaller vegetable garden, but it can be done and with great success. Growing vegetables is a hobby that many people enjoy every year. People that have a large yard often plant a large vegetable garden and provide their family and friends with vegetables that cannot grow a garden of their own. People grow many things in their vegetable gardens such as lettuce, cabbage, green beans, cucumbers, corn, tomatoes, radishes, and many more types of vegetables.

There is not one person that does not like one or more vegetables so there is something for everyone when growing a vegetable garden. Even if you do not like all vegetables, it is still a fun thing to plant them and watch them grow.

Getting a garden ready for planting is sometimes a challenge with all the tilling of soil and using garden tools to make sure that the soil is ready to plant your vegetables, but with the benefits, you will get from growing the vegetables it is well worth the challenge. Vegetables are very good for you and can benefit your health in many ways.

People that eat vegetables are providing valuable nourishment that their bodies need on a daily basis. It is also good to start your children eating vegetables at an early age so that they will carry on with the good habit throughout their life. When you are vegetable gardening you will have a good feeling knowing that you are providing the best nourishment for your family.

Growing vegetables can save people money every year that they would normally spend at the grocery store. Just think about shopping for groceries and never having to think about purchasing vegetables again. This is very likely if you are serious about vegetable gardening.

The cost of vegetables in the store can add up costing you hundreds of dollars every year, but if you have access to your own vegetables, you can spend your money that you will be saving on other important things. People choose to have a vegetable garden for many reasons but saving money is right at the top of the list.

The Essence Of Vegetable Gardening

Another benefit of vegetable gardening is that fresh vegetables out of your garden taste so much better than vegetables that are purchased in the store.

They have the fresh garden taste that canned foods from the store do not provide. You can wait right up until you know that you vegetables are ready to be picked before picking them to know that they are at the right size and maturity for picking. Store bought vegetables are often picked way before they should be, giving them less flavor then garden vegetables.

Vegetable gardening will give you the best tasting vegetables that you can get anywhere with being picked ripe off the vine. If you can grow a vegetable garden one year and be successful, then you will be able to be a better gardener every year and start expanding your garden growing more vegetables.

Vegetable gardens can be of any size that you choose from very small to very large. It all depends on the space that you can provide to grow a garden. Some people have others plant vegetables for them because they do not have the space required to grow all the vegetables that they want. This works out well for both people because they both get the vegetables that are being grown.

Vegetable gardening is beneficial for different reasons and more people are growing their own vegetable gardens every day. Some people start growing their vegetable plants inside before the weather is right for a garden outdoors and then when the weather is appropriate outdoors for gardening, the plants are then moved to the garden where they have a good start and sometimes even have blooms.

When they are planted out in the garden, the rain and sunshine helps to make them grow to be large healthy vegetable plants. If you have a vegetable garden watch out for raccoons, birds and other animals that will try to get to your vegetables and eat them. If you go to a home and garden center, you will find products that can help to keep animals from bothering with your plants.

Vegetable gardening is a way to provide good food for your family while saving money. It is healthy for you to eat vegetables out of the garden and is a great hobby for all involved. Vegetable gardening can be an event for the entire family to enjoy and something you can be proud of doing.

Though seed-saving is not always possible for all types of vegetables, collecting and storing seeds from your own vegetable garden ensures that your plants are always the kind that are accustomed to your climate and soil and adopted to the pests in your region.

Seeds from annual and biennial plants are generally saved and perennials are typically propagated through cuttings or division.

When seed-saving, it is best to save only heirlooms, open-pollinated plants and old-fashioned varieties. These seeds tend to grow into the same plants as their parents.

Seeds from hybrid varieties often produce a mix of offspring and tend to grow into plants that are very different from their parents.

Among the vegetable seeds that are easy to save are non-hybrid beans, cucumber, eggplant, pepper, tomatoes, summer squash and watermelons.

When collecting seeds for saving, it is best to wait until they have matured but get them before they fall off the plant. Fruit and vegetable seeds are often harvested when the fruit is ripe.

On most flowering plants, the seeds are collected before they dry on the plant.

The seeds are removed from the fruits or flowering plant and cleaned throroughly. These are then set out in a warm and dry place to dry for storage. Properly stored seeds can last for 3-4 years.

Tips for Storing Seeds

Spread seeds on a newspaper and allow them to air-dry for 1 week. Be sure to write the seed names on the newspaper so you know which is which.

After air drying the seeds, pack them in small envelopes or packets and label these.
You can also dry seeds on paper towels.

When the seeds are dried, they will stick to the paper towels. Simply roll the towels and store them. When planting time comes, just tear off bits of towel with one seed at a time. Plant both the seeds and towel directly to the soil.
It’s important to store seeds in a cool and dry place.

Warmth and humidity shorten the shelf life of seeds.
Seed packets should be kept in mason jars with tight lids, glass canisters with gasketed lids, plastic film canisters or plastic food storage bags.

Most seeds are best stored in airtight containers but legumes are an exception. Legumes store best in breathable bags.
The best place to store seeds is generally the fridge but be sure to keep the seed containers well away from the freezer section.

Label each year’s batch of seeds and store batches together. By dating or labeling the seed packets or containers, you will know at a glance which seeds are nearing their prime and plant them first in the next planting season.

It will help to keep seeds dry in storage if you add a packet of silica gel in the same container where you put the seed packet. Replace the silica gel every six months.

When planting season comes, remove the containers from your storage area or fridge and just set them in a room. Keep the containers closed and wait for the seeds to warm to room temperature.

If you open the containers before the seeds have adjusted to the temperature, the moisture in the air will condense on the seeds and they will clump together.

There are some seeds that just won’t germinate the next year no matter how careful, organized or methodical you are when saving seeds. Some plants simply have very low germination rates like parsnip and sweet corn seeds. Other seeds will only stay viable for 1-2 years.

Here are Seed Saving Tips for 8 Vegetables:

Saving Bean Seeds – wait until the seeds dry and the pods start to open. Or wait until the seeds are “rattle dry” before picking the pods and removing the seeds.

Saving Cucumber Seeds – wait until the fruit is ripe and then squeeze out the pulp with the seeds into a container. Add water and allow the pulp to ferment for 2-4 days at room temperature. Stir occasionally and remove dead seeds that float to the water surface. When all the good seeds have sank to the bottom of the container, simply pour off the pulp. Some of the pulp may be clumped with the seeds so repeat the process as necessary until only clean seeds remain. Spread the seeds to dry.

Saving Eggplant Seeds– you know an eggplant is ready for seed-saving when it is off-color, dull-looking and hard. Cut the eggplant in half just pull the flesh away from the seed area.

Saving Peas Seeds – same as beans. Wait until the seeds are rattle dry and the pods start to open.

Saving Pepper Seeds – wait until the fruit is thoroughly ripe before removing the seeds from the fruit. Let the seeds dry in a warm and dry place.

Saving Tomatoes Seeds – wait until the fruit is ripe before squeezing the pulp and seeds out. The process of preparing the seeds for storage is the same as with cucumber seeds.

Saving Summer squash Seeds – if you cannot dent the squash with a fingernail, the seeds are ready for saving. Cut the squash open, scrape the seeds into a cowl, wash the seeds, drain and then allow to dry.

Saving Watermelons Seeds – Allow the fruit to ripen before collecting the seeds. Put seeds in a strainer, add a drop of dishwashing liquid to remove the sugar from the seeds before drying.