November 30, 2016

avalanche column

November 12, 2015

Recently I gave a presentation out at CDRI. Like writing these columns I also really enjoy giving presentations. It is especially nice to chat with all of the folks who are in attendance.

I had the opportunity to talk with one lady in attendance at the workshop who told me how much she enjoys reading my columns. This always tickles me to no end. During the conversation she mentioned that she wanted to email me some questions, but was afraid that it would overburden me.

Hopefully during our conversation I hoped that I had eased her mind on this and she would send me here questions.

A big reason why I write this column, do presentations, or even give garden tours is to encourage gardeners of any skill level. I encourage questions. I do not want to imply that I know all the answers, because I don’t. In fact I really do not know all the questions.

Because I have been gardening since the 4^th grade, I have been exposed to a lot of different garden surprises. Sometimes the questions sound familiar to one of my experiences and I can relate this to the questioner, other times I need to research and try to find a probable answer.

As is quite frequently said “the only dumb question is the one not asked”, so please ask. Your question could very easily cause me to look at doing somethings I do differently and most likely better.

Deb my wife frequently teases me that I would rather talk about gardening than to garden. I derive a great amount of pleasure from both of these exercises.

As I told this wonderful lady out at CDRI I have all the time in the world for questions about gardening. I hope that anyone that has been reluctant to pass on a question finally sits down and sends a few electrodes my way. Shoot it doesn’t have to be a question, I love hearing about fellow gardeners experiences. It is all good!!!  Happy gardening!!!!

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

November 26, 2o15

Good morning, I am sending this email out early due to the Thanksgiving Holiday. I would like to note that there will not be any Friday deliveries. Prep work that I do on Thursday will be done on Friday. So Please place your orders and pick up at market on Saturday. Sorry for the inconvenience but all will be back to normal next week. Thank you very much and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I have noted on several occasions that I have root knot nematodes (RKN) in my garden. RKN are probably one of the biggest crop pests in the world and can be found anywhere there is land being farmed. They pretty much form galls on the roots and inhibit nutrient flow between the roots and foliage. It generally is a slow steady death of the plant but in smaller infestations they drastically reduce harvests.

Once you have RKN there really is no complete removal. With persistence you can control them. Once finding RKN, your gardening practices will change for ever that is if you seek to control them. The only way you can 100 percent know that you have them is to dig up a plant and look at the roots. This fall when I pulled some sick plants I did not find RKN but noticed some compromised roots like when I had an outbreak of Western Curling Disease (WCD) last year. Funny thing I did not notice the leaf curling that is associated with WCD. Most likely something new that infects roots. Always gotta love a challenge.

Anyway back to the RKN. Like with any organic control the more angles you can hit the problem from the more likely you will be successful. A list of some of the things I have done. I feel because they are single cogs in a large wheel overall I am successful. Not all are done at the same time but over the course of time they are.

Grow cover crops with nemicide or RKN trap crop qualities

Incorporate organic matter into the bed

Remove galled roots to the trash

Plant the garden at very earliest possible time

Soil drench with cold pressed neem or neem products

leave the bed fallow and void of any plants

Solarize the beds for 2 months

Till beds from clean end towards the infected portions of the bed

Clean tools in the bed just worked

This is not a complete list but as I find new means to control I add it to the above list. At one time when I first discovered these guys I thought the garden was done, but I have found there is life after RKN. I would personally take on a plague of grass hoppers if I could remove the RKN from my garden. Their control is so much easier and you can see the results of your endeavor much more quickly. None the less it is what it is. And as I said “Gotta love a challenge!”

Last Saturday night brought a bit of a chill to the garden. Sunday mornings low was 21 degrees. I had the last of all my summer veggies all tucked in. I did notice a little freeze damage so I went ahead and pulled my Jalapenos and the remainder of the Toms. I ended up with around 7 or 8 flats of toms that should ripen slowly over the next couple of months. Most of these are my long keepers. I still have some New Mex big Jim chiles and some pobalanos to pick. It sure was a nice run from the middle of March to the end of November for summer veggies.

The winter veggies are coming along, I have been harvesting some kohlrabi along with all the other greens. Some of the greens are getting a few aphids, it is just getting a warm morning with out wind so I can spray. I like to do most of my spraying of an evening but most evenings have been a bit breezy. The timing will work itself out.

It is really nice not having the daily harvest that starts with the summer squash in the spring. Now it is down to two mornings a week with maybe a couple things on Friday before I start putting bags together. I leave a few things for Friday to harvest because I find the refrigerators are quite fool.

Yes it is nice for a slower pace.

November 23, 2015

avalanche column

November 6, 2015

Floating row covers is a gardening product that is made of spunbonded polypropylene. It is permeable to moisture and sun light and really reduces wind damage.

In other areas of the country it can just float on the surface of your bed and as the veggies grow they will lift the fabric. I suspect in West Texas you could do this but the results would be less than desirable. Wind would make the fabric beat the tar out of your plants. It is for this reason I like to use 9 gauge fencing wire to make hoops.

In a lot of gardening catalogs they show the use of electric conduit hoops. These are good because they are more ridged than the wire. I prefer the wire because it is much more adaptable for my needs.

I use fabric for the entire life of the crop that it covers. Whether I use seedlings or seeds the first weeks of the crops establishment, fabric is laid right on top of the bed with the edges pulled taut and weighted down with rocks.  

Once the seeds germinate or the plants roots have healed, I raise the fabric. A mistake I made one time was to raise the fabric the full 18 to 24 inch height at this time of growth. This tunnel heated up to much, the humidity dropped, and all was desiccated. Because of this I use my 9 gauge hoops and place them diagonally across the bed thus raising the fabric off the plants (about 4 to 6 inches) and creating a nice little humid cocoon around the young plants.  This would be very difficult to do with the ridged conduit.

Once the seedlings touch the fabric, I raise the fabric to full height by moving the wire to a perpendicular position to the bed.

I do have plants that get taller than this 24 inch max height but I have found that there is little to no damage to these plants from the fabric hitting the plants in wind. Most of these plants it is not he vegetation that is harvested but fruit within the canopy.

I used to use smaller gauge wire and space the small hoops throughout the bed. I found this to be tedious and most of these smaller hoops would usually get lost in the foliage. Not so with the 9 gauge.

I am not very good at putting things away and so with fewer things to stash, I can keep track of where my wire is.  I like the multitask capabilities of the 9 gauge instead of a ton of small hoops and then a ton of ridged hoops. I have 1320 linear feet of bed. The small hoops are triangulated every 2 feet and the hoops are every 3 feet. This is a lot of wire and hoops. My 9 gauge does both of these jobs.

Not perfectly but nicely.

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

November 19, 2015

Good morning, I copied this information about sweet potatoes from foodreference.com . When you read through the data you can see it is a real food powerhouse.

SWEET POTATO NUTRITION

 

According to nutritionists at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the single most important dietary change for most people, including children, would be to replace fatty foods with foods rich in complex carbohydrates, such as sweet potatoes.

Sweet Potato Ranks Number One In Nutrition

CSPI ranked the sweet potato number one in nutrition of all vegetables. With a score of 184, the sweet potato outscored the next highest vegetable by more than 100 points. Points were given for content of dietary fiber, naturally occurring sugars and complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins A and C, iron and calcium. Points were deducted for fat content (especially saturated fat), sodium, cholesterol, added refined sugars and caffeine. The higher the score, the more nutritious the food.

Sweet potato baked 184
Potato, baked 83
Spinach 76
Kale 55
Mixed Vegetables 52
Broccoli 52
Winter Squash, Baked 44
Brussels Sprouts 37
Cabbage, Raw 34
Green Peas 33
Carrot 30
Okra 30
Corn on the Cob 27
Tomato 27
Green Pepper 26
Cauliflower 25
Artichoke 24
Romaine Lettuce 24
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington D.C.

The reasons the sweet potato took first place? Dietary fiber, naturally occurring sugars, complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins A and C, iron and calcium. The sweet potato received a score of 184; the vegetable ranked in second place was more than 100 points behind with a score of 83.

Sweet potatoes are high in the following: beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin B6 and vitamin C; fiber, thiamine, niacin, potassium and copper. They are also a good source of protein, calcium, vitamin E.

The numbers for the nutritional sweet potato speak for themselves: almost twice the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A, 42 percent of the recommendation for vitamin C, four times the RDA for beta carotene, and, when eaten with the skin, sweet potatoes have more fiber than oatmeal. All these benefits with only about 130 to 160 calories!
 

Sweet Potato Nutrition Facts  (for one medium size sweet potato)

Calories 130
Fat 0.39 g
Protein 2.15 g
Net Carbs 31.56 g
Dietary Fiber 3.9 g
Calcium 28.6 mg
Sodium 16.9 mg
Potassium 265.2 mg
Folate 18.2 mcg
Vitamin C 29.51 mg
Vitamin A 26081.9 IU
Source: US Department of Agriculture

Before I moved to West Texas I had never grown sweets. I thought it was too cold in the places where I lived. Maybe if I had discovered agribon fabric back then, I might have tried.

Besides being a very nutritional crop it is very easy to grow and very productive. This year my four beds of sweets yielded 582 pounds. Two of the beds were infected with root knot nematode (RKN). And were planted early around the middle of April. We had a very cool Spring up into June. Real proof of this was harvesting sugar pod peas up until the middle of May. The middle of March when things usually begin to heat up,brings the peas demise.

The first two beds yielded 2.5 pounds per linear foot. My beds are 4 feet wide. In years past I would not start the harvest until September. This year I started harvesting in August. What with the nematodes that impact the roots of plants and the cool spring, I think of these played into the low production. Sweet potatoes like hot weather. This and also starting to harvest a little early caused the sweets to be a smaller size. Most of the tubers were less than 1 1/2 pounds.

Now he third bed where I used the unrooted cuttings I got a very nice harvest per linear foot. Right about 7.5 to 8 pounds. This is the amount I have come to expect from Sweets. Five to six pounds is a good rate too.

The fourth bed production was back down to 2 pounds. There was signs of RKN but not too bad. Last year this bed was planted to squash and succumbed to RKN late in the year. Winter it was plated to Idaho Gold Mustard., a mustard with nemicide properties. I also use Azaguard on the bed before planting (this is a nemicide) the sweets. This was my last sweet bed planted, about the first of August. I feel the lateness of this beds planting was the main cause for its lower poundage per foot. Like I said sweets like it hot. It is a 90 to a 100 day crop. August was nice and toasty but night times really started to cool off going into fall. Most plants do a good portion of their growing at night and the cool nights slowed this beds growth. The tubers were all nice looking but on the small size from less than a pound to a pound.

As for the third bed it was planted the first of July and was hot for a good solid two months and loved it. Most tubers in this bed were 1 1/2 pounds to 2 pounds with some up to 4.

For the whole harvest here were about 75 pounds with questionable sell-ability. About 45 pounds of these were severely eaten on by ground squirrels. There may be more that were totally eaten. 45 pound is getting into the problem pest range. We are in negotiations with the cat as to what the problem is. Then for the rest of the 75 pounds, the sweets have a russet thing on them. Some sort of infection related to RKN ? I do not know. A Google search is needed.

So Next spring because this winter is expected to be a ditto of last, I am only going to plant one early bed. Grow the greens for sweets and cuttings. Then I will plant the last 3 beds in July. 582 pounds of sweets is a good harvest but it would be interesting if it can be boosted.

Sweets are very easy to grow, quite productive, tasty, very nutritious and store well too. I am out of time but the foliage is also quite nutritious too. So if you haven't grown sweets I would recommend giving them a whirl.. The vines can be really quite sprawling and need plenty of room.

November 16, 2015

Avalanche column

October 29, 2015

With fall temperatures and daylight decreasing, winter veggies are coming into their own.

There have been years that I have sown seeds throughout the year including the winter but I find that seed sown from the middle of November until the middle of February don’t perform very well. This has been especially true with the last few years due to actually having winter like weather.

Seed sown from the middle of October to the first of November actually get some size before the colder weather then go dormant. They then quite easily return to growth with warmer weather. These veggies do not seem to be stunted. Veggies seeded in the coldest time of the year appear to get quite stunted and never really catch up with seed sown the middle of February. So I forgo any seeding during the winter.

There are a number of veggies that I grow through the winter and actually grow nicely in the cooler weather. I have mentioned that plants are survivalist and will grow in less desired conditions than what they will germinate. The germination locks insure that the seed is going into optimum conditions. These conditions can change and thus this is a survival tool that plants have and they will continue to grow after germination.

When one walks down the veggie isle at the store, some veggies (especially greens) are harvested as whole plants or as leaves. Following this lead (because this is what folks are accustomed too), I have harvested whole plants or leaves. There are a few veggies that I struggled with in order to have a constant supply and these were whole plant harvested.

When harvesting whole plants there is the succession dilemma. Successions can be difficult. First it is important to know the days to harvest, then you need to figure how long you want to harvest that sowing, then you count back to your sow date. For successions, taking into consideration how long you want to harvest and this will determine your next sow date. This all depends on everything coming together like clockwork. Yes this can happen.

So going back to the statement that plants will grow in less than perfect conditions that they will germinate set my mind to thinking; why not grow some of the harvest whole plants as cut and regrow.

There are two plants that I do this and they have been well received. They are green onions and spinach. Boc choy is another big favorite and I have never been able to meet demand. This year I am giving leaf harvest whirl. Any crop that you are harvesting the top, this should work, and all root crops there will be the need to plan out the succession thingy.

One big benefit to cutting leaves, plants are slower to bolt with warmer weather.

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

November 12, 2015

Good morning, Building and maintaining soil fertility is a major goal of organic gardening. The premise is to feed the soil and the soil will feed the plants.

In the recent past there was a fellow who would drop off compostable material at my door. Sadly this has ended. It was nice just building compost piles and not to have to procure the material too. Considering how much compost I used, this does add to weekly garden chores. I do generate some compost from my flock of fowl but not nearly enough. I also mentioned getting the brewery leavings but this needs to be combined with another compost ingredient so it does not compact and go anaerobic.

I am seriously thinking of going to cover crops and turning them in before planting. This would be a lot easier than procuring compost then building piles to heat. The pros of this is time saved by not having to get compost material, a considerable time saver. The cons is that crop rotations will not be immediate like when adding compost. Depending on how warm it is when I turn in a cover crop there would need to be at least 2 weeks for the turned under material to decompose.

I like to have my beds prepared and ready for spring planting no later than the 2^nd week of March (weather permitting). Last year was a cool damp spring which if it were to happen again this year would throw a curve ball into turning in a cover crop and actually have it decompose too. Forecasts indicate that this will be so. What to do. Wish in one hand and pore water in the other. It never is really quite cut and dried.

Another option would be to sow a legume ground cover a month after the main crop is planted and established so that it can out compete the ground cover. A low growing clover such as New Zealand white would be used. I would be curious to see how this would spread over the bed since I do drip tape that only waters a 1 foot wide strip through the bed. Granted it is 1 foot wide at the surface but there is an inverted cone of moisture into the soil. Enough width for the clover to fill the bed? No Idea.

This may have to be my choice since I would hate to have multiple beds of clover to turn under 2 +/- weeks before planting and finding the soil too wet to work. I was fortunate last year that I had compost to work in and was able to go into the winter with ready to plant beds for March. Once a crop is finished I would work the ground cover into the bed after the crop had been pulled..

I do see some potential problems with this but then again I just may be over thinking this. Which could very easily be the case. I will try it and see what happens. Very likely I may have to make time to get compost material.

I am perplexed with my pea crop. Normally when I sow the middle of October the soil is cool enough to not rot the seed before the peas have a chance to germinate. I may have gotten 25% to germinate. The seed packet said that in May of this year these peas had an 80% germination rate. It was a new seed house that I used. I normally use Johnny's but I used a company that had all the seed varieties I needed to complete my fall planting. I did have some year old peas from Johnny's that I used and they performed as poorly too.

Around the time I sowed the soil may still have been too warm but there was some heavy rain showers at about the same time too. I suspect it is a combination of things that all came together at just the right time. Too warm and too wet.

Options would be to delay planting further for cooler soil (maybe I should use a thermometer next time instead of “feelings” ). The other option which would be a perfect solution but extreme care is needed. This would be to germinate the seed in damp paper towels. The seeds would be actively growing but the tinder roots are very easily broken. But only seeds that are actively growing would be sown. Which could make for a 100% stocked bed. One might say why not plant soaked seeds. I have had horrible success doing this in Far West Texas. Up in Oregon there was no problem and I got great results. I suspect why this is so here is that unsoaked seed has a natural protection to fight off bacteria until the seed germinates. Soaking the seed washes off this protective layer. This is why germinated seed would need to be used. Of course the protective layer is my thoughts but it does seem to fit.

One thing is for certain every year is different; adjusting and adapting techniques is always critical.

November 9, 2015

avalanche column

October 22, 2015

It is really nice to hear from all the followers of this column. I write about what I do and try to relay how well things go and also how badly things go. It is my intent to encourage trial and error. Not everything that I do will work for everybody because each person is different and everybody’s gardens are different too. What I do may be adaptable to the individual gardener’s needs.

I think that the best teacher is mistakes. Once you have made a mistake evaluate what went wrong and how to correct it. The first thing after a problem comes up; I like to see if maybe it was something that I may have done. Correcting something I have done is a whole lot easier than correcting an environmental problem.

One of the most common questions I receive is whether I do presentations. I used to give evening talks but it has been quite a while. Somehow it is difficult to find the time to prepare and do an evening presentation.  In recent years I have been working with Jesse Schneider. She is the county extension agent for Presidio County and works with Logan Boswell who is the county extension agent for Brewster County.

I usually give a presentation that is one segment of a day long workshop. I find these to be a whole lot easier to prepare for. It is also nice to visit with folks that are in the agriculture trade.

I mention this because on the 29^th of October I have been asked to give a presentation about winter gardening. The workshop is titled Nature Appreciation Day and will be held at CDRI. Check out the schedule on face book. There will be a lot of great topics covered and a great time will be had by all.

If you are interested please call Jesse at 432-729-4746,   5600 for more details. Also ask to be put on her upcoming event mailing list. Hope to see you there!!!

 Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

November 5, 2015

Good morning, recently I talked about harvesting leaves off greens and letting the plants regrow. There are some plants that this works quite well with. The reason for this is that is much easier for a plant to regrow a leaf than a whole new plant. I have also mentioned that plants will grow in less desirable conditions than they will germinate.

Most greens that I have tried this with I have been quite successful. I am having some second thoughts on the boc choy. It does not seem like it is adapted to this harvest technique. With most greens you can delay bolting by the harvesting of leaves. I suspect why this is so because the plant is robbed of nutrients that would be used to force a flower stalk. This practice works for awhile and then the genetics of the plant “trumps” nutrition depletion and the plant completes its life cycle regardless of the conditions. Plants are keyed to reproduce.

What I have noticed with the boc choy is that “it could give a rip” about the depletion thingy. Maybe it has been the hot and cold periods this fall. This also has an affect on plants. This temperature cycling triggers the plant to act like it has gone through the proper seasons. This is very prevalent with onion seedlings. Seedlings larger than 1/4 inch going through the winter will be triggered to bolt once growth starts in the spring. The onion has had all the chilling and has the size requirement to full fill its seed production needs. This makes for a lot of green onions but few bulbs.

Back to the boc choy. I have harvested leaves off of the plants two times and I am seeing the beginnings of flowers. With a lot of plants especially in the mustard family as the flower stalk elongates the leaves get smaller. This is most likely an adaption so that the flowers are much more visible to pollinators or even better exposed to the wind so pollen can be blown to other plants. Maybe my clipping of leaves is trigger enough. I have noticed with mesquite if they are left alone their thorns are some what subdued. Break off a branch or disturb it and the thorns become Godzilla deflectors. Botany and genetics is just an amazing thing.

The variety of boc choy I grow is a dwarf variety, this too could play into this leaf trimming and forcing a flower stalk. It is only one plant in 30 or so that is doing the flower stalk thingy. This could just be this one plants own genetics. This variety is not a hybrid but an open pollinated variety . Could this be part of this gene pool diversity and variation that you get from OP's over hybrids.

Then again I could be over studying this and it is what it is and maybe I just need to get the crop succession down or just limit the time frame that I offer boc choy.

How does the old saying go “distance makes the heart grow fonder”. Ah but it is interesting thoughts, to me that is.

Some mindful thoughts as I work in the garden.

The summer veggies continue to slow. Summer squash and okra are done, butternuts bit it, beans are gone until next year. There still are toms chile's and maybe an eggplant or two. The kohlrabi are starting to bulb nicely (maybe a week or two out) along with the turnips, not sure about the parsnips or the brussel sprouts. They may come through? There may be baby carrots soon. I will have some cut leafs of lettuce in some bags and all the winter greens are coming into their own. It is nice!!

November 9' 2015

avalanche column

October15,2015

There are a number of reasons why I do not use a roto-tiller in the garden.

Probably the quiet is the number one reason. Yes there is a lot physical work when you resort to the use of hand tools, but it is nice to remain connected to the world around me.

I like to listen to the chickens scolding the hen that is taking tooooo long to lay that egg, as if there was only ONE place on the property to lay an egg. Although it does facilitate egg collection if they all use the same nest box. There have been numerous times that a raptor has visited near the hen house. Usually the sharp shinned hawks are feeding on the sparrows that are feeding on the chicken pellets, none the less the rooster sets off the warning for all the ladies to go for cover. There does seem to be a more emphatic alarm with a red tailed hawk than a sharpie. Red tails are a much bigger bird and can easily take a chicken.

I like being a space case in the garden and using powered equipment is not a good idea if you DO NOT pay close attention to the task at hand, one of those no brainer kinda things.

I had not been gardening on my property long when I noticed all kinds of indentations and small holes throughout the garden. It was not until I rolled a few spade footed toads out of their slumber that it dawned on me what all the holes were from. There are quite easily several hundred hibernating in the garden. A shovel penetrates the bed about every 6 to 8 inches whereas a roto-tiller would be the full length. The tines would go down to the depth I find these guys. A tiller would take out most of them whereas with a shovel I clobber one or two a year. I am not sure how much they are part of my pest control program, but it is just nice to have them.

I have mentioned that I have root knot nematodes in my garden. These microscopic “worm like” creatures cause root gals on the roots of vegetables. The outcome of this is a slow death of the plant along with diminished productivity. I have mapped where most of these infestations are. With a shovel I can work from a “clean” portion of a bed towards a contaminated part. Sometimes this is in the middle of the bed. Working from either end of the bed is easily done with a shovel, not so with a tiller.

In a past career I used a lot of mechanized equipment that required me to use ear protection. The noise was constant. But there is nothing like the quiet of “no stroke” engine!!

These are some of the reasons I only use a shovel.

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com