April 9, 2013 - Kim’s Weekly
Garden Newsletter
These weekly garden notes are
written by Kim Willis, unless another author is noted, and the opinions
expressed in these notes are her opinions and do not represent any other
individual, group or organizations opinions.
Hi Gardeners
Will it ever be spring this year? Snow is in the forecast for Thursday night.
UGH! At least by the weekend it’s
supposed to be better. I was able to do
a little gardening this week. I got a peach tree, 2 Saskatoons and a new bed of
strawberries planted outside. I used
tree tubes for the peach tree and the saskatoons, I really like those for new
young trees and shrubs. The soil
conservation district usually has some for sale with their tree sale. They protect the trees from cold winds and
animals.
I also planted my dahlia bulbs saved from last year in pots
and set them in the window of the porch to begin growing so they will bloom
before the end of summer. If we get
summer, that is. My tuberous begonias
that I brought inside in the pots they were growing in last year are sprouting
on the porch. I also made some cuttings
of our old grapes that are now virtually shaded out and potted them up in hopes
that I can get some plants from them.
I fertilized all the house plants and found that I needed to
move my African violet back a little from the window as its leaves are
beginning to burn. It’s a good time to
check your window plants for just that problem.
I’ve spent some time sketching out the plans for my new vegetable garden
and we even bought the fencing for the back of the garden but there it sits,
waiting for the rain to stop. Sigh.
I did hear frogs on a few mild mornings. Do you remember as
a kid that after a summer rain the yard would be hopping with toads and frogs? How often do you see toads anymore? I have a couple of very large green tree frogs
that I see in various places in the yard, I hope they survived another winter. I
sometimes find the little brown spring peepers with an X on their back in the
garden. We also have quite a few leopard
frogs in our lawn in wet summers and there are still some bullfrogs in the pond. But plain old toads I maybe see once or twice
a summer. It’s a shame that frogs and
toads are disappearing from all areas of the world, due to a terrible virus and
declining environmental conditions.
Robins are back in full force. I bought some grape jelly in case I see an
oriole but I hope they and the hummingbirds wait a bit before returning. I just
can’t believe how slow things are this spring.
Isn’t it funny how we think 40 is mild now and in September we will be
thinking it’s quite chilly.
I would like to say welcome to the new subscribers to this
newsletter who have been added in the last few weeks. Please feel free to share this newsletter
with friends. I would also like to thank
all of you who read my Examiner articles, I have been the top gardening
Examiner in the country for some weeks now and my articles are getting
thousands of page views.
This week’s newsletter contains a lot of food related news
bits. I don’t know why, maybe my mind is
on food gardening and that research attracts me. I hope you enjoy.
Chocolate is a fruit
When you are
getting your daily supply of fruits and vegetables, don’t forget to count the
chocolate. Think of it this way,
chocolate comes from the fruit of the cacao plant and it has as many
antioxidants and flavonoids as many types of traditional fruits and vegetables.
Chocolate has been proven to have many health benefits. The only trouble with chocolate is that we add
sugar and fat to it when we eat it.
Last weekend
at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society,
there was a presentation from two researchers who found a way to add fruit
juice to chocolate in micro droplets called a Pickering emulsion. This can replace half of the fat in chocolate
without sacrificing chocolate flavor or mouth feel. It also prevents the chocolate from
developing the white coating or “bloom” as it ages. The researchers admit that there is some
fruity taste to the new combo but they say that the process can also be done
with plain water and ascorbic acid in place of fruit juice.
The
researchers say it’s now up to the food industry to take their research and make
chocolate even healthier for us. I eat dark
chocolate almost every day in a small amount and swear by its healthy
qualities. I wish we could grow
chocolate in our gardens. The Jackson
Perkins catalog sells a 1 gallon size potted cacao plant for $50 plus shipping. It says it must be wintered inside of course,
but I am just wondering how hard it is to grow and whether it really produces
fruit when grown in a pot. And it’s not
like you get chocolate without a bit of tricky processing of that fruit. It’s a
little pricy for my budget when I know so little about its ability to function
as a house plant. But I intend to do some
research on it and debate the purchase.
Lemony Quince
Another
plant that has intrigued me this spring is an offering in the Oikos catalog. (www.oikostreecrops.com
) It’s called Lemony Quince, Chaenomeles lagenaria. Quinces have long been grown in China and
Europe. They have pretty spring flowers
in shades of orange, red and pink. The
fruit is hard and either round or pear shaped and traditionally is used in
candy, and in jelly making because it has a lot of pectin.
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| Flowering Quince |
The Lemony
Quince is said to taste exactly like lemons and is cooked and pureed with sugar
to produce a lemony flavoring you can add to foods or drinks. The plants are extremely hardy and only grow
about 3 feet high. They are self- fertile
so you only need one. I want to try this
plant since it is much more affordable than the cacao plant at $7.75. Unfortunately the minimum shipping cost is
$17, a lot since Oikos is only across the state near Kalamazoo. However Oikos has a lot of interesting edible
landscaping plants so maybe I’ll chose something else to justify the shipping
cost.
Edible landscaping alert
Reading the
Okios catalog made me remember other catalogs I have seen this spring with
edible landscaping plants. Oikos and
other catalogs are advertising a fruiting plant called Autumnberry. Guess what it actually is? A selected variety of Autumn Olive, Elaeganus umbellate. Now I actually have mixed feelings about
Autumn Olive. I know the birds and even
the deer love its fruit and it smells so good when it blooms in the spring. It
fixes nitrogen in the soil and can actually improve soil, if there is any room
left to grow anything else. But it is so
incredibly invasive. Most empty fields
will be choked with it in just a few years.
I can’t believe anyone would need to buy plants, even though these are
said to be better fruiting strains.
If you want
this plant just go somewhere in the fall and collect the berries or dig yourself
a plant, the plants are everywhere. Just
be very cautious as it will spread explosively and the plants are really hard
to get rid of once you have them. The
plants sucker as well as spread by the berries.
Some of the plants have thorns too.
Silver Buffaloberries are also being offered by plant catalogs, these
are very similar to Autumn Olive and really, if you have one you don’t need the
other.
Wasting food- what it costs us
We all know
that when we buy food and then don’t eat it, we are wasting money. Four out of every ten pounds of food produced
today in the world is wasted. It is estimated
that the average American family throws away 20 pounds of food a month, food
that spoils, gets stale or is simply left on our plates. Your mother may have used the phrase “think
of all the starving kids in Africa” when you didn’t want to eat something. And unless we get smarter about using food,
there will be a lot more people starving.
As the world
population continues to grow, as drought and scarce water supplies impact what food
we can grow and where we can grow it, and as the cost of energy to produce food
skyrockets we have to rein in our wasteful habits or face widespread food
shortages in the next 50 years. Wasting
food wastes the water used to grow and process it. And in the world today 1.2 billion people lack
access to clean water. In a time of
global weather changes, whether man made or not, the water wasted when food is
wasted may be a critical tipping point in our ability to prevent widespread
starvation in the world.
The American
Chemical Society’s Journal of Environmental Science and Technology found that
it takes 1.4 billion barrels of oil to grow and process 1 year of food for the
United States alone. If we simply stop
most of our food waste we will conserve 350 million barrels of oil an year. That can drop energy costs for everyone and
allow more food to be produced.
Wasted food
in developed countries like the US takes up about as much space in our
landfills as paper and plastic waste. And unlike those items decaying food
releases methane gas, a big contributor to the greenhouse gas said to be causing
the drastic changes in our weather.
Even when you compost your own food waste you are producing methane gas. (Digesting food produces methane gas too.)
What can you
do to stop food waste? Buy or grow only what
you know you can use. How many of us have vegetables, fruit, or dairy products
rotting in the refrigerator right now? Store food properly, mold, insects, rats and
mice cause a lot of food waste. Find
ways to use foods that you have an overabundance of or donate it to people who
can eat it. Eat the food you have before
you buy more. Make educated food buying choices. Fresh food is always preferable but if you
tend to let fresh tomatoes rot before you use them then maybe canned tomatoes,
which stay good a lot longer, are your best choice. Feed leftover food to
animals such as chickens or pigs that can then become food. Composting spoiled or leftover food does release
methane gas but if the compost is then used to grow more food it will balance
things out.
Our ancestors
rarely threw out food. It’s only been in
the last 100 years or so that food waste has become a problem. We need to start treating food as the
precious resource it is or face a future when food abundance won’t be the
problem, food rationing will be.
Neanderthal people used herbal
remedies
In the last
few years we have learned a lot about the Neanderthals, an early “cousin” of modern man.
DNA evidence as well as new archeological discoveries has determined
that the Neanderthals did live within the time period of modern man and even
bred with them. Some humans today have
small amounts of Neanderthal DNA.
Researchers
at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the University of York wanted to
further our knowledge of Neanderthals by finding out what they ate. They did this by studying food molecules
trapped in the calcified tarter of Neanderthal teeth. They found that Neanderthals ate a surprising
amount of grains, nuts and vegetables; it has long been taught that they were
primarily meat eaters.
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| Yarrow |
Researchers
found evidence that some Neanderthal teeth in their study contained traces of
yarrow and chamomile. This, says the
researchers, points to the use of plants for medicinal use as both of these
plants are very bitter and have little nutritional value, although their use as
medicinal plants has been traced to very ancient times. We now know that Neanderthals
decorated their bodies, made tools, ate a diet similar to early modern man,
cared for their sick and buried their dead.
Be careful what garden supplies you
buy- you could get raided
Last year on
April 20th, two former CIA
agents, Adlynn and Robert Harte were awakened by a two state SWAT team pounding
on their door in the Kansa town of Leawood.
Robert was forced to lie on the floor shirtless at gun point while his
wife and 7 and 13 year old children were left crying with their hands in the
air. Their crime? They were growing 3 tomato plants, 2 squash
plants and a melon plant in their basement in a hydroponic set up.
The SWAT
team, complete with high powered guns and bullet proof vests, tore their home
up looking for marijuana, even bringing in a drug sniffing dog and trying to
force the 13 year old into admitting he used pot. They found nothing and the couple nor their
children have never been convicted or even suspected of drug use.
It seems
that April 20 is a day when nationwide, many drug raids are conducted. Its good
publicity for police departments to find a pot growing operation on that day. The Hartes had bought hydroponic supplies, so
they must be growing marijuana, so the convoluted thinking goes. They weren’t even using the high power lights
typical pot growers use, just regular grow lights. Who was observing what these people bought
and why are people who buy hydroponic supplies assumed to be doing something
illegal?
The couple were
never charged but they are suing the police department and city, as well they
should. It is a shame in America that we
waste resources going after people who grow marijuana, much less food crops,
when there is so much more terrible crime going on in our country. Just be careful what garden supplies you
purchase- this could happen to you!
Inside the throat of a pitcher plant
Carnivorous plants
have always fascinated people, including researchers. Many carnivorous plants trap their prey with
sticky hairs or drown them in a pouch of fluid. In eastern North America, we
have the native carnivorous pitcher plant, Sarracenia
purpurea, and researchers have now discovered a whole food chain hidden in
its pocket of collected rain water. The
pitcher plants leaves form funnels that collect rain water but they can’t digest
the insects that drown in these traps by themselves.
Inside the
pool of water are the tiny larvae of mosquitoes, midges and flies which shred
the dead insects, feeding on them and producing wastes. Bacteria, rotifers,
algae, and other microorganisms floating in the pool feed on the waste, further
breaking it down. The larvae of insects
also feed on each other, producing more waste for the microorganisms. Eventually the pitcher plant gets to absorb
some of the nutrients its guests have produced for it.
Did you know
that some plants that we don’t think of as meat eaters may actually be
utilizing “meat” for part of their nutrition needs? Both petunias and potatoes, for example, have
sticky hairs that catch small insects.
They don’t have helpful pools of guests to break down these insects but researcher’s
suspect that the dead insects fall down in the soil near the plants and break
down to provide nutrition.
How about a
bowl of chili?
Kim
Garden as though you will
live forever. William Kent
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More Information
April can
be a tough month for gardeners. After a long winter the signs of spring that
April generally bring get our gardening juices flowing. But for northern
gardeners at least, April is a month for cautious gardening, as the weather
can be very fickle. It can be 80 degrees one day, sunny and humid, and 35
degrees with snow flurries the next. This spring of 2013 is starting out slow
and cold, with many planting zone 4 -7 gardeners still struggling with snow
on the ground and frozen soil. But there is still some gardening that you can
do in April and it’s a good month to prepare for May, generally the most
frantically busy of months for gardeners. In the South, zones 8 and higher,
spring is pretty advanced and planting is probably in full swing.
Read more
about April gardening on my new Examiner article at the link below.- Kim-
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