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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Garden Newsletter April 9, 2013


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.
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.

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



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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