Category Archives: Dirt2Table

Dirt2Table: When the Cure is Worse than the Disease

Don’t make the cure worse than the disease when dealing with pests in the garden. There are a variety of ways to keep pests from totally destroying our gardens without having to apply poisons that will harm ourselves and our natural friends the predatory and pollinating insects.

The first thing that one should do is become more tolerant. Learn to tolerate some level of damage to our plants and produce. If we do this, we find that we aren’t so eager to reach for the chemical warfare agents at the first sign of aphids or snails. Combine this more tolerant attitude with regular monitoring of your plants to see if they are being attacked by anything. Quite often our vegetable plants will not be bothered by pests. If they are being eaten by something, try to determine what is eating them before taking any steps to protect them. Tomatoes aren’t usually bothered by pests, except for the tomato horn worm, and while these can do a lot of damage in a short period of time, it is usually only one or two of them at a time and they are pretty easy to locate and destroy by hand. Each of the so called cut-worms is about as big as an adult man’s index finger, and though they are green they are pretty easy to spot, catch and smash.

Earwigs and snails are two other types of pests that can do some damage to our vegetable plants.

Snails are the biggest threat as plants are just emerging from the ground. For the last five years or so every time I plant a hill of cucumbers, squash or melons I cover the hill with a little cage I made out of ¼ inch hardware cloth. That is like window screen but with bigger holes. The cages are about 6-8 inches tall and about 8-10 inches in diamater. They can be used year of after year to keep your little seedlings safe from snails until they are big enough to survive without protection. You can also put out a bowl with a little beer or sugar water for the snails to drown in. Putting the rinds from halved cantaloupes with the open side down where snails are a problem will cause snails to gather inside, making it easy to dispose of them.

Earwigs can cause significant damage to some crops. One non toxic way to keep them under control is to put soup cans with about an inch of cooking oil in the bottom so that the earwigs can crawl in and be trapped. I have had a small soup can get half full with earwigs within two months.

For more information regarding pesticides and alternatives, visit: http://www.beyondpesticides.org/

Dirt2Table: Simple Practices to Enhance Plant Growth

At last! The growing season is here! Although we had an extra early start for cold hardy crops like lettuce, spinach, peas, carrots, onions and more, the safe time to put out tender annuals like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash and cucumbers started about the first of May for most of us here in Fairpark Community.

I wanted to focus on a simple practice that increases the size and yield of some of our garden plants. If you are a gardener in this area you probably grow a lot of tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. These three types of plants, which each have an enormous range of varieties, along with a lots of other agricultural plants including potato and tobacco, are all in the large plant family of Solanaceae or the Nightshade family. The practice that helps speed growth and increase yields consists of removing the side branches that form above each leaf. Not on the whole plant or all season long, but during the first month to six weeks it is a good idea to remove any branches from the stem as they form.

For tomato plants, it helps to keep the plant branch free for the first 18 to 24 inches of stem, and allow the plant to keep the branches above that. For peppers it is 6 to 18 inches depending on the variety. For eggplant keeping the plant branch free to a height of 12 to 18 inches seems about right. Continue reading →

Dirt2Table: Spring Planting and Container Potatoes

The experimental planting of two kinds of Kale, Spinach, Lettuce, Onions and Peas that were planted February 15th are up and growing. They didn’t get frozen and are fairly well advanced for this early. But now it is almost getting late for planting peas and greens. I plan to plant another area of them on the 18th of April. I suggest you do too, while you are waiting to plant tomatoes.

Even though it has been really warm, I still advise against planting any of the tender annuals like tomatoes and peppers until at least the 1st of May. It is even safer to wait until the end of the first week of May.

About a week ago we started some seed potatoes in a 32 gallon inexpensive trash can. We read about this method and we’re trying it with three trash cans. It starts with drilling drainage holes, then putting in 6 to 10 inches of good soil. You can use a mixture of 50-50 compost and peat moss, or any good rich soil. You plant the potatoes in this layer near the bottom, then every week or two as the plants grow up from the surface, you add more soil until your entire barrel is full. Then just let the plants grow and trail down the sides of the barrel. When the plants leaves are frost killed in the fall, it is time to harvest the potatoes. Just turn the barrel on its side and gently roll and work the soil and potatoes loose. Just brush off the potatoes, don’t wash them until your ready to cook them. They can be stored in a cool dry place for several months after harvest.

More information on container potatoes can be viewed here. Be sure to read the comments on what has and hasn’t worked for people who have tried this.

Seed Production

Setting aside an area for seed production is something you might like to try. If you want to save seeds from your garden plants, some things like beets, turnips and carrots require growing the plants for two years before they will make seeds. The way I have always worked my annual garden beds is to add a little compost and dig it in each year, making it harder to save seeds from those biennial types. So this year, I plan to set aside an area at one end of one of my annual veggie beds and plant just two or three each of carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips etc. I will also plant a few dill plants, some lettuce plants maybe a few marigolds to get seeds off of this year. The root veggies will get left for another year to make their seeds. By having it at one end of a bed, I can get the rest of the bed all ready for next years garden, and only leave a small area for growing the second season of those biennial seeds.

Read more on seed saving at the Permaculture Research Institute

Dirt2Table: Siberian Elms

So, its the middle of February, still a couple of more months until the ground can be worked, and the early crops seeded. Right? Well, maybe not this year. I tilled up a small area last
weekend, and this weekend, on the Fifteenth, I will be planting peas, salad greens and
onions. On February 15th!!!
In addition to being able to plant some seeds this early, I have noticed the trees waking up
early too. This might turn out bad for our fruit trees, if we get a late frost when they are in bloom or after they have set fruit. We can only hope for the best and wait to see.
Speaking of trees, Siberian Elms come to mind. This is a fast growing tree that a lot of folks around here call a Chinese Elm. You know, it comes up from the seeds in the spring like gang busters. The trees can be seen all over our neighborhood in the early spring covered in bright green seed clusters long before any leaves have come out. Although I am not too fond of all those little trees all over
my yard every year I have learned to look forward to that time when the seed clusters are still bright green, before they turn brown, fall off the tree and blow into my garden. That is because those seed clusters, called Samaras, are some ofthe best salad greens I have ever had. I strongly recommend that everyone take the time to collect a few handfuls of these Samaras from the trees in our community. If you don’t have one in your yard, you can ask your neighbor if you can have some of theirs, or just go for a walk along the River Parkway Trail, since at
least half of the big trees along there are Siberian Elms. Look for a small tree or
a low hanging branch that you can pick some of these tasty greens off of. You
won’t be sorry you did, they are delicious.
Read more about eating Samaras at My Urban Homestead website:

Dirt2Table: Succession Planting

It isn’t quite time to start seedlings, so the only gardening activity we can engage in is planning our gardens for next year. I came across an interesting article about succession planting. The idea is to plant your garden in a sequence so that you get a variety of crops that you can use throughout the growing season. Planning the sequence can help you avoid having all your garden produce being ready at the same time.

For instance, rather than planting all the carrots, beets, lettuce and onions you have room for first thing, you could plant about a fourth of what you think you want to grow of each type of crop, then wait two weeks and plant another fourth, and so on. That way you will have your crops in succession, rather than having all of them ready to pick at the same time

Most of us grow tomatoes in a form of succession planting already. We plant the big beefsteak types at the same time as the cherry tomatoes and small early ripening types. That way we start getting some fresh tomatoes as early as June from the cherry type and continue to get the different types ripe as the year goes on. Here is a good link with a lot of information about succession planting and permaculture:

https://www.openpermaculture.com/magazine/four-types-succession-planting.

Contact Tom King for more information.