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Composting Manure

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Cow ManureHere’s a question we’ve been thinking about: why compost manure? It’s one of those questions we felt we knew the answer to — and we did — but that a reconsideration brought up all the variables and exceptions we’ve either learned from experts or from our own hard experience. So let’s deconstruct. Does all manure need to be composted before being used in the garden? If so, what’s the best ways to compost it? And finally, what about chickens?

We bring that last bit up because more and more people, both in the country and in cities, are keeping chickens. And chickens, er, emit some of the richest manure a gardener could hope for, high in nitrogen and phosphorous and full of other nutrients. Best is the fact that a chicken’ digestive system kills weed seeds — 98%! — that might otherwise be spread to the garden. Fresh chicken manure needs to be composted because it contains so much nitrogen that it will discourage germination of many vegetable seeds and burn young seedlings. Which ones? Ironically, it’s those that require a lot of nitrogen later on as they grow. (more…)

March 8th, 2013 2 comments

Celeriac: Looks Funny, Tastes Great

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Celeriac RootGrowing and cooking with celery root.

Most years, your friendly and curious Planet Natural Blogger likes to plant something in his garden that he hasn’t tried before. How well he remembers that first sowing of kohlrabi back some (garbled) years ago! Now it’s a family favorite.

We’re expecting the same thing to happen with celeriac, sometimes known as celery root. Why we haven’t tried growing this classic cool weather crop previously is a mystery. Garden vegetable books always sing its praises and the words that usually attract us — easy to grow with few pest problems — often accompany the catalog accounts of this Medusa’s head of the vegetable world. Yes, she may be ugly but what sweetness she holds inside! (more…)

March 6th, 2013 One comment

Seed Control and GMO Companies

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Seed ControlWill Monsanto take control of your vegetable patch?

By Bill Kohlhaase for Planet Natural

It’s all about seed control for Monsanto and the other corporate manufacturers of genetically engineered, GMO crops. So it’s no surprise that Monsanto has made moves to control garden seed as well. In the last several years, a number of international agri-conglomerates have consolidated their hold over the very seed and nursery starts we plant in our gardens. This brings some of the same problems — loss of seed diversity, spiraling seed costs, and general deficiencies in seed quality — that crop growers around the world face from the owners of genetically-modified seeds. And it’s happening under our noses right in our own backyards. (more…)

March 5th, 2013 7 comments

Organic Tomatoes = More Nutrition

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TomatoesThe latest information on healthy, heirloom, organically raised tomatoes. Grow them yourself!

Do you have your tomato starts started? If you need motivation, here’s the latest. A study published last month in PLOS One, the international, peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal, showed what a lot of us always suspected: organic tomatoes contain certain more nutritional factors than conventionally grown tomatoes.

You can read the study here. Don’t let its title — “The Impact of Organic Farming on Quality of Tomatoes Is Associated to Increased Oxidative Stress during Fruit Development” — discourage you. What it boils down to is that organic tomatoes contain more Vitamin C and more phenolic content than chemically fertilized, pesticide-dependent tomatoes.

You know what phenols are, right? Okay, neither really did we. From the report: “a large range of secondary metabolites in fruit and vegetables as phenolic compounds act as elicitors that activate Nrf2, a transcription factor that binds to the antioxidant response element in the promoter region of genes coding for enzymes involved in protective mechanisms.” Shorter version: they’re compounds that deliver antioxidants, otherwise known as phytochemicals. (more…)

March 4th, 2013 2 comments

Permaculture: Local and Sustainable

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Permaculture LifestyleYour friendly and optimistic Planet Natural Blogger has more than once declared — rather grandly — that organic gardening can save the world.

Actually, it might take a little more than that, though local, personal and sustainable organic food production is playing a huge role in human health and the conservation of our resources. Many of us — suspicious of agri-business, unhappy with the poisoning of our environment in the name of corporate food production, upset with private control of energy sources, and wishing independence from as many facets of wasteful consumerism as possible — want to take charge of our own sustenance and well-being. The permaculture movement, dedicated to natural ecosystems, small-scale sustainable food and energy production, and ecologically-friendly living spaces, is that larger picture. (more…)

March 1st, 2013 No comments

What are Hybrid Seeds?

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Bulk Garden SeedF1 hybrids, plant hybridization and your home vegetable garden.

It’s been pointed out by astute commenters and concerned blog readers that the term “hybrid seed” can mean more than we might intend it to. “Hybird” and the verb “hybridize” can mean both natural and man-assisted processes that combine traits of two genetically different plants. But “hybrid” is mostly used specifically as seeds and plants that are the result of first generation cross-breeding raised for commercial purposes. To avoid confusion in the future, your detail-oriented and anxious-to-please Planet Natural Blogger promises to identify those hybrids as commercial or F1 hybrids.

A hybrid plant results from a genetic cross. Hybridization can occur naturally when wind or bees or other insects carry pollen from one plant to another resulting in plants that can best survive in the particular environmental conditions where they exist. In this sense, all plants are hybrids, having evolved genetically over centuries to obtain their particular characteristics. (more…)

February 27th, 2013 One comment

Growing and Cooking Shallots

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ShallotsLike onions, organic shallots are easy to grow from sets in your garden.

Folks who do a lot of cooking at home frequently run into recipes that use shallots instead of onions. Because they’re so expensive, shallots are sometimes seen as the rich man’s onion. But that’s an unfair comparison. While shallots are in the onion family and resemble their cousins — though when you start to separate them, they look more like garlic cloves — shallots are distinctly different. If you’re one of those people who find onions sharp tasting and too strongly flavored, consider growing shallots for their milder, almost nutty -flavor. Most shallots have a different, almost sour tang than a pungent onion and most will cook up a little sweeter than onions. They’re perfect for creaming, combining with white wine or using sparingly in Asian stir fries. (more…)

February 25th, 2013 3 comments

Farmer vs. Monsanto, David & Goliath

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Occupy Our FoodThe Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in the case of Monsanto, manufacturer of genetically engineered — or GMO — soy beans, and 75-year-old Indiana farmer Vernon Bowman who over a period of years bought seed stored at his local grain elevator for a risky, second season planting of beans. Some of the beans that area farmers had deposited at the elevator were Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready seeds for which Monsanto holds the patent.

Monsanto discovered that the seed Bowden was buying contained some seed harvested from RoundUp Ready crops and sued in 2007, winning a judgment of $84,456 from a small farmer who works some 300 acres.

The corporation’s patent policy prevents farmers from saving or reusing their seed for planting. Monsanto claims that they have rights no matter how far down the line their seed is planted. The irony here is that Bowman bought Monsanto seed legally and used it according to the corporation’s dictates for his first crop. (more…)

February 22nd, 2013 3 comments

Recipes from the Root Cellar

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Root Cellar VegetablesCooking with carrots, rutabagas, winter squash and other “keeper” crops from your garden.

This is the time of year when a visit to the root cellar, or the basement, or wherever you store your “keeper” vegetables makes you realize… it’s time to get cooking! The carrots (or turnips or parsnips) are sensing spring and are sending out a few white hairs thinner than grandpa’s beard. The eyes on the potatoes are starting to bug. The rinds on the winter squash are still hard, but have lightened in color. You worked hard to grow these delicacies… so let’s not waste them. Here’s a pair of recipes — organic and non-GMO, of course — that we’ve found are good for those late season items that won’t last in storage forever. To the kitchen! (more…)

February 20th, 2013 2 comments

Grow Sprouts: For the Health of It!

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Growing SproutsTips on raising bean, alfalfa and other nutritious sprouts right in your kitchen … organically!

We get cravings for greens this time of year. Sure, you lucky gardeners with indoor growing systems or hot houses may be eating home-grown kale or lettuce or spinach here in the dead of winter. But what’s a renter without his own garden patch to do? Grow sprouts.

Sprouts are one of nature’s most nutritious foods, full of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids as well as a great source of roughage. Lentil sprouts are 26% protein; soy bean sprouts, as you can guess, even higher. Radish sprouts contain large amounts of vitamins C and A as well as being a good source of calcium. Sunflower sprouts have lots of vitamin D. Clover sprouts are a good source of cancer-fighting isoflavones and alfalfa sprouts contain phytoestrogens needed for hormonal balance. If you’ve been scared away from sprouts because of contamination incidents with store -bought products, there’s a simple solution. Grow them yourself. (more…)

February 18th, 2013 One comment
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