Chemical Considerations for the Stealth Gardener

As edible landscaping becomes more popular, we are seeing more folks planting vegetables among their shrubs and perennials, which is wonderful. As spring fever and planting season for traditional summer crops are about to collide, as they always do this time of year, I wanted to remind everyone of a few cautions.

Remember, the Health Dept. has a mosquito spraying program that starts in May or June. Be prepared to cover your vegetables and certainly remember to wash them before serving. During mosquito spraying season we grow only 'fruiting' vegetables (squash, beans, peppers) in the front yard and wash them well. If we had children eating them, we probably wouldn't even do that. We do not grow leafy vegetables or harvest herbs in the front yard during the mosquito spray season.

Call 256 883 5872 for the County Health Department Vector Control office. The gentleman in charge is very helpful and will call you in advance of any spraying his department is about to do in your neighborhood. This gives you time to cover plants or harvest before the trucks roll through. There may be a procedure in place to be removed from the spray program.

Be Careful!

Avoid mixing vegetable crops with shrubbery or in a lawn area that is being treated with pesticides. Many tree and shrub insecticides and fungicides are not labeled for use in the garden. If you do use pesticides on your property always read and follow all label instructions and keep records of your treatments. The record can be a learning tool and can help minimize the need for future treatments.




 

In many situations a spray free zone of 25' or more to protect your food bearing plants may be appropriate.

No kids, no dogs and NO FOOD!

Herbicides and their residues can harm your crop in many cases, however it is possible for many vegetable plants like tomatoes to survive but traces of the material can find it's way into your produce. Grass clippings from chemically treated lawns are not helpful in the long run. Try to avoid using leaves and other materials from properties that have spray programs.

Never Use a sprayer that has had herbicide in it on your vegetables, flowers or trees and shrubs. To solve the problem use a permanent marker to Label your sprayers by type of use.

Crop Rotation

There are many reasons to rotate your crops each year. Rotation is primarily used to minimize nutrient depletion in the soil and manage insect and disease pressures on your plants. Properly planned and executed, rotation can enhance and help the gardener build soils and maximize crop yields over the years. Most folks recognize that planting the same type of plant in an area year after year can cause problems. The Cooperative Extension System tells us it is best to avoid planting any member of the same plant family in the same spot or row for at least 2 years.

Below are 3 different rotation plans

The first plan shown is from ACES publication ANR-1254 Planting and Maintaining Rotation by Plant Family

Alliaceae (Onion Family)  Onion, garlic, leek, shallot, chive

Apiaceae (Carrot Family)  Carrot, parsnip, parsley, celery

Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)  Lettuce, endive, salsify, Jerusalem artichoke

Brassicaceae (Mustard Family)  Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, turnip, Chinese cabbage, kale, collards, mustard greens, radish, rutabaga

Chenopodiaceae (Goosefoot Family)  Beet, Swiss chard, spinach

Convolvulaceae (Bindweed Family)  Sweetpotato

Cucurbitaceae (Gourd Family)  Cucumber, muskmelon, watermelon, summer squash, winter squash, pumpkin, gourd, honeydew melon

Fabaceae (Pea Family) English pea, snap bean, lima bean, soybean, cowpea, field pea

Malvaceae (Mallow Family)  Okra

Poaceae (Grass Family)  Sweet corn, popcorn, ornamental corn

Solanaceae (Nightshade Family)  Tomato, pepper, eggplant, Irish potato, husk tomato

Grouping plants in a row or plot by family will keep things simple IF you write down your plan each year. By reviewing last years layout in the cold wet days of January and February you can have a new plan for the year by simply moving everything over one row etc. The authors are not saying this is the rotation order. This is simply an alphabetical listing of the plant families and the most commonly grown crops within those families. To help you avoid inadvertently planting crops within the same family on the ground two years in a row.

Many smaller gardens with space considerations may want to utilize this 4 year rotation.

Leaf crops, followed by
Fruit crops, followed by
Root crops, followed by
Legumes, repeat the cycle

Here is the rotation we use where possible. Rotation is accomplished by moving the plants over one row, plot or field each year.

Corn: Follows Cabbages and Brassica's

Potatoes: Early and late Potatoes benefit from corn grown the previous year. Many crops do not like to follow corn. We grow our potatoes in mounded leaves which builds a better soil for succeeding years. Weeds can be an issue in the tater patch.

Squashes: A cleaning crop, helps reduce weed problems in the root crops. Those big leaves shade the soil.

Root crops: Hardest crops to keep weed free, although proper mulching can alleviate much of this problem. We combine Beets and Carrots here even though they are in two different families. Turnips, Rutabaga, Radishes all go in this “Root” area.

Beans: Beans don't like following beets but can go after other root crops. Cut off the stems and leave the roots of the beans in the ground. Beans are legumes and fix nitrogen which is almost always needed in our soils.

Tomatoes: Follow beans, keep away from potatoes as many years as possible. Both are in the nightshade family.

Peas: Can be planted as a green manure crop to boost the Brassica's. Although I am not recommending three successive pea crops on the same ground in one year, Austrian Pea's can be used as a soil builder over the late fall and winter. Early peas planted in February will add nitrogen for a follow on crop and pea production can be considered a bonus with our up and down temperature swings in the spring. Summer pea's may be the most dependable producers in our area they also add nitrogen to the soil, if you leave the roots in the ground. All are excellent at attracting pollinators and beneficial insects in the garden as well. The type of pea and timing of your planting should be dependent on which type pea you like best or the follow on crop your plan calls for next.

Cabbages or Brassica's: Hard on the soil, taking lots of nutrients, however these are known as dynamic accumulators. Be sure and compost all unused portions of these plants.
Repeat

Rotation combined with companion planting and cover crops can help build your soil, and improve your garden and its productivity. While we will not be covering these subjects in more detail in this article, begin to think in terms of : What does this plant need, add to, or take from the soil. What cover or nurse crop can I plant to provide these minerals and nutrients for this crop, or the crop to follow.

Remember to keep your soil covered at all times. Either with the current crop, a cover crop, or a mulch.

Clean Food Network - Your Real Local Farmers

I would like to tell you about some friends and mentors of mine, Dove and Russell Stackhouse, owners of Rusl n Doves farm in Geraldine. They are founding members of the Clean Food Network. They are also two of the best farmers in the South. Their love for the soil and their knowledge of plants and their ability to teach others is awe inspiring.

The Clean Food Network (CFN) is a network of 18 small to medium eco-friendly local farms. Eco-friendly means they strive to be sustainable and minimize the use of off farm inputs. It also means these farmers use regenerative techniques to build soil and improve the micro climates they impact through their farm operations. Most importantly it means Clean Food, food that has no synthetic pesticides on it. The physical removal of insects and the cultural practice of sanitation to remove infected or diseased plants is always the first choice of these farmers. As the CFN Farmers improve their soil each year the need to use pesticides, even the “organic” ones decreases.

I know all of this sounds to good to be true, but these folks are here, not on the West Coast. The CFN provides the highest quality, hand selected and picked produce year round. The network also provides grass fed beef, free range pork and lamb, chicken as well as eggs. These products contain no antibiotics or growth hormones. The network's farmers adhere to national standards or exceed them in actual practice.

CFN also provides you with value added products ranging from Cheeses and Jams, Baked Goods, to Soaps and Lotions. You can buy fair trade coffee ground and roasted locally. The proceeds from the coffee go to help Mayan women and children with education and health care.

The goals of the CFN are to provide the highest quality food, picked at the peak of it's nutritional value. The produce is usually less than 24 hours from the field. They strive to offer people choices beyond what the consolidated food system offers. The Clean Food Network's goal is not to just save family farms in the area, but to grow more farms to feed Huntsville and North Alabama. Sharing knowledge and experience to help new farms as well as farmers transitioning from conventional farming to sustainable, less toxic, soil building farming techniques. The network is working to broaden markets for local eco friendly farmers and to increase the number of sustainable farmers to maximize consumer choice.

The Clean Food Network farmers truly are your Real Local Farmers. Once you try Clean Food you will understand why so many customers say “Thank you for growing such good tasting food. This reminds me of the garden fresh vegetables my grandfather used to grow.”

To get started with CFN, click here. 

First chip, then shred....

Lovely weekend weather led to lovely shredded leaf mulch. Yes, we still have bags from the leaf thief ...

but a few minutes with the chipper/shredder... and we have a pile of soon-to-be nutrition for the garden plants!

Here's hoping your garden is off to a warming, microbe teeming start!

*Sorry about that window, that's the neighbor's garage!  He's been fixing up, just hasn't gotten to everything!

Books I Recommend

The Green 13 and other movements around Huntsville concerning "greeness" and "sustainability" are really making progress!  If you are interested in local food security like we are, you might want to read  Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food, The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating or Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.)

Hardly a final list, of course, I'll have more as they occur to me...or you could chime in with your favorites and I'll add them in another post.

Happy Reading...and eating :)

GentleVoice

First Bio-Char of the Year!

The weather is finally turning coolish and we've generated the first bucket of ash from the wood burning insert.  Out it goes and gets a cooling splash of water....

What's this?  A skim of the fingers and we have biochar!!

Worked into the soil, the biochar 'manages' the release of good stuff from the lovely compost and just generally makes garden beds happy. 
"Biochar enthusiasts generally agree that raw biochar needs to be processed further prior to being added to the garden.  Composting, or soaking with compost tea is commonly used to charge the pore volume with beneficial organisms and nutrients.  Soaking in a nutrient rich solution (examples are urine or fish emulsion) prior to composting is accepted practice."   from a Gardening with Biochar FAQ. 

The largest pieces will float to the top and can be skimmed off... there will still be some worth saving at the bottom of the bucket amidst the ash. 

Be careful sticking your hands in this stuff, it can be quite alkaline and caustic.  It's best to find an out of the way corner and dump the ash and water there.  You can wash it through a screen to retrieve the rest of the biochar, or leave it and let the rain do the work.  Don't dump the ash itself on the compost pile.  If your soils are very acid, you can add the recommended amount of wood ashes directly to the soil. 
Remember that folks used to make soap out of lye which was made by dripping water through wood ash (particularly oak) and fat.

Frankly, biochar is just 'charred but unburned' organic matter.  Fireplaces won't be too good at 'making' it, but inserts and woodstoves will.  What you want is 'incompletely' burned wood which means making the air mix just a little lean. Smoldering fire is what you are looking for. Yes, you can spend good money on 'biochar', although I'm having trouble googling any sources just now.  But do your research and think about it.

We burn wood anyway, so we'll be thinking more about retrieving those bigger 'charred' logs that used to get pushed back in to burn more completely.  We have been fortunate to be able to 'salvage' the trees we use for wood and this is one more way to use them!

GentleVoice

Leaf Thief

Did you bag your leaves and put them out on the street?  Are they still there?  Are you sure?  We sure have accumulated a lot of leaves this ... 10 minutes.  A trailer and pickup truck load in less than 4 blocks.  More than we can use actually.  But any extra is compost.

Just want to say "Thanks!"

And... next time, put them in your own compost pile.  Your garden will love you for it :)