A 'Family Farm Tour' in Western North Carolina (organized by the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project) was a rewarding way to spend some time this weekend. ASAP works to keep farmers farming and reconnect people with their food and is a wonderful regional support for small farm operations and promoting eating food grown locally.
I've trying to learn a lot more about where the food we (my gardening companion and I) eat comes from and how it's produced (beyond what I grow) and it's a fascinating pursuit - and extremely humbling and not always pleasant.
Are we as American consumers ready to pay for sustainably and humanely produced food?
Currently, I'm afraid the answer is probably no (based on my question to my gardening companion about chicken $6 for an organically raised, free-range bird vs a $3 mass-produced broiler - but he's not the cook and food buyer in our family).
My answer is yes.
Showing posts with label sustainable gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sustainable gardening. Show all posts
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Nutrients for vegetables
A question in a recent kitchen gardening program has had me thinking about nutrients and vegetables again. Vegetables are so much more nutrient-intensive than perennials, shrubs, trees, or any 'landscape' plants, it's hard to realize sometimes how much they appreciate excellent, fertile soil to grow in.
The person who asked the question wondered why her vegetables just seemed average, in their compost-enriched raised beds (but with no added fertilizer). Her soil test was 'fine' for vegetables, according to our state Ag Services Lab.
But another participant had just told us about her two Early Girl tomato plants last season that produced so many tomatoes that she was giving them away to her friends, neighbors, people at her church, etc. But she was fertilizing her plants.
Hmm. Most of my vegetable plants are a lot more in the average category - nice and productive, but nothing overwhelming. But I don't fertilize much either, after adding compost at each rotation or bed preparation. It's hard (as a plant ecologist) to get my head around nutrient and water hungry vegetables.
I think the key is that if you look at the advice for sustainable gardening using compost and green manures, it takes a LOT more than you'd ever think to keep soil nutrients high. 4-5 inches of compost is often recommended for additions to each year's bed -- that's a lot of compost!
And actually, now that I think about it, the Ag Services Lab recommendations are probably assuming that you'll add fertilizer (whether inorganic or organic) to your vegetables over the growing season.
The person who asked the question wondered why her vegetables just seemed average, in their compost-enriched raised beds (but with no added fertilizer). Her soil test was 'fine' for vegetables, according to our state Ag Services Lab.
But another participant had just told us about her two Early Girl tomato plants last season that produced so many tomatoes that she was giving them away to her friends, neighbors, people at her church, etc. But she was fertilizing her plants.
Hmm. Most of my vegetable plants are a lot more in the average category - nice and productive, but nothing overwhelming. But I don't fertilize much either, after adding compost at each rotation or bed preparation. It's hard (as a plant ecologist) to get my head around nutrient and water hungry vegetables.
I think the key is that if you look at the advice for sustainable gardening using compost and green manures, it takes a LOT more than you'd ever think to keep soil nutrients high. 4-5 inches of compost is often recommended for additions to each year's bed -- that's a lot of compost!
And actually, now that I think about it, the Ag Services Lab recommendations are probably assuming that you'll add fertilizer (whether inorganic or organic) to your vegetables over the growing season.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Onions and garlic
I've been growing garlic for awhile -- incredibly easy and remarkably delicious fresh. Green garlic is a farmer's market staple in trendy markets in Southern California (I know this because I listen to an interesting podcast from KCRW, a public radio station in Santa Monica, CA, called 'Good Food.' I discovered green garlic by accident, as I have had to harvest it early in the past (before the satellite garden) to make room for the summer tomatoes, peppers, and squash in my garden rotations in the main vegetable garden.
I planted lots of garlic, onions, and potatoes in the satellite garden, as I knew any emerging woodchucks wouldn't be interested. Sure enough, before s/he was relocated, all that disappeared were the lonely broccoli relatives that I thought I'd try, hidden among the onion plants. Hrrmph. But now that s/he is on to hopefully greener pastures, I'm thinking about harvesting more of the garlic early, and planting some other things.
Two onion relatives that I'm growing for the first time are quite interesting. A pot of 'Welsh onions' - Allium fistulosum -acquired at a local nursery last summer, divided and put in containers and adjacent to the garlic beds have flourished, becoming huge. I've been pulling them up along the edges and using them like green onions in stir-frys. A favorite podcast, The Alternative Kitchen Garden, mentions that there are both white and red varieties. A fellow sustainable gardening blogger in England grows the red variety as a perennial bunching onion, a plant that his grandfather grew.
I love learning about plants and their stories and where they came from. Certainly 'Welsh onions' fit that -- they're not Welsh, but Asian, so we really should be calling them Japanese bunching onions. But how did a pot of Welsh onions, labeled somewhere at a herb company, make its way to a small nursery in Pendleton, South Carolina, where I bought it? And my fellow gardeners in England are growing it. What fun!
These are red shallots, growing next to garlic. I'm not sure how to harvest shallots, but I'm sure they'll be tasty.
I planted lots of garlic, onions, and potatoes in the satellite garden, as I knew any emerging woodchucks wouldn't be interested. Sure enough, before s/he was relocated, all that disappeared were the lonely broccoli relatives that I thought I'd try, hidden among the onion plants. Hrrmph. But now that s/he is on to hopefully greener pastures, I'm thinking about harvesting more of the garlic early, and planting some other things.
Two onion relatives that I'm growing for the first time are quite interesting. A pot of 'Welsh onions' - Allium fistulosum -acquired at a local nursery last summer, divided and put in containers and adjacent to the garlic beds have flourished, becoming huge. I've been pulling them up along the edges and using them like green onions in stir-frys. A favorite podcast, The Alternative Kitchen Garden, mentions that there are both white and red varieties. A fellow sustainable gardening blogger in England grows the red variety as a perennial bunching onion, a plant that his grandfather grew.
I love learning about plants and their stories and where they came from. Certainly 'Welsh onions' fit that -- they're not Welsh, but Asian, so we really should be calling them Japanese bunching onions. But how did a pot of Welsh onions, labeled somewhere at a herb company, make its way to a small nursery in Pendleton, South Carolina, where I bought it? And my fellow gardeners in England are growing it. What fun!These are red shallots, growing next to garlic. I'm not sure how to harvest shallots, but I'm sure they'll be tasty.
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