Adaptation

I harvest my own seeds. It's been a while since new seeds came into my yard, but this year I had a friend who wasn't able to have her own garden so I have several varieties of "new" tomatoes, as well as various summer and winter squash and pie pumpkins. It almost feels like I'm being invaded. :) By seeds and plants, not by people.

I don't want anything in my yard to be genetically modified, and as we move more and more toward a Monsanto controlled and owned food supply the list of things being genetically modified grows every year. Apples, sugar beets, corn, wheat. Several hundred varieties of GMO potatoes were approved a few years ago, and while they are currently "not available to the public" I would prefer not to chance my stocks being contaminated. There are a number of reasons for that, but it comes down to unproved safety, the litigious nature of Monsanto, and distrust of a government supported monopoly. They want complete control of our food supply and I'm not going to participate in that.

The only thing in my yard that could possibly be GMO is the corn, because of pollen drift. Everything else is hand pollinated and bagged, or it's built in such a way that accidental crossing is unlikely/impossible (beans, peppers, tomatoes). I've had most of these seeds for upwards of ten years, and some all my life. Others were gifts from people I know back before those particular items were approved for genetic modification.

My days of indiscriminately collecting seeds at every opportunity are over.

Then there's a little quirk of my property that just seems to kill everything. Seeds don't germinate, or they germinate and die, or the bugs get them. First generation I think I probably have a 30% success rate for most things. Some things grow but never flower. Others flower but never fruit. Some don't grow at all.

I've learned to live with it. It's just one more reason NOT to introduce new plants, because it's the first generation that's like this. If the plant grew on my property and I got seeds, the 2nd generation plants will be better. Third generation seeds will thrive.

I've been growing some unknown variety of watermelons for about five years now. Saved from a watermelon we had at a family gathering when I was maybe fifteen, it has adapted quite well. This year I planted several other varieties and waited anxiously to see the female blossoms. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Then, before I'd even seen female blossoms, I had three fruit four inches long on the plant from my own seeds. The others were weeks behind.

Adapted. Someday all my food will be adapted to my soil, my wind, my air. And it will be A. Maze. Ing.

Food Forest #2

A forest doesn't require fertilizer, it doesn't require additional water, it doesn't require any form of human intervention. Plants cluster where they fit and create their own planting zones. They naturally cluster with other plants that keep critters away. They build the perfect environment for OTHER plants and protect each other in a symbiotic fashion.

Forests exist all over the world, except in the worst cold and the worst deserts. They thrive where human thought says they should die. I think part of that is the human expectation that everything NEEDS them. Nope. Sorry. Here's your sign.

A forest naturally has seven layers.

Canopy
Under Canopy
Undergrowth
ground layer (creepers and such)
Climbing (vines)
fungus
Tubers

All niches are filled. You seldom see bare ground in nature. It's always covered by something. The forest goes down just as far as it goes up, and that area is also full of life.

In creating my food forest I wanted to cover those same bases. My canopy isn't 30 or 50 or 100 feet over the ground, so I cut out the under canopy. My canopy is the trees that would be an under canopy in a normal forest.

Canopy: Three dwarf fruit trees
undergrowth: Aronia, gooseberry, currant, elderberry
ground layer: tarragon, rue, dill, potatoes, tansy, fennel, herbs, grasses, sage, yarrow
vining: honeysuckle, luffa
root: potatoes, horseradish
fungus: winecaps (planting this year)

I'll be planting melons and nasturtiums up there as groundcover. This year is to see how everything gets established. Next spring the real fun begins.

Jerusalem Artichoke

Helianthus Tuberosus

I am cooking with Jerusalem artichoke for the first time. One of my family members has high cholesterol and was told he shouldn't eat potatoes. Jerusalem artichoke is a possible substitute, since potatoes form a major part of our diet.

The Jerusalem artichoke is not an artichoke, nor does it have any connection to Jerusalem. It's actually a variety of sunflower (which makes me wonder about the roots of the sunflowers growing in our yard). Since it has an invasive habit, I planted it in a container. That's probably why I didn't get as large a crop as I expected. The information I found indicated that the tubers could be harvested throughout the season, but each time I dug down around the plant I found (at best) a few rhizomes approximately the thickness of my smallest finger. When I dug it up this morning, all the tubers were directly under the main plant. We got a couple of pounds of small tubers, most of them between an inch and an inch and a half in diameter. Again, I think that was because it was in a small, isolated space and couldn't spread out.

In herbalism, Jerusalem artichokes are used as a supplementary pre-biotic, helping to balance the bacteria levels in the intestines. Instead of traditional starches, they have a starch called inulin (not to be confused with insulin) which doesn't break down readily and is not passed through into the bloodstream. They have very little effect on blood sugar, unlike traditional potatoes, and can be used to partially regulate blood sugar levels in diabetics.

According to hearsay, they can be used in anything that requires potatoes. I found that they slice easily, in perfect thin slices, where potatoes would tend to break or shear. One source said they can be used raw (rather like water chestnuts) in salads. Whether or not they should be peeled is a matter of choice, but their skins are thin and barely visible. The tubers are wrinkled and bubbled, making removal of the skins into more of a chore than I'm willing to take on.

I made hash-browns with them as a test. They have a nutty, sweet taste and a texture similar to potatoes but slightly more crunchy. They also stuck to my teeth like glue and I spent the next half hour prying them loose.

I got ambivalent reactions from family members. The taste would certainly take some getting used to. Not sure yet whether they would be worthwhile as a crop in the future. I'm guessing not, but I'll leave it open for discussion.

Winter Garden Update

I went out this morning and my potatoes and pepper (inside the hoop house) were dead. I dug them all up and planted peas.

So it appears that potatoes are an OK late season crop in the hoop houses, but the "Sandy" temperature last night was in the high twenties and we're typically 5 to 10 degrees below the posted temp in the winter, so it might have gotten down into the teens. In either case, potatoes don't do well at 38 degrees (assuming that the temp in the hoop house remained 10 degrees above the outside temp). Lettuce, carrots, beets and onions are just fine. Lettuce and spinach continue to sprout.

I put up a "high" hoop house for the cabbage and broccoli. We'll see how well that does in the first wind-storm. :)

Off the topic

Sorry I'm so wishy-washy on this blog. Right now other things take precedence--like a job hunt and...

My hoop-houses, since nothing herbal is growing.



I have two hoop-houses this year. Last year was our first test. With two water bottles inside the temperature never got low enough to freeze the plants. The water bottles release their heat, so they're the first things to freeze. The bottles did freeze a couple of times (when the temperature got down into the teens), but nothing else inside even got nipped. I'm guessing that another water bottle in each would bring the survivable temperature even lower. Anything that touches the plastic will freeze, and the condensation on the plastic also froze quite regularly. It's amazing to lift the cover in the morning and have ice snap off, but the green inside hasn't been affected.

The hoop-house on the east has beets, lettuce and spinach. On the west, I'm experimenting so that one has potatoes, carrots and a pepper that I'm hoping will survive the winter. We'll see. Right now it's looking pretty sad and not growing.

We harvested our first out of season potatoes today, and I dug up the dill because it was infested with aphids. So I now know that I need to pay attention to insect control...

We've been eating salad (fresh from our garden) for the last month. :)

Transitions

I did a batch of pickles yesterday, with less than a week's worth of cucumbers, including the "siamese" cucumber. Two of them grew together.

During the summer I eat a lot of fresh food. Cucumbers, zuccinni, tomatoes, onions, beets, fruit from the trees, carrots, potatoes. My herb garden is going crazy so I have fresh basil and mint, sage and thyme.

I think the hardest part of summer is the transition from "fresh" to "winter" in terms of diet. For close to six months I'm eating real food, not something that's been processed to death for the sake of profit.

There is no comparison between a potato right out of the ground and one of those gray things they sell as potatoes in the supermarket. Fresh potatoes eaten with butter--they need nothing else.

Then suddenly it's gone, and I can feel the difference. What they call "produce" in the stores is a pale shadow of the real thing, short on vitamins and minerals, grown on chemical fertilizer in played-out soil that's been used and reused for years.

It's no wonder that people are always sick during the winter. I've tried growing plants inside during the winter, but it never works. I'll keep trying because I want fresh during the winter, too.