Sustainable Agriculture

Tonight’s garden salad with thyme, basil, and mint reminded me of my first agricultural job – indeed my first job ever, picking raspberries as an 11 year-old in Washington State.  Work began promptly at 7am, and it was a bicycle ride of more than a mile, up and down hills of course, to get there.

The raspberry varieties were of the choicest kind destined for restaurants,  such as the giant “Royal Reds.”  We picked from 7-3:30 with a lunch break, for a kind woman who later unexpectedly showed up at my home with a Christmas bonus,  5 months after the harvest.

Raspberries are thorny,  and our hands bore tiny myriad scratches until they hardened from the daily work.    Somehow, the raspberries were so much more exotic than our own hazelnuts, easier to reach than our orchard apples,  and definitely smelled better than our chicken coop.   With the money,  I could see Star Wars (again) or save up for my own AM/FM radio headphones.

Today the argument swirls around whether sustainably-cultivated food is indeed a viable business model.  As one acquaintance who works in Public Relations recounted,  countless farmers told her, “You, can’t make money that way,  you have to grow tobacco.”  Happily,  this is being proven false. 

Organic farms and seed suppliers, farmers’ markets across the country, and food co-operatives are proving that large-scale monoculture is neither the only, nor the best way, to feed a large population.    We are fortunate to begin to re-experience some of the foods that we distantly remember from childhood.

Sources:  http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/sustainable-farming/

http://www.beginningfarmers.org/sustainable-agriculture-policy-news-may-16-20-2011/

http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2011/06/21/promoting-sustainable-agriculture

Organic "Sweet 100" Cherry Tomatoes

Sunflower Houses and Gardening with Children

As my college-age son mowed the lawn today,  I reflected on the many times during my children’s upbringing that they helped me in the garden.  Indeed, even their preschool years at the Ruth Washburn Cooperative Nursery School included gardening projects.  Beans, planted in a paper cup,  hold a joyful surprise for a child who has never seen the shoot unfurl from the bean seed, the first two leaves forcing off the bean shell.  In hot weather, this can happen quickly enough for children to watch over the course of a couple of afternoons.

The lessons that children can learn in a garden are almost too numerous to count.   Some parents garden with children to instill a sense of joy, of creating a shared memory of good family times, or to create a sense of wonder at new growth.  Still other parents want to instill a sense of achievement at helping to produce those first tasty cherry tomatoes, or simply want to give their kids a sense of perspective about how long it takes to produce food:  100 days to grow a tomato rather than 20 minutes to fetch it from the grocer.  I wanted some of these same things, as well as teaching my children to value the earth and have grounded, respectful, imaginative ways to play outside.   I recall so well, their wide eyes and astonished, excited chattering as they made new discoveries in the garden.

In addition to growing vegetables,  we took an idea from Sharon Lovejoy’s book Sunflower Houses, and planted a large square with sunflower and morning-glory seeds.  As the sunflowers mature, the morning-glory vines swirl up around the sunflower stems.  Once they reach the top,  string laced between the sunflower heads allows the vines to form a  “roof”  for this living

The Big Red Wagon is indispensable.

playhouse.  Birds will cavort among the seed heads, and the vines bloom with large flowers.   For my son and daughter, was a nice balance to their other  backyard engineering activity:  building forts.

I’ve included a few resources here for gardening with children, including organic gardening.  I hope you enjoy them:

http://www.amazon.com/Sunflower-Houses-Inspiration-Children-Grown-Ups/dp/0761123865

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/gardening-kids

http://www.gardeningwithchildren.co.uk/

http://eartheasy.com/grow_gardening_children.htm

http://www.colostate.edu/Dept/CoopExt/4dmg/Children/children.htm

Vegetable Gardening

As I write this,  the 8 tomato plants and 6 pepper plants that my father started for me, from seed, are hardening off and waiting to be placed either in pots or in the garden beds.  Here in Colorado it is seldom worthwhile to plant these heat-loving vegetables until after Memorial day, and this year’s cold spring reaffirmed that view.

As I prepare the soil,  I reflect on the 20 years that I have been working this particular plot of land covering 17,000 square feet.  The soil has been laboriously amended

Morning Glories August 2010

with, at various times, tons of organic matter,  a penchant for digging weeds laboriously by hand to avoid chemical sprays, and endless days pitchforking or spading the soil to prevent my mostly clay subsoil from forming concrete that will stymie the plants’ root structures. 

The other day,  I planted zucchini and yellow crookneck squash, which for best results, should be seeded in “hills” of soil enriched with manure and compost.   I make a 15-24 inch diameter hill (on the larger side when I plant pumpkins) and depress the top slightly like a saucer.  This will aid in water absorption with minimal evaporation.  The hills exposure to the sun will warm the seeds and later, the plants’ roots.   I seed generously due to marauding squirrels which dig up as many as half the seeds of anything I plant.  If I am blessed with too many sprouts,  I can thin them or give them away.

Peas and beans were planted earlier.  As they sprout,  they immediately have competition in the form of thousands upon thousands of “Morning Glory” vining flower seedlings which re-seeded themselves from prior years.  Selecting for the desired combination of vegetable yields and floral beauty promises to fill many hours over the growing season.  Lettuce and herbs were similarly started in pots,  and will be carefully divided and transplanted into the garden bed.  Green onions -indeed onions of any type, are an excellent pest repellent, and I often tuck them in around  the vegetables especially the tomatoes, adding marigolds and nasturtiums for additional color and pest protection.  The spicy nasturtium blossoms will be added to salad.  

I hope you will plant something of your own this year.  Below are some resource links you may enjoy:

http://www.seedsofchange.com/

http://www.gardeningplaces.com/seeds.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Rodales-All-New-Encyclopedia-Organic-Gardening/dp/0875965997

http://reneesgardenseeds.blogspot.com/2011/05/organic-garden-management.html