Sprouting
Up in Your Garden
Vol. 1, Issue 2, Newsletter
Monday, June 15, 2009
Farm News:
We are enjoying the gradual warming, summer "vacation", and a second
round of summer veggies that we are sprouting. If this warmth keeps up, they
could be ready as soon as next weekend!
We found however, in contrast to many others we have heard from, our personal garden is only creeping along rather than exploding in giant plants. After much debate, digging, and testing, we have determined that we did not amend our soil well enough this year....sigh.... In response, we are having to fertilizer more than should be necessary. It is a lesson learned, and we will try out a two-fold solution. First, we will continue on with our compost pile and use some of it to amend the beds at the end of summer, and before planting our fall garden (yes, you can garden in the fall, and sometimes into the winter, here!). Second, after the fall garden, we will try out growing cover crops that will be turned under and left until next spring. I am confident that this will solve our issues, and we will be able to celebrate giant veggies next spring along with our customers!
Topic of the Week:
PESTS!
Our garden pest of choice this week is the gopher, something I have gotten a lot of questions about. They seem to be as prolific this year as the earwigs. Now you could go the "Caddyshack" route, and put some TNT into the gopher holes, and I am sure it would be therapeutic if they have been making major inroads into your garden; but somehow I think that would be bad for neighborly relations, not to mention personal property, so it is probably best left to the movies.
Instead, we cruised the internet looking for any and all alternatives to acquiring a rap sheet. There are the typical traps, and of course the flooding of the holes, but both of those just seem rather inhumane to us, plus a lot more effort than effect. There are chemical repellents, even "environmentally responsible" ones, but most of those are not suggested for vegetable gardens, and even those that are I would strongly question.
If you are into technology, I know that there are also in-ground sonic repellants, which obviously work well as they drove all of our neighbors' gophers into our yard instead! I found one on Amazon (to see click here) for fairly inexpensively, and I have even seen solar versions.
So where does that leave those of us that aren't really into technology-based gardening, and certainly don't want to become best buddies with the police precinct? I looked back into what our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents must have had to do to help stave off these garden raiders. I found several different options:
1) Good Ol' Castor Oil - guess what? Not only is it disgusting to you as a remedy from your mom, but gophers (and moles) think that it is disgusting as well. Use 1 tbsp oil, plus 1 tbsp dish soap, per one gallon of water; you can put this as a concentrate in a hose-end sprayer or just mix it up in a watering can. Either way, trust me, it will stink! Spray or pour this over your problem areas, being sure to avoid the plants' leaves as much as possible. Your best bet is to doing this in the evening, as any oil that gets on the plant leaves during the day will just cook in the sun.
This brings me to a side note: some of you, or maybe a friend, may say, "Well, castor oil works. Why can't we plant castor beans?" The answer is: You can! BUT.....you better not have any small children, domestic pets, or livestock around. The castor plant itself is only mildly toxic (which is bad enough when someone small is around); however, when the plant produces beans, those beans are highly toxic and contain a water-based poison called ricin (which is so nasty that it has been used as an organic pesticide and is suspected of being used in biological warfare). When the manufacturers make castor oil, they separate the oil from the water-based ricin so that the castor oil is safe. Please, please, don't plant the beans in your yard!
2) Sound! If you have any of those clacking yard-art windmills, plant them near your garden. They make clacking vibrations into the ground, which gophers do not like (a lower tech version of the sonic repellent). If you do not have any of those, even children's' pinwheels stuck into their tunnels at 20 ft intervals will annoy them.
Someone also suggested sticking narrow-mouthed bottles (i.e. a wine or old-fashioned Coke bottle) into the tunnel; you find one of their tunnels, and dig straight down into it, placing the bottle upright in the hole. Any decent sized breeze across it should produce a moaning noise, which apparently they do not like either.
3) Animals! If you have dogs or cats, try letting them out in the evenings and at dawn to prowl the garden. This is the times of day that gophers are most active, and if they continue to see family pets patrolling the area they will avoid it sooner rather than later.
Also under the category of animals, is to encourage birds of prey (to gophers, that is) by putting bird baths in your garden area. If you also keep the weeds and other foliage down, the birds will be able to track those pesky gophers and fairly soon you will cease to have gopher issues.
4) Plants! Last but not least are plant-based solutions. I know, I know, castor oil is plant-based too, but it deserved its own special category. There are other plants that can help repel gophers as well. For instance, they have been known to avoid onions and garlic, so by inter-planting these items in your garden you can make the whole garden smell disgusting to the gophers but you won't notice a thing!
You can also use something known as "trap crops"; these are items that your particular pest or garden invader are so attracted to that they will leave your other plants alone so long as you continue to provide them with their favorite food(s). We found out by sheer happy accident that gophers really love new potatoes! We had been tossing our leftover, sprouting potatoes from the store into a separate garden box to see if they would produce potatoes (which by the way they did!). As it turns out, the gopher that we had been having an issue with thought we were giving him his own veggie box and started leaving the other boxes alone. We were happy to continue to toss any sprouters into that bin throughout the summer. We didn't have any potatoes that year, but at least we had our other plants!
I hope that these will help you tame the gopher population in your garden, and don't be afraid to try any combination of them! There are probably hundreds of different solutions for gophers and other subterranean pests, but I narrowed it down to the ones that we are all the most likely to have either the supplies for or be able to get them, not to mention they had to be organic! If you have any other tricks or methods you have tried that are organic, feel free to email me at amity@sproutinguporganically.com and I will pass them along.
Our Favorites:
Check out www.MotherEarthNews.com ! We find that it is a wealth of information on all kinds of subjects from the urban to the rural! My grandmother used to read their publications when she was raising a family, and she passed on the information and link to us sometime ago. We enjoy it immensely and often find inspiration in it.
Recipes:
Grilled Summer Veggie Sandwich
recipe courtesy of Hobby Farms.com
© Melanie Acevedo
This recipe seems to be all over the internet, but I am reproducing the one from Hobby Farms magazine as it sounded the most delicious; however, I could not get ahold of the picture that inspired me, so I found the one above on FoodandWine.com that was very close to Hobby Farm's photo. According to HF, you should plan on 2 slices each of zucchini, yellow squash, and tomato; 1/4 of a pepper, about half the rings of an onion slice, and one slice of eggplant per sandwich. This is a vegetarian recipe to take advantage of the bountiful summer harvests, but of course ingredients can always be substituted to taste.
Ingredients:
Zucchini
Yellow Summer Squash
Sweet Onion
Eggplant
Bell Pepper, your choice of color
Olive Oil
Pesto (approx. 1 tbsp per sandwich)
Cheese (i.e. Feta, Chevre with or without herbs, mozzarella, gouda, provolone)
Bread (i.e. Ciabatta or Kaiser rolls, Baguettes, or other crusty Italian or multigrain bread)
Slice the zucchini, yellow summer squash, and onion into 1/2 inch slices; be sure to slice both of the squashes length wise so that they are less likely to fall thru the grates of the grill. Peel the eggplant and cut into 1/4 inch slices, removing any large seed deposits. Cut the pepper into quarters, and remove the core, ribs, and seeds. Place each pepper quarter on cutting board and flatten with the palm of your hand.
Brush both sides of each veggie slice with olive oil. Grill over medium heat or coals, flipping once, until the veggies are tender.
Spread both sides of bread or inside of roll with the pesto. Layer the grilled veggies on bottom piece, and top with tomato slices and cheese. You can alternately put the top piece of bread or roll on and put the whole sandwich on the warming rack of your grill, or leave the top off and put open-faced under a broiler for a minute or two to melt the cheese(s), and then top with bread or roll piece when removed.
Up and Coming:
If there is any questions or subjects you
would like us to cover, please email us at amity@sproutinguporganically.com
and then look for it in future newsletters!