5/16/21 I found the Garlic Chives

 Raised Bed Gardening in Arkansas

     I was really surprised with how well the Garlic Chives have survived.  They were being strangled by the Bermuda Grass and shaded over by the rest of the tall weeds, but they were still in there ... somewhere.   

     It took a little bit of work to dig it out, but once I got the bed (an old truck tire) defined, I was able to start removing the weeds in the Garlic Chives themselves.  They are easy to tell from all the weeds because of their dark green color, their wide and thick blades, and the base is white and round, like an onion.  This variety doesn't have a bulb on the bottom like the traditional Onion Chives.  They have a thick mat of interconnected roots and spread from under the ground.  When they get too clustered and root-bound to grow very well, then you just dig them up and cut the root mat into bite-sized chunks and replant them.  Give them a little space between the new plants ... like at least a few inches.  You can take the extra and plant it somewhere else, or give it to your friends for their own gardens.  It lets the roots have room to expand and reach new and uncharted territory, and the plant starts all over again.

     The next part was to do what is necessary to get them to grow again.  I had to give them a haircut.  In just about every plant, there is an ingrained survival instinct that causes them to shift from just hanging out to growth mode if they get a haircut.  I think my own hair works like that too.

     Consider it a harvest.  These blades that were cut off went into the bucket that was going to the kitchen.  I wanted to leave enough top to give it something to grow on, but I needed to cut it back enough to see what I was dealing with too.

     After the weeding and the haircut, it was time for the addition of the new compost.  I added a couple inches of new friable and crumbly organic compost that I found clogging up my culverts that lead under the fence from the pasture where I feed the cows.  The stuff that flows down the rainwater runoff from my field, is a well-composted organic matrix that is light enough to be picked up by the water where the sand and clay will usually drop out before it gets there.  This compost could be considered a very fertile "Forest Loam", but is loaded with the fresher material that the cows leave in beautiful brown piles scattered across the fruited plain.  It's a veritable smorgasbord of yummy stuff that the plants really seem to love.  I don't think it's quite ready for human consumption though ... it might need to be run through the filter of a plant's roots before I want it to go in my own mouth ... just sayin'.

  

     This bed looks like it's going to be just fine.  With the way the weather is warming up here in Arkansas, there should be an explosion of new growth in no time.  The cage over the top of the bed is mainly used to keep the dogs out.  Dogs just love to dig in dirt that is fresh and loose.  They also want to help you do whatever you are doing.  "Oooh ... Daddy's digging ... I wanna help ... I wanna help!" they say as they are getting right in the way and try to slap their tongues right in your face.

     Now what happened to that bucket of Garlic Chives?  Oh yeah, it went to the kitchen.  I cleaned the blades in the sink, and removed any weeds that were still hiding among the blades of Garlic Chives.  I snapped off the yellow leaves, and any of them that didn't look as palatable.  Then I loaded all of them into the dehydrator.  I filled 5 trays just with this one cutting.  When they are dehydrating, they give the whole house a smell that is reminiscent of buttery garlic, but there is a hint of another scent that is almost like a mild cabbage that was cooked earlier in the day.  I've always loved coming in when something new is cooking or drying.  I've always loved to eat too.

        Garlic Chives are a really tasty addition to just about any meal.  They are light and easy to add, especially when they are chopped up really fine.  Dehydrated, they have a buttery-garlicy flavor that is mild and sweet (wonderful as a topping to anything needing just a little garlic flavor with the added visual of the tiny green flakes).  If they are fresh, they have a sharper garlic flavor that is still milder than regular garlic.

     I found out that they also freeze really well in their blade form.  When you want to add some fresh Garlic Chives to a recipe, just get them out of the freezer bag and use a pair of scissors to snip off what you want and just put the rest back.  They work out really well as additions to soups and I have this really cool Americanized French Onion soup that I like to make with all the stuff that grows around here.

     In a Pesto, they add a strong and potent flavor that perks up dips, side dishes, and gives a cool garlicy explosion to even a tiny taste (much more than just the blades themselves).  They do tend to add that long-lasting garlic addition to your breath though.  It might even be enough to keep the Vampires away ... I mean if you just happen to be living in an area with a larger than normal Vampire population.

     I ended up with a little more than a pint of dehydrated Garlic Chives with this first haircut, and it will stay usable for at least a couple of years.  They store easily in any kind of container that can be sealed to keep out the humidity.  I store them in canning jars and put a folded up paper towel in the top to act as a desiccant.  They can also be stored in a zip-loc bag with a paper towel in there too.  For longer term storage, they can be sealed in a vacuum sealer with a paper towel in them and kept in the freezer for several years.

     I think I'm going to have some with my scrambled eggs that the chickens left for me, and asparagus this morning.  Now, what can I dig out of this jungle next?

... Duane

 5/9/21  Subject:  The Next Step

     So where do we start?  What's the next step?  Crap ... what's the first step?  That was a big question, considering the monumental nature of the task in front of us.  My wife and I decided that it be best to start with what needed the attention the most.  Now that sounds pretty simple, at first glance, but there were a lot of things that really needed attention.

     We’ve always had a garden that mixed both perennial garden plants as well as annual plants.  The annuals didn’t really matter yet, because we hadn’t planted anything.  So at least that narrowed down the number of beds that could possibly be in the running for needing the attention first.

     The Concord Grapes and Golden Muscadines both needed to be trimmed back to the trellis.  The Elephant Garlic needed to be cleared out.  The Scallions were probably in there somewhere.  There was a planting of Oregano that would need to be cared for.  The Raspberries hadn’t seen any care in several seasons.  A bed of Bamboo that I was growing to establish a bunch of it else ware on the property had grown at least fifteen feet out of the bed.  A couple beds of Kiwi Grapes would need to be looked at, especially after that late freeze just to see if they were still alive.

     We decided to dig out the bed of Asparagus first.  The reasons for this is that Asparagus is probably the first summer plant that comes out of the soil in the spring.  I didn’t know if any of it was still alive in there, but it was worth a shot to work up that bed first.  So there I was, armed with my gloves to protect my hands, a feed sack to keep most of the mud off of my knees, and a Thermacell to keep away the mosquitos, and I started getting the weeds out of the Asparagus bed.  Actually, I was astonished when I found how much of it was still producing, even after all this time.  I'm pretty sure that I even wasted a few as I was doing the deed, and they ended up in the pile of weeds and waste material going to the critters.

  

       A few seasons ago, this was a well-established bed, so we got really lucky with this one.  It looks like it is still able to keep us in fresh spears already.  Asparagus is one of those garden plants that will produce over the course of your whole life.  I think that each plant has about a thirty-year life span, and it takes several years to even start producing.  Kind of like a fruit tree.  Normally, if you want to establish a new bed of Asparagus, you would be doing yourself a massive favor by buying five-year old root stock to start with.  That way you can start getting some snackables during the second season.

     If you start it from seed, a plant will be a wispy little fern that looks a lot like Dill, but it grows a larger root over time and begins to make some pretty massive plants.  By massive, I'm talking about a tall fern that gets at least eight feet tall and can spread over a four foot wide area.  I think some of these plants came up from whatever seeds dropped at the end of the summer either last year, or maybe the year before.  Here’s what they look like if they start from seed.

      A mature Asparagus plant is really something to see, if you’ve never seen one before.  Where you can buy a bunch of “kind of” fresh Asparagus in a grocery store, usually they are soft and pliable and almost rubbery in texture.  They are rarely even offered in stores around where I live that are much bigger than a pencil in diameter.  If you have a well-established planting of Asparagus, some of those puppies come up out of the ground as big around as a quarter.  They’re never rubbery either.  They snap, and are crisp when you bite them.

     Fresh Asparagus has a flavor that is similar to both fresh green peas and fresh green peanuts that haven’t been cured yet.  Ours hardly ever used to make it to the house.  It was always like one of those things that was a snack as you worked in the garden.  They were a treat, they were a reward, and it was first come - first served.

     To harvest an Asparagus spear, about the best way is to cut it at about a half inch below the surface of the ground when it gets about eight inches high.  You can use a knife or a pair of scissors, and just snip it right off.  What this does, is to cause the plant to say, “Hey … somebody stole my baby.”  It makes the plant get anxious about reproducing and it will immediately go into growth mode to get another spear out of the ground as fast as possible.

     The spears themselves are good to eat across their entire length, just wash them first.  If you forgot to check them, or got too busy to cut them one day, they might be taller than you would like, but still cut it off at the same place.  Sometimes the longer stems will get tougher as they get taller, but this is easy to get past.

     Lay the spear on a plate or cutting surface and, starting at the base, begin to gently push a knife against it.  Work your way up the stem about a quarter of an inch at a time until the knife snaps through.  It's good from that point to the top of the spear.  The part that didn’t cut easily becomes fibrous and pithy in your mouth.  It might still have the same nutritional matrix, but a mouth full of fibers isn’t a very good feeling.  It’s like trying to eat string-beans that haven’t had the strings pulled off.

     We’ve taken all of the stalks in this bed down to the ground to make the bed start over again.  I ended up with enough edible Asparagus to add to my breakfast eggs for the next week … yum.  By allowing the sunshine to reach the soil now, we hope to have a bunch more to eat pretty soon.  Asparagus loves the sunshine.  I’ll keep you posted on how it produces in the coming weeks.

     After cutting all of the stalks, I took a hand-held cultivator and removed all the weed roots at the surface level, down to about two inches.  The root crowns of Asparagus are usually about four inches deep, so what this does is allows the plant to easily break through the fresh ground to put those tasty spears in the sunlight again, without having to compete with other plants for the space.

     After cultivating the surface, a layer of our own fresh compost helps to rejuvenate the bed by adding nutrients and fertilizer that will leach down to the root crown every time the bed is watered.  This also helps to keep any weeds from getting a good start because any seeds that are active down in the soil will get a blast of fertilizer and shoot up without giving them a chance to establish a good root system.  Spindly fast-growing weeds are easy-to-pull weeds.

 

     The only pest that I’ve ever noticed on the Asparagus is the Green-Horned Tomato Worm.  They don’t do nearly as much damage to Asparagus as they can to a tomato plant.  They are easy to see on the thin stalks too.  Since they only seem to go after adult plants, your tasty spears are never affected.  You’ll only see them at the end of the season as you allow a few stalks to grow to give the plant a chance to go through its entire growth cycle.  This seems to keep them happy and producing.

     One note about Asparagus … there are certain people that have a mild allergic reaction to fresh and uncooked Asparagus.  I’ve never met any of them, but the Internet says they’re out there.  The cooking process is believed to eliminate many of the side effects.  I tend to eat fresh Asparagus, cooked Asparagus, and even eat the tiny red seed balls that grow on the ferns at the end of the season.  They are about the size of a pencil erasure and have the same flavor as the spears.  The only side effect I notice is my pee gets really strong smelling.  That's not a big deal, because I usually don't leave my pee around for others to have to smell it anyway.

     Ok … what’s next in getting this garden going again?  Maybe I’ll clean out the Garlic Chives.

… Duane

Rejoining the World of Gardening

Raised Bed Gardening in Arkansas

5/2/2021  Subject:  Where Do We Start?

     First, I need to apologize for starting up this blog, and then just disappearing from the world back in 2013.  I know that even though these meanderings never did hit the mainstream, there were still several people that were already looking forward to the new information that I could provide, and I dropped the ball, and left people hanging.

     I could tell you stories about the dimensional portal that sucked me in and it took me this long to find my way back.  Or I could make up something about an alien abduction, where they kept me strapped to a table as they did all their nefarious probing.  Or I could just say, "I'm sorry guys ... I thought I was up to the task, but life threw me a screwball, I took the out, and I'll try to do better in the future."  With that said, I'm starting this thing up again, and I hope I can get all of you to join me again and put your hands in the dirt, and see just how special the world of gardening can be.

     The remains of my poor garden is just sitting out there, unkempt, unworked, and overgrown.  Looking at the task ahead, it's like an insurmountable range of mountains ahead.  No path forward is in sight, it all looks like a jungle from here.  The wooden borders on the beds are lost in the jungle of grasses and weeds that have taken them over, and many of them are rotted to the point where they can't hold the dirt in anymore.

     In my mind, I hear the crunching and munching of bugs eating the wood, and there are nests of ants, like prairie-dog mounds, where the little buggers have piled up their boring residue in giant piles of waste material.  The fencing was torn up a few seasons ago when an army of Viking Cows came up the coast and pillaged the entire area (I know they were Vikings because they had horns on their heads).

     Here's what it looks like now:

     I've got the picture of my mom sitting on the mantle, and it reminds me that no matter how big the task is, there is nothing that we can't do.  She has always been my inspiration and my guide.  My mom is the little girl in the middle, between her two older sisters.  You can just see the orneriness on her face.  We lost both of my parents a few years ago, but Mom sits up there on the shelf to say hi to me when I come in.

     Humans are the strangest species in existence.  Where other creatures struggle to survive and attempt to adapt to the everchanging and hostile environment (and many times fall to the wayside of evolution in the process), people reach out with their opposable thumbs, and their tools, and their intelligence (and most importantly, their desire) and mold their environment to fit their needs.

     I don't think that we ever really live in harmony with the world around us.  We can, we have the ability to, but what we almost always do instead is to force the world to become what we want.  I guess there's a happy medium between nature and human habitation somewhere in the mix, we just don't usually get to that place.

     So here's to molding the world and creating our own niche in the middle of all of it.  Here's to asking Gaia (the Mother and Spirit of the Earth) to bless our efforts at semi-harmonious co-existence and asking God to give us the strength to climb that mountain ahead.  It's just a mountain after all.  One foot in front of the other, one step forward at a time.  Each thing that we accomplish is another goal reached, and our path widens as we move into our future.

     Come with me as I bring my gardening world back to a point where I can sit with my little woman in our yard chairs, right in the middle of that jungle.  We'll sip on our cool drinks of choice, and marvel at how precious life is, and how blessed we are for being able to share all of it together.  Join with me in bringing my garden back from the brink of extinction.  Use the trials and issues that I work through to assist you in your own journey, and watch as the insurmountable mountain becomes just another bump in the rearview mirror of life.

     On the next post, we'll start to carve out the garden that is waiting in the jungle.  It's like a wood carving.  To get what you see in there, just cut away everything that doesn't match the image in your mind.

... Duane

4-9-13 Establishing New Garden Beds

Establishing New Garden Beds 

     Ask a million gardeners and you will probably get about a million different processes or techniques to make a garden bed.  I’ll show you what I do … it may not be the easiest … it may not be the best … but it sure does pay off in my garden.

     When you get started in gardening, you will come across many new ways of doing things that you haven’t thought of before.  You will come across many “gee-whiz” gadgets, cool looking yard ornaments, hanging paraphernalia, and all kinds of stuff made from junk around the yard.  I have tried a whole bunch of different techniques and what I am going to show you are the techiniques that work better for me and my garden than anything else I have tried. 

     The first step in establishing a new bed is to select the site.  You should be looking for an area that gets the amount of sunlight that you will need for the type of plants you wish to grow.  For most garden vegetables here in Arkansas, you will want an area that gets sun for most of the day, and gets a bit of shade in the later part of the afternoon.  The reason you want shade in the afternoon, is because the heat of the sun during the Arkansas summer, is pretty intense and will dry your plants out when the summer is the hottest.  Shade in the afternoon will allow your plants to have a little reprieve from the heat and by watering in the afternoons, they will even give you some new growth and production when plants in the hot sun will still be trying to survive.

     The area you select needs to be accessible, it needs to be in close proximity to a water source, it needs to be out of the path of animals (dogs, deer, rabbits … etc), and it should be in a location that is near enough to where you live so you don’t have to make it an excursion just to go to your garden. 

     The size of the bed is the next thing that should be on your list.  You want to be able to work a complete bed from all angles without giving your back too much of a workout.  I have found that if my bed width is over about three feet, then I have difficulty reaching comfortably into the center of the bed.  If you do not want to compact your soil in the bed, then you should be able to reach to the center of the bed without having to support yourself from an outstretched hand placed in the soil.

     I have also found that by limiting the length of the bed, it makes it easier to move around to all sides of the bed for working, for watering, for moving compost … etc.  I choose to make my beds the length of the landscaping timbers that I use as my bedding sides.  A different length may suit your needs better, but the 8’ x 3’ bed has become the staple of my garden because of all the benefits it provides. 

     Bedding sides can be made using just about anything (rocks, bricks, boards, plastic materials … etc).  I choose to use landscape timbers.  They hold up fairly well in some pretty toxic environments.  My compost is very active and eats just about anything that is not made of stainless steel.  The landscape timbers will last from about 6-12 years for my uses with direct contact with the soil and are relatively cheap, fairly easy to work with, easy to replace when necessary, and look good in the garden. 

Here is the way I make my beds ...

Pick and clean the new spot

Materials needed for two new 8' x 3' beds:  12 ea 8' landscape timbers; 24 ea pieces of 7/16" rebar

 Cut and drill landscape timbers:  4 @ 8' or 96" (1/2" holes at 2 and 6") , 4 @ 88" (holes at 2"), 4 @ 44" (holes at 2 and 6"), 4 @ 36" (holes at 2")

Lay out the frames and stakes

You will need 3 ea 12" stakes at each corner

Stack and align timbers before staking it down

After beds are staked down, it's time to dig

Dig down the depth of the blade on the shovel and turn over all dirt

Remove all rocks and roots you find while turning the dirt over

 

     I usually give it a few days before busting all the clods up to allow it to dry out a bit.  After that I will fully mix the soil in the bed, level it out and add a wheel-barrow of good compost to the top.  When I am ready to plant, I will mix in the compost to the depth of the roots of the plants I plan to grow in the new beds.  It is now ready to plant  :-)  

 

Went with peppers in the new beds.  Peppers are very hardy and do not require as much in the way of nutrients as some other garden plants.  Here are some Sangria (ornamental peppers), Yummy Snacking (mini bells), Pimiento, Jalapeno, Anaheim (green chile), Mexi Bells, Fahita Bells, Poblano Ancho ... and a Sweet 100 tomato for good measure

 

Like I said, ask a million people ... the important thing is to have fun with it. 

... Duane

4-2-13 Putting the beds to sleep for the winter

A look at the garden at the end of December 2012

Little garden

                                                                       Little garden

                                                            Though now you lay to rest

                                                   Compost leaching with each gentle rain

                                                   So in the spring you will show your best

                                                       I feel you bunching ‘neath the soil

                                                              Stretching … soon to rise

                                                    When skies of gray turn blue and warm

                                                             And winter northward flies

                                                         You always bring to me a smile

                                                                Each time I check anew

                                                     For start of growth and budding green

                                                            For all you give … thank you.

                                                             Duane Clancy  2013-01-09

Hey guys!

     I know it’s been a long time since the last post.  Bad … bad Duane!  Life seems to run it’s own course and tends to leave many things by the wayside.  The garden did very well in the 2012 season despite the hot, dry conditions.  I guess we must be doing something right after all.

     I started writing this in the late fall but got a little distracted by the world and life and family and finances … nothing that stopped our processes, but I was side-tracked enough to cut way-way back on the writing.  Anyway, here’s the post-post-season post.

Putting the beds to sleep for the winter

     There are many people that believe that once the growing season is over, then gardening is done for the year.  I tend to be one of those “all year” gardeners though.  There are many perennial plants in the garden that will need some attention through the winter, and the off season is the best time to establish nutrients in your beds for the explosion of growth in the spring.

     As soon as a bed is harvested, the bed needs to be turned over and broken up again.  This allows you to see what is happening in your dirt at the root level and you can see and eliminate any pupa stages of moths and any grubs and cut-worms that are sneaking around in your soil.

     This is also the best time to ensure that all weed roots are removed from the soil.  It doesn’t take rhizome grasses very long to establish a foothold and with the depth of fertile soil in the beds, those pesky roots can send out runners pretty deep.

     After the bed is broken up and leveled again, this is a wonderful time to add a topping of compost.  A topping of fertile manure compost will help to keep new weed seeds from getting a start.  Most of the time, when a seed tries to start in too fertile soil, it burns itself out very quickly.  This fertile compost will leach into the soil of the bed over the course of the off season every time it rains, or when a snow melts.  By the time spring gardening season begins, there will be a nice layer of “ready to grow soil” on the top of the beds.

     When you are ready to plant the bed, all you will have to do is to chop in (mix) the top several inches of compost and soil, smooth it out, and plant.  The soil should have everything it will need to assist the new seeds and transplants in getting a great start without having to compete with anything that is already established in the beds and without having to add any additional fertilizer in the form of new compost.

     Another good thing that happens, using this system, is you will notice the influx of red worms in the soil.  The worms are attracted to the loose fertile soil in the bed and the fertile compost calls them in and gives them food and a warmer place to stay over the winter.  The drainage in the soil helps the worms to survive and thrive without drowning.

     Worm castings (worm poop) is the most “plant ready” form of fertilizer known.  By giving them a place to thrive over the winter, you are developing an eco-system in your soil that will do more for your spring garden than anything else you can do.

     The worms will burrow tunnels deep into the soil and allow for better drainage as well as allowing more air into the soil.  They also help keep the soil looser for the development of a larger array of plant roots.  A plant can only grow to a size that can be supported by it’s roots … by helping your soil and roots, you will get a wonderful return of larger, healthier, more prolific, and more productive plants.

     If you didn’t get a chance to do these things in the late fall, it’s still ok to do all these things now … or whenever you get the chance.  By building your soil, you are building your future garden.  Anything you can do now to make your soil better will help your garden to be better.

Happy Spring!!!  Get dirty ...

… Duane

9-16-12 City water or Rain water (Mother knows best)

Rainwater versus City water (Mother knows best)

Pictures are of my wife ... cause I'm holding the camera  :-)

Bed of okra ... notice the thickness of the stalk

Greenbeans ... just starting to put on beans

Jalapeno peppers ... still loaded in Sept

Tomatoes ... still active and about 9' tall after the hottest and dryest season on record.

Corn ... producing at the end of the season

     Have you ever noticed the explosion of new growth and size difference in the fruits from your garden after a nice long soaking rain?  Here you are … watering everyday … trying to keep your plants healthy and growing … but you don’t have a well so you have to use that ol’ supplied water that comes from where-ever in your county they send it from.  The plants are living, but they just don’t perk the way you would like them to.  Then you get a nice rain and they just come to life … instant growth and the fruits double in size over night.

     You’ve got to know that the water that comes in the pipes is just loaded with chemicals including:  Chlorine, Fluorine, Fluoride, Formaldehydes, Methane, added salts ... and the list goes on.  How many of these do you think are actually good for your garden plants?  The chemical make-up in your city/county supplied water is actually toxic to both you and your plants.  If you don’t have any other means of watering your plants, then you really don’t have any other choice but to use supplied water … without water, your garden will die.  But if you have access to ground water that has not been contaminated by industrial run-off, industrial dumping, or mass production of meat or crops and the problems that come with them … then a natural source of water will always be better than water that is supplied.

     Mother Nature is very good at taking care of herself and her children.  A long soaking rain has very many nutrients and things that your plants need that have been locked up in the atmosphere.  They are just waiting for that water in the atmosphere to collect itself and fall as rain to feed it to your yard and garden.  The water in ponds, streams, and wells many times has these same naturally occurring and beneficial elements in them as well.  Many times man-made or man-concentrated substances can leach or run-off into these as well so it’s always a good idea to check them out by sending a sample to your county extension office for assessment before using it on your garden.

     Areas with a lot of atmospheric dumping of smoke and gasses from industry also may have many bad chemicals that can come in the rain as well … maybe the old saying is true … we (human-kind) really are a virus on this planet.  But, since I am a member of a growing viral strain of humanity that would like to see a return to simpler times … there are things that you can do to stack the deck in your favor when it comes to limiting the concentrations of bad chemicals from building up in your body.

     It is a well-known fact that organically grown fruits and veggies are going to be better for your body in the long run than those grown in an environment where pesticides, fungicides, chemical fertilizers, and who-knows what-else are added to the mix.  There have been recent studies that show that organically grown fruits and veggies may not be any more nutritious … but they will be much better for your body because they don’t have all those man-made and supplied chemicals, carcinogens, and DNA enhanced strains of “whatever” that the scientific community still has no clues as to the long-range effects on human physiology (or environmental concerns).  Many times they do know the results … they are just willing to overlook them due to the financial incentives offered them from the government and corporations.

     A simple example of environmental impact would be the applications of too much fertilizer being added to hay fields to increase the grass productions.  Yep … more fertilizer makes more grass.  But the soil is depleted because the extra fertilizer kills all the other things in the soil that keep it healthy, the streams and ponds downhill receiving the run-off water are destroyed as eco-systems because the increased fertilizer allows specific vegetation to grow that thrives on the fertilizer and starves the naturally occurring life of both nutrients and oxygen.

     We had a pond do this in the late 70’s due to a neighbor applying chicken house litter to his pastures.  The pond was taken over by a green algae that killed all the other vegetation and killed all the fish.  It took about 15 years for the pond to come back after the neighbor stopped applying the litter to his field.  We also had to bring in carp to eat the algae, ducks and geese to eat the algae, block off the pond from use to the cattle, and restock the pond with fish in order for it to naturalize again.

     Sure would have been easier and cheaper for the neighbor to use better soil management techniques, and pasture rotation techniques.  If he had done this instead of using the “instant gratification” of more grass right now, then his pastures would have grown better every season, would have been healthier each season than the last, and there would have been no down-stream contamination effects to his farming operations.  After he gave it up on the pastures because the litter was costing too much when the pasture kept getting worse, and after we had 15 years of cleaning up the down-stream mess created by his techniques … the pastures he had are still poor.

     These same types of things are done very often in simple home gardens.  Use of pesticides kills bugs … but at what cost?  About 90 percent of the insects in your garden are not there to harm it.  Many times they take care of or keep in check the populations of the bugs that harm your garden.  Use of pesticides causes the propagation percentage of your crops to become less because the bugs and critters that assist in propagation are killed off or run off.  Use of pesticides many times kills the creatures in the soil that keep your plant roots healthy, kills the toads and birds that eat the bad bugs, kills the spiders and wasps that get rid of the bad bugs, gives you generations of health problems due to unnatural chemicals in your body’s cells that are passed on to your children and their children.

     It seems to make much more sense to me to use techniques of gardening that build the soil, make plants more healthy, make the garden eco-system more healthy, and make the future for our children more healthy.  If you don’t have a choice on where your water comes from when keeping your garden alive, at least be aware that there are many times more healthy alternatives.  I believe that we are here on this planet as caretakers.  The right thing is always the right thing … it may not be the easiest thing, or the fastest thing … but if we want our children and their children to be able to reap the benefits of this planet then some thought always should be to where our future will be if we continue to use techniques of instant gratification.

     Thanks for allowing me to vent.  I realize that I don’t know everything where gardening is concerned, I am willing to learn though.  Most of what I’ve learned is through trial and error … re-invent the wheel … that’s what I’m good at.  But I feel that I do have a healthy garden.  By using techniques that are natural and constructive for the soil, my garden seems to do much better than any I see in my part of the country … and it keeps getting better each season.  I hope those of you who read this will give some thought to our future as well.

     You don’t need a lot of expensive equipment to have a nice productive garden.  You don’t need a bunch of hazardous chemicals to have a nice garden.  All you need is to give some thought to the health of your soil.  If you will give your garden some love … it will love you back.

Thanks for reading … Duane.

8-31-12 Getting the most from yellow squash

Raised Bed Gardening In Arkansas

 Subject:  Getting The Most From Yellow Squash

     One of my most favorite vegetables from a late summer garden has got to be yellow squash.  It has such a mild flavor and delicate texture that it can be added to very many dishes.  It can be substituted for the pulp of fruit to be added in breads and cakes, it can be cooked down and mashed and used as a potato substitute, it can be heated in a microwave with a little butter, it can be sliced or chunked and breaded for frying … a pretty versatile addition to a summer garden that will yield some pretty big results.

                                   

     The squash plants can be put out or planted anytime the danger of frost is past in the spring and will produce all the way up to the first frost in the fall.  They will be the most active in the heat of the summer months though.  We had the hottest and driest summer on record here this year, and the temperatures stayed or hovered above 100 degrees for three months in a row.  Even this extreme temperature did not kill off the plants, but it did cut way back on the plants ability to make fruit.  When the temperature dropped back a couple weeks ago to the mid 90’s, our yield went from 2-3 squash per day, to 10-12 squash per day from two 3’ x 8’ beds. 
     The plants will tend to wilt in the extreme heat and sun, but if you can water in the evenings it will give the plants enough recovery time throughout the night to come right back all perky in the mornings.  If the temperature stays over 100 degrees, it may help to water in both the morning and in the evenings.

     Yellow squash is fairly easy to determine when it gets ripe in both the straight-neck and crook-neck varieties because the yellow will turn to orange at the stem end.  This orange color is a good sign that the seeds are developing to maturity and it’s time to pick it.  As the temperature rises above 100 degrees the fruit will tend to ripen sooner and will be smaller, but the small ones are just as tasty as the bigger ones (my wife thinks they are better).  As the fruit turns more orange, the skin becomes tougher and may have to be cut off before cooking.  But if you pick them when they are still yellow, then the skin is just as tasty and tender as the pulp.

 

     There are really only two main pests here in Arkansas that take a toll on the squash plants.  These two pests are the squash bug, and the blossom end fungus.
     The squash bug is a longer version of the stink bug and can be difficult to control.  We don’t use any chemicals here, so a daily check under the leaves is the best way to nip them before they become a problem.  The eggs of the squash bug are a white to golden color and are laid in flat clusters on the underside of the plants leaves.  You can pinch out the egg cluster and drop it in a can of water and the remaining leaf will survive.
     The squash bugs are pretty good at hiding and will go to the back side of a stem or leaf when movement is in their vicinity.  One of the best ways I’ve found to flush them out of hiding is to water the plant with a shower type spray.  The bugs really don’t like water and will crawl up the leaf stems and expose themselves to observation.  I just reach out and squash them between my finger and thumb … they are squash bugs after all.  If you are a little squeamish about squashing bugs between your fingers, then a can of water can be kept nearby to drop them in.
     The damage these little stinkers can do is catastrophic to the plant.  The young will eat the leaves and suck the juices from the leaf stems.  The adults suck moisture from the base of the plant itself and you can have a thriving plant one day and the next it can be a wilted dead thing with no chance of recovery, so it is always best to keep a watchful eye on your leaves.

     Where most of your garden plants will do better if you mulch the top of the soil, squash seems to do better if you have a well-drained and fertile soil that you allow the top of the soil to remain dry.  There is a constant threat of blossom end fungus if there is too much humidity at the base of the plant and having a mulch tends to keep more moisture at the plant base as well as giving squash bugs a place to hide.

     Another thing that can help lower the humidity around the plants is to string up the lower leaves of the plants to allow for a better air flow.  A better flow of air around the plant will dry out the blossoms better and assist in keeping the blossom end fungus from getting a start.  Sometimes it will also help to pinch off the wilted blossom from developing fruit before the fungus gets a start.

     All for now … I’ll try to do a little better job at keeping a constant flow of posts here.  I kind of get wrapped up in life.

     Next time … Duane