School Gardens Cultivate A Richness Some Fail To Grasp

Students at Venice High School's Learning Garden tend their plots on a sunny day last term.  The Learning Garden is one of Los Angeles' most successful collaborative school/community gardens in California, turning a one acre eyesore into a learning experience that is trans-generational.  David King is the garden manager (Gardenmaster) and teaches for UCLA Extension's Gardening and Horticulture Program.

In a recent article posted online by The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan opines that gardening as a part of a school curriculum is a waste of time and is, as her article is titled, “Cultivating Failure.” Ms. Flanagan has to do some acrobatics to come up with such a conclusion. She has painted horticulture with a brush that only sees it as manual labor and nothing more.

She loads her descriptions with powerful imagery that leaves one feeling she is hell bent on crushing some kind of sour grapes with her words. One could imagine her next article would be about the efficacy of feeding our students McDonald's and forcing them to stay inside for the entire school day. Her charge that a “recipe is easier to write than a coherent paragraph on The Crucible” evidences an elitist leaning and her evident phobia about science – God forbid that humans should be exposed to science, especially in a way that is real and fundamental to the human experience in, of all places, a school!

First and foremost, I want to call Ms. Flanagan's attention to the very real science involved in gardening, the raising of food and the preparation of food. She is evidently unaware that we all must eat and that culture, as Wendel Berry observed, is built on agriculture. She is obviously deluded by the propaganda that all food cultivation is thankless, back-breaking work for the shallow and uncluttered mind.

I wonder what she thinks of the obesity crises and why it is that just feeding a child a decent breakfast can raise test scores by 10 points (the least expensive way our society can raise those test scores!).  She seems to hold that test scores are the only judge of worth, although she doesn't seem to think that teaching to test scores will not affect other school programs that I trust she does value.

Flanagan has a palpable distaste for that Chez Panisse and Alice Waters that comes across as almost pathological. I have never eaten at Chez Panisse and the people I work with in school gardens all over Los Angeles, don't strike me as the Chez Panisse crowd. Mostly, we are middle/lower class and we are eat a pretty standard fair for our daily meals.

But we eat better than most Americans of all economic strata because we know how to to grow a lot of our own food and we know the value of fresh, wholesomely grown food. The cheap food that Ms. Flanagan sees her poor Mexican protagonist picking as she opens her sorrowful and misguided tale is not the pinnacle of a modern society. It is an eyesore that needs to be remedied. We, as a society and culture, need to come to a place where the growing of food is no longer the counted as the sweat of the ignorant – but the consumption of such food by the affluent ignorant must end as well. Ms. Flanagan's ignorance permeates her entire article and The Atlantic should be ashamed for stooping to such low standards of journalism.

Speaking of 'vacuous,' Ms. Flanagan has no statistics on her side. She quotes one or two folks who tell her that gardens are not on their agenda because they have to get students to score high on those tests. I would argue that the tests are as much an error and a misguided compass as are Ms. Flanagan's conclusions. She bases her conclusions on single instances of school scores (a population of one is not science).

I would argue that no society can be great that has such a disparaging view of agriculture as Ms. Flanagan seems to hold. I would suggest that no nation can be strong if it must import the bulk of its food. I would propose that a nation might have to go to war to insure its continued supply of petroleum from abroad, but such a tactic is doomed to fail if that same nation went to war to guarantee its food supply.

The author's command of science is short and her infatuation with language so bloated that I don't think any serious reading of the article gains a person any understanding of school horticulture and the role it plays or doesn't play in educating children. By her criteria, schools should abandon sports, theater, possibly journalism and any other activity that does not lead to higher test scores. The school must teach the exam and only the exam. With irony, one hears a teacher say to her, “I'm sorry Ms. Flanagan, we don't have time to teach The Crucible, it's not on the standardized exit exam.” I leave it to the many people she didn't quote, the people that heaped all those awards on Alice Waters to know what might be a better path to a well-educated high school student. Ms. Flanagan doesn't exactly have a record of school curriculum advances of her own.

I imagine she is capable of writing diatribes with the intent of provoking, but not actually doing anything. I ascribe to her all the depth of a political pundit who can only tear down the opposition but offers nothing of substance in return. I find her writing lively and lovely, but as shallow as a witty socialite who might declare, “Let them eat cake!”

That the California school system is broken and needs repair, a conclusion that cannot be refuted, cannot be honestly laid at the roots of school gardens.  That there needs to be a fundamental overhaul of our schools is obvious in many different ways beyond that exit exam.  Unlike Ms. Flanagan, however, I would argue that school gardens are the beacon of a new light that can shine throughout the school system. School gardens could become the beginning of a fresh approach to education that involves students in a learning atmosphere that is compelling and elemental.

It's entirely possible that we won't need farmers for the next sixty years (though I doubt it). Of course, because we all must eat, that food has to come from somewhere. A civilization as divorced from the food chain as Ms. Flanagan appears to be, is a disaster on the verge of crumbling.

This myopia cannot prevail.

david

Invasion of the GMO Frankenfood

Found on You Tube, from the imagination of Larry Leptin, a funny animated film provides seven minutes and 27 seconds of fun with the threat of GMO's in our food supply.  Though a light treatment, it provides a person with 'food for thought' as one of the characters learns, "GMO mutated food really is everywhere..."  Thanks to Facebook friend Sharyn Divavox for the link.  


david

It's Time To Stand Up And Be Counted Or Become Genetically Modified

 Corn from The Learning Garden shows remarkable genetic variation from one planting.  This genetic variation not only looks cool, but could provide the basis for important new corn varieties that might be needed in the coming global-climate-change decades.  We cannot risk ruining the living material that makes these colorful kernels.

I have a million things I need to do and I'm not really keen on sitting here and pounding out another blog post on Monsanto, but I'm deeply troubled and it's a trouble, like a bad back, that has kept brewing for a few years. It's way past time for us as a nation and as a society to come to terms with Monsanto; a company that has troubled me often in the past, and, in these past few days, there seems to be a harmonic convergence of information and news about Monsanto. Or would that be a 'disharmonic' convergence. Perhaps 'cacophony' would serve better...

In 2004, I took a trip to Kansas to Wes Jackson's Land Institute, a science based program to create perennial food crops that can grow and not harm the prairie's of the mid-West that modern farming has decimated (together lets all say 'dust bowl' read Timothy Egen's book, The Worst Hard Time for a vivid – and chilling – description of that decade long phenomena). The keynote speaker that year was the award-winning journalist Michael Pollan whose books I have reviewed, recommended and loved. And while I knew Wes Jackson (Becoming Native To This Place, a marvelous book that shaped me profoundly in the early 1990's) and others, one man was an unknown.

When I begin to describe Percy Schmeiser, tears well up in my eyes because no man in the civilized world should have to live the hell he lived, losing his farm and his livelihood in Monsanto's race to becoming Forbes magazine's 'company of the year' in a recent issue.

Schmeiser's fields, where he had been saving his own seed for over 20 years, became contaminated with Monsanto's Roundup Ready canola. Monsanto representatives trespassed onto his land, took samples of the plants and deemed that he was in violation of their patent (you can patent life nowadays, did you know that? One of Monsanto's most notorious avenues to get to be top dog in the seed business) and sued him for all he was worth – and in this case, that isn't just an expression. Mr Schmeiser had to file bankruptcy and lost everything he owned, including his farm, in the legal battle to protect his name and try to strike a blow for what he believed to be right.  (Up to date information was broadcast today by National Public Radio's 'All Things Considered' for further indictment of Monsanto's business practice in the farming world.)

This Monsanto campaign is well known in farming circles and has been documented in several films that have shown the disturbing tendency of Monsanto to sue the pants off anyone who doesn't play their game. Farmers who did not plant Monsanto seed are being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement if they don't pay onerous indemnity to Monsanto for their 'violations.' There are two salient points to this problem. The first I alluded to above in that Monsanto was able to patent their seeds, when US Patent Law was changed in the 1950's. Seeds are living things. They are not bowling balls or transistors or weed killers. They are life. No other country in history has ever granted patents for life itself. I can't put my finger on it, but my gut says 'this is WRONG.'

The other salient fact is that these plants are WIND pollinated. That means, a good gust of wind from your neighbor's farm could send pollen into your field, and even though you did not plant Monsanto seeds, the seeds your plants produce would have the telltale genetic markers for a Monsanto product. As reported in a research article in Euphytica, “Oilseed rape pollen has greater capacity for long-range dispersal than had been suggested by small-scale field trials. “ (Canola is the consumer word for the brassica plant that is otherwise called 'rapeseed.' Most of the rape seed oil is produced in Canada and so the name Canola was invented to make the oil more palatable to consumer sensibilities.)

I have often thought that Monsanto was cunningly astute in working with wind pollinated plants. They could contaminate much larger areas with their technology and, after the fact, announce that it was now impossible to retract the genie, “oh oops... look what we did!” Of course, the genie is not retractable and that is precisely why this is UNPROVEN technology. The twenty year trial to see what will really happen on down the road is happening now; in our stomachs, in our fields, on our children's immune systems and in the ecology of the entire planet. Never before (like the patenting of life itself), has the world been provided with such forbidding possibility of a disaster wrecking so many different facets of our lives. Monsanto's genetically modified corn was found in the wilds of Mexico. Monsanto hadn't planted it there – how did it get there? And worse, how much of that rich genetic material that is the heritage of all people who love corn was contaminated? What is the effect of rampant genetically modified pollen in the wild environment? What will happen (over generations) to the corn races of Mexico, the birth place of corn and home to the widest variation of wild genetic 'bloodlines' of corn from which we might need to draw in a future world facing global climate change or other disasters that are just bad 'business decisions' today?

What if this technology eventually is proven to kill off all the butterflies? Or the bees? Remember that it took over two decades to understand that DDT was killing off the eagle and other birds. What if this technology is the cause of immune system problems that take more time to understand? We won't know this until it's too late and Monsanto's directors have made a killing (would that be a 'too-appropriate' word?) in profits by ruining lives, ecologies and societies?

In fact, there is evidence that Roundup kills more than weeds. That is the very title of an article in the January 2010 issue of Mother Earth News. “French researchers have released a series of studies showing that glyphosate-based herbicides are toxic to human reproductive cells.” Over 100 million pounds of glyphosate are in use around the world in 2002 (last year with available numbers – it's surely higher today). (Glyphosate is the chemical name for the active ingredient in Roundup.)

“Most of the food we eat that contains corn or soy was sprayed with glyphosate herbicide, and we’re being exposed to higher and higher levels of residue. In response to petitions from Monsanto, the EPA has approved up to 20-fold increases in the legal residue limits for food crops.” So, you are eating this stuff every day – a lot more if you are eating processed foods, eating in chain restaurants (goodbye Norm's...), fast food or your school cafeteria. Read the article.

Now this might be just the beginning of a lot more disturbing news. Or it might not. But why were we allowed to be the test population for Monsanto's inventions? Monsanto and big Pharma work with the same business model as Union Carbide (remember Bhopal?): Make us the money now because we'll be bankrupt when it's time to clean up our mess. It is tiring to have to face off with people who have the ethics of a rabid dog constantly. But will we just wring our hands and mutter to ourselves?

In my earlier post, I listed companies that are Seminis seed dealers – Seminis is the name of Monsanto's seed business – and I asked everyone to not buy from those companies. Off line I was given a little flack because companies like Johnnies Selected Seeds really does sell a lot of seeds and it can be hard to get some of the old hybrids many of us have come to love (not on my lists of favorites, but F1 hybrids that many home gardeners love, like Big Boy or Early Girl tomatoes) because Seminis has bought up the companies holding the rights to those hybrids. I contend that giving ANY money to Monsanto feeds the giant and is only one of our few tools available to us.

Join the Organic Consumers Association's campaign against Monsanto. Plant open pollinated seeds in your garden (and join Seed Savers Exchange while you are there!) and grow as much of your own food as you can. Go to farmers' markets and ask the farmer what he grows, supporting only those who will look you in the eye and say they aren't growing GMO food. Write Forbes magazine and ask them what the hell were they thinking in making a rapacious and unethical monopolizing Goliath of evil their 'company of the year.'

It would be symbolic, but I have thought that the County of Los Angeles should follow Mendocino County in outlawing the growing of gentically modified organisms. Unfortunately, we have lives to live and I think the most radical thing of all is to grow our own and opt out of the poison-as- solution mentality that has ruined American farmland in these last fifty years.

Last note, because it will come up: We do NOT need Monsanto and it's technology to feed the world. That is a lie and has always been a lie. We do not need Roundup just like we did not need the so-called Green Revolution to feed the world. If this were true, the United States would not have over 10 million hungry people as estimated by a new study from Cornell University and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

david

The Garden in January

Rain on a broccoli, and the photographer and his camera.
We are grateful for the rain - even this so-called 'negligible precipitation.' This year, 2010, is shaping up to be our fourth year of drought.

One of the wonderful things of living in Southern California, this close to the Pacific Ocean is the wonderful mild weather we enjoy. This is both a blessing and a curse. Further inland and on almost all of the North American continent, 'gardening' this time of year means looking in the seed catalogs that have begun to fill your mailbox. If you aren't getting seed catalogs on a regular basis, you haven't been gardening a long time.

One of the truisms I will emphasize will be to garden with passion. For me, gardening means doing it yourself and learning what works and how it works. This time in my garden is exciting. On days it isn't raining, the cool weather makes some of the more strenuous work a little less onerous. So this is the time to think about a general garden cleanup, if you haven't done it already.

It is also still a time to look after perennial food. Right now, I begin to contemplate pruning my fruit trees. I will contemplate this for as long as I can procrastinate actually doing it! If you have no experience at it, do your trees a favor and order a pruning handbook from University of California’s Agricultural and Natural Resources Division (ANR) or purchase a pruning book from a reputable source. Remember that these trees will live a lot longer than a typical pet and we wouldn't treat our cats or dogs with the indifference many people show towards trees. Pruned correctly, an apple, plum or peach will produce luscious tasty fruit for many years. It's actually harder on you (and the tree) to prune incorrectly, so find out how and do it as right as you can in the first place.

This is still the dormant season to purchase deciduous fruit trees, apples, apricots, grapes and ornamentals such as roses and wisteria, to name a couple of my favorites. If you are putting perennial herbs in the ground (sage, rosemary and thyme – parsley is a biennial, with apologies to Paul Simon), this is the best time to put them in the ground – even though you may plant them here year round. Buy your trees or vines from someone who knows where you live in order to insure you are getting plants that will produce for you. A local neighborhood nursery will only carry plants that will do well in your climate whereas a big box store will carry things that are more likely to grow over a much wider area. You'll also find the selection at most big box stores to be woefully short and the staff indifferent at best to your needs.

Mail order suppliers are excellent venues for purchasing trees. One of my best finds was from a mail order nursery. I called and talked to one of the staff asking a few questions. There is no replacement for a person with knowledge. Based on where I was gardening, he suggested I grow Dorsett Golden apples. I took his suggestion and I have been blessed with year after year of a delicious, sweet and crisp apple that has wowed visitors to my garden ever since.

When I prune the deciduous stone fruit trees (including peaches, apricots, plums and apples,) if I have had problems with insects in the trees, I finish the job by spraying the trees with dormant oil. Of all the pesticides, this pesticide, with it’s low toxicity to mammals and its 100% effectiveness on pests is one of the best that is listed for organic gardens. If insect infestations are of concern to you, this is the best time to spray because the tree is dormant, not actually growing. A dormant oil spray can be a valuable addition to controlling many pests in these kinds of trees. However, take precautions if you feel you must spray. Follow the directions of the package very closely – using pesticides in ways not described on the label is against the law and usually defies common sense.

While pesticide labels will allow you to spray in the morning or in the evening, please only spray in the evening. Do NOT spry ANY pesticide in the morning ever. Spraying in the morning can allow the pesticide to kill off honey bees which we do not want – while spraying in the evening will insure the bees have returned to their hive for the night. Organic pesticides are only effective when they are wet and are dry by the morning. Honey bees, which have been having a hard time of it lately, should be one of any gardeners' biggest concerns. Please only spray any insecticide in the evening.

However, if you don't have pests to begin with, please consider not spraying at all. We are counting on our trees for food, so we will want to be proactive in their care, but we also need to be intelligent in our use of killing agents in our environment. Much of the problems we face in our world today are the result of mankind's irreverent use of “-icides” of all types. Somehow, modern man has become convinced that warring with nature is a fight he can win. I believe we are foolish when we spray just because. If you have pests, deal with them as the year goes along – and deal with them in ways that avoids all sprays, all “-icides.” I think we can be a lot more intelligent in our dealings with the critters that compete for our food supply and spraying is just admitting we are too stupid to deal with something in a more positive fashion. This does not mean I NEVER spray. But when I do spray, I do think I've just not figured out a less destructive way to solve the problem. Better people than I have called me stupid so, yes, sometimes I do think I might have done better.

On the other hand, all of your citrus fruit trees are evergreen, so they can technically be pruned at any time of the year, but they are best pruned when there is nothing better to do and the day is not too warm, so the person doing the work doesn’t overheat. You cannot spray citrus with dormant oil sprays because they are never dormant. (Something that is 'evergreen' doesn't go dormant – basically 'evergreen' means, no dormancy.) A recent innovation has been the formulation of lighter oil sprays that are called 'summer oils.' They do the same thing as dormant oils with a much less heavy hand and so can be sprayed when the days are warmer and on trees with living leaves. They work well, perhaps not quite as well as dormant sprays, but they are pretty effective. Their drop in effectiveness might be that they are used on trees with leaves and therefore the spray doesn't reach all the insects rather than any lack of killing power on the part of the spray; I don't know if research has been done to show it one way or the other.

As above, though, if you don't HAVE to spray, please don't. A healthy garden is shared among many critters – insects, birds, fungi, bacteria, mammals and humans. By introducing poison to your garden, you run the risk of killing off more than just your target species. Try to find an intelligent way to solve your problems. Read up on the pest. Find it's enemies and make friends with them. Your garden will be healthier and so will you.

This may be a cold month and, if we are blessed, rainy. But we still have to keep our eyes out for Santa Ana winds – sometimes hot and sometimes cool, but always dry and desiccating to garden plants, and plants in pots suffer all the more. If your skin is crawling and you need more skin cream, or lip goop, you can bet your plants need more moisture too! It’s best to get out there with a hose and help your irrigation system keep up – you’ll enjoy your garden more – the “best fertilizer is the farmer’s shadow.” Still.

Are you ready to think about summer yet? You mean you never stopped thinking about summer? Now is the time the new seed catalogs come rolling in by the truckload and they all have wonderful photos and several hundred new mouth-watering, irresistible new varieties that I must try… all in a 10’ square bed. If you aren’t getting these free catalogs, a quick jaunt through any gardening magazine will net you half a dozen 800 numbers or you can get web addresses from which to order. Once you've ordered from one, next January will be a real treat. I get sometimes three or four a day.

What will it be this year? Eight different sweet peas, half a dozen different lettuce plants? Look at all those tomatoes for sale and how about the dozen different violas from Thompson and Morgan? And if I knock down the neighbor’s garage, I think I could grow some squash and pumpkins….

More in a minute or two...

david

The Garden in December, Part I

Baby beets coming along just like they're supposed to do in the Winter – the garden can snip leaves of some of the plants for salads while leaving the remaining plants to grow big roots – they'll need more space between them, but the discards will make lovely additions to salads. 

Who has time to garden? The days are so short, it’s hard to get out to the garden. As December comes rumbling through your life, make sure you have batteries in your flashlight because, Lord knows, I (and I doubt I'm alone) have done more gardening by flashlight than I want my mental health provider to know! At least, the cooler temperatures (we hope), keep plants from growing too fast.

The main thing is to keep up successive sowings, especially of salad greens, beets and carrots. You might include radishes and other root crops too. You might find yourself picking peas, fava beans, garbanzos, harvesting small heads of cabbage, broccoli, leaves of kale and chard. The more you pick, the more you will get so don't be shy. Pick and give it to friends and neighbors (who will become friends) and find ways to keep the harvest. 
 

I try to sow 3 foot rows frequently rather than longer rows less frequently, unless I am planning on putting a crop up. Pickled beets and pickled beans are easy and a favorite way to keep some of the harvest through the year. I vow I'm going to learn how to pickle carrots like the ones you find in Mexican restaurants, but so far I have no good recipes. Of course, if I grow carrots in the winter and peppers in the summer, how will the two ever get together in a pickled carrot jar? Carrots can keep, but I don't have a place to keep them until the peppers are ready – like most Los Angeles homes and apartments, I do not, as yet, have a root cellar or even a pantry that would do the word justice. So there's a challenge.

For gardeners who have been at it for awhile the catalogs have begun to arrive and with it the challenge to not buy several hundred pounds of lettuce seed or tomato seeds.

I grew up in NE Kansas and all through my childhood, spent winter months with the Burpee catalog. I would read all the descriptions of the vegetables and compare them over and over again. Grandpa, who saved his seed, had no use for 90% of all they sold, so I rarely got to see any of my multitude of lists even purchased let alone grown. Burpee went out of business for a while and had a bumpy few years, now is back, but really is only a shadow of its former self offering a rather paltry selection of seed that usually isn't much for the home gardener. However, many other catalogs (from seed companies or seed savers) have taken up the slack – I've written elsewhere on my favorite catalogs. But how was the year just past?

Of course, in LA, we've got the current winter garden just planted, but for LAST winter, here's some of our results:

Artichoke: I know I'm teasing the rest of the world, but I pay rent in Los Angeles so I figure I'm due my share of teasing. We had a great harvest last year of artichokes – mostly Green Globe Improved. They all produced big beautiful chokes with abandon. We had respectable harvest from Violetto which I love, but it wasn't nearly as productive.

Beets: Burpee's Golden and Chioggia - both are dynamite and steady producers year in and year out and both are usually from Pinetree although I have been known to get seed from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply too.

Broccoli: Nutribud is an OP of respectable performance; earliness is right up there with the hybrids and the size is comparable. As the name suggests, it is reported to have a higher percentage of glutamine. I add in a few plants of Premium Crop or (less often) Bellstar because I hate to rest on one crop, but I really expect most of my broccoli to be Nutribud.

Brussels sprouts: Bubbles was the hybrid we grew – someone had given me a couple of plants. They got whitefly bad and I couldn't see cleaning each little sprout thoroughly enough; although a friend did and sent me back a lovely dish of them (thanks Mary!). Between cabbage and broccoli, I think I get enough of this family to skip Brussels sprouts.

Cabbage: A good year for cabbage for us. We were donated a pointy headed hybrid, whose name has been lost to prosterity, produced huge 10 pound heads and was successful wherever we planted it, but was not any better than Danish Ball Head which is an OP heirloom. Both were huge solid heads and we ate and ate and finally learned how to ferment cabbage to be able to eat it the rest of the year (I still have some and this year's cabbage is in the ground !)

Carrots: I grow Mokum and Yaya, both hybrids. Yaya is the winner, but I can't always find the seed at a good price – I think I have gotten it from Abundant Life Seeds. And while the seed was expensive (by my standards), but it was a sure winner in less than ideal soil. Mokum, from Pinetree, is always a dependable, decent carrot. If you decide to plant some of the different color carrots, you'll be able to grow open pollinated seeds. However, if you have some deep soil (loose down about 18 inches or more) you can try some of the non-hybrids which includes several of the non-orange varieties that have been repopularized recently. In the 1800's, carrots were a number of different colors – it has only been fairly recent that carrots were 'supposed' to be only orange.

Cauliflower: Mark Twain is supposed to have said that 'cauliflower was cabbage that had gone to college' and I can't afford the tuition, so I stick to cabbage. Cabbage is easier to preserve and broccoli will give successive cuttings from one plant. Cauliflower is more work and less results.

Celeriac: First year with this and I like it. I don't grow celery because it's a hard plant to grow and home grown celery has always tasted bitter to me. Celeriac, on the other hand, was easy to grow and produced well. You can't smear a hunk with cream cheese or peanut butter and have the same delightful appetizer, but it does a marvelous ballet in soups. Large Prague was our selection and I've not had experience with anything else.

Chard: (I'm dispensing with the 'Swiss' part, feel free to join me!) We had seed from Seed Savers Exchange of Five Color Silverbeet and seed of Pinetree's Orange Fantasia. Both were incredibly productive – although I've never known chard to be unproductive, so I'm not sure that's saying a lot. Someone gave us a few plants of Sea Foam and that one has spectacular production. Still, I like the red chard more and I think the orange is one helluva show stopper!

Fava beans: Windsor is my favorite and we get pounds of beans from each plant. In fact, I've given up on peas preferring to grow favas, garbanzos and lentils because I don't feel like I get enough to eat from peas.

Garlic: I love Spanish Roja and Music - hardnecks are supposed to not like warm climates, but I have great luck with them. Last year, the crows got to them. They don't eat the garlic, but they pull them out of the ground. After three or four go rounds with this (they pull, I replant), the cloves were hopelessly intermixed so which one was the better producer is anyone's guess. I'm starting with fresh seed garlic this year: Music, Spanish Roja, and Red Toch!

Kale: Redbor works for me. I had some plants of Dwarf Blue, but felt like that was a very stupid idea – same footprint for half the plant. What WAS I thinking?

Leeks: King Richard is my usual dependable producer but last year was a really so-so harvest. I think I ignored it too much.

Lettuce: I'm one of those who can't get through the lettuce section of a seed catalog without ordering four or five more packets! I could supply a large army with lettuce if I were given the land to do it. Marvel of the Four Seasons, Brown Winter, Red Winter, Deer Tongue, Buttercrunch, and on and on and on.

Onions: I buy plants from a local organic farm supply, but they sold out so I had NO onions. Disaster. But usually I grow their Italian Red Torpedo – a delicious onion that is absolutely stellar on the grill. Onions, unlike almost every other veggie we grow is 'day sensitive.' Most onions offered in the States will not bulb in LA because they are 'long day' plants and we need to grow 'short day' varieties. So most folks will not be able to compare to our experience.

Potatoes: We gathered leftovers from bachelor friends (they sprout in the pantry and we just plant them) - I don't know the varieties but we had a good harvest.

Shallots: Wow! I had never grown shallots before, but I have found they are easier to grow than onions and more productive! I planted seed from Pinetree and I was so impressed, I'm back for more! Olympus and Bonilla were both good performers.

All in all, this was one of the very best harvests we have ever had. We put up food, donated several tons to the Westside Food Bank and still ate like kings! It was all that compost, I tell you. The rain wasn't any great shakes (about 10” - less than our normal 12”) and there were several devastating hot spells in November, December and again in January. In fact, the winter garden last year got killed outright by a hard couple of weeks of Santa Ana winds that sent the thermometer soaring into triple digits several times and ruined numerous plantings. Oh, and I can't forget the mouse in the greenhouse that ate all the starts in January. Thank God for a long growing season!

david

Holiday Shopping? Here's Book List for You!

Chard makes a lovely holiday gift, but I tend to give books much more frequently.  Something in these chards (maybe the color?) says "HOLIDAY!" 

 As you make up your holiday gift list, take a look at some of these books, they will make good gifts, raise awareness and you'll be acclaimed a wise person for selecting such an astute gift!  Or by them for yourself and be careful patting yourself on the back.  Following are some selections that I have found fascinating and readable. Next year I hope I'll have one of mine on the list!

A Nation of Farmers by Sharon Astyk et al © 2009 New Society Publishers

Sharon Astyk is one of the premier writers of this decade. She is a sharp, critical thinker, who writes form a personal style and experience. She has her facts and she isn't afraid to use them. In fact, I think the desire to be thoroughly based in reality has lead to a few more facts than I like, the specter of the future this book shows can be the difference between a bleak desperate holocaust scenario, or it can be one of abundance and peace. How we will do that rests in a large way on how we grow the food we eat. A new prospective that is enlightening and thought provoking – if not 'action-provoking.' I read Sharon's blog almost daily because she has a lot of important things to say.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, et al © 2007, Harper Collins
One of the more accessible books on eating locally. While some folks can afford new hybrid cars, and some folks can put up solar collectors and commute by computer, the majority of us will have to take other steps to lower our carbon footprint. The Kingsolver family model how eating is a global statement – what is on the end of your fork has more to do with global warming than the car you drive. Or how fast.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by J. Hertzberg et al © 2007 Thomas Dunne Books

You like fresh bread? Who doesn't? This book gives you a way to come home from work and have freshly baked bread from your own oven with dinner. It is very good bread. I have made loaves of this bread for my class and for many potlucks. It is wolfed down with gusto. This is good bread. This is easy. Do you need another reason?

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan © 2009 Penguin Books
There is nothing written by Micheal Pollan that I have found wanting, but this book is the most powerful force to change lives that he has written. Pulling on the same research that brought us The Omnivores' Dilemma, he brings the lessons to our dinner table. Excoriating the nutritionists and the fads of modern American eating, Pollan is a voice of reason in the insanity of our supermarket abundance of empty (or worse!) calories.

Independence Days by Sharon Astyk © 2009 New Society Publishers

This is the most recent Sharon Astyk to hit the stands. An important book of directions to real independence – independence is not won with a gun or massive buying power, but in being self-sufficient in your food. How do you do that? This is the manual and it makes so much sense. The security we often seek in vain can be found in these pages – we don't need a world undone to need independence – the loss of a job or an injury can force us to face difficult choices. As Katrina showed us in New Orleans, counting on the government might not be our wisest choice.

Oak, The Frame of Civilization by William Bryant Logan © 2005 W. W. Norton & Co.

I know this may seem a little out of place on this list, but I got to admit, Logan's book was one delightful read. Page after page has some new tidbit to teach me and another tale of wonder about these magnificent trees that populate every continent in the Northern Hemisphere. You cannot open this book without learning some little tidbit that will surprise and amaze. This is a well-written and fast paced book of many surprises. I really recommend it.

Renewing America's Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent's Most Endangered Foods, by Gary Paul Nabhan © 2008 Chelsea Green Publishing

Nabhan's research into Native American foods (beans and corn, to name a few) gives him the special insight to understand their value to the world and how we can feed more Americans and the world if we only take some time to enjoy a good meal – if we will save food plants, we must grow them and eat them. Can't think of a tastier preservation project myself, can you? As usual Nabhan's writing is first rate.

The Lost Language of Plants by Stephen Buhner © 2002, Chelsea Green Publishing

If someone you know is into alternative medicine and they have not yet read this book, they are only dimly aware of what they are doing. This book profoundly explores the depth of our disconnection with plants, specifically the healing herbs, and brings a sense of ecology and connectivity to a medical practice that few modern healers are more than slightly aware of. Opens eyes, hearts and calls a thinking person to action.

The Omnivores' Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan © 2007 Penguin Books
How do we get what we eat and does it matter? This is Michale Pollan's quest as he opens the book. Looking at how modern America gets its food from farm to table is a fascinating tale that often discourages one from some of the things we often eat for granted. This is the same research that brought us In Defense of Food although the focus is different. Here Pollan looks at how our modern food has compromised the very essence of food in a never ending race to the lowest bottom line and the lowest selling price. How come sodas are so cheap?

Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine by Gary Paul Nabhan (c) 2008 Shearwater Publishing

Nikolay Vavilov was a Russian scientist who did more seed collecting than any other scientist in the history of mankind. Convinced that diversity was the key to ending starvation by famine, he sought out indigenous plants from expeditions all over the world. Unlike the modern model of filling the world's bellies with food of the First World, he sought out Third World plants and looked to them as being the most important living things on earth. Vavilov died, ironically, in a Soviet prison of starvation, but his legacy overshadows groups like Seed Savers Exchange and other work to preserve the diversity of the world's food.

Do you have books you'd suggest for gifts for others (or for yourself?).  I read a lot and I'm always looking for new titles that need to be better known.   


Happy Holidays!  


david

The Garden In November

I don't need a sign to tell me this is garlic, but I am grateful to tell everyone else it is.  Can a fellow grow too much garlic?  

 I don't think so....

On the coast, our winter plantings can continue right up through March. The only months that are really hard on winter veggies as close to the Pacific as we are in Zone 24 is July through September. In some years, October can be hard to handle too, but this year's one week or so of very hot weather is much more common. It was hard on our lettuce and young plants in the garden, we had to add some extra water by hand. And we did loose a few.

But now, by this time of the year, we ought not have any extended heat spells, the cool weather should be very much ensconced. Now we want to make certain I have a good stock of alliums laid in – my garlic, onions, leeks and shallots all have a place in my heart – and stomach – so I plant a lot of them.

Shallots and garlic can be grown from bulbs, so I will plant them in pots and I crowd all my roses with garlic. Garlic is a good companion plant because, according to folklore at least, it is good at discouraging insects. I’m not sure this is proven yet, but I think the garlic plant itself is worth a look so I love having that upright element in pots as well as in ornamental beds. And you can't really plant enough garlic and shallots. Come to think of it, leeks would serve that purpose just as well.

This year, I am in my second year of planting onions and shallots from seed. Last year, shallots were a whopping success – except I felt completely out of my league when it came to cook them. I felt I had to copy a French accent while cooking with them. The onions ran a distant second, which saddened me – I am much more familiar cooking with onions than shallots. But, I'm trying again.

I have loved to purchase onion plants from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply for several years. They carry several different varieties, but the one I love is Italian Red Torpedo Onions. But for the last two years, I have missed getting plants because they do sell out. So, in revenge, I have sought to start them from seed. The plants you can buy in nurseries are really only baby plants that someone had to start from seed, so someone had to do it. I figure if someone can do it, I just as well ought to be able to do it. It's harder than I thought. The little plants come up looking like grass and seem to take forever. Maybe that's why buying plants is so hot.

Water, hopefully becomes much less of a challenge by this point, although a Santa Ana might come flying through and send everyone scrambling to keep the soil moist around my plants. Mulch. The more the mulch, the less the work. You can mulch pots too – in permanent (more or less) plantings like a rose, caper bush or bay leaf tree.

Mulch is a term that I use a lot, but needs to be defined. Mulch is anything put on top of the soil that interdicts the sun's rays and raindrops (or 'sprinkler-drops') from hitting the soil. It can be rocks, sheets of plastic, or some organic material – even compost.

As a vegetable gardener from way back when, I disdain the non-organic mulches. They can be expensive and they don't do a thing for the soil. Most organic mulches are cheap and many can be found for free. Organic mulches, unlike rocks, plastic or other non-organic mulches, feed the microbes that live in the soil, which improves the soil and adds fertility without a lot of extra expense.

As I plant more of my winter plants, I'll keep adding more compost as mulch around the base of my plants. One thing to take note of as the days get cooler and hopefully wetter, is an explosion of slugs and snails. This is the kind of weather they prefer and they multiply like crazy in it. Because they are migratory creatures, you can never be rid of them completely. If you did manage to clear your garden on Tuesday of all slugs and snails, by Wednesday evening, you have a whole new group on hand that wandered in from the neighbors (or hatched out while you weren't looking).

The only real solution is constant vigilance. I have a friend who walks through her garden with a pail of water with dish soap in it and every snail and slug goes for a swim. Another friend tosses them towards the street. Another crushes them underfoot. (Gardening is not for the squeamish or faint of heart!) I do all three at different times depending on how I feel. You should have seen how I felt to loose four rows of baby lettuce in one night. I never found that culprit, but I have wrecked revenge on every slug and snail I've ever seen since.

Yes, there are predatory snails that feed on the common garden snail, but they are also migratory and seem like a pretty iffy proposition to me. Besides, if they ever did take out your common garden snail and left themselves with nothing to eat (not very likely) then they would turn on your garden as well. Seems like that is a lose lose lose situation. I'll pass.

There are also several products in the marketplace that work and are organic. Es-car-go® and Sluggo® are two products that are organic and safe around pets and other wildlife because the active ingredient is an iron phosphate, a soil component that is lethal to mollusks like snails and slugs.

Still, the least expensive way to deal with them was to kill them directly as mentioned above. I imagine if this makes you queasy now, after some valuable crops or hard work becomes a midnight snack several times, you will find yourself a hardened snail murderer like I am.

This is also THE very time to begin to think about fruit trees. I urge you to think about fruit trees for a while before making the dive because they are a big investment, not so much in money, but in time and patience. Once one has planted a fruit tree, some will take several years to come into full production – if you find the fruit unsatisfactory, or you have a variety that doesn't fruit well for you, all that time is wasted.

Gather as much data as you can in order to choose the tree that is right for you. Here are some sources you will find helpful – I suggest you go online and order the printed catalog because you'll want to cross check facts and types with each different nursery before you commit.

Trees of Antiquity, is the place where we purchased most of our trees here in The Learning Garden. I found them extremely helpful and very knowledgeable. It was they who suggested Dorsett Golden as our apple here and it is truly one of the finds of a lifetime for our area.

Raintree Nursery, invariably is where I place my ongoing orders for my propagation class (that starts in January) because I need rootstocks for the class, but their selection is lovely too and their catalog is worth a read.

My old standby, Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, is a great supplier of trees and fruit bushes, but their selection isn't nearly as complete and their catalog isn't a detailed as these others. Still, if you are already ordering something from Peaceful and they have the variety you want, you can't go wrong with them.

Dave Wilson Nursery has one of the most extensive websites around on fruit trees. It is really worth a good solid look, chock full of data.

The University of California has gotten in on the act with a website, The California Backyard Orchard, that is a wonderful web site for a lot of answers about growing fruit trees in our climate. It also promotes the UC ANR publication, The Home Orchard which I recommend if someone is going to go into this head over heals – like I want to!

After looking through these catalogs, one might have narrowed their purchase down to a few trees. Once you get trees, these following sources are lovely to have in your library:

The Backyard Orchardist: A Complete Guide to Growing Fruit Trees in the Home Garden, Otto, Stella, © 1995 Ottographics This is the oldest book in this list and probably the smallest too, so it isn't as chock full of data as the other two, but then it would be the least expensive as well. Otto covers a lot more, obscure, fruits and so this is a book for the adventurous and those who don't want to spend a lot of money. It is a gem of a book and she does not intimidate the reader.

The Home Orchard, Ingels, C. et al, © 2007, University of California, Agriculture & Natural Resources One of the very best books for learning about the home orchard. Well written, easy to understand, good photos, this one has it all. No shortcuts, I like this book. It is available through the address above (and on sale as of this writing – which means a new edition might be on its way out – because of the sale, it is cheaper from ANR directly than it is from Amazon).

The Organic Apple Grower, Phillips, Michael, © 2005, Chelsea Green Publishing Although written for the New England area of the country, he introduces tools of the trade with a flair and his way of doing things IS organic. Might be one to check out from the library, but you will find plenty of good information and lots of lovely reading about organic apple production. (And his description of finding a flat-head apple borer makes my fulminations over slugs seem very, very tame.)

Some Fruit Varieties That Do Well Here:

Apples -

Dorsett Golden – as mentioned above, is our heavy cropper. It takes about 3 years to really settle in (although it will bear fruit, they are tiny for the first three or so years with full sized fruit beginning to show up in year three). We have Dorsett Golden on half size fruit stock and it's a fair sized critter.

Gala – we have this on a dwarf rootstock – she's about five feet tall at this point and not likely to get much larger. Lovely apples with crisp texture and that is what I prize in an apple.

Fuji – one of my all time favorites, but the one we have in the garden is a 500 chill hour plant and in three years I harvested one small apple. It WAS good, but it wasn't worth all that time. Sadly, ours will have to be replaced. (There are newer Fuji trees that have less chilling requirement and I may buy one of those.

If I had known better, I would have planted more varieties with a wider range of fruiting times to extend the harvest – as it is now, we get a ton of apples in late June/early July and then we are done for the year. Although, a quick look at the literature I have at hand shows that I have few apples to choose from that will fruit here at all.

Apricot -

Gold Kist – hands down, the best apricot I have ever eaten! A self-pollinated variety, this one tree stands out as the best fruit in our garden. While Royal Blenheim is the touted variety for our climate, I just love Gold Kist and have no desire to look beyond it.

Pear -

Seckle is usually the only one suggested for our area of the European pears. We have one, but it ended up in a neglected area and I've got nothing to report. Although, I don't think a ripe pear can be beat by much for shear hedonistic eating!

Figs -

Violettte de Bordeaux – is our tree that has been a champion for five years. It bore fruit the first year and it has not stopped since. A deep black skinned fruit, the flesh is a gorgeous red and has a smoky richness that is heavenly.

White Genoa – is an Italian variety that took forever to fruit. Once it finally put on a crop by which it could be judged, I began to appreciate its lighter and sweeter amber flesh. A really lovely fig.

Nectarine -

Double Delight – not to be confused with the rose of the same name, this is a yellow fleshed freestone nectarine, heavily bearing and needs a LOT of thinning – we almost lost several branches because it just over set fruit. I know Peaceful Valley calls it 'sensational' but I think that's a little over the top. It's good and with vanilla ice cream it's really good. But not 'sensational.' It is self-fertile.

Peaches -

Red Baron – this is one of our two peaches – this is a yellow freestone and a very good producer of large fruits. The other one is a clingstone and I like its flavor better, but I can't find the record on it and don't know which one it is. The importance of keeping good records, where you can find them is not to be overlooked. (I do have this all written down and saved in a computer file from 2003, but I can only find files back to 2005 right this second.)

Plums -

Santa Rosa – this is one of the thousands of plants that Luther Burbank created (he lived in Santa Rosa and gave us the Burbank potato, the Shasta Daisy among thousands of others), and I find this to be the best and most prolific producer of any tree in our gardens today. It makes a fabulous sorbet, delicious jam and fresh eating cannot be beat. There are several other plums that will do well in our region, but I haven't got past this one.

This is just the highlights of the common fruits. I will take on some more later in the month.

david