Special Delivery

Welcome back to another episode of Lost In The Farmer’s Market. This episode will be posted late simply because of the Holiday weekend.  For those not in the USA, this weekend is Independence day which is a celebration of the end of the American Revolution, and the series of events that led up to it and came immediately afterwards. I hope that all you readers out there have a happy and safe 4^th of July.

First off we have the above image. This is a picture of the ‘turning area’ at the headquarters. It high lights one of the points of confusion between northern and southern gardens. In the south, the number of pine trees means that the cheapest available mulch is what is called pine straw.  At the store it might cost 3-5 dollars per bale, but if you have pine trees you get it for free. As far as mulches go, pine straw is light, cheap, and if it’s harvested from long leaf pines it lasts for roughly 2-3 years. Mulch acquired from bark, or chipped hard wood by comparison lasts 1-2 years on average depending on type. The point of mulch is twofold; firstly it limits or stops erosion by water by acting as a physical barrier to hold the soil in place. Secondly, mulch acts as a slow releasing soil improvement since mulches from pine straw, bark or wood chips all eventually decay leaving behind organic materials that help improve topsoil quality. In the picture above a lot of moderate quality pine straw has been used to cover what was bare sand soil. In doing so, the soil beneath the pine straw can only erode at a limited rate. This means that even with restricted vehicle traffic, the erosion issue in this area has been successfully abated at the cost of using 204 cubic feet of pine straw. Eventually the pine straw will break down and need to be patched or replenished but until then it looks good. For note, if you notice there is no pine straw under the truck. This lack of pine straw there is intentional as pine straw still contains pine resin and potentially can still catch fire if exposed to a source of heat such as a hit vehicle engine. Also, this is why I balk at the use of Rubber mulch; it does not break down and only leaches zinc into the soil making it a poor choice for residential use in the garden.

But speaking of soil and such with the entry into the month of July, it is now that we must keep a wary eye on our nightshade crops for that summertime scourge known as blossom end rot. Blossom end rot is a ‘disease’ that actually is a nutrient deficiency. For some reason in the peak of summer members of the nightshade family, particularly tomatoes  might start getting blackened bottoms on fruits while they are in the green stage typically. The long-term solution to this problem is to use a little fast-acting lime, oyster shells or, eggshells. The short term and fastest solution is to crush one regular strength antacid tablet in a cup of water and apply the mixture to the single effected plant and repeat process for each other affected plant.  Why this nutrient deficiency strikes is unclear. It is known that bloom end rot will attack potted plants even if they are growing in new potting soil and plants planted in your garden beds with equal opportunity. It seems to strike different plants every year and with no set pattern. It’s one of those summertime vigilance things that all of you out there should pay attention to. But don’t worry, here’s the good news, garden photography!

So here we have an improvised irrigation system for one of the figs. This fig came into my possession in fall of last year, I don’t outright recall the person’s name but they were moving had this brown turkey fig potted up in a 16” pot and could not take it so it was offered to me. I carted the bush away brought it home and it the cold weather set in before I could get it planted. As seen in earlier images it was finally planted near the growing trays so it could make use of the fertilizer runoff and be much easier to maintain. The bucket is an old brewing vessel that proved unneeded. Inside of it is a layer of large stones and a single small hole was bored in the bottom so water or fertilizer placed inside drips out slowly right at the roots of the target plant. The lid is weighted so it cannot blow off and the old non-functional airlock ensures air exchange. With a two-gallon capacity if can mimic a good ½” to 1” rain depending on climate conditions roughly speaking.

In this image some of the surplus rudbeckia have decided to bloom, I think they’re one of the Indian summer types I sold last year. They were in bad shape when planted and I didn’t expect them to survive winter.

In this image we have a mix of three types of cone flower, some Echibekias which are a rudbeckia-Echinacea hybrid and in the upper left the leaves of perennial cabbage.

I think this is a Sumerina Yellow Echibeckia, the last image had an orange one.

Vaccinium ashii – Rabbit Eye Blueberry

It’s that time of the year and the blue berry crop is off the charts already. My four bushes are so loaded with berries they’re bent over from the weight. I’ve already harvested a pound and a half.

Lilium sp. ‘Rio Negro’ – Asiatic Lily

Honestly, they’re dark pink! With a name like Rio Negro I expected dark red or, a darker shade, but then I’m not complaining at all.

Lilium sp. ‘Purple Prince’ – Asiatic Lily

Ok so this Asiatic lily is at least sort of purple it’s not nearly as flamboyant as Rio but still very nice. Obviously this is an overdue post, so there is no farmers market info attached, stay tuned for this week’s post where I’ll include the plants list and introduce you to a garden plant you may not have considered before.

July; a month that clearly has no idea what it's doing

Welcome back to a shortened episode of Lost in The Farmers Market. As some of you out there may have noticed there was no episode last week. We decided due to workload that it was a wise idea to take that week off and do a ‘half’ post this week for the same reason. Normal episodes will resume next week and this brings us to the current topic.

As you’ve noticed we had a long stretch with no appreciable rain, the latest thunderstorm on Thursday dropped 0.8” on the test gardens and spread that across a few hours. Some would consider a thunderstorm that takes several hours a bad thing however for the purposes of irrigation and replenishment of ground water a slow rainstorm is actually better than a heavy fast one. One of the obvious reasons a rainy day beats a series of short heavy down pours is that rain over time tends to produce less flooding problems. Now to be fair several days of heavy rain will still cause floods just not of the same sort where water is raging though neighborhoods from a torrential downpour that’s also tossing hail.

I’ve said before that thunderstorms are good for the garden and agriculture in general because with the rain comes a slight dose of atmospheric nitrogen. This nitrogen does not stay but it is there just long enough to green everything up for a few days. I might add if this nitrogen is applied over say a few hours…there is a greater chance for your plants to capture and use more of it, also the slow rain ensures that the soil is moistened to a deeper level than might be possible in a short downpour. In fact a short storm poses a greater chance to increase soil loss by the movement of water. What you have is a debate on how much is enough. The test garden rain barrel water levels were at 50% before as the recent and frequent waves of random thunder-showers have done much to keep the irrigation water supply full.

There is the subtle effect of water passing through the soil structure that we must be wary of. Nutrient loss is a common problem in sand-heavy soils that comes from a lack of organic matter and the tendency of sandy soils to lean towards the acidic side of the pH scale. The varied degrees of Acidity in a given soil will allow or prevent your plants from accessing certain critical nutrients. For instance at a pH of 4.0 Nitrogen, Calcium, Molybdenum, Phosphorous, Potassium, Sulfur, Manganese and Boron are limited in their availability to your plants and yet at the same pH Iron, Manganese Zinc, Copper and Cobalt are fully available to a potential that may be toxic.  Ironically your ambient soil pH if kept between 6.0 and 7.0 will auto balance what nutrients it has with exception for any generally low nutrient where the pH is not affecting it’s accessibility to your crops.

On a local Level I have talked about how calcium deficiency causes blossom end rot in tomatoes in general but is especially problematic in paste tomatoes. In this case the regular rains are somewhat of a mixed blessing. On one had regular rain means good growth and fruit formation, but on the other hand with every rain my responses to blossom end rot are being washed away.

The quandary here is that the quickest acting materials at hand are reduced in effectiveness by drenching rains. The slowest acting ones are too slow to do anything in the short term. So the response is simply to increase doses of the short term solution (calcium carbonate) and couple it with a median response material (crushed eggshells) and apply a long term solution (agricultural lime). All three things are organic, all three things have the same effect over time and all three leave no lasting side-effects on the local environment. Rain or not, sometimes it takes a creative and multiple stage strategy to defeat nutrient problems in the field.

But enough about the battle against nutrient deficiency,  as always the conversation shifts from plant information to the activity at the Fayetteville Farmer’s Market. This weekend weather wise is set to be quite nice with temperatures in the 90’s and modest humidity but a very low chance of precipitation. I would say that is rather fortunate as it makes for some good market weather. The Fayetteville Farmer’s Market is located at 325 Franklin Street in downtown Fayetteville. The market is open on Wednesdays from 2:00 pm through 6:00 pm and on Saturdays from 9:00 am through 1:00pm. I might add I maintain a table at both market days and my plant selection varies a bit between so, I can assure you it’s always interesting. I might add this week there are some new selections and this is just the start, as I mentioned a few times before, once we hit mid-July through August the strange plants start appearing at the booth including rare and unusual houseplants. The plant list for the Saturday Market is below and there may be some random extras not listed that make it to the table.

Southward Skies: A northern guide to southern Gardening

This is the second edition of my book, which was published using data compiled from several years of test garden operations. It’s written to aid gardeners of all skill levels in successful garden methods that are targeted for the south east but had proven to be a valued resource for gardens across the eastern coast. It’s certainly a good gift for that gardener you know or for yourself if you’d like to have a reliable field guide. The book costs $25.00 and we do take checks for this item, you can even have it signed.

Vegetables

3x Cucumber, Armenian, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Cucumber, Poona Kheera, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Eggplant, Casper , 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Eggplant, Louisiana Long Green, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Pepper, Lemon Drop, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

1x Pepper, Jalapeno, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Pepper, Habenero, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Pepper, Sweet Banana , 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Pepper, Carolina Wonder, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

1x Tomato, Brown Berry, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Tomato, Martino’s Roma, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

1x Tomato, Rainbow Cherry Mix, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

1x Tomato, Red & Yellow Currant, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Tomato, Reisotomate, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Fruits

3x Horned Melon, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Vine Peaches, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Herbs

4x Basil, Sweet, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Basil, Blue African, , 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Basil, Thai, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Basil, Cinnamon, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Basil, Red Rubin, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Artemesia, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

1x Chives, Common, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

1x Fennel, Black, 7” pot ($6.00)

3x Lavender, Hidcote, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

4x Oregano, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Rosemary, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Sage, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

4x Thyme, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Ornamental:

1x Passion Vine, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Coneflower, Cheyenne Spirit, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

1x Rudbeckia, Golden, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Coming Soon:

Muscadine, Copper

Red Egyptian Onions

With the end of the plant materials list for the Saturday market we bring to an end this week’s episode of Lost In The Farmers Market.  Feel free to ask about any of our content at the booth or through this blog. As always, keep ‘em growing.

Et Tu August?

Ah the first of the dog days of summer, here comes August, and the first episode of the month. Welcome back to Lost In the Farmer’s Market where we foray into the facts of organic concepts and demonstrate how you can get your slice of the permaculture pie. For the first installment of LITFM in August today we are talking about some of our pet projects at the test gardens. As always you are welcome to try some of what we are trying and send in your results. Like the old saying goes it takes a village to raise a child and indeed it takes a neighborhood to prove or disprove a new gardening concept.

Last year we tested some “worm juice” to see if it could act as a liquid fertilizer. As you recall its results were that some plants experienced gigantism as a result producing massive leaves and extra growth beyond their known parameters. Heavier yields and great vigor were stopped by a lack of availability of additional doses of the fertilizer used and thus the plants started to sputter in mid-late August. For note ‘Worm Juice’ is the naturally occurring liquid byproduct of worm activity in a vermiculture bin. It looks like dirty water with bits of dirt in it and sort of smells like a stagnant pond. Despite this it’s apparently packed with nutrients as the image below demonstrates in the case of the Turkish Italian Orange Eggplant.

Literally the leaves were a foot long and 10” wide at the prime period of effect.

The issue was that it was difficult if not impossible to obtain the ‘worm Juice’ product with any regularity or in the quantities needed to maintain the growth of crops in the long term. That said the current project is the attempt to produce a similar water-borne compound minus the need for vermiculture and certainly from a chemical and mineral salt free source. By that requirement typical fertilizers were a no-go, Alaska fish fertilizer was not strong or balanced enough. What we are testing is fermented, high potency compost tea. Basically we took 12 cups of water to four cups of sifted and aged compost put them in a tightly sealed water jug, placed it in the sun for five whole days and the resulting liquid is the fertilizer if diluted by 50%. I have to warn you by the time it was done the jug was swollen from internal pressure as the microbes in side went crazy. Literally it smelled like every stagnant reeking swamp you could ever visit, and it stained the jug black but, it seems to work. Granted the test is early on and will be complete by the end of the month, the plants tested seem to have a burst in growth within 24 hours of application. All things considered, at the very least it’s an excuse to play in the dirt.

The potato pots, earlier in the year before being filled.

We are also testing some new ideas in the concepts of cover crops by over sowing our potato pots with leaf greens so that as the potatoes slow down something else can be producing food on the same spot.  As some of you might already know we have three large potato pots in the test gardens and thus the cover crops are all one of three things, Amaranth, Perilla and Basil. All are annual, the first is a leaf green, the second is a food preservative and colorant, and the third is well delicious. If this test works, it may be a way to open SPIN gardening to the container garden world and thus maximize space further then would be normally possible.

Da Berm! Da Berm boss!

The third project underway is the Anti-Erosion Berm which as of our last reference to it is finally partially active. As some of you know we had a break in at the gardens and the camera was stolen, but the picture included was the general layout of the integrated logs, all white pine which were intended to act as the anchor and a reservoir of organic matter and moisture. At the current time if you look at the photo, the side of the logs facing you is now covered over with a thick layer of compost over which a wild flower mix and generous amounts of red clover have been sown. Currently the seed are coming up and doing quite well so the ‘soiled’ side has a light patina of green.  But of course finishing the project is half the battle isn’t it?

Instead of just building a narrow berm and being done with it, the idea came to me that I should make absolute use of what was to be had there. Thus the rear side is planned to be elevated a bit more and added turning the berm into an almost crescent shape. That means more planning for planting and so what would possibly go back there and how far back, as the shady rock garden itself is the utmost rear limit of the berm. Does one extend the center of the berm to join the rock garden and create hidden paths?  Could the bern extend to a few feet off the shady rock garden? Maybe they should merge completely bringing the woods out into the open?

The answer of course is ‘Yes’ the final concept is a mix of all of those ideas. The berm will be extended rearwards to about 4 or 5 feet off the shady rock garden’s face following its precise curvature. But to bring the woods out into the open, the Rear side of the Berm will be planted with a line of blue berries and in between as many strawberry plants as will possibly fit.  Somewhere in the middle of the design some exotic nectar producers or perhaps a butterfly bush will be included. But most of all the face of the berm will overtime be planted with perennials both herbs and pseudo ornamentals such as coneflowers. No matter how it goes, the time table for the project is for it to be complete sometime in September as far as the soil is concerned. The perennialization will occur over several years and may not be noticed due to the piecemeal means one will have to use to get it done right. In the end it will be one hell of a permaculture endeavor, so please stay tuned for more updates.

With all of that project-related stuff covered I have to speak briefly about the plant list.

This weekend I will be at the Fayetteville Farmers / City Market in downtown Fayetteville. The market runs from 9:00 am through 1:00pm and is located at 325 Franklin Street and there is plenty of parking near by. As always there will be great handouts about soil conservation and wildlife management and of course copies of my book Southward Skies.  The following is this week’s plant list.

House Plants:

3x Aloe barbadensis – Medicinal Aloe

2x Peperomia verticilliata – Rotary Peperomia

Vegetables:

4x Sweet Banana Peppers

5x Habenaro Peppers (Hot!)

2x Tumbling Tom Cherry Tomatoes (yellow fruit)

6x Beefsteak Tomato (Slicing tomato, On sale!)

3x Red Burgundy Okra (Heritage variety)

1x Japanese Long Eggplant

Herbs:

10x Egyptian Onion (Allium prolificum, good stuff!)

5x Italian Parsley (garnishes your dishes and clears out bad breath!)

1x Mountain Mint

1x Greek Oregano

1x Common Sage

3x Sweet Basil

1x Cinnamon Basil

2x Horehound  (Marribum vulgare, natural cold remedy!)

-plus whatever elselooks cool and fits in the truck!-

Available Soon:

Cayenne Peppers

Carolina Wonder, Green bell pepper

Pasilia Bajio Pepper (a sweet Cayenne)

Ghost Pepper (Sweet type)

Silver Aloe

Drunkards Dream Cactus

And the posting of the plant list brings this fine episode of LITFM to a close. I hope to see some of you at the Farmer’s market this weekend. More so, I’ll be present into the fall crop season so don’t be surprised when you see all sorts of cool seasonal plants at the booth soon. As always folks Keep ‘me growing!

Springtime Changes

Welcome back to another edition of lost in the farmers market where we look into the nature of organic gardening and it’s practicality for self-sustainability. Today is somewhat of a belated double-post. As some of you may know there has quite a bit of busy times over at the test gardens as control of the property has passed to BL2 and by extension LITFM. This of course means that for the first time in history we will be doing tours during the summer and our first on-site Sustainable Neighbors crop mob will be occurring in a few weeks. 

This is the area targeted for the crop mob.

As you can see this patch of earth has lost a lot of its viable topsoil and is in need of some serious repair. Originally those tree roots were buried but compaction and erosion due to vehicle traffic has ruined this area and it is our ambitious goal to recover it with an innovative anti-erosion project. It is my hope that some of you sustainable neighbors in the Fayetteville area can join in on this project when the time comes. I digress on that, the shift on control of the property has had me personally tied up for two weeks straight as soon as the work load lessened it was like spring was showing me that there was light at the end of the tunnel so here is an entourage of spring color for all of you to enjoy.

These are Bird’s Foot Violets. I planted them two years ago and thought they had died. They bloomed for the first time this year.

This is the tiny azalea often seen in the mailbox garden at the front of the property, it was dug early last year and moved to the shady rock garden where it bloomed for the first time.

This is a set of irises given to me by a client who had some to spare during my first year of operations as BL2. They once bloomed as a bicolor, blue and white but have become this pure white. This is the second year they have bloomed.

As promised in an earlier episode, here is a picture of those pincushion flowers planted last year. They came into bloom quite heavily this spring.

The blue columbines awakened late but are making up for lost time as you can see here.

This Coral Bells was a salvaged plant as it was found dumped by the side of the road near one of my client’s houses. I cleaned it up and put in this three gallon nursery pot with some improved soil and it over wintered rather well.

The coral bells is not a part of the shady rock garden and is part of the failed 'Mint hill'.

While not colorful the White Ischia figs broke bud first and already are bearing the largest figs.

Last in the group is the new growth of the Fetterbush in the shady rock garden. For note this is a Leucothoe axillaris, which is not the same as the rainbow fetterbush.

This plant stands as a example of making sure to put the right plant in the right place as it did horribly for three years where it was and then in the shady rock garden it’s multiplied it’s size several times. Much like the azalea mentioned before it’s rewarded me with heavy blooms and in this case dramatic foliage color.

Needless to say spring is a marvelous time it is the renewal of ones own faith in nature and I have to report that the nest in my hanging pansy basket from a earlier post has occupants, at last sighting there were four little eggs in the nest and visual confirmation of some sort of tiny bird possibly a wren. It seems they like that sort of basket and so I’ll leave it in position from here on out.

That last bit aside as some of you may know there was no Urban Farm Day this year, it seems Sustainable Sandhills decided to let the concept go. The good news is that along with Sustainable neighbors I am now going to help man the booth at the Fayetteville Farmer’s Market which means the odd and exotic plants as well as copies of the book will be available through that venue. Now due to the odd winter and early spring weather my crops will be available in staggered fashion but if you stop by you can make reservations for items or ask about the status of stuff.

A close up of the bulblets expanding from the stem tips of an Egyptian or Tree Onion aka Allium proliferum. Sadly we are completely sold out of this plant for the time being though more may be available later in the year.

This weekend you can expect to see a LOT of tomato varieties, Angels Trumpet, Vietnamese Coriander, Chinese Foxglove, Flowering Ginger, Betony, Saint Johns Wort and whatever else looks ready to go and gets loaded on the truck on Friday evening! I can tell you this, it’s been a fantastic year for the crops and we went a little overboard with the seed so expect some varieties you may not have ever heard of.

That said the Fayetteville farmer’s market is located at the transportation museum in downtown Fayetteville and runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Sustainable Neighbors is present on Saturdays from 9 am through 1pm or the entire time the market is open. For note I will be keeping the same hours as sustainable neighbors so feel free to stop by and say hi. As a final note, next week the results of the soil test trials will be completed and available here on the blog so stay tuned for that info and as always folks keep ‘em growing.