The Sugar Cane Exposé

Special note: This is not your normal post for the blog but to limits in the number of characters I can use to talk about this weeks YouTube Episode. I will post the full description info here. The description was almost 10k and the limit is 5k characters and well you can't really discuss Sugar Cane in short form. So here's the full thing, link to the channel is below this text.

The video is here

 

 

Pink Sugar Cane which in it's second year is not very pink. There are two crowns in the pot it's growing in and Malabar Spinach is growing up the stalks too.

 

 [Picture Coming Soon]

 Season Seven, Episode 00302

 

Botanical Latin Name: Saccharum officinarum

           

             Today I have a special video for you that has been long in the making. Instead of doing this in a exposé format with a chunky script in an overly serious tone, I’ve opted to handle it like a normal video because honestly, I hated all five scripts written to cover the topic. Today we are talking about Sugar Cane, a member of the true grass family Poaceae. This plant isn’t a perennial in my climate (Zone 8b) but some close relatives are. This means it has to come in for the winter and since it’s a grass with razor-edge sawblade-like leaf edges I have to keep it away from the cats and be very careful handling it. I found that it grows just fine in regular potting soil but is very thirsty needing water almost every day and it responds to liquid fertilizer rapidly. Although in the ground Sugar cane can get as tall as sixteen feet, the specimen shown in the video which is Pink Sugar Cane is about six or seven feet from soil surface up. It’s not a hard plant to grow however I’ve been growing it as a novelty in a garden. In the process of researching this plant and it’s very checkered past I found out that the plantation system of growing it is very different than what I was doing. For instance the average Cane stand lives about five years, the plants are typically harvested for their stems before the plant’s bloom. In the video I do say that and an acre of well grown Sugar Cane can yield about thirty nine tons of sugar, this is partially incorrect, that’s tons of stalks. A single box car filled with Sugar Cane can hold up to forty tons, which processes down to two-thousand pounds or a single ton of refined sugar. According to some sources this means there are about thirty teaspoons of refined sugar in every Sugar Cane Stalk.

 

            How do you get the sugar out? Well the stalks have their leaves and other unneeded greenery removed and they are then crushed, soaked and squeezed to wring out every drop of juice which is then boiled until syrup is created. The Sugar syrup is then spun in a centrifuge to get rid of the fluids and impurities out and create raw sugar. The raw Sugar is then melted and filtered again to take out any remaining impurities and extra color and the remaining sugar is then crystalized and spun in another centrifuge to remove liquids. In the process of the second spinning a side product is made, Molasses and after this the sugar is dried and packaged for distribution. Notice where I talked about filtration and removal of color? That process can be rigorous for white ‘bleached’ sugar, or less so for the naturally colored sugars like you find things like Turbinado, Demerara and Muscovado. The light, medium and dark brown sugars are normally just regular Sugar with varying amounts of Molasses added back into get the color and sticky texture. I need to mention that there is also Panela, a traditional solid block or cone of unrefined Sugarcane juice that you can find in the Spanish section of some grocery stores or in Spanish Markets that is another form you can get Sugar in. Now briefly I’d like to talk about the ugly side of how the table sugar is made because it’s as much a part of this discussion as is health effects of consuming the stuff (links about that below). 

            Sugar Cane isn’t native to the Americas at all despite it being grown here and Brazil being the lead world producer followed by India. In the United States alone, the top producing states are Florida, Louisiana and Texas. How did Sugar Cane get here though? Well you can blame one of history’s worst navigators Christopher Columbus who brought it to the New World in 1493 on his second voyage. He brought it in from the Canary Islands and planted it in what was then called Hispaniola which is now the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Before that though, before any European had ever heard of the stuff, the original Sugar Cane was Domesticated by the Papuans from the native Robust Cane (S. Robustum) around 6000 BP*. This strain of Sugar Cane was spread to Maritime Southeast Asia after contact was made with the Austronesians and it hybridized with Wild Sugarcane (S. spontaneum). From there it spread into mainland Asia and the second centers of domestication were Southern China and Taiwan. The earliest known production of crystal sugar like we know it was in Northern India from around the Eighth century, it was in Mesopotamia by the Tenth Century and transported to the Canary Islands by the Spanish in 1420,  where they used forced labor (slavery) to force the native Guanche People to farm the plant for export to Europe. Sugar Cane arrived in the Americas by two vectors, I already mentioned Columbus, but the Portuguese brought it in from their fields in the Madeira Islands in the early 1500’s. The original Brazilian plantations growing Sugarcane were started in the 1530’s by the Portuguese who used guess what? They used Slave Labor of course, because you can’t talk about colonialism without the slave labor and genocide. Some folks will brush that off and claim the Conquistadors were ‘civilizing’, or elevating people out of a less fortunate standard of life, some will say that the conditions were not that bad or even try to peddle manifest destiny or some other bigoted nonsense. So now in brief because of that I have to mention the Taino Genocide. In the seven seasons of this YouTube channel I never thought I’d have to talk about Genocide in any serious level of detail, but here we are.

            The Taino Genocide was an organized campaign of subjugation and eradication applied against the Taino people by the Spanish during their conquest of the Caribbean in the 16^th century. It is estimated that the population of the Taino on what the Spanish would start calling Hispaniola before Columbus showed up was around ten-thousand to a million people. Records on the population numbers are unclear because a lot from that time period was destroyed by the Spanish and of course as a conquering force they killed a lot of people who could have passed that information on to a new generation or historians. After about 1504 the Spanish began to enslave, and massacre the local population at a level that indicated that whatever their prior population numbers were, there were about thirty-two thousand Taino left in 1514, and by 1565 200, and then by 1802, they were declared extinct by the Spanish. Three other factors played a part in the extinction of the Taino people, Disease, Famine and Colonial Classification. As with any encounter with Europeans during the time period, the Spanish brought their diseases with them and that caused fatalities in the Taino Population. The activities of the Spanish (theft, tribute conquest) on Hispaniola disrupted the normal agricultural practices of the Taino resulting in Famine. But perhaps the most insidious of things done to the Taino People was paperwork. People of mixed heritage were not counted as Taino by the Spanish colonial authorities and simply were erased from history by way of intentionally inaccurate population accounting. Disease Famine and Colonial Classification paled in comparison to the violence perpetrated on the Taino people. I’m not sure I can go into fine detail here about this because of how YouTube is, but there is a link to a Wiki article to get you started further down. The point is that the Sugar Industry in Europe and the Americas was originally built on slavery, murder and conquest. In the present times there is no shortage of credible articles covering how bad the Sugar Cane plantations are. Even in the best of circumstances it’s not easy work there are a lot of hazards and workers battle with heat stress, kidney disease (from Pesticide exposure), chemical exposure (Herbicide), physical injuries and smoke inhalation from field burning. This is all not counting the financial debt that sugar cane farmers often carry, then there’s the pollution of the air, and the runoff from Sugar Cane fields that gets in local water sources. It’s estimated that about two-hundred and thirteen gallons of water is wasted to produce a pound of refined sugar. Amidst all this there are a number of companies in the USA lobbying against sugar regulations such as Coca-Cola. So I urge you to check out the links below and do some reading,  I stand by my belief that Sugar Cane might be the legal crop with the most messed up history of violence and exploitation.

*Before Present i.e. before January 1^st 1950. This is a time scale used in Archaeology and Geology used to indicate that something existed before the origin of reliable radiocarbon dating in the 1950’s.

 

 Here are some links with extra information:

https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/saccharum-officinarum/

https://plantfinder.mobot.org/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?taxonid=285293

 

Here are some links to information about the history of Sugar Cane:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/sugar-slave-trade-slavery.html

https://kauaitourguy.com/reason-hawaii-gave-up-sugar-cane/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12992-023-00963-4

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat

https://medium.com/ucsf-magazine/uncovering-the-secrets-and-sickness-beneath-the-sweet-surface-f522c8c8b51d

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/sugar-a-killer-crop.html

https://www.vitalstrategies.org/not-sweet-seems-real-costs-sugarcane-farming/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_plantations_in_the_Caribbean

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%C3%ADno_genocide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar

LITFM is intended as a series of videos highlighting a specific plant/family in the Botanical Testing Gardens. The Gardens are located in North Carolina (Zone 8b). Hopefully this video gives you some good garden ideas and if you have questions or comments let me know.

Interlude: How It All Started

Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmers Market.  This post is a week late, and there is a good reason for that. I changed lanes on the post to be mid-development. You see, I received an interesting question about a week ago, a customer asked exactly how Bordeaux Regional Nursery came to be and, at the time I hadn’t really thought much about how I did it, just that I had done it. So I kind of explained the symphony of errors that created my business as best I could and afterward got to thinking that I had done a pretty poor job of covering the history behind BRN. So on LITFM as a bit of a diversion here is the history of how Bordeaux Regional Nursery happened.



So let start with a little history, the idea of running a micro-nursery didn’t start immediately. Honestly I didn’t even come up with the term ‘micro-nursery’ until 2014. The basis of the business started on Saturday April the 11th  2009 when my property was part of Sustainable Sandhill’s First Annual Urban farm tour. The tour had eight garden locations in Cumberland County and eight locations in Moore County North Carolina. On a virtually non-existent budget and about three months of lead-time I managed to build the first beds in what would become the Botanical Testing Gardens and the basis of my Web Log  ‘Lost In the Farmer’s Market’ was begun with the photographic surveys being undertaken at the time. The impetus to begin what would become Bordeaux Regional Nursery would come from a visitor’s question as to if or if not I had plants to sell. Unfortunately during that first tour I did not, but it effectively planted the seed for a business that would become significant later on. A year later on Saturday April the 10th 2010, the Second Annual Urban Farm Tour occurred, and by that time I had somewhat upgraded my growing areas and upgraded equipment. I had a small amount of surplus to offer and visitors snapped it up, for once, this gardening hobby of mine threatened to actually pay for itself.  At the time I was attending Fayetteville Technical Community College and the very idea of a Micro-Nursery did not exactly fit in with the normal business models that were being taught. At the time I clashed with my at least one of my professors as I foresaw the need for a less rigid business structure to achieve a unconventional and asymmetric operating standard. Not surprisingly, when the basic business plan for what would become BRN a few years later was turned in, I got a B-grade but some nebulous and not-quite understanding feedback.

The real big break was in April of 2011 on May the 14th when the Farm Tour turned into Urban Farm Day. The tour was condensed into a single location near the City’s first downtown community garden, and so the Garden Tour book was assembled and I ramped up production with the intention to exceed demand. The fledgling Nursery business was being supported by income drawn off my operations as an Independent landscaper (I called that company Bordeaux Light Landscaping or BL2). At the first Urban Farm Day I sold out, and had requests for more after the fact. However operations were limited by a lack of equipment and materials as well as poor storage facilities. This change in planning lead to the policy of undertaking a heavy upgrade every three years, to keep abreast of the needs of customers and the advancement of technology. For note, these periodic upgrades would be called ‘Expansion Years’ and 2014, 2017 and 2020 were all expansion years. The last year that Sustainable Sandhills did an Urban Farm event was 2012 on May the 12th and this time I sold out and had enough plant material to cover orders for a month afterwards. My landscaping clients were requesting items from the surplus stock and the inkling that this could be a real year-round business began to present itself in my notes about how to proceed. The real big break was on April 25th 2013, when I was invited to sell some plants at the Fayetteville City Market on Saturdays. I had been a member of the then quite new group called Sustainable Neighbors (at the time they were called the Neighborhood Grange), for about a year. From an ethical, operational and messaging perspective Sustainable Neighbors was more like the Sustainable Sandhills of old and I found the group a better match for the ideologies I espoused then and still fancy today. Sustainable Neighbors as a group was more helpful to the formation of Bordeaux Regional Nursery than many realize. You see, it was the group’s leader Marsha Howe who coined the phrase ‘It’s Ok to get paid’, and this is a truth that many don’t realize when they start a new business. No matter what you do, someone is always going to complain about your services or product because you can’t please some people. At the end of the day, your cost of operation does not disappear just because that one person didn’t like the price of your Petunias.  The band Supertramp has lyrics in ‘Goodbye Stranger’ to this affect as well;

“Now some they do and some they don't
And some you just can't tell
And some they will and some they won't
With some it's just as well.”

Both Marsha’s statement and the song lyrics cover the heart and soul of customer service for a small business offering a novel product or service. It also covers the hardest lesson you will learn, how to say no to a customer. Ultimately I ended up representing the group at the market, BRN became one of the group’s sponsors and the idea of a micro-nursery appeared in print on my businesses signage in 2014. Out of all that BRN has become the nursery operation with an unwavering commitment to offering GMO-Free, Organic food plants at a competitive price. It took eight years (2010-2018) to create a logistical network to get reliable, consistent set of materials that ensured quality and this supply chain was kept as local as possible to keep money in the community and support other small businesses. The R&D budget ended up being mostly used in the pursuit of new plant varieties, growing ‘mother’ plants from which cuttings could be taken to locally produce the next big thing in organic sustainable urban agriculture.

Unlike other businesses we were never about getting rich, shareholders or dominating the agriculture market, however it is about providing a higher-quality product at a competitive and affordable price. There is one other thing that makes BRN a true Nursery operation, we grow our own, we don’t buy from big-agra, we don’t buy seeds or plants on commission from other companies, and we won’t ever buy supplies from folks like Monsanto. With all that said, we still have comparable if not lower prices than big box stores which some have decried as impossible over the years. This is how a sustainable, local and competitive gardening business is built. Business experts often say that less than 20% of businesses make it to their tenth year of operations, even fewer make it past fifteen. If you count our humble beginnings, we’re somewhere between ten and eleven years of operations and even with the current Covid-19 economic chaos we are doing just fine.

Ironically, Covid-19 has been good for business, customers are finally starting to understand that growing your own isn’t just a catchphrase it’s an important skill in an age of food-insecurity. The belief that all agriculture is rife with back-breaking labor, covered in dirt and grime and indicated by unpleasant smells is finally starting to be lifted to reveal something different. Agriculture is quite possibly the world’s oldest science, at times it’s brutally practical, vulgar and often resistant to change but in the end it’s a critical pillar of civilization and culture.  This is how Bordeaux Regional Nursery was built and how it will continue to go forward.

With all that stuff said, and to fill in the issues with the delay in posting this, LITFM  may just have some videos made in-house at the testing gardens. I’m calling them LITFM Garden Shorts, they’re videos that are under five minutes in length where I talk about a specific plant in the test gardens. The history, biology and the Botanical Latin are all covered for your gardening pleasure,check the link below.

With all that garden goodness covered this is the part of the blog where I have to advertise for the Fayetteville City Market. Now I know you readers probably don’t much like advertisements, but by booth at the City Market helps to cover the costs of running the test garden and literally maintains the Research & Development budget that is used to bring you the information that has made up the backbone of this blog. Also, as of the start of 2019, my booth can now process credit or debit cards thanks to the acquisition of s a Square reader so your payment options have doubled. With that said, if you want to get some GMO-free, Organic vegetables, herbs and fruiting shrubs come on down to the Fayetteville City Market on 325 Maxwell Street in downtown Fayetteville between the Hours of 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on Saturdays. Even in bad weather the market goes on though you might have to look for me under the ‘arches’ of the Transportation Museum’s front entryway.


Plants & Stuff Available Now:

Food Plants:
Pepper – Aji Chinchi: $3.00
Pepper – Hungarian Paprika: $3.00
Pepper – Inferno: $3.00
Pepper – Pasilla Bajio: $3.00
Pepper  – Shishito: $3.00
Pepper  – Siracha: $3.00
Pepper  – Sweet Banana: $3.00
Tomato – Cherokee Purple: $3.00 (Medium-large)
Tomato – Chocolate Cherry: $3.00 (Cherry)
Tomato – Glacier: $3.00 (Large Cherry)
Tomato – Gold Rush:  $3.00 (Yellow Cherry)
Tomato – Mountain Spring: $3.00 (Medium)
Tomato – Pink Accordion: $3.00 (Large) (Limited Quantity)

Herbs:
Herb, Agastache – Golden Jubilee : $3.00
Herb, Basil – Eritrean: $3.00
Herb, Black Fennel: $3.00
Herb, Borage : $3.00 (Limited Quantity)
Herb, Coneflower – Pow Wow Wild Berry  : $3.00
Herb, Coneflower – Primadonna Rose : $3.00 (Limited Quantity)
Herb, Hibiscus – Cranberry : $5.00 (One left!)
Herb, Horehound  : $3.00
Herb, Marjoram: $3.00 (Limited Quantity)
Herb, Oregano: $3.00
Herb, Rue: $3.00
Herb, Sage: $3.00
Herb, Tansy: $3.00
Herb, Thyme – English: $3.00

Ornamental Plants:
Angel’s Trumpet/Datura – ‘Black Currant Swirl’: $3.00 (One left!)
Black Eye Susan – ‘Prairie Glow’: $3.00
Castor Bean – ‘Zanzibar’: $3.00 (One left!)
Castor bean – ‘Impala’: $3.00
Cotton – Erlene’s Green: $3.00
Cotton – Mississippi Brown Lint: $3.00
Cotton – Red Foliated White: $3.00
Cranesbill – ‘Vision Violet’: $3.00
Flowering Tobacco – ‘Baby Bella’: $3.00 (Limited Quantity)
Mallow – ‘Zebrina’: $3.00
Milkweed – ‘Hairy Balls’: $3.00


Coming Soon:
Herb, Basil – Wild
Herb, Basil – Holy
Herb, Cuban Oregano
Herb, Cuban Oregano – Cerveza & Lime
Herb, Italian Oregano
Herb, Roselle – Saint Kitts & Nevis
Herb, Roselle – Thai
Sesame – Shirogoma (Limited Quantity)
Pepper – Biquinho Red (Limited Quantity)
Pepper – Biquinho Yellow (Limited Quantity)

Due to the current Covid-19 situation and the state’s requirement that all citizens are not to gather in groups of more than ten, the weekly Sustainable neighbors meeting is online. Please check the sustainable neighbors Meetup.com page for more info about how to attend our online meeting.

https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/

Since our meetings have an open-door policy you don’t need to sign up for anything or join anything, you can come on in and join the meetings. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market.

This brings to a close the ninth LITFM post of 2020; stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 29th of May. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.

Super Happy Gibberish Time!

Welcome back to another episode of Lost In the Farmers market and boy do we have some bad news for all you non-morning people out there. Sunday March the 9^th is Daylight Savings time and your clocks should be set forward before bed on Saturday evening or at 2:00 am on Sunday morning for all you ultra-night owls out there.  I don’t know about you but honestly Daylight savings is really one of the archaic things in modern society. It was originally conceived to maximize daylight working hours for an agriculture based population but is now just an artifact of a time that is long gone. The second president bush moved about the original daylight savings and caused a lot of people some serious annoyance as their alarm clocks would auto-reset for the old time.

However you readers out there have LITFM giving a few days fair warning so hopefully you’re all set for the hour shifting shenanigans of popular culture.

Now today’s main topic focuses on the raw details of some of the crops that are listed as coming soon. In this case we’re talking tomatoes because we tried a number of new varieties this year and well we’d like you to know all about it. Some favorites are making a nostalgic return and of course it’s all in good garden fun.

Tomato, Amana Orange

Amana orange is a beefsteak type heirloom that can produce up to one pound fruits. We had this at the booth last summer and in trials it did ok, however this year we brought it back to repeat the trial and to see what it can really do under high production conditions. As the name suggests the fruit are a bright and cheery orange color that can really liven up recipes with its unique color and good flavor.

Tomato, Black Krim

Black Krim is a Russian heirloom variety that originates in a Crimean town called Krim along the black sea. In early trials black krim was tougher than most and produced regularly even surviving overwintering as a cutting and setting fruit very early the next year. The fruit are roughly 9-12 ounces on average and have reddish-brown flesh with an earthy-smoked sort of flavor.

Tomato, Blue Berries

Blueberries are a new variety to our list this year. The seed was sourced from a verified organic non-GMO source. I wanted to carry this variety last year but the supplier was out of seed very early on due to high demand and now here it is! The fruit of this tomato are a very dark purple, and are roughly 1-4 ounces on average making this type a very large cherry or grape tomato.

Tomato, Brown Berry

Brown berry is a recurring variety that we’ve brought back three years in a row. As far as cherry type tomatoes brown berry is positively gorgeous as the fruit are flecked with bands of golden-brown against a reddish-primary color. As far as flavor is concerned brownberry is rather tasty and is a nice surprised sliced in salads.

Tomato, Hillbilly Potato Leaf

Hillbilly Potato leaf is beefsteak heirloom type that in truth is a bicolor variety. The fruit will often mainly be yellow with irregular red streaking along the sides and bottom giving it a variety of orange shades in the middle. Fruits range up to one pound and are very sweet and quite meaty.

Tomato, Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson is a Russian Heirloom variety named for the famous performer. I can say from last year’s trials this plant is a super-performer breaking a number of growth and productivity records leading the entire tomato crop in pounds of produce per plant. The fruit range between 5 and 10 ounces and tend to be a deep red color sometimes with brown or purple shoulders.

Tomato, San Marzano

San Marzano was used as the Mascot of the anti-GMO efforts in California and we at BL2 can see why. These tomatoes survived the 2013 monsoon, drought and neglect and still produced some seriously tasty paste tomatoes. The fruits are red at maturity and are up to 3” long with an average weight of 1-3 ounces.

Tomato, Tlacolula

Tal…Tula…Tahlacoo…Ah hell whatever its name is it’s a new addition!  This variety is named for the town in Mexico it originates from Tlacolula. While we imagine it’s probably pronounced something like Dracula this new addition seems to be so much fun to say that the basic details only help its usage. The fruit of Tlacolula are roughly pear-shaped and bear deep ribs and ruffles giving them an almost bell shape. The fruit are said to be Pink skinned with gold-splotched shoulders and the flesh is mild sweet and light pink.

Keep in mind readers this is the first of a number of detailed posts about the weird and wonderful crops coming down the line so stay tuned for next weeks continued tomato mayhem! The weather forecast is looking good and predicts it will be sunny with a high of 66 degrees which is pretty good. With that said the Fayetteville Farmers market is a 365 day a year event that occurs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I’m there on Saturdays between 9:00 AM and 1:00 PM and the market is located on 325 Franklin Street in the parking lot of the Fayetteville Transportation Museum.  We’re practically surrounded by parking lots and the meter maid brigade in downtown Fayetteville takes the weekends off so no worries for carrying coin to feed the meters. You’ve got the basics now let’s get on with the plants and materials list for the booth this weekend.

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.

Black Magic Fertilizer

That’s right you’ve heard about it in trials all summer. This specially formulated liquid fertilizer was made and tested at the test gardens using natural ingredients and no chemicals. The result explosive growth, great harvests and of course no environmental side effects! We’re making batches of this stuff to order, at $6.00 per gallon of fertilizer. You can either order it at the market and pick it up the next week or have it delivered to your home in the Fayetteville area for a delivery charge of an additional $2.00.

House Plants

4x Holiday Cactus ($3.00)

2x Rotary Privet ($3.00)

2x Dancing Bones Cactus ($3.00)

4x Aloe Vera ($5.00)

Garden Plants

10x Dinosaur Kale, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Herbs

2x Green Fennel, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Black Fennel, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Bloody Sorrel, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

2x Lamb’s Ear, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

5x Green Lavender-Cotton, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

4x Tansy, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

3x Rosemary, 3.5” pot ($3.00)

Coming Soon:

Ozard Beauty Strawberry

Martha Washington Asparagus

Dark Red Norland Potato

Tomato, Amana Orange

Tomato, Black Krim

Tomato, Blue Berries

Tomato, Brown Berry

Tomato, Hillbilly Potato Leaf

Tomato, Paul Robeson

Tomato, San Marzano

Tomato, Tlacolula

Ironically my appeal to the month of March for better weather has largely fallen on deaf ears as that frozen rain/sleet event earlier in the week will attest. However we have received an average precipitation of 0.7” inches so at least there isn’t a winter drought. Just a note for all you propagators out there, if you’ve not started seed you may want to if your facilities allow. The colder than average February has set things back but the warm seasonal plants that are finicky about soil temp can reasonably be started now, whereas tomatoes are fast growing enough to not care as much as say peppers and eggplant might.

In the end it doesn’t quite matter the method folks just as long as you can Keep ‘em growing!

Beating the heat? Nah it's beating me!

And here we are and it is undoubtedly summer but don’t worry here comes another episode of Lost in the Farmer’s Market! Today we have some cool test garden pictures and the start of a brief series on how to prepare your gardens for the coming spike in temperatures. We all know the drought days of august are coming soon so while the weather is currently tolerable it makes sense to  prepare as best we can for the heat now as opposed to compounding our labors later.

Lets face the facts folks as gardeners we all know it’s going to get warm in summer and for those of us in the south east that means a delicate balance between watering our beloved plants or letting nature do it’s worst and pick up the pieces later. Obviously it doesn’t have to be this way, but this is often what it appears to be a narrow spectrum of choice. The truth however could not be more different in several differing ways. Take for instance the average garden plot, we know that the addition of much can help conserve soil moisture and keep down weeds but then it gets into the differences between the types of mulch. Whether you realize it or not mulch is as different as the people who choose to apply it so here is a fast rundown on the types.

Stone – example granite, pea gravel marble chips bluestone gravel ect.

            Stone is nice and fairly permanent but it suffers from the issue of being both expensive per square foot, heavy and it contributes nothing to the soil. For that matter stone really only works well when combined with landscape fabric and thus by itself won’t block weeds very well unless several inches are applied. I might add stone does have to useful features as it tends to help retain soil warmth and in the case of certain crushed stone products may add trace nutrients to the soil as it weathers.

Pine Straw – longleaf and short needle types such as loblolly and white pine.

            Well out in Fayetteville this stuff is everywhere so it’s no surprise it stays in use, and good clean pine straw isn’t bad stuff. On application pine straw is nice and fluffy but settles down somewhat flat. With age (1-3 years depending on species) pine straw will decay into a sort of pine straw loam. Pine straw also has use as an anti-erosion material as the numerous surfaces it creates tends to slow down water runoff and wind keeping the soil beneath it where it is. The downside of pine straw is the cost, irregularity of the bales if purchased and its high flammability. Pine straw tends to weather to a light brown or a pale gray depending on sunlight exposure and moisture.

Pine Bark

            Pine bark is more a southern thing then a northern thing, and as a byproduct of the timber industry it makes sense to recycle this waste product into something useful. Fortunately you can get pine bark both by the bag and by bulk which makes it rather economical. The quality of pine bark does vary so most of you out there are advised to get a good look at what your local garden centers sell and determine what is best for you on a case by case basis. A major advantage to pine bark is that it forms a dense cover that most weeds have trouble getting through especially when an inch or more is applied. More so pine bark has all the useful qualities of pine straw with one difference. New applications of pine bark may float off during heavy rains and washout is a problem also. Good pine bark after weathering tends to be a golden-brown color.

Hardwood/Cedar Bark

 The hardwood and cedar group are more found up north, and tend to cost more but also last longer, and have anti-insect and decay properties. Cedar and cypress mulch are notorious for this effect which is good if termites are a concern and you can get cypress or cedar in bulk. Hardwood much tends to be maple or more commonly oak, and has the advantage of lasting at least as long as pine straw but is heavy enough to resist all but heavy rain induced washout. Cedar and Cypress both last the longest of the organic mulches and tend to weather to a light brown-gray where as hardwood much is often a light gray.

If you will notice I skipped two much products in this list, the first is rubber much and the second is any form of colored mulch. I skipped the former because of its habit of leaching zinc into the soil. Rubber much is often made of spent auto tires with the internal wires removed and thus due to vulcanization exudes zinc and in cheaper tires sulfur residue. Rubber mulch is however ok for use in kid’s playgrounds but not so good in an actual garden. The colored mulches were skipped because they are essentially the industries biggest scam. I might also add the red much is incredibly tacky looking unless you live in a McDonald’s restaurant. The real scam here is that when you buy a bag of dyed mulch not only are you paying for the cost of labeling and advertisement but also you are often buying a lower quality product. Depending on whom you buy colored mulch from at the worst the actual mulch may have ground up reject lumber and crushed wooden pallets instead of true timber materials. What they might call bark may not even actually be tree bark but the remains of the timber process after logs are turned into boards. There is the lack of permanence in the dyes used, as red much tends to turn pink, and black mulch takes on a gray color after a few weeks to a month or so. At a worst case scenario the dye leaches out and stains other surfaces. In short friends don’t let friends buy dyed mulch!

Considering the options of what mulch you use is as important as where you apply the material. As we all know mulch can act as a weed barrier because it prevents light from reaching the weed seeds that may lay dormant in the soil. More so the few weeds that do germinate then have to push their way though that extra layer of material just to get to light and but the time they do they’ve burned off a lot of energy. By this point the weeds are very visible and that’s where you come in. Needless to say mulch is quite important for your beds in numerous ways but did you know you can use mulch in your large pots for the same purposes? Indeed the test gardens insulate our 14” planters with a ½” layer of pine bark mulch to reduce watering needs and it seems to work. The squirrels also seem to want to mess with the planters less and fire ant mounts if they ever appear are very visible which makes it a triple bonus. We also use mulch in our raised and non-raised beds equally to promote better moisture retention and an improved topsoil quality as the bark does break down over time. But enough on this topic, next week we will cover watering, and after that plant selection. As promised earlier here are the week’s best test garden photographs.

This is what a maturing Kiwano or Horned Melon vine looks like, at the time of this photo the vines had reached the top of the 5' climbing support and were still aggressively growing despite that. If the growth is an indicator of the potential for fruit I may be buried in horned melons! I sold young kiwano plants this year and this folks is what you ought be prepared for.

Here Is that rascaly rabbit I was telling folks about. He or she posed right behind the tailgate of the truck long enough for me to snap two pictures. As it turns out this rabbit was no doubt attracted to the yard by the number of dandelions I grow which is a food staple for conttontail rabbits.

Ascepias tuberosum also known as Milkweed or Pleurisy Root in full bloom. This pure orange variety is one I brought to Fayetteville from new jersey and is the only perennial on premises that made it through year one. It's not well known but Asclepias of this type have a LONG taproot so they loathe to be transplanted. When grown from seed it takes two or three years for the seedlings to mature. Also the plants appear from nothing in late spring bloom and then slowly appear to decline and die going dormant until next year.

Yucca filimentosa also known as Adam's Needle or Spanish Bayonet, this tough perennial is best known for it's foliage but mature clumps flower in early summer. The flower stalks can be upwards of 6' tall and are covered with these bell shaped flowers. No scent but then not such a big deal for a plant often deemed unapproachable.

I snapped a shot of this butterfly on a particularly windy day as it settled in the pine straw no doubt to take a brief rest. After a little research it seems to be a black swallowtail type. According to some aspects of African lore butterflies carry the souls of those recently deceased. Personally I just consider the presence of this butterfly as a sign that the work completed int eh gardens is worth it.

A Silver Fir Tree tomato showing off it's 'fir' which sparkles a little in the light and it's mature form lacy foliage. This is one of the tomato varieties sold this year. Overall the fir tree tomato is turning out to be rather durable and is growing quite well in the test garden.

Oxalis articulata or Pink Sorrel this common garden plant is often considered a weed. As a relative of the sorrels it is a perennial with a reasonably good drought resistance. This little plant spreads both by seed and it's tuberous roots. It will tolerate poor soil drought and has few if any insect problems but may succumb to a fungal infection of Rust. Generally a cheery plant in the spring and fall very easy to propagate and it also makes for a reliable perennial addition to any garden.

Physalis, Cossack Pineapple Ground cherries in a 15" pot out in the test gardens. For note all pots in the test garden this year received a 1/" layer of much to conserve moisture. This variety was sold this year and this is what a established but not quite mature plant looks like. For those who don't know the ground cherry is a semi-native that is disease resistance and drought tolerant. There are few issues with this plant in general and the best part is most casual visitors will never know this is anything other then an ornamental. The fruit is fantastic though, they taste like little candies.

Penstemon gloxinoides, or Gloxinia-flowered beardtongue. This variety of penstemon has all the durability traits of the other varieties but also bears large two-tone flowers throughout summer. as you can see the variety above called Hot coral is very striking. These plants are drought tolerant but to do their best need a decent soil.

With that last picture this brings to a close another episode of Lost int he farmer's Market. I know this episode didn't quite make it online at the time it was planned with a plant list but, never fear, next week's episode should be posted on Thursday evening if not Friday proper.  In the next episode I'll continue the topic with a bit about soil amendments and quality and it's effect on how efficiently you water your garden.  As always folks be wary of heatstroke and hydration  and also keep 'em growing!