Welcome back to another Thunderstorm-Straddling
episode of Lost in the Farmer’s Market. As you can tell the heat is on and
summer officially begins on Saturday, More so the 4th of July occurs
the following Saturday so I hope all of you are prepared for a super-happy Fun time
week because between those two events it’s going to be off the charts. For today’s
topic first I have this image as taken through my office window at the
headquarters.
This thunderstorm was an on and off affair lasting a little over an hour and was
full of the expected thunder and lightning. But some of you may be wondering
what the fuss over a thunderstorm is and that is a simple question to answer.
From a basic perspective thunderstorms occur when a mass of cold air meats a
mass of warm air causing the fronts to mix and respond with precipitation and
of course thunder and lightning. But one other advantage is that the
Atmospheric pressure creates both wind and extracts nitrogen from the atmosphere
which is delivered to the fields and garden in a soluble form in rain. This
alone makes thunderstorms important because they basically both water and
fertilize the land. After a series of thunderstorms everything looks super
green because all the plants have gotten a nitrogen boost and nitrogen causes a
growth spurt and intense greening in plants. Too much nitrogen can cause a
plant’s cells to burn out, where as too little causes most plants to become
pale and lack vigor. The problem is that nitrogen is capricious, in that it
never stays in the soil and thus even the USDA doesn’t bother testing soil
samples for it because they know there will be no accuracy in the readings.
Typically we apply nitrogen in a water-soluble form
known as Urea nitrogen, which is called urea because we first identified it as
a chemical in *drum roll* urine. Fish in a fish tank exchange their urea
through their gills which is why when you change the water in your aquariums
the water makes for a decent fertilizer. Other creatures exude urea through the
skin (amphibians) and in their bodily wastes (birds). If you’ve ever been to a
place like Flow & Grow in town, you might see some of the Sunleaves brand
bird guano and bat guano fertilizer products. In this case both often have high
nitrogen levels but also respectable potassium and phosphorous content. This is
because of those two animal’s particular diets. Sea birds eat fish, and fish inherently
have a fair amount of urea in their systems. Likewise bats often eat insects
and from their chitin exoskeletons calcium, phosphorous and potassium can be
extracted through digestion. In order
for these wastes to be processed into fertilizers often they are dried and
sterilized so that no pathogens are passed to the user. This leads to one thing
that has to be said.
I do not recommend any of you out there using your own
bodily wastes as fertilizer or compost due to the risk of transmitting
communicable diseases such as typhoid and cholera and or parasites. There are
systems like the Bio-toilet out there that allow you to compost your own bodily
wastes but if you are going to embark on this I really, suggest you do thorough
research first. Oh and make sure you wash your hands…seriously it’s gross. Moving along there is one happy side effect
of having a thunderstorm and that is that frequent but non-drenching rains
promotes what I like to call advantageous volunteers. In the new bed that is
still under construction a bumper crop of crab grass has appeared and is
helping hold the soil in place but in between it a number of edibles have
emerged.
This is red Calaloo or a type of amaranth. It
volunteered in the new bed from last years seed no doubt. Some see amaranth as
a weed, I see it as an edible forage plant with many native edible relatives
plus it’s a useful drought tolerant garden plant with an interesting color.
Check this out, of all the rotted sweet potatoes, one
somehow survived the winter to sprout in the new bed from the compost I used to
build this bed up. I doubt I’ll get anything out of it but it’s still cool to
see a success story.
I don’t know the species but I like that some form of
squash or gourd is creeping out of the new bed purely on a volunteer basis,
this is the most developed out of several examples of volunteering squash in
the bed.
This wraps up this week’s post, the market report for
this Saturday’s market is on the prior post and this Saturday marks the first Saturday
that I am offering Medicinal Aloes for sale. So stop on by and get your instant
herbal burn relief.
