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Organic Gardening |
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by Frank and Vicky Giannangelo |
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Spears of Spring
When we finished sifting the compost near our old garden, we decided to go in and look around, not expecting to find anything other than weeds, since we had allowed it to become fallow and return to its previous natural state. To our surprise, around the edges there were tulips coming up. We dug them up and heeled them into the sifted compost. In the middle of the garden, we found daffodils and a few groups of grape hyacinth, which we also dug up and transferred to the compost for the ride home.
Taking one more walk around, we saw the heads of asparagus poking up through the dirt and one spear that had arrived too early in the season and had frozen. Upon closer inspection, we found more coming up. By prodding with the shovel, we were able to find their main root balls that now were around six or seven years old.
Asparagus reaches its prime after 6-8 years and can remain a good producing plant for about 15 years. It is a member of the lily family. Its name is from the Greek, meaning “sprout” or “shoot.” Cultivation around the Mediterranean had been going on for thousands of years, but it was first domesticated by the Macedonians around 200 B.C. Asparagus is used not only as a food, but also as a medicine.
It contains no fat or cholesterol and is low in sodium. It is a nutrient-dense food that is high in folic acid, calcium, potassium, fiber, vitamins B6, A, C, E, and Thiamin. Chinese herbalists use asparagus roots to help reduce inflammation by the coumpounds call steroidal glycosides.
We brought the plants home and dug a deep trench, added gypsum and bone meal, and watered it well. Then we planted the crowns about 6 inches below the top of the soil. The bone meal provided phosphorus to help reduce transplant shock.
The Dutch and English brought asparagus to this continent in the 1700’s. These original plantings are unimproved, non-hybrids called “Washington Varieties,” named after Waltham and Mary Martha Washington. Today the hybrids that are used commercially and in home gardens are divided between those for the northern climates, (the Jersey varieties available through most garden catalogues) and a variety called UC 157 used in the Southwest, California, and Mexico.
Asparagus is in the garlic and onion family, and is therefore susceptible to Fusarium root rot that exists in all soils at some level. A low pH is more conducive to the growth and spread of Fusarium fungi, so raising your pH up to at least 7.0 is a good idea. For nutrients other than phosphorus, one should use the results of a soil test to provide a complete and balanced NPK.
Last night we picked ten “whips” or the smaller diameter spears. They are a little tougher than the larger spears because most of the fiber is in the skin, so the larger the spear, the less the fiber. We ate them raw, although we also enjoy them steamed with butter or a dip. Since it only takes a few minutes to steam or stir- fry asparagus, the Roman Emperor Augustus coined the phrase “velocius quam aspargi coquantur”, or “faster than you can cook asparagus.”
One of the more unusual features of asparagus is the smell of one’s urine shortly after eating it. There are disputes as to the exact compound, but it is known to be formed as a “derivative during the digestion and subsequent breakdown of beneficial amino acids that occur naturally in asparagus.” (Merck Index, pg. 271.)
We look forward to harvesting throughout the season, lasting until late June or early July, at which time we will allow the last spears to grow into ferns. The fern is a factory that supplies the energy to the crown and storage roots for the next year’s crops.
These early spears of spring reified our winter garden images, as did the transplants that we carefully spaced in the newly planted Greenzbox ™, visualizing their size in comparison to each other when fully grown.
This turn of the season awakened us suddenly from a mental garden to an edible epiphany. Our own winter ferning has resupplied us with the energy, to bring about once again, the renewing affirmation of the garden and the eternal fact that we are growing.
Copyright © 2007
Giannangelo Farms Southwest
Frank and Vicky Giannangelo
Avant-Gardening: Creative Organic Gardening
Giannangelo Farms Southwest
http://www.avant-gardening.com/
"What is Organic Gardening?"
"Man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”
Rachel Carson
ORGANIC GARDENING starts with good soil. When crops are deprived of basic nutrients they languish. Organic soil amendments and conditioners pay for themselves with increased plant productivity. Healthy plants grow more vigorously, taste better, store longer, and better resist insect attacks. They have greater resistance to the cold, heat, drought, and disease. Successful soil building best addresses the soil’s long-term needs by remedying deficiencies organically. Chemical fertilizers add unwanted nitrates or salts to the soil, as well as leaving chemical residues in the food. Organic gardening is growing without chemical fertilizers, naturally building the soil to support healthy plant life. Chemical fertilizers and additives will, over time, damage the soil's ability to provide what plants need to resist disease, insect attacks, and stress. Soil depletion of organic nutrients is one of the main causes of unhealthy plants and disease.
RECIPE FOR SOIL DEPLEATION:
Pesticides + chemical fertilizers = Infertile soil, stressed plants, and insect attacks.
RECIPE FOR SOIL BUILDING:
Organic fertilizers + microbial activity = Soil fertility, healthy plants, and resistance to insect attacks.
A healthy, organic garden produces strong plants that are able to withstand adverse conditions. The consistent traits and habits needed to make good soil can also help build fertility in our lives. Those things we do to create a healthy garden can become the tools needed to explore, change, and enhance our daily lives through:
Assessment - the plan of action
Decision – the choice to act
Implementation– the act itself, the doing
Success in the garden proves the efficacy of these tools, and as we use them to expand our gardens - the garden of our yard, and the garden of our soul - we expand all the aspects of our lives.
Organic soil amendments and conditioners can renew the life of your soil without adding unwanted chemicals. Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium are the basic providers of nutrients in the soil. Trace minerals provide the rest.
Soil can either be acidic or alkaline, or neutral – the soil’s pH. pH is the symbol for the logarithm of the reciprocal of Hydrogen ion concentration in gram atoms per liter. For example, a pH of 5 indicates a concentration of .00001 or 10-5 gram atoms of hydrogen ions in one liter of solution. Acidic soil has a pH range from 1 to 6.5. Alkaline soils have a pH range from 7.5 to 10. Neutral soil has a pH of 7. Lime, oak leaf mold, peat moss, rotted sawdust, and soil sulfur will lower the pH in an alkaline soil. For acid soil, add dolomite lime, or oyster shell lime. For the best results, add these amendments in the spring when soils are warming and microorganisms are active. Most plants grow well in a pH range of 6, but will tolerate a pH between 5.5 – 7.
Organic soil-building should include the addition of the following organic nutrients:
HUMUS - organic matter in various stages of decay. It increases water-holding capacity, modifies soil structure, stimulates plant growth, permits root penetration, and helps to correct soil imbalances. Some forms of humus are found in compost and animal manures.
NITROGEN - contains proteins and is a food source for compost piles (grass clippings, green vegetable matter), and it stimulates green growth in plants. Sources are blood meal, cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal, fishmeal, and fish emulsion.
PHOSPHORUS - stimulates root growth and promotes fruit and seed maturation. Good sources are soft rock phosphate or bone meal. Deficiencies are indicated by purple leaves, brittle roots, skinny stems and late fruit set and maturity.
POTASSIUM - promotes plant vitality and disease resistance. Sources are Greens and, also known as Glauconite, sulfate of potash, wood ashes, or Sul Po Mag. Deficiencies are indicated by an irregular yellowing of lower leaves, and poor root growth.
CALCIUM - important for plant cell wall integrity, root development and leaf growth. Low levels show up as deformed new leaves and branches, weak stems and roots. A good source for calcium is gypsum, which can also lower the alkalinity of the soil.
MAGNESIUM - essential for chlorophyll and green leaf development. Pale green leaves with green veins are a sign of deficiency. Adding dolomite lime to raise the pH in an acid soil often corrects this deficiency. In an alkaline soil you can add Magnesium Sulfate.
SULPHUR - used to lower pH in alkaline soil, and it is a stimulant for soil microbial life. Use sparingly. A good source is soil sulfur, or calcium sulfate – Gypsum.
TRACE MINERALS - found in compost, kelp meal, algae meal, and seaweed meal. These can provide boron, copper, iron, sulfur and zinc.
OXYGEN - one of the most important fertility components in the soil - it stimulates microbial activity and allows free root growth. Humus, peat moss, compost, and aged manure tilled into the soil help to increase the air spaces in the soil enabling plants to utilize the available nutrients. Soil should be loose and never walked on, which only compacts it. Tilling wet soil too early in the season can also destroy soil structure by compacting it, and squeezing out the pockets for air.
SUSTAINABLE GARDENING - one of the most important things about gardening organically is that the process can become sustainable over time. Sustainable soil building begins after the initial soil testing and the addition of organic fertilizers and conditioners, and continues by organically maintaining and improving the soil over time. Sustaining the soil means being able to replenish nutrients with what you have at hand – organic compost, beneficial microbes, enzymes, and earthworms. Ideally, once the garden is established it can be sustained with garden compost alone, using the microbes in your soil to inoculate your compost, which feed your soil.
WORMS - Vermicomposting uses earthworms to make compost. Worms can eat their body weight daily in organic matter and convert it into dark, soil enriching castings full of live micro organisms, growth hormones, and nutrients, humic acids which condition the soil, and a neutral pH.
COMPOSTING - Billions of decaying organisms (25,000 bacteria placed end to end equal one inch) feed, grow, reproduce and die, recycling garden waste into an organic fertilizer and soil conditioner. Composting is the ultimate recycling process – improving soil structure, increasing the soil’s ability to hold moisture, providing soil aeration, fertilization, and nitrogen storage. It buffers pH, releases nutrients, and provides food for microbial life.
PLANTING COVER CROPS - this "green manure" is grown for the sole purpose of being tilled into the soil to add organic matter. It will help keep moisture from evaporating, regulate the soil temperature, keeping it cooler in summer and warmer in winter. By providing an insulating blanket, microbes and earthworms will thrive. The more worms in your garden, the more they can break up, fertilize, and aerate the soil. Beneficial insects are also attracted by cover crops; alfalfa can attract parasitic wasps, lady beetles, damsel bugs, big-eyed bugs and assassin bugs. White clover can attract Tachnid flies, ground beetles and parasitic wasps that prey on aphids, scales, caterpillars and white flies. Most grains will attract lady beetles. Clovers and vetches can attract minute pirate bugs. Fava beans and buckwheat can attract predatory and parasitic wasps, syrphid flies and bumblebees.
CROP ROTATION - Crop rotation also helps to prevent soil deficiencies. By using different plants in different beds, you can avoid depletion of nutrients because each plant has different needs. Planting a legume after a heavy feeder such as corn, will replenish the nitrogen in the soil. Rotate your root crops, leafy crops, heavy feeders, and cover crops. if you keep a garden journal you can keep track of what you planted, and where and when you planted it.
PROVIDING GOOD DRAINAGE - Good drainage is essential to soil health. Too little drainage makes a soggy soil which prevents root growth, nutrient absorption, and compacts the soil. A perk test is an easy way to determine water drainage through your soil. Dig a hole six inches across by one foot deep. Fill with water and let drain. As soon as the water has drained, fill it again. Time how long it takes for the water to drain. If it takes more than 8 hours, you have a drainage problem. Add sand, gypsum, chopped straw, vermiculite or perlite to increase the drainage. Too much drainage can be determined by a water test. This will tell you if you soil drains too quickly, leaching nutrients and causing plants to be watered more frequently. Water well a small portion of your garden. Two days later, dig a hole 6 inches deep. If the soil is dry to the bottom of the hole, your soil drains too quickly to promote good plant growth. Add peat moss, vermiculite, perlite, composted manure and mulch well to prevent evaporation.
"When the planes still swoop down and aerial spray a field in order to kill a predator insect with pesticides, we are in the Dark Ages of commerce. Maybe one thousandth of this aerial insecticide actually prevents the infestation. The balance goes to the leaves, into the soil, into the water, into all forms of wildlife, into our selves. What is good for the balance sheet is wasteful of resources and harmful to life.”
Paul Hawkin from The Ecology of Commerce
COPYRIGHT (c) 2002 by Frank and Vicky Giannangelo
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Frank & Vicky Giannangelo
Registered Organic
Gardeners
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Frank and Vicky Giannangelo have been gardening organically for 30 years and are New Mexico Registered Organic Gardeners.
Giannangelo Farms began in 1986 on San Juan Island, Washington - an island off the coast of Washington State, 10 miles from the bottom of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
After creating formal, patterned, raised bed, sustainable organic gardens, starting a business, and expanding as much as we could handle without hiring anyone, we sold our business in 1993 and moved to Arizona, where we spent three years creating and
coordinating the building of a large formal herb and vegetable garden for a private community.
Since 1997, we have lived in northwestern New Mexico in an area presenting many challenges, altitude, erratic spring weather, a short growing season, and a 7,300 ft. high desert environment - which is allowing us to use our experience and creativity to establish Giannangelo Farms Southwest.
There are formal gardens, pools, and ponds surrounded by a hay bale stucco wall, garden beds with rock retaining walls, three pergolas for private formal teas, a labyrinth, garden trellises, and greenhouses - all of which are open to the public year around.
We give a series of spring and fall "You Can Grow!" Workshops on how to do basic rockwork, build hay bale stucco walls, and how to create sustainable organic gardens - with an emphasis on the problems of growing in this area.
In the summer we sell organic herbs and vegetables to a coop market in Gallup, and participate in a local Saturday's farmer's market. Sustainable Organic Gardening CD ROMs are available on our website.
NEW on our website:
"Biodiversity and
Genetic Engineering"
http://www.avant-
gardening.com/
biodiversity.html
TAKE VIRTUAL PHOTO TOURS:
avant-gardening.com
Our newsletter is now
published monthly in a new online magazine:
avant-gardening.com
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