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May and June are decidedly the most bedecked and bejeweled months of spring, with gladioluses and irises following late blooming tulips, and roses just coming into their own. While the garden looks good, unfortunately our orchards are not so well adorned in the apple blocks this year. A sudden hard and deep freeze last October (though some argue the damage was done in January) arrived without the benefit of a gradual cooling of autumn temperatures, and shocked the still much too vigorous trees, doing damage to the spur wood which otherwise would have borne blossoms this spring. The more hardy pear trees were less affected. We're confident that the fruit trees are still healthy and will recover from this setback, but it will take time, and the impact is that this year's apple crop will be much reduced. So may no frost,
when early buds appear, Overwhelming number of options for gardens these days...we've always been partial to the long, boring rows of vegetables with berry patches here and there, and fruit trees round about, but there are places where gardening is more about artistic self-expression than it is about putting food on the table. Sorry Chuck and Katie, you need to get with the program. Growing your Matanuska Valley vegetables is anachronistic and terribly old-fashioned besides. It doesn't matter if you produced the best Brussel Sprouts that I've ever had in my life, snapped to sugary sweetness by those first hard Alaskan frosts. But it is difficult to discern the social status of Brussel Sprouts. The status garden is all about creating themes, color schemes, aromatic moods and sense experiences. Yet, work is work. The sweat and labor that goes into growing beds of white flowers which only bloom in moonlight, is not much different from the work of cultivating row upon row of potatoes, carrots, beans, peas, and broccoli. All kinds of gardeners do battle with pests, fungus and plant disease. They need to water, mulch, weed and wait, and are rewarded with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when successful in their efforts. What's different is the reason for the choice of garden type. Victory Gardens were encouraged for patriotic reasons. Urban Gardens were designed to salvage a connection with the land within a concrete dominated environment. Community Gardens were an attempt to establish human ties within an alienated society of strangers. The Display Garden is not so hard to understand. It's a garden for the purpose of showing-off. I don't have statistics on the number of carp ponds installed and Victorian gazing globes sold to American homeowners lately, but I'm thoroughly convinced they are a part of this trend. Watch for announcements of special garden tours in your area, and if you can't find any, organize a tour of your own because now more than ever, it's all about show. The love of rural life, the habit of finding enjoyment in familiar things, that susceptibility to Nature which keeps the nerve gently thrilled in her homliest nooks and by her commonest sounds, is worth a thousand fortunes of money, or its equivalents. - Henry Ward Beecher You could describe Grandma Barbara and Grandpa Dee's garden as "by the birds, for the birds". I am not referring to their vegetable garden, of course (where the best fresh salad greens come from all summer long and delicious tomatoes, too) but the yard in general which has never suffered a shortage of shrubbery or shade trees and is well loved by the birds. There really isn't much lawn to mow (although Grandpa Dee might disagree) because large and well-established bushes have filled in most of what once was open area. You'll find mock orange, baby's breath, bridal wreath, and then there are the currant bushes, snow-like in bloom and with lustrous red clusters that hang fat and heavy when ripe, to be consumed by the birds (if Grandma Barbara isn't quick and harvests them first for jelly).The birds carry the seeds away, and if dropped in an auspicious yet inconspicuous spot out of reach of the mower, another currant bush springs up from the ground seemingly overnight. Here is a chunk of wisdom out of the excellent Garden Primer (which you can get free by asking me for it): "One hour a day spent in a garden ten yards long by seven wide will supply vegetables enough for a family of six"; but the value of this remark lies in the application of it. If you figure a bit on that you will find that ten minutes a day will provide enough for one person, but six hours once a week won't do. Six hours a day will bring up a baby; but two days a week is criminal neglect for the other five days. If you once let the weeds get a good start, say after a rain, they will make even the angels swear. It's regular attention that the baby and the garden and your education and your best girl will require. - Bolton Hall, Three Acres and Liberty (1918) Farm Subscriptions are becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to buying and bagging your fresh vegetables at the local mega-superstore. Regan and Jen signed up for a farm subscription in Portland last year. I asked them some questions about how that's been going for them. Cory: When and why did you first sign-up with a local subscription farm? Regan: Last year in May. We wanted to shorten the distance between ourselves and our food, literally and figuratively. We believe, along with all major scientific associations and the Pentagon, that burning fossil fuels and the subsequent global warming is the greatest threat to US security. We also believe that farmers who rely on the large distribution system through national supermarket chains are in a powerless situation leading to low commodity prices. It is important to understand the impact of our consumption. I can see much of that impact if I buy locally. Partnering with a local subscription assures us that 100% of our hard earned money will directly support a farmer and his/her family. It also gives us a relationship with the farmer as we get weekly letters with each food drop, and we sometimes write back with a gift (jam, cookies). Therefore, we limit fuel consumption and waste, increase understanding of our food, increase our relationships with farmers, and hopefully, in a very small way improve the security of the nation. Cory: What connections or lack thereof do you see between farmers and the urban population? Regan: See above, also, children don't understand food and they really would enjoy understanding where their food comes from, given the exposure. Cory: What are the benefits and costs of belonging to a subscription farm? Regan: Costs: eating regional and seasonal varieties, no bananas and no snap peas in winter. Benefits: all the above points plus very delicious, fresh, tasty, flavorful foods. An increased variety; we have tried more different foods this year than ever before. Organic grown produce. While many in the industry still think organic food is for paranoid hippies, I suggest they look into the science and the research of chemical build up in our bodies, and how it can be passed to the next generation (through breast milk) in greater concentrations. Don't believe the hippies, believe the science. Another angle on organics is the exposure of the farmers to the chemicals. If we support organic agriculture we allow people to farm in ways that keep them safe. Should a farmer be required to take health risks in order to farm? Cory: I'll assume that was a rhetorical question. Why would you or would you not recommend subscription farms to others? Regan: Some people don't like vegetables, some don't like anything other than highly processed foods flavored by the flavor industry based in New Jersey. I do not recommend subscription farms for these people. I would recommend subscription farms for people with young children and especially any women planning a family from preconception on. Jen is in nursing school, she told me of a medical finding that babies develop their neural networks for taste in the first few years, which is when they breast feed. And that there is a relationship with the type and variety of foods the mother ingests during lactation and the subsequent food choices of the child. (I thought that this would lead the formula industry to develop flavored formula.) Cory: What is something memorable (funny, sad, etc.) that has happened regarding your membership during the past year? Regan: Sad, the heavy snow last winter collapsed the hoop houses for the farm. They got rebuilt and recovered fine. Funny, trying to figure out what to do with Kohlrabi and celeriac. Cory: How would you advise someone who is interested in finding out more about subscription farms in their area and what are some online sources of information about subscription farms that you could recommend? Regan: Google on community supported agriculture plus your State. Final recommendations: Our current food system is highly energy intensive, highly productive, and feeds an ever exploding world population. Each of these points is an anomaly in history. It's good policy to think for yourself and have a Plan B. Do you have a Plan B? - Regan TO A GARDENER
by Robert Louis Stevenson Interesting and revealing
biographical notes about R L S at http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/stevenson/ Quick Click
Highlights for Late Spring and Summer
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The gairdner
crooks his weary back
"Eternal gardening is the price of liberty," is a motto that I should put over the gateway of my garden, if I had a gate. And yet it is not wholly true; for there is no liberty in gardening. The man who undertakes a garden is relentlessly pursued. He felicitates himself that, when he gets it once planted, he will have a season of rest and of enjoyment in the sprouting and growing of his seeds. It is a green anticipation. He has planted a seed that will keep him awake nights; drive rest from his bones, and sleep from his pillow. Hardly is the garden planted, when he must begin to hoe it. The weeds have sprung up all over it in a night. They shine and wave in redundant life. - Charles Dudley Warner, Summer in a Garden In my opinion, scarcely any life can be more blessed, not alone from its utility (for agriculture is beneficial to the whole human race), but also as much from the mere pleasure of the thing, to which I have already alluded, and from the rich abundance and supply of all things necessary for the food of man and for the worship of the gods above. So, as these are objects of desire to certain people, let us make our peace with pleasure. For the good and hard - working farmer's wine - cellar and oil store, as well as his larder, are always well filled, and his whole farm house is richly furnished. It abounds in pigs, goats, lambs, fowls, milk, cheese, and honey. Then there is the garden, which the farmers themselves call their "second flitch." A zest and flavour is added to all these by hunting and fowling in spare hours. Need I mention the greenery of meadows, the rows of trees, the beauty of vineyard and olive - grove? I will put it briefly: nothing can either furnish necessaries more richly, or present a fairer spectacle, than well - cultivated land. - Cicero, Old Age (c. 65 BCE) This time of year the sun seems to race towards its northern turnaround point, and of course shall continue in such manner until the 21st of June. We pay attention to the sun's annual journey. We live at home, don't travel much, and see the same view, day in and day out. To know the length of day as well as the place and time of sunrise and sunset provide a sort of "seasonal positioning system" (SPS) that does not rely on radio signals, satellites and atomic clocks. To establish your SPS, mark the northern point on the horizon where the sun seems to stand still in relation to your home location. Get up at dawn on the Summer Solstice, have a camera ready and snap the sunrise (just try not to blind yourself in the process). Keep the picture for reference and when the sun has moved to its furthest southward point, on about December 21, the Winter Solstice, repeat the process. "Now listen!
I’m no fool. I know that in daily life we don’t go around saying “is a
… is a … is a …” Yes, I’m no fool; but I think that in that line the rose
is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years." - Gertrude
Stein, Four in America All the
names I know from nurse: Fairy
places, fairy things, Tiny
woods below whose boughs Fair
are grown-up people’s trees, Source: A Child's Garden of Verses and Underwoods by Robert Louis Stevenson (1913) A Riddle
from a poem by R. L. Stevenson —
Remember to wish a Happy Mother's Day in May and Father's Day in June to Moms and Dads, the cultivators of youth.
Let us celebrate the soil. Most men toil that they may own a piece of it; they measure their success in life by their ability to buy it. It is alike the passion of the parvenu and the pride of the aristocrat. Broad acres are a patent of nobility; and no man but feels more, of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property. And there is a great pleasure in working in the soil, apart from the ownership of it. The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done something for the good of the World. He belongs to the producers. It is a pleasure to eat of the fruit of one's toil, if it be nothing more than a head of lettuce or an ear of corn. - Charles Dudley Warner, Summer in a Garden (1870) Eastern
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Special Insert on the Recent Quarantine of Kittitas County Imposed by the Washington State Department of Agriculture (Derived from Kittitas County Pest Board Sources, April 2004)
The Department of Agriculture has conducted an Apple Maggot trapping program in Kittitas County, Washington, since the mid 1980's. In April 2004, the agency imposed an Apple Maggot Quarantine on Kittitas County as a result of finding more than one life stage of Apple Maggot in a residential neighborhood tree within the city limits of Ellensburg. The commercial orchards are not situated on the valley floor, near the City of Ellensburg, because of climatic considerations. Rather, the majority of commercial apples that are grown in the Kittitas Valley are located in areas that were formally sage brush hillsides. These orchards are surrounded primarily by sage brush and large open areas of farm crops. For this reason the majority of the orchards are distanced from much of the potential apple maggot host material. No apple maggot has been found in actual producing commercial orchards in Kittitas County. But the WSDA has imposed the nearly county wide quarantine (orchards near Vantage were one exception) based upon the threat evidenced by the insects that they trapped in yard trees within Ellensburg. In 2004 there will be traps placed in host trees within a one half mile radius of the County's commercial orchards. The Washington State Department of Agriculture will be monitoring these traps. Washington State University is also cooperating with WSDA to conduct a host materials survey within the county this summer. The Washington State Department of Agriculture conducts a very extensive Apple Maggot trapping program in Kittitas County. Kittitas County through the Kittitas County Pest Board has had a history of actively and aggressively working to eradicate and control Apple Maggot in Kittitas County. In the past,when an Apple Maggot fly was found, the Kittitas County Pest Board has contacted the owner of the property and made arrangements to treat the site. All positive sites have been treated through acceptable practices of treatment, fruit removal and or tree removal. Kittitas County through the Kittitas County Pest Board at this time has an Interagency agreement with the Washington State Department of Agriculture that uses apple industry funds from Horticultural Inspection District 2 to help fund this eradication and and control effort. Apple Maggot can cause the fruit on an apple tree in a yard to be inedible and unsprayed trees pose a very serious threat to neighboring orchards. The primary host for Apple Maggots is Hawthorn and Apple trees although it is reported that Apple Maggots have been found in Crab Apples, Plums, Apricots, Pears, Cherries, and wild Rose Hips. A female Codling Moth can lay over 100 eggs on foliage or on the fruit itself. When the worms hatch they eat into the fruit and destroy it. Other pests and diseases of concern include Cherry Fruit Fly, San Jose Scale, Pear Psylla, Pandemis and Fire Blight. To obtain copies of related Extension Bulletins contact Kittitas County Cooperative Extension Agency (507 Nanum St., Suite 2), Phone: (509) 962-7507. For more information on Apple Maggot see WSU Extension Bulletin 1928 “Protecting Backyard Apple Trees from Apple Maggot” http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/eb1928/EB1928.pdf For more information from the WSDA contact Mike Klaus (509) 225-2609. For more information on taking care of fruit trees see COOPERATIVE EXTENSION WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY CHELAN AND DOUGLAS COUNTIES at http://www.co.chelan.wa.us/pc/pc8.htm For more information on the Pest Board see Chapter 15.09 RCW HORTICULTURAL PEST AND DISEASE BOARD http://www.leg.wa.gov/rcw/index.cfm?fuseaction=chapter&chapter=15.09 |
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Note:
Most gardeners find that rhubarb is very easy to grow. It needs
little care and no encouragement to keep it coming back each spring.
Fortunately, strawberries are generally ready to pick before the
rhubarb stalks get too big. Rhubarb and strawberry make a natural
pairing in pie, sauce and jam. Because rhubarb was also a favorite
crop of the pioneers, there are many fine heritage recipes around
that put it to good use. Try the following apple rhubarb desserts!
