Even apartment dwellers can grow a pot of chard and the beauty of a pot of chard is that it will provide food for months.
Photo by Flickr user marc falardeau under Creative Commons
Even apartment dwellers can grow a pot of chard and the beauty of a pot of chard is that it will provide food for months.
Raise your hand if you turn on the hose to water your garden when it’s thirsty. I suspect that most of us do at least some of the time, but that may not be the best way to hydrate your plants. For years, municipalities have been adding chlorine to water supplies to make it safe for drinking. At a recent community event I learned that our municipal water provider has switched over to something called chloramine, and other municipalities are embracing chloramine as well. The difference is this: the chlorine in water will dissipate if you leave a container of water uncovered for a few hours. Chloramine cannot be removed from water by boiling, distilling, or by standing uncovered. Both of these treatments kill bacteria and microorganisms in our household water, making it safe for use. Here’s the rub: Good healthy soil is home to lots of living bacteria and microorganisms. It stands to reason that water that’s been treated to kill off bacteria in our drinking water might also kill off the good bacteria in our soil, making it harder and harder to maintain healthy soil. What to do? You’ll need to determine if you feel the chemicals in the water are...
I have to admit I felt a little silly transplanting a purslane plant from my neighbors yard into my own. You see, until recently, I had no idea that this “weed” was edible. Here’s how it looked: In early spring I’d prepare my garden beds, plant seeds of lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, and bok choy, wait for them to sprout, hope the snails didn’t get them, curse these thriving weeds with teardrop shaped leaves, and pull them out. The plant itself is very pretty – low growing and non-invasive – but it just didn’t belong there, in my garden. Sure, now it seems silly. My purslane is now thriving, mingling freely with beets and tomatillos. I’ve added the leaves to salads and smoothies and nobody around here has complained. The leaves are somewhat succulent with a mild flavor. (Not fuzzy and offensive on the tongue like uncooked dandelion greens.) And according to Mother Earth News, Purslane contains high amounts of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), an omega-3 fatty acid generally found in vegetables, as well as small amounts of EPA and DHA, omega-3 fatty acids more commonly found in fish. It’s also high in vitamins A, C and E, and in dietary minerals such as iron, magnesium,...
Experimenting with wintertime gardening, I planted Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, green onions, and beets a couple of months ago. You can see the brassicas (Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower) in the upper left corner of the photo near the pile of compost. They’re pretty happy; I need to thin them out. In the foreground are the beets, green onions, and celery I planted along with – surprise! – some volunteers: tomatillo, a tomato, cilantro, and purslane. I have tons of volunteer cilantro. A closer look. It’s a small experimental bed, but it’s cram packed with stuff. I’m thinking of just letting nature take its course. An even closer look. I’ve never grown celery from seed, but you can see how happy it is. A “lipstick” pepper that I started from seed and transplanted out a month or so ago. You can also see some sort of squash seedlings that sprouted from compost. Trouble in paradise. I have a yellow pear tomato that’s about three feet high and lush except for this little issue. Leaves at the base of the plant are yellowing then dying off. These are leaves that I’ve trimmed from the plant. Can you identify this? In...
While I’ve got a number of compost piles, a worm bin, and chickens to work through much of my waste, I have a problem with invasive weeds. Living in the tropics means lots of vines, and tossing those vines in a compost pile? Is just like planting them. They root easily and quickly. Beating back the jungle means we generate a lot of this aggressive yard waste, and we often fill a pickup truck and haul it 60 miles away to the green waste facility. Sure, we combine a trip like that with other errands, and we swap our green waste for finished compost, but it still seems silly to haul it off site. Way back in July, my husband brought home a compost tumbler** for my birthday. Over the course of a month or so, I stuffed it with the invasive yard waste that I won’t add to my regular compost bin. Because the materials are contained and up off the ground, they won’t try to send out roots. The materials kind of collapsed after a few days in the tumbler and as there was room, I added more. A couple of days ago – about five months...
Slugs are a problem for many gardeners, but here in Hawaii they’re an exceptional problem. Not only do they damage crops, they transmit something called rat lung disease. It’s a rare* disease and one that is still being studied, but the general consensus is that accidental ingestion of tiny slugs (ick!) is bad, as is ingesting raw produce that’s been slimed by slugs. I’ve been working on a “slug protocol” that will rid the garden of these slimy pests without the added risk of poisons. While it doesn’t eliminate the slugs, I start by growing my lettuce in containers – often hanging containers – to keep slugs off the salad greens we eat raw. I’ve started going on weekly slug hunts. (Psst! Hey, who’s the nut job out there in pajamas wearing a headlamp??) No, it’s not glamorous. In fact, it’s pretty gross. But since I’ve implemented this plan I’ve seen a huge reduction in how many slugs I catch in a night. I go out after dark with the aforementioned headlamp (PJs optional), a container with about an inch of either vinegar or salt in the bottom, and wooden chopsticks. As I spot slugs, I use the chopsticks...
One of the plants that’s thriving in my oh-so-wet-and-rainy garden this year is stevia. It’s the first time I’ve grown it, so I’m pleased to see it do so well, but how to use it? For starters, just chewing on a fresh leaf gives a burst of sweetness that’s welcome when you’re trying to cut back on processed sugars. I’ve tried tossing a few fresh leaves in with hot tea, but don’t notice much in the way of sweetening with this method. I really wanted to have a go-to sweetener at the ready for tea and coffee, so I decided to try drying it, which was super simple to do. I stripped the leaves from the stems, cleaned them in a bowl of water, and took them for a spin in the salad spinner.
While much of the nation is dealing with an abundance of zucchini and tomatoes, my most prolific crop at the moment is kale. As someone who doesn’t love cooked greens, this is a bit of a dilemma. My chickens get the leaves that succumb to bugs, but that still leaves me with a windfall of two varieties of vitamin-rich green leaves. Turns out I’m not the only one trying to figure out how to deal with prolific kale plants. On Facebook, Tina asked: Can you post kale recipes? I don’t have a clue what to do with it other than feed it to chickens. Let me tell you how I’m utilizing it. First and foremost, it goes in everything. I strip out the main stem, cut the leaf into small shreds, and then: Saute the leaves with a bit of olive oil and garlic until they’re tender, then add eggs for a breakfast scramble. I use two leaves for three eggs. No use overdoing it and making everyone hate kale. Stir into marinara sauce. Kale disappears beautifully in marinara sauce – I use 6-8 leaves for a big stock pot. The people who don’t love kale don’t even know...
