OTHER APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABLE VEGETABLES
“Grass-fed Vegetables”
With gardening activities grinding almost to a halt, I can take a breath and reflect on the past season — one of the best seasons ever. Of course, I’ll “blame” the bountifulness mostly on the weather. Maybe I’m also becoming a better gardener. (Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Though an old man, I am a young gardener.”)
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about soil management here on the farmden. It’s simple and possibly sustainable. For the vegetable gardens: no digging, permanent beds, and an inch depth of homemade compost annually slathered onto those beds. For trees and shrubs, mulches of compost, wood chips or leaves, supplemented, if necessary, with soybean or alfalfa meal for additional nitrogen.
My September trip to Maine afforded me two other perspectives on soil management. The first came from a presentation by, and conversation with, Jim Kovaleski, who farms in northern Maine. His system is also simple and possibly sustainable. His farm has 5 acres of hayfield that feeds 1/2 acre of vegetables. “Grass-fed vegetables,” as he calls it. All he does is scythe the hayfield portions and pile the mowings onto the growing areas, in so doing suppressing weeds, locking moisture within the soil, and feeding the ground with the decomposing hay.
Me, scything my field
The question is whether or not the mowed portions can naturally regenerate nutrients through dissolution of native minerals and nitrogen fixation by microbes to keep up with the removal of mowings. Possibly, some essential micronutrient might be missing from that particular piece of ground. To avoid that possibility here on my farmden, I feed my compost a diversity of organic materials, from old Levi’s to orange peels, from Florida oranges, to neighbor’s autumn leaves, and, just to make further sure, kelp.
I didn’t get to visit Jim’s farm, but did hear first-hand testimonials praising the quality and yield of his vegetables.
Come fall, Jim moves his show south, with repeat performances at his mini-farm in suburban Florida, there using yard waste compost and seaweed he harvests to build and maintain soil health, sustainably.
Chicken-fed(?) Vegetables
I did get to visit Four Season Farm, the Maine farm of vegetable guru Elliot Coleman. His system is to grow vegetables for a season, then till the ground and sow grass and clover, graze chickens on that piece of land for a season before tilling it again to grow vegetables. The chickens’ diet is supplemented with bought grain.
The bought grain reduces the system’s “sustainability quotient.” On the other hand, as Elliot emphatically pointed out, he is also growing chickens!
It would be interesting to measure all the inputs and outputs from my soil management, as well as those of Jim and Elliot. And also to quantify any trends in measures of soil health (nutrients, organic matter, soil tilth, etc.) and quality of vegetables.
A Fruitful Year, Literally!
As I drove the highways and byways of Maine, I was astounded at the number of wild, roadside apple trees, and their fruits’ freedom from pests. First, why so many wild trees? Does everyone there munch on apples while driving, then toss the cores out their windows? Why are there so few wild trees here in the Hudson Valley, a major apple-growing region?
And second, why so few pest blemishes on the fruits? In the Northeast — nay, the whole eastern part of the country — pests generally run rampant on apples. Then again, apples have done relatively well, pest- and otherwise this season here in the Hudson Valley also.
Maine’s wild apples
For that matter, it’s generally been an excellent season for all fruits. Even black walnuts, whose nuts haven’t filled out for the past few years (a legacy from hurricane Irene and tropical storm Lee?) bore abundant crops fat with nutmeats this year.
I had only one failure this year, pawpaws, and it was the first crop failure in decades. Why the poor showing? Again, I’ll blame it on the weather. But what about the weather could be to blame?
FLOWERS ALL WINTER
Mine Aren’t Frilly
And now, with a bow to my feminine side, a little something about African violets, houseplants that have traditionally been thought of as old lady’s flowers. Still, I’ll admit it, I like African violets. They offer so much for what little effort I make in growing them.
Mainly, what they offer is flowers, and at a time — now and throughout fall and winter — when flowers are at a premium. I have only one variety, but if I was really into African violets, I could be choosing plants with white, pink, blue, or purple flowers, or blue with white picotee, or white blushed pink, or . . . any one of a number of flower colors and color combinations. And then there are varieties with ruffled, scalloped, quilted, or variegated leaves. And plants that range from few-inch wide miniatures to over a foot-wide large.
My African violets are standard issue blue-flowered, flat-leafed, medium sized plants.
As I said, I put little effort into growing them.
If you study up on growing African violets, though, you’d think them very exacting in their requirements. For starters, they’re said to need special potting soil, well-drained but, with the addition of extra peat or sphagnum moss, consistently moist. They’re said to need bright light, preferably a north or west facing window, or fluorescent, but not too bright. Direct sun will allegedly burn their leaves. Avoid getting water on the leaves or it will leave a dark spot. Avoid getting water at the base of the plant (the crown) or it will rot. Avoid overwatering. Avoid underwatering. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: Avoid cold water.
Moving on to the air around the plants . . . avoid chilling the plants, moving them away from cold windows at night or stuffing some newspaper between the plants and the window. But also don’t keep the plants too warm. Also, ramp up the humidity by growing them in the basement or setting them above trays filled with pebbles and water.
Whew! That’s effort. I don’t do any of that. I use the same potting soil for African violets as for all my other plants (except succulents), from tomato seedlings to fig trees to bonsai Ficus. My plants sit happily in south and west windows, some in a cold room with nothing to stop the flow of cold from the the glass. My watering is whimsical, leaving them sometimes sitting in too much water and other times in bone-dry soil. I pay no special attention to water temperature or to whether or not water gets on the leaves.
My African violets are growing and flowering just fine.
Leaves into Plants
Perhaps my African violets grow too well because every a couple of years or so they get so overgrown that they’re spilling up and out of their pots. Then it’s time for one of the coolest things about growing them, and that’s propagating them.
I do so by cuttings, but not by the usual stem cuttings. African violets hardly have a stem; the crown, or whorl of leaves, is a foreshortening stem, too short for a stem cutting. I propagate them with leaf cuttings, typically taken in spring. Nothing complicated here: Just pull off some leaves and poke the leaf stalks (petioles) into a rooting mix of potting soil or equal parts peat and perlite. Water thoroughly, make a plastic tent or use an upturned, clear jar to maintain humidity, and move the whole setup to a bright location (definitely not full sun this time, or plants might cook!).
African violet leaves, rooted
All that’s needed is patience. In a few weeks, from the bases of the leaf stalks appear new shoots, on their way to becoming whole, new plants. Fascinating.
Leaves into Plants, Another Way
A few years back I sowed dust-like seeds from a begonia plant. The seedlings matured into a few plants that were mounds of green, dripping all summer long with fire-engine red blossoms. I cloned the plants with stem cuttings, which took up a lot of space and were slow to root. So, I’m thinking, why not leaf cuttings for the begonias also, this spring?
Begonias can be multiplied by cutting the fleshier parts of leaves into triangular sections, each with a major vein, and sticking each triangle upright in a rooting mix. Or, another approach is to cut across the large veins on the undersurface of a begonia leaf, then lay the whole leaf on the rooting mix, pinning it down to maintain contact with the mix. In either case, with moisture, a clear tent, bright light, etc., roots and new plants develop. Again, fascinating.
Any Cell Can Do It
The reason that I or you can make a whole new plant from part of a plant is because of totipotence. This ten dollar word tells that any cell in a plant, except reproductive (egg and sperm) cells, houses identical genetic information, and that information can give rise to any other part of a plant, even to a whole new plant. It’s up to the skilled gardener to provide the conditions that prompt a plant part to develop into a whole new plant.
IT’S A GAS!
Last Tomatoes & Peppers
Late fall, and my thoughts turn naturally to . . . ethylene! You remember ethylene from high school chemistry. A simple hydrocarbon with 2 carbon atoms double-bonded together with 2 hydrogen atoms attached to each of the carbon’s remaining two free bonds. C2H4. It’s a gas, literally, and an important industrial chemical transmuted into such products as polyethylene trash bags, PVC plumbing pipes, and polystyrene packing “peanuts.”
Oh, I forgot, this is supposed to be about plants. Ethylene is synthesized in plants and is a plant hormone with — as is characteristic of hormones — dramatic effects in small amounts.
I think of ethylene as I sliced the last of the season’s fresh garden tomatoes for a sandwich a couple of weeks ago. Note that I wrote “fresh,” not “fresh-picked.” The tomatoes had been picked almost two months prior from vines I was cutting down and gathering up for composting. They sat on a tray in the kitchen, very gradually, over the weeks, morphing in color from light green to pale pink to deep red.
Tomatoes & peppers in November
Ethylene is responsible for this transformation from pale and insipid to red and flavorful (flavorful as compared with the pale green or pink stages, not as compared to vine-ripened summer tomatoes). It’s produced naturally in ripening fruits, and its very presence — even at concentrations as low as 0.001 percent — stimulates further ripening.
The tomatoes shared the kitchen tray with peppers, peppers that also were green when laid on the tray. All ripening fruits produce ethylene, peppers included. So let a green pepper sit long enough and — as long as it is sufficiently mature and does not dry out too much, or rot — it will ripen red, or yellow or purple, whatever is its ripe color. Which mine did.
Yes, One Rotten Apple Does . . .
The ethylene given off by a ripe apple or banana can be put to use in speeding up ripening of tomatoes. Just put either of these fruits into the bag with tomatoes. Apples and bananas are climacteric fruits which, instead of emanating a steady stream of ethylene, ramp up production dramatically as full ripeness nears.
Among other effects, ethylene production itself stimulates further ethylene production. So if ripening fruits are left too long in a bag, ethylene stimulates ripening which stimulates more ethylene which stimulates more ripening, ad infinitum, until what is left is a bag of mushy, overripe fruit. Hence, one rotten apple really can spoil the whole barrel.
It’s a Gas for Fruiting Also
Ripening isn’t the only prod to ethylene production in a plant. Stress also can do it, whether from the nibble of an insect, a disease spore wending its way through a plant’s cuticle, wind or snow bending a branch, or pruning shears trimming a wayward branch.
Exogeneous ethylene leaves its mark on more than just promoting ripening. A century and a half ago, pineapple growers in the Azores saw that plants nearer outdoor fires flowered soonest. Plants that flower sooner, fruit sooner.
If you’ve rooted a pineapple crown — relatively easy, just twist it off, plant in pot of well-drained potting soil, and water only when soil dries out — you can speed flowering and fruiting by setting an apple in the crown for a few days, then covering the plant with a bag.
And for Not Staking (Too Much)
Soon, I’ll be going outside, pruning shears in hand, to put ethylene to use again. Ethylene also slows growth, in so doing coaxing flowering.
Flowers on bent pear branch
Pear trees are famous for being slow to settle down to flowering and bearing fruit. No, I’m not planning to hang apples in the pear trees and enclose them in plastic bags! I am planning, after I finish working on the trees with my shears, to bend some well-placed branches to a near horizontal position, using weights, string, and pieces of wire to hold bent branches in place. The stress of bending — compression on one side of a stem, expansion on the opposite side — steps up ethylene production (30-300%), slowing growth, inducing flower bud formation, and shortening the time till I bite into my first pears from young trees.
I’m not yet finished with you ethylene. I planted a few new apple trees this year. They need staking, but not too much. Stakes should allow some movement of the developing trunks, and free movement of the top third of the plants. Movement causes the same stresses as branch bending, likewise inducing ethylene production. Ethylene, as you now know, slows growth but also, as you might not know, increases the thickness of the moving part; i.e. makes for a sturdier trunk. That’s what I want for my young trees.
