Gardening – Jackie Koerner

Gardening – the Passion

What an interesting word. Gardening could mean anything from a small group of containers filled with flowers on a porch to tending a garden which happens to share the same borders as your property lines. For me, gardening is moving closer and closer to the latter with each season.

About 30% more Americans are planting gardens this year, according to the National Gardening Association. That is a big jump. I don’t agree with the coined terms “victory garden” or “freedom garden”. This is something more. For many, it’s always been about connecting with nature. For others, it could be about producing something better, toting the fact that these flowers were grown from seed, not purchased, or even cutting their dependency on oil.

Vegetable gardening is picking up. This is fantastic for the following reasons:

First, producing your own vegetables creates something you own. You grew those veggies. You are feeding the family. It’s your accomplishment and no one else can claim it, except family members who helped you perhaps.

Second, the food tastes so much better. You can grow a strain of corn that’s your favorite, or perhaps some heirloom tomatoes, or a gigantic watermelon (Moon & Stars)! You’ll quickly become addicted to homegrown, and even if you can’t plant everything in your plot, you’ll soon sniff out farmer’s markets for those desired fruits. Do be aware of where your farmer’s market gets their products. One in South County (at the corner of Reavis Barracks and Lemay Ferry Road) would purchase their produce at Dierbergs, mark it up and pass it off as their own. Also check out flea markets. Often times people will be selling produce or seedlings.

Third, it’s wonderful exercise for your body and your brain. Share with kids and help them learn a great skill/hobby. In a book I am reading, I was quite shocked by the fact that some children are appauled and horrified when they find out vegetables come from ‘dirt’. Growing up around this process, it never occurred to me to even think about vegetables coming from ‘dirt’. I mean, where else would they come from?! I was delighted, however, to find that some schools are implementing agriculture in the curriculum and that there are some young people taking the reins of their family farms or starting their own.

Fourth, and most important in my book, the food you produce is local. By local, I mean you know what that food is, where it came from and what is in it. By producing your own food, you are taking control of what goes in your family’s mouth. You are cutting emission of gasses into the air. You are decreasing the depletion of Earth’s resources. Most of all, you are taking a stand against sub-paar food production. With 30% more people doing this annually, I think someone is going to notice.

To quote someone from this month’s Organic Gardening:

I am 70 years old and survived on raw milk and homegrown vegetables. I raised my kids on raw milk. I have ducks for eggs, rabbits for meat, and a large garden. I have never been sick from eating or drinking my stuff. Where do we see the problems? From processed and imported food.

Pat Coward, Auburn, Georgia

It’s up to us if we’re going to demand better for ourselves.

For more information, check out these great resources:

Path to Freedom
Organic Gardening
How to Grow More Vegetables

Peat’s Out. Something Less is In.

This post is from a draft at least 6 weeks old, but good information. Sorry it won’t help much for this year, but there is always next.

Okay, for those of you who are in the dark, let me explain. Poor Chris has heard me babble on about something with “Pete” and “dirt in a flat” and germination percentages for the past few weeks. I talked about doing an experiment, and I did it! I planted a broad variety of seeds:
Cucumbers
Chicago Pickling
Straight Eight
Melons
Cantelope
Moon & Stars
Musk
Sugar Baby
Yellow Doll
Okra
Pepper
Banana
Bell
Squash
Acorn
Sunshine
Zucchini

In the peat pellets, 50% or less germinated, then failed less than a week later. The tomatoes were the only ones to 100% stick around. In the soilless mix, 83% or more of my plants germinated and lived.

For more information about starting seeds, check out this video from Organic Gardening.

Still Raining on my Parade

Apparently I missed Metropolitan Sewer District’s rain barrel sale! They published one article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch about it. On the phone today, I asked a MSD representative if the rain barrel program would run again, and she said she isn’t sure as nothing had come down from home office yet. She said, however, if they do they will advertise it better this time around on bills and in the various newspapers.

Man! I am not even a MSD customer and I have to pay $5.32 per month for my property’s impervious land’s water runoff and I don’t even get a chance to buy a rain barrel to stop such ‘runoff’. MSD and I have argued about such ‘runoff’ before because there isn’t a rain sewer within 2 miles of my home. The representative on that day told me it also covers the streets I drive on, as those have runoff. What about apartment dwellers that use streets then?! Their arguements are weak. They just want to tax someone.

If MSD doesn’t get around to offering more rain barrels, consider making your own. You could even do something fun with your downspout if you use a rain barrel.

Why Fossils ROCK!

Diatomaceous earth is absolutely fascinating. Diatomaceous earth is a compound created from fossilized diatoms.

The many uses of diatomaceous earth:

Insecticide – the powder sucks the lipids off of the exterior of the insects and causes them to dehydrate. Can lightly be sprinkled around the base of plants, inside coops, barns, garages or where ever bugs congregate outside.

Wormer – Dosage is 1 teaspoon of food grade diatomaceous earth for dogs under 35 pounds (1 tablespoon for dogs over 35 pounds, 2 tablespoons for dogs over 100 pounds) for seven days. Affected worms include Ascardis, Hookworm, and Whipworm. Dosage for other animals: Kittens 1/2 teaspoon, Cats 1 teaspoon, Puppies 1/2 teaspoon, Cattle, Cows and Hogs 2% of feed ration, Chickens 5% of feed ration, Goats and Sheep 2% in feed ration, horses 1/2 to 1 cup in feed.

Drying agent – great for drying up wet areas in coops, barns and garages. Extremely helpful in out bulidings during the rainy season. Even used for toxic spill clean up. Certainly keeps the coop dry and keeps flies away.

Digestive supplement – some people stir 1 tablespoon in water daily before bed. It contains 15 trace minerals.

Mite, flea and tick repellant for animals – lightly dust animals outdoors, avoid eyes as this is a drying agent.

Upholstery dust – lightly dust carpet or affected area. Allow to sit for 3 days, then vacuum.

Before you think about using a chemical for a certain job, think about what you could use instead – perhaps something natural and less invasive. If you buy diatomaceous earth, just make sure what you buy is food grade. All of the applications suggested above should only be done with food grade diatomaceous earth. Be careful when purchasing diatomaceous earth. When I went to my local nursery and asked for some, they handed me a bag of pesticide! I found a fifty pound bag of diatomaceous earth online with shipping included in the price.

Rainy Review of Rain Barrels

Painted Rain Barrels from Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewer Districts Website — Painted Rain Barrels from Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewer District's Website

I’ve always tried to be green about things, especially when it comes to water conservation. I intend on getting two rain barrels for the house once I get my hubby to agree. The rain water collected in the barrels should not be consumed. It is best suited for watering gardens, grass and trees. Some people even use the water to wash their cars, house and even the dog. Using rain water instead of throwing it away down storm drains helps the community and keeps lawns free of muddy grass paths created by rainwater runoff.

A bit more about rain barrels: Lawn and garden care account for 40% of the water consumption during the summer months. This is about 1,300 gallons! Using rain barrels also decreases the runoff into storm sewers and bodies of water. One inch of rain on a 1,000 square foot roof equates to 623 gallons of runoff. Talk about a waste of perfectly good water…

Although not necessary, it’s kind of cool to see how much water you might actually be saving by using a rain barrel – at least us science geeks think it’s cool. To calculate the area of your roof, simply use the Pythagorean Theorem to find the length of the roof. This is easiest if you have a simple peaked roof, but you can go about finding the surface area of your roof by just examining each A of each section of roof. Measure the length of the house, the width, the height of the house from ground to gutter and the height of the house from ground to roof peak. From these measurements, take the width, divide by two – this will be your “run” as shown above or your “a” in Pythagorean Theorem. Then take the height (measured from the ground to the peak of the A) and subtract the height from the ground to the gutters. The result will be your “rise” or your “b” in Pythagorean Theorem – now plug into Pythagorean Theorem to get your “slope”. And finally, take your resulting “slope” and multiply by the length of the house. Don’t forget to multiply by two as this is just for one half of the roof. Voila – the area of your roof. Now, you can multiply your roof size, by the number of inches of rain your town gets per year. Now, multiply by .623 and you will get the number of gallons you could save each year! I think to make this less confusing, I’ll vodcast myself doing this for my own house.

Rain barrels range from free to over $100. I saw a pretty nice looking plastic lined wooden one at Sam’s Club for $100 a few weeks ago. You can also build your own rain barrel with instructions from the Maryland Environmental Design Program’s website. Some municipalities sell rain barrels at a discount to assist with the reduction of rain water runoff. Some western communities, however, do not allow for rain barrels due to the water shortage during summer months.

In St. Louis, Metropolitan Sewer District recently started charging a monthly service fee to residents for rain water run off. They even are charging it to residents without public water or sewer. They take the impervious surface (i.e. rooftops, decks, patios, driveways) area and multiply by a factor to get the monthly fee. The only way to get out of it is if 80% or more of your property borders a body of water. Not many St. Louisians live on peninsulas. I’m not thinking that the use of rain barrels would eliminate the fee, but they began charge a fee due to the issue of overflowing rain sewers. This creates a larger issue than just wet shoes and mucky sidewalks. This ultimately can contaminate drinking water reservoirs.

One of my “tree hugger” friends posted to his blog, exclaiming that rain barrels are bunk. Above I have listed some wonderful uses for the water collected from the roof tops of homes. Josh first said the water was not good to water veggie gardens. I don’t know of many people who water their veggie gardens with Evian. Besides, fertilizers, which plants love, are made of calcium, manure and decaying biomatter that could possibly make it into the rain barrel from the roof. In response to the “mosquito population” factor, there are actually mosquito dunks designed for use in rain barrels made of bacteria that feed on mosquito larva. One could also use chlorine or bromine, but that might be harmful if use on plants, especially if one does not carefully monitor the ratio.

For more reading, see this great little rain barrel publication.