Roberts Ranch and Gardens / CSA Farm

Rock On

rranchng — Sat, 16 May 2009 03:30:31 +0000

Gardeners are always trying to get rid of rocks in their garden soil, but here’s one tip that calls for using rocks. ”I plant on the south side of rock or concrete walls wherever I can,” says McDorman. ”This generally speeds plants up by as much as one month. But I don’t have as much wall space as I’d like, so I import rocks into the garden.”

To use McDorman’s method, cover the soil around the base of each plant with a circle of whatever rocks you can find. Place the rocks close to but not touching the plants to avoid damaging the tender stems. The rocks gather and store heat during the day. At night, they release the heat, helping to protect the young plants from frost. The rocks also help to moderate changes in soil temperature, encouraging better root growth. You can leave the rocks in place all season, and they’ll serve as a mulch to keep moisture in the soil and prevent weed growth around your plants.

- from Rodale Press Garden Books “Garden Hints”

Posted in Tip of the Week

Organic Fertilizers

rranchng — Sun, 03 May 2009 23:05:55 +0000

“Organic gardeners use fertilizers like seasonings. They add the finishing touch that brings out the very best in plants” - Rodale’s all new Encylcopedia of Organic Gardening

Chemical fertilizers feed the plant and not the soil. In time the soil becomes more and more stripped of organic matter requiring more and more chemical fertilizers. Organic fertilizers feed the soil as well as the plant providing a food source for soil micororganisms and earth worms that condition the soil bringing in oxygen and other needed nutrients. When buying organic fertilizers, don’t always trust that it doesn’t contain chemical fertilizers. Read the labels. Be wary of products labeled organic that have an NPK ratio that adds up to more than 15. NPK stands for Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium.

Here is a list of Substances High in either NPK or other balancing minerals like calcium and magnesium

Nitrogen

Blood meal, Coffee grounds, Cottonseed meal, Fish emulsion, Fish meal, Comfrey, Soybean meal, seaweed

Phosphorus

Bonemeal, Colloidal phosphate, rock phosphate, comfrey, alfalfa,

Potassium

Granite meal, Greensand, Kelp meal, wood ashes (yes, throw ashes in the compost), comfrey, seaweed, yarrow(believed to increase disease resistance)

Balancers ( calcium, and or magnesium) Balancers affect the pH of the soil

Eggshells (c), Epsom salts (m), Gypsum (c), Limestone (c,m), Limestone (c)

Posted in Tip of the Week

Seeds

rranchng — Sat, 02 May 2009 05:44:09 +0000

I just read an article in a newspaper sent to me from California. The article talked about the need to store and grow open pollinated seeds if you plan to stay alive in the coming years. I was surprised by the boldness of the statement. The economy is giving many people good reason to till up their lawns in order to be more self reliant. And, there are a lot of people starting to ask questions regarding open pollinated (or heirloom) seeds.

You can buy open pollinated seeds OR hybrid seeds and there are many pros and cons to both. The biggest most important difference to us right now is that you cannot collect seeds from a hybrid plant and expect to get the same plant again from those seeds. You may not get any plant at all. If you are able to germinate the seeds, it may never produce anything. So if you’re looking for sustainability in your seeds, self-reliance, and perhaps more nutrition, you want to plant seeds that are open pollinated. If the package does not specifically say open-pollinated or heirloom seeds on it, you cannot be sure whether or not the seeds are open-pollinated or hybrid.

If you want higher yields, better looking produce, more disease resistance, than purchase hybrid seeds.

There are many, many seed companies out there. Here are just a few you can use. Many of these companies carry both, some mostly hybrid, others carry only open-pollinated.

Mostly hybrid:

Burpee Seed, Park Seed, Gurney Seed,

Both:

Mountain Valley Seed, Johnny’s Seed

Open Pollinated:

Victory Seed, Baker Creek Seed, Seeds of Change, Peaceful Valley, Survivalist Seeds

Another thing the article stressed is that canning seeds in a vacuum packed #10 can for use in the future may not be the best idea as seeds need oxygen to stay viable. There could be some truth to that. I know seed sprouting companies say the same thing about their seed. If you pack them in plastic bins, open them once a year and dump them into another bin, then back in the original bin to release bad gases and pick up needed oxygen. Whether or not vacuum packed seeds will be viable in 5 years is an unknown to me. One way to be sure is to plant them NOW and collect the seeds yearly so you will always have a good store of viable seeds. Storing seeds in cool, dark, dry places is best. I store some of my seeds in the refrigerator.

Posted in Tip of the Week Tagged: germination, hybrid, open-pollinated, seed companies, seed storage, Seeds, viable

Organic Pesticide Recipes

rranchng — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:10:06 +0000

These are recipes that have been handed down and around by master gardeners, organic farmers, and horticulturists. They work, but you need to use them more often. Also, it is better to spray in the evening when the sun is not hot and direct.

Soft Soap Sprays

6 tbsp. Ivory Snow and 1 gal of water (I’ve also used dish soap)

Best sprayed in the evenings when sun is low

Repellent sprays can be made from plants such as Tansy, Artemisia, Tomato, Garlic, Onion, Cayenne or Rhubarb. Make a spray by boiling 2 lbs of leaves (or 20 cloves of Garlic) in 2 qts. of water for 30 minutes, then strain and allow to cool. This is then mixed with 1/2 once of soft soap flakes dissolved in 1 liter of hot water. This helps the spray penetrate. I have also used Cayenne Pepper found at the herb store, mixing it with water and soap, then straining so as not to clog the sprayer head. Then spray.

Insecticidal Vegtable Oil

I mix this up in large quantities in a used milk container. Then I use it throughout the year as my concentrate.

Mix 1 Tbsp. dishwashing detergent to 1 C. vegetable oil

To spray plants, mix 1 Tbsp of stock solution to one cup of water and spray plants. Use a fine spray and apply until you have runoff. Controls aphids, mites and some other insects. It is not harmful to humans or animals. Phytotoxicity may occur on certain plants such as squash and crucifers. Spray in the evenings. Sometimes in the really hot summer, I rinse the leaves in the morning.

Bug Juice

Collect 1/2 cup of a specific pest and mash well. Mix with 2 cups of water and strain. Mix 1/4 cup of this bug juice and a few drops of soap with 2 cups of water, and spray. Don’t make yourself sick too! Use nonfood utensils and wear plastic gloves.

Garlic Oil

Finely chop 10-15 garlic cloves and soak in 1 point of mineral oil for 24 hours. Strain and spray as is, or dilute with water and add a few drops of soap add tobacco juic to strengthen the mix.

Hot-pepper spray

Blend 1/2 cup of hot peppers with 2 cups of water. Strain and spray. Caution: Hot peppers burn skin and eyes.

Other pesticides

Insecticidal oils are made from petroleum and plant oils. Dormant oils are petroleum based and control overwintering stages of mites, scales, aphids, and other insects. The oils can damage certain plants such as Japanese Maple and will also remove the blue bloom form blue spruce.

Summer oils are lighter petroleum oils are used in summer and will not burn plants as badly. They will control aphids, spider mites, scales, psylla, mealybugs, and some caterpillars. Oils may cause leaf damage. Spray test areas, wait a couple of days to see that plants are unharmed.

Diamtomacious Earth (DE)

A nontoxic mineral product, mined from fossilized shell remains of an algae know as diatoms. This fine powder has microscopic, sharp edges that peirce soft-bodied insects and cause them to dehydrate. I spread this on the soil before planting marigolds or impatiens; otherwise, by the time I notice there is damage (which usually occurs at night) the plant has been stripped of all its leaves. There are many insects controlled by this product including cutworms, thrips, and slugs.

Neem oil

Is extracted from the Neem tree native to India. It is a broadspectrum insect poison, repellent, and feeding deterrent. It also stops or disrupts insect growth and sterilizes some species.

Pyrethrins:

Pyrethrins are derived from the flowers of pyrethrum daisies (Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium and C. Coccineum) The dried flowers are finely ground to make an insecticidal dust. Pyrethrins are extracted from the dust and used in sprayable solutions. Pyrethrins attack an insect’s central nervous system, providing the rapid knockdown that gives many gardenenrs a satisfying feeling of revenge. At low doses, however, insects may detoxify the chemical and recover.

Posted in Gardening Helps Tagged: bug control, insects, Organic Pesticides, plants, recipes, sprays

April 26, 2009

rranchng — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:00:47 +0000

Onions and Garlic

If you grow onions from seed, try growing several seedlings together in a soil block. Rather than planting only one onion seed in a soil block, Eliot Coleman, an organic farmer and the author of The New organic Grower, plants fours seeds per block. ”This trick comes from some Dutch growers I know,” says Coleman. ”It saves time and makes weeding more efficient. I set out the soil blocks at a 1-foot spacing in each dirction. As the onions grow, they push away from each other. As long as their roots have enough room, it doesn’t hurt to crowd them this way. It makes weeding much easier too.

Posted in Tip of the Week Tagged: onions, organic farmer, seedliings, soil blocks, weeding

Soil Preparation

rranchng — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:38:18 +0000

Soil preparation is critical to the success of your gardening experience. Soils support plants physically as well as providing them with needed nutrients, water, and oxygen. Soils are complex mixtures of dead and live organisms. All soil is not the same. Some are more dead than others and almost all need supplementation.
There are sandy, silt, and clay soils. Most of us have some kind of combination of those three textures. Knowing what kind of soil you have will help you make better decisions when it comes to watering your plants. Sandy soils do not hold water very long, so you will have to water for shorter periods of time, but more often. On the other hand, clay soils hold the water very well to the point of causing root rot and blocking out all oxygen. Clay soils should be watered less than sandy soils. To figure out what kind of soil you have, you can send a sample to your local extension service and have it analyzed, or you can take a cup of soil, put it in a 1 qt. glass container, fill it up with water, shake it, then let it sit for about 20 minutes. The sand will drop to the bottom. The silt will drop next, followed by clay. It will take a couple of hours for all the clay to settle. You should see two maybe three distinct layers. The top layer will be either silt or clay. If it took a long time for the top layer to completely settle, and there are three layers present, the top layer is clay. If there are only two layers and it did not take long to settle, the top layer is silt. The relative thickness of the layers gives you an idea of the percentage of sand, silt, and clay in your soil.

The ideal soil is said to be composed of 40% sand, 40% silt, and 20% clay and is called loam. Since we don’t all have these percentages already in existence, we need to supplement our soils yearly in order to eventually achieve rich loamy soil.

Whether you have sandy soil or clay soil, the addition of organic matter is very important. You can haul in compost from your local city compost center, from the local farmer, buy it in bags from your local hardware store, or you can compost all your plant waste – mix it with soil and water- and create your own compost. It would be good to study composting. Perhaps that will be our next topic. If the compost you haul in has animal manure in it you will have the added nitrogen you need to finish the decomposition process without stripping all the needed nitrogen out of the soil. If you don’t use animal manures, add some nitrogen to the compost material.

Mix the organic material into your garden with a shovel and rakes or with a tiller. If you are using a tiller be careful not to create a deadpan layer by constantly tilling to the same depth. A deadpan layer is a layer of hard, compacted soil that is difficult for roots or water to penetrate.

The pH (acid or alkaline content) of the soil is also important. Most plants grow best in a ph of 6.0-7.5. A soil with a pH lower than 7.0 is an acidic soil and one with a pH higher than 7.0 is alkaline. If the pH of your soil is too high, add sulfur. If it is too low, add limestone. In order to find out the ph of your soil, you can take it in to the extension office near you and have it tested or you can buy a soil ph tester and do it yourself. It is important to note that some plants prefer acidic soil while others thrive in alkaline soil.

So after adding organic matter to your soil and either sulfur or limestone if he pH is not correct, you are ready to till it all in and plant.

Posted in Gardening Helps Tagged: acid, alkaline, grow, pH, plants, soil

Gardening Tips

rranchng — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:56:32 +0000

Its time to prepare the earth for planting! Lots of calls have come in from first time gardeners who want to know what to do in order to have a successful experience planting and harvesting their own food. Michelle Obama isn’t the only one digging up the grass in order to plant a garden. I must say, the example is great! Good for her and for all of you who are digging up the lawn in order to create a plot for your backyard garden. There are also those who have gone out and located larger plots of land (1/4 acre – 2 acres) and are tackling the big job of cultivating someone elses soil. I think that is a great idea. If you can get someone who isn’t using their land to allow you to use it for a garden, and as long as water is available, you have an opportunity to provide yourself, your family, friends, and whoever else might want to join you with loads of fresh produces.

One of the purposes of this site is to help with all those questions and frustrations you will be running into. We will address them as soon as we can. We have also provided you with some links to websites that will also be very helpful. We invite those pros out there who have learned many tips and tricks over the years, and who have knowledge about specific soil, area, or climate issues that affect plants, to chime in and share their knowledge.

Posted in Gardening Helps