Growing tomatoes out on the Oregon coast is challenging any year but this season was particularly late. We are going to end up with a bunch of unripe, green tomatoes and I can’t say that I’m too unhappy about it. I LOVE cooking with green tomatoes.
When I mentioned this, more than a few people looked at me funny. I received a sort of vindication, yesterday, when I looked at the Food Section of the Oregonian…it featured recipes for green tomatoes!
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Brings into question the usefulness of full-blown permaculture for gardeners who rent their homes:
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I found this on growing edamame:
By LEE REICH
For The Associated Press
No need to ramble on praising the many health benefits of soybeans, their high quality protein, their healthful oil, and so on. We’ll assume you’re not living in a cave.
Let’s also keep quiet about the gustatory alchemy that has been wrought on this bean, transforming it into tofu and tempeh as well as “meat,” milk and ice cream.
However, soybeans deserve special mention in their simplest form: the fresh green bean merely steamed or boiled then popped out of its pod into your mouth.
This vegetable often goes under its Japanese name, edamame. If you want one new vegetable to try in your garden this year, make edamame that vegetable.
GETTING STARTED
Soybeans are bushy, frost-tender plants that you grow just like bush green beans. Make rows a couple of feet apart, or, if you garden in beds, plant a row down either side of a bed. In either case, drop seeds three inches apart into furrows an inch deep.
Green soybeans taste something like a cross between a fresh lima bean and shelling pea – and it’s as easy as those plants, or easier, to grow.
Soybeans tolerate hot weather better than peas, which languish in summer heat, and cool weather better than limas, which languish in spring’s coolness. And Mexican bean beetles, which in some years devastate green beans, have little interest in soybeans.
Once you’re smitten by the delectable taste of edamame and want to stretch the harvest season, do so by planting varieties that take different times to mature.
OF NOTE
Soybean plants grow larger than bush green bean plants, so they tend to flop over. If you like your garden to be neat, just put stakes around the edges of the beds, then let the plants lean on one or two courses of string tied to the stakes.
I also must mention animals: Soybeans are dessert to rabbits and deer. If either of these animals are present and can get into your garden, forget about growing soybeans – unless you want to grow them as a trap crop to keep either of these creatures from feeding on other plants.
THE HARVEST
Harvest edamame pods when they are fully plump and still bright green. As with limas and some other beans, edamame must be cooked before they’re fit to eat.
Steam or boil them in their pods for about eight minutes before eating.
Cooled pods gladly release their beans when gently squeezed between your fingers. If you harvest more than you can eat fresh, pack excess cooked pods into bags and into your freezer. When you’re ready to eat them, put the beans in a pot with an inch or two of water and boil for five minutes.
http://gardening.lohudblogs.com/2008/05/07/how-to-grow-edamame/
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The artichokes are saved! I hit them with two doses of a natural insect killer (one had oil of clove and one was sesame oil) a few days apart and the infestation has lifted, although there are still a few of the green beetles, here and there.
Had my first artichoke and a big length of stem and was glad I went to all the trouble of saving them. So tender and delicious!
Today I plan to use more stem in this recipe which I have modified to be dairy-free.
Artichoke Pesto
12 ounces artichoke hearts or tender stems
1/2 cup olive oil or to taste
1 cup pistachio nuts (or use pine nuts or almonds)
1/3 cup lemon juice or to taste
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1/4 cup fresh basil
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (instead of Parmesan cheese)
salt and pepper to taste
Blend all in a blender or food processor. Serve with pasta or spread on toasted, crusty bread.
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Meet Cassida rubiginosa…aka, thistle defoliating beetle, green tortise beetle, eucalyptis beetle
After a little creative internet keyword and image searching…the mystery of the artichoke beetles is solved.
Unfortunately, as these links show, some farms have released them as biological thistle control for their fields. Not good news for artichoke growers!
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/thistlecontrol.html
http://www.ewrs.org/BCWG/aims_and_objectives.htm
Just talked with a woman who bought an artichoke plant from a local nursery and it was covered in the beetles, too.
I sprayed the two artichokes with pump spray natural (organic) insecticide from the greenhouse…it looks like it did the trick. I have weeded well and trimmed the infested plants and plan to water deep for a while and fertilize them well to strengthen them.
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This article from Mother Earth News does a great job detailing an actual permaculture project. The following passage from the article offers a great explanation of permaculture as a sort of a reigned-in wildness where the existing trees and land determine the parameters we may operate within:
To me, forest gardening is exciting not only because it promises to increase food yield, but because it offers a deeper connection to the natural world. Those of us who are gardeners usually work with such a “tame” version of nature that we forget we’re part of a much larger and more complex “garden” that we can cooperate with, but cannot control. The forest garden merges the cultivated and the wild; offering food not only for the body, but for the eye and the soul. It can be the place where the Garden of Eden meets the Sacred Grove.
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Medical News Today
Soil Bacteria Work In Similar Way To Antidepressants
02 Apr 2007
UK scientists suggest that a type of friendly bacteria found in soil may affect the brain in a similar way to antidepressants.
Their findings are published in the early online edition of the journal Neuroscience.
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Food prices are soaring worldwide, driven by fierce competition for reduced international supplies of wheat, maize and rice, and other agricultural commodities. As concern grows over the risk of food shortages and instability in dozens of low-income countries, global attention is turning to an age-old crop that could help ease the strain of food price inflation.
In response, the United Nations has designated 2008 as the Year of the Potato:
http://www.potato2008.org/en/index.html
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Wild rice used to be raised throughout the US by native peoples. Now that the price of wheat, corn and domestic rice is going steadily up…perhaps it’s time to consider some alternatives in our home and community gardens.
Personally, I think potatoes and wild rice is the way to go. Here’s some info on wild rice:
ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/IA/news/WildRice.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_rice
Here is some on potatoes being proposed as a viable substitute for rice in Asia:
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Paula Bock
Dan Corum – a.k.a. Dr. Doo, Prince of Poo, Master of Microbes, the GM of BM, Worm Whisperer, Duke of Dung, No.1 of No. 2, Pharaoh of Feces, Shaka of Caca, Turd World Leader and Emperor of Excreta – shares fecal facts about Zoo Doo at Woodland Park Zoo, where he’s compost and recycling coordinator:
Amount of raw materials composted annually: About 600 tons (about as heavy as 50 school buses), 20 percent herbivore manure and 80 percent bedding
Zoo Doo contains: The poop of Asian elephants, chickens, Chinese goral, Dexter steers, reticulated giraffes (finger-tip-size poop), pigs, goats (Nigerian dwarf), Grant’s gazelle, hippos, Japanese serow, kea (bird), kookaburra (bird), lowland anoa (mini wild water buffalo), Malayan tapir, mountain goat, miniature donkey, miniature horse, oryx, red-flanked duiker (antelope), zebra, pudu (world’s smallest deer), rabbits, Roosevelt elk, sheep, Sichuan takin, springbok takin, tree kangaroo, tufted deer
Compost-pile critters include: Microbes, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, mites, springtails, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, red worms
Amount saved annually in hauling and disposal fees: $50,000 to $60,000
Revenue generated by sales of Zoo Doo and related products: About $15,000 a year
No. of species of bacteria in a teaspoon of Zoo Doo: 10,000 to 1 million
No. of bacteria in a teaspoon of Zoo Doo: 1 million to 1 billion
No. of Woodland Park visitors: 1 million a year
Average temperature of Zoo Doo during active composting: 150 degrees
Average daily weight of elephant poop: 200 pounds
Average daily weight of human poop: 2.5 pounds
Year the zoo began producing Zoo Doo: 1985
Dr. Doo’s motto: “Made Fresh Daily . . . Remember, it’s not just compost. It’s a movement.”
Dr. Doo’s philosophy: It’s the cycle of life. You put it in the garden and when you enjoy that beautiful tomato at the end of summer you think, wow, I’m connected to the jungle. Those nutrients have passed through an elephant, a zebra, a hippo. It’s a way for us to think about how we’re all so inter-related on this planet. With the kids, I get a chance to teach and make poop jokes. With the adults, it’s really a pop mortality play. Sooner or later, we’re all going to die; our bodies are going to become compost. It keeps me really humble.
Poop hotline: 206-625-7667; www.zoo.org.
Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
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