by blair on November 6, 2009
Photo courtesy of Tobyotter at Flickr.com.
Okay, so tree onions aren’t exactly new under the sun, but they just might be new to you, and they’re certainly one of the most unusual veggies we’ve ever met. In most ways, tree onions are like other onions, and in fact are usually considered a variety of the standard garden onion, Allium cepa—though some botanists argue that they’re a separate species, A. proliferum, while others prefer to think of them as a hybrid between A. cepa and A. fistulosum, the Welsh onion. Whatever they are, they grow well under organic care, and produce 6-10 mild, juicy bulbs per plant.
But unlike most onions, tree onions also produce a cluster of “bulbils,” tiny bulbs, at the top of the plant: hence one of it nicknames, the top or topset onion. When allowed to fully mature, the bulbils will weigh down the onion leaves enough that they lower to the ground, whereupon the bulbils root themselves and propagate. It may be a slow process taking many years, but the fact is that these “walking onions” (another nickname) will in fact “walk” slowly across the landscape if you let them. That’s one way to take over the world.
Tree onions are an excellent choice if you live in a cold climate, because they’re the most cold-hardy of all onions. The base bulbs are excellent for salads, though the bulbils aren’t good for much except pickling and propagation. Incidentally, you may know this onion as the Egyptian onion, though it didn’t originate in Egypt.
Bonus fact: Speaking of Egyptian onions, did you know that the ancient Egyptians were fascinated with this venerable vegetable? To them, the onion’s concentric rings represented eternal life. When archaeologists recovered the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses IV, who died in 1160 BC, they found small onions in his eye sockets.
by blair on November 4, 2009
Photo courtesy of photofarmer at Flickr.com.
Human ingenuity never fails to impress us; it’s no surprise we humans have managed to spread all over the world (and beyond) using nothing but our brains and hands. One small example: seed tape. As the name implies, this is a long piece of biodegradable paper tape studded with seeds at regular intervals. Instead of having to worry about handling teeny tiny seeds (turnip and carrots seeds are especially bad), or for that matter about spacing and thinning seeds as they come up, all you have to do is dig a narrow trench, unroll the seed tape in it, cover it up, and water.
Now, that’s amazingly handy, but you do have to pay for the convenience with a high price. Enough seed tape to plant a mid-sized garden can run into the hundreds of dollars—and you can’t always find seed tapes for everything you care to plant. Well, if you’re willing to put your own handiness to work, you can solve both those problems by making your own seed tapes that work just as well as the store-bought kind. If nothing else, it’ll give you and the kids something to do in the winter.
All you really need is seeds, water, flour, and either paper towels or newspaper. First, cut the paper into narrow strips. Next, mix water with your flour in the standard kiddie formula for homemade glue, and use a small paintbrush to brush it onto the paper strips. Then put your seeds on the gluey paper strips according to the spacing on the seed packets, and leave everything to dry overnight. By the way, if you have cats, we recommend you leave the seed tapes somewhere they can’t reach, or they may be in for a sticky surprise.
The next day, you can either carefully roll the seed tapes up and put them away in anticipation of spring, or, if it’s warm enough, go ahead and plant them in the standard-seed tape manner. Just be sure that you plant them seed-side up and water them well, so the seeds have an easier time reaching for the sky. One other pointer: don’t make the seed tapes too far in advance, because over time, the glue may become too dry, and the seeds will fall off. Even the seeds that do stay on will become less likely to germinate if you wait too long.
If you don’t have any kids to stick on this project or don’t have the time, check out our vegetable garden seed mat!
by blair on November 2, 2009
If you’ve ever seen nasty lumps on your plants, especially near the soil line, you’ve probably encountered the widespread plant disease known as crown gall. This disease is the result of opportunistic bacteria that enter open wounds, causing abnormal growth. Even a tiny nick can give them access, so be very careful when pruning or harvesting.
Photo courtesy of timparkinson at Flickr.com.
Large crown galls up to several inches across are often seen on trees, especially fruit trees. Stone fruit and pome fruit trees (that is, apples, pears, and their relatives) are hardest hit. However, galls can occur in just about any tree, woody or otherwise, especially during warm weather. In the home garden, they tend to occur most often in roses and grapes.
To treat crown gall organically, prune away the bad parts, and be very careful to sterilize your tools with bleach after each cut. Completely remove seriously infected plants, and don’t put any new plants in the area for several years. DO NOT compost the diseased material; burn it if possible, or bury it at least a foot deep. If you’re pruning a woody plant for crown gall, spray wound paint over the cut section to keep the bacteria out.
by blair on October 30, 2009
Photo courtesy of David Blaine at Flickr.com.
Wide-scale planting, as for groundcover or a garden, often results in temporarily bare topsoil that, depending on texture and slope, may be easily washed away by rain or blown away by wind. To avoid this, you can take several simple measures. The simplest for a flat cultivated area is to lay down a mulch, whether natural or plastic, that will hold the soil in place until the new root systems become established. If you’re planting individual plants on a slope with an existing cover, place a large rock on the downslope side of each plant. This will keep the loose soil from eroding away before the plant can fix it in place.
by blair on October 28, 2009
If you live in a hot, arid environment and don’t want to lavish water on your outdoor plants, your best bet is to try xeriscaping—that is, to plant heat- and drought-adapted plants in your yard and garden. That doesn’t mean that you have to depend completely on cacti and similar succulents, though they can be extremely attractive. In fact, the flowers of some species, such as prickly pear, are vibrantly colored. You can also eat the fruit and even the large cactus leaves, or “pads,” if you dare.
You can actually get your hands on some lovely true flowers that thrive in hot, dry environments. A good example is the daisy-like perennial flower called the Gazania or Treasure Flower, which is native to southern Africa. Bluestar (Amsonia), a perennial native to the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas that offers clusters of blue-gray flowers, is similarly drought- and heat-tolerant. Other heat-tolerant flowers include bearded iris, heliopsis, Oriental lilies, and purple salvia.
On the annuals side of the scale, vinca (a.k.a. periwinkle in some circles) is an easy flower to grow even in hot weather. Blue salvia, dusty millers, zinnias, sunflowers (of course), ageratum, cleome, and wax begonias also work well in hot climates, as do lantanas. Be cautious with the lantanas if you live in an area with warm winters; given enough water and warm weather, they can grow into tough shrubs that’ll try to take over your garden. On the plus side, their berries are edible when ripe (if a bit toxic when green), and the wood makes excellent wickerwork.
Incidentally, if your goal is mainly to add color besides green and gray to your xeriscape, consider using colorful grasses as well. For example, there are several red switchgrasses that are tinged with a delightful burgundy hue from mid-summer on.
by blair on October 26, 2009
While we’re mostly beyond the practice of grilling game over a fire (with the notable exception of special events like the Fourth of July) modern-day cooking still results in the emission of an alarming amount of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. Gas ovens vent CO2 directly into the atmosphere, along with water vapor—another greenhouse gas, though a less worrisome one than CO2. A meal that takes an hour to cook in an electric oven may seem cleaner, but in reality about 2.7 pounds of CO2 are produced to generate the necessary electricity.
Luckily, there are plenty of ways to decrease your culinary carbon footprint without resorting to raw food. If you happen to have a solar cooker lying around, then the CO2 production will be nil, with the exception of a tiny amount that may be released from your food as it cooks. A toaster oven costs only 1.3 pounds of CO2 for 50 minutes of use, and a microwave oven just 0.5 pounds for 15 minutes or so. If you’re willing to wait a bit, a slow cooker or crock pot is also a great deal, costing just under a pound of CO2 over the course of about seven hours. Minute per minute, the slow cooker class wins hands down when it comes to CO2 production.
Don’t miss our green cookware! Check out our ceramic non-stick pots.
by blair on October 23, 2009
Photo courtesy of Benimoto at Flickr.com.
If your flowers or vegetables are suffering from an attack of aphids, consider adding aphid midges to your garden’s beneficial insect mix. The larvae of these tiny, nocturnal cecidomyiid flies (Aphidoletes aphidimyza) chow down heartily on more than 60 species of aphids, hence their nickname. They especially love potato plants and cole crops (cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, etc.), but will happily haunt orchards, ornamental backyard gardens, and even greenhouses. In fact, they’re very important as a control species in organic greenhouse cultivation.
These little mosquito-like mites, which might measure about 1/16 of an inch across on a good day, are extremely effective at zeroing in on aphid colonies and zapping the nasty little critters: a single aphid midge larva needs at least seven aphids to complete its larval cycle of 1-2 weeks, but may consume 80 or more—and they tend to kill more bugs than they actually eat, which adds to their allure.
Photo courtesy of ((brian)) at Flickr.com.
It’s possible to attract aphid midges to an American yard or garden by planting their favorite crops, as they’re native to most of the continent and common throughout their range. Particular favorites include sweet clover, sweet alyssum, yarrow, and mustard, and they’re also partial to herbs like dill, parsley, and cilantro. But attracting aphid midges can be a hit or miss process, so it’s usually much easier to simply buy some from a supplier of beneficial organisms. They’ll be shipped to you as larvae in a bedding of moist material such as fine sand or vermiculite, which you should spread around the bases of your plants as soon as you receive it.
Adult midges will require a source of honeydew (preferably the flowers mentioned above, though some trees might do in a pinch), and will start laying eggs within a few days of maturity; the eggs will hatch within 2-4 days. You’ll know the larvae are in action when you start finding aphid mummies (tiny blackened aphid husks) clinging to your plant leaves—and, of course, fewer aphids all around.
One note of caution: be extremely careful with pesticide sprays in your garden if you’re using midges to control your aphids, because the adult midges are quite susceptible to most sprays, even those made with organic ingredients. If you manage your aphid midges carefully, they’ll produce about six generations a year, and will overwinter in your garden to appear the next spring.
Don’t miss our store section on beneficial gardening insects!
by blair on October 21, 2009
Photo courtesy of Ha-Wee at Flickr.com.
If you’re considering tying the knot or renewing your vows anytime soon, have we got a green idea for you! Green weddings are all the rage these days, and they’re simple enough, really — though they may require a bit of ingenuity. Making a wedding green can be as easy as recycling wedding and bridesmaids dresses, or asking for donations to your favorite eco-friendly charities rather than wedding gifts. Some couples are compensating for the pollution costs of their traditional weddings by purchasing carbon offsets and planting trees in their guests’ honor. In some cases, eco-conscious couples have even made the paper for their own invitations, and served their guests locally-grown organic food on bamboo plates.
by blair on October 19, 2009
Like blood meal and bone meal, hoof and horn meal is a by-product of the meat processing industry. As such it may not be for the squeamish, but it does make an excellent soil amendment. In fact, it’s one of the better organic nitrogen sources available and, with a 12-2-0 NPK rating, it also adds a nice dash of phosphorous to the mix. It’s also alkaline in nature, so it’s a good choice for sweetening acidic soils; even better, the nitrogen locked inside the meal is released slowly, so that it won’t burn your plants.
by blair on October 16, 2009
Photo courtesy of nmfbihop at Flickr.com.
Assuming you can get the bugs to buzz off, cooking in the great outdoors can be a wonderful experience, combining culinary expertise with that classic American hankering after our roots. But if you’ve had it up to here with all the smoke, that distinctive tang of charcoal starter in your food, and the obscene price of propane, there’s an easier way: use a solar cooker. Millions of people all over the world benefit from solar cooking on a daily basis.
Once you get past the obvious drawbacks—that is, that it doesn’t work at night or on cloudy days—solar cooking can be a pretty darn good deal. The technology is mature (it’s over 240 years old) so that it’s well understood; it’s easy as pie to use a solar cooker. It yields absolutely no pollutants, except maybe a little CO2 and water vapor released from your food as it cooks, and you never have to purchase fuel. As long as the sun’s shining, you’ll have more than you can ever use. All you need is a calm, sunny spot and an oven.
Solar ovens come in three basic designs. The most common is the box cooker, which is, as it sounds, a simple box where sunlight is directed into the interior. A box cooker can handle up to several dishes, depending on its size, and generates medium to high temperatures.
Parabolic ovens are shaped like a satellite dish, and focus light to a point near the center, where very high temperatures can be achieved. However, parabolic solar ovens tend to require a lot of adjustment, and aren’t as easy to make as box ovens.
Panel cookers combine the features of both parabolic and box ovens, and consist of movable panels that you can easily adjust to attain medium to high temperatures.
Photo courtesy of yanealhoo at Flickr.com.
Incidentally, a decent commercial solar oven doesn’t cost any more than a decent commercial barbecue grill; you can get one for about $200, sometimes less. However, you can also make your own from household items like aluminum foil, plywood, and cardboard that can cost you as little as a few dollars.
For example, here’s a simple box cooker that gets hot enough to boil water (that’s 212 degrees Fahrenheit, folks) and cost the inventor a whopping $7 to make. It won him a $75,000 prize. Talk about a nice return on your investment!
