Tag Archives: Organic

The Law Of The Minimum and your Soil’s Fertility

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Bee on Marigolds

If you buy fertilizer you will notice three numbers on the bag. These are the N-P-K levels in the fertilizer. The three numbers represent the levels of Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P) and Potassium (K) — in short N-P-K. These three elements are the primary necessary to have healthy growth in your garden plants. Chemical fertilizers are generally much higher in these numbers than Organic fertilizers, but organic fertilizers offer so much more without the risks of chemical fertilizers.

There is a little known rule of science that governs the fertility of your garden soil. It is called “The Law of the Minimums” and is attributed to Justus von Liebig (1803-1873), a German chemist who made great contributions to the science of plant nutrition and soil fertility. Liebig’s “Law” states that yield is proportional to the amount of the most limited nutrient, whichever nutrient it may be. In other words, if one of the essential plant nutrients is deficient, plant growth will be poor even when all other essential nutrients are abundant so that your soil is only as rich as the minimum of any of the primary elements.

So why should you, as a gardener, care? Well, your choice of fertilizers and how you apply them means everything to the success of what you grow. Many new gardeners think all you need are seeds and a bag of Miracle Grow for success. You might get short-term success that way, but you might also be building up “minimums” in your soil that will result in poor growth down the line. In addition, the over-use of chemical fertilizers not only harms your soil over time, it can run-off into the ground water system with disastrous effects on the larger environment. The Chesapeake Bay is a good example — for more than a quarter of a century chemical fertilizer runoff into the Bay and its tributaries has poisoned fish and other wildlife. The same has been documented  in many other states. Chemical fertilizers are usually made from non-renewable sources, including fossil fuels. Repeated application can result in toxic buildup of dangerous chemicals such as arsenic, cadmium, and uranium in the soil — that then  make their way into your fruits and vegetables. Long-term use of chemical fertilizers can even change the soil pH, upsetting beneficial microbials, making your plants much more vulnerable to pests. (And forget about Roundup Ready seeds and plants — they are even worse — killing beneficial insects and leeching into your entire garden, poisoning your soil.)

So, you say, I don’t have time to get a degree in agriculture science, how can I enrich my soil without worrying about those concerns?

First — a soil test! Your local ag extension agent (and they are everywhere) will provide free soil sample tests! Now is a good time to do that, since you still have time to address any deficiencies before Spring planting season arrives. Just contact them or stop by their office and pick up a free soil test kit and instructions.

Alternately, you can purchase devices that will test for N-P-K and also pH, which dictates how available nutrients in your soil will be to your plants. Ideal pH varies, according to the plant variety. Acid loving plants like blueberries and potatoes, love lower pH levels, while sugar beets prefer a “sweet” soil, or pH around 7. Most crops fall somewhere in between — 5.5 – 6.5pH. It is best to check, since neglecting to do so could result in your wondering why your blueberries are failing in the limed soil that you created last fall. Or why the leaf mulch you dug in so lusciously to your 4 x 4 bed is now producing a puny bean or corn crop.

Most importantly, use organic fertilizers! Organic fertilizers are minimally (or not at all) processed, and the nutrients remain bound up in their natural forms, rather than being extracted and refined. Organic fertilizers like manure, compost, bone/blood/cottonseed meal, feathers, leaves and other yard waste (as long as it has no sign of disease) are readily available often for free if you are willing to clean out a horse stall or rake some leaves.

There are many advantages to using organic fertilizers.

As they break down, organic fertilizers actually improve soil tilth (structure of the soil) which improves water and nutrient retention.
Unlike chemical fertilizers, it is almost impossible to over-fertilize slow-releasing organic fertilizers, which means also that you will not be building up chemicals and salts in the soil that can kill your plants.
Organic fertilizers will LOVE your garden and surrounding environment. They are biodegradable and a renewable resource! And they will not harm beneficial insects — especially pollinators such as honeybees!
So please, do your garden and the environment a favor — use organic fertilizers! There are so many sources. Start a compost pile for your kitchen scraps. I once had a friend who went to the circus every Spring for elephant dung — and his garden was amazing! But you can find wonderful organic fertilizers now on the shelves at your local gardening center. Your garden will thank you and the world will thank you!

Around The World in my Backyard Heirloom Organic Garden!

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I love to cook. AND I use my garden and kitchen for many of my medicinal needs. In researching the plants that I grow in my organic garden, I am always struck at the passage of rare varieties from all corners of the world, to my little garden in the Piedmont of North Carolina!

In early Spring, I enjoy  Nozaki Early Cabbage, a quick growing and delicious open faced cabbage originally from China useful fresh or in stir fries.

Later in Spring, I always look forward to my Fraises des Bois, a wonderful French alpine strawberry that explodes in your mouth with exquisite flavor and is so easily grown in containers. This year I am offering both fresh plants later in the season or seeds, if you want to get started now.

And from the heart of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, we offer the all American North Carolina heirloom Sieva Carolina Pole Baby Lima bean, so sweet and delicious and so hard to find.

From our friends South of the border, the Chilhuacle Negro Pepper from Mexico is uniquely flavorful … a combination of smoke, chocolate and heat … just one will flavor a pot of chile to exquisite levels!

Also from our Southern neighbors, the Morado Purple Corn from Peru is grown for the fabulous drink, Chi Chi Morado made from its deep purple kernels. With increasing South American immigrants to our country, this is one which you may enjoy growing.

Back to Europe, the exquisite Styrian Pumpkin from Austria produces a hull-less pumpkin seed well-known and researched to provide protection from prostate problems including cancer. It also sooooo incredibly delicious, full of vitamins and minerals, and my choice to feed to my chickens to protect them from intestinal invaders.

From South Africa, we are so pleased to be able to offer this year seeds of the rare Ice Plant, much prized for its unique presentation and its culinary and medicinal use.

And so ancient it is hard to pinpoint its origins — it was found in Tutenkhamen’s tomb —Nigella Sativa or Black Cumin — is now highly valued for medicinal purposes it is often overlooked for its sheer beauty!

Finally, not to be ignored, the Italian origins of the wonderful Marvel of Venice pole bean should be noted, as Italians prize flavor above all else. The beautiful yellow flat romano style beans are incredibly delicious picked young and sauteed with garlic and olive oil, or pickled for antipasto.

These are just a “taste” of the wonderful heirloom organic seeds I am offering this year at CherryGal.com. If you have read this far, you deserve a reward — use the code INTLSeeds to get 20% off your CherryGal.com seed or live plant order until January 30!

For my Gourmet Artisan Gin Drinking Customers …

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For anyone who does not imbibe, or for those who are struggling, please know that I do not want to encourage anyone to drink alcohol. But for those of my customers or followers who occasionally like a nice gin & tonic in the summertime (and you can put me in that column), this is for you.
Did you know that gin is just infused vodka? High end gins (and there are many) infuse their own special botanicals, spices and fruits before performing a final distillation. But the final distillation is only to remove the color and particulates. Before that is done it is “compound gin” as long as the primary infused ingredient is juniper berry. So you pay an exceptional price for this artistry or artisan flair.
But you can actually create your own compound gin by infusing these same selected botanicals at home. You will save money and create an incredibly delicious and fresh gin for mixing your cocktails.
Now, you can go and purchase or gather these infusion ingredients yourself — and it is fun to do — but CherryGal Heirloom Organics has done the research and put together a great little kit for infusing a 750ml bottle of neutral Vodka which you will purchase. It is a fallacy that inexpensive vodka is inferior vodka. There are very good and inexpensive neutral Vodkas available, including UV, Deep Eddy, Svedka, Luksusowa, Finlandia and Sobieski. Just be sure you choose a clear, neutral vodka, since flavored vodka is also on the shelves.
Another advantage to choosing a CherryGal Heirloom Organics Do It Yourself Artisan Gin Kit  — and an important one — is that the botanicals are all organic. When botanicals are infused in alcohol, the alcohol extracts everything from the botanicals — the flavor, the fragrance, the color and, unless it is organic, any pesticides or chemicals used in production. Yeck! Using my kit you will achieve a beautiful, clear gin with a golden botanical coloration.
So I hope you will give my new product a try. It is legal. It is fun. It is inexpensive (especially compared to Williams and Sonoma and others). And it takes about 5-10 minutes of your hands-on time and 36-48 hours waiting time. Available online at www.cherrygal.com or at the Warrenton Farmer’s Market each Saturday! Enjoy!

Tips for Transplanting your CherryGal Organic Seedling

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I sometimes do not have the time at market to explain these tips, so I wanted to commit them now to my blog, for all to see. You’ve just purchased an organic heirloom seedling from me — now what?!@

  1.  Chlorine can kill your seedling. Your seedling has been raised with non-chlorinated water. So please, don’t kill it with tap water. You can de-chlorinate tap water easily by letting it sit, open, for 24 hours at room temperature.
  2.  Please harden off your seedling by giving accelerated exposure to full sun and warm temps in baby increments, starting with 1/2 hour a day up to a full day. They have probably already experienced this, but better safe than “fried.”
  3.  Tomatoes can be planted VERY deeply — up to their uppermost leaves — to encourage maximum root development. And all tomatoes, peppers and eggplants LOVE this side dressing: Grind up clean eggshells with used coffee grounds. This provides the magic formula that will keep the dreaded Blossom End Rot at bay.
  4. When planting, dig a $100 hole for a $10 plant. My cardinal rule. Your seedling has been grown in special organic potting soil. If you stick a 4″ seedling in a similar sized hole in a clay soil, guess what happens? It’s not pretty.
  5. Ideally plant on a cloudy, cooler day, or later in the day if it is hot and sunny. And water in very well. Keep an eye on it — any sign that it is stressed calls for immediate protective action. If thunderstorms are in the offing, cover it with a pot or cloche so it is not annihilated.

I love offering you these seedlings. They have been coddled, yes. But the result, if introduced appropriately to your garden, will be a healthy, organic producer of fruit and flower. Don’t forget that you can easily clone your CherryGal tomatoes, peppers and eggplants for next year’s garden. I’ll teach you how in a subsequent post.

Happy Gardening!

Why Heirloom & Why Organics

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I don’t often get the time at the Farmers Market to talk with customers in depth about the benefits of heirloom varieties and organics. So I thought it would be helpful to commit those thoughts to my blog.

So what makes heirlooms and organics so great anyway?

First, and this may surprise you, many heirlooms ARE hybrids, in the sense that they were often the attempt to capture the positive attributes of two or more varieties, but unlike today’s hybrids, they have been grown out for so many successive generations that the genetics became standardized and the new variety was “open pollinated,” i.e., you can save the seed and that seed will grow true to the parent. These are the varieties venerated and saved by our grandparents and great grandparents, often brought with them when they emigrated from Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, and grown as family heirlooms.

But in modern times, seed companies have developed new strains specifically for commercial growers that often sacrifice the very qualities we seek as home growers for those qualities valued by the commercial growers and their end customers – the grocery stores. That is: higher yields, ease of transport and longer shelf life. A tomato that can be harvested green, gassed to color and brought to the store red and without bruising is, in their business plan, more desirable than a red, luscious, extremely flavorful heirloom tomato that could never make the transit from farm to grocery to table when hundreds or thousands of miles are involved.

Unfortunately, these same hybrid seeds are also marketed to home gardeners, who like the ease of growing such hybrids (high disease resistance and germination) and are unaware of the sacrifice of flavor and other qualities they are making with such choices.

Now, what is the advantage of growing heirlooms in an organic fashion? EVERYTHING!

First, there is the health advantage. Good organic gardens are built on compost rich organic soil populated by earthworms and a healthy beneficial microbiome. It may take years to create that if you are starting with poor or compromised soil, but it is worth it. Non-organic soils depend on chemical fertilizers, which take a heavy toll on the environment, and also deplete the nutrients in your produce. Study after study has shown that produce grown organically has a far richer nutrient composition than its non-organic competitors. Add to that the advantage of the freshness of home-grown, or locally-produced, which reaches your table faster with less loss ofnutrients, and there is no question that organically produced home grown or locally grown produce is far superior in every aspect.

An additional, and perhaps more important, advantage of organic produce is the lack of pesticides. Pesticides are toxins. Whether sprayed on your lawn or your broccoli, or imported via the produce seedlings you buy at your local nursery, they can wreak havoc with your and your family’s health. Just to give one example, if you use pesticides when pregnant or nursing, your children will have a 3x to 9x increase in the possibility of leukemia. There are countless other health implications.

Finally, organic gardening supports the environment. Everything from the richness and health of the soil, to the health of pollinators, including honey bees, to birds and animals. Chemical fertilizers not only pollute the water, they do nothing to enrich the soil — the very heart of our agricultural system. Worse case, pesticides such as neonicotinoids — widely used by US-based growers and nurseries — not only pollute the plant they “treat,” but migrate into the soil of your garden and toxify all your plants for pollinators such as honey bees. That is why they are banned in Europe!

So, to sum up, organic heirloom plants and produce are LESS EXPENSIVE, MORE SUSTAINABLE, AND HEALTHIER! What’s not to love? I grow and eat organic, and I sleep better as a result!

 

 

 

Warrenton NC Farmer’s Market Season Opens April 15

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Lucky Like Premium Dog Treats will be back weekly at the Warrenton NC Farmer’s Market opening 8 am to Noon on April 15. We will be offering our Best Selling Crunchy Peanut Butter Biscuits and NEW Bacon Cheddar Barley Bones.

In addition, we will be offering a NEW Heavenly Herbal Elixir for your dogs, cats and chickens. Just add a tablespoon or two to your pet’s food or water to get the benefits, which are many, from keeping bugs at bay to putting a spring in your elder pet’s step, addressing skin issues, and building strong teeth and bones, anti-depressant and pain reducer and anti-inflammatory. All this achieved with an Organic brew of apple cider vinegar and organic herbs that are safe for your pets! Comes in a beautiful corked bottle which can be returned for a discounted refill.

Finally, get your gardens going with CherryGal Heirloom Herbs offering a wide range of ORGANIC culinary and medicinal herb seedlings, and a few decorative seedlings, during the opening weeks. It is so important to grow organic for anything that you will be utilizing for food or medicine. Most varieties will be in very limited supply, so please come early on the 15th. I can’t bring them all, so there will be more in following weeks until gone, but again it will be first come first served (and no pre-sales). A partial listing:

Allheal (Prunella vulgaris), Apple Mint (Mentha suaveolens), Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis), Blood Sorrel (Rumex sanguineus var. sanguineus), Catnip (Nepeta cataria), Cinnamon Basil (O. basilicum), Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis), Bronze Fennel  (Foeniculum vulgare), Clary Sage (Salvia sclarea), Garlic Chives (Allium tuberosum), Golden Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’), Gooseneck Lysimachia (Lysimachia clethroides), Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis), Lemon Grass (Cymbopogon citratus), Lemon Mint (Monarda citriodoro), Thyme, Lemon (Thymus citriodorus), Marshmallow (Althaea officinalis), Macartney Rose (Rosa Bracteata), Oswego Tea (Mondarda didyma), Painted Sage (Salvia horminium), Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa), Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), Syrian Oregano (Oreganum maru), Tri-color Sage (Salvia officinalis v. tri-color), Variegated English Thyme (Thymus vulgaris), Virginia Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum), Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosum), to name just a few!

There will be so many returning vendors this year and some new ones so I hope to see you there!