Digging For Spring
(Garden • Nature)
Lest I leave the reader with the mistaken impression that a new garden hereabouts is ready for planting merely after turning the dirt over a couple of times with a shovel, allow me an explanation:
We’re blessed here with a sandy loam, courtesy of a few hundred thousand years worth of river risings and soil deposits, which usually include just enough clay to keep raised beds intact without securing them in railroad ties or other foreign materials. I like raised beds because you can keep the dirt soft and fluffy, allowing plant roots to move freely about the cabin and thus promoting quick growth.
What I do is create raised beds by digging deep paths in between – more than 2 feet deep. I toss the dirt that was in the paths on top of the beds, thus raising them.
In the case of my new approximately 25 by 14-foot kitchen garden, I ended up modifying original plans calling for 10 6 by 4-foot beds. I decided running a path down the middle would displace too much growing space. So I dug six beds running the breadth of the garden instead. Two of them are 4 feet wide and the rest are closer to 3 feet, with 1-foot paths between them that will become wider and shallower over time.
Then I used my ancient and tiny Mantis tiller on ‘em. It has four rows of sharp teeth set at various angles, and revs up good on a two-cycle engine, absolutely pulverizing the dirt into fine seed-bed-sized particles. The Mantis only cuts a path about 6 inches wide, but it’s so fast you can till up a 4 by 14-foot bed in like 10 minutes or less. I used a shovel to scoop some of the fine dirt that fell into the paths, laying it back on top of the beds. Then I applied a good dirt rake to smooth each bed into perfection.
So now I have this new garden, dying to be planted, but all I can put in are a few cold-hardy herbs. Because the weather dudes are promising us yet another episode of cold – perhaps a night getting down to 36 on Sunday. This will not make the plumeria happy either (some of which are lining the garden perimeter as a temporary fence).
I probably am not generating much sympathy from those of you in parts north. But we needs us our early springs in semi-South Texas, because by June the temperatures will climb well past 90, and the tomatoes and peppers will become surly and stop setting fruit. In past years, I’ve had tomatoes in the ground by the end of February. Now we’re three-quarters through with March, and they’re still stuck in pots.
If you didn’t follow the weather forecast, you’d swear it’s spring. The pomegranate bushes sport bright red leaf buds, and the figs have already begun popping out little fruits.
No leaf buds on our pecans yet, though, and that’s a bad sign that the cold winter finger of fate is sure to poke us one last time.
As Joe Dirt would say, “Dang.”
→ B.Dunn, Mar 19, 2010, 10 31 am
It's Spring When Madame Says So
(Garden • )
This is Madame Dupont, a fancy-schmancy hibiscus I bought from Dupont Nursery in Plaquemine, La. It can’t stand cold below 40 degrees yet doesn’t like being inside in the dry air during the winter.
But give it a few moist spring days and it’s one of the first hibiscus to flower. When it’s really in a good mood, it pushes out these weird wing-like petals near the top of the stamen.
It’s officially spring here today, and time to assess and haul off winter’s damage.
→ B.Dunn, Mar 13, 2010, 06 18 am
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The Worm Turns
(Garden • Nature)
Few things reinvigorate your relationship with the earth more completely than digging a new garden by hand in the dawning spring. 
It took probably four or five hours spread out over the past three days – not bad, and surely would’ve gone faster were my son’s back a few years older and mine a few years younger. We also uncovered 40 or so bricks spread out about a foot down at one end of the new dig. No telling the story there, but it’s fun to imagine.
The 350-square-foot patch is just off the concrete, about 20 yards from the back door. An excellent location for a kitchen garden, but just by accident, because it represents the last remnant of summer sun in the back yard. The giant pecans have made sure of that.
It’ll be home to 10 raised beds of 4 by 7 feet each – enough to hold, say, three tomato plants with some companion dill or so-called Mexican marigold (Tagetes minuta). The latter might be more common in Peru, where they cook with it like mint. But my purpose is to see whether its reputed anti-nematode properties are real. The main point of this new garden plot is to rest the back garden dirt after moving peppers, eggplant and tomatoes through the various beds back there. They all like the same trace soil elements, and they all attract nematodes, which have proved to be a big pain in the roots for most of the past few years. The secondary point of the new plot is to serve as a proper kitchen garden where the likes of basil, oregano, Italian parsley, cilantro, mint, tarragon and chives can be had in a pinch.
This year my tomato expectations run high. The new dirt appeared to be dark and rich as I turned it over, with just enough clay content to hold raised beds together, plus it was full of earthworms (and more than a few June Beetle grubs, which I fed to the birds).
The worms attracted my 6-year-old, who’d recently received a scientific kindergarten lesson on the subject, apparently. Did I know that earthworms were good for the garden? That they had a mouth, but didn’t have any teeth? That they can stretch through the tiniest places? They can actually digest parts of some rocks? If they are attacked or mishandled and broken into two, both pieces may live? Their poop is not bad, it’s good for the dirt? They’re probably my very favorite worm, right?
I made the mistake of questioning her assertion that some earthworms reach 10 feet in length, though mostly just to interject a period into the conversation. Of course she was right.
“I’m pretty much an expert,” she explained. “If you have a question about earthworms, you can ask me.”
Then she stood there and waited for me to think of one, while I sweated and grunted and turned over shovels full of heavy dirt. I told her I couldn’t think of any at the moment.
So she checked back with me as each new moment arrived, to make sure my thirst for earthworm knowledge was sated.
→ B.Dunn, Mar 11, 2010, 07 22 am
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Fresh From The Grocery: More Vomitous Products
(Be Afraid • Factory Food)
Hamburger, peanuts, pistachios, spinach, tomatoes, hot peppers, cookie dough – what grocery store fare has turned out to be contaminated this time?
Just about everything, as it turns out. For some reason, however, this isn’t considered news by most local outlets so, as I am wont to do, it is presented here as a public service.
Yesterday afternoon, the Food and Drug Administration announced it has discovered Salmonella in an artificial food additive called HVP (hydrolyzed vegetable protein). “Food” manufacturing companies use it to achieve that certain verve in pre-processed dips, salad dressings, soups, “snacks,” “pre-packaged meals,” gravies, chilis, stews and hot dogs.
As of about 5 a.m. today, 57 products that contained HVP made by Basic Food Flavors of Las Vegas had been recalled. Basic Food customers recalling products included the likes of T. Marzetti, Johnny’s Fine Foods, Oak Lake Farms, Follow Your Heart, Trader Joe’s and Castella – so far. Given the widespread use of this additive, you can bet big money this recall will expand by at least a couple hundred products and likely far more.
It wasn’t the FDA or state health inspectors who discovered the Salmonella. That tip came from one of Basic Food’s customers, using a tattle system the FDA has wisely set up.
As for Basic Food Flavors, the contamination dates back to at least last September, according to FDA, which found machinery at the company’s Las Vegas plant was itself contaminated with Salmonella, and thus continued to crank out tainted HVP, batch after batch. This calls into question the company’s sanitation practices, naturally, although information about its past safety inspection history wasn’t immediately available.
Basic Food also has facilities in Texas, Washington, Oregon, California, Illinois, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and seven countries outside the U.S. Hope they’re cleaner than the one in Nevada.
No one has yet been identified as having become sick or dead as a result of the HVP adulteration, however, 245 people in 44 states including mine (Texas) have contracted food poisoning over the past few weeks as a result of Salmonella-contaminated crushed red pepper and prepared meats whose manufacturers used the contaminated pepper in their products.
Most of the meat involved – and we’re talking more than 1.5 million pounds of it – is one or another type of salami made by Daniele International Inc., and some under the Boar’s Head brand. Follow that last link for the complete list.
In Texas, you may have purchased some at Walmart, Kroger, Brookshire Bros. or Albertson. I can’t find information indicating which stores have been selling the recalled dips, salad dressings, etc.
So start checking those kitchen cupboards. And consider – home-made not only tastes better, it (assuming you adhere to basic sanitation and food-preparation practices) also provides the benefit of keeping your family from throwing up so much.
Update: We here in this part of Texas take great pride in our native pecans – in their flavor and our ability to provide them to friends and family as a tasty and healthful dietary additive. We’re also pretty proud of our ability to process and prepare them in a manner that does not make people barf. Thus it is with heavy heart I must report that American Pecan Co. of Yancey has recalled 1-pound bags of pecan pieces because they may be contaminated with Salmonella. The bad pecans were sold in Yancey and by mail to other Texans and to people in New York and Massachusetts, too.
Salmonella originates in the intestines of animals and birds. That means that all the stuff mentioned in all the recalls above was contaminated in one way or another by some kind of animal poop. And then presented for sale for your dining pleasure.
That, as they say, is messed up.
→ B.Dunn, Mar 05, 2010, 05 29 am
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