No More Peat Moss In The Garden

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Ann Lovejoy
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More Manure, Less Peat Moss, Please!

Industrial peat harvest

Each spring, it makes me crazy to see well-meaning people load up on bales of peatmoss. I know they think they are doing a Good Thing but sadly, they are not. All kinds of sphagnum peat moss are harvested by destroying boggy natural habitats. That’s sad enough, but even more sadly, this is senseless destruction, because peat moss isn’t helpful for our soil or plants.

For one thing, peat moss is very low in nutrients and it degrades to fast to make a truly helpful soil conditioner. In addition, it is very acidic, which does not help balance our already acid Northwestern soils. In fact, peat moss is so acidic that it can kill bacteria, which is why sphagnum moss was used as bandaging material for centuries (maybe millennia). Wounds packed with clean sphagnum moss had a better chance of healing cleanly, and it was still used for British troops during WWII.

Once Dry, Dry Forevermore

It really makes me crazy when I see peat moss recommended for top dressing. Top dressing is the final layer of a garden bed, usually consisting of an inch or two of fine textured mulch such as compost or aged dairy manure. This layer conserves moisture, suppresses weeds, and promotes rapid root growth.

That old standby, peat moss, makes a horrible top dressing and is a remarkably poor mulch, drying to an impervious, water-shedding (rather than water-conserving) mat in no time. Peat is very difficult to rewet in garden soils and peat based potting mixes, which is annoying and very hard on plants. Peat based potting mixes are light in weight, which is good if you are carrying the pots around, but also means wind can rock plants easily, distressing the roots.

Peat’s Hidden Dangers

Though fresh peat is highly acidic, by the time it is dried and baled, it can harbor spores of fungal diseases that can be dangerous to handlers. Nursery workers are warned by law to wear double gloves and micron filtration masks when handling peat moss. The gardener is not told anything, yet those who use peat moss regularly are at risk for fungal pneumonias and other illnesses.

Finally, peatmoss is not a renewable resource except in glacial terms. If you visit bogs that have been harvested for many years, you can see plainly that cuts made a century ago have barely begun to heal. Bogs are delicate, intricate environments that host hundreds of living fauna and flora. When bogs are destroyed by peat mining, companies are now forced to “restore” them, but the artificial, “managed” bogs never achieve the biodiversity of the original habitat.

What’s Better?

If peat is not a truly renewable resource, manures definitely are. One thing we can count on is that poop happens. However, it does matter which manure we choose. Initial testing of various kinds of animal manures at Oregon State University in Corvallis show that animal manures vary widely in their qualities. Horse manure, for example, is often contaminated with worming agents that continue to kill worms in compost and soil after passing through the horse. Horse manure mixed with bedding may contain clopyralid, a long-lasting pesticide that remains active indefinitely (it especially affects legumes, nightshades, and composites, which covers a lot of floral ground).

Instead, I use aged dairy manure as a soil amendment and as top dressing. Recent research indicates that a mulch of dairy manure can slow down or even halt the growth of certain soil pathogens, notably several root rots that are prevalent in the native soils of the Northwest.

Let’s Do Use Dairy Manure

Most modern dairies have holding pits where manure is stored. The barns are washed down daily and the manure accumulates in the holding pits. The nitrogen-rich effluent is drawn off and returned to the fields where alfalfa and other fodder is grown. The washed manure is sold as an excellent soil amendment. Dairy manure from an organic dairy will not contain bovine growth hormone, steroids, or other “prophylactic” medications.

Dairy manure differs from steer manure in several important ways. For starters, it is nearly always far less salty. Steer manure is gathered from stockyard holding pens, where salt licks encourage animals to drink lots of water. The resulting manure often has a very high salt content, which can burn young plants and seedlings. Steer manure is very apt to contain hormones and steroids as well.

Here’s a link to Ken Druse’s article on peat moss (which I like since he agrees with me):

http://gardenrant.com/2009/04/ken-druse-dishes-the-dirt-about-peat-moss.html

Posted in Garden Prep, Soil, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Enjoying Asian Vegetables

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Ann Lovejoy
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Delighting In Delicious, Nutritious Asian Greens

All winter, we live on kale, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts and I never get tired of them. However, one of my favorite things about spring is the appearance of Asian greens. From mustard greens and tat choi to chrysanthemum leaves and pea vine tendrils, Asian greens offer vivid flavors and lovely textures.

Not just another tasty garden plant, they’re also surprisingly nutritious, packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytonutrients despite their low caloric density. Some nutritionists call them the dieter’s best friend, because few other foods combine such bold flavors and satisfyingly crunchy textures with so few calories.

How Low Can You Go?

When we talk low calorie, these greens are serious contenders for the as-low-as-you-can-go title. For example, a cup of shredded raw bok choy has less than 10 calories and only 1 gram of carbohydrates, yet provides over half of the vitamins C and A we need daily. It’s also got ample vitamin K, plenty of folate, B vitamins, and a multitude of minerals. Like the whole cabbage clan, bok choy contains bioflavenoids and sulfur-based glucosinolates that may offer protection against several cancers.

A New Food Pyramid From Asia

In recent years, scientists from Harvard and Cornell have developed a new food pyramid reflecting traditional plant-based diets found throughout Asia. Whole or minimally processed grains form the daily base, along with fruits and vegetables, beans and peas, nuts and seeds and moderate amounts of plant-based oils. While fish may be eaten daily, eggs, poultry, and sweets are eaten weekly and red meat monthly or not at all.

Cornell’s Dr. T. Colin Campbell notes that this diet is typical of parts of China where breast cancer and heart disease are “almost unknown.” Despite the lack of dairy products, osteoporosis is also rare there. Obesity is also uncommon, since although calorie-dense rice is eaten several times a day, it’s balanced by relatively small amounts of red meat, wheat and dairy.

A Myriad Of Mustard Greens

Japan is especially rich in pungent greens, including many forms of Mizuna. This handsome, varied family of Asian mustard greens all have a pleasingly peppery bite that adds zip to plain salads. For an extra flavor lift, shred them into soups and stir fries as well as fish or chicken salads, and use them to garnish steamed vegetables, grilled fish, and poached chicken.

Among my favorites is ‘Dragon Tongue,’ a dramatic and delicious mustard whose whorled heads boast ruffled leaves with vividly green hearts that set off the burgundy to magenta staining on outer parts of each leaf. I often grow the pungent Wild Garden Mix and mince the delicate, frilly foliage to add to soft goat cheese for a snappy spread.

Pretty Enough For Border Duty

Some of the mustards do double duty, making a frequent appearance in the kitchen while beautifying beds and borders. The feathery foliage of Golden Frill mizuna matures into strappy leaves with ruffled, fluffy edging that makes lovely, tasty garnishes. The leaves of Ruby Streaks mizuna are vividly stained with merlot, making an elegant addition to salads. Osaka Purple makes rounded heads of deep wine red with beautifully crimped and crinkled leaves, that curl back to reveal the paler cream and green hearts. Attractive in the garden, the larger outer leaves make gorgeous edible bowls for fish or chicken salads. Among my favorite garden ornamentals is Red Giant mustard. This strapping midnight red mustard has broad, slightly ruffled leaves. This spectacular foliage plant can get 2 feet high and wide if left to develop fully, so grow some in the veggie bed for kitchen use too. For instance….

Asian Greens With Grapefruit Dressing

1 Ruby grapefruit, half juiced, half sectioned and peeled
1/4 cup canola or rice oil
1/4 teaspoon soy sauce
few drops chili oil
2 cups baby spinach
2 cubs napa cabbage, shredded
1 cup mustard greens, finely sliced
2 green onions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons roasted almonds

In a small bowl, combine grapefruit juice, oil, soy sauce and chili oil to taste. Whisk well, set aside. In a serving bowl, combine greens, green onions, grapefruit sections, and almonds. Drizzle with dressing, toss and let stand for 10 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature for fullest flavor. Serves 4-6.

Grilled Salmon With Mizuna

2 pounds salmon fillet (1 inch thick)
1 tablespoon canola or rice oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1/2 onion, cut lengthwise and thinly sliced
4 cups mizuna or any mustard greens, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ponzu or soy sauce

Prepare grill for medium high heat. Lightly rub salmon with 1 teaspoon oil and cook for 5 minutes per side, turning once. Place fish on serving platter, tent with foil, set aside. While fish cooks, combine remaining oil, garlic, and sesame seeds in a wide, shallow pan over medium high heat to the fragrance point (1-2 minutes). Add onion, reduce heat to medium and cook until slightly soft (3-5 minutes). Add mustard greens and soy sauce, cover pan, reduce heat to low and cook until barely wilted (3-4 minutes). Serve at once, spooned over grilled fish. Serves 4-6.

Tips And Tricks To Try

Asian greens are delightful eaten fresh and raw. They are most flavorful when cooked quickly, either stir fried with onion or garlic or briefly steamed. Choose fresh, crisp, richly colored Asian greens, selecting flowering types when budded up rather than with open blooms. Loosely wrap clean, fresh Asian greens in a tea towel and store in the crisper drawer for up to 3 days.

Colorful greens offer a wide range of phytonutrients, so grow as many kinds as you can find, from red mustard to blue kale. Pea vine tendrils add a crunchy, salty snap to salads and stir fries (add some garlic and ginger for a special taste treat). Chinese Broccoli (Gai Lan) looks like broccolini, and has a slightly bitter flavor that perfectly complements curries and rich oyster sauces. Chrysanthemum greens are best when very fresh. Blanche briefly before adding to salads or shred finely for a tangy garnish. Shred napa cabbage and add to sandwich spreads, toss in salads, or use to bed grilled or steamed fish.

It takes about 20 minutes to process the feeling of fullness. To reduce food consumption rate, try eating with chop sticks!

Posted in Nutrition, Recipes, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Sustainable Bed Making

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Ann Lovejoy
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Raised Beds Don’t Need Wooden Sides

Some years ago, I attended a workshop on wood safety, part of an environmental conference sponsored by a group called Beyond Pesticides. About 50 people were gathered for this workshop, which presented alternatives to wood preservatives like arsenic and penta. Some of the speakers were scientists who have spent years studying the effects of pressure treated wood on humans. As a result, they were trying to get laws on the books that would require the disposal of some common kinds of treated wood as toxic waste. Happily, they succeeded, at least to some degree, and today, treated wood must be disposed of through a hazardous waste facility.

Want to know more? Check out this link: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/hwtr/dangermat/treated_wood_waste_disposal.html

What has this got to do with gardeners? One of the questions that stumped the experts was what to recommend to gardeners who wanted to make raised beds. As it turns out, many plastic woods release a low-volume but steady stream of contaminants into soil, water, and food growing in plastic wood lined beds. Most treated wood releases significant amounts of copper, arsenic, and lots of other less-than-healthy chemicals when exposed to water, whether rain or watering sprinklers. here in the maritime Northwest, that is a significant consideration, of course.

Low Wall Or No Wall

What’s a gardener to do? Well, how about nothing? I was delighted to hear one panel member declare that she has fed her large family for many years from a garden filled with raised beds made without any kind of siding at all. She also said that her kids survived just fine without penta-treated play gyms, swing sets, or sand boxes. This gal had been the first woman hired to climb power poles to repair the lines for a city east of the mountains.

Not knowing she was pregnant, she continued to climb as many as 30 poles daily through six weeks of a very hot summer. Her baby had and still, as an adult, has neurological deficits that her other children don’t share. These deficits match known symptoms of acute penta poisoning. Does it make sense, she wondered, to line our garden beds with this same material, which is now well documented as unsafe? The answer is clearly NO.

If Not Wood, What?

So what do you do? My suggestion has long been to make mounded rather than raised beds. Instead of preforming rectilinear shapes with wood or plastic, simple heap the fresh topsoil and compost into beds. If you use good soil and plenty of compost, the gently sloping sides will not erode at all.

If you like, you can plant the sides with creeping thyme, oregano, marjoram, hyssop, lavender, sage, and other hardy herbs. The herbs will knit together quickly, making a tidy, aromatic and attractive edging for your beds. Their pungent scents will help drive away pests and their flowers will attract bees and other pollinators.

No Till, No Kill

What about tilling? It’s extremely hard to till the soil in box-beds anyway, so why bother? We now know that the upper few inches of soil are alive. Why smother the biota under a heavy load of less-good soil in the tilling process?

If we don’t till, we also don’t kill off the soil life. Sounds good to me! Instead, layer on fresh amendments each season, blending or covering them with compost. If you want a particular amendment to reach the root zone of particular plants, add it when you plant or before seeding a specific area.

Sweeps And Curves

Beds made by this mounding method are easy to make from scratch and easy to maintain. If you really need straight lines, by all means, have them. However, mounding allows you to break the box, giving your beds graceful curves that echo natural ones. Personally, I prefer the shapes of angel wings and ellipses over geometric boxes, but by all means, make shapes that give your eyes pleasure.

Whatever their shape, the beds should be at least 5-6 feet wide and long. Smaller mounds will dry out too quickly to be useful. If you prefer larger shapes, use stepping stones to make a central path so you can reach every part of your bed without stepping on the growing areas.

Use Cover Crops

When your crop is harvested, use a cover crop like alfalfa, clover, or winter peas to add nitrogen to your soil. Chop the top growth and turn it under come spring. You can use the same technique with young weeds; turn them under before they can set seed and they simply melt into the soil, returning their nutrients to crop plants.

To avoid weeds altogether (or almost), use plenty of mulch. I often use mulches that combine compost and soil conditioners with corn gluten. The corn gluten is high in nitrogen, which helps plants grow faster. Corn gluten also prevents weed seeds from sprouting, which saves the gardener from weeding. Do remember that it doesn’t know a weed seed from a carrot; don’t use this mulch in the vegetable garden until AFTER your garden seeds come up.

Now Is The Time

Is it too late to make such a bed now? Not at all. Just be sure that the soil is mounded at least 18 inches deep through the bulk of your bed. That seems high at first, but as the soil settles, the heaps will shrink down quite a bit. Top your beds with two or three inches of compost or mulch, then plant away. If you are planting seeds, leave the seed strips unmulched until your seeds emerge. When the warm soil coaxes your seeds awake, snuggle the mulch in closer as the young plants grow.

The warm beds will boost your plant’s growth, and their roots will be getting plenty of the air they need. The mulch will help conserve moisture and keep the plant roots cooler as the summer heats up. Bon appetite!

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Ladybug, Ladybug, Please Stick Around

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Ann Lovejoy
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Save The Good Bugs, Blast the Bad Bugs

A friend recently called to say she noticed hundreds of ladybugs crawling on her sunny windowpanes. The odd thing was that the ladybugs were on the INSIDE of the windows. What’s that about? Well, these are slightly confused critters. These nonnative but beneficial insects were introduced by the Washington State Department of Agriculture in the late 1970s to control field pests. These useful bugs can’t figure out how to reach their ancestral hibernation grounds, so they sleep over at your house. As spring arrives and the air warms up, Korean ladybugs wake up.

If your home is similarly ladybugged, you might reasonably be tempted to try to get rid of them. However, please remember that hungry ladybugs eat their weight daily in pests like aphids and whitefly eggs. These little ladybirds can be of great service to you and yours. Don’t try to put them in the garden yet, though; if tossed outside in chilly weather, they’ll die from lack of food. To take advantage of these free beneficials, tuck them away for a sunny day.

Pickin’ Up Ladybugs, Put ‘Em in Your Reefer…

To collect ladybugs safely (for them), sweep them up gently with a dustpan or use a clean and empty hand-held vacuum cleaner. Gently shake your ladybugs into a clean glass jar with a tightly fitting lid (canning jars work great). Add a small piece of damp (not soaking wet) paper towel, loosely screw on the jar lid and refrigerate the jar. When garden aphids arrive in late April or early May, you’re ready for them.

These Koreans are not the same as commercially sold ladybugs, but will be just as effective in your garden. The dormant native ladybugs sold at garden centers are shoveled out of high-altitude mountain caves (their traditional hibernation grounds). Whether home collected or store bought, these sleeping beauties need a wake up call when pests arrive. So will your Korean ladybugs, so give them the same treatment when it’s garden time.

Oh Won’t You Stay, Just A Little Bit Longer?

Dormant and/or chilly ladybugs tend to fly away before they get around to eating any garden pests. There are good ways to keep them nearby, but please do not spray dormant ladybugs with sweet drinks (such as fizzy pop) to glue their wings shut for a week or so. This is hard on the ladybugs, which may die without mating (not at all what you or they would prefer, I’m sure).

To release newly awakened ladybugs without losing them, sprinkle the garden with the garden hose, or pick a rainy, warm release day.  Emerging ladybugs are very thirsty and if water is available, they will fly away to find it. After a drink, they want to mate (sound familiar?). Soon, fuzzy orange ladybugs eggs will hatch into larvae. These look like tiny black alligators with orange or red spots and eat even more aphids than adults.

Stay Safe And Sane

To protect beneficial bugs like ladybugs, bees, and other native pollinators, avoid toxic chemical pesticides. Many have a broad-spectrum kill effect and some target up to 100 kinds of insects. Since the Northwest only has about a dozen harmful insect pests, more non-target insects than pests are harmed by toxins.

Over 97% of all known insects are either harmless or beneficial. To keep bees and ladybugs and other beneficials safe, try to solve pest problems safely. Many pests can be washed away with the hose, especially if you attach a Bug Blaster. This high-pressure nozzle makes a terrific tool for taking out everything from aphids to caterpillars without hurting plants or innocent bystanders.

Just Spray Water, It’s A Blast

It’s a lot of fun to use and lasts for years. If you can’t find a Bug Blaster at your local nursery, the nozzles sell for about $30 online at: http://www.cleanairgardening.com/bug-blaster.html

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