You Grow Girl: The Dirt (RSS 2.0 Feed)

Let?s Start Seeds

While it is still early days yet here in the upper regions of North America, many of us (myself included) have begun the process of buying and planting seeds for the 2012 gardening season. There are 12 years of resources published on this website, many of which even I have trouble locating, so I’ve compiled a list here to make it easier for you.

Inspiration

• These Are a Few of My Favourite Peas
• Giant Cape Gooseberry
• Salad Greens: Direct sow these.
• Wild Eggplant: Just for the heck of it, I decided to grow one this year.
• Growing Beans: Buy now, but wait until after the last frost to direct sow outdoors.
• ‘Trionfo Violetto’: If you only have room for one pole bean, I’d suggest this one.
• ‘Spigarello’ Leaf Broccoli: A very productive and beautiful leafy green.
• Edible Flowers
• Delicious Nasturtiums
• Tomatoes to Grow in Containers (or anywhere else for that matter)
• Hot Pepper varieties that I grew in 2011.
• Italian Edibles

Seed Buying

• The Safe Seed Pledge
• Kitazawa Seeds Japanese seed company that sells interesting edibles.

Seed Starting

• Build a D.I.Y Lighting System
• Printable Seed-Starting Chart (This is a good place to begin)
• A Quick and Easy Germination Test
• Seed-Starting Instructions
• Toilet Roll Seed-Starter (Please note that I have altered this system and I no longer cut the slots or bother making a bottom. Though either works, really.)
• Make Your Own Seed-Starting Mix (scroll down the page)

Caring for Seedlings & Planting Out

• Yoghurt Container Seedling Pot: Upsizing to a larger pot.
• What to Do About Tall and Floppy Seedlings
• What to Do About Forgotten Fall Bulbs
• Growing Microgreens on a Windowsill
• Hardening Off

Mother May I, Make a Kombucha SCOBY

Shortly after my fermentation obsession kicked in full-throttle, I became interested in Kombucha, a fermented beverage that enjoyed its moment in the spotlight as a health food fad through the 90s and again in the early 2000s. Having managed to skip over it entirely due to the rigorous sugar-free diet I was on back when the craze was at its peak, I bought a bottle of a commercial brand so that I could finally find out what all of the fuss was about. Since tasting it I have come to the conclusion that the tangy, fizzy beverage is enjoyable enough, but my real interest lies in the process of making it.

Kombucha is a sweet and sour drink that is made by placing an ugly, deformed, gelatinous mass that eerily resembles regurgitated rubber (hungry yet?), known as a mother or SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) into a vessel of sweetened black tea. Over time the SCOBY feeds on the sugars, resulting in a bubbly drink with a mild, vinegar-like bite.

Alchemy! The drink aside, I was immediately charged with the task of getting my hands on one of those delightfully revolting MOTHERs! I immediately imagined experimenting with my own flavor combinations, fermenting things that were never meant to be fermented (see 1 below), pulling it out at parties (see 2 below), and endlessly entertaining myself with creepy references to Alfred Hitchcock’s, Psycho. As a friend eagerly pointed out, “Now we can say that we have healthy mothers!”

If you’d like to acquire your own healthy mother in a hurry, Etsy is a great place to start. A search for Kombucha SCOBY will bring up a number of sellers and ordering options. There are also several online communities of Kombucha aficionados that will happily share a piece with locals. Unfortunately, as a Canadian, I was unable to find a source that would ship for free, trade, or cash. A biological blob is probably not the easiest thing to ship across borders.

Fortunately, SCOBYs regularly reproduce through the fermenting process and it isn’t uncommon to find pieces floating around in store-bought bottles. Poor Davin learned this the hard way when he gulped a rather large blob down whole. I wondered if I could get the thing to grow, and sure enough, a quick inquiry via Twitter and Flickr confirmed that a new SCOBY could be produced as long as you use a bottle of raw, unflavored Kombucha.

Making a Mother

The process is simple. I consulted a few sources online, but inevitably decided to take my cue from the Kombucha brewing recipe I found in Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz. However, I added more sugar so that the developing mother would have plenty to feed on over the weeks that it would take to mature. Not that when I make Kombucha for drinking, I do not use as much sugar.

• 1 litre filtered water
• 2 black tea bags
• 1/3 cup cane sugar
• One-16 oz bottle of a raw, unflavored commercial Kombucha. Choose a bottle with lots of visible gelatinous masses.

Using the ingredients listed, brew a batch of sweetened black tea. Allow it to come to room temperature, then pour it into a clean and sterilized wide-mouth glass vessel. I used a large, glass jar that is meant for carrying cold beverages.

Pour the bottle of raw Kombucha on top and cover with a clean kitchen towel or cheese cloth. Do not cover with plastic as the brew needs to breath freely. The cloth simply keeps out dust, dirt, and insects.

Set aside in a comfortably warm location, out of the sun, that enjoys steady temperatures. I keep mine in the dining room because the temperature of my kitchen fluctuates due to cooking and baking.

Within a few days you should start to see a small blob forming. Mine took about 2 weeks to form into a thin, gooey pancake. The tea was very acidic and undrinkable. I have used it as a marinade, as a vinegar substitute in salad dressing, and to de-glaze cooking pans. Don’t toss it down the sink!

Shortly thereafter I used the new mother to begin a first brew. Since then I have gone on to make many more and have also passed new SCOBYs onto friends. I’ve experimented with flavors, but so far the best has been made by adding slices of fresh ginger and Meyer lemon at the time of bottling. It is surprisingly better than the commercial brand and a friend who is a Kombucha freak said it was the best she’d ever had!

Choosing a Tea: Everything that I read about Kombucha said that the oils used in flavored black tea (i.e Earl Gray) can compromise the integrity of the mother, while green and white teas are too weak. Grow a strong and healthy mother using black tea, then branch out into experimenting with other types once it’s been established. I’ve currently got a batch of white tea brewing that I hope will be a more subtle base for wilder flavor combinations.

Kombucha as a Health Drink

So much has been written about Kombucha’s healthful qualities, while others have derided it as a modern day snake oil. My own perspective lies somewhere between the two. The drink is often flavoured with fruit and other flavours and is a popular, “healthier” substitute for corn syrup loaded carbonated soda. While I do think that it is much, much better than drinking pop, I subscribe more to the idea of it as a tonic that is best when taken in small quantities. But that’s just my two cents. A few friends of mine are totally addicted and I don’t blame them nor would I ever begrudge anyone the pleasure. In fact, since I’ve begun making Kombucha, I’ve been only too eager to use them as taste testers for my concoctions. My own beverage addictions — carbonated mineral water and cappuccinos — do not afford me a high ground from which to judge!

That said, I do think it is essential to familiarize yourself with possible contaminants before starting out making Kombucha. Drinking a contaminated beverage carries serious health consequences; always err on the side of safety and toss out any batches, including mothers, that look or smell off, even slightly.

If you’d like to find out more for yourself, both positive and negative, I suggest the following resources:

• “My Adventures with the Blob” by Paul Stamets
• Gaia Research
• Web MD
• Happy Herbalist (This site is exhaustive.)

Footnotes:

1. In the book, Wild Fermentation, author Sandor Katz mentions a friend that made Mountain Dew Kombucha.

2. I’ve since done this. I even showed iPhone photos of my SCOBY to a table full of strangers at Rancho la Puerta. It’s the perfect dinner conversation!

Farmers versus Monsanto

This morning, a group of farmers and organic seed growers have gathered at a hearing in New York City to present oral arguments as the first phase in what could turn out to be an historic lawsuit brought against biotech giant Monsanto.

The suit, Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) et al v. Monsanto, was brought as a pre-emptive suit by a group of 83 co-plaintiffs that seeks, in part, to protect themselves against the alleged patent infringement suits that they fear they will face if their seed becomes contaminated by transgenic (aka GMO) genetics.

“According to the Public Patent Foundation, Monsanto has one of the most aggressive patent assertion agendas in history. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America?s family farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts.“

By now, many of us have heard about these suits that have been brought against small farmers across North American. They stand accused of growing crops that carry patented genetics, despite the fact that the contamination was not wanted. The case that comes to my mind here in Canada is Percy Schmeiser, a canola farmer whose fields were contaminated with Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready Canola.

Unfortunately, many believe this contamination is an inevitability. According to PUBPAT (The Public Patent Foundation at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law), ?Co-existence between transgenic and organic seed is impossible because transgenic seed contaminates and eventually overcomes organic seed.? In an interview with Margaret Roach of Away to Garden, C.R. Lawn of Fedco Seeds (one of the plaintiffs) claims that this could be taken further, “… as said transgenic seed contaminates and eventually overcomes all other seed. Because it multiplies at will it cannot be contained.”

The outcome of today’s hearing will determine whether the case will be allowed to move forward or not. If you’d like to follow along and find out about the ruling as it happens, I suggest checking in with the following hashtags on Twitter: #stopmonsanto, #monsanto, and #occupybigfood. You can also watch a live stream of the happenings outside the courthouse and chat about the case and the issues involved here.

Margaret Roach has generously allowed me to publish this list of things that we as gardeners and consumers can do if we want to keep Monsanto out of our homes, gardens, and food supply.

What you can do:

• Support the campaign to label genetically engineered foods. See justlabelit.org.
• Support California?s initiative to become the first state to pass a mandatory GMO labeling law.
• Avoid purchasing transgenic foods in your supermarket, coop or health food store. The Center for Food Safety has good lists of what to avoid. [NOTE: PUBPAT ?encourages the public to not buy any products made with corn, soy, sugar, canola, cotton or alfalfa unless you are certain it was made without any use of genetically modified seed. If you're not sure, call the manufacturer and ask."]
• If you belong to a food coop, help them keep transgenic foods out of their store.
• Varieties in our [Fedco] catalog have a source code. Purchase those coded 1-3 and try to avoid those coded 5, from multinational suppliers who engage in biotech.
• Buy open-pollinated seeds [Note from Gayla: A plant variety whose seeds develop as the result of random, natural pollination] instead of F-1 hybrids [Note from Gayla: A plant variety that is crossbred under controlled conditions to create very specific results.] whenever possible.
• Support small alternative seed companies who have signed the Safe Seed Pledge and don?t knowingly carry transgenic varieties.
• Better yet, learn how to save your own seeds and start doing it! [Note from Gayla: I have also tomato seed saving tutorial here. It's really easy to do and fun in a high school science way!].

The Human Side of Plants

“All truths point to a universal truth; all the divisions of nature are closely akin to one another.”

Rancho la Puerta is a mostly media-free retreat that provides guests the opportunity to unplug from television and Internet for a week, as much or as little as they choose to do so. In its place, the ranch offer movie nights and an extensive book and music library that guests can patronize during their stay.

I brought plenty of books to last me through the week, as I do on all trips, but recognizing that they were primarily connected to work in some way, I ended up setting them aside in favor of some light fare that I found in the library. However, as a plant and nature nut, the line between work and play is nearly impossible to maintain. I could not help but find my way over to the library’s Baja ecology resources and guidebooks as I required help in identifying the foreign flora and fauna that lives on and around the ranch. I simply could not wait until we got home to begin researching the life nearby.

While in the library, Davin took some photos of the older books, and it was through him that I was introduced to “The Human Side of Plants” by Royal Dixon (1914), an early predecessor to books like The Secret Life of Plants that tried to uncover and prove sentience in plants scientifically.

“Plants no longer are lifeless things labelled and grouped under ponderous Latin titles; they are highly developed organisms, which see, hear, taste, feel, walk, swim, run, fly, jump, skip, hop, roll, tumble, set traps and catch fish; decorate themselves that they may attract attention; powder their faces; imitate birds, animals, serpents, stones; play hide and seek; blossom underground; protect their children, and send them forth into the world prepared to care for themselves — indeed, do all of those things which we do ourselves!” – The Human Side of Plants by Royal Dixon (1914).

You can read this book for free online via The Internet Archive. Pieces of the follow-up documentary to “The Secret Life of Plants” book are available on YouTube.

In related news, my partner Davin and I have started a side project called The Natural Interest Concern (aka The NICe), based on the name we coined for our imagined two-person naturalist society. We have loftier and sillier ideas for the future of this project, but to begin we’ll be using it to record and share some of our further explorations in the natural world as we go on excursions near and far.

Here I Am. This is Me.

I loved school as a kid. It got me away from the stresses of the house and into a place where I was free to indulge in my love for reading and learning. While the social dynamics of the playground are rarely easy for any of us to navigate, school opened my mind to possibilities, to a world I couldn’t have imagined from within the fear-filled confinement of a dysfunctional family. What I loved most, more than free time in the library or the hours we spent huddled on the floor as the teacher read aloud, was Show and Tell. While, I know that giving presentations was a part of all grades, I remember Show and Tell in grade one best.

Mine was an open-concept school, wherein the grade one class was an amalgamation of two classrooms and two teachers. We sat at tables of six students rather than individual desks, and you had to wait patiently for the weekly Show and Tell presentations to come around to your table. The wait was gruelling and I would spend the weeks and days before my turn came up assessing the contents of my room, searching for the perfect thing — the thing I loved most — full of the hopeful anticipation of the moment when I would have the opportunity to share it with the class. There was so much that I couldn’t share and say as a kid, so many silences that needed to be observed carefully; pain and joyfulness that I could not reveal. Show and Tell was sometimes fraught with fear and anxiety, but overall it was a safe context in which I could reveal myself.

Jump ahead, oh, a few decades or so, and here I am doing a job that in many ways feels a lot like Show and Tell. The only difference being that instead of holding up an item of someone else’s making and proclaiming, “Here I am. This is me. This is what I love.” I have encapsulated it (me) within a creation that came from my own heart, mind, eyes, and hands. All of the hopeful joy, excitement, anxiety and fear is still a part of it.

In order to keep making things I need them to sell. Unfortunately, I am not the world’s greatest self-promoter. I may have loved presenting things in grade school, but as an adult, I find no joy or comfort in showing off my own work. Talking about it makes me sweat. It makes me feel slimy and narcissistic. I pretty much hate it.

So here I am, less than two weeks left until my third book, “Easy Growing: Organic Herbs and Edible Flowers from Small Spaces” goes out into the world and I am feeling the usual mix of emotions: excitement meets nausea. The trick I’ve found, and the one I am struggling to employ again is to focus on the making part of the process. I think back to the good times I had while I was imagining what this book would be. I recall in my mind the times I spent in the garden planting, taking pictures, harvesting, and testing recipes. I try to tap into my child brain and ask myself how she would feel and what she would say while standing up in front of the class with this book in hand.

I think she would like it very much. I think she would say, “Here I am. This is me. This is what I love.”

I hope you like it, too.

———–

My publisher, Clarkson Potter, has agreed to do a prelaunch giveaway of two copies of the book. I thought that in the spirit of my story it would be fun to make it a Show and Tell of sorts.

To Enter:

Simply post a comment via the box below. Please be sure to use a valid email address as I will be using that to contact the winners.

Please include a comment or link to a photo or post online of a plan or plans that you have this year that include herbs or edible flowers. It can be a picture or post about your garden from the last season, your garden as it is right now, or a garden grown by someone else. Garden season is underway for some and on the horizon for the rest of us. Let’s inspire each other and get excited about the forthcoming growing season!

If you’re feeling uninspired or uncomfortable sharing, you can always just type in, “Count me in” or something similar and that will work as your entry.

I will choose 2 winners at random on Friday, February 3, 2012 at 6pm EST.
Please note that this contest is only open to addresses in Canada and the Continental USA. (Sorry.)

What Were They Thinking?

Any therapist or self-help guru will tell you upfront, you can’t get into a relationship thinking that you can change the other person. They will tell you that this is an exhausting, destructive predicament that will lead to heartbreak rather than the outcome that you had wished for. They will warn you off of making a further commitment. So will your best friend, your mom, and your great aunt Jean.

Yesterday, I learned that the National Wildlife Federation has aligned with Scotts, the company responsible for manufacturing several garden and agricultural toxins, including Miracle Gro and Roundup. Those of you who are familiar with this beloved environmental protection group will likely have the same reaction that I did. How? How can they champion for the environment with a massive environmental polluter as a beneficiary?

Where was their great aunt Jean when they needed her?

I don’t always hold myself back before making snap assessments and judgements, and it was in the spirit of hearing how they could possibly justify this partnership that I tuned in at 1pm EST today to watch and listen as NWF CEO Larry Schweiger spoke live and online about the decision and what it means for the future of the organization forward. Although the presentation left me cold and disappointed, I can’t say I was surprised to hear a whole lot of spin as well as some pretty conflicting talking points. Like anyone that has entered into a bad relationship with the misguided assumption that they can affect change from the inside, it seems as if the NWF have their head in the clouds and don’t really know what in the hell they are doing.

To add further insult to injury, I was informed via Twitter later this afternoon that they had rearranged their Facebook page [note that my link takes you inside, beyond the splash page] so that you have to switch views to see the plethora of dissenting comments and making it a more convoluted process to add a comment. Tricksy. The message is clear, “We care what you, our members and supporters think about this partnership. Psych!”

So many people have already eloquently and passionately written about this debacle, including The Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens website that has published two very thorough posts on this case. [1 | 2]

I urge you to read the exhaustive background information that they’ve provided as well as some of the writers below. And as always your thoughts on this are very welcome in the comments below.

Further Reading:

• Follow some of the discussion on Twitter via the #NWF hashtag.
• Margaret at Away to Garden has a discussion going. This comment in particular makes a good point about the state of the gardening industry as it relates to sponsorship by chemical giants like Scotts.
• Benjamin Vogt has written a very heartfelt summary of why this is important.

UPDATE:

Today’s Columbus Dispatch has published a piece revealing that Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. plead guilty to charges that between 2005 and 2008 it sold 73 MILLION UNITS of bird seed coated in insecticides that are, “extremely toxic to fish and toxic to birds and other wildlife.?

“Documents state that Scotts continued to sell the products despite warnings in the summer and fall of 2007 from a pesticide chemist and an ornithologist, both of whom worked for the company.“

Please see The Columbus Dispatch and SafeLawns.Blog for more.

All of this follows on the extremely well-timed heels of a Scotts & National Wildlife Federation “Save the Songbird” campaign that includes on location events and social media outreach that began to appear on Twitter just two days ago. Since Scotts knowingly sold millions of units of a toxic poison that was then unknowingly distributed across North American backyards, I wonder: Are Scotts really interested in “saving the songbirds” or saving their dirty image and making a buck?

This also leads us back to the National Wildlife Federation’s defence of this partnership as a chance to affect change within the Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. How can a company that knowingly sells a product that is toxic to the very wildlife it claims to nurture and support, be seen as poised to make changes that could hurt their bottom line?

For more on this story, see Treehugger and The National Wildlife Association CEO Larry Schweiger’s open letter.

UPDATE (JAN 29, 2012.):

The National Wildlife Federation have announced via their website that they will be ending their relationship with Scotts, citing the Songbird scandal as the reason behind this action. Read their statement here.

Leaving California with an Aching in My Heart

The trip to Rancho la Puerta begins and ends at the San Diego airport. This was my first time to Southern California, and since it turned out to be cheaper (due to the New Year travel rush) to stay a few days in San Diego than fly home straight away, we took advantage to enjoy a bonus day and a half in the city.

Having now had a chance to see first hand what gardening is like in Southern California, I can say with authority that I would move there in a heartbeat to enjoy that luscious, long-season growing. I spent the last few minutes before we had to head to the airport running from one neglected front yard citrus tree to the next screaming (mostly on the inside), “Dear god, look at all of these oranges!”

If it were not for the state of traffic and poor public transportation options, I would be cranking up the Zeppelin and packing my bags right now. I can’t live in a car dependent city, never mind the fact that my stomach was in my throat every time we got on the road. Since I’m being honest, the earthquakes freak me out a bit, too.

This garden was the first I saw when we arrived at our hotel. You’ll recognize the large clumps of blooming bird of paradise (Strelitzia). It seems to grow like a weed here and I noticed that it was a public garden planting favourite. But the real show-stopper, the plant that I could almost leave my bike-riding, public transportation utopia for is the giant Dr. Suess-like Fox Tail Agave (Agave attenuata).

My god, that is the most phenomenal agave I have ever seen in my life! Alas, I try my best to keep my little collection of potted agaves healthy, but what I wouldn’t give to grow a massive cluster like this.

There are several benefits to living and gardening in a southern climate, but it’s the promise of a killer agave garden that gets to me most.

Rancho la Puerta

When I booked our trip to Rancho la Puerta, a spa/retreat in Baja California, Mexico a few months back, it was under the assumption that it would be the most vacation-like vacation of my life. I pictured it in my mind as a soft, full-page ad in a magazine, full of promises that I have never desired in a travel destination until recently: stress-free relaxation, time away to rebalance and reconnect with oneself, and an embarrassing heap of lavish, bourgeoisie pampering.

Typically, when I travel I want to see, eat, and do it ALL. I research profusely. I make lists and print out maps. I Google photos of the landscapes, plants, and cityscapes that are available to be seen. I dream of the photos I will take. I spend hours picking and choosing my camera gear carefully, only to change it all up at the last minute and then I wear myself thin, schlepping five cameras, lenses, rolls of film, and first aid supplies (be prepared!) up melting, tropical asphalt roads that no local would be foolish enough to ascend in the midday heat. Somehow, I always end up in the hottest locations at the most punishing times of the day. I enjoy being in and around the ocean, but I am not a relax on a blanket with a pulpy novel and a Mai Tai kind of traveler. I don’t even know what a Mai Tai is other than a vacation drink that comes with a tiny straw. [I am Googling it now].

I travel under the assumption that I may never get back to this part of the world again and I had better make it count. Thailand was the first trip that tested and then quickly destroyed my travel stamina, but it was massive sleep deprivation and allergies to several common Thai cuisine ingredients that did me in. A week laying about reading books, eating healthy, and hiking in fresh air, while also being treated to luxurious spa treatments and body pampering? Please. I half expected to stumble out of there at the week’s end on an uber-rested natural high, if not slightly bored.

But I was never bored. In fact, I could have gone another week without any of the zillions of activities on offer and have been sufficiently entertained and delighted just taking daily walks through the 3000 acres landscape. There was so much to see!

As we neared our destination, I grew eager for the sights of the desert, my excitement buoyed by the wildflower and birdwatching guides available on the ranch website. I stepped off of the bus with a list of expectations, but what I was not prepared for were the immediate, intense smells: a cup of fresh lemon verbena tea; rosemary bushes as high as my elbows; the sweetness of flowering trees caught by the breeze; salvias previously known only as pictures in books and others that I had never heard of before.

Both the landscaping on the property of Rancho la Puerta and the surrounding acres of coastal Baja California desert chaparral are full of resinous, luscious smelling herbs that move around the property with you. Over time I came to understand that the smell is so intense and alive because the plants bake in the warm desert sun, but there were still moments when I was sure that so much smell couldn?t be natural and that the ranch had installed hidden aromatherapy machines, not unlike the quaint music they hide in the bushes at Disney World to heighten your experience. Coming home to a frozen winter climate that is deprived of scent (other than the spray left behind by the neighbourhood pack of feral cats), it is those morning walks into a potpourri world that I miss most.

This was my favourite garden on the property. It had a managed wildness about it that captures the spirit of the natural, surrounding landscapes.

I have so much to show and tell of the plants, wildlife, gardens, and landscapes I enjoy at the ranch over our week there. Here’s a few to get started.

Society garlic (Tulbaghia violacea), a strong, garlic-flavoured plant with edible flowers. It is not hardy in my zone. I keep small pots alive by bringing the bulbs indoors for the winter. The vision of them growing en-mass was stunning.

Davin walking up the pathway to the door of our casita. We were located in the Sol cabins, which are closest to the mountains and offered a spectacular view from the outdoor patio. Seriously, our mouths dropped when we walked up to it on our first night.

Davin watching the sun go down with a cup of herbal tea and our casita behind him.

Turn down service on our first night included a bundle of freshly picked rosemary and lavender stems to bring about a good night’s sleep.

More images and observations to come.

———————–

Please note: Our week at this spa, including all services were hosted/sponsored by the folks at Rancho la Puerta. All opinions, images, perspectives, experiences, and text are mine.