Eggville

I've mentioned localharvest.org several times now and it has always served me well. It allows the user to enter their zip code and search for farms and fresh vegetables near their home. I like to check back from time to time to see if anything new is in the area and was rewarded with Eggville.

In the spirit of growing my own vegetables, Eggville is a nice, local source of fresh eggs. The cost was about the same as eggs from the supermarket. The hens are kept in a nice, big run with plenty of room to run around. When we approached the coop, the hens excitedly came to the fence I suspect in the hope that someone was coming to feed them. The stared and us and made a quiet "bawk bawk bawk" noise. It's nice to know these sort of things are around if you look for them a little bit and everyone should try to find their own, nearby Eggville.

Saving Heirloom Animal Breeds

I've posted a number of times about how over time different types of food disappear. Older, maybe tastier, varieties fall out of favor with producers to be replaced by fruits and vegetables that ship and store better.

Places like The Seed Savers Exchange deal mostly in hard to find and heirloom vegetables in an effort to preserve some of these varieties. There are also a number of seed banks which save seeds to prevent against a disaster or disease which might wipe out an important food type.

The New York Times had an article today about a group that is saving farm animal embryos with cryogenics of breeds that have since fallen out of favor and are no longer being heavily raised any more. These animals, like the previously mentioned vegetables, may actually be tastier or better for the environment, but have some element to them which does not make them consistently homogeneous to raise and market.

Getting Rid Of The Christmas Tree

With the start of the new year, it is time to get rid of the Christmas tree.

Many towns, mine included, have curb side pick up and then chop the trees into mulch which is then given out to local residents for free.

Some wildlife management departments will collect trees and sink them in local lakes to make habitats for fresh water fish.

This year I am going to chop up all the small branches and throw them in the compost pile. They'll break down a little bit slower than the rest of the pile and be slightly acidic, but both of these things can be easily corrected with some garden lime.

Last spring, I started a stick pile by the back fence. It used to be that when branches fell off trees, I would bag them for the yard waste pick up. Now I cut everything into 2 foot sections and stack it in a pile. At the moment, it is serving no purpose other than a hiding place for chipmunks (better there than in the house foundation), but it is better than the landfill. I'll cut the trunk into similar size pieces and add that to the pile as well.

Disappearing Orange Stands

Back in the 1970's, both my maternal and paternal grandparents used to drive from New Jersey to Florida on an almost annual basis and there were a number of souvenirs which always accompanied each trip. The red mesh bags of of oranges and grapefruits was one, a jar of local honey with honey comb in the jar was another and a jar of marmalade was a third.

An article and slide show in today's New York Times comments on how the number of stands which sold these types of products have been dwindling over the years and the irony in this given the locavore movement which is helping the farm stand to make a comeback in other areas.

Robot Farmers & The Book Of Weeds

I noticed a copy of The Book of Weeds: How to Deal with Plants that Behave Badly in the new book section at the library today. I started glancing through it because I've been trying to figure out what the weed that takes over my back lawn each summer is and this book had really nice, big pictures which made it very clear what you are looking at. Often times books like this will have squinkly little line drawings which make it hard to figure out what you are looking at, but this book made it very easy. (Common plantain by the way). It also gives advice on what causes a particular weed to thrive and how to get rid of it.

It also had a couple of pages about the Field Robot Event. This is a contest for universities working on small robots which can navigate the rows of plants on a field and take action in much smaller spaces than conventional farm equipment. Think a swarm of small, solar powered robots which patrol the rows all day spot digging weeds or spot applying herbicide on specific plants rather than needing to spray the entire field. The site has some interesting pictures and videos.

Seed Starting: Cardboard Box

As mentioned in the last post, the seed starting trays you buy at the garden center are often very small and require one or two transplants as the plants get bigger before the final transplant into the garden. I think if you start with a bigger container in the first place, the re-plantings can be avoided later on.

I haven't tried this previously, but plan on doing so in the spring.

1. Get a corrugated cardboard box that was used to hold bottles which has card board dividers in it used to separate the bottles. A case of bottled beer is a good example of the type of box I am referring to.

2. Drink the beer. Gardening is hard work and this is one of those thankless tasks you'll need to suffer in order to ensure a successful crop.

3. Cut the box to the height of the dividers. This should be about 3 - 4 inches high. If the dividers themselves are very high, you may need to trim them to about 4 inches.

4. With a screw driver, poke three holes in the bottom of the box under each of the squares of the divider.

5. You should now have about a 4 inch deep cardboard tray with either 12 or 24 compartments made from the divider. Fill the tray with potting soil and plant seeds in each of the compartments.

6. Place the tray on a cookie sheet or similar and use as you would a normal seed starting tray.

The compartments of the box are probably 4 or more times the size of the seed starting trays from the nursery center. It also has the advantage that you can simply tear away the cardboard when it is time to transplant in the garden rather than having to knock the plants out of little pots. The cardboard will also bio degrade if it is not wax coated and can also be used in the garden as mulch after the seedlings are removed.

Seed Starting: Yogurt Cups

Seed and garden companies often sell nice plastic trays with individual compartments for starting seeds. These usually start out great, but are often too small once the plants get a little bit bigger and I often end up needing to transplant once or maybe even twice before the plants get transplanted into the garden.

Yogurt cups are about two to three times bigger than the average seed starting container. While some towns recycle yogurt containers with the plastics, many do not, and they are seen as a landfill problem that won't bio degrade away. They stack inside each other for storage.

1. Use an eco friendly brand like Stony Field Farms. They stopped using plastic lids and the product itself is good.

2. Wash the cup.

3. Carefully poke 3 holes in the bottom of the cup using a screwdriver or other sharp tool being careful not to press so hard as to crack the plastic. The power drill with a small bit will also work.

4. Fill the cup with potting soil and plant your seeds as you normally would.

For those of us in the North East, the time to start seeds is a little over three months off which should leave plenty of time to collect enough cups for the home gardener.