Fall begins this week, and we are enjoying cool weather early so it feels like fall.   I am picking the last of some of my vegetables and watching the leaves brown.  I let what was left of my herbs (oregano, mint, basil) bolt (flower), though some of the leaves could be harvested well into fall.  But the bees are delighted.  There are still flowers on my Impatiens, they seem to thrive in this weather until the first freeze.

I have been reading a lot about heirloom plants and must admit that in growing plants in containers on my deck, it has been fun to experiment with vegetables that are hybrids, plants altered so that they are smaller potted varieties.  I’ve enjoyed them, but am looking into adding heirlooms to my vegetables next year.

If heirloom plants were people, they would be able to trace their lineage back to before 1950 and would not have had anyone tampering with them genetically…they would have simply enjoyed the natural process of pollination rather than the controlled environment of hybrids. 

You can gather Heirloom seeds from your flowers or vegetables that you allow to mature and “die” before harvesting and count on them producing plants for you in the coming year.  The flavor of the vegetables is more vibrant and nutritious.  Heirloom plants and flowers are generally larger than hybrids. Everything is convincing me that next spring I will purchase heirloom seeds or starter plants no matter what the cost.  Some put together nice starter kits like the one pictured below with seeds that are heirloom and like to remind us that the seeds contain no GMO’s (genetically modified oganisms). Yes, already dreaming of next years gardens and this years are just finishing.

My “simplistic” explanation is that when the chemicals are used in an area, and build up in the soil, crops die or do not grow in that area in the future.  To further complicate things, now that the soil has been destroyed by man’s hand, future crops are being genetically altered adding GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) to certain plants so that they can tolerate living in the damaged soil….so they can resist the chemicals that destroy the plants, adding problem to problem.  It seems that doing this can only lead to further adjustments down the road moving us further and further from natural sustainable farming.

But there is so very much more to this written by people who have been studying this over a long period, more than I can write here.  I was made aware of this in a lengthy email sent by a friend, Bea Kunz of Sage Hill Farms in Tennessee.

Read the article that inspired her to contact those of us who care, and look at the pictures that prove the point, and do your part by acting as suggested in the article provided by the Institute of Responsible Technology which you will find by clicking right here.  The picture below is from the site, showing harm caused by the chemicals…please visit the site to learn much more.

Welcome to the first day of winter…and it is wintery here in northern NJ – lots of snow fell over the weekend, as most of you have probably heard on the news, and it’s cold and windy, but the sun shines brightly today! This is Christmas week, and after Christmas come New Years and January, when many begin to see gardening catalogs show up in their mail boxes as they think ahead to Spring gardening…as for me, I like to do my shopping online, and most paper mail ends up in my recycling.

Last summer I enjoyed my medicinal and culinary herb garden, simple as it is, since we have a shortage of sunny property. I’m still eyeing a big section of sunny grass that we gained when a new septic system was put in because trees were removed.  We don’t use many pesticides, and try to make some ourselves, naturally, when we can because it’s not always easy to find chemical-free pesticides and other “green” gardening products that are good for the earth that God has given us to be stewards of.  But now I think I’ve found a source.

You lucky folks that live in warmer climates may already be able to take advantage of the wonderful green, good for the earth, good for the garden products offered by saferbrand.com. I appreciate the time they have put into helping the gardener know about many garden pests, they have a great section on insects that can threaten your garden, and an equally informative section on organic gardening. Since my “green thumb” doesn’t seem to work very well when it comes to growing plants indoors, the “houseplants” section was also very helpful.

There will be events taking place all year to promote organic gardening, and it won’t be hard to keep up with these events because Safer brand is officially on twitter, I’m going to “follow” them on Twitter and invite you to as well.

Twitter and Facebook are the primary, almost only social networking sites that I use, so I was happy to hear about Safer brand’s facebook page, and will be heading over to become a fan after posting this.

Vegetable Gardens of Switzerland

We love “green” on this blog, it has always been a favorite color of mine, and to me, is a symbol of new life, expressed in the new green buds and blooms of springtime. 

“Going green” is a term we are hearing more and more, and it has a little bit of a different connotation, it is more related to the preservation of the beauty we see around us by how we care for our environment. 

And then there is the term “sustainable”, which also refers to the ability to sustain our environment, and ourselves, through our natural resources, and how we care for them, how responsibly we preserve them. 

Something I did not know until the opportunity presented itself to explore a bit was that beautiful Switzerland is one of the “greenest” countries in the world.  In “sustainable Switzerland” people take caring for the environment very seriously, making it a perfect place to visit..not only because of all the magnificent beauty in the area, but because of all the things we can learn from their way of life.  We balk at the thought of being charged taxes or fees for things that will preserve the environment, but this is common practice in Switzerland, and through it, people learn to be more responsible citizens.  

When you travel in Switzerland, it is easy to get around by train, biking is very popular.  You find many organic products, in fact, a friend of mine has traveled there twice to take part in a hands-on organic farming program.  You know from reading this blog that this would be just the thing I’d like to do while there, along with visit the many beautiful, natural places to enjoy God’s creation. 

You will find “green” hotels, even staying in one of these and observing what they do to preserve the environment by how water, waste and electricity is handled can be a fun learning experience.  Take a little time to learn more about sustainable Switzerland and see if this might be a place you’d like to plan to visit…even a visit to the site is a treat!

My mother was a much better gardener than I will ever be.  I approach my garden with a feeling that it’s going to grow just fine, an air of confidence, and find myself challenged at times by it as the season goes on, while my mother would approach it with humility, always meekly saying “oh, I probably won’t get many tomatoes this year” or whatever the crop happened to be that was on her mind at the time, only to have more than she could handle by the end of the season.The first garden I recall from childhood was a plot in the backyard, it seemed huge at the time, but really the space was rather small.  Still, it had a nice yield at the end of the season.

I remember the pole beans Mom would grow, being so curious about how the beans climbed up those poles that my Dad put in the garden.  There were three tall sticks tied together at the top, similar to the picture below, and at the base, the seeds were planted, which grew and climbed up the stakes to the top, and provided beans throughout the season.  There were a few 3-pole groupings in a row, and since I was small, they seemed very tall!  Mom always told me that the difference between Pole Beans and Bush Beans was that that pole beans provided beans for a longer period of time.

Personally, I’ve never grown pole beans, have always opted for the bush variety as they look better in the area where I plant. My only “pet peeve” is those little cut worms that enjoy my garden so much, I have to make sure the soil is clear of them before planting my beans, they seem to especially love the thick, juicy bean seedling stems.  Sometimes I start them with a small paper cup around the seed-in-soil with the bottom cut out of the cup as those little guys usually snip the plant close to the surface.  There is nothing more delicious than vegetables from the garden.

By the way, if you have a large enough container, you can grow beans this way on your deck or wherever your container garden is on your property.

What kinds of beans have you grown in your garden?

Where will the organic herbs and vegetables be used from the garden?  In the White House kitchen, of course.

Stay tuned…maybe we’ll have some pictures soon!

The roots of the plant tend to stay close to the surface of the soil, and though the plants tolerate dry soil to a degree, when there are tomatoes growing on the plants, it is best to keep the soil somewhat moist between rains. I water every couple of days, and in very hot dry weather, daily. I have only once started plants from seeds, it’s not hard to do if you have a sunny place to keep them, or have grow lights. I like to give my local garden shop some business by purchasing young tomato plants.

What kinds of tomatoes do you grow successfully in your area of the Country? We are at about 900 feet in Northern NJ and planting season lasts from mid-may to mid-September, or a little later if we have a mild fall.   I harvest all of the remaining tomatoes at the end of the season, even if green, and put the green ones in a brown paper bag to ripen, which they do fairly quickly if they are mature enough.

Project Orange Thumb grant is a program that encourages and provides the resources for this type of activity by offering tools and funding to start new projects similar to the ones I have shared, or to improve and enhance community gardening projects that are already established.

Please visit the Project Orange Thumb grant link, read all the details, and apply. Pass this information along to gardening friends in your community. Think of your garden clubs, groups like the ones I mentioned above, school grounds (a great educational opportunity in horticulture), parks, land that is unused but has potential to be something beautiful, there are many ideas…look around you and the town or city where you live. The application deadline is February 17, 2009.

Grand recipients will receive $1000 in green goods and $1500 in Fiskars gardening tools.

For six years, Fiskars’ Project Orange ThumbSM has provided over 100 community groups with over $300,000 to create and develop their own special community gardens.