Raspberry report

The 2009 raspberries (part 2) are so thick they have become a hedge 6′ tall and they are filled with flowers and buds! They should be ready to pick by middle to end of June.

2010 raspberry canes are now starting to stretch and the canes are thicker than a pencil and these guys look like they will get huge. It’s hard work to keep up with the feeding! Get your buckets ready… there’s gonna be a whole lotta berries this year. :-)

Seeds of spring

Hi everyone!

Many thanks to the Schaumburg and Bensenville Garden Clubs for great programs!  I mostly do question and answer and once we get started the time just flies by!  After a while someone will look at their watch and say, “Oh my gosh, it’s already been two hours!”  and that seems to be how it goes.  It’s great fun for me because I get energy from the folks and I have as much fun as you guys!  The back and forth is a lot of fun.

On Saturday I was at the Family Farmed Expo at the UIC Forum in Chicago where I moderated a panel discussion on Permaculture and large scale gardening with Bill Wilson from Midwest Permaculture, Angie Mason from Chicago Botanic Garden and Vicki Nowicki of Liberty Gardens in Downers Grove.

Angie and Bill prepared powerpoint and photos to explain their work and it was fascinating.  They are doing great stuff and I learned a lot.

Great crowd!  I made everyone keep their presentations short so we could take questions from the audience and community gardens was a hot topic, more than I expected!

Farm Report

Seeds that I ordered are now mostly here and the long growing season has started with plants that are ok in the cool weather.  Lots of greens are starting and today sugar snap peas go in the ground.  Tomorrow I will have a camera and I’ll be able to post photos which should be fun.

Last Sunday I attended the Fruit Tree Grafting Seminar at Catigny greenhouses in Winfield which was hosted by the Midwest Fruit Explorers and we fruit geeks could compare notes and I heard about a ‘Taylor” raspberry that has exceptional flavor but gets a disease that kills it off.  I will be working with one member where will share a dozen plants and I will help him take care of them in a way to encourage the good microbes and discourage the diseases.  This should be a fun experiment.  Nutrition can do a lot but it cannot overcome weak DNA.  Maybe with some good nutrition we can repair or build up the DNA.  Who knows what will happen, but this will be a fun try and the fruits sound delicious!  I’ll post pictures and let you know what I do and even post some results from soil tests so you can see how nutritional agriculture works.  Ok, that’s it for today… Take care!      Bill

Bumblebee facts

http://www.hansen-honey.com/bumblebees/index.php

This is interesting!

I found this on a website from a beekeeper in Central Illinois.  Bees are very important but right now honey bees get all the media but there are actually many bees that do the job and these facts about bumblebees are inspiring.

Enjoy!     Bill

Bumblebees are active at temperatures near 40°F (5°C), honeybees
become active at temperatures near 50°F
• Bumblebees are active on cloudy, foggy, and rainy days. Most don’t
shed pollen on rainydays.on
• Bumblebees will fly in winds of up to 40mph (64km/hr).
• Bumblebees pollinate flowers through a method called “buzz
pollination”, a rapid vibrating motion which releases large amounts of
pollen onto the bee. In most situations, “buzz pollination” will allow
a bumblebee to pollinate a flower in a single visit. A honeybee
typically also Buzz pollinate and have thousands of bees to do it.
• Bumblebees lack the sophisticated communication system of honeybees,
• Bumblebees are attracted to flowers with narrow corolla tubes, such
as blueberries and cranberries.
• Bumblebees are much more efficient pollinators than sweat bees. They
mainly forage for pollen rather than nectar, and transfer more pollen
to the pistils with each visit.
• Bumblebees promote higher rates of cross-pollination, like Honey Bees.
• Bumblebees visit many more blooms per minute than honeybees.
• Bumblebees work earlier in the morning and later into the evening hours.
• Bumblebees are safer for you and your employees.
• Bumblebees are non-swarming.
• Bumblebees can be used in conjunction with honeybees to enhance
pollination.

Upcoming talks!

Hi Everybody!

It’s springtime and garden talk season is coming and I am speaking at several events in the Chicago area.
1) On Sunday March 7 at 2pm I will be at the Immanuel Lutheran Church of Downers Grove and Speaking to the Real Nutrition group on the topic of home gardening.  I will give a short prepared talk together with my farmer friend Allan Sexton and after that we will answer everyone’s questions.  That is my favorite part!  I get energy when I am helping people so when I get asked questions then sometimes I can’t shut up!  Anyway it’s all good and the give and take is a lot of fun.  We even learn a few things!  Usually the time goes really fast at these meetings.  Afterwards there will be delicious food and good conversation so that covers all the bases and we are guaranteed to have a great time!  The meeting is free and open to the public.

2) On Saturday March 13 I am moderating a panel discussion on “A crash course in large scale gardening and Permaculture” together with Bill Wilson from Midwest Permaculture (www.midwestpermaculture.com), Vicki Nowicki from Liberty Gardens and Wild Ones and Angela Mason from the Chicago Botanic Garden.  Our discussion will begin at 11am and go for 75 or 90 minutes (I forget) and actually we will be doing mostly question and answer so this should get really good.  I know there are several other speakers who are also very good and there will be lots of other activities going on including a “Meet the farmers” exhibit hall where people can meet local farmers and even sign up for shares of the harvest.  Admission is $20 and the location is the UIC Pavilion in Chicago.  There will be a lot of people here and the energy and networking will be fantastic.  Come and see us!  Take care,  Bill

The Genius of Swarms

I thought this article was really cool!
National Geo excerpt:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/07/swarms/miller-text/1

The Genius of Swarms

A single ant or bee isn’t smart, but their colonies are. The study of swarm intelligence is providing insights that can help humans manage complex systems, from truck routing to military robots.

To find out how, Seeley’s team applied paint dots and tiny plastic tags to identify all 4,000 bees in each of several small swarms that they ferried to Appledore Island, home of the Shoals Marine Laboratory. There, in a series of experiments, they released each swarm to locate nest boxes they’d placed on one side of the half-mile-long (one kilometer) island, which has plenty of shrubs but almost no trees or other places for nests.

In one test they put out five nest boxes, four that weren’t quite big enough and one that was just about perfect. Scout bees soon appeared at all five. When they returned to the swarm, each performed a waggle dance urging other scouts to go have a look. (These dances include a code giving directions to a box’s location.) The strength of each dance reflected the scout’s enthusiasm for the site. After a while, dozens of scouts were dancing their little feet off, some for one site, some for another, and a small cloud of bees was buzzing around each box.

The decisive moment didn’t take place in the main cluster of bees, but out at the boxes, where scouts were building up. As soon as the number of scouts visible near the entrance to a box reached about 15—a threshold confirmed by other experiments—the bees at that box sensed that a quorum had been reached, and they returned to the swarm with the news.
“It was a race,” Seeley says. “Which site was going to build up 15 bees first?”

Scouts from the chosen box then spread through the swarm, signaling that it was time to move. Once all the bees had warmed up, they lifted off for their new home, which, to no one’s surprise, turned out to be the best of the five boxes.
The bees’ rules for decision-making—seek a diversity of options, encourage a free competition among ideas, and use an effective mechanism to narrow choices—so impressed Seeley that he now uses them at Cornell as chairman of his department.

“I’ve applied what I’ve learned from the bees to run faculty meetings,” he says. To avoid going into a meeting with his mind made up, hearing only what he wants to hear, and pressuring people to conform, Seeley asks his group to identify all the possibilities, kick their ideas around for a while, then vote by secret ballot. “It’s exactly what the swarm bees do, which gives a group time to let the best ideas emerge and win. People are usually quite amenable to that.”

In fact, almost any group that follows the bees’ rules will make itself smarter, says James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds. “The analogy is really quite powerful. The bees are predicting which nest site will be best, and humans can do the same thing, even in the face of exceptionally complex decisions.” Investors in the stock market, scientists on a research project, even kids at a county fair guessing the number of beans in a jar can be smart groups, he says, if their members are diverse, independent minded, and use a mechanism such as voting, auctioning, or averaging to reach a collective decision.

Rock powders grow great vegetables!

YouTube Preview Image

Here is a short video from Scotland showing a farm that uses compost and rock powders to get beautiful healthy vegetables.  I use lots of rock powders and I thought this was cool!

The rock powder used in the video is basalt which is an igneous (volcanic) rock.   I use other rock powders like soft rock phosphate, high calcium lime and gypsum.  Sometimes I get granite flour from the granite counter top guys and that is also good to use.  (I make sure it is pure, tho.  I don’t want the ‘cultured’ stuff that has epoxy in it.)

Enjoy everybody!

Bill

Insecticides for organic production

Hi Everybody,

Recently someone asked a question about organic insecticides and I wrote this response.  Enjoy!

===============================================

I would be very interested to know what pesticides you use to grow your fruit organically.  Thanks.

******************************

Sugar is a nice insecticide.

Insects don’t have a pancreas so when they eat sugar it does not digest,
it ferments.  The by-product of fermentation is alcohol and aldehyde
and the insect gets an upset stomach or dies of alcohol poisoning.

Plants also make their own insecticides.  These compounds are
called phytoalexins.

Look here;  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoalexins
and here     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_defense_against_herbivory
(look under ‘types of chemical defenses’ )

These compounds are secondary plant metabolites;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_metabolite

which means they are made *after* the primary compounds that provide
for growth, reproduction and development.  The key to getting secondary plant metabolites
produced in the plant is to have soil nutrients 1) optimized and 2) available.

The nutrient plants need in the greatest amount is available calcium.  Cell walls have a
calcium pectate covering on them, calcium facilitates the movement of minerals into
and out of the cell and also calcium is needed to convert carbohydrates into proteins.

It’s this last one that is crucial.  If you look at the reference on secondary plant metabolites
it mentions that most of the compounds are made of amino acids which are complex carbohydrates
with nitrogen and minerals in the center.  Calcium is needed to convert the raw materials into
these complex compounds.

Biology books say that plants inhale CO2 and exhale O2.  What the plant is actually looking
for is the “C” or carbon.  Plants convert this carbon to sugar (glucose) thru photosynthesis.

Here is what the books don’t say; the atmosphere only has 20% of the
carbon that plants actually need.  From a plants point of view, it is always 80% short
of carbon.  No carbon means no carbohydrates which means no complex carbohydrates
which means no amino acids which means no secondary plant metabolites or phytoalexins
which means the plant is severely undernourished and vulnerable to attack by insects.

Plants that are well mineralized are able to carry out the sophisticated process of photo-
synthesis and production of secondary plant metabolites which can be seen in the plant
sap as mineralized sugars.  We can measure this with an optical instrument called a refractometer
which measures light defraction.  This measurement is called Brix.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brix

Here is a breakdown of the major minerals that plants need;

1) Potassium (together with sodium) regulates water pressure both in the cells and in the plant.  It
also determines stem thickness, number of fruits and size of fruits.

2) Phosphorus makes the sugars.  The first step in photosynthesis is light striking a phosphorus
molecule (ATP).  Also, phosphorus is the transport mechanism for movement of minerals inside the plant.

Minerals cannot move around inside the plant by themselves.  They need a taxi driver.  At the root tip,
phosphorus hooks up with the minerals like taxis outside the airport.  Copper becomes
copper phosphate and moved thru the plant.  Iron becomes iron phosphate.  Zinc becomes
zinc phosphate, and manganese phosphate, etc. So even if we have minerals available and waiting
inside the root, without phosphorus the minerals cannot translocate anywhere.  Just like passengers
outside the terminal with no taxis or limos.  Usually the fastest way to raise brix is to add
phosphorus.  Partly for the ATP molecule but mostly because now there are enough taxi drivers
to deliver minerals to the cells so they can make mineralized sugars.

3) Nitrogen is the mineral at the center of amino acids.  Almost every compound will have a nitrogen
at the center.  Also nitrogen is the most important electrolyte which means it is a carrier of
energy.  Plants need energy to metabolize (assemble) all these building blocks.  Nitrogen will
also carry water into a plant.  Chemical fertilizers high in nitrogen and potassium will make plants
that have too much water and make bloated poorly mineralized cells that are sitting ducks for insects
and diseases. High nitrogen chemical fertilizers, by themselves, are like breakfast cereal; they give
the plants energy but not health.

4) Calcium is needed to convert carbohydrates into proteins and also neutralizes some of the acids
produced inside the plant which will improve the flavor.  This is one way that calcium helps take
away bitter pit.  Flavor  in fruits and vegetables is very complex and many proteins, oils,
sugars, and minerals are involved.  Calcium is needed to produce all of these compounds.

5) Carbon is a main building block for carbohydrates which is then assembled and used everywhere.

Once we get the majors in place, plants do pretty well and small amounts of micronutrients will
have great effect.

Plant based insecticides may include Rotenone and Pyrethrin and Neem but variations of these
are made by the plants themselves if it has the raw materials.

Other products like kaolin clay (Surround) make a physical barrier to some insects.  Traps and lures
also work very well with many insects.  Some insects are repelled by essential oils of garlic, cedar,
cinnamon or others.

But insecticides only buy time.  They do not solve the problem.  Plants make their *own* insecticides!
And insects get an upset stomach when they suck on highly mineralized sap or leaves.  Until we correct
the underlying malnutrition, the insects will just come back.

Diseases are the easiest to control.  Plants make an enzyme that dissolves the cell walls of pathogens. (!)
The mineral at the center of the enzyme is copper.  If our plants are getting diseases, automatically we
know it is a copper deficiency.  Copper and zinc are the two minerals most involved in the production
of phytoalexins.  Before WW2, my grandfather used to pound a small copper nail and a zinc nail into his
elm trees to help control Dutch Elm disease.  Copper and zinc nails are roofing nails.  Even back then, they
knew that copper and zinc were involved in disease resistance.  And a little dab will do ya.  Too much and
we kill the plant.

Last autumn my raspberries got dry and I set up an overhead sprinkler for water and left it on overnight.
(Oops!)  The next day botrytis showed up on my fruit and some of the flowers.  I fed the plants a foliar mixture
of; copper, zinc, boron, iron, manganese, powdered milk (calcium gluconate), yogurt (calcium lactate)
soda pop (phosphoric acid and sugar), fish(complex carbohydrates, oils, proteins and trace minerals)
seaweed (68 trace minerals with 98% availability as well as a plant hormone called cytokine which
is a plant destresser) and karo syrup (glucose).  Within hours the disease was stopped.

I had no problem with late blight on potatoes or tomatoes when the plants received this food
once a week.  I missed one week and both crops were heavy with fruit and the late blight hit but I
was able to stop it.

Here is a plant secret; plants consume 50% of their total nutrients for the year between flower and
fruit.  The closer we get to ripening the more food plants consume.  It’s common for diseases and
insects to hit close to ripening time because there is an enormous transfer of nutrients in order
to produce a seed.  A malnourished plant will get wiped out.

Diseases like fire blight, pythium, rhizoctonia, fusarium, anthracnose, blight, botrytis, alternaria
and the others are very easy to control with plant nutrition.  It doesn’t matter if it is bacterial or
fungal.

So what should we do?  Brown leaves are high in phosphorus, potassium and carbon.  I use lots
of bone meal (calcium phosphate), lime (calcium carbonate), gypsum (calcium sulfate),
and a biological activator called Biozome ( www.biozome.com )  which are microbes in
a class called “archae” and they are SUPERIOR digestors.  They easily double the nutrient
availability of the minerals in the soil and they dominate any pathogens in the soil such
as late blight.  Small amounts of horse manure (mushroom compost) are ok for nitrogen but
sometimes it can be high in sodium so I am careful with it.  It has a high energy tho which
gives a nice bump to plants when applied in mid season.

One percent of organic matter contains 30 pounds of nitrogen.  Our soils are about 5% organic
matter so if we can get the nitrogen unlocked from the soil then we don’t need to to buy it.
Digesting microbes are the ones to do that and they need a high calcium environment which is
one of the reasons I need so much calcium to the soil.

Ok, I will stop here but I will write more at another time.

The ingredients we use to get plant health are actually kind of simple but the biology behind it is complex.

Sometime I want to explain why insects like to attack landscape plants in 1)mid May and 2) mid August.
The biology behind this phenomenon is fascinating.

Take care!

Bill

Nutrient dense crop production

http://www.farmingmagazine.com/article.php?id=4739
Hi Everybody,

Here is an article that was in a recent issue of Farming Magazine that discusses nutrient dense farming.  It’s an interesting article that explains a few basic concepts and some history of the development of this nutritional approach to agriculture.

A Rutgers researcher is mentioned in the article and I really appreciate his willingness to look at things even without funding but he only looked at one aspect (calcium) and couldn’t see much result.  This  is common for scientists using the scientific method that only looks at one thing at a time and misses the system approach which tries to understand and balance and optimize many different available nutrients.

I have excerpted the first part of the article to give you an idea of what is discussed.

Take care everybody!  Btw, did you see Michael Pollan on Oprah the other day?  He did a great job!

Bill
Nutrient Dense Crop Production

by Rebekah L. Fraser
Part 1: Grassroots agricultural theory

As the name implies, nutrient dense crop (NDC) production is a system of principles and techniques for maximizing nutrition in crops by creating and maintaining health in the plants and in the soil. Although it seems like an extension of organic farming, Dan Kittredge, a second-generation farmer and leader of the Real Food Campaign, says the two methods can work in harmony, but there is no correlation. He describes organic as a process standard that is all about what farmers do not put into their fields or feed their animals. Practitioners of NDC production understand the ideal environment for their crop(s) and work to create that. According to Kittredge, the benefits of NDC production extend beyond simple nutritional value for consumers, it also makes business easier and more profitable for store owners and farmers.

JOSEPH HECKMAN.
Dr. Joseph Heckman measures brix of cabbage using a manual refractometer.

Today’s growers often find themselves moving from infestation to blight, and crisis management seems to be the order of business. In contrast, the standard in NDC production is holistic preventative medicine and proactive nutrition. When the soil is functioning well, plants remain healthy regardless of what threats are present.

While training programs and workshops are available throughout the U.S., there is no formal educational program. At this time, universities in the U.S. are not teaching about nutrient density, and few universities are even researching the theories behind the methods. However, decades of scientific research have proved that NDC is a highly effective method of production.

Deep into seed catalogues….

Hi Everybody!

I am deep into seed catalogues this week and making
plans for this year but I have a big question;

Salads or sweets or both?

Some farms do very well focusing on growing salad vegetables like
lettuce, cucumbers, spinach,carrots and tomatoes.  These are needed
by everyone, all the time and make for good regular business.  But how much buzz
is there from lettuce?  Maybe some super sweet carrots can get people
excited to come back, but spinach?

To me, sweets means melons, incredible tomatoes, candy carrots, melt in
your mouth watermelon….you know, the kind of thing your children
will rave about and beg for more.

The food that summer dreams are made of!

But the sweet crops need heat and a long time to mature.

As one person said yesterday, maybe do both.  Grow greens in the spring
and fall when the temperature is cooler and they taste better and sell melons
in the summer which is when they grow the best and the flavor is refreshing.

Doesn’t that often seem to be the best way?    Many times the best solution
is not either/or….it’s both!

Have a good day everyone!

Bill

PS;   you guys have special requests?    ;-)

Gardening tips

Here is a real important gardening tip;

Plants consume 50% of their food
between flower and fruit.

What that means is, once a plant begins to flower, it consumes enormous amounts of food especially just before the fruit matures and slips off the vine or stem.

As I mentioned in my last post, the last three days before fruit is ripe there is a huge transfer of nutrients from the plant to the fruit.  The soils need to be strong, active and full of available nutrients to be able to support the plant as it prepares for ripening.

We growers need to stay on top things and weekly supplying sugars, minerals, some nitrogen (liquid fish is good) and even apple cider vinegar to make sure the soil is fertile and our plants are happy and the fruit is juicy and delicious!

Take care!

Bill