Go Organic and Save $

One of my favorite gardening blogs is Veggie Gardening Tips by Kenneth E. Point. If you are interested in going organic (and you should) this is a great blog to follow.  He has featured two articles by Fern Marshall Bradley that really make sense.

It is now generally accepted that organically grown fruits and vegetables are more nutritious than those grown using inorganic chemicals.  More nutritious means more healthy.  The stuff you grow (or is grown near you) using organic methodology tastes so much better than that shipped to your supermarket from hundreds and thousands of miles away.

If you want produce that tastes marvelous and will keep you healthier, save money and grow it yourself.  If you can’t do that, buy from local producers.  In the meantime, eat your veggies.  Nonnie and Pop said so!

Fern Marshall Bradley, co-editor with Trevor Cole of The All-New Illustrated Guide to Gardening: Now All Organic!, is a writer and editor whose favorite topics are gardening and sustainable living.

Challenges

Charamon Garden is suffering in the heat! We are having very high temperatures the last few weeks and the more tender vegetables are threatening to burn up. I have recently returned from 8 weeks absence (been Down Under where it is winter) and, in spite of my caretaker’s best efforts, most things were looking dreadful.

Nevertheless, we are harvesting very nice eggplant, figs, okra, some green beans, some squash, and absolutely delicious cucumbers. The heirloom tomatoes look to be on their last legs…pity! They may recover if the weather cools off some. In the meantime, we are purchasing Celebrity tomato plants as a backup. We have also planted another bed of sweet corn…the previous attempt failed for reasons unknown.

I put down some dry molasses around some of the vegetables and sprayed all of them with diluted molasses and followed that about four days later with a spraying of homemade Garret Juice. This consists of compost tea, molasses, liquid seaweed and a little vinegar mixed with water. This has been a good “tonic” for the vegetables in the past…so we’ll see if it works this time.

It’s about time to think about fall plantings. In the meantime, eat your veggies…Nonnie and Pop said so!