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.

Latest Dirt

Recent activities in the Charamon Garden:

• Planting onion sets
• Planting hard squash seeds (Blue Hubbard and Butternut)
• Mulching potatoes and tomatoes
• Replacing the filtering mechanism on the water well
• Placing drip irrigation lines and replacing broken emitters
• Installing weedblock in Bermuda grass infested beds

Tomato Seedlings

It is February and, if you live in my zone, you need to start your tomatoes immediately. Last year I was overseas and had to settle for store-bought seedlings. They produced well, but we’ve been spoiled by our soft-skinned, wonderfully-flavored third-generation heirlooms. As you can see, the seedlings are looking very good indeed.

In a couple of weeks, I will transplant these into larger containers where they will grow until I set them in the tomato bed. That bed is, at this moment, filled with a cover crop consisting of a mixture of weeds and Hairy Vetch (a legume which enhances the soil’s nitrogen content). When I get ready to set my tomato plants in, I will cut the cover crop off at ground level, leave the tops on the bed and plant my seedlings through them. Then I will cover every thing but the seedlings with a couple of inches of mulch

One secret to healthy tomato seedlings such as these is mycorrhizae which you can read more about here. Mycorrhizal preparations can be purchased from any good organic supplier. It usually comes in the form of granules which can be sprinkled on the roots of transplants. They work in a symbiotic relationship with most plants except the brassica and eucalyptus families.

This year I filled my trays about two-thirds full and then sprinkled the mycorrhizae over the surface of the soil. Then I topped them up and put the seeds in. As the seeds germinate and the roots grow down they will be colonized by the mycorrhizae.

I’ll get back to basic garden preparation in the next post. In the meantime, eat your veggies! Nonnie and Pop said so.