Edible NUTRITIOUS thornless cactus.

Here's an article from my now-defunct gardening column that ran in The St. Pete Times for eight years:

http://www.tampabay.com/features/homeandgarden/article762159.ece

Experiment

While I bought this full sun treeless property very purposefully in 1998, I wish to reduce the searing quality of the sunlight in a few large areas in back. This summer I will pursue this goal by planting a significant number of papayas, gandule beans (pigeon peas) and Sunn Hemp plants. A secondary goal of this effort will be to produce more of my own biomass to use in my compost barrels, sheet composting, and chicken bedding.

http://earthship.com/earthships-could-transform-philadelphia.html

Please sign this petition for chickens in Tampa!

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/hillsborough-county-citizens-for-backyard-poultry.html

I will be speaking about food crops that LOVE summers here around 11....

I look forward to what I expect will be a fun and fulfilling day.

http://www.facebook.com/events/263972677026188/

Another reason to raise free range chickens...on the pane of glass below where most of the roosts are in my hen house where they safely spend each night, there is a bone dry accumulation of chicken poop a few inches thick. I've begun breaking off small chunks to place atop the soil of potted plants to act as a slow release fertilizer, and will next soak big chunks in 5 gallon buckets of water to become liquid fertilizer for hungry plants in the ground and various container gardens. Waste not want not

One dozen eggs available today,Thursday, $4. Edible plants in 1 gallon pots, all labelled and priced $4-$5 each:   Lesbos Columnar Basil, Celosia spicata and a rosemary in the same pot, Chinese Sword Beans (Canavalia gladiata), Green Sugar Cane, Blue Pea Vine (Clitoria terneata, edible blue flowers),  Perennial Scallion (Allium fistulosum), Chaya "Tree Spinach".  A 3 gallon specimen of the rare Filipino Purple Yam "Ube" (Dioscorea violacea) is $20. All available on my front porch Honor System sales tables, if I am out just slip your cash through the white dryer vent in my red office door. 3212 West Paxton Avenue  Tampa FL 33611. Thanks!  John Starnes   (p.s. free gardening books next to the eggs, help yourself)

Sharing Is More Fun Than Hoarding!

As part of my ongoing effort to own less, hoard less and share more, I've made it a habit to dumpster dive/curb side scavenge less often, and to habitually set out on my driveway items I feel I can easily live without in hopes that others will find them useful. The last few years the numbers of fellow scavengers/recyclers in south Tampa has visibly increased, and so usually my offerings to The Alley God are gone within 24 hours. Nice to slowly deplete my stash of excess belongings while sharing the prosperity!

Free Chicken Food

Years ago the east bed I've been revamping lately was originally going to be an inventory area for potted roses, and so I covered nearly all it with scavenged carpet to choke out the original sod of Bahia grass and weeds. Pulling it out has been a chore. The pile of it in the chicken pathway is daunting....what to do? I will cut one piece into segments that I will wrap the 15 gallon Water Wise Container Gardens  with to protect the plastic from UV for years to come. A few small pieces will go into the garbage can. The rest will be layered in that main path in front of the hen house with weeds and kitchen scraps, probably two layers of carpet total. Once the rains kick in those buried organic wastes will become home to vast numbers of pill bugs and some roaches....as in summers past, about once a month, in view of the chickens, I will pull back one layer of carpet and they will dash over and feast. Then I will pull back the next layer of carpet for a repeat feeding. Back down goes more weeds and waste, the two layers of carpet go back down, repeat as needed.

Waste not want not!

And Monsanto has played a HUGE role in this tragedy!

http://www.upworthy.com/we-used-to-have-307-kinds-of-corn-guess-how-many-are-left?c=mnn1&g=2

My Universe Wish List

I'd love to swap seeds/plants or eggs for the following:

1. Garden gates or sections of picket fence, wood or white plastic, that I can gerry rig into gates.
2. 20 bags of leaves
3. 10 bags of pine needles
4. 20 logs light enough for one person to carry
5. Potent 420
6. Just-expired milk from a nearby grocery I can use in my cheese making
7. A few of those metal barricade sections used to cordon off Bayshore for Gasparilla, etc.
8. A corsage style fragrant cattleya orchid
9. Tall growing old fashioned red and lavender pentas now rarely seen
10.A Ghost pepper plant

Thanks!  John

Satsuma Imo is now my favorite sweet potato by far and am growing a great many more this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is499wGGr_4

Two dozen eggs available today, Monday, $4 each. Edible plants in 1 gallon pots, all labelled and priced: Lesbos Columnar Basil, Celosia spicata and a rosemary in the same pot, Chinese Sword Beans (Canavalia gladiata), Green Sugar Cane, Perennial Scallion (Allium fistulosum), Chaya "Tree Spinach". All avaliable on my front porch Honor System sales tables, if I am out just slip your cash through the white dryer vent in my red office door. 3212 West Paxton Avenue Tampa FL 33611. Thanks! John Starnes (p.s. free gardening books next to the eggs, help yourself)

Cassava Leaves As Poultry Food

I grow cassava all along my west fence and plan on further plantings. I now wish to learn of/devise a way to gather and dry the nutrient-leaves to be used to feed the chickens and ducks.

http://www.cassavabiz.org/postharvest/lvstock.htm

Summer approaches

I got 1.75 inches of rain in 24 hours...no where near as much as was predicted BUT my rain barrels are full, the ground and mulch damp and so I expect even more vibrant growth, especially in my Water Wise Container Gardens, and so I am thankful.  I have female (fruit-bearing) blooms on my Japanese melons and cucusa, my first crop of Thai hot peppers coming on, and a very sizable crop of seed pods on my 'San Ho Giant' mustard almost ripe enough to harvest. MANY thousands of grapes are enlarging quickly on my "Gracie's Grape" and "Gray Street Grape"....so many new shoots have emerged that I will do as I did last year.....layer them into pots of soil atop the duck pen, then sever them when rooted a few months later for sale as it (whatever it is!) is very reliable bunch grape for central Florida with excellent Concord-type flavor. It is supposed to be 51 in two nights...that should sweeten further my wonderful tender mild sweet 'Morris Heading Collards' before I blanch and freeze a lot for summer.

Cracker was suffering from a very thick long winter coat and is terrified of the electric clippers I am not good at using anyway. But he LOVES my using some very sharp scissors to daily cut off a bit more hair.....his huge butt haunches are gone! Dog hair is pure protein, so I put some at the bottom of a new hugel kultur pit I made last week, and the rest goes into compost barrels. I hope to at some point get his coat short enough to use the clippers to give him a VERY close cropping for summer as so many people here do. He is truly a wonderful beast!

Nearly all the many bags of leaves that neighbors thoughtfully dropped off are now stashed along the east side of the house out of sight, and./or have been spread in the gardens out back. I'm taking Pat and Mary Jo's advice and stashing the orange wood trunks I got from a neighbor's trash pile in my firewood stashes built into my red brick grille for use in winter for potluck fires. The vast number of oak and Brazillian Pepper logs dropped off here have been/are being used in assorted hugel kultur pits and mounds in my east, south and west beds as I finish revamping them. Once I pull up a piece of carpet I just found beneath the mulch in my SE bed out back where I recently planted a calamondin tree, I will dig a new hugel kultur pit and plant there my Ginger (not sure if culinary or Galangal) that has gotten very rootbound in a 5 gallon Water Wise Container Garden in two years time....that portion of that garden is semi-shady at times so I feel the ginger will thrive once I deeply mulch the entire bed when it is done, which is close at hand. SO NICE to have 90% won the battle against Balsam Apple in that bed via pulling and mulching!

The situation regarding my Dad's care has settled a bit so I am planning on offering classes for next month very soon to help people garden in summer plus plan for their fall gardens. I have some ideas for all-new classes I will offer as so many people begin to incorporate self sufficiency into their way of life. I've lived this way a LONG time and remember being teased in the 90s for it....."John, wouldn't be easier to buy your food in the store?"...so I am glad to see that what I've learned can help others lead freer, more frugal lives.

My first ever Moroccan dish simmers on the stove.....ground cow meat, onions, cocozelle squash, tomatoes, home made preserved lemon, ginger, turmeric, garlic, pepper, green olives, sea salt...the smell and taste is heaven. In about 45 minutes it gets served over rice. No saffron in the house. Some sweet guy with nice pecs should marry me for my cooking and insatiable sex drive

http://moroccanfood.about.com/od/maindishes/r/Meat_Olives.htm

I grow a great deal of cassava each year here and use the extremely nutritious leaves in soups and stir fry. But this year I will be exploring the many traditional African recipes, many of which I notice require running the leaves through a blender. I suspect this does much to address the fact that some folks find cooked cassava leaves too chewy. First I will try this recipe although I will add hot pepper, likely rooster meat, plus may cheat and substitute peanut butter for the chopped peanuts. I got my strain of Sweet Cassava many years ago from an old Cuban man and many people familiar with the issue of cyanoglucosides in Bitter Cassava have marvelled at JUST how mild and non-bitter mine is. I will have plants for sale in about a month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19xcUGvcUHk

A wonderful remaster of my favorite Beatles song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsQRg1JfwD8

Occupy Your Personal Finances....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rcQZxawdWk&feature=fvwrel

If you raise chickens and enjoy the beach now and then, be sure to take a 5 gallon bucket with you. Like many extinct dinosaurs, chickens NEED grit in their gizzards to grind their food...if that grit is based on calcium carbonate, it also provides calcium for their bones and to build strong eggshells. Commercial oyster shell grit from a feed store can be very pricey and keep you from actually saving money by raising your own eggs. Here in Florida many beaches will have a ridge of finely pulverized seashells all along the high tide line that is easily scooped into that bucket. A five gallon bucket full should meet the needs of a dozen chickens for about 3 months. Sometimes I scatter the seashell grit on the ground, other times I pour it into a designated container...they will eat it when they need to.

It can be a good idea to have another 5 gallon bucket in your car for each beach trip....seaweed washed onto the shore makes a wonderful addition to your chickens' diet, not to mention your compost barrel and sheet composting efforts. Fish carcasses, dropped into water or, better, compost or manure tea in a barrel, and left to decompose for a month or more, will bless your soil and plants with a nutrient-laden liquid fertilizer that costs you nothing. You go to the beach to have fun then come home laden with natural treasures!

People new to chicken raising often get caught up in their enthusiasm and spend tons of money needlessly and, sometimes, fruitlessly, making "break even" a distant event, if ever. As a pathological tightwad my entire adult life, for me it is fun plus much more financially sustainable, to employ creative extreme frugality to acquire your birds, then house and feed them, so that each egg or morsel of meat is MUCH LESS expensive than the inferior factory farm equivalents in the store.

EDIBLE HEDGES Hey, if we have to water, feed and prune our hedges year after year, the least they can for us is provide our families with fresh fruit, right? Many of us are bored to tears by the likes of ligustrum, juniper and pittosporum, so let’s try something fresh and flavorful instead since the rainy summer months are the ideal to buy and plant them. The easy-to-grow ‘Barbados Cherry’ (Malpighia glabra) makes a nice dense hedge or free standing shrub grown either formally clipped or in its own natural graceful form. I love the cotton candy pink blooms that pepper it throughout the year, each followed by a bright red sweet-tart fruit that contain many times more Vitamin C than fresh oranges. Also called ‘Acerola’, this overlooked shrub is easy to root from cuttings, so one plant purchased can quickly be turned into a lovely edible hedge to beautify your landscape. Another so-called “cherry” not related to true table cherries that thrive up north is the ‘Surinam Cherry’ (Eugenia uniflora) us native Floridians nibbled from as kids. The glossy leaves are bronze when young and mature to a rich green, offering a welcome contrast to the white blooms in late winter and the red-to-dark purple berries in spring. The flavor is love it or hate it; very sweet when fully ripe and with a resinous flavor disliked often by folks repelled by mangos. Spaced two feet apart, Surinam Cherry plants sold in one gallon pots quickly fuse into a dense, very low care hedge that will bounce back quickly after a hard freeze. It is just one of many edible Eugenia shrubs perfect for landscapes, like the ‘Cherry of the Rio Grande’ (E. aggregata) and apricot-flavored Pitomba (E. luschnathiana) that thrive in central Florida. We rarely think of citrus as hedge plants, but the Key Lime, Limequat, Calamondin, and Kumquat, if spaced about four feet apart as young plants, will form a dense, thorny hedge perfect for security needs. Just cut them back hard annually after fruiting to deter their becoming small trees, and you will enjoy that heady “orange blossom” perfume plus flavorful nutritious fruits all from an attractive, functional hedge that oozes “Florida”. Folks living along the coast and hence spared harder frosts and freezes can indulge in the exotic luxury of guava hedges. I now grow four kinds in my south Tampa yard, three coming up easily and quickly from seeds. The classic large guava with yellow skin and aromatic pink flesh used in Cuban cuisine and eaten out of hand is the Psidium guajava...it bears lovely white blooms with wispy long stamens. The ‘Strawberry Guava’ (Psidium cattleianum) is often called the Cattleya Guava and produces smaller red fruits wonderful eaten raw or added to a blender filled with fresh orange juice. Eating the chewy tasty blooms (yes blooms!) of the Pineapple Guava (Feijoa sellowiana) is a nice bonus since the green-skinned, white-fleshed fruits offer their own exotic perfumey flavor eaten raw or served with vanilla icecream. Guavas are an unusually nutritious fruit, rich in various B vitamins plus C and A, copper, potassium, manganese and fiber. Not bad for an attractive hedge I’d say! Over-development of Florida has destroyed much of the character us natives grew up with.....embracing our homes and landscapes with tropical fruit bearing hedges can give that heritage back to our kids, and to the folks who will someday buy and live in our homes long after we are gone. SOURCES: Jene’s Tropicals 6831 Central Avenue St. Petersburg FL 727-344-1668 www.tropicalfruit.com

From my St. Pete Times column in 2006.

Looks like a sure thing!!! Woo Hoo!

http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/weather/klystron-9-radar.html

Experiment: my farming friend Pat dropped off several old logs too far gone to burn a few weeks ago...quite light weight, almost corky. I soaked them for a day in the chickens' main watering trough starting yesterday since they were bone dry sponges...they are now heavy and wet and saturated, buried in a new small hugel kultur pit just inside that new stretch of the goat fencing that has kept, AT LAST, the chickens out of the west bed I've been revamping after rotational grazing by chickens (inspired by Joel Salatin) has ELIMINATED the hyper-aggressive Starre grass and bidens from that bed. I planted a few Chirimen squash seeds (Cucurbita moschata) between two buried logs, and about 5 Sword Bean (Canavalia gladiata) seeds on the east side of the mound right next to a buried log. At the bottom of the 2 foot deep pit are a few fistfuls of hair from a rough summer trimming of Cracker today to provide slow release nitrogen, plus a small amount of feed grade urea and tropical 10-10-10 with trace elements from my Dad's house....atop the mound I sprinkled some of Black Kow's new high nitrogen organic fertilizer they sent me to test. Next came a slow deep soaking from one of my beloved "shower head sprinklers" I see only at Lowe's for years now. If in fact we get a 2 inch soaker tomorrow, it will do wonders for this experiment while nurturing the wonderful progress occurring in my front yard, plus the east and south beds out back.

I so hope this forecast is right!!!

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Tampa&state=FL&site=TBW&lat=27.959&lon=-82.4821

A friend of mine here in south Tampa who farmed in Dade City for 20 years and I have recently discussed the paradox that so many worthwhile efforts based on "Sustainable Living" themselves don't seem to be sustainable, often operating at a loss or a tiny level of profit, very often dependent, such as last night's wonderful event at Roosevelt 2.0, on people working for free, donating money and time. My own long defunct newsletter THE GARDEN DOCTOR, despite good reviews in many publications, never supported itself, much less me, and I see very energetic idealistic young people burning their candles at both ends, trying to make the world a better place while trying to meet their own fiscal and physiological and emotional needs. Farmers I know are almost always exhausted. I'd like to offer hosting a potluck at my small modest home where we could discuss this phenomenon of bringing financial sustainability to efforts promoting sustainable living. Maybe a dozen people could be comfortable in my living room...if more are interested in something like this maybe we could meet at a larger home. Joel Salatin did well financially last night....I wonder how many others did too since the servers, chefs, bartenders and more I gather all donated their time and services? Any thoughts on this?

I had a delightful night at Roosevelt 2.0 tonight even before Joel Salatin gave a great presentation, seeing good folks like Pam Lunn, Tom Carroll, Jon and Debbie Butts, Robin Milcowitz, Donna Sue Wallace, Eric Stewart, Ryan Iacovacci, Jungle Jay and more. At the reception upstairs folks mingled over finger food and drinks....I had my first martini since 1977 back when I'd get them at Rough Riders where I worked while an HCC art major....I liked it so much I had another! The food by three chefs was superb, the service by volunteers was impeccable, and I enjoyed getting to know folks around me as we ate. Hosts Robin and Ryan and Eddie Shumard did a great job tying it all together and leading the night towards Joel's excellent and, near the end, impassioned talk. Afterwards I got to meet him briefly, thank him for teaching me about the rotational grazing that has eliminated 99.9% of my formerly nightmarish back yard and gardens weed problems, and gave him an envelope of Molokhiya seeds to try on Polyface Farms. Many thanks to the many UNSEEN people who clearly worked hard to create a wonderful evening that I hope raise needed funds for TUFF, Dancing Goat Farms, Birdhouse Buying Club and more while inspiring people to know and grow their own food.

I love this forecast, especially for Saturday...now if only it comes to pass.

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Tampa&state=FL&site=TBW&lat=27.959&lon=-82.4821

Thanks to Theresa Byer for letting me know of a mild climate alfalfa thriving for her and where to get the seeds...BountifulGardens! Qty Description Total 1 Non-Dormant Alfalfa, organic Item: CAL-6901 Price: $2.00 $2.00 1 Aurora Orach Item: VGR-3825 Price: $2.00 $2.00 1 Ellen's Purple amaranth Item: GAM-7196 Price: $2.00 $2.00 Subtotal: $6.00 (National,State and Local taxes) Tax: $0.00 (REGULAR SHIPPING - BEST WAY) Shipping: $2.50 TOTAL: $8.50

Alfalfas for Central Florida?

I'd LOVE to have an alfalfa patch for chicken forage but to date varieties I've tried have failed to thrive vs. it being widely self sown over Colorado. This study mentions three varieties I'd love to try here:

http://msucares.com/pubs/bulletins/b1074.htm

Reliable Summer "Pumpkins" for Florida

I've spent years trialing various winter squashes and pumpkins and "calabazas" from the main species Curcurbita maxima, mixta, pepo and moschata, and by far I get the best results from those bred from C. moschata. This makes sense as that species originated in hot, humid Central America. While the other species and their hybrids make green leaves, C. moschata and its hybrids and cultivars have very characteristic silvery patterned markings that are quite beautiful.

From my St. Pete Times column in 2006: We’ve all had to deal with fungus problems on roses, squash and more. And we’ve all had aphids, mealy bugs, scale and red spider mites feast on garden treasures too. Those funky smelling chemical fungicides and insecticides rarely seem to work for long, and if they do, eating the produce or sniffing the blooms can be pretty scary! Hey, who wants to eat or inhale toxic chemicals? But for over 100 years Southern gardeners have relied on a cheap, non-toxic and VERY effective natural alternative they bought in grocery stores, and that thankfully we can now also order toll free or on-line. What is it? An old-fashioned lye soap called ‘Kirk’s Castile’. Yup, dissolved in hot water this true soap (most “soaps” these days are detergents) is an organic gardener’s dream come true as a non-toxic all purpose garden spray. I was taught this concept in the 70's when I was an idealistic hippie/art major living in Seminole Heights with wise elderly neighbors who’d used it since the 1930's. These women said that back when they were young gardeners it wasn’t called “organic gardening”…. it was just a very cheap, tried-and-true common sense gardening aid…just splash the used dish and laundry water on plants with fungus and bug problems! To make a small batch of soap spray, rub a bar of “Kirk’s Castile” against a cheese grater, then dissolve 1-3 heaping tablespoon of the soap flakes in 1 gallon of very hot tap water in an old plastic milk jug. Let it sit a couple days, shaking the jug daily to dissolve lumps. Then pour the spray into a trigger spray bottle or your garden pump sprayer then spray the affected plants every 7-10 days till they are dripping. Be sure to apply the spray when you don’t plan on watering for a few days so it can cling to the leaves and do its job. Don’t be afraid to experiment with slightly weaker or stronger strengths as it is non-burning unlike some of the dishwashing detergent liquids you may have tried in vain. To make a big batch of concentrate for future use, drop a whole bar into a wide mouth gallon container. Fill that jug with 1 gallon very hot tap water and let sit a week, stirring daily. You’ll end up with 1 gallon of a thick soap concentrate that keeps just about forever in a lidded container. To make a batch of spray, dissolve 1 cup of this concentrate in 1 gallon warm water, shake, then pour it into your sprayer. Thus a cheap bar of soap will make you SIXTEEN GALLONS of a very safe and effective fungicide and insecticide that won’t harm the environment nor make your vegetables and flowers and herbs toxic. For tougher problems try 1 part soap concentrate to 10 parts water for a thicker, more potent soap spray. And there is little worry of leaf burn from harsh summer sun. How does it work? The soap alkalinizes the leaf surface, but powdery mildew and black spot and sooty mold ( on citrus and gardenias) fungi need an ACIDIC leaf cuticle to grow on…plus as a soap it helps to rinse them off. Spray UP at the undersides of the leaves if you are after blackspot fungus on roses. What’s cool too is that the coconut oil in the soapy water (true soap is an oil or fat plus lye) help suffocate bad bugs by plugging up their breathing holes and permeating their chitinous exoskeletons. (that’ll teach’em!) Aphids on new growth? Spider mites on leaf undersides? Mealy bugs or scale on the stems on shrubs? White fly on your tomatoes? Just spray the plant thoroughly till it drips. Quite often the wing coverings of our garden allies the ladybugs and lacewings seem to spare them by acting as umbrellas. Adding 1 cup of cheap vegetable oil to that soapy gallon and shaking it thoroughly will let you wipe out vast numbers of scale insects. Okay, its 2006, not 1976, and I am a little more grounded and happily middle-aged now, but now more and more folks wish for less toxic ways to grow their garden favorites. So a century old secret deserves to be better known and tried before we resort to expensive chemical sprays that can kill many unintended and valuable inhabitants of our yards’ ecosystems and endanger our children and pets while adding to the burden of poisons endured by our own bodies, the groundwater and what remains of this beautiful state. SOURCES: Publix, Albertson’s Kirk’s Natural 1-800-825-4757 www.kirksnatural.com

Experiment

I continue to see great results from an experiment that I thought was likely to fail due to root burning...planting a few cucusa seeds in a 55 gallon compost barrel NEWLY filled with layers of compost formers, including horse stall sweepings. About once a week I put the hose atop the compost (which is rapidly losing height) for a 10 minute or so slow trickle. And the vines continue to grow explosively, requiring just a little training from me to grab the five foot tall goat wire and NOT cross the path to grab the duck pen.  The foliage is wonderfully healthy looking, and I'd forgotten just how LONG cucusa tendrils can get as they reach out to grab things. It is a delight to already see many female blooms....I would not be surprised if my first harvest was in a month. I have a few semi-empty barrels that I will try this is in too but perhaps with different crops, such as a calabaza.

A very large number of seed heads on my first ever crop of 'San Ho Giant' mustard are forming, with a few protected from cross pollination by the only other brassica blooming in my yard, Chinese kale. I fell in love with San Ho this winter, will grow it again next fall and winter, and it will be interesting to see if any of the plants are the result of stray Chinese Kale delivered by bees.

Life is good on the Starnes urban farm!

Hey folks I learned late yesterday from Robin Milcowitz of the Tampa Urban Food Forum that my entry to the Chipotle 'What Food Means To Me' essay contest DID in fact win!! I'd thought not since I'd not heard from Chipotle. So today at 5:30 at the Roosevelt 2.0 in Ybor City I get to meet incredible farmer Joel Salatin, attend his presentation and book signing, see friends and meet interesting new people like I always do the Roosevelt events, AND get to feast on fresh local foods prepared by THREE local chefs!!! Robin offered to refund the $35 I'd spent to attend just his talk but this event IS a fund raiser for TUFF, Dancing Goat Farm and other wonderful local folks and organizations so I declined. Learning of rotational grazing by seeing Joel in 'Fresh' and 'Food Inc' two years ago has completely eliminated formerly NIGHTMARISH weed problems I had in my back gardens year after year by simply a couple of times per year letting the flocks of chickens and ducks into a given area a short while to eat the weeds, their seeds and seedlings after years of fruitless sweaty pulling and cursing....I so look forward to thanking him in person for that gift. I'm giving him an envelope of seeds of one of my favorite summer veggies, Molokhia (Corchorus olitorius) in case he's never tried it on Polyface Farms. I daily am aware of, and give thanks for, the many blessings in my life, but today is a special day indeed!

Rain?

This forecast by them, as usual, is more optimistic than NOAAs. But here's hoping!

http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/weather/forecast.html

Looks like a fair chance of rain this weekend due to a slow moving low pressure area. I hope so as three new hugel kultur mounds and pits would benefit, as would rapidly growing Japanese melon, tomatoes, cucusa, hot peppers, Cocozelle squash, okra, perennial scallions and eggplants and more in varying container gardens. I'd love a full, two day soaker! It's amazing to see the wildly varying forecasts this week, but all I know if that Tampa and surrounding areas are DRY, with over a couple of hundred wildfires in Florida already this year. Let it POUR!

Nice bike ride up Bayshore ogling a vast number of pelicans and some superb shirtless eye candy joggers, now am simmering a huge batch of spaghetti sauce made from scratch with Italian sausage, chopped yellow onions, olive oil, a chopped homegrown Cocozelle squash, tomatoes, eggplant, perennial garlic, Lesbos basil, then sea salt, black pepper and a touch of brown sugar. In about an hour it goes over hot pasta. Some sweet guy with nice pecs should marry me for my cooking and my insatiable sex drive!

Tuesday Offerings: Two dozen eggs available today, $4 per dozen. Edible plants in 1 gallon pots, all labelled and priced: Lesbos Columnar Basil, Celosia spicata and a rosemary in the same pot, Chinese Sword Beans (Canavalia gladiata), Green Sugar Cane, Perennial Scallion (Allium fistulosum), Chaya "Tree Spinach". All avaliable on my front porch Honor System sales tables, if I am out just slip your cash through the white dryer vent in my red office door. 3212 West Paxton Avenue Tampa FL 33611. Thanks! John Starnes

Good changes.....

A new small hugel kultur pit is now home to the potted Calamondin tree a generous blog reader gave me....I treated it to a SLOW drip for a few hours as two feet down, the "soil" (read 'white sand') was POWDERY dry. I am treating as I type the new hugel kultur mound I built around the newly cut back Moringa to an hour long soak. Tomorrow I will dump a few bags of oak leaves donated by neighbors to trap that moisture and help to keep the mound and surrounding soil cool. Thanks SO MUCH to Jim Porter for turning me onto to hugel kultur, and to my friend Mary Jo Clark for bringing over a battery Saws All and one we ran on a power cord a few days ago to free my SW corner from my own trash trees AND ones long encroaching from foreclosed properties.

Nice to see blooms of perhaps my favorite Louisiana Iris, 'Wood Violet' this morning as I cooked a savory brunch of rooster breast meat, onions, garlic, oregano, Lesbos basil, sea salt and black pepper tossed into cooked rotini pasta. Dad is doing great at the nursing home and enjoying his girl friend Mary, all our bills are paid,and the gardens are steadily transitioning from cool weather crops to ones that love summers in Tampa, including eggplant, molokhiya, okra, sweet potatoes, the many variants of Cow Pea (Vigna unguiculata), Chaya (two forms), moringa, Water Spinach in a scavenged LARGE aquarium filled with acidic compost, the true yams now sending up shoots into my chain link fence, Cucusa (Lagenaria siceraria var. longinissima), Currant Tomatoes (Lycopericon pimpinellifolium), Lesbos basil, and various hot peppers.

Life is good on my increasingly orderly, dare I say "tidy" urban farm!

Occupy Your Life and Your Yard and Your Finances

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31095.htm

Don't You Just LOVE Monsanto?

http://www.rodale.com/research-feed/causes-colony-collapse-disorder

Grapes

For some reason, this year "Gracie's Grape" is making some leaves easily 4-5 times the size of those on "Gray Street Grape".  I've given a few bags of both to Chef Gary at Wimauma's restaurant to use in his creations. I am delighted to see this morning literally thousands of tiny grapes adorning both vines that have utterly consumed the hen house and duck pen. I think I will give drying my own raisins a try this year.

What a remarkable man!!!

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/man-single-handedly-plants-entire-forest.html

Eat Your Weeds

This tasty super-nutritious "weed" comes up each spring in the baby pool that I grow okra in each summer. I love to just stop, graze a few minutes, then continue with my chores. Try it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portulaca_oleracea

From my St. Pete Times column in 2006:

         We’ve all had to deal with fungus problems on roses, squash and more. And we’ve all had aphids, mealy bugs, scale and red spider mites feast on garden treasures too. Those funky smelling chemical fungicides and insecticides rarely seem to work for long,  and if they do, eating the produce or sniffing the blooms can be pretty scary! Hey, who wants to eat or inhale toxic chemicals? But for over 100 years Southern gardeners have relied on a cheap, non-toxic and VERY effective natural alternative they bought in grocery stores, and that thankfully we can now also order toll free or on-line.

   What is it? An old-fashioned  lye soap called ‘Kirk’s Castile’. Yup, dissolved in hot water this true soap (most “soaps” these days are detergents)  is an organic gardener’s dream come true as a non-toxic all purpose garden spray. I was taught this concept in the 70's when I was an idealistic hippie/art major living in Seminole Heights with wise elderly neighbors who’d used it since the 1930's. These women said  that back  when they were young gardeners  it wasn’t called “organic gardening”…. it was just a very cheap, tried-and-true common sense gardening aid…just splash  the used  dish and laundry water on plants with fungus and bug problems!

  To make a small batch of  soap spray, rub a bar of “Kirk’s Castile” against a cheese grater, then dissolve 1-3 heaping tablespoon of the soap flakes in 1 gallon of very hot tap water in an old plastic milk jug.  Let it sit a couple days, shaking the jug daily to dissolve lumps. Then pour the spray into a trigger spray bottle or your garden pump sprayer then spray the affected plants every 7-10 days till they are dripping. Be sure to apply the spray when you don’t plan on watering for a few days so it can cling to the leaves and do its job. Don’t be afraid to experiment with slightly weaker or stronger strengths as it is non-burning unlike some of the dishwashing detergent liquids you may have tried in vain.

  To make a big batch of concentrate for future use, drop a whole bar into a wide mouth gallon container. Fill that jug with 1 gallon very hot tap water and let sit a week, stirring daily. You’ll end up with 1 gallon of a thick soap concentrate that keeps just about forever in a lidded container.  To make a batch of spray, dissolve 1 cup of this concentrate in 1 gallon warm water, shake, then pour it into your sprayer. Thus a cheap bar of soap will make you SIXTEEN GALLONS of a very  safe and effective fungicide and insecticide that won’t harm the environment nor make your vegetables and flowers and herbs toxic. For tougher problems try 1 part soap concentrate to 10 parts water for a thicker, more potent soap spray. And there is little worry of leaf burn from harsh summer sun.

  How does it work? The  soap  alkalinizes the  leaf surface, but powdery mildew and black spot and sooty mold ( on citrus and gardenias) fungi need an ACIDIC leaf cuticle to grow on…plus as a soap it helps to rinse them off. Spray UP at the undersides of the leaves if you are after blackspot fungus on roses. 

  What’s cool too is that the coconut oil in the soapy water (true soap is an oil or fat plus lye) help suffocate bad bugs by plugging up their breathing holes and permeating their chitinous exoskeletons. (that’ll teach’em!) Aphids on new growth? Spider mites on leaf undersides? Mealy bugs or scale on the stems on shrubs? White fly on your tomatoes? Just spray the plant thoroughly till it drips. Quite often the wing coverings of our garden allies the ladybugs and lacewings seem to spare them by acting as umbrellas. Adding 1 cup of cheap vegetable oil to that soapy gallon and shaking it thoroughly will let you wipe out vast numbers of scale insects.

   Okay, its 2006, not 1976,  and I am a little more grounded and happily middle-aged now, but now more and more folks wish for less toxic ways to grow their garden favorites. So a century old  secret deserves to be better known and tried before we resort to  expensive chemical sprays that can kill many unintended and valuable inhabitants of our yards’ ecosystems and endanger our children and pets while adding to the burden of poisons endured by our own bodies, the groundwater and what remains of this beautiful state.

SOURCES:

Publix, Albertson’s Kirk’s Natural 1-800-825-4757 www.kirksnatural.com

Confidence Builder For The New Florida Summer Gardener

Perfect for children of all ages who feel unsure about growing food in the humid heat of Florida and the Gulf Coast, the "Cow Pea"  (Vigna unguiculata) sprouts easily and bears food even in poor soils. Just keep the soil damp with daily hand waterings the first two weeks to get the seedlings established. There are MANY varieties bred from the base species that is native to hot Africa....Crowder Pea, Zipper Pea, Field Acre Peas, Black Eye Pea (note: none are true peas (Pisum) which need cool temps) and many more. Easiest and CHEAPEST of all is to buy a small bag of dried Black Eye Peas from the grocery store, plant 10-20 of them one inch deep about a foot apart in full sun. When they are a few inches tall start peeing on the row a few times a week to enrich the soil, or give them a drench of 3 tablespoons of Alaska Fish Fertilizer per gallon of water monthly. Natural rhizobia bacteria living in their roots will take nitrogen gas from the air and convert it into nitrogen fertilizer, making Cow Peas a food crop that IMPROVES poor soil. The hotter and muggier it gets the better they do.

Fresh blooms look and taste nice atop a salad, the pods are eaten whole when young and tender, shucked when more mature with plump green seeds inside, and, in the fall, harvested as a dry bean for cooking. The young tender leaves are very rich in protein and are delightful in summer salads and stir fry, as are the tender vine tips.

The pic of of the seeds of a very primitive heirloom VERY close to the base species, "Clay", which is virtually identical to "Corrientes". Both are available from the good folks at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

http://rareseeds.com/vegetablesa-c/cowpeas.html

Go ahead...relax...try Cow Peas this summer, planted now into late May.

Plant Swap

I lost mine last year to drought and mealy bugs and would love to trade any plant I have for one of these. The flavor is better than real oregano, plus since it is a shrub it is much more productive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippia_graveolens

Woo Hoo!

Yesterday Mary Jo and I used her two Saws Alls to clear out my SE corner long afflicted by branches coming in from two foreclosed properties! We cut back hard the poor moringa that had struggled in ever increasing shade, I fed the soil then gave the area a deep watering. Today I will build a hugel kultur mound there to keep the soil moist and fertile long term. I made quite a few cuttings from the lanky branches and stuck a few in pots, the rest widely scattered in the south and west bed. Next to pull up the last of the carpet I laid down years ago when it was to be an inventory area for potted roses, then plant several papayas and sprig the whole area with Satsuma Imo Japanese sweet potatoes. I might also plant a calabaza  at the base of the moringa.

TECO sent a tree trimming company into the neighborhood this week to trim branches close to power lines.....with my blessings they hacked off a LOT of my menacing tree-formed Rosa bracteata in my front east bed, and I am daily cutting it back more and more until I will end up with the trunk and a tuft of branches on top to let it grow in the shape of a mushroom but MUCH smaller than it is now. Until it got too big I loved sitting in the shade beneath it in a scavenged, green plastic and very comfortable lawn chair.

Where ever I look in my formerly dumpy yard I see increasing order and tidiness! This will also result in much greater productivity, both for my own personal diet, to share with friends and to sell from my Front Porch Honor System to boost my income. And when I resume teaching classes, students will see something they'd want to emulate vs. avoid!

Bush got into the White House, twice, via tampered-with elections. He tried to block a 9-11 Commission until survivors of those who died pressed legal action...the commission then blocked all inquiry into Saudi involvement and ignored completely the free fall collapse of Building 7 into its own footprint. Bush, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld and more lied us into attacking and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan in order to control their resources under the guise of "protecting America" and "bringing democracy" to those nations. They turned huge budget surpluses into record-breaking deficits. To date they've been exempt from prosecution for violating the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the UN charter to which the U.S. is a founding signator, not to mention simple human decency. They enjoy book deals, lush taxpayer-funded retirement and health care plans, and huge annual lifetime pensions.

But if I grow a cannabis plant in my garden, I risk time in prison.

Occupy your life.

Down on the farm this week....

Yesterday I dragged home the above ground pool liner my neighbor Jerry gave me when he foreclosed.....I will dig a very big pit in my west bed north of the dormant bee hive, poke holes about 2 feet from the bottom, fill it with logs and yard debris and horse stall sweepings plus some of the sand dug from the hole to make a hugel kultur style bog garden to grow bananas in after years of drought has decimated my former collection of 21 colonies of 16 kinds. That entire west bed, formerly a squalid mess of empty pots etc. is quickly evolving into a tidy food forest of citrus, passion fruits, pig chaya, papayas, chayote with "Filipino White Sweet Potato" and 'Winter Sweet Meat' squash as summer ground covers.

Yesterday I planted African Jack Beans (Canavalia ensiformis) and a loquat tree I got from the Tampa Rare Fruit Council in the perennial sweet potato patch, fed the soil, scattered several bags of leaves. Today I will scatter about 5 pounds of calcium bentonite clay and a tub of horse stall sweepings, then give it a DEEP watering to settle it all in and initiate growth.

I've not grown gandule beans in a few years, there were none in at Publix last week so I will check the Green Market on Interbay as they have a LOT of Cuban/Caribbean foods there. A bag of the "beans" should be about $1, will plant maybe 50 of them then cook and eat the rest.

Amazing that the mild winter will soon let me harvest eggplants and green hyacinth beans that escaped unscathed! My purple Ube yams are sending up shoots a but early too. Unfortunately the next week looks to be bone dry.

Pat gave me a 3 gallon pot he'd scraped the contents of a large papaya into....I swear there is easily 1000 seedlings jammed in there! I fed them some 20-20-20 soluble a friend gave me years ago, and will soon begin moving them into 4 inch and 1 gallon pots to share, sell and plant. I anticipate planting a minimum of 50 here to give my full sun lot a light shade canopy plus give me MANY more fruits to enjoy ripe as a fruit, green as a veggie, and to share with friends and sell along with my fresh eggs.

My experiment of planting Cucusa seeds (Lagenaria longissima) in a 55 gallon drum filled with new compost makers seems to be working......rampant growth has grabbed the 5 foot tall goat fencing that has finally made my east bed chicken proof. I've not had a crop here since 2004 when all the hurricanes made my entire yard and all of south Tampa truly wet. I love the fruits raw as a slaw, or fried in olive oil, or shredded into spaghetti sauce. The rind has a fuzz like that on a peach but much more pronounced.

I am crossing my fingers that the unusually warm Gulf waters gives us MANY tropical depressions and several WEAK hurricanes to re-hydrate this poor, desiccated peninsula this summer.

Occupy your garden...

Bush got into the White House, twice, via tampered-with elections. He tried to block a 9-11 Commission until survivors of those who died pressed legal action...the commission then blocked all inquiry into Saudi involvement and ignored completely the free fall collapse of Building 7 into its own footprint. Bush, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld and more lied us into attacking and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan in order to control their resources under the guise of "bringing democracy" to those nations. To date they've been exempt from prosecution for violating the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the UN charter to which the U.S. is a founding signator, not to mention simple human decency. They enjoy book deals, lush taxpayer funded retirement and health care plans, and huge annual lifetime pensions.

But if I grow a cannabis plant in my garden, I risk time in prison. 

An article from my St. Pete Times column some years back

SCRUMPTIOUS “SUMMER” SQUASH

   Baked, mashed, raw in salads, whipped into sweet pies, or pureed as savory ethnic soups, the wildly diverse winter squashes thrive in summer here. Paradoxically named since they will store indoors all winter once picked in the fall, they thrive in our muggy summers and provide tons of tasty and nutritious cuisine long before that final harvest.

   Last year I tested over 30 kinds for flavor and growth; and those that did best were: Jarradale, Taiwan Pumpkin, Orange Cushaw, Kabocha, La Primera, Tahitian Butternut, Seminole Pumpkin (native to the Everglades), Tennessee Sweet Potato, and Neck Pumpkin. Me and my friends were treated to a wild assortment of shapes and sizes, all offering dark orange tasty flesh loaded with beta carotene borne by easy-to-grow sprawling vines. This year I am testing several new kinds, making sure I water deeply weekly since we are off to another bone dry spring.

   They are hungry plants, so dig a pit about 20 inches across and deep and fill it half way with fresh compost or horse manure from a stable,  mixed 50/50 with dry dog food and a handful of dolomite. Toss the mixture like a salad, water deeply, cover it with the soil you dug out, water again, then plant 5-6 seeds of the variety you have chosen. Cover the mound with 2 inches of oak leaves or wood mulch and hand water daily for 2 weeks to keep the soil moist. When the seedlings are 3 inches tall, pull out the two weakest ones. If you wish, sprinkle the mound with manure tea,  a soluble blue fertilizer or even a LIGHT sprinkling of a 16-4-8 herbicide free lawn fertilizer like Lesco for a boost. When their roots hit that buried compost zone the vines will take off! Plan on a minimum of fifteen feet across.

   At first the cheery yellow male blooms will appear atop long pencil-like stalks near the base of the vines; they can be harvested as buds or opened flowers and served as an edible plate garnish, or as in Japan, dipped in batter and deep fried. Later, near the tips of the vines, the female blooms will form; notice the cute little baby squash right behind the blossom! Very soon these will enlarge to the size of a cantelope and can be picked and eaten immature, used just as you would a zucchini. Asian and African cuisine cherishes the young tender vine tips and newly opened leaves in stir fry. Thus the “winter squash” provide a steady bounty all summer. I’ve grown some of these types since 1984 here and find very few bug or disease problems IF I enrich the soil first....that buried treasure beneath each plant insures sound nutrition to support all that rampant growth in the hot rainy season they glory in.

    In the fall, when the vines begin to die and whither, harvest your ripe winter squash with the stem attached, cure them in the sun a few days to harden the skin, then store  indoors in a cool room where they will keep for months. Just don’t let them touch as that can induce a decay spot. Be sure to save and rinse and dry the seeds from one to keep in an envelope in your produce drawer till the following spring planting season.

  Bored with the normal squash you see in the stores? Branch out this spring and grow something bold!

sources: Baker Creek Heirloom Seed 417-924-8917

               www.RareSeeds.com

That raw Amber Jack flesh that fermented for three months in coarse salt in a clay pot is YUMMY! Better than any anchovy I've ever eaten and much less salty. Now to cook some spaghetti noodles,then saute' in olive oil chopped onions and garlic with about a tablespoon of the salted fish finely minced, and toss it all together with oregano, fresh Lesbos basil and black pepper and shredded home made parmesan. Some sweet smart guy with nice pecs should marry me for my cooking and insatiable sex drive!

Black Garlic

I like just about anything fermented, like the raw Amber Jack flesh that I fermented for three months packed in coarse salt in a clay flower pot that I took out and sampled yesterday...better than any anchovies I've ever eaten and less salty. I used it to make a DELICIOUS pasta dish. I saw a reference to "Black Garlic" on CNN yesterday and looked it up. Since I LOVED fermented Asian black beans as a seasoning I am sure I will love this too. I never use aluminum foil or cookware, so will just put the garlic in my tightly closed slow cooker, though forty days worth of electricity makes me wonder. I will likely also try something black set out in the sun for a month too. I can just imagine how good this stuff tastes!

http://www.ehow.com/how_5902625_make-black-garlic.html

Sobering illustration of JUST how little water our world has!

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/2010/gallery/global-water-volume.html

My submission to the Chipotle Essay Contest to Meet Joel Salatin

What Does Real Food Mean To Me?

Each of us mirrors the planet we arose from, a vibrant complex ecology of both the physical and the energetic, the macroscopic and the unseen. True living food nourishes our body and our spirit, an expression of respect for the soil, water, plants and animals born of healthy labor on the farm and in the garden.

Having endured and prospered for seven billion years and counting, the Earth currently groans under the stressful weight of seven billion human beings existing in several unsustainable models, from Third World clear cutting to First World factory farming based on monoculture, oil and the treating of livestock animals as mere things. Try as we might, we cannot isolate ourselves from Nature nor avoid the consequences of plundering it.

How we feed ourselves and our families is an intimate expression of our world view and how we make use of each precious day given us. Nourishing the soil instead of poisoning it, creating diversity of life in our gardens and farms, making wise use of water, and affording relative freedom and comfort to the creatures we raise for eggs and milk and meat, results in vital nutrient-rich foods that in turn cultivate vibrant health in us. It is no mere coincidence that as the use of pesticides and antibiotics and chemical fertilizers have increased the last half century in America, so has a broad range of degenerative diseases.

Organic gardening and farming are not only more frugal in the short term, both practices avoid future health care costs while creating a sustainable prosperity. We each have been blessed with a brief flash of existence on this verdant world lost in an unfathomably vast and miraculous Universe…what better way to express our gratitude then to Occupy our hearts and urban farms and our cities gently, each vibrant morsel a testament and an offering.

Bottle Buildings

I'm half tempted to build me a new garden shed using this lovely STRONG technique!

http://inspirationgreen.com/glassbottlewalls.html

Cheap Doggy Treats

I used to make versions of these all the time for Sweety, so yesterday I made the first batch for Cracker. When ever I boil marrow bones for my dog I save and freeze the broth. Yesterday I thawed two of those plus broth from the last rooster I boiled, simmered them together on low in a sauce pan with a hearty splash each of roasted sesame oil and Thai fish sauce. Next in went a good dusting of food grade diatomaceous earth to provide dietary silica, stirred in thoroughly. I dumped a bag of Publix brand dog biscuits into my big stainless steel soup pot, poured most of the broth slowly over them all, let sit a while to cool and absorb the broth, then put them in a long Pyrex baking dish and a skillet to dry atop the stove overnight. Next I will bake them at 350 for about 30 minutes to make them dry and hard and crunchy, let cool, then store in a large cookie jar a neighbor gave me. MUCH cheaper than the 'Meaty Bone' I used to buy Sweety (I tasted one once....VERY little flavor, mostly food coloring!) and more nutritious

Free Moss For Air Layering?

I want to air layer quite a few clones of my beloved Jamaican Cherry Tree (Mutingia calabura) but a small bag of sphagnum moss at Lowe's yesterday was $5.63 I think...guess who puckered up and put it back on the shelf? So I had an idea I tried today. When I took garden fresh goodies to south Tampa's Wimauma Restaurant on south MacDill Avenue and to pick up three buckets of scraps for my chickens and ducks, I half filled a used black plastic garbage bag I had in my car with Spanish Moss from the grounds and parking lot there. I tied the bag tightly shut and will let it sit a few days in full sun in my back yard to kill  the "moss" (it is really a bromelliad), then let it dry in full sun a few days after that. My plan is to wound each branch I wish to root, rub on some rooting hormone, wrap damp dead dried Spanish Moss around the wound, wrap it in clear commercial restaurant Saran wrap I scavenged a huge roll of years ago, then tie off each end with scavenged twine. If all goes well, in 4-6 weeks I will see roots within each air layer, sever the branch, and pot each in one gallon of home made soil. My goal this year is to recover all seed and plant purchasing costs initially, then generate some cash each week for groceries, gas, pet food, and fun.

It might not work but hey, it also MIGHT work just fine. I hope so as except for a few pennies' worth of rooting hormone, it is all free!

Sweet Potato Propagation

Last week I picked a fistful of shoots in my sweet potato patch and set them in a tub of rainwater to root. I am pretty sure they are the Satsuma Imo purple Japanese sweet potatoes I have grown especially fond of, but they might also include Puerto Rico Gold. I will check them for roots today and if they are doing well I plant them here and there in my southeast bed and south/southwest beds. Today I will take sprigs from my "Filipino White" in my west bed by the bee hive and plant some in 1 gallon pots to sell in a few weeks, then plant a few throughout that west bed to act as an edible, weed-choking groundcover this summer. "Filipino White" (my made up name) bears leaves that are especially tender and succulent raw or cooked. Cooked they are virtually identical to, if not superior to, spinach, plus are free of oxalic acid and have more Vitamin A. One photo is of when I grew "Filipino White" out front in my east bed to control weeds when I summered in Denver some years back, the other shows the harvest I got one fall from just one sweet potato planted in my center bed out back.

Spring in Tampa is BRIEF and soon speeds into summer

My nasturtiums are fast declining and setting seeds, but my Shirley Poppies are now blooming. After that mild winter I not only have surviving Blue Pea Vines (Clitoria terneata) but they are leafed out and blooming! Self sown seeds of the cow pea ancestor Vigna unguiculata and cannabis look-alike Lemon Hibiscus (Hibiscus radiata) are popping up like crazy in my south and west beds big time a month early. "Universe....may I PLEASE have a SOGGY WET summer in south Tampa, pretty please?".

Good for Russian Families!

http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/in-1999-35-million-small-family-plots-produced-90-of-russias-potatoes-77-of-vegetables-87-of-fruits-59-of-meat-49-of-milk-way-to-go-people/

WOW!!

I was so surprised and touched to find a mysterious 4 foot tall cardboard box inside my garden gate from Brite Leaf Citrus Nursery in Panasoffkee, Florida...turned to be two boxes taped together...inside one was a vibrant, three foot tall Dancy Tangerine tree, and in the other an equally robust 3 foot tall Flame Red Grapefruit tree. When I opened the invoice there were no charges but instead a greeting card that read "Happy Wish List from your friends in Colorado!  Mark and Nancy Duvall".

I've wanted both ever since I moved back for good in 2002.....THANK YOU so very much Mark and Nancy!!!

John

Experiment

Over the years I've nibbled wild espazote and did not like the taste or smell. A very robust plant has appeared in my south bed where I propagate plants and raise them for sale, and I have a nearly full bag of "Pink Beans" I bought to try growing some of. I've heard for years that this native herb is wonderful in bean dishes plus makes you fart less (good thing as I am easily responsible for 20% of the world's methane output!). I was reminded by a post on Facebook today that I have not used my crock pot in years, and so today while I tackle a LONG to-do list (my gym in closed for the holiday) I will give this recipe a try, substituting the pink beans for the pinto beans.

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/kgk/2000/0500/pintos.html#axzz1rGm9fAgI

OKRA!

Last summer I re-discovered just how much I love okra cooked the way Mom did it...not battered, just fried on high heat in a thin film of oil (I used coconut or olive) with salt and pepper until the edges of each slice are almost charred....I can eat my body weight of it after years of almost always eating it raw right off of the plant. As a result I am growing a LOT of the heirloom "Fife Creek" okra this summer as in lush conditions it bears pods that can be tender when 5-6 inches long, and it bears heavily. It is a thirsty hungry crop and south Tampa has been in a perennial drought for years, so I will again grow it in various sizes and styles of Water Wise Container Gardens using succession plantings. The pic is one of the 11 inch long pods I let ripen for seeds, which so far for me and friends have had a very low germination rate for some reason. Last year I also finally began emulating Africans and using tender young leaves as food too....I enjoyed them in salads and stir fries.

I Can't Imagine Food Self Sufficiency In Tampa Without Sweet Potatoes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato

Great Summer Crops For Tampa

IF their water needs can be met, these subtropical and tropical crops may be planted now to insure food abundance this summer into fall. Of course they flourish best in soil that is biologically active and pH balanced to between 6.0 and 7.0, the more organic matter the better.
Papaya (easy from seeds from a ripe fruit in spring)
Eggplant
Okra
Molokhiya
Chaya (perennial)
Moringa
"Cow Pea" (Vigna unguiculata)
Hot Peppers (especially Capsicum frutescens)
Luffa
Cucusa (Lagenaria species)
True Yams (Dioscorea species)
Sweet Potatoes (Ipomoea can be functionally perennial)
Moringa (perennial)
Chayote
Hyacinth Bean
Velvet Bean
Opuntia cochenillifera
Calabaza pumpkins (Cucurbita moschata)
Sugar Cane (IF in wet soil)
Celosia spicata
Lemon Grass

Essay Contest to meet Joel Salatin

http://www.chipotle.com/en-us/html/meetjoelsalatin.html

I Grow Both The Pig Chaya And The More Common Palmate Leaf Type: Great Overview

http://www.echonet.org/content/100underutilized/775

Joel Salatin here in Tampa

Joel Salatin will be LIVE on 88.5FM! Today at 11am with Jon Butts (one of our Local Joels!) on his Sustainable Living show. Get a taste of what's to come at the dinner, Get inspired, Get TUFF.

WMNF 88.5 FM Community Radio, Tampa

www.wmnf.org

Alanis Morrisette

It's been a while since I obsessed on a new music video, but this one simply captivates and inspires and mystifies me. She is a remarkable artist, and I loved her portrayal of God in 'Dogma'.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOgpT5rEKIU

Down on the farm today....

I have a delicious case of spring fever once again, and after continuing a deep cleaning and re-do of my bedroom, I went to my southeast bed out back, revamped recently after the donated 5 foot tall goat fencing at last kept the chickens out, and pulled up easily 200 more seedlings of balsam apple vine, which last year consumed the Persian Lime, Meyer's Lemon and Ponderosa Lemon. I carried about 8 bags of oak leaves dropped off by kind neighbors and spread a very thick layer beneath and around those trees in hopes of stopping more seedlings from germinating. I WILL keep that damned weed from choking out that bed this year! Since my teens I've loved eating the sweet red pulp inside the orange fruits that form in late summer and fall, but not enough to let it grow ANYWHERE in my yard anymore. I can always gather then and the medicinal leaves in the wild. The Surinam Cherry at the south end of that bed is blooming  so yesterday for the first time in years I fed it and gave it a deep watering. Once I take out the last of the empty 4 inch pots from the south end of that bed, and chop up the branches chopped from the Brazillian Pepper in the yard behind me, I will throw in some logs, cover each with a bucket of soil, then cover the whole area thickly with leaves as a form of hugel kultur mulch. Once they are big enough to move, about ten papaya seedlings will go into that bed to create a light shade canopy while boosting my production of both green and ripe fruits.

In this oddly early heat my arugula and nasturtiums are fading fast and quite prematurely. The upside is that I got a 100% strike rate on the green sugar cane cuttings I brought from Dad's yard, am seeing widespread germination of self sown seedlings of Molokhiya and Celosia spicata, and such early sprouting of aerial tubers of Purple Yam, Yellow Yam and White Yam that I can now pot them up in 1 gallon pots for sale in several weeks. And while this heat caused a sudden emergence of the Spanish Needle 'Bidens" I so loathe, it is decimating the Florida Pellitory (that all these years I thought was Chickweed until Andy Firk set me straight)....I am daily pulling up both to feed to the poultry out back, which should do wonders to thwart seed production this year so I can eventually ELIMINATE them from this lot.

For weeks now I've been enjoying blooms of both our native Iris hexagona, and a few Louisiana Iris that are hybrids of it and other Iris species native to swamps in the southeast U.S. Sure they don't have the heady perfumes of the Bearded Iris I grew in Denver, but their colors and forms are lovely.

 Iris hexagona

 Louisiana Iris 'Hurricane Party

Molokhiya

Today I again took cuttings from the wonderfully sweet juicing orange that my wonderful but sadly deceased neighbor behind me, Bill Yarawski, planted in 1961. I tried a few years ago and failed....IF these root I love the idea of me and his kids growing them in our gardens as living remembrances of him. He had SUCH a sense of humor, revealed in the pic he had me take years ago in his back yard with his wife Theresa. Good folks to the core and THE best neighbors I have ever had.

The chickens are laying like crazy, but for a few weeks I will be a little less generous, and sell a few less dozen, and freeze a few tubs to enjoy next winter when they are not laying. Here is the easy method I learned in Denver in the early 90s:
Crack enough raw eggs to nearly fill your blender, add a teaspoon of sea salt, buzz, let sit a few minutes to be sure the salt has dissolved, buzz it again and let it sit a few minutes for the foam to settle down, then pour into recycled and cottage cheese tubs for quiches. For one person servings, pour into small yogurt cups, label and freeze.

As ominous signs about the global economy mount, let's Occupy our gardens and homes, pay down debt and take on no new debt, put up food for long term storage, try to save up some cash, stockpile non-GMO seeds, and WHEN Usrael attacks Iran, let's NOT "Support Our Troops" and instead do our best to not feed the soulless machine of an economy based on wars of choice for profit based on lies started by the 1%. They are rich enough already and don't deserve our money OR the blood of our sons and daughters.