Effective, cheap-to-free home made plant ties

Don’t you just love it when the best solutions in life and gardening are easy, even free? Those of us who grow tomatoes, pole beans, plus climbing roses, grapes and tropical flowering vines have bought expensive plant twist ties that are often cumbersome to use and then later on strangle the plant’s stems as they grow. But once again, creative recycling comes to the rescue.

Your women friends may at first think you’re a bit kinky when you ask them to save for you their panty hose with runs until they see you can make 20 or more very effective plant ties from each one! Heck, they may start to keep them for themselves!

Gather the rump section into a wad in one hand, then ust use a sharp pair of scissors to cut off the waist band so that it ends up a ring; snip it once to make a long, strong, flexible band perfect for training stiff-stemmed grapes and climbing roses and cherry tomatoes. Depending on what plant you are training, you may be able to cut it in two.

Then cut off each leg, snip off each toe end and discard that, then cut each leg into 10 equal lengths. Slip those rings over one hand and use the other to stretch them several times till they curl themselves up into little tubes. Snip that handful of nylon loops and voila! You’ve got a nice bundle of long plant ties perfect for training vines to a trellis or chain link fence. Need shorter ones? Cut the bundle in half again and double the number of plant ties.

Cut the rump section remaining into about 3 rings and snip those once for medium strength plant ties perfect for patio tomatoes or flowering vines like mandevilla or allamanda.
　
Using them is way-easy; just loop a nylon tie around a stem once, then tie it to the fence or trellis using a double knot. In no time you’ll train vines all over that formerly ugly chain link fence. I use them to train my climbing and rambling roses up 10 foot lengths of construction rebar pounded 3 feet into the ground to create lovely English-style "rose pillars" in my garden and that of my clients. Resistant to UV and rain, these nylon ties stretch as stems grow, preventing strangulation.

An entire panty hose leg can be used where great strength is needed, such as on mature muscadine grapes, Wichuriana rambling roses, and bougainvillas. Unsightly at first, they are soon consumed and hidden by new growth.

Hey, waste not, want not...recycle those panty hose and get a leg up on your unruly vines!

Urban Farmsteading 202

This followup to the very well-received Basics of Urban Farmsteading class zeros in to focus on five key aspects: Easily converting lawn areas into gardens, backyard poultry raising, dramatically reducing your household and landscape water use, perennial food crops and creating healthy soil. Any sunny yard can produce a surprising amount of home grown organic produce, and implementing these five principles will allow your household to enjoy a great degree of independence from corporate farming while saving you a lot of money. My jungly urban farm is the classroom, and you will see the final transition from the summer crops to the cool weather crops that thrive here in winter. You will get a class lesson handout plus 2 free packets of winter crops seeds, learn of local and mail order resources, plus taste some alternative crops. I am teaching this class once in January, on the 24th, from 11 AM until 1 PM with a 30 minute Q & A session afterwards. The cost is $25 per student, or $20 each in groups of 4 to encourage carpooling due to limited parking. Be sure to bring a notepad and pen and an eagerness to learn further about urban self sufficiency in these lean times and to boost future prosperity and security. Our demanding yards can instead be sources of abundance. My address is: 3212 West Paxton Avenue Tampa FL 33611 813 839 0881. RSVP is helpful but not necessary. Thanks and happy gardening! John Starnes

Basics of Urban Farmsteading Class

More and more folks know that there is wonderful security and satisfaction in being able to prepare many of our meals from abundant gardens around our homes, but don't know where to start. Imagine FRESH omelets and meat from a backyard henhouse, home grown organic salads, or expensive "exotic" crops such as arugula, Barbados Cherry, cassava, chaya, papaya, many herbs and staple crops for Thai and other ethnic cuisines fresh your own yard. Organic landscape consultant and garden writer John Starnes (St. Pete Times, Fine Gardening, Florida Gardening) shows how to make the transition in stages based on your time, temperament, budget and goals, using his jungly south Tampa "urban farm" as the classroom. Learn the ease of "sheet composting" vs. buying an expensive compost bin, using household graywater and urine (sounds "gross" to some but is a totally safe key aspect of permaculture) to nourish your crops and cut your water bill, cheap and easy organic pest control, plus a very effective, low-labor method for killing lawn areas in place and turning them into productive gardens. Take a quick peek at low-tech solar cookers and shower water heaters made from scavenged materials. You will receive a detailed class handout, but be sure to bring a notepad and pen, and, if you wish, a camera, as people tell me that my classes are very information dense. You will also receive two packets of hard-to-get vegetable seeds and instructions on growing and preparing the crops. I will be teaching this well-received class four more times in January, on the 2nd, 10th, 17th and the 30th, from 11 AM until 1 PM, followed by a 30 minute Q & A session. The cost is $25 per person, or $20 per person in carloads of four or more to help foster considerate parking for my neighbors. My address is: 3212 West Paxton Avenue Tampa 33611, which about 6 blocks south of Gandy and 1 1/2 blocks west of MacDill. Look for the jungly yard. I hope to see folks then eager to transform their yards into sources of sustenance and spiritual satisfaction. John Starnes

Basics of Home Poultry Raising

Many folks these days are considering, or have followed through on, pursuing a long time desire to raise backyard chickens for fresh eggs or even meat they know the origins of. But if one does not know some key basic data, enthusiasm can result in great needless expense, losses to racoons, and a long-imagined "fun" hobby offering frustration instead of omelets. This class covers how to make a predator-proof hen house cheaply or even for free, how to feed chickens for free (chicken scratch from a feedstore surprises people with its cost), preventing disease without using antibiotics, hatching fertile eggs for free chickens, insuring a quality life for your birds, and how children can help easily while learning where food REALLY comes from......children 12 and under can attend for free. I am teaching this class on January 9th from 11 AM until 1 PM, with a 30 minute Q & A session after. My address is: 3212 West Paxton Avenue, Tampa FL 33611, about 6 blocks south of Gandy and 1 1/2 blocks west of MacDill, jungly yard on the south side. The cost is $25 per student. Please bring a note pad and pen as we will cover many points. You will receive a pack of winter greens seeds to grow to provide raw green plant matter VITAL to having healthy chickens. I should be able to give each person a fresh egg, too. 813 839 0881 to RSVP. "bwawk bwawk bwawk!" John Starnes
Location: south Tampa
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Successful Organic Winter Salads, Herbs and Veggies Growing Class

The cool winter temps are here, and a fall and winter veggie garden is by far the best confidence builder for a beginning gardener due to frost hardy crops that LOVE the cold, and the scarcity of bug and disease problems during the cool season. Learn how to choose your garden site, and employing probiotic soil healing and creation methods that do wonders to encourage lush growth in your cool season crops while greatly discouraging disease and pest issues, techniques useful year round that I shared for eight years in The St. Pete Times and still do in 'Florida Gardening' magazine. Even better is the low cost of this approach so that growing a garden really DOES cut your food bill. You will receive a handout with a long list of frost hardy, cool season veggies so you can seek them out now and store them in your fridge (not freezer) until planting time for excellent germination for kids and adults who could use some confidence building as gardeners. You will also receive two packets of very rare winter vegetable seeds to help insure success and abundance in your garden. The cost is $25 per student, or $20 each in groups of four to ease my limited parking. I am teaching this well-received class twice more in January, on the 16th and the 23rd, from 11AM until 1 PM, with a half hour Q & A session after. Please bring a note pad and pen as students tell me my classes are very information dense. The address is: 3212 West Paxton Avenue, Tampa FL 33611 and my phone is 813 839 0881 if you have any questions. E-mail is: JohnAStarnes@msn.com The winter garden is by far the easiest and most productive for beginning gardeners, and is the best way to boost your gardening confidence, and now is the time to create the foundation for abundant success! Happy Gardening John Starnes

Water Wise Container Gardening Class

The LONG winter dry season has arrived, and we've had no tropical storms to saturate the soil beforehand. Plus, hopefully, we are all making wise water use a central focus in our lives as Florida's population continues to boom. So I've invented an alternative home made container garden that grows food and flower crops well with much less water, and that can be made for free to just $10. As a result, despite my yard being an urban farm, my June water use bill was just $1.35! This class teaches you how to make your own from free recycled plastic containers, how to create a great soil mix for it, and easy ways to maintain and sustain yours using cheap and/or dumpster-dived supplies. This simple design avoids the problems that many have experienced with others often described as "self watering containers" and that can cost $100. You'll see several of mine in differing styles and stages of growth to help you decide what works best for you and your space and budget. I love how they use VERY little water vs. my growing the same crops, including my beloved Old Roses, in my in-ground gardens. Growing food crops in this manner can also allow a gardener to avoid using Tampa's and St. Pete's reclaimed water that has caused severe difficulties for many folks due to the very high levels of salt and chlorides. Plus one is not supposed to eat raw veggies grown with reclaimed water, which rules out growing fresh salads and herbs from one's own garden! Special attention will be paid to the very common problem of nitrogen deficiency often encountered in container gardening whether one makes one's own soil as I do, or purchases it in bulk or bagged. You will get two packs of very hard to get vegetable seeds that will thrive all winter long in your Water Wise Container Gardens. The cost of the class is $25 per person, or $20 per person in groups of four to encourage car pooling due to my limited parking. This class has been very well received, so I am teaching it again on January 3rd, from 11 AM until 1 PM, with a 30 minute Q & A session following. My address is 3212 West Paxton Avenue, Tampa FL 33611. Phone is 813 839 0881, e-mail is JohnAStarnes@msn.com. RSVP is not required but helpful in my planning each class. Come learn how to grow your own organic produce for a fraction of what you pay in the stores while slashing your water use and bill and avoiding the toxic-to-plants reclaimed water. Happy Gardening! John Starnes

Rain Harvesting

If they can do this in that arid climate, think of the possibilities in other regions.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Rain_harvesting_saves_Tuscon_water_999.html

ECHO: Christian Permaculture Organization

I am not Christian (nor of any faith for that matter) but I love promoting these great folks for the wonderful work they do that I feel represents the best intents and fruits of the Christian faith. Lots of very powerful permaculture applications to be learned from them, plus they sell cool seeds to help fund their noble aspirations and efforts.

http://www.echonet.org/

Bean There, Done That

Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart, the more you eat the more you’ve art in your landscape. But I’m not talkin’ pinto and navy beans, but some beautifully flowering exotic tropical "beans" that grow like crazy from spring into fall. Their lush vines boast a blend of blooms and protein-rich bean pods for bouquets and the dinner plate. All they need is full sun, soil enriched with dog food nuggets, and an ugly fence you’d love to see transformed into a lovely flowering "trellis". They love conditions here in Tampa, but I don't see why they would not grow most anywhere in summer, as even in Denver's painfully short growing season many did well for me.
Remember Scarlet Runner Beans (Phaseolus coccineus) from our grandma’s flower gardens? A white mailbox looks charming swathed in those emerald leaves and ruby blooms. Imagine picking and nibbling a crisp raw pod as you reach in for the daily mail! Chop them into salads and stir fry for a taste and texture you can’t buy in the produce market. And those crisp red blooms add a sweet surprise to salads! Look for them in the garden flowers section of seed displays.

The Yard Long Bean (Vigna unguiculata var. sesquipedalis) is sold in Asian veggie seed displays. A staple of Chinese cooking, this relative of the Black Eyed Pea thrives just as well in long muggy summers. Expect the lovely orchid-like flowers to quickly transform into bean pods up to 3 feet long, though they are best picked when a foot long and sweetly tender. Easy and thus great for kids to grow, they also provide newly unfolded leaves excellent when chopped into soups and stir fry for extra fiber, bright green color, and healthy nutrition.

Want to freak out friends, neighbors, passers-by and dinner guests? Grow "African Jack Beans" (Canavalia ensiformis) and watch jaws drop first when the vines rival those in ‘Jack and the Bean Stalk’, then again when monstrous bean pods form. I use mine in soups and stir fry when6- 8 inches long and crisply tender, pods and all. When they are 8-10 inches long and plump they are wonderful cooked in their jackets on a covered barbecue grille, then eaten like giant edamame soybeans a finger food, each plump seed taking much like an excellent butter bean.Think that size DOES matter? Grow African Jack Beans! I also grow the Florida native "Beach Bean" (Canavalia rosea) plus "Chinese Sword Bean" (Canavalia gladiata) for their lovely giant pods and serve them the same ways.

Prized in Filipino cuisine, the green-podded Hyacinth Bean (Dilochos lablab) is tastier and grows far more luxuriantly than the equally edible purple-podded "ornamental" kind sold in flower seed racks. If you don’t have a Filipino neighbor who can share seeds with you, look for them on-line or in the seed display in an Asian market. Lovely on a chain link fence, bedecked with flowers reminiscent of wisterias, Hyacinth Beans cover my henhouse each summer to provide shade and nutritious leaves they love to peck at and nibble. By summer you can pick the flat green pods and shuck out flat green beans that when lightly cooked taste much like edamame’ soybeans. Allowed to ripen and dry on the vines, the tan pods can be shattered to release beautiful black seeds, each with a white spot, that can be cooked like any dried bean. All summer long I treat myself to petite bouquets of the long-stemmed lavender blooms yet still end up with numbers of beans for stir fry and soups. In past years I grew the green podded type and ate them like edamame soybeans as the pods are too tough to eat whole, but in 2008 I tried the variety "Purple Moon" and sold.....wonderfully tender stringless lavender pods, both raw and cooked, and extra large beautiful flowers covering the graceful rampant vines.

How about a living "fence" that gives you privacy and puts food on the table? Yup, the summer months offer us a perfect chance to screen a hot tub or back yard from view with graceful green growth, lovely red and yellow flowers while providing a steady source of tropical "beans" savored all over the Caribbean. And when is the last time you bought a privacy fence for about $1 at a grocery store? Go straight to the ethnic foods isle where the Cuban foods are and buy a bag of dried "Gandule Beans", also called "Pigeon Peas". This tropical perennial legume is known botanically as Cajanus cajan and loves a hot humid climate yet will usually will regrow from the bottom following a freeze here in central Florida. (And if not, spend another dollar!). Just plant one bean about 1 inch deep every foot all along where you wish your "fence" to grow, and water weekly if there is no rain. While they will grow faster in improved fertile soil, gandule beans do well in most soils once the summer rains kick in.Tender young leaves may be stripped off and used in stir fries, but it is the green pods I enjoy most. Boiled in salted water for 10 minutes, then drained and cooled, they make a wonderful TV snack if shucked and eaten like the increasingly popular edamame soybeans. If you allow the pods to ripen and turn brown, they will yield new gandule beans you can cook and serve with rice. (Lots of recipes on-line!) Plus you can plant some elsewhere in your yard for a new screen to block a view. Gandule beans are also excellent soil nitrogen enrichers due to the beneficial rhizobia bacteria living in their root nodules.

Like fresh homegrown bouquets? In the morning, cut pigeon pea branches tipped with fresh yellow and red blooms that resemble sweet peas for graceful exotic arrangements. If after a year or so your gandule bean fence gets lanky, just cut it back by half when spring comes, feed the soil with manure or compost or menhaden fish meal from a feed store, and watch it regrow dense and full, bearing an extra heavy new crop of pods.

Native to India, the Velvet Bean (Mucuna pruriens) is the world's richest source of L-dopa and is being grown commercially to treat both Parkinson's and Restless Leg Syndrome. Body builders take it in capsule form to build up lean muscle mass, and studies show that men who take Velvet Bean extract daily for three weeks, then stop for three weeks, then keep on repeating the cycle, have delayed graying of hair and less body fat due to it triggering the pituitary gland producing more human growth hormone. Ayurvedic medicine has used the Velvet Bean for many centuries as a life extension aid, and as an aphrodisiac for men and women.....I can attest to that latter effect! The oddly beautiful surrealistic blooms look like wisteria on acid, and appear at the end of summer and quickly transform into the velvety pods. The wild strain has stinging orange hairs on the pods, but I got my soft velvety non-stinging form from the good permaculture folks at Echo in south Florida. I've been doing that three week cycling fairly regularly for almost 6 years now and wonder if that partly is why at 56 I still have no gray hair.

All of these various beans are easy to grow in full sun and warm weather....just scatter dog food nuggets all along a fence (a 20 lb. bag will do a 1 foot wide 20 foot long strip of soil), plus a 20 lb. bag of cheap white clay cat litter (if you have sandy soil), and 20 lbs. of alfalfa pellets from a feed store, turn them under with a shovel, plant one seed every 2 feet or so, mulch with two inches of chipped tree trimming waste or coastal hay, and water deeply weekly till the summer rains kick in. Then jump back out of their way!

Got beans?

SOURCES:
ECHONET 239-543-3246 fax 239-543-5317 http://www.echonet.org/
EVERGREEN SEEDS 714-637-5769 http://www.evergreenseeds.com/
BAKER CREEK HEIRLOOM SEEDS http://www.rareseeds.com/

　
　
　
　

CNN report on backyard chickens

Here in Tampa the number of folks with backyard chickens has increased dramatically, and the city has eased rules about it. I hope you enjoy this clip about the phenomenon in Louisville.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/12/26/ky.urban.chickens.wave

Beyond Frugal

Okay I admit it...I’m a perennial lifelong tightwad who dives at pennies in parking lots, scrounges treasures on curb sides and in dumpsters, and who shops mainly at Big Lots and Dollar Tree.... IF I spend money. A lifetime of creative frugality has left me debt and mortgage free, growing most of my food in my yard so as to have greater freedom in life while saving up a rainy day nest egg. Here are some favorite ways I garden and landscape for free or close to it.
Ten foot lengths of white vinyl rain gutters cost about $6 each and make very attractive edgings for flower gardens, their cheery new whiteness accenting the colors of the flowers growing behind them. They are easy to cut to desired lengths with a hack saw, and placed upside down on the ground make a stable and long lasting edger perfect for holding back mulch while delineating a garden.

White exterior latex paint, cheap by the gallon as a "mistint" at paint stores, is a frugal and easy way to bring fresh "newness" to tired old concrete fountains and bird baths, plus wooden fences and patio furniture. Spray white gloss enamel, just $1-$2 per can, will spruce up a bird feeder, mail box and other features in your landscape. I get my paint for free dumpster diving at hardware stores, or when neighbors set out cans of it on garbage day.

Trying to transition to organic bug and fungus control, but are shocked by the price of brand name safe soap sprays? Southern gardeners have been making their own version for pennies for a century now. Just buy a bar of the old fashioned soap "Kirk’s Castile" for about $1, rub it against a cheese grater, and mix three tablespoons of the flakes in a gallon of hot water. Let it sit overnight. Sprayed onto plants afflicted with aphids, spider mites, the non-toxic soapy solution quickly suffocates and desiccates them. It is also useful for foliar fungi, such as powdery mildew on squash and roses, or black spot on roses. Got a big yard and want to make a large batch? Drop a bar into a wide mouth one gallon jar, fill with hot water, and let sit a week, perhaps buzzing it once with a handheld blender to eliminate any lumps. This one gallon of soap gel is your base concentrate and will "keep" for years in a sealed container. Try mixing one cup to ten cups water for a strong batch for tough-bodied pests like stink bugs, or one cup per gallon of water in your pump sprayer for aphids and mites and fungi. Each gallon of spray will cost just pennies, do wonders to control pests into this new century, while being safe for kids, pets, and the environment at large.

Want a goldfish pond but freak at the cost of a black pond shell? Buy a 6 foot diameter blue plastic kiddie wading pool, lower it into a hole two inches shallower than it so the rim is above the soil line, use a carpenter’s level to position it, pour in an inch of rinsed pea gravel, then fill with well water or city water (recycled water can be very high in sodium and chlorine). Let it age for 3 days. Sprinkle in one cup of dolomitic lime for the health of the fish, water plants and goldfish, one cup of ‘Pondzyme’ bacteria and enzymes to help keep the water clear and healthy, and one cup of Sunniland Palm 8-6-6 to provide nutrients for the water plants that will purify and oxygenate the water. A few days later drop into the water a few bundles of the aquatic plants CRUCIAL to keeping the water clear. In mild climates like here in Florida, use "Hot Water Cabomba" and a dozen ordinary small brown pond snails to scavenge wastes......DON’T buy "apple snails" as they will decimate your water plants. In cold climates use the aquatic plant "Hornwort" as I did in Denver for my own and my clients' ponds. In about a week, when you see green algae colonizing the pond sides to become the main filter and oxygenator plus food source for the fish, add about one dozen "feeder goldfish" (not koi...they will also decimate your plants) that are about 15 cents each at pet supply stores. Once a week ONLY, toss in 3 dry dog food nuggets to act as a supplement to their main diet of algae and mosquito larvae. You’ll be amazed at how quickly they grow, and at how soon your pond’s ecology has stabilized, all without expensive pumps or filters and chemicals. Cost of your all-natural pond should be between $20 and $30 total, depending on the cost of the kiddie pool. If you mulch around the pond then cover the blue pond lip with flat stones, the "look" can be quite natural.

Garden hose has a leak? Don’t buy a new one when a $2 hose splicer kit will do the trick. Cut the hose with an old steak knife and discard the leaky portion, slip the repair collars over each end, then plunge each cut end in a saucepan of boiling water for 1 minute. This makes the hose cut ends expand and become pliable enough to insert the splicer tube. Pull the collars together and tighten the screws. Voila’ ! Fixed hose!

Bulk vegetable and flower seeds divied up between gardening friends can save a lot of money. Applewood Seeds in Golden, Colorado will sell and ship to personal gardeners......two years ago I got a POUND of nasturtium seeds for $14! A POUND of white sweet alyssum, about 1.2 MILLION seeds as I recall, was $16! Their number is: 303-431-7333...tell them I sent you. Locally, Shell’s Feed in north Tampa (813- 932-9775) sells VERY generous packs of veggies seeds, often with thousands of seeds per packet, for about $1.25! Aimed at farmers, these bulk seeds packets can be a great reward for pooling seeds purchases with friends. Shell’s also sells farmer size bags of BT (Dipel aka Bacillus thuringiensis) for caterpillar control that will treat a few ACRES and remain viable for years if stored in the fridge. A four pound bag is just $5.49!

Being cheap, ahem, I mean "frugal", can do wonders for your budget while being a fun yet practical way to tap into your native creativity. Take the ball and run with it...hey, there’s a penny on the ground!

Birds for Beauty and Pest Control

Since my late 20s, whenever I've moved to a new rental or home, I've taken a few easy immediate steps to let the local birds see and know that my yard was to be an ideal place to visit for food, water, nesting materials and shelter. The first thing I do is find a local dumpster where I can routinely rescue baked goods, so I can toss buns and bagels and such onto the roof and my yard so that birds flying overhead learn soon to visit often. I also set out water: even a garbage can lid set on the ground and kept filled with fresh water until I dumpster dive a bird bath gives wild birds the drinking water they are so often desperate for. (In Denver each winter I'd set out trays of WARM water and set candles shielded from the wind beneath a birdbath as drinking water for birds there is frozen solid so very often). Stuffing dog hair from groomers (just ask, they will give you BAGS of it), old sweaters shredded with a razor and lint from dryers into the branches of shrubs and trees will give Mom and Dad birds materials to make the inside of their nests soft and warm for the hatchlings.

Why do this? They are beautiful to see and hear, plus their visits can do wonders to control crop-damaging pests like aphids, caterpillars and grasshoppers and grubs as they feed on them. I love to see them nest in giant rose bushes and shrubs and trees in my yard, and thanks to my Colorado friend Denny Arter, and, later, my Albuquerque rosarian friend Lee Sherman, and their gifts of lovely bird books, I now love to learn to truly "see" new birds in my gardens and then try to ID them in those books.

When I bought my retirement home here in south Tampa in 1998 it was blank beyond a few shrubs....now it is a jungle, teeming with lizards and amphibians and oodles of birds that daily add joy to my life, like the female Ruby Throat hummingbird that began visiting the Firespike (Odontonema strictum) just outside my home office window this last fall, or the Brown Thrasher that recently has begun visiting the apricot brugsmansia next to the Firespike....a real thrill to see it for a minute at a time just three feet away beyond the window glass!

The human onslaught of North America with development and pesticides and deforestation has resulted in huge, tragic declines in many song bird populations. Until humans begin breeding responsibly, destruction of habitats for wildlife, including birds, will continue and accelerate. But I am hopeful in spite of it all as more and more people make their yards bird-friendly. It does not take one cent to do this, just a decision to set out a tray of water and starchy scraps, like stale cereal, as a first, easy, free yet surprisingly rewarding first step.

I hope you enjoy these photos of some birds that have visited my gardens.

John

Cool Weather, Frost Hardy Crops

Folks have asked me to post the names of veggies to grow in our mild Florida winters, and these wonderful crops are thus classic early spring crops in cold areas, such as my 15 years in Denver, where late frosts and snow would not affect them (tomatoes excepted of course, as they are a winter crop in Florida due to our hot muggy summers stifling them). Note that leaves of all the Brassicas are edible raw or cooked.....try broccoli leaves in a salad, or cauliflower and Brussel's Sprouts leaves cooked as "greens". I've written the names of varieties after each crop that have proven very reliable for me over the years in both Colorado and Florida since 1983.

Brassicas:

Broccoli- Waltham 29
Bok Choi

Barkant Turnip
Brussell’s Sprouts
Cabbage

Barnapoli Rape
Turnips- Shogoin
Cauliflower
Mustard greens-Green Wave, Giant Red,

(like wasabi when raw!)
Kohlrabi

Mizuna

Arugula

Daikon Radish- Minovase

Tat Soi

Wong Bok

Chinese Cabbage

Kale

Rapini (Broccoli-raab)

Collards- Georgia

Assorted:

Swiss Chard

Corn Salad (Mache)
Snow and Sugar Snap Peas
Carrots- Danver's Half Long
Lettuce-Paris Cos
Nasturtium-Dwarf Jewel Mix
Cilantro
Beets- Detroit types
Potatoes
Roma and cherry tomatoes-Sweet 100,

Money Maker, Big Boy, Better Boy

Alliums:
Leeks-American Flag

Garlic

Shallots

Chives

Scallions

Canada Garlic (Allium canadensis)

Free Garden Signs

Mini-blinds set atop garbage cans are a common sight......for years I've hit the brakes and grabbed white ones as just one mini-blind can easily yield 100 garden signs. Just snip the strings near the top as that lets you pull out individual blinds easily. Cut them into the lengths you want, write the plant or crop name on it using a No. 2 pencil and presto, you have a free garden sign that can last a year or more in the garden. Long ones let you record additional data, like date of planting, parentages and pollination dates if you are a rose or plant breeder as I am, age of seeds, varietal name, etc. Many gardeners have been burned by pricey plant signs that promise to never fade, get brittle, etc, so making ones own from discarded mini-blinds and cheap pencils (I get TONS of No. 2 pencils when dumpster diving at condos and department stores) lets you save money and finally be able to keep a clear record of how various plants perform for you.

seeds of Barkant Turnip

BARKANT TURNIPS are a very vigorous forage turnip with lush leafy tops and large purple and white tasty roots high in natural sugars. Bred for dairy farmers, this relative of the famous 'Purple Top Globe' has a very mild flavor so as to not taint the cow’s milk and thus is a good choice for people who do not like strong flavored greens and turnips. The leaves are great raw in salads, or chopped into a stir fry, soup, or cooked southern style with smoked bacon or hamhocks. Many people who dislike turnip roots cooked love them raw in salads. Sow the seeds from October through February in Florida and similar climates as it is a cool season brassica vegetable. Sow in early spring in colder climates. Normally sold only to farmers in 25 or 50 lb. bags. You will receive 1 teaspoon of the seeds, (approx. 600 seeds) for $3 plus a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope sent to me at: John Starnes 3212 West Paxton Avenue Tampa FL 33611 I will fill your order quickly. Thanks and happy gardening! John

Frost Hardy Leafy Greens Seeds

BARNAPOLI RAPE is a very vigorous brassica vegetable with lush tender leaves much like a very mild collard green reminiscent of broccoli leaves in both color and taste. It loves the winter months in Florida as do collards and other brassicas. In cold climates it should be planted in early spring as it can take late frosts and snows just like kale. Bred for dairy farmers it has a very mild flavor so as to not taint the cow’s milk and thus is a good choice for people who do not like tough, strong flavored greens. Use the silvery blue-green leaves raw in salads or added to stir fry, omelets, casseroles and soups. Sow the seeds from October through February in Florida and other similar mild winter areas as it is a cool season brassica vegetable that resents heat. Normally sold only to farmers in 25 or 50 lb. bags. You will receive 1 teaspoon of the seeds, (approx. 600 seeds) for $3 plus a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope sent to me at : John Starnes 3212 West Paxton Avenue Tampa FL 33611. I will fill your order quickly. Thanks and happy gardening! John

Holiday Gifts That Make Scents

Perhaps no other sense so touches the human heart as does scent...it can revive and renew cherished memories and create new ones to savor a lifetime. The holiday season is a blessed chance to give soulful living treasures to loved ones who will think of us every time they indulge in the sultry sweetness. And budgets of all sizes, even in these tight times, can accommodate the range of prices.
Fastest and easiest to grow and least expensive are bulbs of the Paperwhite Narcissus, usually about $1 each in bulk bins or mesh bags. Plant one to three of them in a small decorative pot 2/3's filled with bagged mushroom compost, water well, then cover the soil with an inch of glass marbles or rinsed pea gravel, or small seashells from the beach. In less than a month the lush foliage and flower spikes will emerge and fill your lucky recipient’s home with that astonishing musky sweet perfume. I for years have given them less than a week after planting the bulbs, so they can witness the entire growth process (a great gift for children to give OR receive). Other folks like grow them in advance so as to be in bloom when given. Either way, this gift from the heart is easy on the budget while offering priceless joy.
Have a local friend who loves roses but who laments the lack of scent and abundant hassle so often encountered by those who try to grow them in Florida? Have friends up north who miss fragrance too? Wow the northern folks first with the arrival of a gift card from the good folks at The Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham, Texas (1-800-441-0002 or http://www.antiqueroseemporium.com/ ), then later a husky own root rose growing in a 2 gallon pot in a tall and sturdy shipping box delivered to their front porch at the time best for their climate. They can take out the rose, feed and water it, and in six weeks have the heart stirring aroma of roses like our great grandmothers grew. Your Florida friends will get their rose before the holidays if you order by December 10. All can later transplant their rose gift into a five gallon pot filled with a 50/50 mix of potting soil and mushroom compost, with a dozen crushed eggshells buried deep to supply calcium for years of healthy growth. Lusciously fragrant roses for your Florida friends and family would include ‘Cramoisi Superieur’ (cherry red), ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ (pale flesh pink), "Maggie" (deep magenta), ‘Blush Noisette’ (baby blanket pink), 'Autumn Damask', and my own snow white hybrid ‘Sarasota Spice’. Extremely sweet roses for northern gardens I grew in Denver include ‘Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’ (pale salmon pink), ‘General Jacqueminot’ (deep red), ‘Baronne Prevost’ (rose pink) and ‘Hansa’ (fuchsia). Imagine that....roses for the nose that will grow easily!
Folks with gardening souls living in condos and apartments would love to get potted plants that are easy to grow in small sunny spaces and that boast a whole spectrum of perfumes. The generations-old ‘Logee’s Greenhouse’ (1-888-330-8038 or http://www.logees.com)/) grows treasures just for the holiday season, shipped to the doors of the lucky recipients. And as they thrive and increase in size, they can be transplanted to larger pots. I’d suggest potently-perfumed gems like Sambac Jasmine, Night Blooming Jessamine, ‘Belmont’ gardenia, Osmanthus ‘Sweet Olive’, Murraya paniculata, Winter Jasmine, dwarf Meyer’s Lemon, or Stephanotis floribunda. While the plants DO arrive small, they should grow quickly for many years of their heady aromas.
Go ahead.....touch someone’s heart and thrill their nose with lovely living gifts that make scents this holiday season.

Water Wise Container Gardening Class

The LONG winter dry season has arrived, and we've had no tropical storms to saturate the soil beforehand. Plus, hopefully, we are all making wise water use a central focus in our lives as Florida's population continues to boom. So I've invented an alternative home made container garden that grows food and flower crops well with much less water, and that can be made for free to just $10. As a result, despite my yard being an urban farm, my June water use bill was just $1.35! This class teaches you how to make your own from free recycled plastic containers, how to create a great soil mix for it, and easy ways to maintain and sustain yours using cheap and/or dumpster-dived supplies. This simple design avoids the problems that many have experienced with others often described as "self watering containers" and that can cost $100. You'll see several of mine in differing styles and stages of growth to help you decide what works best for you and your space and budget. I love how they use VERY little water vs. my growing the same crops, including my beloved Old Roses, in my in-ground gardens. Growing food crops in this manner can also allow a gardener to avoid using Tampa's and St. Pete's reclaimed water that has caused severe difficulties for many folks due to the very high levels of salt and chlorides. Plus one is not supposed to eat raw veggies grown with reclaimed water, which rules out growing fresh salads and herbs from one's own garden! Special attention will be paid to the very common problem of nitrogen deficiency often encountered in container gardening whether one makes one's own soil as I do, or purchases it in bulk or bagged. You will get two packs of very hard to get vegetable seeds that will thrive all winter long in your Water Wise Container Gardens. The cost of the class is $25 per person, or $20 per person in groups of four to encourage car pooling due to my limited parking. This class has been very well received, so I am teaching it again on December 20th, from 11 AM until 1 PM, with a 30 minute Q & A session following. My address is 3212 West Paxton Avenue, Tampa FL 33611. Phone is 813 839 0881, e-mail is JohnAStarnes@msn.com. RSVP is not required but helpful in my planning each class. Come learn how to grow your own organic produce for a fraction of what you pay in the stores while slashing your water use and bill and avoiding the toxic-to-plants reclaimed water.

Coupons for my gardening classes this winter and in 2010 make ideal holiday gifts for gardening friends! $25 each or five for $100. Happy Gardening! John Starnes

"Currant Tomato" for hot summers

If you can live with thousands (literally) of tiny, TASTY, blueberry-sized tomatoes, get seeds of the wild ancestral species Lycopersicon pimpinellifollium, nicknamed "Currant Tomato". INSANE vigor if started in winter or spring here in Tampa, spring in colder climates. Seeds are not too hard to find..some feel it is native to Brazil though it is found wild up into Texas. I've had plants sprawl 8 feet across and 4 feet tall as a groundcover.

http://www.tradewindsfruitstore.com/servlet/the-981/Currant-Tomato--dsh--Lycopersicon

Dumpter Diving with Animal Planet's "Most Extreme" crew

I will always treasure the memory of working with these delightful guys, who took such extreme care to get the best shots, sound quality while being respectful of me. I enjoyed getting a bit of a crush on their handsome producer Daniel Allan, who cracked me up with a "test dive" into the dumpster to practice camera angles and such. A fun two days, plus I love the sequence they did of my Gay Trailer Trash on Acid livingroom work-in-progress, which I will post a few pics of until I get my blog about my various creative endeavors up and running. Pigging out on sushi their last night in town was a wonderful cap to a delightful experience with them. John

Tightwad Tips for Home Poultry Raising

Many people who've long wanted to try having a few backyard chickens for eggs or even meat are now pursuing that dream as more and more cities relax their home poultry laws in this economic downturn. In their enthusiasm, some, (like some folks who've taken my Urban Farmsteading classes) end up racking up costs that could take years to recoup. As a pathologically cheap tightwad I've long grown much of my own food to SAVE money along with insuring it be organic....for years now I've applied that same El Cheapo mindset to raising free range chickens. Here are some tips for cutting or eliminating costs:

1.I made my large, spacious, hurricane and predator proof henhouse from several large chain link driveway gates I scrounged curbside years ago during our annual neighborhood Large Item day when folks set out TONS of stuff for special pick up. I built it atop four layers of carpet to insure that racoons and opposums can't dig their way in.

2.Chicken feed is expensive: I dumpster dive the discarded lunch items from the CC's Pizza Buffet and the Chinese fusion restaurant Tampa Buffet...starting Friday the Tampa Buffet will start saving for me a 5 gallon bucket of the discarded buffet items as I have long given them eggs now and then anyway. This will be helpful as most times the garbage bag of freshly dumped food is at the bottom of the dumpster, and FAR too heavy to lift up. Many people have commented on how vibrantly healthy my chickens look compared to those fed commercial feed. Between the restaurant scraps, leftovers, weeds and bugs, my chickens eat very well and at ZERO cost to me.

3. To feed baby chicks, I run dry dog food nuggets through the blender as a very cheap high protein "chick starter". As they age, I add chopped fresh grass and veggie leaves, add an occasional drop of iodine to their water to discourage disease (some feed stores sell pricey Lugol's Solution for this purpose), and slowly work them up to restaurant scraps.

4.Older chickens often readily kill baby chicks unless they are slowly introduced. I recently took a large bird cage I scrounged curbside, laid it on its side atop the quail pen, wired closed all the doors but the one facing front, and turned it into a cozy place to acclimate chicks to outdoor conditions and in view of the adult free range chickens. Since it is winter, I filled a Pyrex dish with sand and set it atop a discarded heating pad to acclimate them to cooler temps (they hatch at 102!!). They love to dustbathe in it as it faces south, then sleep in it night for the warmth as they huddle together with the cage covered by a dumpster dived thermal bedcover.

5. Oyster shell grit for their gizzards and eggshell growth is so expensive, so each time I go to the beach I fill a 5 gallon bucket with seashell grit from the high tide line. People I give surplus eggs to comment how HARD they have to whack the eggs to get them open after a lifetime of eating frail factory farmed eggs.

6.To be healthy, chickens MUST have plenty of raw green plant matter, so I feed them weeds and grow a "chicken pasture" in a small fenced off area where I toss in left over veggie seeds or bird seed I dumpster dive, water and let grow. Every few weeks I open the gate and the chickens EAGERLY buzz down the sprouts, especially the sprouted millet and sunflower seeds in the bird seed mixes. I close the gate, let the plants regrow a few weeks, then repeat. Their diet precludes ANY perceived "need" for antibiotics.

7.Chicken bedding for their nests is expensive.....I keep my eyes while driving around town for bags of pine needles set out for the garbage man. Occasionally I will find a discarded bale of hay, which takes care of the nests in the henhouse for months.

8.Instead of buying watering bottles for the baby chicks, I just serve their water in glass ashtrays I found years ago in dumpsters....they hold ample water that is easily changed when soiled, but are too shallow for the baby chicks to drown in.

Attached are pics of the modified bird cage atop the quail pen, 4 eggs I took out of the nest this morning, plus pics of me and the crew of Animal Planet's "Most Extreme" show when they did a segment a few years back about how I feed my chickens for free, plus a segment they did on my trippy livingroom art project that is composed almost entirely from dumpster rescues. They were great guys to work with, and I had the joy of seeing one a few weeks later get his Academy Award as sound man for 'Lord of the Rings'. We had a blast doing the dumpster shoots, then eating tons of sushi at 'Crazy Buffet' two days later! Since I can post just 5 pics at a time, the Animal Planet "Most Extreme" pics will be in a follow-up posting.

John