It’s funny how with gardening blogs we always seem to be working with seasons. There are seasons in our garden, but also seasons with our blogs. With a new year ahead of us in our gardens, many new blog readers are popping up looking for gardening information. In addition many new gardening blogs are popping up as fellow gardeners want to share this year’s garden with others on the Internet. It’s also the time of year we all have too much time on our hands anyway.
It occurred to me that this blog is a bit clogged with a large number of posts, and this could make it difficult for a new reader to go through it all. If you are interested in particular topics, for example if you want to see pictures of some of the plants I grew last year or want some of my recipes, following the categories links on the front page of this blog is a good way to do this. I’m not going to list posts that are easy to find in this way here.
This blog started with some posts defining exactly what heirloom plants are, on a very basic level discussed some plant genetics and what exactly an F1 hybrid is, as well as introductions to some basic seed saving and storing techniques. Saving tomato seeds is a very good place for a beginning seed saver to start, and I made a post about this. I followed up on seed saving a bit later with a post about biennial plants, and again with suggestions for easy plants to save seeds from. An important thing anyone should consider when saving seeds is inbreeding depression. Growing garlic is very easy, one of my favorite garden plants, and here is a post about that. I also posted about cover crops.
While many people prefer to use fluorescent bulbs for growing seedlings, grow lights are also a good option. Many people are discouraged from using grow lights because they feel it’s too associated with growing drugs, but in fact they are the same lights used in public lighting and are frequently cheap and easily available almost everywhere in the world if you look for them. With a little planning and shopping around, they can be cheaper to purchase and operate than fluorescent lights.
When you start seedlings indoors, don’t forget to harden them before moving them outside!
If you grow peas, beans, garbanzo beans, lentils or any other leguminous nitrogen-fixing plants, you need to know about nitrogen fixing bacteria!
I am a big fan of my weed burner, and I made two posts about this here and here. I am also a fan of my Earthway seeder.
I am a member of the Seed Savers Exchange. I wrote first about it here, followed up here, and posted about them again here.
I think composting has to be a favorite activity of almost any gardener. I wrote two articles on composting, first an introduction to composting and mulching then a post specific to container composting.
Last year I made a post about coffee as a crop, and how the world market for coffee was turned upside down with the introduction of an F1 hybrid coffee bean variety. What happened with coffee has been repeated over and over with other crops with the introduction of hybrid varieties, and is a very import thing for everyone who cares about what they eat and grow to understand.
Long term storage of your harvest is an issue for all of us. One of the ways I do this is by dehydrating my harvest.
All Europeans and everyone living everywhere, should be aware of the so called Agricultural Apartheid as it exists in Europe. In practice what this means is all fruits and vegetables sold anywhere in Europe are commercial varieties and the seeds that produce them come from large seed companies. These rules make it virtually impossible for farmers to save their own seeds and regrow their own crops in Europe. This has also become an issue recently in Turkey, which may become a member of the European Union.
What has to be one of the most important books to be published in 2006 was Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma. A must read for anyone who cares about what they eat. We also reached the 100th anniversary of Upton Sinclare’s The Jungle, and it’s really amazing how many things still haven’t changed since then.
Open Source software is a growing worldwide phenomenon, as people get tired of commercial software like that produced by Microsoft and all of the politics surrounding it. Linux is growing in popularity, and has even been recognized by governments around the world. There is a huge and well organized group of people behind the free software movement. Few people understand that the issues are almost the same as heirloom gardening, but we lack the large numbers of organized people. What can we do about this?
What comes after GM foods? I made a post about Marker Assisted Selection or MAS.
The US government has addressed the issue of hunger by redefining it. Now we have food insecurity!
Everyone needs to think about buying food locally, from people you know.
Of all the eating advice we get from everywhere, all the trendy diets and the promotions from cooking shows on TV, they all have one message in common. Eat more food! It’s time for us all to realize we need to ‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.‘. Here is also some advice on how to avoid eating and growing GM foods.
Us food gardeners and seed savers are a dying breed. Here is a post on gardening trends.
Bird flu is an import issue for everyone everywhere in the world. Here is the other side of the story.
Biofuels are about to become an important part of our lives. Since they are crops that are grown on the same land as our food is, they are about to make a big impact on our food supply.
Here is what everyone should know before buying seeds from a seed catalog.
Thanks for the guide to your blog. I’ll have to spend some time looking up various issues. Very helpful… especially as I intend to save more and more seeds as the years pass. The only plant type I’m a bit frightened of is brassicas (oh and corn but I don’t usually grow it anyway). I think I might just grow unrefined brassicas like kale though I do love garden grown red cabbage.
The thing about brassicas is they take a lot of space, and there are a few pest and disease issues. The major pests are caterpillars and root maggots (and sometimes aphids), and the major disease is club root. There are certainly organic solutions for all of these, but they can be a lot of work and take some planning. Crop rotation in particular is very important.
Kale is wonderful! So are home grown cabbages. Turnips are easy and rewarding to grow too.
Saving seeds can be a little hard. Since it is an out-breeding plant, you need several to avoid inbreeding depression, and since the plants are usually large this can be a problem if you have limited garden space. Also brassicas can be very variable, so you will need to grow several extras so you can pick the best ones for saving seeds. Since they are biennials, and you can’t eat them if you are saving seeds, it means setting aside all of the garden space for two years without anything but the seeds to show for it.
Turnips are a good place to start with seed saving, because they are small. Turnips are also very disease and pest resistant.
Really one of the best things to do is just go for it, and deal with the problems as they occur. You’ll figure it out soon enough.