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Lathyrus tuberosus

Last year I got some tuberous pea from Elzo, a local gardening friend.  I posted about this before.  Because it tends to send its tubers very deep, he suggested growing it in a container if I want to eat it, so the tubers would be more confined and easier to harvest.  As an alternative to eating it, it is a native plant (for me) and it is nitrogen fixing, so it’s also possible to ‘set it free’ in the garden, as a green manure plant.

Anyway, last year in the container, I noticed it was growing, but not very much.  Just a few shoots, and lots of weeds.  I didn’t pay much attention to it, and didn’t take very good care of the weeds, and didn’t even think of harvesting it because I didn’t think I was going to find many tubers.

Look at the container this year!  It’s gone wild.  I guess this year I’ll have enough tubers to make it worth harvesting…

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Local Superweed — Horsetail

I always find I have nothing in common with the management of our community garden complex.  They are as far from organic minded as you can get, and they have no sympathy for organic gardeners either.  At the same time, they think I have an interesting garden, and recognize me as an experienced gardener, so they always seem to have lots of questions for me that I just can’t answer or mostly just really don’t care.

At the moment everyone’s attention is focused on Horsetail.  It’s really everywhere right now.  Everyone’s garden is full of it, as well as all the untended open space around the gardens.  It’s everywhere that is, except in my garden.  I don’t have a sign of it anywhere.  Every once in a while it pops up somewhere in my garden, but then goes away on it’s own.

The cause of horsetail is pretty clear.  Anywhere you spray with Roundup, you get a serious infestation.  Everywhere else the surrounding plants out compete it, and it goes away.  Horsetail likes very poor soil, which is how most fellow gardeners do their gardens, with as poor soil as possible, then added fertilizer and other chemicals as needed.  Fertile soil promotes weeds, don’t ya know…

So now it’s this urgent problem!  Everyone wants to know why I don’t have the problem, and what they can do to solve the problem so they can keep using Roundup.  The more serious gardeners have switched to more expensive and toxic weed killers, but other gardeners are too thrifty for this and don’t want to spend the extra money.

The other urgent issue is whenever I have canola/rape weeds in my garden, because I guess those all have the Roundup ready gene by now in our area, and they want to make sure I pull them out as soon as possible before they go to seed!  What they don’t know is these are really mustard weeds…

Anyone have any ideas for explaining to my fellow gardeners that I just don’t care what kinds of special weed problems they have after using Roundup?

Anyone with an established organic garden have problems with horsetail?  Anyone with an organic garden have problems with other Roundup ‘superweeds’?

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Traditional Greek Sesame Seed Harvest

Unless your Greek is a lot better than mine, you probably won’t understand what’s spoken, but these are still fascinating videos of a traditional Greek sesame seed harvest.

The seed pods on sesame plants suddenly open and throw their seeds when they mature, so in order to harvest the seeds you have to, well, do what these guys are doing. This is where the expression ‘Open Sesame’ comes from.

In these videos they leave the plants to dry for 8 days each in two different kinds of stacks. In the Greek climate, they sow seeds between 20 May and 10 June, and the harvest is between 15 August to 15 September.

Thanks to Mary who provided the links and translations of the details above.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

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Direct Action Against GM Potatoes in Belgium

The Belgian Field Liberation Movement is planning a demonstration with direct action against the GM potato trial fields in Wetteren, Belgium on Sunday 29 May 2011.  Here trials are being conducted on blight resistant GM potatoes.  Activities planned are:

  • Debate and Press conference on GMOs, GM crops in Belgium and the role of public research institutions.
  • Information on interesting non-GM potato varieties that are bred for blight resistance.
  • Farmers market and seed swap.
  • Organic french fries workshop.
  • Concert and cultural activities
  • Non-violent direct action: replace the GM potatoes with traditionally bred blight resistant potatoes.

For more information see their blog.

Be sure to bring seed balls made with True Potato Seeds!

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Yuzu

I’ve been looking a long time for a Yuzu (Citrus junos) tree in the Netherlands, and I’m really happy I just found someone selling them at a reasonable price.

Yuzu is a type of citrus, similar to a lemon.  It’s one of the few citrus varieties that both tastes good, and is hardy enough to survive winter in Northern Europe!  They survive temperatures down to -15C or so.

When I visited Tom in the US last year, I looked for a tree there in Washington state.  The story was more or less the same as here.  Yuzu trees are very much in demand now, and young trees take several years to mature, so they are just unavailable except at very high cost.  In a few years it won’t be a problem to buy one, because they are on order everywhere.

Last year I found someone here in the Netherlands with 1 tree to sell, but he wanted something along the lines of US$150 for it, and that was too much to pay.

The tree pictured above that I just bought is grafted to Poncirus Trifolata rootstock, and I have this growing already in my garden.  I should be able to make my own Yuzu trees within a few years…