Germination Temperature Guide

Tom and I have been busy planting seeds and starts in our greenhouse and cold frames.  Here is a great chart from Roots Nursery.com that shows how long it will take your seeds to germinate according to temperature.  This is a great reference.

Seed Starting Chart

If you are like Tom and me, you can't wait to get your seeds into the ground.  Here is a great little chart from the Knowledge Weighs Nothing Website to let you know when to grab your trowel and start planting.

My Strawberry (Gutter) Fields Forever

Here is a picture I found of a strawberry garden that has actually been planted in GUTTERS!  (No ... not the ones attached to the house!!)

We found some great vinyl gutters at Home Depot this weekend. Check out that price -- only $5.23 for a 10 foot length of gutter. The gutters come in brown or white. We opted for the brown ones.  I really like this gutter because the edges are rounded and finished off so no cut fingers! (Which is always an advantage as far as I am concerned!) Also, the "pocket" is deep enough to accommodate the potting soil.

Our strawberries are all ready to go ... so guess what we are going to be doing NEXT weekend!!

How to Build a Hanging Gutter Garden

Here is another vertical garden idea I "borrowed" from The Goods Home Design Website.
Also check out my "Strawberry Gutter" idea in the next post!!!

Gutter gardens are a great way to take advantage of the vertical spaces around your home to grow flowers, edibles and create a stylish space divider or privacy screen without spending too much money.

MATERIALS:

1 – 8′ PVC white rain gutter cut into 3 32″ sections
6 – PVC white gutter end caps
2 – 1/8″diameter steel cables cut to desired length
6 – Feeney Cross Clamps (see image below)
6 – 1/8″ diameter Feeney steel rods
2 – Galvanized eye hooks
Potting soil and Plants

TOOLS:

Cordless Drill with drill bit set
Hand saw or hack saw
T-square or straight edge
Tape measure
Permanent marker
Level
Eye protection

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Determine the center of your gutters and draw a reference line (otherwise your gutter won’t hang right).

2. Mark and drill the holes for the steel cable rods. Find a drill bit the same diameter as the cable to minimize the wiggle room.

3. Space drill holes a few sizes larger to make sure you get good drainage (plant roots hate sitting in water for long periods of time).

1. Locate a spot that gets at least 4 hours of sun. I placed mine on the cross beams of a pergola I built a couple of years ago.

2. Drill pilot holes (a hole slightly smaller in diameter than the screw diameter) to make screwing in the eye hook a lot easier. Make sure the holes are the same distance as the steel cable so they hang straight down.

3. Slide the gutters through the holes and secure them with the cross clamps at your desired heights. You’ll notice I placed mesh tape (normally used for drywall joints), left over from another project, over the drainage holes to keep the soil from seeping. However, I think the holes are small enough, this step is not necessary. I did it out of habit.

4. Secure the gutter with the cross clamps and half circle steel rods.

Growing Fruits & Veggies for Your Freezer

The avid vegetable growers on my gardening email list have noted that alas, despite trying to plan well, their freezers and pantries are almost bare despite the fact that there's still snow on the garden. We're fortunate to live in times with well-stocked grocery stores.

We're also lucky to live with reliable electricity. I know how to can and make preserves, but the freezer is still the easiest way I know how to easily capture garden produce at their peak. I keep a baking pan in my freezer and bring in surplus I've picked that I won't use today and after washing, spread the beans, peas, corn, cherries or strawberries on the baking pan for a kind of home flash freeze. Later when I have time, I bag up the frozen item to protect them from freezer burn. Easy and fresh. And despite what all the books tell us, we've had really good luck with freezing produce without blanching it first.

Suggestions on what items are good for freezing:

Tomatoes of course....Sauce or diced, roasted or stewed. We agree tomatoes are the most versatile item in your freezer.

Prepared meals:  ratatouilles, bean stews, chilis, lasagnas, stuffed peppers.  Who isn't delighted to find a home-grown, home-cooked meal in the freezer on a cold January evening ready to thaw and eat.

Individual vegetables, loose.  Here I take inspiration from the freezer section of the grocery and make small Ziploc bags of everything the grocery store freezer section supplies:  beans, corn, peas, okra, black-eyed peas, baby limas, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, red and yellow peppers. Basically anything that would make a quick side vegetable to balance out a meal or something to give a soup or stock some extra zip. One great suggestion I'll try this year is to freeze poblano peppers whole ready for stuffing.

Pre-cooked foods.

Here's where I've learned that pre-cooking some foods turns ordinary vegetables sublime.  Frozen cut spinach isn't too impressive, but frozen spinach previously braised in olive oil and garlic is sublime.  Likewise, braised mixed kale with a splash of tamari is welcome.  A great way to freeze these greens is  to lay them on freezer paper in a long thin log and wrap them up.  Cut off a section of what you need and return the log to the freezer.

Cooked and seasoned beans.  I love green beans fresh but there's something about them frozen plainly that is unimpressive.  But I like heartier beans like broad beans that have been cooked and seasoned. 

Potatoes. I'm still experimenting with potatoes, but I'm so crazy for mashed potatoes that frozen individual servings of mashed potatoes with a little gravy disappeared by December.  The texture wasn't as great as fresh...but they're still mashed potatoes!  Shredded potatoes for hash browns are pretty good too.

Roasted eggplant slices....ready to go for lasagna.

Baby beets, well-cooked and seasoned.

Stir-fry mixes of favorite vegetables pre-cooked to almost doneness.

Fruit.

You can't make enough of this. Keep trying, but whether dried or frozen, cherries, raspberries and peaches just disappear.  There's still applesauce and a few strawberries in my freezer and some dried cherries I didn't see.  Freeze more next year!

Now that my freezer is almost empty, I know how to plan for this year's garden.  Plant more of the foods that disappeared by December and fewer of the foods that are still frozen from year before last.

Article by Sandy Swegel

Photo Credits: http://survivingthemiddleclasscrash.wordpress.com/category/food-storage/
http://www2.fiskars.com/Gardening-and-Yard-Care/Projects/Garden-to-Table/Canning-Freezing/Freeze-It-Quick-Tips-for-Freezing-Your-Garden-Produce#.UP1smyfAeSo

How to Identify GMO Produce at Your Grocery Store

As a follow up to my article from yesterday (Why Should You Be Concerned About GMO Produced Crops ), I wanted to add a handy guide for identifying GMO, conventionally grown and organically grown fruits and vegetables.  

You have probably noticed the little sticker or stamp on the produce in the grocery store.  Those are called PLU codes (Price Look Up codes).  The codes are used for input into electronic cash registers to determine prices for bulk items, such as apples and cabbage. The codes identify exactly what the item is with its current pricing, while giving the consumer a handy tag for identifying GMO produce.

Each PLU code has five digits. If the first digit is a 9, the item is organic. If it is an 8, it is GMO! Conventionally grown produce has a 0 for the first digit, but usually the 0 is dropped. So most conventionally grown produce will actually have only 4 digits on the PLU tag if you don't see a 0 at the beginning. The 8 gives you the worst of two worlds, GMO and heavy chemical spraying!

I have also noticed that if the produce doesn’t have the sticker attached, the code can be found on the signage above the produce identifying the product and the price.

Obviously, buying organic from local farmers is ideal. Buy bulk and pass up packaged foods. If you buy locally, through a local health food store or at a farmers' market, you can determine by direct communication how the crops were raised.  In our town, Market of Choice actually identifies the local farm that grows the produce they are selling in their store.

I love to grow my own greens and tomatoes.  They are simple to grow both inside and out.  You can have a fresh, “clean” salad in minutes.  Plus, in my opinion, nothing tastes better than home grown food!!

Buy These Organic Fruits and Veggies

By Diana Herrington (www.realfoodforlife.com)

These foods look healthy but unless they are organic they have the highest levels of toxicity.

 This list of foods for 2012 is called the ‘Dirty Dozen’ and is updated each year at http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/list/

 1.  Apples: This healthy power food has to look perfect or consumers are suspicious.

New to the top toxic spot, apples are susceptible to more than 30 insects and at least 10 diseases, and so are sprayed many times during the growing season. Fungicides and other chemicals are also added after picking to prevent tiny blemishes that can accumulate during storage of up to 9 months. Read the possible health benefits of apples at   Apple Benefits.

2. Celery: “Nobody likes to find a caterpillar-damaged stalk in their celery bunch,” says Stuart Reitz, PhD, a research entomologist with the USDA.”

3. Sweet Bell Peppers: The creases in their crowns hold pesticides so they soak in.  They also have less insect deterring compounds in them.

4. Peaches: Farmers may spray peaches every week or two from bloom to harvest—and peach fuzz can trap pesticides. The USDA Pesticide Data Program found 62 pesticide residues.

5. Strawberries: Are delicate and prone to disease, including fungal attacks that can turn them to mush during transit and storage. Millions of pounds of methyl bromide are used every year by California strawberry growers. It damages the ozone layer, so it is banned in many parts of the world. “This chemical has an uncanny ability to damage DNA, which creates a host of problems, ranging from reproductive effects to cancer and neurological damage,” explains Gina Solomon, MD, MPH, chief scientist at Natural Resources Defense Council. “Since the chemical is also highly volatile, it is easy for it to drift and affect workers and nearby communities.”

6.  Nectarines: – imported are a genetic mutation of peaches so have the same weakness and “need’ the same support.

7.  Grapes: To prevent that rot that easily happens, farmers spray aggressively with fungicides.  The USDA Pesticide Data Program found 34 pesticide residues.

8.  Spinach: Those green leaves are loved by grasshoppers and other insects and the plants themselves suck up chemicals from the soil, for example spinach has been shown to contain DDT from the soil which was banned over 10 years ago.  You don’t want to just pass though on spinach though. It’s too healthy as you can read here. Spinach Health Benefits

9.  Lettuce: Like spinach there are large surface areas to protect.

10.  Cucumbers: Without spraying can be very delicate.  The USDA Pesticide Data Program found 35 pesticide residues.

11.  Blueberries: The berries are targets for insects such as blueberry maggots and bagworms.

12.  Potatoes: are sprayed 5 or more times throughout the growing season to protect against various pests. After harvesting, another round of spraying occurs in the packing shed to ward off molds.

Extras on dangerous list:

13. Kale/collard greens:  Like spinach and lettuce have large surface areas to absorb sprays.

14. Cherries: If just one of the western cherry maggots is found in a shipment, the entire load of fruit must be dumped so growers spray out of fear of losing their crops.

Sore Muscles After Running the Marathon? These Foods Can Help

Did you run the Corvallis Half Marathon on Sunday? … Still have sore muscles? ... Here are some foods that can help soothe the inflammation and get you back on track. (The Nordic Track that is!!)

Blueberries

New research out of New Zealand suggests that the antioxidants in blueberries may help ward off muscle fatigue by mopping up the additional free radicals that muscles produce during exercise.

Tart Cherries & Pomegranates

British researchers recently found that people who drank 1 ounce of concentrated cherry juice twice daily for 10 days bounced back faster from their workout (an intensive leg-resistance training session on day 8) than those who skipped the juice. The reason:  The anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties in tart cherries—and other fruit juices like grape, pomegranate, acai, blueberry and cranberry—essentially act as natural NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen and aspirin), reducing exercise-induced muscle damage.

Ginger

Ginger is rich in inflammation-fighting compounds, such as gingerols, which may reduce the aches of osteoarthritis and soothe sore muscles. In a recent study, people who took ginger capsules daily for 11 days reported 25 percent less muscle pain when they performed exercises designed to strain their muscles (compared with a similar group taking placebo capsules). Another study found that ginger-extract injections helped relieve osteoarthritis pain of the knee.

The DIRTY DOZEN vs The CLEAN FIFTEEN from foodnews.org

Some of my favorite things are from the Dirty Dozen side ... makes me grateful that I am starting to grow my own fruits and veggies and drink my Cleanse For Life nutritional cellular cleanse everyday!!!

Another FDA Warning: This Time Orange Juice

This article comes from the Associated Press.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Coca-Cola Co. said Thursday it alerted the Food and Drug Administration after it discovered via testing its own and competitors' products that some Brazilian growers had sprayed their orange trees with a fungicide that is not approved for use in the U.S.
The FDA had said Monday that an unnamed juice company alerted it in December after detected low levels of the fungicide in orange juice products after testing its own and competitors' products.
Most orange juice products made by Coke and other companies contain a blend of juice from different sources including Brazil.
Atlanta-based Coca-Cola did not say which of its own and others' products it tested contained the fungicide. Its own orange juice products include Simply Orange and Minute Maid.

Yum!! Watermelon for Dessert (with recipes)

I absolutely L-O-V-E watermelon in the summer.  I can't think of a more refreshing treat.

 MmMmMmMmmmmm water melon (sounding a little like Home Simpson!!)

I just read in Hungry Girl's newletter that 4 cups of watermelon is only 200 calories ... yippee!!!!!

The amino acid arginine, abundant in watermelon, might promote weight loss, according to a new study in the Journal of Nutrition. Researchers supplemented the diets of obese mice with arginine over 3 months and found that doing so decreased body fat gains by a whopping 64%. Adding this amino acid to the diet enhanced the oxidation of fat and glucose and increased lean muscle, which burns more calories than fat does. Snack on watermelon in the summer, and eat other arginine sources, such as seafood, nuts, and seeds, year-round.

Here are three watermelon recipes for you:

1.  Watermelon Salad
     1 bag (4oz) arugula with stems removed and roughly torn
     2 cups cubed watermelon
     1 pkg (3oz) feta cheese, crumbled
     2 Tbsp olive oil
        ground black pepper (to taste)

In a large bowl combine watermelon, arugula and feta cheese.  Gently mix and add pepper to taste.

Calories:  146

2.  Watermelon Daiquiri
     3 cups watermelon chunks,  frozen with seeds and rinded removed.
     1/3 cup rum
     2 Tbsp lime juice
     1 Tbsp superfine sugar

Blend frozen watermelon chunks, rum, lime juice an sugar.  Pour into chilled glasses.

Calories:  183

3.  Cherry Tomatoes with Watermelon
     1/2 pint yellow cherry or grape tomatoes
     1/2 pint red cherry or grape tomatoes
     1 small seedless watermelon, red or yellow
     1/2 tsp coriander seeds
     1/4 tsp white or red peppercorns
     kosher salt
     1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
     1 Tbsp slivered fresh mint leaves
     12 long thin breadsticks
     12 slices prosciutto

Slice half of the red and yellow tomatoes in half and place in a large bowl with the remaining whole tomatoes.  Slice the melon in smaller sized cubes (or use a melon baller -- you should have about 4 cups of melon).  Add to bowl with the tomatoes.

Crush the coriander seeds, peppercorns, and kosher salt with a mortar and pestle (or pounded with a mallet, or placed in a small coffee mill) until coarsely ground.  Sprinkle on tomatoes and melon.  Add olive oil and mint and gently toss.  Serve with breadsticks wrapped in prosciutto.

Calories:  253


Recipes from Prevention Magazine online.