edible – Page 3 – The Garden Professors™

An unwanted bonus in your urban chickens

Longtime reader Ray Eckhart sent me a NYT story on urban chicken eggs and lead contamination. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, urban gardeners should have their soils tested for lead, arsenic, and other commonly found heavy metals before they plant edibles. Chickens that are allowed to peck and scratch in metal-contaminated soils will pass that unwanted load on to you via their eggs.

So test your soils! It costs a bit of money, but then you know exactly what’s lurking in there. If your soils have significantly high levels of lead or other contaminants, you can still raise chickens as long as they don’t roam your garden.

Why I Don’t Worry Too Much About Organic Fruits and Veggies

Let me tell you something you already know. If you grow something in your own garden you’ll know exactly what poisons were or weren’t put on it, how much fertilizer was used, and furthermore it will taste better.

If you buy your apples from the guy down the street who you’ve known for 20 years you’ll be able to ask him what he used to grow the crop, why he used it, and you’ll have the satisfaction of supporting a local industry. And yes, those apples will taste better than grocery store apples.

If you go to a farmers market you’ll be able to ask the people there exactly what they did to their crops, and why they did what they did. And you’ll feel good about supporting the local economy. And yes, the food will taste better than anything from the grocery store.

If you walk into a grocery store or Target, or Kmart or whatever and pull a fruit or vegetable off the shelf which has the USDA Organic Label on it and say to yourself “Hey, I’m doing something good for my family and the environment” then, in my opinion, you’re fooling yourself.

There, I said it. I believe that, AS USDA ORGANIC CERTIFICATION NOW EXISTS, the USDA Certified Organic label does not provide a significant indicator that the fruit or veggies you’re buying provide a significant benefit in terms of human or environmental health. Please note that I’m not saying anything different than our government does – what they say is: “Organic is a labeling term that indicates that the food or other agricultural product has been produced through approved methods that integrate cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity.”

Notice that they never say that organic is superior to conventional production, simply that organic uses practices that “foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity”. Though many of you may not believe it, conventional growing uses many of these practices too – producers know that if they don’t pay at least some attention to sustainability then they will lose money over time.

So why am I talking about this today? Well, I’ve had a few requests to discuss that new meta-study that came out a few weeks ago which showed that organic food has the same nutritional value as food produced conventionally. Big deal. Plenty of other meta studies have shown essentially the same thing –the quality of organic is LARGELY the same as conventional with a few nutrients (often vitamin C) a little higher in organic and a few (often protein levels) being higher in conventional. Anyway, to make a long story short, I don’t know why this study got more press – maybe they have better PR people at Stanford where the study was put together.

Look, the reason that one food has more nutrients than another has much more to do with the food itself than whether the food was grown organically or conventionally. No matter how you treat a McIntosh apple, it will never have as much vitamin C as a Granny Smith apple. Period. Folic acid will always be greater in bananas than grapes. Period. If you’re worried about getting enough of a particular nutrient then eat foods high in that nutrient. If you’re worried about a lot of nutrients then eat a varied diet.

Of course the study also says that synthetic pesticides are more likely to be on conventionally produced foods than organically produced foods. OK, I’ll buy that. Makes perfect sense….but tell me, how much organic pesticide is on organically produced foods? And how does it affect you? If a farmer uses spinosad, an insecticide used by organic growers, it can be present at low levels in food, as can other organic pesticides such as pyrethrum. But since residues of these organic pesticides are rarely tested you have no idea how much is in there.

Look, if you want to avoid pesticides on your fruits and veggies altogether and can’t grow a garden or go to a farmer’s market, then you should avoid foods where pesticides need to be used. These are the only foods where you can count on growers, organic or conventional, avoiding pesticides (No farmer WANTS to use pesticides – they’re expensive!). To find foods where pesticides are less likely to be used just go to that crazy dirty dozen list which the Environmental Working Group puts out (which I think is a bit ridiculous – but I’ll leave that alone for now since this post is getting long) and select fruits and veggies from the clean 15.

In terms of organic production being better for the environment, as long as organic growers can use copper to control diseases, I’m concerned about how long term applications of this copper will affect
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soils on land devoted to organic production over the long term. I’m also concerned about fertilizer runoff and leaching in organic production – same as in conventional production. Nitrogen and phosphorus from manure can and do run off just the same as nitrogen and phosphorus from synthetic fertilizer.

In both conventional and organic systems, the impact that production has on the environment comes down to the responsibility that a given producer takes for doing the right thing and protecting the environment. To say otherwise is just silly. There is so much leeway in the USDA organic system that there is plenty of opportunity for a USDA organic producer to do things that will make their operation significantly worse for the environment than a conventional producer of the same crops.

Tomatoes, Dingleberry Deer, and the Goose Poop

Do you ever get annoyed right after you eat a nice, ripe, homegrown tomato at those little pieces of tomato skin that get caught in your teeth, or even against the roof of your mouth? Sure, the tomatoes are worth it, but those little pieces of skin can drive me up the wall for hours afterwards, especially after eating a bunch of cherry tomatoes.

This post is about how I learned to get rid of those little tomato bits.

It all started a few weeks ago when I posted about a new type of bag that you could put on your fruit to protect them from insects, animals, or whatever. You can see that post here.

Anyway, since that time the deer have come again and again to my garden, and they have targeted all of my almost but not quite ripe tomatoes. Unless you’ve experienced it, it’s impossible to imagine the frustration of going out one evening and seeing a bunch of tomatoes just starting to change color, and then the next morning going out to see them again – and they’re all gone.

Fortunately for me, the tomatoes that I put bags around were saved from deer.

The tomatoes above were protected by bags — overall they worked well

The funny thing was, about a quarter of the bags that I used for bagging those tomatoes went missing. I figured that was no big deal though. The tomatoes probably just aborted for some reason, the bags fell, and the wind blew them into the neighbor’s yard – not my problem anymore!

And then I saw this huge piece of goose poop out on the lawn not too far from the garden. Now don’t get me wrong, goose poop is no big deal – usually I don’t notice it at all– but this was such a big pile that I couldn’t avert my eyes. After a week or so of having this pile of poop sitting in my yard I had had enough. Even though it had rained, this pile just wasn’t disappearing.

So I went over to investigate.

Goose poop, or the leavings of an evil deer?

As you may have already guessed, it was a bag that I had protected one of those tomatoes with. I could tell from the red flecks inside that it had held a beautiful red tomato. Some dingleberry deer plucked that bagged tomato off the plant and sucked out the yummy guts of the tomato while leaving the nasty skin behind.

And that’s how I learned to get rid of the skin from my tomatoes.

Today in Cucurbit News…

Cucumbers are one of the most widely-grown vegetables in the world. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (a great place to buy unusual and international veggie seeds) lists 51 varieties from North America, Southeast Asia, China, India, Mexico, and Europe. Dark green ones seem to be in the minority – yellow, white, orange and red skins in shapes round to elongated dominate.

Cukes traditionally have a few nutrients including some Vitamin A from carotenoids and beta carotene, but have never had the reputation as nutritional power house. Watery and gas-inducing, yes.

Researchers with the USDA have recently released a cucumber high in beta carotene. No "frankencuke" this; all the crossing was done by traditionally breeding methods (including bees and self-pollination). Lots and lots of crosses with a warty, round-ish chinese cuke (Cucumis sativus var. xishuangbannanesis) and some standard pickling cukes has resulted in a stable cultivar that has the smoother skin and proper proportions of marketable pickling cucumbers (there are lots of marketing standards associated with most fruits and veggies). But the big news is the orange interior, specifically the endocarp (the jelly-like stuff around the seeds) and the mesocarp (the fleshy part that is the whole point). It’s orange because it’s full of beta carotene (mesocarp is 2.7 micrograms per gram of fresh fruit compared to 0.02 micrograms per gram with a traditional white-fleshed variety. Even more impressive is the jump in endocarp beta carotene – from 0.16 micrograms per gram to 7.5 micrograms per gram). I don’t believe the USDA is going to release this particular line directly to the public, rather they’re offering the genetics (two recessive genes control the beta carotene content) to other breeders. This means other breeders can use it in their own breeding program to bring more nutritional value to their specific lines, at which point varieties will become available to growers/gardeners. Orange tzatziki!!!

from Staub, J.E., P.W. Simon, and H.E. Cuevas. 2011. USDA, ARS EOM 402-10 High β-Carotene Cucumber. HortScience 46:1426-1427.

(Linked, but my guess it won’t work if you don’t have a HortScience subscription or institutional access, sorry)

Beer and 1984

1984. That’s the year that the last professor here at the University of Minnesota published a paper about peanuts. He had tested a number of different varieties, some of which we’re testing now, and found that they do quite well in Minnesota. Then for the next 26 years there was a lull. And now? We have peanuts! Boiled peanuts and man are they good. But…will we end up in 1984 again? How do we make sure that our peanuts don’t disappear into academic oblivion? We’ve got to find a restaurant, a bar, a gas station, something, who wants to try something new – we need demand. Maybe the state fair? We’ll see.

I give a lot of talks throughout the US. It’s something that I enjoy, but, honestly, a year or two after I give a talk in a location I usually forget many of the specifics – they bleed together. Sure, I remember that I gave a talk in Green Bay (for example) – and I remember the people and the botanical garden (both of which were great) – but I don’t really remember the talk itself. Well, this past Tuesday night I gave a talk that I’ll remember forever. There’s a bar in Minneapolis called Bryant Lake Bowl which is connected to a bowling alley and a theatre. Our University Museum, called the Bell Museum, hosts a monthly scientific talk there called Café Scientifique. The audience, about 90, is waited on by the bar staff during the talk and so everyone is quite comfortable. The speaker may also partake if he or she so desires (how could I resist – after all, it was the only compensation I received). So I had a pint of Surly – on an empty stomach – during the talk! I’m a lightweight, so let’s just say I was relaxed. It was about an hour presentation followed by almost an hour of questions. I don’t think it was my best talk ever, but I don’t know that I’ve ever had a better time giving a talk (The title, by the way, was The Truth About Organics). It was an audience largely composed of a demographic I rarely get to talk to out side of my classes – young (20-30 yr old) people who were very curious about where food comes from and who really hadn’t spent much time thinking about it before.

Weird and Wonderful Plant Wednesday: Threefer!

This is a tale of three plants in my garden that would make the cruelest of multiple choice answers. Heh. Hence the inclusion of all three in this post:

a. Manihot esculenta

b. Abelmoschus manihot

c. Abelmoschus esculentus

d. All of the above

e. Aaaargh.

Manihot esculenta is Cassava or Tapioca; worthy of an entire post on its own. But the choice ornamental version is M. esculenta ‘Variegata’ or variegated tapioca. I first saw it (gawked and squealed, actually) at Allan Armitage’s fab trial garden at the University of Georgia. Full sun, hot as blue blazes – not the usual environment variegated plants thrive in. But this South American native loves it. It’s worked its way north in the trade; now nearly every plant nerd garden has it. Perfect in beds or containers, it makes a lovely, well-behaved clump in temperate zones – a big shrub in warmer areas. Interestingly, Manihot is in the Euphorbiaceae family; the other two are Malvaceae (hibiscus family). Hardy only to Zone 9, unfortunately.

Manihot at the UGA garden in 2004. Love those red stems!

In our home garden. A bit of a shady spot, hence the less-vivid coloration.

Abelmoschus manihot is variously known as sweet hibiscus, sunset hibiscus, etc. and remains rather obscure. It’s easy to grow from seed, plus reseeds gently where happy (like the gravel paths in our kitchen garden). Not much to look at until late summer, then the big lemon-yellow flowers unfurl – usually one or two at a time on each plant. The seed pods march up the stem, resembling a smaller version of okra. Gets tall – up to 6’ or so – but the sturdy stems don’t need staking. Collect seeds from the dried pods to start next year.

The foliage is edible – I’ve gnawed a leaf or two but was underwhelmed. Maybe in soup.

The flower of Abelmoschus manihot is very similar to but a bit larger than those of okra…

Marvelous pods in the fall at Chanticleer.

Finally, the most common – Abelmoschus esculentus – Okra. Hitting its stride right now in the home garden. Extremely ornamental, especially the red-stemmed varieties.

Okra ‘Hill Country Red’ at the Atlanta Botanical Garden this summer. Gorgeous!

The important bits.

Okra is a very unique veg. You may be cringing from some past okra mishap, but I urge you to try it 1) fresh and 2) prepared correctly. Yes, it’s a bit mucilaginous, but what makes it gooey also serves a wonderful thickener for gumbo, stews, and the like. Pickled okra makes an exceptional cocktail garnish for vodka martinis (add a splash of hot sauce for a Cajuntini). I love okra dearly but never buy it in the store – as it sits around, the pods become woody and tough. Try it fresh from the farmer’s market or even better, the back yard. Not trying add to the food-blog-saturation point, but please allow me to wander off-topic and share my favorite fried okra recipe. The deep-fried, breading-buried stuff normally sold as
fried okra is far, far inferior.

Holly’s Fried Okra
(Materials and Methods)

Pick a mess* of okra. Slice up your pods (no more than ¼” to 1/3″ sections. If it’s difficult to slice, discard that pod – too old/tough) and toss into a bowl with a sploosh of buttermilk, just enough to moisten it. Add salt, pepper, and a dash of cayenne. Stir gently. Get a big fry pan or wok (okra needs its space) and heat some veg or olive oil. Not a lot, just a few tablespoons. Don’t let oil get smokin’ hot, don’t want to burn it. Now throw a big handful of cornmeal into the bowl with the okra and stir gently again. Some will stick, some won’t. You should be able to see the okra, not just blobs of coating. Move okra to hot pan with a slotted spoon, giving it a shake over the bowl so you don’t get a lot of extra cornmeal in the pan. Just enough for one layer – don’t crowd the pan or it will be soggy. Toss gently over medium heat for about 5 to 8 minutes until some corners are very dark brown and crispy and everything else is either green or golden. Remove to paper towel-covered plate; add a dusting of kosher salt, then start the next batch (replication). Eat the first batch while standing there making the second batch. Helpers will magically appear. The first batch NEVER makes it to the table in our house.

Crispy, non-greasy, okra goodness!

*mess = “as much as you need for your meal”, be it for two or ten. This recipe uses about three cups of slices – though can’t say I’ve ever measured. Enough to feed two or three (two if they really like it). Adjust other ingredients accordingly.

Bambara

This past summer I had the chance to talk with an old friend of mine, Hamado Tapsoba, who I hadn’t seen in 15 years. We had gone to graduate school together, but after graduation he headed back to Burkina Faso, and I headed up to Minnesota. Anyway, while we were talking I told him that we were growing peanuts at the University (yes, I tell everybody — peanut news needs to be shared!). When I told him some of the problems that we had with shorter seasons he asked why we weren’t growing Bambara groundnuts. The answer was that I didn’t know what the heck Bambara groundnuts were. Well, it turns out that these nuts are native to Western Africa and grow under the surface of the soil just like peanuts. The reason Hamado recommended them to me was that they can have a growing cycle shorter than peanuts. They can also be cooked like peanuts and have a flavor somewhat similar to chickpeas (or so I’m told). I’ve had an incredible amount of difficulty finding Bambara in the US though I know that at one time they were grown here. We have found a researcher in Burkina Faso who is willing to work with us, but that will probably take some time to get going. Does anyone out there know about Bambara? Especially where to buy plants or seed?) It sounds like an exciting plant to work with.

Wonderful Plant Wednesday

[So I’ve veered off the “weird” track into “wonderful” already.
Whoops.]

“Mint!” is tantamount to the cry of “Bear!” to many gardeners. Mints tend to run amok, in just about any environment, and are difficult to remove once established. A pot or hanging basket is useful for containment, but not always successful. It wants out. The upside to mint in your garden is, of course, cocktails. Essential for the mint julep and the mojito. Also useful in lots of dishes – I prefer my tzatziki with mint, thank you.

Culinary mint is Mentha, but the subject of this post is mountain mint: Pycnanthemum. Same family (Lamiaceae), different genus. It’s a fabulous garden plant that I’ve been blathering about in various talks for a few years, yet the mention of “mint” seems to cause audience members to cringe, glare, or worse. This is yet another example of a common name with negative associations scaring people off (like “Stinking Hellebore” – that’ll sell some plants).

There are 19 North American perennial species in the genus, with lots of naturally-occurring varieties within many of the species. Many look A LOT alike, complicating i.d. Most mountain mints are found from Quebec and Ontario down to Florida and west to the Mississippi; a few species make their way to the Great Plains, with one species in California.

Pycnanthemum muticum (short-toothed mountain mint) is probably the most widely available; usually propagated and grown by nurseries with a native plant emphasis such as North Creek Nurseries (Landenberg, PA) (wholesale propagator). Hardy from USDA Zone 4 all the way down to 8, it does best in warmer climates in part shade, similar to the edge of meadows where it’s usually found. In both our campus garden and our home garden (z 6a), it’s in full sun. It doesn’t need tons of water – the one at home hasn’t seen rain nor sprinkler in 4 weeks and looks just fine.

Factoids out of the way, here’s why it’s wonderful: the upper bracts are silvery, topping the bright green clump like frosting on a cupcake. It’s not small – 3’ tall where happy. The foliage is plenty “minty” – it would actually work in a mojito emergency. The clump gets bigger over time; great for digging up chunks for your friends. In the center of the bracts, the flowering stem is compressed into this little disc, with a teeny flower arising at the perimeter (hard to describe, the photo does it better). But packed within the miniscule pinkish-white flower is a ton of nectar. Especially attractive to bees, wasps, and some Lepidops, the entire top of the plant is buzzing with action on a warm sunny day. Nectar flow (essential for honey) is very limited this time of year, especially during drought.

Residents of our home hives are going for it in a big way – will be interested to see if there are any minty notes to the next batch of honey extracted. So there you have it – a truly wonderful plant…beautiful, tough, native, pollinator attractor, and minty fresh!

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Striking a Balance

About two weeks ago a reader (Julie) e-mailed me about some young gardeners/farmers and how they believed in a natural balance. The e-mail read: “Would you mind devoting a blog or two to the philosophy that nature is perfectly balanced and will find a solution to whatever ails it and therefore we do not need to use any chemicals or poisons to fight pests and disease?”

I thought this was a good question, and here’s my quick answer (followed, naturally, by a more long and drawn out answer). Yes, I do believe that nature will strike its own balance. Unfortunately this balance won’t always be great for humans.

The more in-depth explanation…..Organisms like diseases, plants and animals do what they have evolved to do. The plants grow, the insects feed on them, the insect poo goes back into the ground. The insects get eaten by an animal and then that animal’s poo goes back into the ground – the tree uses the poo as fertilizer — it’s all a big cycle and it works. If any particular plant or insect gets out of hand then invariably something that eats it will eventually show up and go gangbusters — and all of it goes back to the ground.

For humans who “live off the land” this balance works fine. They’re not looking for huge yields of food per acre, and they’re willing to forgo certain foods if that food happens to be in short stock in a particular forest in a particular year because of an insect or disease or whatever. And so insect or disease losses will usually leave them plenty of food to eat. But modern agriculture is based on large yields per unit area. That means that the whole balance thing goes out the window. Likewise, because humans prefer non-blemished food, the whole balance thing gets screwed up too. So, in the end, we usually end up doing something to get rid of pests.

And then there’s fertility to consider — When we grow crops on a piece of land we take whatever is produced and then eat it or sell it – but rarely do we put our waste back on that land. What that means is that we’re fighting the balance. By not recycling our waste we’re taking from the land without returning what we took from it back to it. So, after a few years, we end up having to fertilize because the land just can’t make up for what we’ve taken and not returned.

Balance is great – I just think that it’s tough to strike a balance with modern agriculture and still feed ourselves.

So, there you have it – my two cents on balance.

So…How Much Pesticide Is Actually In Our Fruits and Veggies?

We have discussed the dirty dozen here before – those foods which a group called The Environmental Working Group (wow—fancy name – everything they say must be true!) has established contain more residues of different pesticides than other foods. I’ve already stated my concerns about selecting organic foods instead of conventionally grown ones because of a fear of pesticides so I won’t restate that here. Instead what I want to call your attention to an article sent to me by our visiting professor, Charlie Rowher. This article runs down the amounts of pesticides that are actually in the dirty dozen. And the thing is….there just isn’t much pesticide of any sort on most foods and there is no evidence at all that eating these levels of pesticides would be bad for us in any way – even if we ate them in copious amounts day after day.

To be honest I think the authors of this article go a little too far – I do think that there is some potential for damage even from the ultra-small pesticide doses that we find on our foods. But their points are well taken – the amount of pesticides in food is miniscule and less likely to be damaging to us than a great host of other things. I’m much more concerned about certain segments of our population suffering malnutrition from avoiding conventionally grown fruits and veggies than I am about the larger portion of our population getting cancer from eating them.