How coronavirus spreads – Gardening and Produce Tips
SENT on Sun, May 17, 2020 at 11:41 am EDT
Growing Better Peppers – more stuff to plant now
SENT on Sat, May 2, 2020 at 10:36 am EDT
The best time for planting peppers is very late May to mid June.
But you can prepare soil and structures for them now.
Nutritional Giants
Peppers have a lot going for them. They’re low in calories and are loaded with good nutrition. All varieties are excellent sources of vitamins A and C, potassium, folic acid, and fiber. A ripe pepper actually has 3 times as much vitamin C as an orange.
For gardeners, they are easy to grow and very productive, right until frost. They also consistently rate as one of the most important foods to grow or buy organic because of heavy pesticide use on commercially grown peppers. This is something I don’t understand because we rarely have any pest problems when growing them. Of course, ours are healthy plants.
Growing Better Tomatoes – more stuff to plant now
SENT on Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 10:48 am EDT
I have been growing plants my whole life. I have grown tens of thousands of varieties of perennials, annuals, tropicals and vegetables. But there is something special about a healthy tomato plant. Not your average plant — but a really healthy and productive one. Seeing a really healthy tomato plant grow is a memorable experience. Every day it grows bigger — and — produces more fruit. It is like watching a great athlete run a great race — full out and unobstructed. I can’t think of another plant that so greatly reflects the care it is given — or that can accomplish so much in a few months.
Help Us Help You
SENT on Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 7:27 am EDT
In nature, plants share nutrients through a natural internet structure made by mycorrhizal fungi. It is nature’s way of sharing nutrients, sugars, protective compounds and information. It dramatically extends the absorption area of a plant root system. It allows mature plants to nourish seedlings — and each other.
A Refuge For Us — And Them
SENT on Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 9:04 am EDT
Canterbury Creek Gardens is a busy place in the summer. Even in the morning before we open, without a single car in the parking lot, traffic is crazy. Air traffic, that is.
From the tiniest insects to the biggest birds, our air space is very, very crowded. I have have come face to face with bald eagles, and blue herons as tall as I am, right outside our door. Tiny hummingbirds are constant visitors, patrolling our plants for insects to eat, and nectar to drink.
Protect Your Internal Garden So It Can Protect You
SENT on Fri, Apr 3, 2020 at 10:41 am EDT
“Lung inflammation is the main cause of life -threatening respiratory disorders” COVID-19 infection: the perspectives on immune responses, published March 23, 2020. This report is from front line researchers in Italy and China.
“We propose some simple, but largely ignored, approaches to the treatment of COVID-19 patients. We believe that the two-phase division is very important: the first immune defense-based protective phase and the second inflammation-driven damaging phase. Doctors should try to boost immune responses during the first, while suppressing it in the second phase.” Inflammation is the immune response in the second phase
Another case of panic buying disrupting supply lines
SENT on Sat, Mar 28, 2020 at 11:04 am EDT
My first rule of vegetable gardening is “Never buy seeds off a seed rack”. These are always price point varieties (meaning older, cheaper and less productive), and the oldest seeds in a seed company’s inventory.
Having a successful garden using the wrong seeds is like trying to run a horse race with an old mule. No matter how well you train that old mule — it is still an old mule! And no matter how good a gardener you are, an inferior seed will produce inferior results. Often this mistake means lower productivity, sometimes inferior flavor,
America’s True Heroes
SENT on Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 10:14 am EDT
According to the Almanac, the sun rose today at 7:26. For me it was about an hour and a half earlier.
I was downtown getting fresh produce, watching workers scurrying around trying to fill orders. They were understaffed and the building was in a lockdown mode to keep them safe. They were doing the best they could to keep nourishing food coming.
My drive home gave me time to think a little.
Working class people are our true heroes and America still has plenty of them.
When life gives you lemons
SENT on Sat, Mar 21, 2020 at 8:16 am EDT
As experienced by tens thousands of people who participated in Victory Gardens, the benefits of gardening are endless — fresh air, exercise, working with soil, and best of all — garden to table. Many continued gardening the rest of their lives. Everyone should experience garden to table, and even if you have limited space for just a small herb garden or salad garden, this daily enjoyment should be yours too. It makes you more aware and respectful of food, and prompts you to make good choices over bad — which can only serve to boost your immune system. And boosting your immune system is tremendously important to all of us.
Join others in a return to some of the simple pleasures in life — good meals, excellent exercise, and the feeling of excitement, empowerment and accomplishment you get from producing your own food. It feels great to grow your own food — it feels great to be able to substantially cut into food costs — and it feels really great to prepare a home grown, home cooked meal.
Don’t spend free time ahead vegging out in front of the TV or the internet.
Lets make some lemonade and get busy digging!
https://conta.cc/2IOcQykhttps://conta.cc/2IOcQyk
Boost Your Immune System
SENT on Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 2:43 am EDT
Covid 19 is most harmful to people
with weak immune systems.
I have had several people ask me about my thoughts on covid 19. I tell them the same thing I have been saying for many years — not particularly about covid 19 but about the harmful effects our food system is having on our immune systems. The two largest factors in determining the strength and effectiveness of our immune systems is the strength of our microbiata and the nutritional content of our food — especially essential micronutrients which are found found in smaller and decreasing amounts in food today.
When I talk about the great benefits of learning how grow to your own vegetables better, or explain the nutritional differences in the same food using different cultural practices, it is because these added nutrients result in a better immune system When I talk about improving gut microbiata — it is because these microbes are 70% of our immune system. These microbes feed on carbohydrates found in fiber and resistant starch. I believe low carb diets that avoid any fruit or veggie is a horrible idea.
Is Living Soil the New Prozac? – Organic Gardening Short Course
SENT on Wed, Mar 4, 2020 at 11:50 am EST
British scientist David Strachan first proposed the controversial “hygiene hypothesis” in 1989, suggesting that in our modern, sterile world, lack of exposure to microorganisms in childhood was leading to impaired immune systems and higher rates of allergies and asthma. Researchers have since refined that theory, suggesting that it is not lack of exposure to disease-causing germs at play, but rather lack of contact with “old friends” — beneficial microbes in soil and the environment that we have long lived with — and that mental health is also impacted.
“The idea is that as humans have moved away from farms and an agricultural or hunter-gatherer existence into cities, we have lost contact with organisms that served to regulate our immune system and suppress inappropriate inflammation,” said Christopher Lowry, senior author and Integrative Physiology Professor University of Colorado, Boulder. “That has put us at higher risk for inflammatory disease and stress-related psychiatric disorders.
His study, showing that injecting a beneficial bacterium ( Mycobacterium vacca ),into mice can make them more resilient to stress, has been named among the “top 10 advancements and breakthroughs” of 2016 by the nation’s leading non-governmental funder of mental health research. The bacteria, when injected into mice, activate a set of serotonin-releasing neurons in the brain—the same nerves targeted by Prozac. They are also studying the effects on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
His lasted findings (2019) help explain exactly how this works.
The Most Impactful Garden Tool Now on Sale
SENT on Fri, Feb 7, 2020 at 6:13 am EST
For 40 years I have been searching for a better way to physically support vegetable plants. I was increasingly tired of spending hours each summer tying plants to stakes, and using makeshift devices to stop branches from breaking. I was also frustrated that support systems are a cause of insect and disease problems by creating crowded foliage conditions. These problems add up to lower yields on less healthy plants.
Some years ago, I was talking to a respected local horticulturalist who asked me if I knew of a tomato support system that actually works, since she was struggling with the same issues. I told her that I really didn’t know of any, and I found that remarkable since gardeners spend a fortune on systems that make more work for people and produce inferior results. Many of these systems also end up in landfills because they don’t work and/or only last a few years.
Last year, I told her there is a support system that works and not just for vining crops. She saw our obelisks last Summer and said she will be buying some this year. The obelisk system that we developed at Canterbury Creek Gardens is called Garden Arches System, and also supports plants like peppers, eggplants, and even cutting flowers. Even better, it has evolved into an easy way to grow almost any garden veggie plant.
A resolution that can really make a difference – CSA’s and seminars
SENT on Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 11:43 am EST
There was a meeting last June in a wood-beamed barn in Newburg, Md., an hour due south of Washington. It had all the makings of a secret conference. The guest list was confidential. No media members were allowed. The topic was how to pivot American agriculture to help combat climate change — an issue so politically toxic that it is hardly ever discussed in public.
But this meeting represented something of a change. It was hosted by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, a group made up of the heavyweights in American agriculture. It brought together three secretaries of agriculture, including the current one, Sonny Perdue. It included an A-list of about 100 agribusiness leaders including the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation — a longtime, powerful foe of federal action on climate — and CEOs of major food companies, green groups and anti-hunger advocates.
“It was a pretty serious meeting,” said Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat who serves on the House Agriculture Committee, and attended the gathering. “It was led by commodity groups and farm groups that didn’t waste a minute debating whether there’s a problem.”
Our mission & Bonus gifts for Summer CSA signup now
SENT on Sun, Dec 15, 2019 at 11:30 am EST
Canterbury Creek Gardens is a unique business in many ways
We are still the only chemical-free garden center in this area.
Twenty years ago, at a trade show I attended in Washington DC, a speaker said that there was already a natural, safe, and effective control for every lawn and garden problem. We chose to take the road of educating people that they could solve their lawn and garden problems without exposing their families to dangerous and environmentally damaging chemicals. We walked away from the easy money of selling heavily advertised, very profitable products that could cause health problems for our families, pets, wildlife and the environment. Although this was a difficult and costly business decision, it is one we never regretted.
With a staggering 700% increase of cancer rates for children and pets living in homes using these products, this is a system we wanted no part of — especially when there were safe and effective alternatives. And the products we have found work better at the same or lower cost.
The world’s most important recycling event – gone horribly wrong
Posted on September 14, 2019 at 11:19 AM
Think About This
We can quickly start to absorb the exhaust from as many as 2 billion cars
in the US alone
— just by changing the farm and lawn care practices we support.
And this may be just a side benefit.
Consider the apparent contradiction between the next two paragraphs.
“Imagine there was a process that could not only remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, but also replace it with life-giving oxygen, enhance the nutrient density of food, regenerate topsoil, restore water balance to the landscape, and clean up our waterways. Fortunately, there is. It’s called photosynthesis.”
“According to a 2019 United Nations Report, industrial agriculture, once thought to be the answer to feeding a growing population, has become one of the biggest threats to our existence. Modern agriculture now produces more greenhouse gasses than all forms of transportation combined — as well as nutritionally inferior food.”
How has growing plants gone so far wrong?
Our choices of fertilizers is one of the leading factors.