http://www.organichomegardener.com
TRAILERS TO DVD’s ‘ORGANIC GARDENING MADE EASY’ & ‘THE ORGANIC TOMATO’
My Onions Are Amazing…
My onion seedlings are looking good 2 days after planting them in the beds. But they are making me feel just a little stupid. This year, for the first time ever, I didn’t plant the 6 wk old seedlings through a thin layer of alfalfa hay, or even straw. I had dug in about 2 lbs. of alfalfa hay and meal into the beds about a month ago. As the soil in the beds had settled so much, I added a few inches of top soil and just let it lie on top without digging it in. The surfaces of the beds were just bare, dry soil. Noticing no pill bugs, slugs or snails at all, it occurred to me that I really had no purpose in using any mulch.
With our normal rainfall, I have so much organic matter in the soil that it’s going to retain all the water the onions will be likely to need through the winter. I probably won’t have to water the onions in those beds until sometime in April. They’ll likely get more water than they need until then. The primary reason for mulch is water retention, so that you don’t have to water so often. I don’t need to worry about that right now, so why put down a layer of alfalfa mulch?
After the 4-6″ seedlings have been in the ground the first night or two, I’ve always had 2-6 seedlings go completely missing. The pill bugs and slugs eat them to ground level. They almost always grow right back, but I usually replace those that have been damaged.
This year, for the first time ever, there’s not one seedling missing 48 hours after transplanting. There’s not one bit of damage to even one of the seedlings! It finally dawned on me that soil erosion from wind or water just isn’t something I ever have to worry about, and with the rains, water retention in the soil isn’t a concern. What my layer of hay or straw mulch accomplished through the winter and spring was to provide a breeding grounds for my enemies-the slugs and the pill bugs!
When spring comes and the rains are over, I’ll put down the layer of alfalfa hay between the rows for moisture retention. I won’t do that until the first time I need to water them. By then there won’t be nearly as many pill bugs or slugs, because they won’t have been breeding, as usual, under the usual alfalfa layer.
How can I be just now figuring that out after 25 years? Lee
What’s The Last Thing You Gave Away?
Some Complicated New Gadgetry got the attention of one of my new garden enthusiasts, and he asked me about it….
My full direction is toward helping the guy like you with his garden produce for his family use. If we could get 80%–even 40 or 50%, of the people growing their own anything, the impact would be huge. But–what I’ve learned over the years is that it takes an enormous amount of education to get people started even trying. I’ve totally aimed toward simplicity.
You see, I want people thinking in terms of, “You mean all I have to do is this, and I can have a real tomato like yours?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
The more complexity and significance you introduce, the less likely the average guy or girl is going to want to even give it a try. And one for one, anyone I can get to even “try,” is thereafter hooked. They want to grow more and more of their own food.
But they have to start small, and it has to be as simple as it can possibly be. I just keep promoting the basics–and the basics are far more than adequate for anyone to get the best vegetables they’ve ever had.
When you put complexities there, such as how to make the perfect compost tea, how to grow an upside down tomato, or try to sell the notion that people must have this or that exotic new gadget in order to grow a carrot, you kill more interest than you create. Sure, you’ll sell a few gadgets, but what have you really accomplished outside of a quick buck?
Experienced gardeners-real gardeners, don’t buy into that sort of thing. They just do the basics: natural soil enrichment, proper planting techniques, proper watering. And they get tired of people saying they just have a “green thumb,” and that’s why they have a great garden. A green thumb isn’t something you’re born with. You have to earn it.
Me? ‘go quietly into this dark night.’
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He died at 94 from burn complications suffered while carrying furniture out of his burning house. His father fought for Dixie in the Civil War and let Jesse and his gang hide out on his farm in Missouri after one of their bank robberies in a nearby town. His son, my grandfather, died of natural causes at the age of 94. They smoked, they drank — and they raised their own food; every bit of it. If chemicals were ever available for their farming and gardening, they wouldn’t have been able to afford them even if they might have stooped to use them.
I’ve had cancer, heart disease and cluster headaches over 2 protracted periods. I’m 67. My blood pressure is normal, no cholesterol problems, and the heart disease that haunted me for 15 years disappeared over 30 years ago. I’m a “long term cancer survivor.” I’ve smoked for 50 years; have a glass of wine or two almost every night with dinner. Dinner usually includes some kind of meat, be it chicken, fish, pork or beef. Still I can outrun, out jump, out walk, out fight, out cuss, out lie and out talk at least 95% of fellows my age, most of them purer than I. I’ve lived longer than my father, one grandfather, 2 brothers and 2 uncles. Good genes? Certainly. Good eating habits? Dubious. But the meat I eat is as pure as it can be in this world, and the vegetables I’ve been eating for 25 years have been grown in my front and back yards—as purely organic, nutrient laden and as fresh as any that exist anywhere in the world.
When I read about e-coli killing people and destroying lives, see poisonous pesticides freely sold and used on lawns, landscaping and vegetables, kids eating junk food 3 times a day with 1/3 of them condemned to some form of diabetes, I wonder when we the people, will say, “Enough!”
Now I read that the oil and chemical companies, in hand with the drug makers, the pharmaceutical companies, have been given a free pass by our elected congressional “Representatives” on their deadly “medicines.” They can kill and maim any or all of us they want and not be held accountable. That’s because the “Scientific” community has deemed some fraud like “swine flu,” an “epidemic,” and some kind of “national emergency.”
“Our food should be our medicine,” said Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine. What have we done to our families, and ourselves and what power over our own lives have we given up?
Every medicine in use today is experimental. Every one of them is “experimental.” And yet somebody who says they’re an “expert” tells us we need them. We, like sheep, buy them.
I’ll continue my wicked ways, grow my own non-toxic vegetables and handle whatever meat my family and I use, myself. I know how to buy untainted meat, and there hasn’t been a toxic chemical in my vegetable beds in the 25 years it’s been since I built them. And I, for one, won’t ‘go quietly into this dark night.’
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VICTORY GARDENS
Victory Garden?
A couple of youngsters asked what that means, and it finally dawned on me that not everyone knows & Jeff gave a good description too above.
America had been devastated by the Great Depression, which began with the stock market crash of 1929. It hadn’t recovered by December of 1941, when Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan, and our Navy in the Pacific was all but wiped out. We declared war on Japan, which was the excuse for Germany, who had an alliance with Japan, to declare war on us.
Plunged from Depression into World War, we had to produce an army, equip it, and feed it. If we were to survive as a nation, every resource that could be mustered was desperately needed. There was little of anything to spare. I watched my grandfather peel the tin foil from the inside of cigarette and gum wrappers and roll it into a ball that grew with each bit of foil he added to it. He’d take that, along with grandma’s cans of leftover cooking oil, metal products that had broken or were no longer needed, old newspapers and scrap material of any and all kinds, to the modern equivalent of a recycling center. It was all needed for “the war effort.”
With hundreds of thousands of people needed for our armed forces, the labor force was diminished. Production of anything not directly related to our survival was minimized, if not stopped completely. There were no new cars, no new refrigerators, no new stoves made for “the duration” of the war. That’s how we referred to it, “the duration,” meaning until the war was over. We had to do without this or that, “for the duration.”
A very large Army and Navy needed fuel, clothing, equipment, ships and guns. And they needed to eat 3 times a day. Most of the nation’s food came from small farms, a large percentage of the men, suddenly soldiers and sailors, came from those farms, and the food supply was diminished. The demand for food production increased. Anything that could be done must be done, if we were not to become part of Nazi Germany or Fascist Japan.
Every American needed to pitch in, however and whenever they could. If you could help the war effort by reducing your demand for food that was needed by our armed forces, you did just that. Anyone who could grow some or all of their own food had a duty to do so. Our fighting men shouldn’t have to compete for food with those at home. Front yards, back yards, anywhere people could grow some vegetables was planted. Such gardens would help ensure Victory, and were called “Victory Gardens.”
There were Victory Gardens in England, Canada and Germany during World War I, but came into greater significance during the more protracted 2nd World War.
We may be in as much jeopardy today, not by an invading army, but by our environmental ruination through the many avenues of chemical destruction of our air, water and soil.
Victory Gardens of my earliest childhood were vital to our survival. They were a way in which almost anyone could contribute to our continued freedom.
Home gardens today, I think, are no less vital to our survival. We aren’t likely to poison our own soil with chemicals, nor poison our own food with deadly pesticides. Each of us who can have a vegetable garden today should consider it a Victory Garden, because today we’re fighting for a Victory over the ruination of our environment.
Above is a typical ad from back then. Start yours today… any day is a good day to garden. lee
What’s The Best Way To Love The Earth
The first step is to recognize it.
Most people don’t know what kind of trees are growing in their own yards, the kind of grass they have in their lawns, or even what color the house across the street is. They don’t know what the pesticides they’re using are doing to the earth. They don’t know that the chemical fertilizers that are used by them, or their gardeners, are more destructive in the long run than they are helpful; nor what measures their grand children will have to go to correct the damage they’ve created. Most people can’t tell you the names of even 3 birds that are in their yards at any given moment, what kind of insects are in their yards, or whether they’re harming their plants or helping them.
Lee
Recognition-learn to see what’s there. We have to stop yelling at “them” to “do something about it,” and take a good look at what we do, or don’t do, in our own front yard every day.
Start your own garden. It takes about an hour a week to tend and the food is nutritious. I will be happy to help you get any size organic garden started. Just drop me a note.
Take care of our home.
This is my front yard filled with organic veggies…
Lee
Testimonial to Organic Gardening DVD
About Onions:
Since the YouTube posting by Barbara Lee regarding her immense onions, 4 lbs. 12 oz. was the largest; I’ve had lots of questions about onions. (To see the video, go to “Recommended Sites” on www.organichomegardener.com, click on “My Blogs,” scroll down to “My Blog Site,” scroll down to “Testimonial to Organic Gardening DVD,” and simply click on the Play button.)
The Egyptians of 4-5,000 years ago were the first known cultivators of onions. There are any number of types and varieties of onions, and generally they are of either the “Long Day” variety, or the “Short Day” variety.
Those of us in the lower latitudes, as in southern California, have relatively short summer days compared to the more northerly latitudes, as in Washington or Connecticut. While the Long Day varieties are generally successful here, we excel in the Short Day varieties.
Maui onions, Texas 509 and Walla Walla are examples of Short Day onions. The Short Day varieties are generally far milder than Long Day. The reason for that is simply that the Short Day varieties don’t absorb much sulfur from the soil. It’s the sulfur absorption that makes onions “hot,” and some varieties absorb more sulfur than others.
Onions are essentially bi-annuals. That means they are generally planted in one year and harvested the next. If you plant onion sets in the spring, they should be fully matured in about 100 days. There are varieties of onions that grow from seed to maturity in one season, but most are Long Day varieties that require 13-14 hours of sunlight per day. The amount of sunlight per day is crucial to the development of the bulb. If your onions don’t develop bulbs, the most probable reason is that they simply aren’t getting enough sunlight. The more sunlight they get each day, the bigger the onion bulbs will be.
While I’ve grown many varieties of onions over the years, both Long and Short Day, all very successfully, our favorite is the Walla Walla. I’ve grown them in the same 2 beds year after year, for more years than I can remember. In late spring, as the onions are maturing, I plant winter squash seeds or seedlings between them. As the squash plants need more and more space, I harvest the onions as the growing squash require more room. After the crop of winter squash is harvested, I plant a crop of legumes, which I chop and dig into the soil around mid-November. I let 3 or 4 of the largest and best onions go to seed, dry them in the sun and then put them in the refrigerator. (All seeds should be refrigerated until you’re ready to plant them.) Around the first of November, I start my onion seeds, 20-40 to a pot, in 1-gallon plastic pots. Between mid-December and Christmas, I transplant the seedlings into the beds, allowing about 1 square foot per seedling.
The green tops of the onions grow through our mild winters, but the bulbs don’t even start to grow until the weather warms and the days get longer. Then it seems that around the first of June the bulbs almost suddenly start to explode into huge onions. One bed gets up to an hour more of sunlight every day than the other bed. There is always a noticeable difference in the size of the onions from one bed to the next. That hour difference makes an average ½ lb. per onion in size difference between the two beds.
The soil in both beds is exactly the same, and both have always had exactly the same cultivation. The amount of sunlight is just that critical to the size of your onions.
Onions prefer a pH of 6 to 7, as do most vegetables. If you use plenty of composted organic matter, you probably already have just that pH. To onions, probably the more critical factor than having the right pH is simply having enough sunlight–the more sunlight, the bigger the onion.Lee
www.organichomegardener.com
www.meatbasics101.com
Organically Cultivating Gaia with Lee O’Hara
Organically Cultivating Gaia with Lee O’Hara – moderator: Meenakshi
Welcome to a week-long garden party with Gaia’s very own Lee O’Hara!
We invite everyone to this gathering, as organic food is served in delightful nooks and crannies, and there’s feast for the senses as Gaia breathes in delightful appreciation.
Come with your stories and questions and appetites for all that is fresh and healthy and balanced, as we chat, and chatter, and wander off to read Lee’s profile- aptly located at http://organics.com
Just a few weeks short of his first Gaia anniversary, the remarkable Lee O’Hara has been gently sowing seeds of organic living, caring community, and supportive presence. When I read his advice about how to grow vegetables, and saw those shiny cherry tomatoes on his profile, I knew I had to get back to gardening!
lee writes: “Some people actually use and enjoy their lawns.The rest of us should dig them up and plant vegetables. With what little lawn I had, I did that 25 years ago, along with all the rest of the yard.” Take a look at his blogs:
What is the best way to love the Earth? Posted on Sep 7th, 2008
Don’t buy that nonsense! Apr 29th, 2009
Eat Your Landscaping! Apr 15th, 2009
Lee has a website full of handy tips
http://www.organichomegardener.com/
and an Official Organic Gardening YouTube Channel.
As we move into the feature, Lee has generously agreed to answer our questions on organic living. So without further ado, I would like to invite all members of Gaia community to this unique opportunity to meet a person whose life embodies his passion. ”My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.” Abram L. Urban
I suspect that much as happens to those who buy his award-winning DVD: ‘Organic Gardening Made Easy‘, we’re going to find that we want to stay in touch with Lee long after this feature is over!
Decades before ‘organic gardening’ became a buzzword, Lee was learning the hands-on joy of cultivating the land that he loves. What lovely photos, Lee! I love the one with your wife Melissa and dog-friend Pepper!
So that leads me to the first question:
Lee, as you come into this garden gathering, can you take us down memory lane to the special first times of growing things? Meet Lee with his wife Melissa & their dog Pepper as we dig in about the world of organic gardening.
What is the damage to the soil; the air, the wildlife and what lies ahead for all that denuded land?
Hi Friends, I wanted to add something about the fires as the happened during this time we have been conversing.
Fire has decimated over 150,000 acres of Southern California forested areas over the past week, and we have more to lose over the next week or two before they’re all out.
While some thousands of homes had to be evacuated, we lost about 60 homes, a relatively few compared to the numbers threatened.
What is the damage to the soil; the air, the wildlife and what lies ahead for all that denuded land? The air quality here has been horrible for over a week. The smell of smoke permeates my office, my home, and we haven’t been able to see the mountains above Pasadena in over a week. The smoke is still very thick in many of our mountainside communities, communities that may still exist because our occasional Santa Ana winds weren’t blowing at their sometimes 20-40 mile an hour clip. The destruction could have been-would have been immeasurably worse. The damage to health, not only to those of us who live here, but to those up to 1,000 miles to the east of us, is immeasurable.
Wildlife loss isn’t yet measured, but the numbers of animals that perished will be staggering. With the loss of habitat, it will be many years before any balance is restored.
The soil? With the ground cover gone, when our rainy season begins in November, there will be inestimable erosion, landslides, destruction and damage to creeks, rivers and waterways. Much of the topsoil will be lost. It took nature 100 years to make an inch of it, and it will take only a few rains to wash it away. The wood ash will possibly nourish the soil to some minor extent, and have the effect of raising the pH, meaning that other nutrients won’t be available to new vegetation. Most of the micronutrient benefits will be lost through exposure to sun and rain.
According to our latest scientific reports, many of our North American wildfires are necessary to the native eco-systems. We’ve been able to trace the existence of wildfires for 420 million years. We’ve been studying wildfires for only a few years-the blink of an eye. I doubt that the full effects of wildfires are measurable, or even if we understand what we think we know about them; no matter how authoritatively we say it.
We’ll find whatever positive things might be said of our disaster of the week, and we’ll look for silver lining. Hopefully we’ll help Mother Nature repair the damage, rather than just get in her way—again. Lee O’Hara
Organically Cultivating with Lee O’Hara
We invite everyone to this gathering, as organic food is served in delightful nooks and crannies, and there’s feast for the senses as this article breathes in delightful appreciation.
Come with your stories and questions and appetites for all that is fresh and healthy and balanced, as we chat, and chatter, and wander off to read Lee’s profile- aptly located here at http://lee0hara.wordpress.com/
Just a few weeks short of his first Web anniversary, the remarkable Lee O’Hara has been gently sowing seeds of organic living, caring community, and supportive presence. When I read his advice about how to grow vegetables, and saw those shiny cherry tomatoes on his profile, I knew I had to get back to gardening!
“Some people actually use and enjoy their lawns.The rest of us should dig them up and plant vegetables. With what little lawn I had, I did that 25 years ago, along with all the rest of the yard.”
Lee has a website full of handy tips http://www.organichomegardener.com/
and an Official Organic Gardening YouTube Channel. with this one segment of Lee O’Hara & our very own host Rudi Loehing, [edited/authored by Kathy Smith]
As we move into the feature, Lee has generously agreed to answer our questions on organic living. So without further ado, I would like to invite all members of social communities to this unique opportunity to meet a person whose life embodies his passion.
My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams.
The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.
Abram L. Urban
I suspect that much as happens to those who buy his award-winning DVD : Organic Gardening Made Easy‘, we’re going to find that we want to stay in touch with Lee long after this feature is over!
Decades before ‘organic gardening’ became a buzzword, Lee was learning the hands-on joy of cultivating the land that he loves. What lovely photos on your gardens, Lee!
So that leads me to the first question: Lee, as you come into this garden gathering, can you take us down memory lane to the special first times of growing things?
Where are you on your journey?
My back yard.
No mowing, no wasted water, no pesticides, no chemicals.
What will I get?
Between 600-800 lbs. of tomatoes from the 7 plants, about 500 Japanese eggplants from the 6 plants, and 60-80 Ping Tung Long eggplants from the one plant; about 150 lbs. of English and Pickling cucumbers from the 7 English and 8 pickling cucumbers; about 40 lbs. of green beans from half of that bed, 16 heads of Romaine lettuce and 30-40 lbs. of Yellow Zuchhini from the other half; about 100 ears of corn from the corn bed- 5′ by 8′, which is 40 square feet, and the lettuce in that 3′ by 5′ section has been giving us all we can eat and give away for a month, and will keep it up for another month.
Now that’s just the back yard. I don’t even want to get into the front yard!
I’m not very “politically correct,” for being in the city of Los Angeles. But then I don’t think politics are all that correct.
Lee O’Hara
www.organichomegardener.com
My back yard.
No mowing, no wasted water, no pesticides, no chemicals.
What will I get?
Between 600-800 lbs. of tomatoes from the 7 plants, about 500 Japanese eggplants from the 6 plants, and 60-80 Ping Tung Long eggplants from the one plant; about 150 lbs. of English and Pickling cucumbers from the 7 English and 8 pickling cucumbers; about 40 lbs. of green beans from half of that bed, 16 heads of Romaine lettuce and 30-40 lbs. of Yellow Zuchhini from the other half; about 100 ears of corn from the corn bed- 5′ by 8′, which is 40 square feet, and the lettuce in that 3′ by 5′ section has been giving us all we can eat and give away for a month, and will keep it up for another month.
Now that’s just the back yard. I don’t even want to get into the front yard!
I’m not very “politically correct,” for being in the city of Los Angeles. But then I don’t think politics are all that correct.
Lee O’Hara
