Farm Stand Marfa

FARM STAND MARFA NEWSLETTER JULY 25

THE SKY IS FALLING and THIS WEEK IN THE GARDEN

High on the Marfa Plateau in the Chihuahuan Desert gardeners rarely find themselves working in wet gardens.  But this week’s almost daily rains have transformed our vegetable plots and flowerbeds into dripping, humid habitats suited for mushrooms and orchids.  So far this year, the town of Marfa has recorded over nine inches of rainfall. The summer monsoon season, promising another 4 inches or more, is ahead of us. Chances are good we will surpass our usual 10-12 inches of rain a year.

Many ranchers are reporting much less rainfall:  “We have some areas that have received no more than a sprinkle,” one rancher told me. “In other words- ugly brown.  The rain had better hurry.  We only have around 60 days left to grow grass.  counting on August.”

What does frequent rainfall mean for the town gardener?  Relief on the water bill front is one welcome benefit. And leafy greens do love the rain.  The summer squash will still produce.  But the green tomatoes on the vine will take an extra long time to ripen.

The massive storm that blew through town on Wednesday brought with it a nasty dumping of hail. The following morning those gardens like mine that were not protected by sturdy row covers were in shreds.  The storm has created extra work for us this week.

Cut off the tattered leaves of cooking greens and cook them up.  New leaves will grow back.  Gather the torn and fallen squash blossoms, chop them for a salad or a vegetable sauté. Prune the broken tomato branches.  If green tomatoes are on the prunings, ripen the fruits in paper bags or use them in a salsa or tomato pie. The heirloom tomato plant is a cultivated weed.  Most likely they will survive.

For a few years the Marfa gardener and chef Toshi Saki has been using an ingenious hail and shade cover that he designed.  He made it using a winter weight floating row cover.  Try setting up this cover in your garden over a wide bed, 3-foot wide by 6-10 feet long. Attach grommets along the length of the row cover fabric on both sides. Then string a wire clothesline through the grommets on each side.  You will need four sturdy 4-5 foot stakes or posts, two on each end of the garden bed.  Sink the posts two feet deep. Secure the 2 clotheslines to the posts. The row cover will slide back and forth easily along the clotheslines. Use it for shading lettuce. When a storm begins, you can quickly slide the fabric along the line and cover the plants to protect them from most of the hail that falls.

Another way to protect your plants from hail and grasshoppers is to make a mini hoop house over your garden bed. (See the attached  document below, “This Week In The Garden,” for more info.)

Besides damage control, there are lots of things to do in the garden this week.  I’ve attached a document for “This Week In The Garden” that includes suggestions for planting, pest control and eating from the garden.  Enjoy.

(The Farm Stand Marfa Newsletter is published by Sandra Harper.  If you’d like to be on the mailing list contact farmstandmarfa@gmail.com)

THIS WEEK IN THE GARDEN

MINI HOOP HOUSE FOR HAIL AND PEST CONTROL

Protect your plants from hail and grasshoppers by setting up a mini hoop house over your garden bed.  Frame the bed with PVC pipe or #9 wire.  I use the #9 wire because it is quick and easy.  Cut the wire in lengths 2 1/2 feet longer than your bed is wide. One at a time arc the wire over the bed and push it into the soil to secure it.  Once the wires have been set into the ground, drape the floating row cover over the wires.  Use clothespins to secure the cover to the wires.

For hail protection you will need to use a winter weight row cover.  During the summer you will have to keep this fabric pulled aside. Use this heavy cover when a storm is imminent.  The lighter summer weight fabric can be left draped over the plants as long as they are thriving.  If they are flowering plants that need to fruit, remove the fabric so they can be pollinated. Summer weight fabric will provide protection from most hail.  If the hail is larger than a marble throw the heavier winter weight over the summer fabric during the storm.

2 Sources for floating row covers
Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply
http://www.groworganic.com/default.html

http://www.berryhilldrip.com/RowCover.htm

PLANT FROM SEED

_2 ½ months to the hard freeze
(NOTE: Hold off planting cool weather plants, such as broccoli, and broccoli rabe, Asian greens, spinach, mustard, kale until August. These plants prefer cool weather and enjoy a little frost.)
_Snap beans have time to produce baby beans for good eating.
Plant beans in the corn patch.  They make good companions.
_Plant borage and harvest the seedlings to give salads the taste of cucumber.
_Replant summer squash. If your plants are wracked with pests and mildew, start over, in a month you will have blossoms to stuff and fry and fruits for picking in September if not before.
_Plant greens for your chickens and turkeys.
http://www.wildgardenseed.com/index.php?cPath=69

COMPANION PLANTING
Plants that thrive together:
_roses and feverfew
_borage with the squash, tomatoes and strawberries
_chives and carrots
_dill and sage with the cabbages

FERTILIZE

_Continue to foliar feed once a week with seaweed or a combo like Garrett Juice.
Garrett Juice: 1 c. manure tea, 1 oz, molasses, 1 oz. apple cider vinegar, 1 oz. seaweed.

-Fish emulsion and molasses
Foliar feed plants or use as a liquid fertilizer around plants.

PEST CONTROL

_Grasshoppers
Think of your garden as a habitat.  This will insure a healthy balance of predators to pests.  Mantids eat grasshoppers. Keep birds visiting the garden by growing sunflowers and providing a bowl of water for them.
The least expensive solution- sprinkle all- purpose flour on the plants. Be sure to wash the dust off within a day or two.
An effective deterrent-continue to sprinkle Nolo Bait, a single-celled microsporidium protozoan that kills grasshoppers.
The best solution-guinea hens

_Squash bugs and Harlequin bugs
Hand pick.  Look under the leaves for the orange eggs of the squash bugs and the tiny black and white eggs of the Harlequins. Remove the eggs.

Spray with neem or orange oil if you have to.  You will be spraying the good insects too.
Spray with sesame oil and Dr Bronner’s peppermint soap
_Instead of dusting leaves with the toxic Sevin product, use all purpose flour.  Wash off within 2 days.

DON’T USE SEVIN
SEVIN is the brand name for carbaryl insecticide, and that carbaryl is the common name for the active ingredient, 1-napthyl methylcarbamate)
“We do know that carbaryl is quite toxic to honey bees, certain beneficial insects such as lady beetles, and parasitic wasps and bees, certain species of aquatic insects, and some forms of shellfish such as shrimp and crabs. Care must be taken when using carbaryl in areas where these organisms exist.” http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/facts/gen-pubre-sevin.html

_White Fly Infestation
Spray plants with a solution of a few drops of cinnamon oil and Dr. Bronner’s Soap in a gallon of water.

Using Pest Formulas
When using oil based sprays keep this info in mind:
_spray late in the date when few insects are visiting the plants
_ try to avoid spraying the flowers
_most important, use only if you have to because these oils will harm the small beneficial insects the garden needs to stay healthy

OIL BASED FORMULAS
_Add a few drops of chili oil and garlic oil to a gallon of water and spray plants.
A cap of sesame oil and a few drops of Dr. Bronner’s Soap added to a gallon of water works well.

Build a Bat House
Bats are our friends.  They eat mosquitoes, cucumber beetles, stink bugs and the moths of the adult corn borers, earworms, and cutworms. Humans are not the bat’s friends. Habitat destruction caused by development threatens these beneficial predators and pollinators.  Why not build a bat house!
http://www.batcon.org/index.php/get-involved/install-a-bat-house.html

TOMATO CARE
Mulch tomatoes with the wild plants growing nearby- amaranth and purslane. Alfalfa, compost, and aged manure make good mulches.  Use them all.
Tomatoes love calcium.  Save your eggshells and sprinkle them around the plants.  Do you have old milk in the fridge?
Pour it at the base of the tomato plant and cover with mulch.

GARDEN TO TABLE

HARVEST SQUASH BLOSSOMS

Harvest squash blossoms by noon while the flowers are still open.  The male flower has a long stem.  This is the one to cut and store in a glass of ice water in the fridge or wrap in a damp paper towel.
To prepare, slice the blossoms thin and toss them into salads or vegetable gratins.
Stuffed Squash Blossoms is a seasonal dish to enjoy now.  Here’s a great recipe using goat cheese as a stuffing and masa harina for the batter.
http://www.strauscom.com/farmfresh/ffsblos.html

EAT WEEDS
These weeds grow in my garden:
purslane, lamb’s quarters, young borage and comfrey, dandelion,
chicory, field poppy, sorrel, orach, plantain, dock, clary sage, arugula, sprouts of bladder campion (silene inflata, sculpit)

Along with the weeds I grab bits of fennel fronds, carrot tops, parsley, and lovage, a little goes a long way.

Patience Gray’s dish of weeds from her delightful book Honey From a Weed:
Handful of young comfrey and borage, beet leaves and fennel shoots.
Wash the weeds and “throw them wet into a pan containing hot olive oil.” Stir them while cooking for a few minutes.  Serve with grated pecorino.

FEEL EXHAUSTED SOMETIMES?
Here’s a pick-me-up I learned from Diana Kennedy’s cookbook, “Nothing Fancy.” It works and it is nourishing.

Mung Bean Tonic

1 c. mung beans
4 c. cold water

Rinse the mung beans and put then in a saucepan.  Cover with the water and cook over a gentle heat for 15 or 20 minutes.  The juice will become a deep greenish-brown and then remain clear.  Set aside to soak for about 2 hours, then strain and reserve the juice.  Drink the mung bean tonic hot or cold.
Use the half cooked mung beans in a recipe.