Mar
28
2010
John
The new Home Seed Garden Association put out a press release listing a few reasons to start your plants from seed and the ten easiest plants to grow from seed.
Why you should start plants from seed-
Save money
Enjoy unusual plants
Some plants grow best from seed
Grow your own food
Have fun!
And the top ten easiest plants to grow from seed are-
Beans
Cosmos
Cucumber
Lettuce
Peas
Pumpkin
Radish
Squash
Sunflowers
Zinnias
John E. Perkins
Mar
20
2010
John
Most of my seed orders have been sent and now I’m ordering a few fruit shrubs and trees. The new highbush blueberry bushes are on the way. I will also order two or three varieties of low bush wild type blueberries. Keep in mind that most of the nutritionally good stuff in blueberries is in the skin. Thus, the smaller the berries the more skin per pound or per cup. So smaller berries are better for you. I also think they have a better flavor. I try to eat blueberries almost every day. Most of the year I eat them frozen. Yup, right out of the freezer and into my cereal or yogurt. But it is far cheaper to grow your own than to buy the expensive berries. It takes some work to make up a bed and get the soil pH adjusted so they are happy. It is REALLY hard to pick off the blooms the first two years. By year five you should be getting a nice crop and by year eight the plants are in full swing. Don’t forget to cage your berry plants. I’m going for a six foot high cage made out of 1″ metal conduit with plastic netting thrown over. If you really want to feed the birds berries, plant a white mulberry tree, Morus alba.
Well, I’ll cover the whole planting process here in Indiana clay when the plant arrive. And may you all have a productive spring.
John E. Perkins
Feb
24
2010
“Unemployment is capitalism’s way of getting you to plant a garden.”
Orson Scott Card
It worked for me. – John
Feb
20
2010
John
Each year for many years Renee Shepherd at www.reneesgarden.com has offered to send me seeds for evaluation. This is the first year that I have taken her up on her generous offer. I got to pick 18 packs of seed for trial. Some that I choose had multiple varieties in the pack. So here is a listing of the seeds that have arrived and my wife and I will be trialing in our vegetable garden and kitchen this year.
| Beans, Pole, Filet | Emerite | |
| Beans, Pole, Filet | French Gold | |
| Beans, Pole, Snap | Purple Pole | Heirloom |
| Beans, Pole, Snap | Rattlesnake | Heirloom |
| Beets | Golden | |
| Beets | Red Sangria | |
| Beets | Striped Chioggia | |
| Celery | Amsterdam Seasoning | |
| Chard | Scarlet Charlotte | |
| Cucumbers | Lemon | Heirloom |
| Cucumbers, Mediterranean | Garden Oasis | |
| Cucumbers, Pickling | Endeavor | |
| Eggplant | Beatrice F1 | |
| Eggplant | Nadia F1 | |
| Eggplant | Rosa Bianca | |
| Kohlrabi | Kolibri F1 | |
| Kohlrabi | Kongo F1 | |
| Leeks, French Baby | Primor | |
| Lentils | Green | |
| Lettuce, Baby Leaf | Blush Butter Cos | Heirloom |
| Lettuce, Baby Leaf | Devil’s Tongue | Heirloom |
| Lettuce, Baby Leaf | Red Ruffled Oak | Heirloom |
| Lettuce, Baby Leaf | Speckled Troutback | Heirloom |
| Lettuce, Baby Leaf | Sucrine | Heirloom |
| Lettuce, Cutting | Sea of Red | |
| Lettuce, Romaine | Sweetie Baby Romaine | |
| Tomato | Black Krim | |
| Tomato | Constoluto | |
| Tomato | Sweet Persimmon | |
| Tomato | Camp Joy Cherry | Heirloom |
Renee personally selects time-tested heirlooms, superior open-pollinated varieties, and the best international hybrids chosen for great flavor, ease of culture and exceptional performance. Renee’s Garden seeds are also available at fine nurseries and garden centers. You may call 1-888-880-7228 to find a location near you.
John E. Perkins
Tags: Amsterdam Seasoning, babt leaf lettuce, Beatrice, beets, Black Krim, Blush Butter Cos, Camp Joy. Renee's Garden, celery, cherry tomato, Constoluto, cucumbers, cutting lettuce, Devil's Tongue, eggplant, Emerite, Endeavor, filet pole beans, French Gold, Garden Oasis, Golden, Green, heirloom vegetables, Kolibri, Kongo, kphlrabi, leeks, Lemon, lentils, lettuce, Mediterranean cucumbers, Nadia, pickling cucumbers, Primor, Purple Pole, Rattlesnake, Red Ruffled Oak, Red Sangria, Romaine lettuce, Rosa Bianca, Scarlet Charlotte, Sea of Red, Speckled Troutback, Striped Chioggia, Sucrine, Sweetie Baby Romaine, tomato | 
Comments (0)
Comments (0) Feb
4
2010
John
Jan
24
2010
John
You can use nutritional data to help you decide what to grow in your home food garden. My wife is on three special diets and coordinating the three can be difficult. Home grown foods lack the sodium input and are much cheaper to grow than to buy. She also has to watch sugar and vitamin K intake. A big reason to grow your own food is to eliminate the additives that are found in grocery store foods. I have found a very useful website for nutritional data. It is www.nutritiondata.com. There is also a blog associated with the site that can be accessed from the site. If you prefer to use the glycemic index instead of glycemic load, check out www.glycemicindex.com to find the relative effects of a wide variety of food carbohydrates.
John
Jan
16
2010
My Mailbox
Now let’s look what happens to the genes of the F1 hybrid population when allowed to self pollinate.
This is the topic of a paper that landed in my emailbox, via a few links. It is an article about how to stabilize characteristics that you like in an F1 hybrid tomato. The tomato is used with the assumption that it is self-fertilizing. This technique pretty much can be applied to other F1 hybrids if you prevent outcrossing. The bad part is that it takes about 8 years to stabilize your favored characteristics. The good part is, that if you are in a situation where you only have hybrid seed available, you can develop a stable open pollinated variety for future use. It is very difficult to stabilize a gene that you can’t see, such as disease resistance.
So here is the link to the article: http://kdcomm.net/%7Etomato/gene/genes2.html
John E. Perkins
Tags: F1 hybrid, genetics, hybrid seed, open pollinated seed, seed saving, seeds, tomato |
Comments (0)
Comments (0) Jan
12
2010
John
GUARANTEED ANALYSIS
TOTAL NITROGEN (N)……………………………14%
8.20% Ammoniacal Nitrogen
5.80% Nitrate Nitrogen
AVAILABLE PHOSPHATE (P2O5)…………….14%
SOLUBLE POTASH (K2O)………………………..14%
Dear Farmers Almanac:
On page 12 of the 2010 edition of the Farmers Almanac you have an article titled “Understanding Fertilizer.” The article states “The three numbers on a fertilizer bag refer to the percentages by weight of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, always in that order.” Unfortunately, that is incorrect and perpetuates a common misunderstanding.
The three numbers, example 14-14-14, actually stand for the percentages of Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash. According to Knott’s Handbook for Vegetable Growers, Third Edition, the 14-14-14 can be easily converted to the actual weights of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium.
Multiply the first number, N, by 1. Multiply the second number, P, by 0.437, which is the percentage of Phosphorus in Phosphate (P2O5) by weight. Multiply the third number, K, by 0.830, which is the percentage of Potassium in Potash (K2O) by weight.
Thus in a 100 pound bag of 14 – 14 – 14 fertilizer, you have 14 pounds of Nitrogen, 6.1 pounds of Phosphorus, and 11.6 pounds of Potassium.
Save the handy chart:
Fertilizer N – P – K
N = Nitrogen, multiply by 1 = N
P2O5 = Phosphate, multiply by 0.437 = P
K2O = Potash, multiply by 0.830 = K
Sincerely,
John E. Perkins
Jan
10
2010
My Mailbox
Sand Hill Preservation Center: Heirloom Seeds and Poultry
Over 1600 Rare and Genetic Treasures For Your Selection
Glenn and Linda Drowns are well known genetic preservationists. This 89 page catalog lists a huge selection of old open pollinated vegetable seed, sweet potato slips and heirloom poultry. Once you get into “homesteading”, be it urban, suburban or country, you may well start out with chickens. Then move into other poultry. I’ve raised chickens, guineas, ducks, and geese myself. I am looking forward to heiloom turkeys. You can use poultry for weed and pest removal. And you can use left over garden produce to feed the poultry. You can use a chicken tractor to weed, till and fertilize your garden. If you don’t know what a chicken tractor is, it’s moveable housing.
The tomato seed section is 16 pages long. The sweet potato preservation project listing is 6 pages long. The Drowns subscribe to the Safe Seed Pledge and much of their seed is organic. 1600 selections!!
I want you to know that this is not a seed/poultry company but a genetic preservation effort. The Drowns and their family, friends and neighbors are not profit oriented. They are preservation oriented. Glenn is a high scool teacher and works on this project morning and night 365 days a year. I have done some small scale preservation work and I can tell you that these people are working their tails off for what they believe in. Please support them with purchases and donations. You can order a free catalog from the website above. But don’t wait too long, they’ll get very busy and some seeds are in short supply.
John
Jan
5
2010
My Mailbox
I have ordered from commercial seed providers and received fine service and exceptional seed. Many vegetable seed purveyors don’t have a minimum, but an additional handling charge instead. Quantities of seed may be given in weight or in seed count. Minimum varietal seed quantities may be more than you want to order. Check the average seed life and see if you can keep extra seeds for more than one year. You may wish to order with friends and neighbors or form a cooperative. You may also find fewer, sometimes none, open pollinated, untreated or organic options. Varietal selections may be made on the basis of expected high chemical inputs. Some varieties may be the result of genetic engineering. The following catalogs have arrived in my mailbox.
Krohne Plant Farms, Inc., www.krohneplantfarms.com Strawberry and asparagus plants in quantities from 25 to 25,000.
Veseys Seeds, www.veseys.com Prices on packets to 250,000 seeds. 5% discount on orders of $300 or more.
Rupp Seeds, Inc., www.ruppseeds.com No minimum listed, but there is a $10 S & H charge on orders under $150. Reasonably small package sizes available.
Seedway, www.seedway.com Continental transportation charges paid by Seedway for orders over $150. No minimum order listed.
Holmes Seed Company, 2125 – 46th St. N.W., Canton, OH 44709, 800-435-6077 $10 handling charge on orders under $100.
Siegers Seed Co., www.siegers.com Minimum seed order, excluding other charges, is $100.
Jan
1
2010
My Mailbox
Landreth Seed Company Commemorative Catalog, Celebrating 225 Years of Service to America’s Farmers & Gardeners
Founded 1784, www.landrethseeds.com
This is my first Landreths’ Seed Catalog. I loved their website and signed up for a paper edition. I always feel guilty with the paper catalogs, but I find it so much more efficient to order from a stack of catalogs rather than spending hours waiting for pages to load on my computer. And this catalog is a real beauty. Printed in color on heavy “parchment” paper with a four-color center insert. Reprinted within are pages from catalogs over 100 years old along with the wisdom they contain. You will find many, many heirloom varieties within. Some from Europe. I will be ordering from Landreths’ this year and I’ll let you know what I think of their service and their seeds. I expect I will love both.
Territorial Seed Company, www.territorialseed.com
I have ordered from Territorial Seed many times and always been happy. They started out, as I recall, as a regional seed company specializing in short season seeds. All of the seeds they sell are trialed at their London Springs Farms in Oregon. Their growing season is May 12 to September 15, about a month less than mine. So anything that grows there, should do well here at my house in Gardenburg, IN.
Territorial sells a smaller packet they call a sampler size as well as their standard packet. And of course it costs less. They are charter signers of the Safe Seed Pledge. They sell both organic and biodynamic seeds.
R. H. Shumway’s Illustrated Garden Guide, www.rhshumway.com
Free! Vegetable seeds when you order by March 15th. I have ordered from Shumway’s for decades. I have never been dissatisfied with either their service or their seeds. Their catalog is filled with old woodcuts. They carry a number of heirloom and open pollinated seeds. Two of my favorite seeds from Shumway are Buckbee’s original Abraham Lincoln tomato and Shumway’s Goliath Silo Corn, a white corn growing 10 feet or more with huge ears that we use for hominy.
John
Dec
31
2009
From the Columbian Edition of Landreths’ 1893 Seed Catalog
“Next to errors of too deep or too shallow sowing of Seeds are the errors of thick seeding without corresponding thinning – a neglect of properly thinning out the plants after germination. It is far better to thin out a row of Beets, Lettuce, Carrots or Parsnips, so as to obtain good specimens at proper distances, than miserable abortions crowded together at half an inch apart, as is so often seen in the gardens of the inexperienced. So clearly evident is the advantage of thinning out that we will not waste space dwelling upon it, other than to give the following table of suggestive distance to which vegetables in the private gardens should be thinned:
1 inch – Radishes
2 inches – Beans, Carrots, Peas
3 inches – Leeks
4 inches – Beets, Kale, Onions, Parsnips, Spinach, Turnips
5 inches – Endive, Parsley
6 inches – Lettuce, Okra”
Dec
30
2009
My Mailbox
Gempler’s 2010 Master Catalog, America’s Authority for Outdoor Work Supplies, 643 pages, www.gemplers.com
If you were a landscaper, farmer, nurseryman, forester or a lot of other outdoor workers, you’d have Gempler’s catalog within reach of your desk. You’ll find professional gardening tools here. One feature I like about Gempler’s is their Shipping Saver. For $39 you get free standard shipping on all of your orders for 12 months. The shipping can get very costly. This is a real bargain.
John
Dec
15
2009
My Mailbox
This is a chart of uses for all of the potato varieties my wife and I grew in the garden this year. It’s posted on the front of the refrigerator for easy access. We like all of them, but they each shine for specific uses. I was excited about the quantity we dug on the La Ratte. They make great dirty (unpeeled) mashed potatoes.
We had no late blight and only a few potato beetles. The lack of insects may be due to the marigolds planted at the ends of the 15′ rows. The bugs were only in the middle of the rows. Next year I’ll plant marigolds in the middle of the rows as well. We will see how the keeping of the planting stock for next year goes. I’ll let you know.
John
POTATO USES
Yukon Gold
Baking
Mashing
Boiling
Frying
Salad
NOT Hash Browns
All Blue
Baking
Frying
Chips
Boiling
Mashing (Blue)
Red Gold
Baking
Frying
Mashing
Steaming
Roasting
Does NOT store well
Princess LaRatte Fingerling
Mashing (No need to peel)
German Butterball
All purpose
Hash Browns
Frying
Steaming
Baking
Long-term storage
Carola
Soups
Boiling
Frying
Ozette
Steaming
Frying
Roasting
Tags: All Blue Potato, baking, boiling, Carola potato, food preparation, frying, German Butterball potato, hash browns, heirloom varieties, late blight, marigolds, mashing, Ozette potato, potato, potato beetles, potato chips, potato storage, Red Gold potato, Rincess LaRatte Fingerling potato, roasting, salad, soup, steaming, vegetables, Yukon Gold potato |
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Comments (0) Dec
11
2009
- My Mailbox
High Mowing Organic Seeds Wins Lawsuit Against Genetically Engineered Crops!
High Mowing Seeds of Walcott, Vermont won its lawsuit against the USDA for prematurely deregulating Monsanto’s GMO sugar beets. Read about it at http://www.highmowingseeds.com/HMS-Wins-Lawsuit-Against-Genetically-Engineered-Crops.html.
You can also read High Mowing Organic Seeds December newsletter – The Seed Bin, at http://www.highmowingseeds.com/the-Seed-Bin-December-2009.html#paul for several interesting stories and recipes. An article in the newsletter on late blight from HMS also lists a few resistant tomato and potato varieties and the organic regimen they followed in their own fields.
Here is a link from the newsletter to an article on late blight (in tomatoes, potatoes) at ATTRA: http://attra.ncat.org/late_blight.html
HMS also has holiday gift seed collections available to purchase including a White House garden collection, an heirloom vegetable lover’s collection, and a kitchen herb collection.
Maybe I should start that letter to Santa.
John
Tags: GMO, High Mowing Seeds, holiday gifts, late blight, Mansanto, potato, seeds, sugar beets, The Seed Bin, tomato, USDA, vegetables |
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Comments (0) Dec
9
2009
My Mailbox
Countryside & Small Stock Journal; The magazine of modern homesteading. Vol. 94, No. 1, Jan/Feb 2010, 114 pages
I have been reading this magazine for nearly 4 decades. It was instrumental in my family’s return to the land in the ’70’s. I am a large fan of the Belanger family.
In this issue:
The four departments – including a book review of Jd Belanger’s new book, Self-Sufficient Living
Special features – 4 articles on cooking and heating with wood
Life on the sunny side – 2 articles about living off-grid
Homestead business – ways to make money on your homestead
Homestead finances – How to simplify your budget and a must-read update on the latest tactics of the food industry to control what you grow and what you eat.
The garden – 3 articles on gardening
The homestead kitchen - Cardamom and insulated roll-up shades
Homestead livestock – Raising yaks (yup, you read it right)
The cow barn – Miniature cattle, calf health
Country neighbors – Letters from readers
The hapless homesteader – Hu Manure followed by Poor Will’s Almanack
After chores – Taking the drive and live your dream
And so much more! http://www.countrysidemag.com
John
Dec
7
2009
My Mailbox
I had requested a copy of Johnny’s Selected Seeds catalog a few days ago on the web. It arrived quite promptly. I had been on Johnny’s website, www.Johnnyseeds.com (just one “s”) to look up a new tool that it’s inventor, Loy Robinson, had discussed in a recent issue of Farm Show (Vol. 33, No. 6, 2009) It’s a garden hoop making tool exclusively sold by Johnny’s and called Quick Hoops Bender. It bends (you provide the labor) 10′6″ electrical conduit into 4′ diameter hoops to hold up tunnels made of floating row cover, shade cloth, or plastic sheet. There is an additional size that makes 6′ hoops. Most of us would use it with the 1/2″ size conduit. But it also works with the 3/4″ and 1″ sizes. These sizes would be good for the hoops at the ends of the tunnel, adding support.
I like Johnny’s seeds. The company’s focus has changed over the years from the home gardener to the market gardener / small farmer. The primary ways that this affects me is that most, not all, of the seeds are hybrid and I grow open pollinated seed so that I can save my own seed. The second is Johnny’s Seeds association with Eliot Coleman. This association brings us a number of tools that Mr. Coleman has either developed or recommended. If you don’t know who Mr. Coleman is, I will introduce you to him and his wife in the near future. I have ordered seed from Johnny’s off and on for decades. I recommend them highly.
Dec
2
2009
“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dec
1
2009
- John
Well, you may think this is a really odd place to start a conversation about gardening for food, but stick with me please. I believe the place to start planning a garden is to decide why you want to grow your food. I recently read a book entitled “The Face on Your Plate: The TRUTH about FOOD,” by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. The author is a vegan, one who doesn’t eat animal products, including milk, eggs nor honey. He believes in not doing harm, including not doing harm through one’s diet. I’m not here to change your eating habits, your religion or politics, at least not today. He sites anthropologists that have concluded that humans are primarily herbivores. He speaks of empathy.
I believe that this book affected my outlook on gardening by adding to my knowledge base of what happens to our food during production and processing. I am not naïve about food production. I have taken classes in animal production and I have been a back-to-the-lander, raising and slaughtering my own food. I did learn a lot about fish farming. None of it made me want to eat fish or shrimp.
We then look at the magnitude of the animal waste problem, perhaps the biggest contributor to the climate change we are experiencing. (You left that out, didn’t you Al Gore.) Water contamination is another aspect of industrial agriculture. As is how small farmers are driven off their land.
Then we move on to the actual lives that livestock lead. Free-range and cage-free are unregulated terms in the US. In the section on aquaculture I learned where the ‘farms’ are located, that the fish eat ocean fish and sewage, about the use of pesticides, and the affects of these farms on wild populations of fish, particularly salmon.
For the most part, the human race is in denial. I have often said that every human carnivore should have to kill at least one of his or her own meals. Masson ends his book with a day in the life of a vegan, which is about ethics and having a shift in your viewpoint. A major portion of the book is taken up with NOTES, which is an annotated bibliography, and a reading and website list for further education.
I now know more about where my food comes from and how it is treated and with what. I have to admit that I’ve had a shift in how I want my food to be raised and what percentage is herbage. I recommend that everyone who eats read this book. I can promise you it won’t be a pleasant read. It may change where you buy your food, what you eat, and whether or not you grow your own. As I transition back-to-the-land, I will have to ask myself if I can look an animal in the eye and take its life, and then eat it. Although I believe I can provide that animal a much better life than if I just bought my meat at the grocery store. Whatever I decide, it will affect how big my garden is, what I will grow and for whom I will grow it.
John
Nov
30
2009
The estimated population of the world by 2040 is 9 billion people. Who will feed you and yours?
Nov
30
2009
John
Here I have just jotted down ideas of why anyone might want to have a food garden. This is not all-inclusive. Add your own reasons in the comments section. Many of these will be ideas for future blogs. In no particular order:
Enjoy the seasonal rotation of crops.
Grow fresh food for pets and livestock.
Grow food that you know is not GMO.
Know what or if chemicals were used on your food.
Grow vegetable and fruit varieties that are good for canning, freezing and drying.
Grow varieties that don’t ship well.
Grow crops you can’t buy.
Grow ethnic or regional foods.
Pick crops at their peak of freshness.
Help reduce global warming by not having your food shipped 1500 miles.
It’s good exercise.
It meets primal needs emotionally and spiritually.
Transcend the politics of food, seed, water, and more.
Thumb your nose at big business.
Support the little guy’s business.
Add beauty to your landscape with edibles.
Choose to raise happy livestock.
Gardening is educational.
Reduce your carbon footprint.
Know that your food supply isn’t contaminated.
Know that you aren’t contaminating your water supply.
Garden to save money.
Garden to make money.
Garden to join a circle of like-minded people.
Garden for braggin’ rights.
Family gardening builds lasting memories for children and parents.
Gardening is a survival skill. Learn it before you need it.
You can compost and recycle instead of filling landfills.
You can grow heirloom varieties that your ancestors ate.
Small space – grow in containers.
Practice water saving and efficiency.
Reduce the amount of lawn you have to mow.
Grow a bird, butterfly, toad, etc. sanctuary.
Provide food and habitat for pollinators and “Good Bugs.”
Build a pond, a bog or an edible rain garden.
Self-reliance.
Sustainability
Cooking and putting by.
Storing and stockpiling.
Living simply.
Saving your own seeds.
Learn propagation methods.
Learn genetics, plant selection and plant breeding.
Share food with your family, friends and neighbors.
A teaching forum.
John
Tags: agribusiness, birds, bog, braggin' rights, butterfly, canning, carbon footprint, chemicals, children, compost, container growing, contamination, cooking, crop rotation, drying, edible landscape, edible raingarden, educational, emotional, ethics, ethnic foods, exercise, feed the hungry, food preparation, food preservation, forum, freezing, fresh food, fruits, global warming, GMO, good bugs, habitat, landfills, lawn, livestock, livestock feed, memories, money, pet food, plant breeding, plant selection, politics, pollinator, pond, propagation, putting by, reasons to garden, recycle, regional, regional foods, sanctuary, seed saving, seeds, selection, self-reliance, shipping, spiritual, survival, sustainability, teach, toad, vegetables, water |
Comments (0)
Comments (0) Nov
27
2009
John
Who is this guy and what is he going to write about?
Welcome to my home here in central Indiana. The gardens surround us to the east, the west, the north, and to the south. Let’s take a stroll together.
I am John Perkins. I love to grow things, multiply plants and save old varieties. I like to eat simple foods prepared in my own kitchen, full of flavor and freshness.
I have been gardening for over half a century and I have a B.S. in Gardening. (I actually have a B.S. in Agriculture heavy on propagation and genetic preservation with a helping of post-graduate horticulture production.)
I have worked in the horticulture industry in both a wholesale production greenhouse and a retail garden center. When the economy went south, I decided I needed to grow more of my own food and be prepared to grow all of it and to be able to succeed even if I couldn’t purchase any inputs such as seed or fertilizer.
For many families, gardening is a lost art. You may be two or three generations from gardening or farming. I am here to help you find your way back to your genetic, primitive calling: raising, preserving and preparing your own food.
So here, I will treat gardening, food production and preservation as survival skills. As with all survival skills, they are best learned and practiced before you actually need them. Whether you just love to get your hands dirty, or you want to learn to save your own seed, transition to organic, make sauerkraut or cream cheese, or raise your own chickens, you are invited to visit me in my garden and to chat with me about the things that interest you.
Welcome!
John E. Perkins