How the Global Food Market Starves the Poor

How to feed the world ? from Denis van Waerebeke on Vimeo.

mid-August, basil

Planted 32 basil starts this evening, which had been growing leggy and tough for months in their flats at the SYGW farm. Yellowed leaves and few of them, woody stems, totally rootbound. I tore at their roots to loosen them up, then mixed compost and fertilizer into the bed (~18 sq ft), dug long trenches, dug holes, stirred in some more fertilizer, and buried the plants as deep as I could with the leaves still sticking out. Watered them in thoroughly then watered again with diluted fish emulsion, ~4 tbsp in two gallons.

Fertilized most of the leafy green stuff with fish emulsion as well, and the brassica starts and tomatoes with Solomon's dry mix sprinkled around the edges of each plant and chopped in a bit.

One of the brassicas turned out to be a mutant:

So I replaced it with a seedling that's been growing in its soil block on the front porch for a while.

Not much at the garden right now. Big chard leaves, kale (the two plants that remain which used to be infested are doing very well), green beans, and a succulent Romaine on the verge of being ready. NOTE: Romaines take ~60 days to mature, butterheads ~50, Green Deer Tongue ~50, and New Red Fire ~30, according to Territorial. There are also lots of jalapenos and the Anaheim peppers are coming on. Pruned a couple of the tomato plants yesterday to try to spur the fruit to ripen. It takes a lot of time when they're this big.

Also watered everything in very deeply keeping a sprinkler moving around the last couple days.

Time: ~2.5 hrs (incl. tomatoes)

The Plant

Awesome design for a building/business/living system. Incorporate humanure and you've got a production engine. More here.

More fall crops

Took out the last of the beets and carrots this morning. The beets are a bit hairy but otherwise good, the orange carrots (Nantes) are still crisp and delicious but the purple carrots have started getting a little funny...softish, with an off flavor. Planted out transplants, started with the others 3+ weeks ago: 3 DiCiccio broccoli transplants, 3 cauliflower (Cloud hybrid), and 2 pairs of kale planted right next to each other, interplanted with lettuce and purslane starts.

In front of the growing patch of winter brassicas and lettuces, I added a row of spinach and a row of mixed lettuce in furrows, with radish seeds sprinkled between the rows. I also took out half the mesclun patch and planted 4 chard (Perpetual) plants, about a foot apart.

Scattered lupine seeds over the empty spot in front of the peppers and raked/watered them in.

I'm generally planting in depressions right now. That's how Robert does it and it doesn't seem to hurt, and for transplants and seeds trying to get started mid-summer, it just makes a lot of sense.

Harvested a small bucket of carrots, a fat bunch of medium-sized beets, 3 giant leaves of Fordhook giant chard, a head of New Red Fire lettuce, and a head of Jericho Romaine lettuce.

Time: 1.5 hrs