Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Food, Drink and Cooking Buying Organic Foods

Beans and edible seeds must be soaked overnight with a change of water to maintain the proper cleansing. We grew our own potatoes, big brown ones and small white round ones and they had to be scrubbed, soaked and scrubbed again if one wanted to eat the skins. They were baked sometimes rubbed with butter and we grew up eating the skins for flavor. We had our own fence grown peas if we could beat the chickens from grabbing them first. For the last 4 years, I have grown salad greens in my hydroponic aerogarden and we had 3 kinds of romaine lettuce with all kinds of herbs and not an ounce of soil. All were grown with water with a chemical fertilizer that had been proven healthier than anything we used outdoors. Everything was washed before eaten.

The kids used to rake up oak leaves and chicken poop and then watered it down for hours and then dried it off and sprinkled over our potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and anything else in our garden. We brought the horses up and tied them to several places in our yard where they pruned the trees and then turned around and fertilized them. I had some prize winning roses that the horses tended for me.

In the upper yard we had entertainment that was better than Bob Hope. I had a fence full of huge pink grapes. My chickens used to take a running jump and bring huge lumps of juicy grapes down for their chicks. We would then chase out of that part of the yard and let them poop in the vacant lot across the street. My son and his wife bought that piece of property and my daughter in law was amazed at the kind of plants that she had planted in the poop area. We let her believe her thumb was greener than anyone on the hill. They still live in that house.

Wow.I sure wasn't expecting the "Go to Hell" response.

Gregor, hang in there. The first year I went organic the bugs ate everything. I didn't have any benifical bugs to eat them. You can buy lacewings, lady bugs and preying mantis or just wait and the'll come. The next year I put a birdbath in my veggie garden to keep the birds around eating bugs and I bought the nematoads from Gardens Alive. The nematoads are expensive so I only did that once.

I dig some of the oyster shell that I buy for the ducks into the soil and cornmeal. I sprinkle cornmeal on the soil after planting. I have 3 compost piles and throw all my kitchen scraps and yard waste in them and in the fall I spread the compost before adding leaves that I gather when people put them out for trash pickup. I use neem oil spray during the growing season and spray my fruit trees with dormant oil before they leaf out in the spring.

The plants develop a symbiotic relationship with the bacteria in the soil that helps protect the roots and makes them more resistant to disease. I use a kelp spray on the leaves every week or so and that helps improve fruiting on my berries and tomatoes. I do a lot of canning in the fall.

I joined the Green Polkadot Box.
I know I'll be buying organic products anyway. I especially hope I can get lower prices on flour, oats, oils and cornmeal. It would be nice to get the fresh produce through the winter months but I asked and they may not be set up for that to ship out of Florida to Indiana by winter. He said that California was set up so people in the west will be able to get it. The membership is free if you play the video so there's nothing to loose.

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Greger, try visiting the horse track ! Sandy soils - like in FL - lack "tilth" but excell in drainage. Adding horsesh*t, (plus its addendum of straw ) will increase your soil's organic/mineral ratio. The vegetative matter will also serve to hold both moisture and nutrients above what they add. It'll take a while but with perserverence you'll end up with a nice loamy soil requiring only essential trace element additions and minor additions of "growth promoters" like nitrogen. (BTW, "free" fertilizer is available in your dishwashing water. ) >Mech

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Gee lt, where does all your animus come from ? Had you read - and comprehended - all of my post to GT you would know I - and most of my neighbors - have long been "organic gardeners" ! At least so long as circumstances of weather and infestation permitted ! (Perhaps annual applications of cowsh*t" plus other organic additives doesn't meet your esteemed definition of "organic" ? ) And WITF has "frakwater" and "Monsanto" have to do with anything on this thread ?

Seems like you're a poster child for government's "NCLB" failures ! Did you contribute your share of incomprehension to the most recently reported SAT debacle ? >Mech

There must be two 'Mechanic' dudes posting here.

The other one said this stuff,

One slings horsesh!t, the other one grows his garden in it.

By the way, Mr. Exclamation Points and crazy code-talker;
an·i·mus
NOUN:
An attitude that informs one's actions; disposition.
A feeling of animosity; ill will. See Synonyms at enmity.
In Jungian psychology, the masculine inner personality as present in women.

"NCLB" failures?

Recently reported SAT debacle?

Once again, you're wrong, Mechanic, and I will again provide a citation to show you the error of your ways...
Citation
Other than semantics, overall ignorance, and lack of research you are right about part of it. But not the horse track (citation) part, I'm afraid. Once again it is clay and silt, not horse manure and straw which make for the perfect track.
Now that we've established that you are wrong once again, let's talk about gardens! I gardened on the same piece of ground for 45 years, It was about 40x60 feet. It is nice black sand, several inches that might be considered topsoil, a foot or more of gray sand, then pure clean yellow sand as deep as I've ever dug there. No clay, no silt, no loam.
No matter how much I added to it. Just last year I acquired a single short row of a citrus grove, 16 feet by 310 feet.
I used less than half of it last year and have marked out 170x16 feet for the tractor man to till next week for the Fall and Winter gardening. I have a virtually unlimited supply of partially composted leaves. I've been hauling them out there all year. What is to become the Blueberry Patch (16x16) is over a foot deep in leaves, donkey, and chicken manure. The rest of the garden several inches deep. Once tilled all that will completely disappear and I'll start over again. This is pure white sand with just enough organics to turn the top foot a light gray. It's over 100 hundred feet deep. As the organic material decomposes it sinks and disappears. Chemical(non-organic) fertilizers will be needed for several years to come, I'll be rotating peanuts over the whole thing and growing lots of beans to provide nitrogen naturally and using rock phosphate and a variety of other organic supplements. Pesticides are totally unnecessary, Diatomaceous earth, Dr. Bronners, and mineral oil work just fine for that and are cheaper. I may always need a little bit of chemical fertilizer, but I can live with that. The plants really don't know whether the elements they need are coming from an organic or chemical source.
I know something of growing things. Grandpa was a farmer, as was his Pa and his Pa before him. My daddy was a mechanic so I already know mechanics are full of crap.

Heres a pretty good gardening video. It's a bit heavy on the scriptures, but has some good tips between them.
Back to Eden

I have been getting wood chips from the tree service that clears the power lines for years.

Thanks GT, my goal is to grow as much of my own food as possible, all of my chicken's food, some to sell and some to give away. Damn chickens can disappear more food than I ever imagined.

'

Those dinosaurs have high metabolic rates.

How hard can it be to feed one chicken? Or did you mean "all y'all" chickens?