Gardening Guru Goforth

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Master Gardener Class Hot Links.

Here are the links you need for the first class.

Cabarrus County Cooperative Extension http://cabarrus.ces.ncsu.edu/
Extension Master Gardener Program http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/masgar/
Successful Gardener http://www.successfulgardener.org/
Soil Map http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/
Soil Test Information http://www.ncagr.com/agronomi/uyrst.htm
Composting http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-8100.html

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Environmental Stewardship in Landscape Design

In my latest news article I mention a courtyard at The First Assembly Living Center which originally contained 22 ligustrum. My understanding is that a traditional vegetable garden was grown in front of the lisgustrum in the past. Now the residents have added roses, dianthus and annuals along with a clematis vine. This location is tough for a couple of reasons. One is limited sunlight on one wall. The other is the possiblity that there may be residents who are elder and fragile. So I have concerns about plants I would normally rate as excellent for environmentally friendly landscapes. For example, muscadines could constitute a choking hazard to certain residents, while figs would have the potential to irritate fragile skin. Plums could be somewhat thorny in my opinion although some cultivars wouldn’t be as bad as the roses which the residents recently planted. If I was in charge of the world, I would included a non astringent oriental persimmon in this design. I don’t see much danger to this plant and it should grow better here than in most areas because the radiant head from building on all sides would help protect it from winter injury. Blueberries would make a suitable addition as would service berry. I would leave some of the ligustrum for evergreen structure during mid winter although I might swap out a few of them for sasanqua camellias which have prettier or at least larger blooms. Or I might research loquat, an evergreen plant that I am not familiar with, but I think would grow and perhaps even fruit in that location since it is so protected. In the beds, asparagus, daylilies and tomatoes are easy selections giving both beauty and food.
Some of my readers may have recognized the other landscape as Taylor Glen, a Baptist retirement complex off Pitt School Road. The idea of going from 150 to 140 Burfordi’s was somewhat of a joke. Burfordi’s are good cover for songbirds and provide a food during a time when there isn’t much food. Still 20 or so is plenty for a landscape this size. If I was designing this landscape, I would include blueberries, muscadines, figs, oriental persimmons, sour cherries, service berry and crabapple within this landscape sometimes as a one for one replacement for the Burfordi hollies. I don't have any reason to create a complete landscape design, but this landscape is crying out for plant diversity and overall improvement in its environmental stewardship.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Successful Gardener Country Living Seminar

Friday, February 1, 2008

Tips for cutting back on your food bill

There was an article in the paper this week about reducing your food bill. The reporter rehashed the typical little tips like making a list to go shopping, making soup with leftovers, and not going to the grocery store hungry. Nothing wrong with those tips but there has been times when I have taken slightly more drastic steps. Like the time I killed, cleaned, wrapped and froze a huge turtle. I then cooked turtle for Tuesday and ate leftover turtle for Thursday. I did this for 7 straight weeks. It really wasn’t that bad because the taste varied. The forelegs tasted like duck and the back strap tasted like shrimp.
Then there was the night we had a lantern and gig in the creek and collected suckers, bream, jack, turtle, and eel. Then a huge creek minnow went in a hole in the toe of my uncle’s boot. We kept and ate the minnow. (Flavored the stuffing with sourgrass I picked off the side of the road.) Growing up we occassionally gigged over 100 lbs of fish a night. We ate some fresh, put some in the freezer to eat whole and canned the rest to eat in patties over the winter. The reporter suggested going vegetarian for a meal. Growing up we never bought meat to eat during the week. Sunday dinner occasionally featured store bought chicken and pork chops. Some Sundays we had hamburger and the hamburger may have been in spaghetti sauce or on pasta. Sometimes we might eat meat we had caught or killed but some weeks we ate vegetarian every day but Sunday. I bet I have a slightly different perspective than that reporter in the paper. So for what it’s worth, here's a few tips if you really want to reduce your food bill.
1. Take up hunting. I have killed over 50 deer for my family. A couple of deer a year can go a long ways. Besides it is great recreation. And if you are able to process deer, people will occasionally give you road kill.
2. Don’t bypass the little varmints. The way city squirrels sit around they look mighty vulnerable to a sling shot. I have eaten raccoon and muskrats too.
3. Take up vegetable gardening. I ate peanuts for several years with no inputs other than time. Somebody gave me the original seed and I saved seed every year. Peanuts don’t need any nitrogen fertilizer. And there are dozens of other plants you can grow in your garden.
4. Add some edible plants to your landscape. In piedmont North Carolina think blueberries, muscadines and figs. Put the excess in a freezer.
5. Learn to eat wild plants. I hate to think of the winters I didn’t eat many vegetables while chickweed went to the bad in yards up and down the street. Of course I have taken advantage of many wild edibles. One year I would pick blackberries during my hour lunch break. I froze them and ate them all winter. Almost every year in Cabarrus County white acorns go to the bad. Shell them out and wash them in a couple of changes of water. Then toast them and grind them up. If you don’t care for the taste you can sweeten it with sugar. You don’t have to find left over country for edible plants. I have eaten daylilies collected in suburban areas.
6. Learn to fish. One year I caught a couple of hundred little bream and put them in the freezer. The following winter I told my friends I would provide and cook the fish if they would provide French fries, slaw and drinks. We did that every Tuesday night for over 10 weeks.
7. Pintos will make a meal. To change the taste you can add catsup, pickle relish, beet pickles, black pepper, or hot peppers. Milk and cornbread are nice compliments but there have been times when I had pintos for supper and pintos were what I had for supper.
8. If it comes right down to it, you can take flour and sugar, mix them together, and then mix in butter and maybe a touch of water to get it mixed in one big gooey gob. Then eat it. This will increase your risk of diabetes, stroke, heart attack, obesity and arthritis. If you keep doing it, additional problem will develop. (These statements weren’t approved by the FDA but you can take my word for it.) Still10 dollars will buy two weeks worth of calories which may be enough time to scrape together some more food money. And for that matter, a cream cheese Danish isn't much better nutritionally speaking.
9. If you get down to one food left on hand, you only have to figure for 2 meals a day. I don’t care if that one food is grits or potatoes or stewed tomatoes; you won’t be able to eat more than two meals a day. Even if you aren't getting enough calories you won't be able to eat that third meal(For the most part, people that know this have been there. This is the first time I have ever seen it in writing.)
10. If you are going to sell blood plasma, make sure you do it before you run completely out of food before going to the clinic. First of all you have to lie about whether you ate or not. If you don't lie, they won’t take your plasma. And there is a reason they ask. Lying there on the gurney with cold blood flowing back in around an empty stomach was a pretty tough point in my life.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Blackberry Planting Frenzy

I was talking with the county agent in Cleveland county (about 90 miles west of Cabarrus County) about a year ago and he said he suspected there would be 100 acres of blackberries planted in Cleveland County during 2007. This week I asked the actual count. It was 150 acres. He suspects there will be an additional 150 acres planted in 2008.
I don't forsee very much acreage being planted in Cabarrus County. If a person planted 10 acres, that person should be prepared to hire 70 workers during picking season.
At any given time the total number of people in Cabarrus County willing to work that hard and who don't have a job is probably less than 70. I moved to the Charlotte area during the recession in the early 80's. I remember a guy telling me in 1986 that anybody who really wanted to work during that depression never had to leave town. It has pretty much been that way ever since. There have been people working at jobs they didn't enjoy, or a jobs where they wished they were paid more, but anybody who wanted to work hasn't had to leave town. When cuts down on the number of people who would want to pick blackberries.
Twenty years ago there were people willing to pick blacberries and strawberries for the fun of picking them and the ability to save a little money. In 1986 there were 4 pick your own strawberry operations in Cabarrus County. Today there are none and while strawberries could be a profitable crop, you better plan on hiring somebody to pick them.

Friday, January 4, 2008

I was asked to talk to some Concord City planners about the downtown market. Here are the talking points.
We feel a downtown farmers market is an amenity that brings several advantages to the City. It brings people out on the street, it is a social equalizer, and it increases number of visitors to downtown.
Here is our current situation.
30 day lease with Wachovia is problematic. Farmers need to plan on a yearly basis.
Difficulty of Parking
Customer mix seems about 50% drive up/50% downtown workers. Drive up traffic could double with better access. Several customers who worked in the CTC building have been terminated in the change to Windstream and nobody knows if replacement workers will support the market at the same level.
Vehicle traffic crosses pedestrian traffic within farmers market. Not sure if this is suppressing customer counts but we suspect it might be a factor.
Lack of Shade
Difficult on produce
Reduces customer count on hotter days (around 90 degrees)
Difficult on farmers

The future of the Farmers Market is unpredictable.
Most likely scenario is that vendor and customer counts will stay steady given current conditions.
Vendor count could rise with better conditions.
The farmers market has discussed finding a better venue for Wednesday (Mt Pleasant, Odell or Midland) but currently the market doesn’t have volunteers willing to take on this task. If another location was found outside of Concord and all vendors given the option of moving, vendor count would probably be cut in half.
Piedmont Farmers Market is committed to building a local food system. Any help achieving this goal would be appreciated.

Horticulture Newsarticles Available

Between the holidays, I finished putting my 300 best news articles on line. http://www4.ncsu.edu/~djgofort/ I still need to index them better but you can access them. News articles are written for Cabarrus County which is near Charlotte North Carolina.
Also some of my TV shows are on line at http://www.co.cabarrus.nc.us/News/Channel22/programs.html