Robbins Farm Garden

A Cooperative Learning Project

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Beautiful red beets

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Beets

Yesterday we harvested some really beautiful red beets–Chioggias, from Italy–one of four varieties we’re growing in the garden this year. These were planted just over two months ago, on March 21.

Cut in two, a Chioggia looks a lot like a bb target with its red and white rings. For people who like beets, it makes a colorful addition to a salad.

Not everyone likes beets, however. While many love them, many also hate them. President Obama and the First Lady, for example, both count themselves among the thumbs-down-to-beets segment of the population, roughly a third of the country. That’s why there’s not a single beet growing in the White House’s kitchen garden.

Why do some folks not like beets? For most, it’s because of their bad luck in the genetic casino. They ended up with a set of genes that make them especially sensitive to the scent of geosmins, bacterial debris that give fresh dirt its fresh smell, but that also (for these poor souls, at least) make fresh beets taste like dirt. (Google "beets" and "taste like dirt" and you’ll see how widespread this phenomenon is.)

Beets are not the only veggie that puts off certain segments of the population. Cilantro does, too. About 10% of the country thinks fresh Cilantro tastes like soap.  Fresh tomatoes, too. For a very small slice of the population, sliced tomatoes taste gross, like totally icky.

All because of unlucky draws from the gene pool.

Our hearts go out to these poor souls; but this also means all the more for the rest of us (!).

 

Monsanto is Buying Out Seed Companies!

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Help Save Heirloom Seeds and Keep Monsanto Out of Your Garden
Monsanto is literally trying to take over agriculture. To this end, they are buying out seed companies. You can help save one that’s pledged to organic, non-genetically-modified (GM) seeds.

See http://gaia-health.com/articles501/000524-save-heirloom-seeds.shtml#.T-yMjvmuVFY

This is a very scary proposition, and you can help fight Monsanto’s take-over of the seed industry by buying organic, non-GMO seeds, AND by saving your own seeds from year to year.

Cabbages

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 2 years ago, we planted cabbages and they were essentially a failure, attacked by insects and really poor performers.  Last year the yield was better- we were able to harvest several cabbages and we tried a successful experiment where we left the cabbage plant after we harvested a cabbage and benefited when it produced more cabbages.

This year- cabbage nirvana.  We have both green and red cabbages that are doing really well.  On Saturday, June 23 we harvested our first monster cabbage.

Peas are the garden’s geeks

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We harvested our third variety of peas yesterday. This year we are growing three types: tall snows, sugar snaps, and tall shells. This time it was the tall shells, reaching up 6 feet on the garden’s tallest trellis.

These peas took about three months to grow that tall. They were among the first veggies planted in the garden on March 24th.

Why are peas sorta geeky? It’s because of roles they played over the years in important advances in science and technology. In the mid-1800’s, peas were central players in research done by Gregor Mendel, now regarded as the father of heredity science and modern genetics. In the 1920’s, they were early contributors to the work of Clarence Birdseye in developing the technology for the fast freezing of fresh foods, work done here in Massachusetts and still used widely today.

 

Head Start on Suppressing Mildew

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In our previous seasons, we’ve had mildew on primarily squash and cucumber leaves, although last season it was sufficiently bad that is spread to other plants.  This year, we’re trying an early start to suppressing mildew, applying a preventative even before we see any mildew.

Last season, we used a mix of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and soybean oil (vegetable oil), a couple tablespoons of each per gallon of water.  The active preventative is the sodium bicarbonate; the soybean oil makes it stick to the leaves.

This season we’re using potassium bicarbonate instead, which is a little more expensive, as one of our garden experts was concerned about adding sodium to our soil.  The instructions for the potassium bicarbonate fungicide said only to mix it with water, and not combine it with anything else, so we didn’t combine it with soybean oil.  We’ll check later to see how that works out.  It was also noted that the oil gummed up our sprayer.

As an experiment, we applied this fungicide to the sunflower and turnip leaves, which were terribly munched upon.  In theory, this shouldn’t help, because we suspect the culprit is some insect (although we didn’t see any on the leaves).  However, maybe that particular insect won’t like the new taste.

More radishes

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We harvested our third batch of radishes Wednesday. This year we’re growing radishes in three colors:  red, pink, and white. Wednesday it was the big, plump red ones.

Radishes are the fastest growing root vegetable in the garden. These were planted just over a month ago.

Back in the times of the pharaohs, wealthy Egyptians took such a liking to radishes that they had tiny gold figurines made of them, to serve as good luck charms.