Spring 2012: The garden in February 2012 – just prior to final fertilizer application with protective bird netting and straw bale barriers against voracious rabbits.
Last year my desert dry wash was nothing but porous sand and decomposed granite. They said I’d never grow organic food there. I had one year to build this ground spring planting season. Here’s how I solved the problems and grew this fabulous 10′ by 20′ organic vegetable garden using Black Gold products…
The unique corrugated foliage of Rosa rugosa makes it resistant to black spot and other common diseases.
During World War II the Nazis blockaded English ports so they could not import citrus. As a result many children began to show signs of Vitamin C deficiency, the predecessor to scurvy. Another source of the vitamin had to be found so all local plants were tested. Fruits known as hips from a rural rose bush proved to be packed with vitamins. Ounce for ounce this rose and all other rose fruit contain more Vitamin C than citrus. From the quantities of fruit gathered far and wide, a potent vitamin rich syrup was made that saved the children’s health.
If you’re gardening for self sufficiency, you must have at least one good organically grown rose that bears large hips. The best species for fruit production is Rosa rugosa, known as the Japanese rose. These produce an annual crop of beautiful pink flowers each year followed by fat, luscious fruit.
Rugosas are tough as nails, with foliage that resists the usual fungal diseases that plague other roses. It’s far more cold hardy too, for easy care in northern climates. Rugosas can be found all along the eastern seaboard because the uniquely thick leaves retain moisture despite persistent winds. The whole plant is remarkably tolerant of salt air and alkaline soils too.
Rosa rugosa produces the largest, fleshiest hips with few thorns for painless gathering and preparation.
Rosa rugosa is a long time favorite for rural hedging because the root systems spread out and send up new sprouts. This helps a single individual to spread into a large patch or dense hedge that yields plentiful flowers and fruit. It’s also easy to propagate free copies by simply digging up a piece of root with its sprout attached and transplant to a pot of Black Gold All Purpose Potting Soil.
Hips form in summer and ripen to red-orange in the fall. They are astringent until fully ripe, then become sweet enough to eat off the bush. Once the hips have been exposed to a frost, it’s easier to prepare them.
Use minced rose hips to add raisin-like flavor to baked goods with a bonus of high vitamin content. They also make a famously healthy rose hip jelly for ideal holiday gifts. Fresh brewed rose hip tea with honey is perfect for treating colds or flu.
Rose Hips Cross Section: This cross section shows the seeds and attached hairs that must be removed from the center of each rose hip in order to harvest the fleshy outer layer.
Whether you grow your rose hips, gather them from the wild or out of other peoples’ gardens, you’ll want to preserve them for future use. First pick the hips, wash well, then peel the flesh away from the seeds clustered at the center. These seeds and attached hairs must be discarded so you’re left with clean flesh. You can also sow them into Black Gold Seedling Mix to create an entire hedge of new plants.
To freeze fresh rose hips, cover a cookie sheet with tin foil and scatter the chunks of fresh rose hips so none are touching. Freeze, then remove from the foil and place in conveniently sized Ziploc bags to store in the freezer until needed.
To make rose hip tea, add a few tablespoons of clean fresh or frozen flesh to a sauce pan of boiling water, then turn down the heat to simmer gently for 10 minutes. The resulting tea will be acidic tasting and rich in antibacterial properties. It will also be chock-full of natural vitamins that strengthen the immune system.
If you’re striving for greater self sufficiency, add a rugosa to your home landscape and let it grow large and flower much. Then when winter cold and flu season rolls around after medicinal herbs have died back, you’ll have a storehouse of organically grown hips from your own Japanese rose.
Climbing roses need nitrogen to stimulate formation of strong new canes to train over arches and arbors.
When I was a young horticulture student in Northern California, in between classes my aged mentor employed me to care for his hybrid tea cutting roses. His garden featured at least thirty of them back in 1979 when spraying, pruning, and fertilizing was a continuous series of tasks all season long.
Rose Nutrition
Among the many lessons were important basics on rose nutrition. It was truly amazing how much standard rose food each of the plants needed to keep producing new buds without pause from May to October. In California the rose season is long, which demanded I feed on a regular schedule. Back then I used 16-16-16 synthetic granules and watched the plants go nuts…for a little while. Then they’d start petering out as the synthetic fertilizer leached further beyond the root zone every time I watered.
Since then we’ve learned that the yo-yo diets of synthetic fertilizers are not beneficial to whole plant health. Growing roses organically can reduce the frequency of fertilizer applications because these nutrients release slower but remain in the root zone far longer. In addition, they contribute to overall soil fertility by stimulating microbes that boost rose plant immunity.
Tea Roses: Mark your calendar to remind you to apply fertilizer at regular intervals to avoid fluctuations in nutrient availability.
Organic Rose Fertilizers
Even before the new emphasis on organic gardening, rose growers discovered the benefits of alfalfa meal fertilizer. It’s cultivated into the soil around the rose plant at a rate of about a half cup per rose. Alfalfa meal is low in nitrogen, just 3%, but it’s released quicker than other organic sources. It is particularly useful in spring to stimulate the development of new canes, which are a rose grower’s goal. Plus, nitrogen helps to stimulate vigorous new growth, strong stems and plentiful foliage to support the flower buds to come.
But roses need phosphorus and potassium too, because these nutrients are essential for new flower production. That’s why rose & flower fertilizers contains bloom stimulating phosphorus and potassium. These nutrients are derived from a variety of organic sources that can be slow to become fully active, but once they are, there is no better way to feed. Your roses will take up organic fertilizer at their own rate rather than the sudden dose of synthetic rocket fuel. Mark the calendar for regular feedings throughout the growing season so your plants will perform without a lull.
Regular pruning, watering and fertilizer applications are key to a picture perfect cutting garden.
Benefits of Organic Rose Fertilizers
Roses are so versatile they are grown in ground and in pots where feeding is even more important due to the limited root zone. Grown chemical free, roses may become less vulnerable to pests and diseases due to natural resistance supported by relationships with certain soil fungi that work through the roots. Organically grown roses won’t have to suffer the yoyo effect of high nutrient loads after fertilizer application, followed by plunging lows a week or two later. They’ll respond much like a child who eats a bowl of sugary breakfast cereal, then when blood sugar plunges in a couple of hours she falls asleep at school
Key to success with organic fertilizers is to make sure they’re worked into the soil and watered deeply and consistently to help plants take up these nutrients. Even moisture levels stimulates better microbe activity too, which in turn makes the soil more fertile over all. For more naturally floriferous roses, feed your soil with organic fertilizer and avoid chemicals. Your plants will reward you with fewer diseases, more vigorous growth and a consistent rate of new bud formation. And that means new flower buds will form every day to remain more floriferous all season long.
Marigolds (Tagetes erecta) include both the small French and the big African marigolds. These common flowers originated with a wildflower from Mexico developed in the Mediterranean region just after the Conquest. Ever since, the marigold has been grown in food gardens as a natural insect repellent. That’s because marigolds repel pests for more efficient organic gardening!
This annual flower species bears a strong, pungent scent that will drive bugs away from other plants close by in the garden. Underground, marigold roots repel microscopic worms called nematodes which attack food plants. Plant your marigolds all around the organic kitchen garden to drive away undesirable pests without hurting important beneficial predators such as praying mantids and ladybugs.
Marigolds are annuals, and for all annual plantings we recommend organic fertilizer formulated for flowers. A seasonal application will keep them happy and blooming throughout the growing season!
When I am carefully looking at the plants in my garden, I often marvel at what I see and what I would have missed if I had not taken the time for a closer look. The eggs of lacewings are so beautiful and unique and I am always pleased to find them. Often on a stem or leaf, they move with the wind and are quite fragile so avoid trying to touch them. Lacewings are excellent predators of aphids and finding them in a garden is a good thing! All the more reason to enjoy time in the garden.
Great news for organic growers! We are very proud to announce that six more of our great Black Gold® products are now OMRI Listed as well. Here’s the list and more on what it means to be OMRI Listed… Continue reading “New OMRI Listed Black Gold Products”
Ever wonder why some people can grow fabulous gardens and others can’t? The answer is simple: they spend more time with their plants and tend to their gardens more. Experienced gardeners know that frequent inspection allows them to see the first signs of trouble, whether it’s wilt, broken limbs, a digging dog or caterpillars. These can be remedied immediately before damage occurs, and without the need for chemicals.
It pays to tend your organic garden for best yields. Great gardeners do it each day. Sometimes it’s with a cup of morning coffee, a glass of wine after work or when the kids are down for their naps. In short, the more time you spend out there the better you’ll tend to the silent needs of the garden. Here are some basics that can make this your best garden ever.
Fall leaves are an important source of organic matter that decomposes into soft, rich leaf mulch or mold. To harvest, create a corral using woven wire to contain the leaves. Fill with a foot deep layer of leaves, wet it, then pack down tightly. Sprinkle Black Gold All Purpose Fertilizer on top and dump in any left over potting soil from this year. Repeat layering over and over as leaves fall, adding more fertilizer to speed decomposition and increase your leaf mold fertility for fabulous results next year. Continue reading “Super Organic Leaf Mulch”
Shelley Moore is an aspiring organic backyard gardener with hopes of becoming a true ‘green thumb’. She is the mother of two young daughters and the wife of one helpful husband. They reside in northern Utah.
Don’t you find it a little crazy to think that pretty much the same “stuff” we wash off our kids at the end of an outdoor play day (and/or find at the bottom of the drained bathtub that same evening) is the same “stuff” that is used to grow healthy vegetables and fruits to feed said kids?
One of the secret ingredients used by successful gardeners is Black Gold® Garden Compost Blend. What exactly is garden compost? Compost happens when microbes break down or decompose organic or living matter–such as leaves, grass clippings, and vegetable waste. The next time you take a walk in a forest look down at the forest floor, and you will see compost being made naturally from fallen leaves. The final product is a dark, rich, earthy smelling material that gardeners commonly refer to as “black gold” because of its high fertility. And whether bought by the bag or made at home, it does wonders for the garden.
