THE MUSINGS OF A TRANSPLANTED GARDENER

Exploring gardening philosophies

2012-01-20T17:39:00.000-08:00

Over the last year I have done a lot of exploring.
I just felt my garden could do better, I could do better in and for my garden.
Over the years I have experimented with a lot of ideas from books, magazines and info I find on-line, don't get me wrong they aren't all bad but after you read them all you constantly find that everyone thinks theirs is the best possible way to grow the greatest amount of vegetables possible or they contradict each other or you try it out and have the worst vegetable harvest ever, like I did last year.
Everyone nowadays seems to be an expert. Every garden show I go to have plenty of those experts some know what they are doing, but some don't, even they think they do.
I know a lot of things about gardening but I don't think I'll ever would think I am an expert to tell people how to garden.....nope I am not garden show ready.

So first here is my disclaimer: whatever I write here on my blog are my experiences and trials in gardening, and I don't take any responsibility of you are copying what I am doing and now your crops failed, your vegetable garden is a mess, whatever.......I don't know it all!

so that's being said, I have decided I am staying with the experts, I am going to learn and study organic growing philosophies that have been done for a long time, with lot's of trials and research that show it works.

Sorry weatherman, that lost his job and likes to garden and now gives lectures about his gardening experiment......your method just didn't work out for me. You don't know what you're talking about and I finally figured out why all my seedlings died on me last year, why my seeds did not want to sprout and my harvest was meager. It was the leaves I put in spring on my beds, the ones I got from the city leaf pile and were full of Oak leaves and Walnut tree leaves and you said it would be alright to put them on even that late in the season, short time before planting. Comes out these leaves have growth inhibitors that prohibits seeds from sprouting and hinders the growth of young seedlings, and those leaves need to be first broken down, composted, to use them in your vegetable-garden.

This I first learned from an old book from Rodale Press named "High-Yield-Gardening" that is out of print but still can be searched for and found used on the Internet.
I don't know about you but I trust the books Rodale Press releases, since Rodale Institute has a large organic gardening research facility that documents what works and doesn't work and they have been doing it for a long time. I also found many found references in the other books I have been reading, "to only use composted leaves or if you put them on your vegetable-beds let them compost down on the beds for at least half a year or more until they turn into leaf mold" none said to put leaves directly on your beds a short time before planting.

I learned about the 'leave' issue in old Biodynamic gardening books,

the method Rudolf Steiner
promoted after he found the food quality diminishing after long years of industrial farming and tried to get farmers back to natural ways of agriculture in harmony with nature,

including in harmony with the moon, the planets and the stars .

I read about composting leaves first in the Bio Intensive books from John Jeavons

one of the founders of the Ecology Action Organization and Research facility in California. Biointensive is practically a combination of the French-Intensive Gardening technique from the 1800 and the Rudolf Steiner Biodynamic Method.

And I read about this in the Perma-Culture book "Gaia's Garden",
at least in concern for vegetable garden areas.
Perma-Culture which has the concept of using your garden and the whole property as an eco system, incorporating sustainable designs, natural areas, including backyard farm animals and food forests wants you to never have to bring anything from the outside in to feed and nourish your garden, it all is supposed to be sustained by what you grow and compost from your property and so you design your whole property accordingly......just think Permanent Culture.
Again Permaculture borrows much of its core philosophy from another method, which is Rudolf Steiners Biodynamic gardening even it lacks the mystical elements.

All of these methods tell you to compost your leaves before growing your vegetables in them, so that's what I am going to do.

At first when I started reading these books I thought it was all a bit too complicated but as I started to read all the books simultaneously I realized that all these methods really have all the same philosophy and follow the same principles. "Garden with Nature!" and "Garden sustainable!"and "Use the land to grow your food so you get most out of it with the least amount of land used!"
So I will take the principles that fit my need (sorry John Jeavon.....I don't think I'll do the double digging) and once I figure it all out, including that "Planting by the Moon" I think I'll be set.
Learning from the experts will make my garden grow better!

In Protest to SOPA

2012-01-18T12:56:00.001-08:00

██ ████████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██. ███ ███ This post has been found in violation of H.R. 3261, S.O.P.A and has been removed.

No spekulations on food

2011-12-07T12:14:00.000-08:00

Wasting food = wasting resorces!

2011-07-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

Dive! The Film - Trailer

Every year in America 96 billion pounds of food is thrown away and wasted. 263 million pounds every day. This amounts to 11 million pounds of food every hour of the day. It is not just an American problem, half of all the food in the world is wasted. But like in many waste issues the US tops everyone.
That is insane, especially if you look at the plight of all the hungry men, women and children in this country and around the world. We could feed all the hungry in this world with the food we waste.
And frankly it is unsustainable because we are just not wasting food, we are wasting precious natural resources, poisoning our environment to grow this food we choose then to throw away.
This definitely is something we could change. We could change this in our lifetime.
We can get the word out that we don't agree with this waste, we can send a message to the grocery stores and tell them that we care about the environment, food waste, and hungry people--and they should too!

Go watch this movie, it will be available July 19 on Netflix

Pardon me! I am gardening

2011-07-14T11:52:00.000-07:00

Some probably are wondering, where is this gartenfrau? What is she doing, why no posts for such a long time?
Is she ever going to come back to share with us?

Well the answer is.....yes I will be back, just very limited until the main season is over. It is just that we are having some major projects at our place this year, and if you include making the new garden area, taking care of the existing garden, vegetable garden, taking care of the harvest and .........I just can't find much time for blogging right now.
Also, what kind of gardener would I be, if the blogging would take preference before the gardening.
My priority after all is working my garden, and blogging will never take me away from my garden.

Blogging can wait, but my garden won't.

So pardon me, while I am gardening

here are pictures from my new garden area started last year and how it looks today

This picture was taken September 2010, when I just got started on the sitting area

This is how it looks today. Isn't it amazing how fast everything grows in a year?

Happy gardening, everyone!

The Agro Rebel - Perma culture in action

2011-05-17T18:29:00.001-07:00

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

Economics of Happiness - A Plaidoyer for a better, simpler life

2011-04-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

It's true, a lot of our time working, is time spent to buy more stuff. Often stuff we don't need. How many clothes and shoes does one need. How often do we really need to replace our TV and other electronics. I once knew people that had to redecorate their house for every season that even included furniture, curtains. Do we really need all that stuff? I grew up with just a few changes of clothes, you know what, I never felt I was missing more clothes. It is not just that we buy and owe money to get more stuff, but to do that we use up a lot of natural resources and we produce a lot of trash. People generally don't buy most of the stuff because they need it, they buy it because they want it. Many would be financially much better off then spending their money on stuff they could do without.
The fact is an economy that is dependent on the population to buy more and more is an unsustainable economy and it will one day crash. As I see it, we are already on a fast decline.
We all need a simpler life, with time to enjoy the pleasures of being!

I am eagerly waiting for this documentary to be screened around where I live. It sounds like a great film

Vegetable gardening with nature-Biodynamic gardening

2011-04-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

I have been a bit lazy to write on my blog lately......or actually I have been keeping busy with other things in life. Sometimes I don't know where to find all the time to do all the things I am doing or want to do.

Occasionally the sun has come out and it was dry enough to do some work in the garden. One really has to take advantage of each dry day that comes in spring in the North West.
Since my vegetable garden has not produced as much as I thought it should, I have been doing a lot of reading and researching online how to improve my garden. You might remember the draining issue I am having, water just runs out of my bed into the pathways, watering the weeds and letting my vegetables starve of water and this even I use drip irrigation. It not just makes growing the vegetables very difficult but it's a big waste of a natural resource we don't have enough in this world, that is Water.
I really think the problem is the city growing compost I have been getting. Since we are in the Pacific Northwest we have an abundance of wood waste, the garden soil mix is predominantly made with wood-waste, you can also feel it, when it is new you get tiny, hairline splinters into your skin. I also think it does not hold any water because it is missing good humus and loam. I think this garden-compost is very imbalanced. It shows that you can't just use any crap out there, just because it is there in abundance and make good compost.
So I got a load of good garden loam and I mixed into some of my empty beds a few inches of loam, covered this with 2 inches of my home-made compost, then spread some seed meal all over it and covered it with leaf mulch I can pick up for free at the community gardens.
I hope it will give me a little bit of a better growing season, this year. But I know now I have lot's to do to balance my soil and get it healthy again.

While the weather has been keeping me inside I have been reading a few books about vegetable gardening, trying to learn new tricks to improve my harvest and gardening or actually I am still reading most of them. I got so many I am reading them all at the same time. Most of the books have to do with Intensive gardening, and Companion planting, which are based on the Gardening philosophy of Bio-Dynamic gardening, so I had to get a book about that also. A few have to do with Perma-culture which after reading about the Bio-Dynamic method, I think really is a method build onto the Bio-Dynamic method.

Bio-dynamic gardening is often attributed to the French in the USA but it really was started by Rudolf Steiner who was also the founder of the Waldorf Schools and was Austrian.

I found this older book that gives a nice introduction to the method

This gardening philosophy practically is gardening with nature, using a holistic approach. The goal is to make your garden a self-contained, self-sustaining ecosystem. Using what nature offers you, building a community of plants, soil, fungus, wild and domestic animals, climate and water. Where all the elements come together and thrive, because they support each other. It is gardening with nature instead against it. This gardening philosophy understands that everything in the garden-environment is interrelated, that the dynamics, or life forces in nature have to be included in our gardens if we want to heal and sustain the earth, so the earth can feed us into the future.

So you work with nature, plant at specific times following natures planting calendar, what they call Phenomenology - the science of the relations between climatic and periodic biological phenomena, such as migration and birthing of birds and the fruiting of plants.
You put fertility back into the soil, restoring the micro-life and conditions that encourage the invisible micro-life in it, to balance the interaction of substance and energy in the soil and growing plants. A balanced soil, will grow your vegetables, and will transmit substance (nutrition) and energy as food for us and our animals. The animals will give us manure, the plants compost, which if properly composted will feed again the soil that feed us. Proper crop rotations, cover crops and green manuring will also support the soil health that is another important factor in Bio-dynamic gardening.
Working with nature also means recognizing how important the entire environment of the garden is for a good growing environment , so you restore the most beneficial environmental conditions for your garden for example forest, wind protection, water regulation and realizing that the soil has not just a chemical-mineral organic system, but also a physical structure. The goal is a crumbly, friable, deep, well-aerated structure if you want to have fertile soil so the bio-dynamic method is very specific about the proper cultivation of the soil to avoid structural damage.

This vineyard is growing their wine grapes in the Bio-dynamic way and he made 10 videos explaining the
Top Ten Elements of Biodynamics that explain the method very nicely.
you can watch them all on You Tube

Doesn't this sound like a neat way to garden? Everything is so interconnected out there, I really wonder now how anyone could ever even think growing food any other way........anyway reading all these great books made me really understand how bad the soil I got from my local composting facility is and how imbalanced it made my soil in my garden.

So this is where I am going to have to focus on, on my soil!

Rally for the Right to know

2011-03-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

Rally for the Right to Know | The Non-GMO Project

There will be a "Rally for the Right to Know", if GMO's are used in the food your eating. The "Millions Against Monsanto" rally is a nation-wide event scheduled for Saturday, March 26th., organized by the Organic consumer Association. The Rally is about demanding labeling of GMO's so one can make a conscious decision when buying their food.
The main rally will occur on the White House Sidewalk in Washington DC, with many demonstrations simultaneous across the country. There might be a Rally close to where you are. If you don't know if one is happening close to where you live you can find out on the page I have linked above. You also can find out more at the Facebook page from 'Millions against Monsanto' they have an Events Linked List at their discussion site.
I will be at the Rally in Salem, Oregon and I hope some of my readers will be joining us in telling this White House
"We have a right to know what is in our Food"

In Love with new garden tool

2011-03-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

When I first started gardening, way back then in late 1980's it didn't take long before I came across my good old Newspaper Pot Maker. I never liked the Jiffy Pots, I think they kill more vegetables then they grow for you and plastic pots, back then, weren't recycled, also I didn't want to waste our money on buying plastic pots to grow vegetables. So when I came across the Paper Pot Maker it was Love at first site.
What couldn't you love on that thing? It forced you to recycle the newspaper! Back then they didn't even recycle Newspaper where we lived, nope there was no recycle pick up at our town. You could get the best soil mix you could get your hand on, or make your own instead having to rely on whatever they put into those Jiffy pots. Okay, you could do that with plastic pots also, but........no more messed up roots when you transplant, since you plant the whole pot and all. What is not to love!
For a few years I lost my way, I admit, I got lazy, I got plastic pots and filled them with dirt. I tried all the newest growing pots, growing systems trying to find the one that just might be the best growing system ever invented.
I never found it, I think it doesn't exist or maybe I just had it all along. Paper pot!
Nevertheless I think I have to retire my good old paper pot maker.
No, not what you think...no, I didn't fall of the wagon.

It is just simple, I found the best new Tool for growing my vegetables..........A better Paper-pot Maker!

It is much simpler to use then the older model and makes pots about 7.5 x 7cm wide instead 5.5 x 5.5 cm as the old one that are also much more solidly built. I tweaked the instruction a bit because it was easier with less cutting involved and made for even sturdier pots.

start out with a half page of newspaper

Fold about 2/3 over lengthwise

fold a edge over about 3/4 to 1 inch on the folded edge, with the last third cut in so it is not folded over

roll the paper pot along the edge, but keep
the open edge loose

like you see in this picture

This is probably the most tricky part. You grasp the paper at the bottom
and twist it together and push it into the hole at the bottom of the pot

Like that. Now push the paper pot, with the pot maker in it
down on a surface, to seal and flatten the bottom nicely

Almost done!

Twist the wooden pot maker out of the paper
and fold the edge that sticks out on top to the inside, that is
what makes the pot sturdier and holding together better then the old.

Voila! You just made yourself a paper pot

You can get the Paper pot maker here, it comes in two sizes
http://www.seedandgarden.com/shop/products/NViroPotter-Paper-Pot-Making-Tool.html

Companion planting charts

2011-03-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

I have been busy reading over the winter and finding more information about Companion plantings, Inter-planting of vegetables and flowers, and rotations in the vegetable plants.
Companion planting is based on the idea that certain plants can benefit others when planted close to each other so that some cultural benefit like pest control, disease prevention, nutrient support and higher yields, can be utilized by the plants growing together. Knowing what plants can be planted together helps to utilize your beds better, because you can plant denser, the technique comes from the Bio-intensive garden philosophy. It also helps with the succession planting, because you use the space around larger or later plants, planting quick maturing and smaller plants between them. Granted it takes much more planning to do it successfully and to make the planning easier, I came up with the idea of making a chart. Which I will tape into the lid of my seed box to have it always available when planting outside.

There is a lot of information out there in books and the internet but I found many of the charts lacking for my use. Most of them gave you some but not enough information. Some of the information I didn't need. I just don't need to know when I am outside planting, why I plant them together, just give me what I can plant together and what I need to know for the task. Many of the online charts usually just cover the basic vegetables. Many didn't even give you all the kinds of vegetables one could grow together, keeping their information very basic.

For a gardener that goes for the unique and unknown vegetables to add to the common available ones basic just doesn't cut it. I am such an information hog, I just needed more!
So I decided I would learn as much as I could about companion planting and then put what I have learned into a chart, utilizing all the information I found.

Some of the best information I found in the book I got last year
The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide by Stephen Albert

This book is so full of the basic information to help you grow your garden and covers many more vegetables then most garden books I have come across and the best is it is all in a simple Encyclopedic format.

So here are the charts I made. They are large and I had to break it into 2 files. If you click on the picture it should pop up into a larger file. I probably will keep adding more information to the charts as I learn more about companion plantings of some of the newer vegetables I am getting. I also added some basic fertilizing and bed preparation information but didn't add the herbs and perennial vegetables into the chart, because I have my herbs in a separate herb garden area close to the vegetable garden and the perennial vegetables aren't planted in the raised garden beds in my garden.

Chart number one from Arugula to Eggplant

Chart number two from Endive to Turnips

Enjoy!

Americans don't want GMO's but are not involved in food policy

2011-02-28T16:46:00.000-08:00

The New York Times did a blog poll (see the articles below) that show 83% of US consumers don't like GMO's in their foods; 89% want to see labeling of such; about 85% would like to see stricter Regulations and nearly 75% would buy less Salmon if the GMO Salmon get's approved.

So why then are GMO in our food, are not labeled and there are no strict regulations over GMO's?

Answer: Because we let them and because the General American Public is so uninvolved in their food politics, they (Monsanto & Co) can get away with it!

If people would just concern themselves with what is happening in the food supply as much they concern themselves with the newest Oscar Movie Winners, the latest Reality Show or the Super Bowl game, we would not be in the situation we find ourselves in.
As it is, the majority of people are not even asking questions how their food is grown, who is behind the food they are eating, who grows it, who makes it, how they grow it, what they put in it?
Who is in Control of our Food supply?
And who gives money to the politicians to influence what happens to our Food?

All the average American knows, the food sits in their grocers shelf, in the vegetable bin or meat counters waiting to be purchased. And because nobody is asking the right questions, and no-one seems to be interested in getting informed about what they shove into their mouths, the News-Media hardly even reports about our food supply, about GMO's.......aside it is about glorifying the low-fat food lobby.
So no-one even ever hears anything aside it is after the fact. After decisions have been made.

Welcome to America, where the control of the food supply is wholly in the hands of a few.

These are exactly not the people we should let control our food supply, because behind them is the large food lobby of food-processors, the soy bean and corn monarchy, CAFO meat corporations (I refuse to call these farmers and ranchers) and the people that give us High Fructose Corn syrup, Transfat and GMO's.

So you want labeled food and no funky stuff in what you eat?
It is not that hard!
You need to ask questions, inform yourself, read, make some noise, tell others what you learn, rouse some feathers, ask your paper to cover these issues! Vote with your dollars and call the right people!
Refuse to eat what they "call food" and spend your dollars where it counts.
Support your local, small organic farmer, the one that let's their animals live a healthy life and doesn't feed them crap. Sure it costs more, so what?
Just eat less meat, eat what is in season - it is cheaper that way, cook at home instead buy processed food or if you have to buy short cut meals make it organic. Grow your own as much you can. If you are not much of a gardener, find a nice spot in your yard and throw some lettuce and arugula seeds out in spring and fall and watch what happens. I bet you will be eating some lettuce and then let it seed out and never replant again.
Plant some berry bushes, a few fruit trees, they are easy food to grow.

Take control of your food!

What more important is there, then what nourishes our bodies?

Here are the articles of the New York Times "Why Aren't GMO Food labeled?"
"GMO Poll Results (and more)" including the blog poll

Path to Freedom - Lost Urban Homestead Hero status!

2011-02-25T16:28:00.000-08:00

It came to my knowledge today February 24th 2011, that the Dervaes Family of Path to Freedom website have trademarked the names "Urban Homestead" and "Urban Homesteading" and many other terms, some of which are commonly used by gardeners and like-minded people and now are going after people using these now trademarked terms on their Blogs, Websites, Facebook pages or in company names. Several businesses and organizations with the terms "Urban Homesteading" have received legal notifications, some sites already have been shut down.They even sent a cease and desist letter to the Santa Monica "public library" for running an urban homesteading class. Are these people Nuts?!

I feel very strongly about this, these are terms that have been used for a long time, much longer then the Dervaes Family has been working their land or gardened. These terms do not belong to them any more then others. In googling the term "Urban Homestead" I quickly came across a “Urban Homestead” program for HUD in 1974, a book published in 1975 with exact title, Articles in Mother Earth News from 1976 and 1980 and many more references before that.
In fact in Europe they traditionally have done Urban homesteading for centuries. The traditional small family farm in Europe is not far out from the communities, no it is smack in the middle of town, with the larger fields around the town in close proximity. What you think most city people in the 1800 and before did?
Right, they had gardens and chickens, meat rabbits, they grew their own food, they had "Urban Homesteads"!
Most people around the World did Urban Homesteading before the Americans used this term to describe something that has been done for millenniums. It is wrong to trademark something used in common language.....like they invented it. They didn't! It is like trade-marking the word "Farming".
What kind of "Path to Freedom" is this anyway.
One where you prevent others to enjoy what you stole from all?

This is taken from their cease and desist letter:

"If your use of one of these phrases is not to specifically identify products or services from the Dervaes Institute, then it would be proper to use generic terms to replace the registered trademark you are using. For example, when discussing general homesteading or other people’s projects, they should be referred to using terms such as ‘modern homesteading,’ ‘urban sustainability projects,’ or similar descriptions."

So it is "proper" for everyone to mince words, just so nobody risks suggesting they are doing urban homesteading?????

What is so special they are doing anyway, nobody else has done before them? Do they use a special kind of gardening, they came up with? No! They say on their website they use the "Squarefoot gardening method", so to them it seems to be perfectly okay for them to use other's ideas. What is so special of using animals to fertilize your soil, the Chinese have done that for a long time.
I really want to know, what is so different what they are doing?
What this world needs most is to grow food where most of the people are....in the cities. What they are doing is undermining this effort of others by telling them to cease and desist. They are undermining a movement. Their claims 'to be getting away from corporate control of their subsistence' are laughable if they then enact those practices on ordinary people making the same attempt. They deserve all the bad publicity they get when getting caught with this sleazy behavior.

this is from their website taken from their lame excuse they posted on there

"as the popularity of Urban Homestead and Urban Homesteading increased and began to label everything from television productions to big agriculture products, we couldn't shake the warning bells in our minds. You tell us... who would you rather own the trademarks? Us or a big business corporation?"

My answer is: "No-one, not you, not me, not my neighbor, not a corporation should own these terms as trademarks."

I am very disappointed by these developments, gardeners stabbing other gardeners in the back. How pitiful! They lost all credibility and support from me and therefore I have decided to remove all references and links pointing to their site from my blog pages. And I hope you'll do the same!

Gardeners are about sharing, sharing knowledge, planting seeds in the next gardener generations. Urban Homesteading is about making the cities a more livable, more sustainable place.
This is against my core beliefs what they have done!

Seed organizer and planner

2011-02-21T20:29:00.000-08:00

Every year, once the seeding planning starts, I get to a point where I wished there would be a easier way to do my seed planning, when to plant certain seeds. Since I always try new seed varieties each year because I still try to find the ones that will do best in my new garden climate, I keep adding more and more packs of seeds as time goes on. Now I started even saving many of my own seeds, and anyway there are always so many neat new Heirloom varieties each year who could pass them all on.
Definitely not me.
I have tried all different ways over the years, I made paper charts, then excel planning charts, then I started trying out various garden software. They all work to a certain extend in telling you when to plant, but it always takes to much time to set it up. Another thing that that was missing was that you just can't take that computer out into the garden. Whatever paper you take out into the vegetable garden with you, soon will be smudged by dirt, wet and unreadable or gets lost including the pens you take out with you to write down your notes.
There had to a easier way and I think I came up with a better solution.

A pre-sorted seed pack box.

I actually had been thinking of a seed sorting box for quite a while, but most boxes I found where either too small for my use or had not enough compartments (I had been keeping my vegetable seeds in 3 metal boxes I got at Ikea) then I came across this box when I was looking for sewing notions. It is just perfect for sorting the seeds. It comes with 8 variable compartments and is high enough for most seed packs to fit upright inside. The box also is close-able, so the seeds are protected and keep fresh.

This is how I sorted my seeds to make my planning easier. Since I have so many seeds I actually got two boxes to make my seed sorting system easier manageable.

This box is practically a planting calendar and seed keeper all in one. Each box is for half a growing season.
Purple is for the pre-May planting season. The Green box for the less busy season from May to October. Each compartment is for a specific planting time starting with January and is labeled as such. Since in my area in January there are only a few plants started indoor the label says "January 15th > Indoor" telling me whatever is in this compartment I can seed in pots past Jan 15th. Indoors. February is a very busy month for seeding, so it took several compartments for that month. One for Indoor early February, two compartments for Indoor after Feb. 15th., then one for Seeding outside after Feb. 15Th.
Since I also do a lot of succession planting with certain crops, like for example 'carrots' and I have a lot of different varieties I also spread the different varieties over the different planting dates. So I have carrot seed packs in many compartments from End of March until the last planting date possible for them.
Some seeds I don't have enough to spread out like that, so I also have a simple planting calendar taped to the inside of the lid and my plan is to just keep moving the seed pack forward into the compartments each time I plant making the succession of planting easy.

The lid is a perfect place to tape seeding information as vegetable companion charts, spacing charts and fertilizing info.
Now when I go plant my seed, all I need is grab my seed sorting box by the handle, there is no need to bring anything else with me into the garden. I just get the seeds from the proper compartment and plant.
How easy is that?

I don't want to proclaim, it will be a perfect system yet but at least it should lessen the planning time spend. Granted it took time to set up, with sorting all the seeds into it with the help of my Planting chart but if it all works as planned, I never have to do it again, aside add the newest seeds I get.

I'll get back to you later in the garden season how I fared with my new seed planning system.

disclaimer: Not to be shared with the Dervaes Family of Path to Freedom Website. Thank You

Healthy Food Action

2011-02-18T19:27:00.000-08:00

Healthy Food Action

Please add your name to the Charter for a Healthy Farm Bill!
For a Farm Bill that is holistic in nature and includes sections on transparency, fairness and environmental sustainability
and is good for us the consumer, the farmer and out environment.
Make your voices heard, because this administration is not going to act without us getting louder and tell them what is important to us.
Eaters must become more political. We can't just vote with our forks.

You can read the whole charter on the web page of Healthy Food Action

and while you are at it supporting a good Healthy Farm Bill
maybe you like to sign this petition also voice your support for making our food system fair for all of us

http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5597

Adventures in Urban Homesteading

2011-02-02T13:35:00.000-08:00

Here used to be a post about the Path to Freedom website with a video showing their garden skills, but I removed all links and postings pointing to their site and I here I am explaining why I did that!

Path to Freedom - Lost Urban Homestead Hero status!

Join in the opposition to GE Alfalfa and send a letter to the White House

2011-02-01T19:17:00.000-08:00

Maria Rodale, CEO and Chairman of Rodale, Inc. and book author is calling for Unity in the fight against GMO Crops in an open letter.
Maria Rodale: We Stand in Opposition to GE Alfalfa
It is more important then ever for all of us to work together to bring back normalcy to our food system.
We need to stop the deregulation of GE crops and join together against the forces that are seeking to silence hundreds of thousands of Americans.
If you eat food, this decision will effect you. All people, Organic food stores, Farmers and Farming associations, Food producers, Organic Trade organizations, all who are concerned about the food we eat, who want to have the power to decide what they want to put on their table and grow on their fields need to work together to preserve and protect our environment and our health.

Anonymous sources, that are familiar with the USDA negotiations have told that the White House asked Vilsack to drop the proposed regulations. This, so the White House administration will appear more friendly to big business. There also seems to be the appearance that the decision was made long before the voices of the public called in their concerns, over the concerns of citizens and all of the organic world.
Banning GMO Alfalfa was not an option and it looks like it never had been an option, the USDA already decided that GE alfalfa would be approved for sale.

The pressure to stop the proliferation of this contaminating technology must be focused on the White House and Congress because the decision to deregulate this crop was an decisions made in the Obama Administration. You can write a letter to Obama to tell him what you think about these back room dealings if you go to this action alert from the Organic Trade Association. They had more then 6,000 letters sent to Obama by concerned citizens in less then 24 hours. We can put pressure on Obama and let him know that he is selling out our land and food supply, he is selling out our future generations, also his children and grandchildren.
United we can fight GMO crops and Monsanto

USDA is fully deregulating Monsanto's GMO Alfalfa

2011-01-27T19:08:00.000-08:00

There is no Democracy in USA!!!

BREAKING NEWS: USDA to Fully Deregulate Monsanto’s Genetically Engineer Alfalfa — Gene Contamination of Feed, Milk, Meat and Other Products to Follow… | Cornucopia Institute

This should never been approved and especially not deregulated with the environmental impact this will have and with this big of a majority of people opposing deregulation.

WTH! does anyone in the White House administration ever so just even slightly try to represent the People of this country?
It doesn't look like it.
It doesn't even matter anymore, who is in the White House, everyone who is calling the shots is in bed with the corporate lobby and big money business. Vilsack should never been appointed to this position. It's well known that he is on the side of Monsanto, we know exactly now who the USDA serves.
Profits in this country are going to be always over people because petitions and phonecalls/letters to politicians who value campaign dollars over consumer health and safety are useless.
We "The People" have no voice in these matters anymore.

This is what we are up against http://www.responsibletechnology.org/blog/664

You might think, well I don't eat Alfalfa Sprouts, or I just stop eating the sprouts. But it will be not so easy to avoid GMO Alfalfa as you think.
It only will be a matter of time that the GMO Alfalfa will contaminate nearby organic crops, it will be in the feed for animals, even pastured, organic animals.
If your farmer feeds Alfalfa to his animals or lets them graze on alfalfa fields the milk you drink and beef you eat may be tainted with genetically modified, round resistant alfalfa. And it will contaminate you!

It also will probably destroy the honey bees which are so important for our food production.

This will be a difficult one to avoid, aside you stop eating meat and any dairy products. No more American made cheese, no more cream for cooking. Good bye French cream based sauces, Cheese sauce for your pasta. No more yogurt, butter. No more cappuccino with foamed milk.

Shame on you Obama! Shame on your Administration! Shame on you politicians who are supposed to represent the people.
You all have been selling us out.

If you want to tell Monsanto how you are feeling here is Monsanto's number: 314 694 1000
Call your President in the White House how disappointed you are http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/,
call the USDA's Vilsack at 202-720-3631 or email him at AgSec@usda.gov and if you become a "fan" of USDA, you can go out to their Facebook fan page and tell them your piece of mind about approving and deregulating GMO Alfalfa.

I am getting so disgusted by the politics of this country that I really have to wonder what future this country holds for me. Do I really want the citizenship of a country that is that messed up? Do I want to grow old in a country that does not hear it's people?

Where any decision will be always about big business and money
and not about what makes this country, "The People" of this country,not big business, not the corporations and not the lobbyists waving their dollar signs!

I really, really am having big doubts!

Monsanto: Extinction

2011-01-19T15:07:00.000-08:00

Monsanto's Round-up is causing Extinction

Monsanto should be the one, who is extinct.

Institute for Responsible Technology -

2011-01-16T20:24:00.000-08:00

Institute for Responsible Technology -

Monsanto is poisoning our world and any life which depends on what this earth offers. We just can't let them destroy our way of life.
It is criminal what they are doing and they need to be stopped!

Monsanto once claimed that Round-up would break down quickly in the soil, which courts in the US and Europe have proven is a flat out lie. Did you know Round-up after 28 days breaks only down 2%? Did you know that a study showed Round-up taking up to 22 years to degrade half its volume? Did you know that plant disease pathogens are rapidly increasing, killing the crops Round-up supposedly is supposed to grow better? Did you know that some of these plant pathogens can make you sick and are connected to the plaque epidemics in medieval Europe, cancers, blood diseases and other diseases? Did you know that Round-up is left in the feed, that is fed to cattle, chickens, pigs and it accumulates in their bodies, the meat you are eating?

Did you know the USDA is right now making decisions about approving Round-up ready Alfalfa?

If you are concerned about Monsanto poisoning this earth, animals and us you need to read this article above and then
Please tell USDA Secretary Vilsack not to approve Monsanto’s alfalfa today.

Blog vacation

2011-01-05T18:58:00.000-08:00

I have had a hiatus from my blog for a while, because I had a hard time typing on my computer.
Some years ago I hurt my shoulder, when I was moving heavy book boxes after we moved to Oregon. From time to time I hurt it again, especially if I do something I shouldn't do, like move heavy things which don't want to be moved or I should wait for my husband to move for me.
Like my little Fringe tree I was moving to the new garden area, which obviously resented getting moved after barely starting to grow and grabbed on to some old roots in the ground. Only after some good pulling all of a sudden the tree decided 'maybe it won't be so bad after all', let go of the roots it was holding on, giving me a big jolt back. My shoulder didn't like that, at all. Once it is inflamed it makes it difficult to sit very long on the computer. Especially typing and using the mouse is really bad. So I had to take a rest from blogging.

By the way, the tree is very much fine, I think it likes it's new surrounding and settled right in, in its new home.

Now my shoulder is much better, even tough occasionally it flames up again forcing me to limit my computer use.
As soon my shoulder was getting a bit better, Christmas time came around the corner and with it my Christmas cookie extravaganza. Once this starts, there is hardly any time to spend time on my blog.
To tell the truth, it would be hard for me to tell you about gardening adventures, while my hands and head are covered in butter and flour, listening to Christmas music, mixing doughs, forming and decorating little sweet morsels.

My Christmas baking kitchen set up

I admit, I am a Christmas cookie baking maniac. I do it only once a year, but then I go all out and bake for weeks, starting right after Thanksgiving. If I am lucky, I am done a few days before Christmas looking at my cookie tins filled with many varieties, each one different.

Rolling out cookie dough seems to also be one of the best physical therapies for my sore shoulder, so now my shoulder feels much better and I hope I will be able to keep sharing with you more frequently in this New Year.

Happy New Year to you all

Moving a Garden

2010-11-18T17:49:00.000-08:00

I have been so busy outside, working in the garden I didn't find any time sharing on the blog.

Seems the summer went faster by then I wanted and even I worked so much outside I never managed to get control of my weed situation and I didn't get as many plants moved into the new garden area, I am working on, as I wanted.
All of a sudden our rainy season has started, it is getting cool and it is dark early making it difficult to get things done outside.
This year the summer vegetable garden was not very successful, I never had that bad of an harvest since I started gardening and I have been gardening for a long time now. Almost all the summer vegetables barely made enough to feed us over the summer, I am thankful that we at least got enough to have some for dinner but I wished I could have filled my freezer also. I never seen so few Zucchinis and cucumbers, there wasn't even enough to pass on to friends as usually. At least I finally got some Tomatoes and even managed to put up a few tubs of tomato-sauce in the freezer for winter.
I did have a few success stories though.
For the first time in my gardening life I got the Radicchio to head up. Yeah!
Usually I got it to grow a bit and then it just shot up and flowered. This year I have beautiful, big heads out there waiting for me. I harvested a variety of red, green and Savoy cabbage, which grew beautiful and have some more growing. I accidentally must have let a stalk celery seed out last year and it started growing in my path ways, but that celery which was a Heirloom Red Stalk Celery is growing beautifully and unlike the year I intentionally seeded it, it is not hollow this year. I also planted a few new varieties, two of those varieties also are growing nicely, while the other two are having hollow stems. I read that some varieties are more prone to hollow stems and so I probably will next year only grow the ones which didn't have this problem of hollow stems. I have some Brussels Sprout out there which look like they are making little sprouts in the leaf axles and the Cauliflower is starting to head up. So not all is bad. And now it got cooler I again have my endive, corn salad, lettuce and varieties of greens like Kale, Arugula, Broccoli Rape and Mustard Greens coming. It is only good that eating greens is highly recommended for your health, because we have been eating a lot of greens this year.

If you remember I am making a new garden area in the second lot we have next to the house, which will be our future garden in a few years when we built a smaller house there.

The area I planted in spring is growing nicely, the Chinese Apricot tree grew so much and filled out I crossing my fingers for some Apricots next year. Just a few please!

I didn't get as much moved from my old garden into the second new garden area as I planned and I didn't get the low area ready to be planted but even so it is slowly looking like a garden. A few weeks ago, as the season started changing and the sun was going down so much earlier, our old coffee drinking spot in the garden started getting to shady in the afternoon and it was too cool to sit so I made a nice little spot in the new garden.

Flattened out an area just big enough for the bench and table, terraced the hill behind it with old concrete and rocks found in the garden and started filling it with plants.

I got a a variety of bulbs, different varieties of Tulips, under other Lily Tulips, Parrot Tulip a few Darwin and a low growing species Tulip, also some fragrant Narcissus varieties and winter crocus, fragrant day lilies, Oriental lilies and a neat looking yellow Peony.

I want this area to be a fragrant garden so I can sit there, having my afternoon coffee and be surrounded by good smells, So I have been digging up some of my fragrant shrubs, the ones which aren't too big yet and easy to move and planted them.

Unfortunately many of my shrubs are too big and instead trying to chance it killing them by transplanting I tried over the summer to take cuttings and root them. I never rooted shrubs before and was pleasantly surprised that so many rooted out. So by next year, I might be able to transplant my fragrant shrubs if they are big enough to plant out.
I did manage to move my Fringe tree and a lemony flavored cypress which I just planted last year.

I always wanted one of these small, fragrant trees, which are native to the Southern US, are hard to find out here and I wasn't going to leave it behind in my old garden. So even I didn't get everything in the ground as planned and will have to wait until next spring. It is shaping up nicely.

By next year it should be a nice place to sit and enjoy my afternoon coffee.
And for gardeners, there is always another year, another season.

Seed Saving - Tomatoes

2010-09-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

Generally seeds saved from open-pollinated or heirloom Tomato varieties breed true to type. Which means you get the same variety from the seed as the one you collected from. But although Tomato flowers are usually self-pollinated, occasionally they may be cross pollinated by insects about 2% of the time. If you want to prevent cross pollination completely 100% you should keep the different varieties about 10' apart. Flowers of older varieties, like some Heirloom Tomatoes, are said to often have longer styles then more modern cultivars. Because it protrudes more it is more accessible to bees and other insects so these varieties have a higher chance of getting cross pollinated.

But what is a typical backyard gardener to do, most of us don't have the garden space to isolate our Tomatoes for 10 feet apart? You could plant either tall barrier plants between the Tomato plants or put another pollen producing crop between the different varieties. Or you just do it as I do, chance it.
After all it is only a small chance of cross pollination and who knows maybe you get a cool, new tomato variety out of the deal.
For seed saving, pick the best looking fruits, from your healthiest looking, best producing plants, when they are fully ripe. It is a good idea to save seeds from several fruits to maintain a larger gene pool. No need to waste a tomato just for saving seeds. When you are ready to process a tomato for eating or cooking, just scratch some of the seed containing pulp into a small glass jar (old jam jars work really great), I usually add just a splash of water and then let it ferment at room temperature.

Don't put it in an especially warm place. At 80° F the fermentation takes about 2 days, at 70° F about 3 days. If you leave the seeds in the pulp for a longer period you get a better control of bacterial canker, which is a seed borne disease, but you should not let them ferment longer then 5 days or they might start to sprout. Stir the mixture each day and when it's ready, carefully pour most of the liquid with the pulp out, without loosing your seeds. You might have to keep adding water frequently to free the seeds from the pulp. Just add some more water, swirl, pour and do it until the water looks almost clean and there is no more pulp. Now you can strain it all over in a sieve, maybe rinse them some more and drop the seeds into a paper towel. Fold it over and let them dry for 3 to 7 days. After they are dry you can put the seeds in small zip lock bags or jars.

If you are saving seeds of many different cultivars it is advisable to label your jars with the name of the varieties you have. It is easy to get mixed up. Since I ferment several batches, after I am drying the first batch I put the jar with the label with the next batch on top of the corresponding Tomato variety drying in the paper towel.

Plum Cobbler recipe - in English and German

2010-09-08T18:01:00.000-07:00

I love anything made with Italian Prune Plums or Zwetschgen as we call them in Germany. I look forward to September every year when they are in Season. I actually really enjoy not to have everything available all year round. I like to eat with the seasons. It is not just much more flavor full when it finally comes around it also makes you really appreciate the food and the seasons.

Here is the Fruit Cobbler recipe made with Plums

Comments: This can be made with any fruit really, with denser Fruit like Apple, Plums...etc. I put the fruit in the baking dish and bake it for 20-30minutes before I add the cobbler mix on top and then bake it some more to finish. But most fruit you just add to baking dish, add the cobbler dough on top and then bake.

Recipe By     :Isabell Norman
Serving Size : 6     Preparation Time: 0:15 min. Baking time: 0:20 and 0:30 min.
Ingredients:
24                 Plums, pitted - Zwetschgen, entkernt, -- or more if you like
2   Tbsp        sugar-Zucker, I used Rapadura Sugar from Rapunzel --
                    (this can be reduced or omitted if you wish)
1   tl              fresh Orange peel, grated - Orangenschale, gerieben
2   tbsp     Butter cut into small flakes- flockig geschnitten
For Dough - Teig
125 g       Flour, I used 1/2 white whole wheat and whole wheat -
                     1/2 Weisses Vollweizen und 1/2 Vollkornmehl
1   Tsp           baking powder - Backpulver
2 Tbsp          Sugar - Zucker, Rapadura Sugar
50   g             Butter cut into small pieces - Butter, kleingeschnitten
1                    egg, lightly beaten - Ei, leicht geschlagen
2-3 Tbsp       Milk - Milch
1   Tbsp         Turbinado sugar - grober Brauner Zucker

Use a 1 1/2 liter baking dish, I use my Anchor Ware glass containers, I think it's 2 liter
-Du brauchst eine 1-1/2 liter grosse Auflaufform. Ich benutze meine Anchor Ware glass container in
denen man auch backen kann ungefaehr 2 liter Groesse.

Grease your baking form with some butter, pit the plums and cut them open flat and layer them upright into the pan
-Auflaufform mit etwas Butter einfetten, Plaumen entsteinen und wie bei Zwetschgenkuchen in die Form einlegen.

If you like it a bit sweeter now sprinkle the 2 tablespoon Sugar or as much you like over the plum, then also the Orange peel and add little butterflakes all over the plums
-Jetzt kann der Zucker nach belieben ueber die Plaumen gestreut werden, die Orangenschale darueber gestreut und die Butter in Floeckchen auf diePflaumen gesetzt

Preheat Oven to 350° F or if convection to 325° F and put the baking form with the plums inside while it preheats. Let it bake for 20 minutes
-Ofen zu 180° C vorheizen, oder bei Convection Ofen auf 170° C und die Auflaufform mit den Pflaumen in den Ofen tun waehrend der Ofen vorheizt. Backe die Pflaumen vor, fuer ungefaehr 20 minuten.

In the meantime measure your flour, baking powder, sugar and mix altogether in a mixing bowl. Add the Butter pieces and work the butter with your fingers in until it looks like fine Bread crumbs.
-In der Zwischenzeit wiege das Mehl, Backpulver, Zucker ab und misch es miteinander in einer Ruehrschuessel. Gebe die Butterstueckchen dazu und arbeite die Butter mit den Fingern ein bis es wie feine Brotkruemel aussieht.

Make a indention in the flour mix and with a knife, mix in the lightly beaten egg and just enough milk so it makes a soft dough.
-In die Mitte der Mehlmischung eine Mulde druecken. Mit einem Messer das leicht geschlagene Ei und soviel Milch einruehren, dass eine weiche Masse entsteht.

Spread the dough in spoonfuls all over the Plums, until it is all covered. Then sprinkle the Turbinado sugar all over it and put back in Oven. Bake for 30 more minutes or until it is golden brown and baked through.
-Teig loeffelweise auf der Oberflaeche verteilen, bis sie vollstaendig bedeckt ist. Mit dem Turbinado Zucker bestreuen und zurueck in den Backofen geben. 30 Minuten mehr backen bis alles gold braun gebacken ist und durchgebacken ist. Mit staebchenprobe testen.

Best served while still warm. You can serve whipped cream, Vanilla ice cream or Egg cream with it. I just like it as is
-Am besten serviert wenn es noch warm ist. Man kann den Cobbler mit Schlagsahne, Vanilleeis oder Eiercreme servieren. Ich mag es einfach nur so, pur.

Nutrition (calculated from recipe ingredients)----------------------------------------------
Calories: 345 Calories   From Fat: 112   Total Fat: 12.7g   Cholesterol: 63.8mg   Sodium: 80.4mg   Potassium: 546.1mg
Carbohydrates: 57g   Fiber: 6.3g   Sugar: 37.7g   Protein: 6g

Cooking Tip: This is really very versatile. Use any fruit you like, mix the fruit. Use different spicing, flavorings. Cinnamon is good in it, or Coriander, Cardamom, Lemon, Vanilla. Just experiment. Don't reduce the sugar or butter in the dough or it will not come out properly, But you always can reduce the sugar, butter or even omit them on the fruit if you like less sugar. Most fruits are sweet enough you don't need it.
-Das ist ein sehr leicht veraenderbares Rezept. Benutze was immer eine Frucht du hast, mische verschiedene Fruechte miteinander. Benutze andere Gewuerze, Aromas. Zimt ist sehr gut, oder Koriander, Kardamom,Zitrone, Vanille. Experiment damit. Tu nicht den Zucker oder die Butter imTeig verringern oder es wird nicht richtig herauskommen. Aber du kannst immer den Zucker, die Butter auf der Frucht verringern oder sogar weglassen. Die meisten Fruechte sind suess genug, dass man es nicht braucht.

Enjoy!

disclaimer: Not to be shared with the Dervaes Family of Path to Freedom Website. Thank You

Growing troubles

2010-08-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

In the last two years I slowly changed my vegetable garden into a raised bed garden. The first few beds I had enough garden compost and 'garden rich planting soil' I got from our local commercial composting business, which was sitting in a pile for more then a year. Everything seemed to grow nicely that year.

Last year I added a few more beds, last year I also had trouble growing some vegetables. Even I fertilized everything frequently with Steve Solomon's Fertilizer mix, in the new beds the plants seemed to grow really slow, didn't thrive and did not produce as well. The top surface would constantly dry out to the point that seeds, especially the small, fine seeds wouldn't sprout. Even with my drip irrigation the top 2 inches were always dry. I blamed it on the weather, we had a few more warmer days and cool nights last year. I kept playing with my irrigation, 'maybe I am not watering enough' I was thinking, but nothing I did improved anything.

This spring I added more raised garden beds, but I didn't have enough soil to fill everything, I also needed to fill some of the last years beds more up, since I didn't have enough dirt to fill them to the top last year. So we got some more 'Garden Rich planting soil' plus some mint straw and garden compost, which now included chicken manure, you would think everything is growing great with this.
Unfortunately I have a real bad garden season so far. Partly it is the weather, many hot days, while the nights are too cool for the warm season vegetables, then it still rained in June this year, a lot, enough that my first plantings of beans, Squash and Cucumbers just rotted in the dirt and I had to replant seeds a few times. There were also a lot of slugs and snails eating everything in site.
But I think the major reason for my growing pains is this 'Rich garden planting soil'. Which I now think is anything but rich.

My self seeding Lettuce and Arugula grew great, they come up all over my garden paths all I do is dig the small plants up and move them to a raised bed. The cool season vegetables seemed to thrive, but everything I planted later is struggling. I only realized later, everything which was growing nice, I had planted in the beds I filled a season or two ago, the ones I only added some garden compost to, the newly filled beds, the ones I had to top up with the planting soil, those were the ones which were struggling. Those beds also couldn't hold the moisture very well, even with my drip irrigation all the water just seemed to run out on the bottom, did not wet the whole area of the beds, like it was going straight down from the dripper to the bottom and then leaking out. All my water was running down the hill, making my paths in the vegetable garden like sponges, but starving my vegetables from moisture.

I think the planting soil they sell at this place has too much wood pulp in it, when you stick your hand in the dirt you can feel tiny slivers all over your hand . That would explain the fertility issues since I seem to have a bad nutrient imbalance and also that it can not hold water. It is not composted completely and it is to fine, maybe to much sand in it. We live in a wood producing state, so logically the composting facilities get a lot of wood. They are also in the business of selling, so it makes sense that they don't take the time to let everything compost until it is perfect. They rush it through to make more sales. At least that's my theory.
Unfortunate to the unsuspecting customer.

I tried to deal with the drainage issue by having my irrigation set to water for shorter amounts 3 times in a row, about 20 minutes apart, so the water might be able to soak in rather just drain, everything just looked like not getting enough water. I probably made the situation worse, by encouraging the Tomatoes to grow shallow roots, instead of going into the lower garden soil and also leaching out more nutrients.
For the first time since I garden my Tomatoes are having Blossom End Rot issues and some Phosphorus deficiency, they have been growing very slowly and not setting fruits very well. They look dry all the time. My peppers are doing a bit better but still show distress and not setting fruit. My Summer squashes, even though it got started a bit late in the season, due to the rain in June, should be producing lot's of Zucchini by now, but the plants are still a bit small and are growing slow, although they look otherwise healthy I think I should be eating Zucchini right now, lot's of them. Same with the cucumbers, I have not harvested one so far.
I have been feeding everything with Fish fertilizer a few times, some kelp meal and a little bone meal to the tomatoes, I hope at least it will stop the issue with the rot.
Unless I get a soil test done, I don't really know what is going on fertility wise, not knowing I could inadvertently make it worse by giving the wrong fertilizer or adding to much of one thing. I will have to wait with the soil test until I have my beds cleared of vegetables, but plan to get one in fall.
I definitely think I need to add some moisture holding capacity to my raised beds, more fertile compost.

So as the season ends I am planning to just get some nice loam and some Rabbit manure or goat manure, growing some cover crops of Field peas also should help add fertile, moisture holding matter to my soil.
I have never had that many fertility issues in any of my former vegetable gardens. These gardens I used the soil which was there and amended it with compost and horse manure, I hardly ever fertilized after planting. These were very productive gardens and aside having to deal with the disease issues for the tomatoes which came with living in the South we didn't have a lot of bug and deficiency problems.

I was a big mistake to use this 'Ready made planting soil' as the main ingredient for my beds. I sure won't make that mistake again. Whatever you do, you are much better off to start out with some loam, or good topsoil and amend it with the good stuff like Compost, Manure, cover crops and let the soil improve over time.
I am lucky to have grown a wide variety of vegetables, so even my main crop is doing poorly we still have been eating Lettuce, Chard, Cabbage, Kale and other Greens, Radishes and Peas for a long season.

Hopefully the next season will be a better growing season. Hopefully we will be eating lot's of Tomatoes and Zucchini in September and October.
If not, my new Lettuce is growing already, my fall and winter garden is planted, ready to grow and to feed us.

Hope you are having a better growing season, if not there is always another season coming.