Yeah, this guy's food choices don't look so unhealthy now, do they?
Posted on 09/15/2006 11:22:16 PM PDT by Aussiebabe
It seems a lot of folks don't know what's in their gardens. In the spring I till in manure, peat mosss, and maybe a top dress of Miwaukee's Finest Manure. It keeps the deer and most critters away while the new plants are taking root. Generally, properly applied manure(s) should be OK around your plants. One of the biggest no,no's is spraying it on your plants.
As far as 'chemistry' being better...my lawn guy just spent 10 days in the hospital due to fertilizer over exposure from cutting grass when wet. Someone along his route overused something... Put the poor guy up in the hospital for 7 of the 10 days.
I wish you and your cow lot had been here this year! My tomatoes, even with miracle-gro, never set fruit. The bermuda grass has just sucked all the nutrient out of the soil, I guess.
I *do* have a cow lot, but not a lot of cow...
Just one little bucket calf. I don't think she can cover the whole ten acres, but maybe I'm wrong. I better throw in the horse for good measure.
"S**t happens," said a company spokesman.
Wow, I bet you have a magnificent garden!
Suddenly, I feel very inadequate...
This is not the first time that Dole has been involved in a bagged lettuce recall.
I am glad that someone is reading my posts. I had a few FReepers claiming that it can be washed off the Spinach (or other leafy veggies). They have even suggested that folks use a mixture of water and bleach to kill it. Trying to get some people to understand that the E.Coli on this bad spinach may not be on the surfuce but embedded inside the spinach. You cannot clean it and eat it raw without being at risk with this lastest bad bunch of spinach.
Personally I would suggest that people stay away from all the pre-bagged lettuce and spinach at this time just to be safe. Only because they are not sure how the spinach got contaminated. Earthbound also processes pre-bagged lettuce and salad kits under many different food brands.
As far as your composting... all you need to do is read up on it and you will be fine. We used to compost in large 55 gallon plastic barrels. We would cut a door in the side of the barrel and put hinges on it and a latch. Then we would just roll the barrels around to turn the compost when needed. It was a quick way to make compost when we were in dire need of it when we first started ours gardens. Now we just make a couple of big pile in corner of our large yard and let it sit for about 1 year. One pile is started in the spring and the other is started in the fall. The following year in the spring we use up last years spring pile and start a new fresh spring pile where the old spring pile was.
Then in the fall we use up last years fall pile if needed.
It is best to have 2 piles going at same time but with each pile started at different times of the year.
I finally got my husband to understand that we should just till in the fall and not in the spring. In the fall we till in the compost and then in the spring we skip the tilling and top dress the gardens with compost. We have clay soil here and it took us a few years to get the soil just right.
In the spring after the our plants are in... we lay down newspaper (black print only) in two or 3 layers and then we lay straw on top of it. This keeps the weeds down and moisture in the soil during real dry weather. When fall comes the newspaper under the straw is just about gone. The straw is brittle and broken down and we just till it all in to the soil with some finished compost. We then leave the garden uncovered until spring when we repeat the process without retilling. (some weeding may be needed on those early spring weeds that may have creeped into our garden.)
We don't grow a lot winter crops. Most everything we grow is early spring or summer crops. We over plant as we do not water our gardens since we are on a cistern system where we must have water hauled in to us. We do catch rain water off from our gutters that runs into our cisterns. We treat the cistern water with bleach and we don't drink it (we buy bottled water in gallon jugs), but I do cook with it when I know the water will reach boiling point. We shower in it but we do not take baths in it.
Next spring we are suppose to be hooked up to city water and our water bill will go down greatly. This summer water was costing us $160.00 a month to have it hauled in due to the lack of rain. That is 1500 gallons every week at $40.00 a load. It used to be a lot cheaper but the water hauler has been sticking it to us since they know they will be losing us as customers and because gas reached over $3.00 a gallon this year. We are at the point now that we just have stick with the water hauler until we are hooked up to city water. It is too expensive now for us to invest in a heavy duty trailer that can handle a good size filled water tank on it.
Once the city water is hooked up, the cisterns have to be completely unhooked as a water supply. The pump that pulls the water from the cistern through facets will be unhooked from the main water lines in the house and the pump will be put outside in a pump house. We will hook up a single outdoor facet to it. We will still catch rain water from the gutters and it will still empty out into the cisterns. The cistern rain water will now be used soley for watering the gardens.
We have two 1500 gallon concrete cisterns that are underground below the freeze line.
We are almost like homesteaders here... we have 5 acres of land... and our home is only about 20 years old. We moved from the city to the rural country about 12 years ago. In those 12 years I have learned alot about country life. It took a long time to adjust to country life. The nearest shopping mall is about 1 1/2 hours away. We only have one grocery store and a tiny Walmart. The Super Walmarts are a good 20 miles away one way with nothing in between but farm fields.
E. coli is all natural.
the best tomato crops I have ever had was due to me not watering the plants and a drought. Last year was the worse drought we have ever had, but the tomatoes were great! - I plant about 10 to 12 tomato plants a year. (like I said we overplant because we don't water) - Our neighbors love us as we make drop off's of fresh tomatoes and melons to their doors about once a week. (we just give them away)
You may be watering them too much. Where do you live?
One way to experiment is over plant a little on the tomato plants and just ignore a couple of the plants (sucker them and stake'em) But refrain from feeding them and watering them and see how well they do.
We have decided to voluntarily recall all of the products which contain spinach in all the brands we pack with "Best if Used by Dates" of August 17th through October 1st. Brands include: Dole, Natural Selection Foods, Pride of San Juan, Earthbound Farm, Bellissima, Rave Spinach, Emeril, Sysco, O Organic, Fresh Point, River Ranch, Superior, Nature's Basket, Pro-Mark, Compliments, Trader Joe's, Ready Pac, Jansal Valley, Cheney Brothers, Coastline, D'Arrigo Brothers, Green Harvest, Mann, Mills Family Farm, Premium Fresh, Snoboy, The Farmer's Market, Tanimura & Antle, President's Choice, Cross Valley, Riverside Farms. Products include spinach and any salad with spinach in a blend, both retail and foodservice products. Products that do not contain spinach are not part of this recall.
If I recall the childhood song correctly he eats all the worms and spits out the germs so e-coli wouldn't be a bother....
Problem might be high temps, esp. at night. Had this problem when I lived in Oklahoma. A consistently good producer was the 'Surprise' variety of tomato in spite of hot weather. For added insurance, I always grew several of the Porter tomatoes which I juiced...whizzed them up raw in the blender, ran the puree thru the food mill to remove seeds and a lot of the skin & canned the juice.
Daytime temperatures above 90°F and night temperatures above 70°F will reduce the number of tomato flowers and fruit set. There is considerable evidence that night temperature is the critical factor in setting tomato fruit, the optimal range being 59-68°F. With night temperatures much below or above this critical range, fruiting of the tomato plant is reduced or absent. Low temperatures reduce the production and viability of pollen. High temperature, especially if accompanied by low humidity and moisture, hinders tomato fruit set through failure in pollination and/or fertilization.
"Everyone knows Popeye eats canned spinach. "
You forgot the "a-ga-ga-ga-ga". ;-)
Not one comment or joke about the name. Am I on FreeRepublic, or did I wander onto some other site this morning?
Well, I thought it was a good joke. And in case you didn't realize, FReeper's MediaMole's quip did not kill that person; the spinach did.
You need to develop a sense of humor too. By your logic, it is not permissible to joke about muslims. After all, quite a few people die each day because of them.
E.coli is the poster child for Intelligent Design. At least this can't be blamed on evolution.
Try planting the vetch, then mowing it, then planting your tomatoes right in that. Also, put some Gardens Alive fertilizer or something similar - I don't know if there is anything else like it - they have a product that is just wonderful for tomatoes. We've been using it for the past several years in our small kitchen garden and we have fabulous tomatoes.
May I suggest a piece of "scientific" equipment commonly known as a "thermometer". Placed in the sh*t barrel center, it will allow an accurate temperature reading.
Use of one with a long probe or a thermocouple on a wire will make possible accurate determination of whether or not sterilization has occurred.
Natural or organic farming does carry certain riaks associated with handeling of large quantities of fecal material.
The life of an organic farmer is analogous to having to listen to daily doses of campaign speeches - immersed in one sort of sh*t or another.
PS The really, really dangerous sh*t is found in urban areas, and has a Blue tinge.
;-)
I suggest you read the article again and realize that the spinach is under a number of different labels including DOLE. Hardly *smug vegetarian*. Don't you eat greens? It was spinach this time...could be iceberg lettuce next.
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