Tree-of-Heaven, my arse!

So another mystery solved, dear readers! The annoying yet endearingly tenacious bugger I wrote about previously is Ailanthus altissima. Ailanthus, meet worldwideweb readers; worldwideweb reads meet Ailanthus. You should meet formally, after all, given that if you're in one another's proximity you're bound to become intimate "friends."

Hi!

Ailanthus altissima also bears the ironic moniker Tree-of-Heaven (which is also, incidentally, a Korean drama!)


Some research reveals that the Tree-of-Heaven was initially imported and PURPOSEFULLY planted by well-meaning, no doubt, but ignorant horticultural enthusiasts in the 1700s. Then they realized it's invasive as hell and, oh yeah, it stinks! It has a significant place in Chinese herbal medicine, according to Wikipedia, being used for its astringent properties in curing mental illness (by way of chopping the root and mixing with young boys' urine and fermented black beans, naturally) as well as baldness and many other things.

Remember what I said about the bag worms really digging this stinky nuisance? Well, in China it's used as a host crop for silk worms! That's probably it's best use, right there. Another awesome thing about Ailanthus is that it synthesizes its very own herbicide which kills off competing plants in the germination phase. Fantastic! The USDA National Agricultural Library categorizes Ailanthus as an "exotic weed" and in some places is listed as a "noxious weed." Given it's "long and rich history" in China, how's that for a downgrade? Ouch!

To be fair the bark of this tree/weed is still used in Chinese medicine and may actually help with asthma and arrhythmias if taken in small quantities. And it is extremely fast growing, which is currently a bane but may eventually prove useful as it makes great firewood (file this in the back of your minds, peak oilers!).


Here are some tidbits from what I read:

"This tree, often incorrectly referred to as stinking sumac, grows along highways, in disturbed areas, in the rocky outcroppings of fields and anywhere else its prolific seeds seem to land.

Tree of Heaven was originally introduced from China as an ornamental tree. You might know it from 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.'...Often there will be one or two larger trees surrounded by a legion of these straight and erect seedlings. If you happen to see this tree on your property, do not cut it down. When this tree is cut down, it goes into self-protection mode, sending out dozens of shoots that can sprout up quite a distance away, it seems as far as 50 feet. It will also resprout form the stump." (http://www.emmitsburg.net/gardens/articles/frederick/2004/non-native_plants.htm)

From Wikipedia:

"...enthusiasm soon waned after gardeners became familiar with its suckering habits and its foul smelling odour. Despite this, it was used extensively as a street tree during much of the 19th century."

And so there you go. Next mystery - why are caterpillars impervious to diatomaceous earth? Other suggestions?

Woo-hoo!

I just joined the Oklahoma Food Co-op! I've been wanting to do this for years but funds were so low as a grad student that even just $50 to sign up was out of my budget! I used some of our wedding bling to sign up and now I'm trying to figure out what our first order will be! Yippee!

Seriously, I interviewed Bob Waldrop, the founder and President twice for my research on activism - once for the thesis and once for the dissertation. He is a phenomenal guy, just a powerhouse, and such an inspiration. He's up there with Carrie Dickerson (who I also interviewed twice, brag, brag) in terms of Okie activists! I have such incredible, exuberant respect and awe for that man. And last night I saw him featured on OETA's Stateline. Cool!

Yippee! Local food! Yippee! Farm fresh goodness! Yippee! Smaller carbon footprint!

To train or trail, that is the question...

I'm currently engaged in an experiment. I love experiments, particularly if they provide worthwhile information.

This year's experiment involves a whole helluva lot of tomatoes.

The Players:

In the front bed (the study avoidance bed) we have 11 tomatoes growing in 10+ hours of sun. They're growing East-West so the sun moves over the row fairly evenly. On one side is a 5' privacy hedge which acts as a sort of windbreak. All of these tomatoes are staked or caged. They're growing in a foot of loosened soil, which includes some Okie red clay, as well as plenty of manure, homemade compost, mushroom compost, old leaves, and pine needles for acidity - the soil here is pretty alkaline. Three of the 11 are from transplants. The rest are from seed.

In the back (the original bed) we have 17 tomatoes that are currently growing sans stakes! Stake-free, baby! I imagine this is like a tomato going bra-less, which has got to be much better! This bed gets only around 6 hours of sun and on the corners it gets less than that. It's growing in the same soil mix with the addition of 5 pounds of raw coffee to the entire row (25' x 5') for extra acidity. One of the tomatoes is a volunteer, so she's a lovely surprise. The rest were all grown from seeds except for three cherry tomatoes.

I may still buy a few cages for these tomatoes, but I really want to see what will happen. My old Rodale's says that unstaked tomatoes can grow up to 20 FEET LONG and produce like monsters, too, although they're more prone to disease. The folks over at Tomato Casual seem to think it's a foregone conclusion that tomatoes must be kept off the ground. I used to think that too, until a happy accident at my parents' place. They had some Cherokee Purples (which is a fabulous, truly wonderful tomato, especially when combined with orange habanero to make a beautiful salsa...but I digress)...anyway, these Purples decided no silly cage was going to hold them in - DON'T FENCE ME IN, MAN! - so they threw their cages down on the ground and went hog wild. Three plants grew to an enormous size and made my parents all sorts of tomatoes, buckets and buckets and buckets. Plus there were plenty of volunteers, too, because I guess there's no way to get all the tomatoes and some rotted in place.

If this experiment doesn't result in Massive Tomato Funk then my main concern will probably be space. There are also about 20 peppers growing back there (including the volunteers), a volunteer squash, two volunteer sunflowers, and some okra. It's a full house but I think I'm going to let them duke it out. Or I might stake a few of the Opalkas (I really want lots of tomatoes for canning) and let the rest of them have a go at it... I'll keep ya posted.

~~~~~

And in other news, last night I cleaned up the broccoli and cabbage beds. I pulled up several to compost and make room for the cukes and zukes. I decided to dry most of the cabbage and broccoli leaves as recommended by Sharon to grind into powder (#2 under Summer). She said to add it to bread, but I'm thinking I'll probably add it to soups, stews, and casseroles. If I ever make bread again - which I really want to, but I feel like I suck at it, then I might add it. Green bread sounds cool. I usually use all of my eggshells, which she also recommended for additional calcium, in the garden.

Garden update!

I definitely have to post a description of the lovely garden wedding we just had, but I want to be able to post pictures, so it might be a few days. My parents' garden looked FABULOUS. They worked themselves near to death, I think (maybe to the pain).

So the garden is growing well but was set askew (slightly northeasterly) by the 60-mile-an-hour straight line winds that rocked Tulsa on Sunday (taking our power with them for 2 1/2 days!). Most things have managed to right themselves, but the peppers, backyard tomatoes, and the two volunteer sunflowers are still growing at a little bit of a keel. I should be able to get them trained back up soon.

The onions are pretty much done and drying. I have a British book that recommends forking them up part of the way so that about half of the roots break. This slows the growing process and starts them drying. So that's what I've been doing the past few days. Whenever one fell over I'd pull it up a little ways and then push the stem down the rest of the way.

The Viroflay spinach is mostly all gone to seed with a few lone survivors. It looks like I might get some seed barring more strong winds (but this is OK, so no promises!). The older seeding radishes are growing monster seed pods compared to the pictures I posted earlier. I ate one yesterday. It was slightly larger than a stubby golf pencil and quite tasty! I didn't take any pictures but if you google radish seed pod you'll see what I mean. I read that they can be pickled or eaten fresh at this stage and that some people would rather have these than radishes! Fascinating!

The Dragon carrots are JUST NOW getting to be on the smallish-size of worth pulling. They've been delicious but so slow growing. I pulled up a couple yesterday that were around six inches long (although most of that was the whisper of root that isn't really part of the eatin' carrot!). They are beautiful and tasty, though.

The Sylvetta arugula has also been really slow growing, but once established has been awesome. For the longest time nothing came up, nothing came up, and then there they were. Looked a lot like weeds - smaller than regular arugula and a stronger flavor - more of a bite. Once the plants were in I've been able to re-crop them three or four times, cutting off all the major leaves and leaving just a few to do the refoliation. Awesome in our salads!

The buttercrunch lettuce has been reliable and is still producing. The few that chose to overwinter themselves have gone to seed but the rest is trying to head up now. We've been using them as cut and come again (and so have the snails).

The kohlrabi is growing strong. I still have 10 or so that are in the process of bunching up. The beets are looking better but are still only 7 or so inches long at the leaves (not sure why!). The turnips have been good producers, especially the abundant and delicious greens! The turnips themselves have been good but hot, more like a radish. If anyone knows why, please enlighten me!

The broccoli was a spring-time bust! The plants are huge and would probably make me something if it weren't already 92-degrees outside. I've gotten one teeny floret but hey, it's my first go with broccoli. I'll bet I can overwinter it here with some floating row covers and/or portable greenhouse situation, particularly the Early Purple Sprouting which is supposed to be good for that. The cabbages are largely a wash, but there are a few tennis ball size heads we might stir-fry up.

I've already got Black Futsu, Chicago Warted Hubbard, and Jumbo Pink Banana squash already coming up in the midst of the fading spring crops. I plan to just cut the cabbages and broccoli off at the roots rather than pulling them up, so that the newbies can root down well. The transplanted zucchini and cucumbers are going strong.

All the tomatoes look like they took steroids! So far so good on that front. The peppers have tiny little guys on them now and the okra is about a foot tall. Plenty of lamb's quarters to keep us in summer time greens, and the New Zealand Spinach is up, too.

Tonight I have to stake more tomatoes and weed, weed, weed. Rock and roll!

Eco-bling!

Hello everyone! I am now freshly married. After a weather scare, the ceremony went off without a hitch. It was really hot, but beautiful. Maybe some pictures to follow...

The question on my mind is how to make the most of my friends' and family's generosity. With all the talk of peak oil, food shortages, a fragile economy, and climate change (our power is currently out, going on 36 hours, after high winds hit yesterday) I want to do what I can to be prepared. We aren't wealthy, though, and we just got married, and I am Sallie Mae's indentured servant (she's a harsh task-mistress). So how to prioritize what we should get/need to get on a budget?

Here is a list of the items I've been thinking about, and they're in no particular order:

• Water catchment system
• Two tanks, hose set-up, drip irrigation unit
• Solar Oven
• Might wait on this if the home-made version is up to snuff
  
• Grain Mill
• Preferably manual
  
• Pressure Canner
• Definitely will be bought this summer
  
• Clay oven
• Probably lower on the list
  
• Greenhouse
• Long been a dream, but I think home-ownership should come first...
  
• Food containers with gamma lids
• Also not fun to think about moving...
  

We're also definitely getting lovie a new bike and getting mine a tune-up. I think being better schooled on bicycle maintenance will be a good skill to have, also.

I guess I'm thinking more about skill acquisition as opposed to object acquisition as part of my preparedness plan. I want to learn more about first aid, re-learn CPR, etc. I'd love to do an herbalist course or even an EMT unit at some point (maybe...maybe not...). I also want to learn more about gardening in this climate, hone more reliable bread baking skills, get the basics on seed storage, try my hand at solar oven cooking, and perfect my skills at crocheting and knitting (pretty solid novice). I guess I feel much more competent at learning things as opposed to buying and using things. Maybe that's it?

But regardless, some purchases will be made soon. Definitely the pressure canner and the bike. Maybe a solar oven down the road. Definitely some more items for the garden...

bean teepee...wider than a mile

For some reason whenever a phrase has enough syllables to fit into the refrain of Moon River, that song pops into my head. Like this: "Bean TEE-PEE...wider than a mile..." or this: "RumSHPRINGA...wider than a mile..." or this "ChinCHILLA...wider than a mile, I'm crossing you in style, someday..." (Merci, Mancini!)

So to get back to my lovely friend, Hausfrau's, request to hear more about my bean teepee, I though I'd write a bit about that today.

So essentially I looked at a couple of pictures in Rodale's, bought some bamboo poles, and got started. That was the essence of my prep.

So I decided I'm going to start every sentence with so...

So I took three poles, banged them about 8" to a foot into loosened soil:


Then I wrapped the entire thing in kite string to give the beans more places to crawl:


Top:


Bottom:



Inside:



This is after I first planted everything around April 20 or so. You can see the tiny little tomatoes inside their cages in some of the pictures and one larger one that was a transplant (the rest were seed starts). I'll have to post updated pictures later this weekend because now the plants are seriously tall.

This is in our front yard and my partner and neighbor are convinced that most of the tomatoes will end up stolen or smashed on cars and houses. I certainly hope not. That would be discouraging. I'm trying to think of ways to deter people from taking them and have come up with netting or some sort of cheap baling wire fencing. We have a motion sensor flood light that should take care of night time vandals, but I don't know about the daytime. I'm tempted to put up a sign that says "Please ask first" but that might just be inviting trouble. Thoughts would be appreciated! I'll post new pictures soon.

primordial weeds

Okay, chickens, I need answers: What the hey is this weed-tree-thing? (And, no, it is not a pecan tree. I promise. Really. It's not.)


It grows super-fast and sends up tons of underground shoots that we constantly mow down:


It comes up in cracks and corners:


When you break off plants taller than 8"-10" it stinks like bug guts. And bag-worms love it, which is double-gross. Plus, in no time at all, it grows into this:


ARGH!!! This weed-tree is my bane! It grew around my old duplex in Norman and now here it is again. Boo!

The only thing is that I have to admire it's tenacity. It's like the cockroach of trees. I'll bet dinosaurs were munching on it hundreds of thousands of years ago. Mmm - bug-guts tree! Delicious.

(http://littlehealer.wordpress.com/2007/11/06/trip-to-dinosaur-island/)

And on the edible tip, at least with something like bamboo you can eat the new shoots. This things is just a major pita.

In looking around the web for info on this "tree," I found this website, which is pretty darn funny: Noah and the Tree Race. Very creative family!