Groundhog Wars

This one looks active!

I don’t remember the exact date a groundhog first clawed its way into the greenhouse last year, but it feels like it was about now. Every day I walk the bank below, sniffing for a “musky odor.” Last fall I patched every hole in the greenhouses with plastic sheeting reinforced with a high-strength cord grid. I replaced the ends and the bottom four feet with the same material. Take that! I told the groundhogs, who were asleep by then.

I am practicing thinking like a groundhog. When a past gardener tried to tame the bank below the greenhouses by terracing it with rocks and planting raspberries, he created groundhog heaven—a loose, diggable slope with brushy cover. So last fall, I dug up all of the raspberries and planted them in neat rows on flat ground. I smoothed the pitted bank and seeded it with perennial lawn grasses. (And take that!) Now, five months later, the slumbering marmots have emerged. As I walk and sniff they are copulating in burrows beneath my feet.

Yum! Solomon's Seal! Um... maybe not.

Summer dens can drop to four feet underground or deeper, which explains why, when we stuffed newspapers soaked with kerosene into the holes last summer and fired them up, the groundhogs were able to hunker down and survive. I admit to having felt remorse as I imagined the smoke-filled lungs of defenseless babies, but this was balanced by rage at the stripped edamame plants. When the smoke permeating the dens had no effect, all that was left was the rage.   

I devised a trap. It was a modified, heartless, Havahart. I set the box trap at the opening of a groundhog hole and created a chicken wire enclosure that left the groundhog with only two options: going back down or getting caught. Four groundhogs were ensnared in a month. I gave them to Jeremy, the farm manager, with instructions: Drive them at least 10 miles away and release, or kill them. A card-carrying member of the NRA, he took option number two.

Besides the four animals disposed of by Jeremy, two died at my hands last summer. One small groundhog was lured by a trail of apples into a trap I had set, and baked in the sun before the day ended. I feel badly about that. Another escaped a snare trap and wobbled in front of me, dragging his lame back legs behind. He stopped and looked up at me. Never having killed anything larger than a mouse before I picked up a large rock and hurled it at his head with killing force.   

Still, they kept coming. The den of a groundhog is like a vacant house in the city; as soon as word gets out that it is abandoned, a homeless creature will move in and take advantage of the protected quarters. It is understandable that my well-situated slope with easy access to raspberries and pumpkins was in demand as an upgrade.

I am ready with my traps and my apples. I have heard that mothballs, and rags soaked with ammonia will send the varmints to another nesting site. I have heard that Double Bubble gum will cause their digestive systems irreparable harm. I am willing to try any and all of these methods. I am, evidently, a killer.

The need to defeat this antagonist is primal. It is visceral. It is personal. The majority of people in our society never have the opportunity to assess their options for removing a living, breathing, waddling impediment to their aspirations, to fail repeatedly, to feel the frustrations and the vitriol. Whether it is right or wrong to kill an animal is for many a black-and-white issue. The goal of Animal Rights has become a campaign in the arena of political theater, with those in favor lining up against a mixed bag of disparate groups—hunters, the livestock industry, the powerful NRA lobby, land developers, and others who have interests, personal or economic, that are being obstructed by other-than-human beings.

The most popular solution to a persistent groundhog problem is to stop growing vegetables. If we remove ourselves from the fray we can champion animal rights with blood-free hands and express horror at acts of violence committed by others of lesser morals. When local farmer and writer Tim Stark published an article about heartlessly drowning a Havahart-trapped groundhog, readers came down hard. “There are layers of hell reserved for people who are cruel to animals,” wrote one reader. Tim responded eloquently, “Would it soften your opinion of me if I were to tell you that I have a reputation for wrestling thirty-five-pound snapping turtles off to the side of a busy highway, holding up traffic in both directions, horns wailing in front and behind as I carry the plated creature, incensed, neck stretching to bite me, into the woods where he can amble away to safety?”

As Tim saves the snapper, I spare the tiny animals that live in the soil. I cover-crop my garden plot to provide them with winter nourishment, and dig beds with a fork to avoid pulverizing them with a rototiller. Meanwhile, I speed from place to place with splatted bugs on my windshield, contribute more than my share of CO₂ to the air, and lather my hands with antibacterial soap. Some acts of inadvertent violence might be considered justifiable and necessary for our species to compete; many are not. It is a paradox of modern living that what feels wrong—killing a waddling (and sort of cute) creature—may well be right, and what feels right is often wrong. 

There are plans for a fence. When this happens I will be ready with hardware cloth, which I will insert 8 inches deep along the perimeter to prevent groundhogs from digging and entering. When my fence is secure, uneasy thoughts of murderous acts will retreat into comfortable dormancy.

Like a groundhog in winter. 

Germination!

Parsley has germinated, at last!

I'm taking a break (procrastinating) from the next thesis-related post to share the joys of germination. Parsley, brassicas, tomatoes, radicchio, and peppers ... and two flats of basil sown by mistake ... are up in the greenhouse. I feel a heavy responsibility to every seedling, moving it from flat to six-pack, and then from six-pack to individual pot if the plant is ready and the weather is not. A sure bet with those basil seedlings! Here in Pennsylvania days have been balmy but the wind has been wicked. My babies remain safe and warm. Safe from the wind, the frosty nights, the rambunctious Chesapeake Bay Retriever. Safe from the groundhog! You will be hearing more about the groundhog ... just as soon as I stop procrastinating.
Basil anyone?

I put a layer of vermiculite over my Rainbow kale seeds. I've read that it prevents damping off diseases

Culinary Trends: microgreens vs. the macro-scene

My microgreens are giving me trouble. For months the routine was, well, routine. Fill seed trays with soil mix; sprinkle seeds liberally; cover with a dusting of soil mix; spray. But for the past couple of weeks, seeds have been germinating in fits and starts, or not at all. Cress seedlings turn yellow and fade away, or just lay down and die. What has changed?

Here are my hypotheses:

1)  Allelopathy. Because I reuse the soil it now contains bits of seedlings and roots. These body parts may inhibit germination.

2)  Soil mix: I have been supplementing reused soil with peat moss, perlite, and sand. This may affect growth.

3)  Temperature: Days are getting warmer. This may be activating pathogens that cause damping off.

I sow a new tray of cress using a sanitary mix, with no recycled ingredients. The results are dismal. Cross off hypothesis #1. 

Cornell produced a very informative video that shows a New York farmer sensuously stroking abundant trays of green, and cutting the thousands of tiny seedlings with amazing efficiency. I am clearly not performing at an optimum level. 

And so I change my methods. I adopt parallel-ridge-type trays and employ a cup to tap the seeds proficiently into the channels. I do NOT cover the seeds with soil mix, but instead cover the trays. 

A couple of days later, two trays of cress seeds are full of skinny white threads topped with split shells and bleached leaves! I place them in the cooler of two greenhouses, take off the covers, and wait to see if they will falter or flourish. 

The fact that I am putting energy into solving this puzzle is itself a puzzle. What drives us to want to sow seed thickly in a shallow tray so that it has no chance to develop more that a single set of true leaves, and then snip its life short? The novelty of using these mini-greens to decorate a lone Diver scallop or dress up a serving of meatloaf to create a stark (and very deliberate) juxtaposition of comfort and pretentiousness is, or should I say was, the “next new thing.” At a recent Farming for the Future conference I had two very different conversations about the future of microgreens. A Washington state farmer was interested in knowing about the difficulty of producing this specialty and, more to the point, the profitability. A New York farmer remarked, with an air of superiority, “You’re still growing microgreens?!” 

The parade of culinary fads that occupies our chefs is a reflection of our consumer society. Laminate kitchen countertops will not do; they must be granite. Honeysuckle is out. Tangerine Tango is in. We need microgreens and foraged ramps and chocolate martini ice cream. When all else fails, we go back in time and (virtuously) preserve our heritage. And when the bill comes due, we crave comfort. Meat loaf and chicken soup. Or grilled cheese sandwiches. At Beecher’s on Broadway you can order a grilled cheese martini for the ultimate in comfort food. It is surely no coincidence that culinary fads trend in the opposite direction from the likely future of agriculture. 

Some food trends restore order to the madness of the “Top Chef” mentality. Slow Food was a fast hit with many who rejected the golden arches when they took on the parenting role. Leading an “authentic” life by eating “real food” resonates strongly, particularly with eaters who have never competed with slugs for their salad greens. When we forage for wild plants or pay more for eggs because the chickens were free to eat bugs, we evoke the past. We grasp for a simpler life as the present becomes more and more complex. Much thought has been given to the question of how we can meet future food demands without further degrading natural resources. The answers, say a group of experts, lie in shifting diets, reducing waste, and increasing efficiencies. Crop genetics will surely play a big part. This is a trend we would rather not think about. 

Increasing efficiency is the conventional approach to the future of food. Arne Hendriks, a Dutch artist, speculates about a novel scheme with a far different ending. It starts with zebra fish genetically modified to contain large amounts of Somatostatin, a natural hormone. As people consume the fish, their appetites are suppressed and their growth is arrested. Fast forward a few generations. The average human being is only 18 inches tall. Outdoor balconies that once served as open-air seating spaces are now filled with speed-crops of microgreens; vacant parks within urban ruins serve as subsistence farms. 

Hendriks’ whimsical plan points to an undeniable truth: the changes we have caused are out of proportion to our size. If we could shrink ourselves to the height of a chicken, a skinny seedling of cress would be a meal, or at least a portion of one. Our needs would be reduced to 200 calories a day maximum from the roughly 2700 the average American consumes now. But this is probably not the most logical way to solve global food problems. We need a realistic way to lessen our footprint—without shrinking our shoe size. 

Maybe, by virtue of their absurdity, micro-trends make us pay attention to the macro-picture. This, I believe, is Arne Hendrik’s point. 

Gary Paul Nabhan went to the Sierra Madre to relearn how little he was able to fathom of life. I need only go to the greenhouse to be humbled by nature. The truth according to microgreens reads something like this: 

Each individual has a mysterious set of preferences. 

By the time I get it right the fad will have passed.

Hydroponics have made my struggles irrelevant. 

And yet, 

Micro-seedlings are tiny pleasures. 

My cress seedlings have stretched to about an inch. And they are green! I hold one tray at a precarious angle and slice through the slender stems. 

It chafes against my nature.

Eating Bugs

Equipped with thousands of tiny teeth the furtive slug rasps through bok choy, leaving a trail of slime behind. The mollusks even find their way inside heads of lettuce, munching undetected until harvest time. I dunk the heads in a sink full of frigid water, swishing to unloose slugs of all sizes and smiling in satisfaction as they swirl down the drain. The juicy morsel is on the dining list of insects and vertebrates alike, but I have no appetite for the thought, let alone the reality of eating a slug. And yet the escargot, a snail purged of its stomach contents and fattened on cornmeal, has achieved gourmet status. Once or twice a season, a garden slug manages to hold on tight and survive the water bath I subject it to, as well as the subsequent preparation process. It rides out to a table on a nine-dollar salad. There is no amount of skilled finessing that can turn such a situation from a dining disaster into a positive realization. “This is authentic farm-to-table dining,” is the rational conclusion to be drawn from the moment. But we are not rational when it comes to bugs on salads. 

Nutritionally speaking, there are good reasons to eat bugs. A cup of cooked caterpillar provides 100% of the daily requirement of iron, copper, zinc, and thiamin. Tanzanians eat honeybee larvae along with the honey, and benefit from the higher protein content. West Africans feast on termites, grasshoppers, beetle larvae, and caterpillars. In Bali, dragonflies are charcoal grilled. It is only westerners that recoil in horror. Vincent Holt, author of a bug-focused Victorian Cookery Book, suggests stripping locusts of heads, legs, and wings, and sprinkling them with salt, pepper, and parsley. Fried in butter and finished with a splash of vinegar they make an excellent dish, he writes. 

I am intrigued, but not quite ready for fried grasshopper. On coming upon a small colony sucking the juices from a tender spinach shoot I place a single aphid on my tongue and savor the nothingness. Tasteless, soft, almost imperceptible … it is not an experience that inspires recipes, but not one that provokes repulsion either. If the aphid population is kept in moderation—no easy trick—I have no qualms about harvesting the spinach. There is the danger that, despite double-washing, an aphid or two may end up on someone’s salad plate, but, I now know, this will not affect taste. Aphids suck sap and exude sugars; what is the downside to eating them? The FDA agrees. The food defect action level for aphids, that is, the point at which frozen broccoli is deemed defective, is 60+ aphids per 100 grams. In other words, when one eats about a cup of broccoli, one might also be eating 59 aphids. 

This would surprise most consumers; in this modern age food is expected to be unsullied. At the same time, we favor products vaguely labeled “all natural.” How many consumers realize, as they sit down to dinner, that growing food naturally means accepting that insects that naturally favor the foods we grow are very much a part of the process? Some will be part of the product. 

In the greenhouse, aphids appear sporadically in great numbers. When the succulent center leaves of romaine become specked with tender green bugs it is my cue to plant a non-host crop, such as carrots. With two greenhouses, I switch susceptible crops back and forth, attempting to stay only one step behind. Wendell Berry likens farming to a conversation with nature. “If I try to starve you will you go away?” I ask my aphids. Some tomato aphids are red; some are green. These I squirt with a stiff spray of water, allowing a few to remain to attract ladybugs, which may, if I’m lucky, migrate to other plants. It’s possible that aphids will migrate as well. Pest management is a game of wits; pest “control” an impossibility. 

When scientists developed technologies for transferring genes from a soil bacterium to corn so that plants could protect themselves against insects, the Prince of Wales accused them of playing God. A bullying maneuver on multiple levels, genetic engineering certainly changes the tone of the conversation. But consumers’ desires for flawless corn and potatoes are what drive researchers to employ the same technologies that produced human insulin in their quest to fulfill impossible expectations. When health care is at stake, playing God is fair game, but when it comes to what’s for dinner, the rules change. If a consumer were forced to choose one or the other—100% insect-free food, or food grown using traditional seeds and processes—which would he pick? The problem is, we want it all. 

Someday a star in the culinary world may take on gourmet insect preparation and transform it from freaky to fashionable. If grasshopper canapes are what it takes to bring sanity to the subject then bring them on. Personally, I don't have much faith that caterpillars will ever find their way, intentionally that is, to America's dinner plates, and would settle for a less hysterical response to the occasional "unavoidable defect." If eaters, that is, human beings, were to spend more time with their hands in the soil, they may begin to feel a kinship with the miraculous system that begins with the sun and the soil and ends at the dinner table.

As plant eaters, we are in plentiful company. Aphids and caterpillars are part of the deal--we compete with them and occasionally, wittingly or un-, we eat a few. If we continue to strive for the complete elimination of all competitors we will stray further and further from "natural." Awareness of the staggering complexities involved in growing food "naturally" may or may not entice diners to sample a slug, but it will introduce the language of living systems to those who have no tolerance for imperfections. 

Step by step, we will draw them into the conversation.  

My flagstone patio!

For two months I’ve been meaning to post this photo of my beautiful new flagstone patio, built by my son Kevin of 14-acre Farm. But distractions diverted my energies. First it was the head-to-head with groundhogs (more on that to come), followed by the Forest Ecology class with a wonderful, young, conscientious, you-must-toil-for-these-3-credits professor. Now, a thousand pounds of tomatoes and a trip to Santa Fe later, I am enjoying the Caryopteris and begonias spilling onto Kevin’s geometric patterns. This is the challenge I presented: Use my circular piece of flagstone as a focal point, and connect the utilitarian concrete slab that was poured (without a thought to aesthetics) behind my house many years ago to the part of the lawn that enjoys morning shade. 

Graciously. 

Plus, I want more garden space. 

To be honest, the part about garden space was implicit. Kevin knows that I always want more garden space. Which brings me to the point of this post, that is, addiction. Harmonious, unrepentant addiction. Are we not so very fortunate to be afflicted with the need to dig holes and scuff up the earth around petunias rather than, say, plunk our paycheck into a slot machine? A recurring mental image comes to me each time I see a person in mental dis-ease. It is a line, in the dirt or in the sand, take your pick—or, (apologies) shovel. One step over the line takes me from the garden to the dark side, where addiction is not tolerated by the same society that delights in colorful and textural displays, the creation of which occupy my mind when I drive, shop, live. We addicts are cut from the same cloth. Positively, it is called passion. Negatively—mania, compulsion. Our saving grace is that the world we manipulate in our obsession is endlessly fascinating. We dig, we learn. We strive to understand. We teach. Three-year-old Chloe, visiting from New Jersey, held a sowbug last Sunday and watched it roll into a pill. She stroked a swallowtail butterfly larva that was eating my parsley and laughed when out poked its putrid-smelling retractable orange antennae. She showed her mom. She learned, she taught. How many more can we lure over the line with the force of our passion? 

It feels, sometimes, like a race against time.

Tomatoes in Containers, part 2

Tomato season has barely begun, but I have a good feeling about the 2011 AAS winning hybrids, ‘Terenzo’ and ‘Lizzano’.  Time will tell whether Terenzo will grab the  “My Favorite Container Tomato” title from ‘Husky Cherry’. The new tumblers are literally a breed apart from the stocky upright soldier that won my admittedly limited trial of 2009. 

2011 AAS winner 'Terenzo'

Terrenzo’s relaxed limbs that have already exceeded the 20-inch width described in the AAS literature splay from all sides of the container. Its fruits are large for a cherry, and, so far, borne near the center of the pot. Although they can’t touch ‘Sungold’ for taste (what cherry tomato can?) they’re a more than adequate prelude to the season. 

'Husky Cherry' on July 3

I’ll revisit the two (Husky Cherry and Terenzo) in September to see which delivers the most. But perhaps there’s no point in choosing a favorite. There’s a place in the garden for both the upright soldier that perseveres even in the heat and humidity of a Pennsylvania summer and the prone and precocious charmer.  Success, happily, has countless faces.

Carefree Delight, Indeed

“The rose is a rose, And was always a rose …” 

So wrote Robert Frost. 

But roses have many poses. One may take top billing. 

Magic Meidiland

Another may be part of a chorus line, made all the more stunning by the flash and glitz of a glory repeated many times over. 

I particularly like a rose that can adapt to being a part of an ensemble, a bit player in a big show, playing off of the strengths of the other members. The doggedly gifted might achieve superstardom. But the rest of us must feel our way through the tangle to reach the spot in the sunlight that allows us to spread our own distinctive brand of joy for a moment in June. 

And again, perhaps, in August. 

 

Carefree Delight and cutleaf maple

 

“… You, of course, are a rose But were always a rose.”