Tuesday Hash

This will be a little of this and a little of that--oh, and pardon the photos. I just bought a new camera, and these are the first shots. I'm playing with manual settings, so they are not perfect--yet.

I was thinking today about Monsanto and GMO crops and pesticides (oh my!), and I was thinking about updating everyone on the garden. To the left, you'll see my beet babies. I am giddy with anticipation. Subbing has kept me busy and away from the computer, so I've not been doing my homework on what to plant AFTER I harvest and/or clean out space. The broccoli, I fear, will result in stir fried leaves and no more. It's just too warm in Alabama to try a spring crop.

Huffington Post had an interesting, though not earth-shattering piece on GMO foods. I did learn something new, though. Evidently there is another protein on the horizon that will be part of the patented GMO products: pork. Another reason to only eat from Randle Farms. The article listed the usual suspects: corn, soy, sugar beets, salmon (not yet approved), canola, golden rice, and tomatoes (which consumers said "NO" to).

During my meanderings on the web today, I found lists of foods that are high in pesticides, and therefore best purchased organic, and those low in pesticides--so save your money. Eating Well magazine had a list dubbed "the dirty dozen" foods that are heavily treated in pesticides; we've already talked about one: strawberries. I've long known that potatoes are one of the most heavily treated crops, which is why I decided to grow them this year. They are planted next to cosmos, which is supposed to attract beneficial insects to our garden. We'll see as summer heats up how effective this is. Others crops making the list are celery, peaches, nectarines, apples, blueberries, bell peppers, spinach, kale, cherries, and grapes. If all goes well with the garden this year, we're planning to add muscadines/scuppernongs to the garden, and they will replace grapes for our diet. We already planted seven blueberry bushes, and it looks like there will be some fruit from them this year. Peppers will likely replace the broccoli this summer.

Eating Well also published a list of 15 foods that are low in pesticides and suggests you purchase conventionally grown veggies and fruits on this list to save money. Onion is one crop on the list, and even though I knew this, I had decided I wanted to grow them this year. Maybe I'll use the space for something different next year, but this year I just wanted to see if I could do it. Other pesticide-reduced crops are kiwi, avocado, sweet corn, pineapple, sweet potato, mango, sweet peas, asparagus, cabbage, eggplant, watermelon, grapefruit, and honeydew.

As a friend commented on an earlier post, though, we have to think about more than just pesticide use and organics when we think of our food. We really need to think about the carbon footprint, the fossil fuel it takes to get these foods to us, which is why Anthony and I would also like to expand the garden next year to include asparagus and kiwi (we already do eggplant). I can find local sources of watermelon, and I can live without grapefruit, but I love asparagus and kiwi. I'm hoping Alabama will be favorable for kiwi; I already know the South can grown asparagus, I just don't know why we don't.

I'm ending today's post with a before and after post of the garden. It's grown quite well in the past month or so. Mr. Wilson is in the photo on right. He wanted equal time since Beo has already been on the blog! Forgive the photo on the left--I don't know who took that or with what camera, but the brown dirt serves to make the comparison.

Now go grow something!