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GIANNANGELO FARMS SOUTHWEST AVANT-GARDENING: CREATIVE ORGANIC GARDENING

Monthly Newsletter "Avant-Gardening Tid-Bytes" "Little seeds of inspiration, once sown, are sure to sprout..."

"Avant-Gardening Tid-Bytes Insights" is a collection of articles published monthly as a newsletter.
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Back Issues 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001


March 2008 Fuel for Thought

As the awareness of any subject broadens, so do the terms accompanying its spread. With the first voiced concerns about chemicals and the food we eat, “natural” became a catchword of direction, an idea in general more than a specific eating plan or directive. Once “natural” caught on, the more specific term “organic”, with all its legal and social needs being met, has become closely identified with one market, food. From this now well established base of dietary recognition springs a new word invoking old meanings.

Suddenly everything seeks to be “green.” As with the first popular usage of “natural,” green in its early use was by those interested or concerned with the environment. Lately Madison Avenue has unceremoniously snatched the word to attract those who wish to see a more natural-world-association in their lives.

Now we have green clothing, green buildings, and green cars, its association now put on anything one wants to sell. The word stands in danger, if not having already happened, of becoming so abstracted that it stands for nothing and yet covers everything. Most are lulled toward a good feeling intimated by the word never delving deeper into what is actually being presented.

There is a jeopardy in never having put one’s hand to seed and soil. The ease of access to our food supply makes us forget the time lag involved in going from seed to harvest.

This is apparently the case of those so willing to promote ethanol as the biofuel green savior of the world’s fuel needs. The solution appears attractive to mega farms, who receive a portion of the 17 billion dollars of subsidies given out by the government for corn-ethanol production. It would seem most legislators see growing corn as simple as pumping oil or gas from the ground, not realizing the amount of energy and chemicals needed for its growing. Recent expert opinions claim a 1-to1 ratio, achieving no positive energy outcome from the input.

While ethanol may be kinder on the environment than petroleum, its production is not so, with the nitrogen needs being most problematic. Those high nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides used in fields are never completely absorbed by the plants and the rest goes into our underground water supply. The runoff eventually accumulates in rivers, like the Mississippi, which empties this leftover nitrogen soup into the gulf of Mexico, enlarging the already New Jersey State sized “dead zone” where aquatic life no longer exists.

The U.S. goal for biofuel by 2017 is 35 billion gallons, and yet if achieved would only displace 3.5 percent of gasoline use. To meet this goal, the entire U.S. corn crop would need to be used, taking away from the world’s poor a food source that will triple in need by 2050. While being applauded as a green solution, its promotion as an answer to our energy needs only brings about greater destruction of land cleared of carbon absorbing trees, the destruction of animal habitats, and ignoring the water intensive needs for growing on the scale proposed.

The idea that biofuel can be an overall solution is masked and made palatable by its green nature and promotion as a green answer for use in our green cars and in our green homes, when in fact it is a concept that will only become more unwieldy and detrimental in the future. This grasping at straws approach will only eventuate in the straw that will break the proverbial camel’s back.

Morris Berman notes that, “An idea is something you have; an ideology is something that has you.” At this time, it would seem biofuel ideology has a hold on farmers, consumers, and politicians, all acquiescing with a green fervor.

Lack of practical experience can often make an idea seem simple to achieve - just grow our fuel – sounds good! Even now, we try to find ways to increase production with genetically modified seed, using more land, more chemicals, more pesticides, with larger multi-million dollar refineries, and more equipment.

The energy used to light our goldfish pond at night, and the lights along the winding path going to our carport from our house, work for us dependably each day, freely given each day by a new crop of energy from the sun.

When our agricultural and technological resources are used to feed the peoples of the world first and our machines second, then we will grow.



February 2008 Cutting with Occam’s Razor

With sub-zero weather at night, and snow covering the ground, we initiated the analage from which this year’s garden will grow. A garden is not an amoeba-like entity consisting of only one cell. Each year the garden is conceived, grows, and dies, silently awaiting its resurrection when minds and hands are told to act.

The garden is not a place, a plot immoveable; it often travels the early season in and out of greenhouses, cold frames and other areas of protection as the gardener scrambles for an edge against the weather. The garden is not solely a local entity; additives such as Glauconite, also known as greensand, mix with the native soil, blending ancient sea creatures with the more recent topsoil.

Each year, the new garden’s plants are not unconnected with past gardens. Seeds may have come from great distances or they may have been harvested from plants located in the same area from fruits which date back extensively, known as heritage seed. Or, like relatives who visit each year, we can clone plants that provide traits we know, assured they would give us the characteristics that we want.

Our rosemary plant has been with us for about 15 years, and continues to thrive in its large, green pot sitting in a sunny spot in our living room. There are four main stems, each thicker than a forefinger, covered with scales that look like brown peeling paint. The stems divide and divide again and again until at the top of the plant, over one hundred thin tips are reaching upward.

It was easy to get almost fifty clones this year. We got out the heat mat, filled the seedling pots with a growing medium we knew worked well for rooting, set them in the plastic trays and filled them with water. The thermostat was set at 80 degrees. The mat was warming not only the water in the trays but our cats who found the unused portion of the mat that was covered with a blanket to prevent heat loss, and stretched out in luxury.

Most of the cuttings ranged from two and one-half inches to four inches in height. The bottoms of the stems were stripped of leaves, a diagonal cut was made on each stem (so it would not sit flat against the bottom of the pot and not be able to receive nutrients), and each was dipped into a rooting hormone (Rootone) and inserted into the soil.

Rosemary is a symbol of remembrance and friendship and has been used traditionally at weddings, sprigs often given to those in attendance, or inserted into the bride’s bouquet.

It is often said that smell retrieves memories more readily than any of our other senses. Its other uses range from herbal products for the body, to the wood being used to make lutes and other instruments.

Once rooted and transplanted into larger pots, our clones will be sold at the farmers market and given as houseplants and grown indoors, and set out in the summer. New Mexico winters can fall to below zero during January and February, and rosemary is only viable above 20 degrees.

There is something comforting on many levels about cloning rosemary: since we are not growing a plant from seed, resources are conserved, and it is sustainable over time. There is almost a familial feeling to each year as the clones are put out into the world, a continuation of the same strain that has been a faithful member of our family, sharing the years indoors in the winter and outdoors in the summer sun, setting on the south east side of our porch. William F. Occam (1285-1349), an English monk and philosopher wrote, “It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.” Each clone becomes a symbol to others of what can be done to produce more with less.

Kobi Yomada advises that, “We must not only educate the mind, but also the heart.”

Through remembrance and friendship, we can teach the heart to give direction to the mind in finding ways that we can grow.

January 2008 Learning from Necessity

A few weeks ago, we began cutting a few of the standing dead trees on the hill behind our hogan for firewood, although we leave most of them for the birds and other wildlife. There is snow on the ground and a trail became evident as we climbed up and carried wood down. The wood is all pinon pine, dead from bark beetles that attack trees weakened by drought. The bark is riddled with holes extending into the hard wood, making it easy to strip off the bark where felled.

We wondered if the junipers would take over now that they were not in competition for nutrients and water. We knew they were symbiotic with the pinon, and then we wondered if there might not be fewer junipers!

After the wood was cut, split, and stacked on the porch, we had time to look out across the valley as the sun’s declining rays gave long shadows, vibrant green trees, and defined the sandstone variegation’s vivid colors.

The day before was solstice, the turning point of the sun’s declination. As we looked to the east, we saw the rising full moon just over the horizon on same level as the setting sun, balancing our view of the heavens like weights on an east-west scale. The view gave a comforting feel of cosmic harmony, a state of balance that we all seek in our day-to-day existence.

To bring into alignment all the elements we want included in our diets, three stages must be considered. The first is exoteric. Shoppers generally have no thoughts about food production when selecting produce in the supermarkets. At this level, use of the product is the end goal. Millennia of genetic selection gives way to the selection of more immediate needs, like the evening’s dinner.

The second stage is mesoteric, narrowed from shoppers, to those who have a more direct knowledge and an actual physical association with the food, whether it be the farmer, a seed company employee, or a fertilizer salesman. The physical act of growing food has many facets when going from seed to table.

The third stage is esoteric. At this point, those on the periphery drop away, leaving the grower, who is involved in the whole process. Our gardens place us into an even smaller group with a shared knowledge of seed and soil and how to incorporate them into intricate growing systems.

Having an esoteric understanding of what is going into our bodies gives a greater chance to balance our needs than an exoteric who grabs from the shelf because a product looks “good.”

When spring arrives, gardeners will begin to restore the balance in their gardens; pH levels will be checked, nutrient needs will be adjusted, and all the small additions or subtractions that the gardener feels are needed to provide a prolific equipoise will be carried out.

Recently, North Dakota State University asked us to write a review of a recently published book about small farms in New Mexico titled, Artisan Farming: Lessons, Lore, and Recipes. One of the points made is, that New Mexico lacks two necessities that have prevented large-scale commercial farming: water and soil. The lack of these does not mean there is no agriculture, but what it has spawned are many small growers, those who find out what they can grow, find a market, and supply it. While the plains states with miles of wheat and cornfields fit into the exoteric level, New Mexico is at the esoteric level, abounding with small organic farms, sustainable gardens, and centuries old pueblos with those who understand the need for heritage seed that will produce true to each grower’s special conditions. These local varieties of seed are hoarded, treasured, used in ceremonies, and given as family legacies.

As is often the case, we learn more from necessity when we have less. The proliferation of artisan growers, those skilled in bringing forth food from small fields are on the rise in New Mexico, pursuing recondite methods, some modern, some ancient, proving that even within difficult environments, we can grow.

Avant-Gardening is a creative process, a technique for growing personal creativity using plants as a medium to connect the garden outside to your inner-garden vision. It is a method of combining art, which is abstract, with craft, when working with a physical medium. It is a door, a path, a tool - allowing you to enhance your creative skills using plants. It is learning how to establish a connection, joining inner visions, to physical and mental environments. The core of creativity is alchemy - the root of creative thinking - the basis for Avant-Gardening. ALCHEMY: from middle Latin: ALCHYMIA - transformation; to change in shape. Personal creativity is a connection with the creative elements (air, water, soil) of the universe. You will have many creative situations that will be an opportunity to shift a paradigm - to step beyond yourself and your "limitations". You can grow!

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