As you read this, you can bet gardeners-in-the-know in ourNINE Greater Houston area counties are right now harvesting summer crops, sowing winter crop seed (or putting in plants) and/or researching the very best varieties recommended for winter for their specific areas.
Pictured at top is ASHLEY HADLEY, volunteer instructor and Garden Coordinator of BEAUTY’S GARDEN, 3201 Airline Drive, a true community garden success story with a wonderful backstory (Click here for story on garden namesake Beauty Leno, right.) Houston has 200+ community gardens identified by, or affiliated with, Urban Harvest … and that figure doesn’t even
begin include all neighborhood, etc., co-op plantings!
Experimenting is fun, but can be frustrating when choices are not right for your area. Advice from experienced LOCAL (near you) gardeners is your best bet. All over this area, Master Gardeners and County Extension Agents are both harvesting summer crops and planning/planting best varieties of winter vegetables, etc. in their huge community gardens. GO VISIT those near you!
Urban Harvest list of Community gardens near you & free advice/seeds Find your county Ag office
Find your Master Gardener community garden
Back to Beauty’s Garden, here are their harvested-so-far total poundage reports with favorite varieties they would like to grow (ital in parenthesis)
Beets = 35 lbs
Carrots = 98 lbs (‘Tricolor,’ ‘King Midas’ & ‘Sunshine’ mix)
Watermelon = 350 lbs ((‘Sorbet’ & ‘Sugar Baby’)
Tomatoes = 60 lbs); ( ‘Sweet 100’s’, ‘Cherokee Purple’, ‘Lemon Boy’, ‘Sweet Million & ‘Celebrity’)
Summer Squash = 65 lbs Zucchini = 65 lbs (‘Calabacita’)
Cucumbers = 165 lbs (‘Patty’s Marketmore’ & ‘Telescope Improved’)
Planting is now underway for winter/early spring harvests (volunteer help welcome!!!)
Kale (‘Curly Green’, ‘Curly Purple’ & ‘Dinosaur’)
Mustard Greens (‘Purple’)
Bok Choy (‘Win Win’ & ‘Asian Green’)
Radishes (‘Watermelon,’ ‘Round Red’ & ‘Garden Party’)
Carrots; ‘(Tricolor, King Midas & Sunshine mix)
Winter Squash (‘Butternut’ & ‘Delicata’) Peas (‘Cow Peas’, ‘Sugar Snap’)
Also: Lettuce, Broccoli, Cauliflower and Beets
Ashley explains, “We plant these specific vegetables because they are most requested by our community, as well as having high yields and high health benefits. We take into account which varieties do best in our area as well as varieties pest and disease resistant to ease care as our garden is 100% organic.”
Community gardens set their own rules. Some rent out/or trade space for general volunteering services. Others — including Beauty’s Garden — ask volunteers to choose & sign up for specific Saturdays, 8am-10am (May to mid-October), and 9am-11am (mid-Oct. to April). Beauty’s Garden volunteers plan a Volunteer Givings Day, Sat., Nov. 25, 9-11 am. Volunteers receive a guided tending-the- garden experience.
Volunteer at Beauty’s Community Garden
URBAN HARVEST works with over 200 community gardens but estimates are that over 1.000 probably exist — in ALL income brackets — throughout the Greater Houston area. Beauty’s Community Garden is located in Independence Heights — the first African American municipality in Texas and one of 40 “food deserts* in Houston. (More on Independent Heights)
(*FOOD DESERT…an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good- quality fresh food (“plenty of food but none healthy”). USDA definition: “…area has a poverty rate of at least 20% In urban areas, at least 33% of population lives more than 1 mile from the nearest grocery store.”)
Brenda Beust Smith’s column is based on her 40+ years as
Houston Chronicle’s Lazy Gardener — Email: lazygardenerbrenda@gmail.com Note: This column focuses ONLY on the Greater Houston area.
* BRENDA’S “LAZY GARDENER GUIDE” is no longer sold.
However, free pdf copies upon request at lazygardenerbrenda@gmail.com
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NEWS FROM THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF SOIL AND PLANTS # 264
Subject: herbicides (glyphosate) and health
A recent study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute
measured glyphosate levels in the urine of study participants. They found that high levels were associated with a reaction in the body called oxidative stress, that cause damage to our DNA.
Other studies have found that oxidative stress is linked to cancers such as lymphoma, myeloma, and leukemia.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the herbicide Round Up. Genetically engineered foods (GMOs) have the highest levels of glyphosate in them, followed by conventionally grown vegetables and grains. Fast food chains typically use the most GMO foods as they are the cheapest, hence have the most toxic glyphosate in them.
To protect the health of you and your family: 1) grow as much of your own food as possible organically using heirloom vegetables 2) avoid fast foods, GMOs, and 3) purchase organic produce when you can.
Researchers at the University of Iowa has found that glyphosate significantly affects gut microbiota.
The microbes in our gut produce many benefice enzymes. Remember that glyphosate was originally patented in 1964 as an enzyme disrupter and it was patented as an antibiotic in 2001 (US Patent #7,771,736)!
Glyphosate was also patented as a demineralizer to clean pipes (US Patent # 3,160,632). As a result, it ties up the nutrients we need for good health and prevents them from being absorbed by our bodies.
This also hurts our health as many metals are co-factors for many enzymes and the enzymes cannot work without them. Hence the chelating properties of glyphosate locks up these metals and prevent the enzymes from working.
Have you ever wondered why so many folks are having digestive disorders or must take probiotics? Other studies have found that even low dose exposure to glyphosate reduced the abundance of beneficial bacteria like Bifidobacterium pseudolongum and Lactobacillus sp. This should not surprise anyone as antibiotics kill bacteria (see patent mentioned above).
A senior researcher at the university Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stepanie Seneff, PhD has been studying the dangers of glyphosate for years. “The increase in glyphosate usage in the USA and Canada, is extremely well corelated with the concurrent increase in the incidence of multiple diseases, including breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, kidney cancer, thyroid cancer, liver cancer, bladder cancer, and myeloid leukemia.”
The Doctor Mercola newsletter recently explained that the human body uses the common amino acid glycine to build protein’s in our body. “The glyphosate molecule has a glycine molecule as part of its structure (hence the “gly” in glyphosate).” Researchers believe that the body can substitute glyphosate and its breakdown product AMPA into peptides and proteins, which results in corrupted and defective molecules
The reasons to only use modern biological methods (organic) is essential if one wants to protect their families, get better results, and save money.
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ABOUT US
BRENDA BEUST SMITH WE KNOW HER BEST AS THE LAZY GARDENER . . . but Brenda Beust Smith is also:
- a national award-winning writer & editor
- a nationally-published writer & photographer
- a national horticultural speaker
- a former Houston Chronicle reporter
When the Chronicle discontinued Brenda’s 45-year-old Lazy Gardener” print column — started in the early ’70s as a fun side-project to reporting, it then ranked as the longestrunning, continuously-published local newspaper column in the Greater Houston area. The name, she says, is not just fun, it’s true. Brenda’s gradual sideways step from reporter into gardening writing led first to an 18-year series of when-to-do-what Lazy Gardener Calendars, then to her Lazy Gardener’s Guide book which morphed into her Lazy Gardener’s Guide on CD, which she now emails free upon request. Brenda became a Harris County Master Gardener and, over the years, served on theboards of many Greater Houston area horticulture organizations. She hosted local radio and TV shows, most notably a 10+-year Lazy Gardener specialty shows on HoustonPBS (Ch. 8) and her call-in “EcoGardening” show on KPFT-FM. For over three decades, Brenda served as Assistant Production Manager of the GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA’S “BULLETIN” magazine. Although still an active broad-based freelance writer, Brenda’s main focus now is THE LAZY GARDENER & FRIENDS HOUSTON GARDEN NEWSLETTER with John Ferguson and Pablo Hernandez of Nature’s Way Resources. A native of New Orleans and graduate of St. Agnes Academy and the University of Houston, Brenda lives in Humble, TX, and is married to the retired Aldine High School Coach Bill Smith. They have one son, Blake. Regarding this newsletter, Brenda is the lead writer, originator of it and the daily inspiration for it. We so appreciate the way she has made gardening such a fun way to celebrate life together for such a long time.
JOHN FERGUSON John is a native Houstonian and has over 27 years of business experience. He owns Nature’s Way Resources, a composting company that specializes in high quality compost, mulch, and soil mixes. He holds a MS degree in Physics and Geology and is a licensed Soil Scientist in Texas. John has won many awards in horticulture and environmental issues. He represents the composting industry on the Houston-Galveston Area Council for solid waste. His personal garden has been featured in several horticultural books and “Better Homes and Gardens” magazine. His business has been recognized in the Wall Street Journal for the quality and value of their products. He is a member of the Physics Honor Society and many other professional societies. John is is the co-author of the book Organic Management for the Professional. For this newsletter, John contributes articles regularly and is responsible for publishing it.
PABLO HERNANDEZ Pablo Hernandez is the special projects coordinator for Nature’s Way Resources. His realm of responsibilities include: serving as a webmaster, IT support, technical problem solving/troubleshooting, metrics management and quality control. Pablo helps this newsletter happen from a technical support standpoint.
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