Photos by Sabrina Williams

Soil is...

not dirt, of course. Many of us who have spent time in the garden know that dirt is essentially dead. Soil, on the other hand, is a living, complex ecosystem. As one of a triumvirate of life-giving elements — the other two being sun and rain — it has the power to sustain agricultural productivity and protect environmental resources. When you look at it up close, the world within it is reason enough to be impressed. In one cup of soil there are upwards of 200 billion bacteria, 20 million protozoa, 100,000 nematodes, and 100,000 meters of fungal hyphae! Sadly, human activity has contributed to the degradation of soil ecosystems, and consequently, a warmer, dirtier planet. 

Soil Health Is…

also referred to as soil quality, and is defined as the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans. According to the Soil Health Institute, a healthy soil provides many functions that support plant growth, including nutrient cycling, biological control of plant pests, and regulation of water and air supply.

Assessing how well soil performs its functions in the present, and its ability to do so in the future, can't be determined by any single result. Assessment relies upon many indicators.  A “short” list offered by the folks at the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service includes soil organic matter, soil structure, soil depth, water holding, habitat for soil microbes, tilth, reactive carbon, soil nitrate, soil pH, phosphorus and potassium, plant and microbial activity, earthworms, soil respiration, and total organic carbon.

 

Prioritizing Healthy Soil Is…

the best way to create resilient ecosystems. In doing so, we can reduce global food insecurity and environmental impacts of greenhouse gases. There is a lot of talk about CO2 (carbon dioxide) and its contribution to greenhouse gases. A powerful way to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere is to sequester it in our soils. Plants naturally help remove it through photosynthesis and sending the balance to the soil. So, not only does soil do the yeoman's work of retaining water and nutrients, but incredibly, it also sequesters carbon in excess of that retained by the sum of all plants and the atmosphere! 

Importantly, healthy soil also feeds the world. It helps the 500-million smallholder farms globally who produce 80% of the world's food. According to the World Resources Institute, these farms will not be able to produce enough food for over 9 billion people without dramatic changes in how food is produced, including focuses on soil health and water management.

We are…

all stewards of the soil. The benefits of healthy soil don't just accrue to the small farms described above. Home gardens worldwide also can combat soil-depleting practices through crop diversity, proper fertilization, and no-till gardening. And, as more households in urban areas grow more at our homes, yards and urban gardens, we are altogether more productive per unit of area than are large producers. 

We aren't often presented clear opportunities to have a hand in averting a point-of-no-return climate crisis. As growers, soil is…ours.

Gardening and working in the community as a volunteer present a meaningful opportunity to help others engage in a fulfilling activity. It's also an opportunity to encourage more ethnically diverse groups of growers by learning about and introducing different regional crops into our growing repertoire. I draw from experience volunteering in a variety of primarily Black, Latino, Indigenous and Asian farm communities over a few decades — but there are certainly many others to learn from in our region! The main lesson has been to make gardening relevant beyond the obvious benefit of “grow to feed yourself.” Making connections to culture creates incentives for involvement.

Food as Identity

The “culture” in agriculture derives from the word cultivate. Before the 19th century, the word culture was quite specific to preparing the earth for crops. It serves as a reminder that we are cultivating community when we suggest culturally relevant crops – ones often part of culinary practices based upon where folks (or their ancestors) come from. These practices, also referred to as “foodways,” represent a rich intersection of history and tradition.

Gardening within foodways creates communal and generational connections. In some instances, it has even served as the basis for empowerment initiatives and actions around food justice. Overall, when people recognize foods they want to eat, they are more encouraged to grow them. 

 

 

Garden as Grocery

Several of the crops in local cultural foodways are no strangers to Los Angeles groceries, but a lot of folks don't even consider growing them or know that they are actually easy to grow in Los Angeles gardens. Perhaps the best known is the Three Sisters Garden, a trio of crops that honors the traditions of Indigenous foodways. Corn, beans and squash are grown in complementary positions and offer balanced nutrition. In other traditions, the following offerings are just a tip of the iceberg (not lettuce though!) of moderate-to-easy to grow plants. 

For Black gardeners, plants like okra (especially burgundy variety for show), cowpeas (black eyed peas), sweet potato, fish peppers and collard greens are easy growing options.

In Mexican and Central American communities, many growers might appreciate nopal (prickly pear cactus), chayote, sapote, epazote (an easy herb), tomatillo and a variety of chiles. 

Local Asian foodways often focus on produce popular in Chinese and Southeast Asian communities. These include jujube (Chinese date), coriander (cilantro), bok choy, kohlrabi (su hào), Thai basil, Thaieggplant, sweet potato leaves and lemongrass.

The great thing is that many of these crops—sapote, squashes, sweet potatoes, cilantro—overlap in foodways and cultures, further uniting our tables. Several are variations on things that a lot of people already grow, like eggplant, peppers and kale.

Our great fortune in being able to grow a diversity of plants should also serve as inspiration for tapping into, and learning about, the diversity of communities and (agri)cultures in our region.   

Telltale Roots: Secrets From the Underground

 

 

As a newbie Master Gardener (class of 2020), I am constantly reminded of how much I don't know and how much more I need to learn. I also find myself looking at my garden in a very different way. I am noticing little holes and winding trails on leaves, weirdly shaped bugs, seedlings that disappear overnight, and soil that never seems to be wet no matter how much I water. Which takes me to the saga of…...NEMATODES!

 

As I am always anxious to get the first seeds in the soil, early this spring I planted the first of three plantings of pole beans (Kentucky Wonder) in one of my raised beds. I prepared the soil as I usually do with compost, chicken manure and worm castings. I noticed that I did not have as bountiful a crop of beans as I usually do but didn't think much of it. By the end of June, the beans were done so I pulled them out to make room for a second planting of zucchini. As I pulled them out, I stopped short and stared at the ugly deformed roots (and of course took pictures) that looked like this:  

 

Back in the deepest recesses of my brain, I remembered something from the Master Gardener course about a “pest” that attacks the roots of plants. So I went back to my class notes, found some scribbles about nematodes and Googled ucanr nematodes. This took me to a very comprehensive 5-page article (Pest Notes) about these little microscopic eel-like roundworms that attack the roots of all sorts of plants. The most damaging ones to gardens are the root knot nematodes. Woefully, I had a prime example of the damage done by these little destructive buggers.

 

The swollen areas on the roots (called galls) interfere with the ability of the roots to absorb water and nutrients. As I explained to my 7-year-old granddaughter (Master Gardener in training), if something messes with the roots, it messes with the plant.  

 

Oh, but there's more to this saga!  

 

About a month later, I was pulling out my Bird Nest Gourds from a totally different raised bed and, lo and behold, the roots looked almost exactly like those of my beans! I learned that root knot nematodes are difficult to control, and can spread easily on garden tools, shoes and infested plants. I am sure I have spread them everywhere.

 

So it was time for action! I still had sweet potatoes and peppers growing in the bed where I pulled out the infested beans, so I have not attacked (pun intended) that bed yet. But the gourds were growing in a bed of their own, so after re-reading the UCANR Pest Notes on nematodes more carefully, I settled on solarization to try to destroy the nematodes in that location.

 

Solarization? There is a first time for everything. Googling ucanr solarization gave me all the information I needed to do this. Apparently covering the soil tightly with clear plastic in hot summer weather for 4-6 weeks can heat the top 12-18 inches of soil up to 140 degrees which can kill nematodes and their eggs. The article also sadly declares that this is only a temporary solution as these sneaky nematodes may move deeper into the soil to escape the heat and only the ones in the upper 12 inches may be killed. 

I will plant some brassicas in this bed after the 4-6 week “quarantine” period.

So now I wait…

Fingers crossed.

 

The Apple is an iconic fruit, and here's where it all began.

It started in Genesis, the first chapter of the Bible, with the story of Adam and Eve and the fruit that explains good and evil. In 400 CE., when Pope Damasus had the Hebrew bible translated into Latin, the clever scholar used the Latin word malus for the tree, the fruit, and its properties. Malus was the Latin word for evil, but also the botanical name for the apple. And so in John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, the apple tree was securely established as the tree in the center of the Garden of Eden! William Blake's illustration is from the first edition of the poem.

Apples actually originated in the Tian Shan mountains of Kazakhstan, and there is evidence of grafted specimens dating from 2,000 BCE at sites around the Eastern Mediterranean. The apple continues to maintain its mystique and unique place among our fruit trees.

A couple of weeks ago I found a small bag in the market, and had my first “Cosmic Crisp” apple. In December, a small quantity of this brand new apple cultivar was released for the first time from a few licensed orchards in Washington State. What were the taste and texture like?  You could call it “a Honey Crisp on Steroids.” The first bite is like a mini clap of thunder, and then comes the wonderful flavor. Washington State produces 40.8 million boxes of apples a year, but this year only 163,000 will be Cosmic Crisp for the entire country. Apple growers in Washington put up $40,000,000, and it took Washington State 22 years to develop the apple WA 38 from the time of the first cross in 1997 between a Honeycrisp and an Enterprise cultivar. The Honey Crisp is no longer in patent, and the MG Orchard Team has grafted its own Honey Crisp apple scions onto home grown seedling rootstock.

 Why do you have to use a Graft? Planted from seed, an apple tree will grow but you won't have fruit for 4-6 years, and even then you're not likely to like anything about it. But, if you graft a little shoot (or even 1 bud) from a mature tree that has fruit that you prefer on the top of that seedling , you'll certainly have your first apples in the very next season, and just the kind that you like. The folks around the Mediterranean obviously figured that out 4,000 years ago where the first grafts were made….. good going, guys!

In fact, one of the very finest apples to grow right here (even in Santa Monica, with only 20 chill hours) is an ancient apple from the Jordan Valley. But more about that in a few minutes.

There are hundreds of varieties or cultivars. (Review time: A cultivar is a natural occurring variety that has been selected and cultivated, hence “cultivar”) with many different colors, flavors, textures, ripening times, chill hours, rootstocks, and growing configurations. They can fit anywhere: in the orchard, against a wall, along a fence, in a narrow median between a parking lot and a school, in a backyard, on a rooftop, or on a patio or balcony. Our MG Orchard Team has been grafting varieties and rootstocks and planting in all sorts of configurations.   

How should we start? First choose the cultivars (varieties) that you would like to grow. Nursery catalogues will help you decide on color, taste (sweet (Fuji) , tart (Granny Smith) or one of the many complex flavors.  Then look at the chill hours that the tree needs for its dormant period.

So what are chill hours? These are the number of hours between 32⁰ and 45⁰ F that the tree requires during the winter months to maintain dormancy, basically to get enough rest to blossom out vigorously come spring. There are 9 different chill areas in Los Angeles County, and you can check the average number of chill hours at the CIMIS station closest to your garden. If the chill hours on your prospective tree are too much lower than your area, the tree may blossom out on an unseasonably warm day in December (I'm sure you've seen that on those occasional days when the temp hits 80⁰). Then a week or two later in January, when the temp drops to the 30⁰s, there are no bees around to pollinate and your blossoms drop off. There goes your crop for that season. There may be a few blossoms left that didn't open, but it's not going to be a good year for that tree.

If your chill hours are not enough for what your tree needs (your CIMIS area number is lower than the tree label number), then when Spring comes and it warms up (no more chill hours), it won't have had enough rest to really blossom out. As it gets warmer and warmer the tree will eventually set blossoms, but there may not be enough time left to ripen the fruit. I'm sure that you've seen that, where there is plenty of unripe fruit left on the tree, and the season is over. For chill hour information, visit  http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/Weather_Services/Chill_Calculators/

All types of trees will grow well in our Mediterranean climate, but to have a decent crop of fruit, you'll need to get the chill hours right. Most of our coastal cities in Los Angeles County will do well with trees that require 200 to 300 chill hours. Sometimes these trees' labels will just say “low-chill” and not give you the exact numbers, and that's OK.

“Anna” (from the Jordan Valley), “Dorset Golden” (from Mrs, Dorset's garden in Bermuda), “Beverly Hills” (you guessed it….. from the time Beverly Hills was just farms and orchards. It was developed by WH Chandler, when UCLA was a great agricultural School, in 1929), Gordon, Fuji, and Gala will all give you great crops in “low chill” areas.

Apple Tree Care: Apple trees like to grow straight up, but they set fruit when their arms are straight out. So: Keep one

central leader, cut a few inches off the top each time it grows 2 feet. This releases the para-dormant buds, and you get the “laterals” that will have the fruit. Bend all the laterals down to 45⁰ from the vertical leader and cut the ends off when they grow 2'-3' they will begin to form the “fruiting spurs”. Don't cut the little fruiting spurs, they will set apples for years.

Apples need some IPM so that you have a nice disease free growing season. You can wait for problems and then treat them with chemical sprays, or you can be proactive and preventive. White wash the trunk (50:50, water + water soluble white latex primer). Wrap a band of tanglefoot 1 foot up the trunk, and put a Terro Borax stake at the base of the trunk. Best protection your beneficials ever had! Spray only in the dormant season (when you do no harm). One spray of sulfur at Thanksgiving, one spray of copper at Christmas, and one spray of horticultural oil at SuperBowl Sunday.  This is the way the organic orchards do it all up and down the Central Coast….. and,  you're ready for Certified Organic (CCOF) if you care.

Compost your cuttings, leaves, extra fruit, and culls. Spread that around the drip lines, and you've returned all the micronutrients and humus to your trees. That's sustainability.

Use a balanced fertilizer for the first two years to get the tree up to speed (about 5-5-5 to 10-10-10) then drop off the Nitrogen (you don't want to grow firewood) you should already have all the branches you need. Use something like 3 to 5 for the 1st# (N), and 5-10 for “P” and “K”. You can purchase your fertilizer, or mix your own from organic components. Don't expect a good crop if your tree goes hungry.

Don't skimp on watering: The young tree will need about a gallon of water a day during the growing season. When mature, the tree can be watered twice a month, but it will need approximately the equivalent of 15 gallons of water per week. Reducing the water will force the tree to conserve. Its first defense is cutting down on fruit production, or even dropping the fruit. When September comes, drastically reduce the watering, and October to February may not need any supplemental water at all. Reducing the water encourages the tree to enter dormancy, and in our mild climate that is an important strategy. Above all: check the adequacy of your watering by inserting a rod (or straightened steel hanger wire) to a depth of 2 feet each time, until you're confident about your soil and technique.

When you can dent the apple skin and surface with the end of your thumb, pick and take a bite. If the seeds are dark brown or black, you're ready to pick a basket and share them with your friends.  Nothing is better than a ripe, crunchy apple picked right off the tree!

And that is why “Every Garden Should Have an Apple Tree.” So have fun. And remember when you go into the orchard, you too are part of the ecosystem.

 

Photo credits: Jessica Yarger