Category: Gardening

Tropical Summer Greens in My Midwestern Garden

This is a little tour of my garden later in the summer. I started some tropical plants to grow for the midsummer heat and they are thriving. But I’ve also been having some problems with critters eating my regular temperate crops, such as corn. My ideal would be to grow enough corn to provide for my needs, even while I phase out rice in favor of the crop that I can actually easily grow in my part of the country. But if I lose most of the crop to the critters, then maybe it isn’t such a good crop to grow. What will I have to do to be able to get a good crop?

https://www.facebook.com/HardcoreSustainable/

http://hardcoresustainable.com

It’s a Vintage Year in my Permaculture Vineyard

This is a little tour of my vineyard from earlier in the year. I plan to post another video of later in the year and the harvest soon. This was a really good season for growing grapes (though it was pretty bad for a lot of other things). The dry weather made perfect, sweet clusters of delicious grapes that will make some good wine.

https://www.facebook.com/HardcoreSustainable/
http://hardcoresustainable.com

Easiest Organic Control Of Cabbage Loopers and How Monsanto is Making it Ineffective On Corn

If you doubt this problem with BT GMO crops, check out this article
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/carey-gillam/new-research-shows-failin_b_14003604.html
that references a research paper on Bt resistance in corn earworm. Granted this is a different crop and a different pest, but the mechanism is the same–the Cry proteins that eat up the intestines the larval stage of insects. Larvae becoming resistant to Cry proteins will make BT ineffective as pest control in corn, and will make use of BT on organic corn crops ineffective as well. The resistance in the GM crops is the result of conventional farmers not keeping a portion of their fields in non BT corn, and to be a haven for corn earworms without resistance to BT to survive and pass on their genes. If all the corn is BT the next generations will consist only of BT resistant earworms.

Check out the Hardcore Sustainable facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/HardcoreSustainable/

My Devastated Garden and Summoning My Inner Elmer Fudd

Despite the fact that I live in a place called Dancing Rabbit, I find rabbits to be the worst pest we have in our area. Without a fence around your garden and good protective cages around your fruit trees, you don’t stand a chance of growing your own food. In the last couple of years I’ve had a lot of trouble keeping rabbits out of my garden because my fence was less than reliable. This season my goal was to get some real fencing in my garden and finally make my garden rabbit free. Here’s why, with the help of Home Depot, I failed.

Check out and follow the Hardcore Sustainable FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/HardcoreSustainable/