November 1, 2006

By Pamela and Frank Arnosky These are challenging times to be a flower grower. Sure, gas prices are up, imports are up, global warming is up and on and on. But these problems are nothing compared to our latest crisis. Martha’s new color is gray. Yep, gray is her new chartreuse. She bought a new […]

By Tony Ricci On our table is a bowl that holds the season. A relic that has been transformed from a humble server of spaghetti, it now records the progression of harvest. Tonight it cradles the last great gasp of the San Marzanos, a pepper of unknown origin, Asian pears and a clutch of bruised

By Michael Ableman Prairie Writers Circle Not long ago lettuce came only in heads and spinach in bunches. For a salad, someone else might do the growing, but you still did the trimming and washing. You had some control —and responsibility — over the process. Now salad comes prewashed and bagged. You just pour it

By Brett Grohsgal In the October issue, the author critiqued conventional approaches to risk management in farming. He then explained his own integrated approach, which include flexible marketing, diverse cropping and respectful resource management. Flexible marketing is fine. But we must have goods to sell regardless of the extremes of weather. Diverse cropping, the hallmark

What’s so bad about E. coli 0157:H7? Unlike most strains of E. coli, which can be harmless or cause mild illness, this strain can cause extreme illness, including kidney failure, and death. Half the people who got sick in the spinach outbreak were hospitalized. Where does it come from? Cattle manure is the primary source,

Ohio State University researchers have found that nightcrawlers collect the seeds of giant ragweed and carry them into their burrows, a previously unknown behavior that explains why ragweed is such a pervasive weed. Emilie Regnier, an Ohio State weed scientist, said that giant ragweed exhibits characteristics of poor success rate. Large seeds mean fewer produced

Using compost to make a foliar spray or soil drench to promote plant growth and suppress plant diseases has gained popularity in the past 10 years, especially among organic farmers. These “compost teas” are made by adding small amounts of finished, mature compost to unheated water and allowing the mixture to steep or brew. Composting

AgriPhage, a product that controls harmful bacteria on tomato and pepper plants, has been approved by the Organic Materials Review Institute for use on organic crops. AgriPhage is produced from a scientific process designed to isolate, and then concentrate, naturally occurring bacteriophage. Bacteriophage, also known as “phage”, are beneficial viruses that destroy specific harmful bacteria

The E. coli spinach outbreak that killed three people and sickened more than 200 seems to have left local, direct-market growers untouched, but it has raised concerns about food safety on small farms and the possibility of new regulations. “I was guessing it was going to really hurt us,” said Pete Johnson of Pete’s Greens