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Seminar: Environmentally Friendly Pest Management by Denise Ellsworth of the Summit County Extension Service.



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Going Green...
Monthly Blog entries
by Tom Dayton

Also check out our
Weekly Blogs!
 

May, 2008
Everyone these days is concerned about the price of fuel and its effects on our lives as these price increases spread throughout the general economy.

We all know that the cheapest fuel is the fuel we don’t use.  Less use of non-renewable resources like natural gas and oil is not only good for our pocket books and national security but our environment as well.

One aspect of our fossil fuel use that many of us do not consider is at the grocery store in the great amount of miles that food must be shipped such as salmon from farms in Chile or asparagus from Mexico.

Even now in Great Britain, there are signs posted in some grocery stores about the number of “food miles” a particular product has traveled. 

What does all of this mean to you?

Planting a garden today is like the victory gardens that were planted during World War II.  Planting a vegetable garden in essence will:
 

  1. Reduce “food miles” and thus save energy as your harvesting produce out of your own backyard.
  2. Reduce dangerous pesticide usage in the environment as corporate farms use tons of dangerous chemicals.  Less demand for “their” products means less pesticide.
  3. The unseen benefits to planting a garden are the increased family time planting, cultivating and preparing food from the garden and the valuable lessons that children learn in that belonging to the family unit means that helping out as a family member is required and includes helping out in the garden and save you money.
  4. Increase supplies of fresh produce which will in turn hold down prices. 
  5. Give you more control over some of your food supply in that you can be sure the produce on your table is fresh and healthy to eat instead of relying on long distance domestic sources, or even worse, foreign sources.

Our third president Thomas Jefferson is well known as the author of the Declaration of Independence, champion of public education and the persistent supporter of freedom of religion was actually a passionate and avid gardener.  So much so that he wrote in a letter to his friend Vincent Peale in the year 1820 the following:

 “I have often thought that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market for the productions of the garden.  No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden!  Such a variety of subjects, some one always coming to perfection the failure of one thing repaired by the success of another, and instead of one harvest, a continued one through the year.  Under a total want of demand except for our family table, I am still devoted to the garden.  But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.”

Thomas Jefferson to Charles Wilson Peale
            August 20, 1811

April, 2008
Earth Day and Arbor Day are upon us.  What kind of tree will you plant this month so that you and the birds might enjoy the fruits that it renders?  Or, will you plant a tree that maybe you and/or succeeding generations can rest under the shade of its branches.

“To plant a tree is an act of faith in the earth
an act of hope for the future
an act of humanity towards coming generations
who will enjoy its fruits
after we shall be gone”

  1. Merrier

Just think what our lives would be like without trees to shade us, feed us, shelter us and their grandeur and majesty for us to gaze upon and wonder about.

In the construction of his mansion overlooking his city of Barberton, Ohio, Columbus Barber’s home site was devoid of large trees and being a man of vision and of great wealth, he simply had large trees moved from across the state route 619 to his home site in the early part of the 20th century.

Don’t worry if you’re not going to live in the same house forever, just plant trees to cool the house, ones that flower in spring, ones that turn from green to brilliant hues of red, orange, yellow and purple in fall and ones that produce fruit.

You’ll be surprised not only how much monetary value they’ll add to the resale price but even more important is the value of you and your family’s enjoyment over many years.

And on the subject of flower and vegetable gardening, remember these following organic tips:

  1. Having a problem with damping off fungus on small emerging seedlings from the soil?  Sprinkle the soil surface with one part white vinegar to four parts water and then re-sow the seed.   This concoction will kill the damp-off fungus.
  2. Use Bi-Carb (Potassium bicarbonate + spreader sticker) to keep powdery mildew and black spot off roses.  Its great for garden use too to keep mildew off of curcurbits like melons, squash, pumpkins and cucumbers and is most certainly mild and environmentally safe.
  3. Neem Oil made from the seeds of the Neem tree in India is a natural pesticide for ornamental plants and herbs and vegetable plants.  Fortunately for us, a coalition from India fought an American company’s efforts to patent this “wonder” insecticide and won!  I’m sure the patent fee and the restricted manufacture of the product would not have made the product less expensive.
  4. Refined horticultural oils are another tool in the arsenal of organic weapons against infestations of insects or spider mites in the garden.  Just carefully follow the directions as an incorrect use can burn your plants.  The refined oils are better than the “old” types of dormant oil as much as the sulfur that burns plants have been removed.
  5. Planting crops together that are compatible with each other such as sweet corn and squash will make more use of a limited garden space

Watch for more organic gardening tips on our website!

March, 2008
It won’t be long until the first day of spring and its not too early to be thinking about fertilizing your landscape and perennial garden with organic fertilizers Plant-tone and the almost organic fertilizer Holly-tone for acid-loving plants.

The way organic fertilizers work is that they are low in salts which is not harmful to beneficial soil microbes which in turn means that these microbes can work to release the nutrients of the organic fertilizer over time.

These various and sundry microbes are essential for a healthy soil and one with good tilth.

A soil in good tilth is like “chocolate cake” an expression used by the horticulturist at Kingwood Center in Mansfield, Ohio as reported by Denise Ellsworth of the extension service of Summit County.

This type of soil is achieved over several years by additions of large amounts of organic matter such as composted leaves, twigs, grass and other plant debris which will “fluff up” an otherwise compacted soil.

This organic matter and the resulting invasion of beneficial microbes therefore has a synergistic effect on the soil and the growth of plants.

Organic fertilizers do not interfere with this synergy when added to supply plants with additional nutrients essential for growth.

Lawn fertilizers have long been a source of non-point source pollution of creeks and streams because of the runoff during heavy rains especially phosphorus which is conducive to algae growth.

Now the Espoma Corporation, the manufacturers of Plant-tone and other organic fertilizers, has come up with Espoma Organic Lawn Food that has only 2% phosphorus that lawns usually don’t need because there is enough in the soil already.

Like other organic fertilizers, this new product is low in slats that will keep the beneficial microbes, earthworms and other soil life happy and intact.

Another product I’m excited about is Espoma’s new lawn weed control product called Espoma Organic Weed Preventer Plus Lawn Food in which the active ingredient of corn gluten has been proven to reduce weed numbers in most lawns by 60% the first year of use.

Its important to apply the product at the right time; that is, before weed growth begins.

Just think about it, a lawn weeder product that is safe for pets, people and the wider environment.

I cannot testify to the efficacy of this new product as I have not used it as of yet but we’ll for sure be using it on the lawn areas around the nursery as I get nervous on using the traditional products as the runoff from the lawn areas goes back to our lake that we use for irrigation.

In later blogs, I’ll let you know how it works.

February, 2008
One of the major headlines in the news today has been about regional droughts such as the one in the southeast in 2007 and areas out west.  Water resources and the debate of how to distribute water whether it is for agricultural use, urban use or used to protect species’ habitats is becoming increasingly serious as water demand increases from an ever-growing population and more frequently occurring water shortages or even floods caused partly because of global climate changes.  It seems everyone these days worries about the price of oil and other fuels but until recently, clean water was taken for granted which is for sure a more valuable commodity.  At the nursery, we have taken a proactive approach to better water use since 1998 not only because of my desire to be environmentally friendly but because the water quality in the creek that runs through the nursery, Van Hyning Run, is too poor to water our nursery stock as it is high in salts and other pollutants on its short 3-4 mile course from Loyal Oak Lake through the nursery and then on to Wolf Creek.  In late summer, the foliage on our plants would have a burned edge because of the high concentrations of salt revealed in our frequent water tests since 1997.   Completed about the same year was our one-acre lake that was fed by runoff water that tested much better than the creek water.  It was obvious that this was our new water source as much of the lands and drainage ways of the nursery drained to this lake.  An electric pump was installed in 1998 to pull water from the lake for irrigation and a second smaller pump was used to pull water from the creek was now used to pump rain water and run off water from irrigation that would run back to the holding pond instead of directly to the lake because of the elevation difference.  This system now supplies all of our outside irrigation water and captures the runoff from our irrigation in order to recycle it and use it again so that very little water including rain water leaves the property.  In this way our needs are met for good quality water and since almost no water leaves the property with its resulting leachates of fertilizer, pressure is not placed on the stream as far as pollutants such as phosphorus and additional runoff from rain storms that would contribute to flooding downstream.  Our other challenge though was the fact with our irrigation water used over and over that over time salts would increase to an intolerable level because of fertilizers used on the plants.  The above concern has never materialized as rain water is always collected and added to the system and more importantly, the ditches and settling ponds used to capture silt and other debris have all been naturally colonized with Acorus (Iris), Marsh Marigold, Cattails, Rushes and other aquatic plants that just love the boggy effect these waterways have created.  In fact, the natural colonization of water plants has acted like a giant water filter as water flows through the system.  You might say our whole system is like one big rain garden.  A rain garden that meets the nursery’s needs for high quality water.

January, 2008
I think I first starting thinking “green” when I was a teenager and the environmental movement got started in the 1970’s.  The book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson had a message back then that was powerful enough to change human behavior just as Uncle Tom’s cabin had done more than 150 years earlier on the subject of slavery. I always thought of the nursery business as an honorable one in which the resulting production; that is, trees, shrubs, flowers, would clean the air, provide food and shelter for wildlife, prevent soil erosion and just plain beautify the earth.  While the above statement is obviously true, I realized more and more over time that many of the practices used in the nursery to produce a beautiful product were in themselves not “green”. For example, some crops required large amounts of deadly pesticides such as chlorinated hydro-carbons and organophosphates that were definitely bad news for the environment and humans as well.  Erosion has been a problem with long rows of nursery stock in which a wide band of bare soil between the rows is constantly cultivated and churned to kill weeds resulting in wind and water carrying the “gold” away.  In fact, Mr. Grulleman, who founded Wayside Gardens in Mentor, Ohio in 1920, always shipped plants bare-root because not only was it more practical for mail order but his comment to my late friend and propagator John Ravestein, was that he (Grulleman) was selling plants, not soil!  In fact, there is a quote from an unknown author that the only thing that makes it possible for humans to survive is a few inches of topsoil and the fact that it rains once in a while.  Herbicides are another factor in nursery stock production and until recently, methylbromide, a gas used to kill weed seeds in plant and seed beds, was one of the gases responsible for depleting the ozone layer in the atmosphere.  As the year progresses, I’ll be giving you an insight as to the changes that are occurring in the industry and what we have done, are currently doing and plan to do to lessen the impact on the environment to make our products even “greener’.  Stay tuned.



3459 Cleveland-Massillon Rd.  Norton, Ohio  44203
Just 1/4 mile North of I-76 in the historic Loyal Oak area of Norton, Ohio
330-825-3320
or 1-866-500-6605
info@daytonnursery.com
contact: Amy Calhoun, Webmaster