THE OUTLAW GARDENER NEWSLETTER:
1/18/07, apparently the Ajo Corridor Times has renegged on its committment to having my gardening info regularly, so!, this version.
My Gila Bend, Az., Demonstration Garden 1#, locally famous, across from Post Office is faring well, in spite of half frozen by cold front recently. I have replanted using yellow as an attractant color, always bright in winter.
Yesterday, I planted two bronze cannas (donated by Cactusnstuff) behind the agave in a raised pot near the side garden oriental lantern sitting at the end of a path, which leading to it is black soil remindful of one of Hawaii's black sand beaches.
The two cannas with their dramatic large bronze leaves will also have behind near them a tall yellow bells shrub, and as well a new red tropical leaved castor bean, for a very dynamic spring effect!
When in Gila Bend, passing through on the extremely busy main (Pima) st. go one street over and you will be on Papago.
If you encounter a rr track, you're going the wrong direction.
My hybrid tea roses have been planted, all selected for fragrance over form. Next month, I hope to order 6 English and French fragrance (Wayside Gardens*) roses plus a new one from Edmond's** roses, "Firefighter," which is reputed to stand extreme heat, and said to be very fragrant.
At bottom of this page are the phone numbers of these companies for you to get a free catalog.
I want the roses to fragrance across to the post office, when local folks come to get their mail.
All have been planted in a microclimate area, in between cottages to get only the warm morning sun, and not in summer the hot searing version. Starring in this area presently are dozens of violas and pansies, as well are my kale plants, one from Russia***, is a fern leaved beauty. KALE HAS BEEN VOTED TO BE THE MOST NUTRITIOUS VEGETABLE GREEN!, by nutritionists! Preferring cold weather, last year planted, I had two summer well. Been told people use it to feed their pet lizards, when they should eat it, high in lutein to physically improve your eyes.
Corn has been recently documented to contain the most, hurrah for popcorn.
The ACTimes would never allow me to blend nutrition and gardening. Pity.
A simple dish for lutein and eye partner Lycomphene is on a flour tortilla, spread tomato paste just as in can, thickly on tortilla, adding if you wish, finely chopped kale and grated sharp cheese, roll tortilla and put in toaster oven for about two minutes. Easy and wonderful! Pity.
Go to www.geocities.com/jbarta00
/AJOCORRIDORTIMES ., and read all those future columns I labored writing for them, that way, you can read the information denied.
Recently, Gila Bend suffered through a crime wave of break ins and robberies, should you wish to know the real reason, go to: www.geocities.com/jbarta00
/METHTERRORISM .
Make copies, hand it out, especially to parents!
Bless her heart, Sandra O' Hare, owner with her husband, of ACTIMES, and Rocky Point News,
wrote me several
letters of encouragement about my column, never met her, I did donate some large pressed flower pins to be sold by them to help the homeless or groups that do, I used to be homeless, an American tragedy. I had hoped to write a play of multi media effects with poetry and humour to be ostensibly titled, "From Gila Bend To Ajo, ARIZONA." Ah well, oh well...
Remember those lovely color photos in the first ACTIME'S column of mine, they were done by landlord, Mildred Walsh, who has a natural talent for such. Her present project, is the restoration of the nearby 100 year old church.
*Wayside Gardens,
1 800 845 1124
**Edmond roses
1 888 481 7673,
***Johnnys Seeds in Maine, call 1 800 564 6697;
recently, Ray Thompson of Cactusnstuff and I, left for Ajo at 6:00 a.m. to go buy several hundred dollars of plants
at Olsons Garden Center, arriving early, picking out plants in the dark, I expected the police any minute! One of those plants was arcotis, as lovely as a gerbera, but unlike them will live thru our heat.
Their supplier is Civanos nursery (12190 Old Tucson Hwy 520 312 2633), should you wish to visit them , in Tucson, Az., excellent quality.
Otherwise Olsons has them
at lower prices than the big city.
I wish Ray Thompson would do the same for us in Gila Bend, but he's IGNORING me.
3 months ago, I learned that Gila Bend was thought to be not interested in having Ajo Transportation service have a dial a ride type service. I then contacted Mrs. Ron Henry, whose husband is councilman Ron Henry and the ball began rolling. Now I read locally. a grant has ben granted to fund it, see?, even a ordinary citizen can promote progress!
WANT A LAWN GRASS THAT ONLY NEEDS AN INCH OF WATER A MONTH?, 1 800 925 9387, High Country Gardens has Blue Gamma grass seed for desert areas, request their catalog, for that and perennial plants as well.
Should you visit my cottage garden, note in the front bed, the gazania daisies, originally from Africa, planted early in year to develop proper root systems, they will live thru summer and beyound, on sunny days, always in bloom!
For two years in a row. I have at my own expense dispersed millions of purchased wildflower seeds in the local area, all waiting for continued rain.
This year, none over 6 inches tall in red, blue and white, those national colors reflected within my cottage garden as well.
Jerry E. Barta
Elder Poetgardener
1#108 W. Papago St.
Gila Bend,AZ85337
LANNETTE:ART DIRECTOR:
AJO CORRIDOR TIMES newspaper, 520 387 8617:
Because of new computer, I HAVE COMPLETELY REVAMPED all my three yahoo websites, where they all interconnect.
About these garden columns, I want and will get many many ahead, thank you all of you for your patience. Besides the url reference in column, I would like to return to giving the address of, because with my revamping it, as well enlarging its effect, it will be even more spectacular!
Next month of February, I will place a classified ad in the Gila Bend Sun newspaper to weekly direct locals to buy your paper at Circle K, to read my column, believe it or not, everyone reads those ads!
1/26/07:
HOT FLASH! RECENTLY, I EMAILED THE PENTAGON, THAT AT NIGHT, MY BLENDING GRATED BEET< TURNIP, RAW GINGER, AND a bit of apple, into a bit of pure water, drinking it,
PREVENTED MY SYMPTOMS OF FLU, did so several times!(COULD IT WORK FOR BIRD FLU?)
THE BEET AND RAW GINGER WILL PROBABLY DO THE SAME, DRINKING THAT WITH THE DICED UP ALOE PLANT FLESHY LEAVES, HAS DEFINITELY IMPROVED MY KIDNEY FUNCTION, I also add daily a 1/2 tsp of turmeric and cinnamon powder to aid in joint pain and help, the latter in insulin regulation.
GUARANTEED in the morning to wake you up!
THESE COLUMNS ARE ALL FREE FOR ANYONE TO PRINT, UNTIL THEY ARE IN MY FUTURE BOOK,
then you'll be outlaws if you do.
Jerry E. Barta, age 68.
1# 108 W. Papago St,
across from post office.
Po. Box 2312, Gila Bend, Az85337
Whose postage stamp size demonstration garden across from the U.S. Post Office is the most famous locally,
1/2/07:
printed:
1.
For sometime, I have been purchasing from Olsen's marketplace in Ajo, Az., perennials for a new garden project in Gila Bend, Az. A surburban version of a palace garden. You cant miss it, its one of only 2 story buildings in the swank housing division near the back area of our local Macdonalds. And so I have asked them to bring in various favorites, especially those that will live thru the summer heat.
One that will not, is linaria, beautiful presentationa eventually resembling vaporous clouds of flowers.
But yes for gazania, also African, if you plant before March, most likely its then established root system will take it through our summer heat. Its flowers on short stems are large daisies in dramatic colors, daily blooming. Observe and you will see its spent flower heads slowly bend over to deposit its seeds under its leaves, the seed have to have shade to germinate!
Too for seasonal bloom. I have planted Johnny Jump Ups and other violas, pansies, and petunias, stock, snapragons, calendulas* and others to bloom until hot heat. *Discard old faded flowers and seed pods DAILY, especially the pansies and violas, and you can get them to produce dozens of flowers, maybe hundreds!
For sometime, I assumed the tall older male up and down the grocery aisles a bread salesman...in fact, I thought Dennis the garden center mgr, was the owner.
We all make mistakes, and their main one is they water plants as if a fireman with hose. They need to let all dry out THEN WATER, plants need the drying out to benefit from the oxygen, that too wet robs them of.
The other is they continue to place plants that need full sun in their shady front area. I suggest they move them to the far end of the fenced in area to the left, with a really big sign directing buyers to that area...
....Then their plants would be more healthy and not waterlogged perpetuating funguses.
Will they listen without banning me fron the store, we'll just have to wait and see.
THIS IS THE BEST TIME UNTIL MARCH TO GET YOUR PERENNIALS IN THE GROUND.
And bulbs, oh yes, put bulbs such as tulips (or larkspur seed) in your refrigerator to fool them into assumimg its winter, thus better blooms, NOT the freezer section!
Cactusnstuff under my careful tutelege, is still progressing his flower container display, mistake by mistake. As I do, of course.
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/OUTLAWPOETGARDENER .
1/17/07,
unprinted
I apologize if anyone was offended by my column about Olsons grocery nursery, however, I write them with choice of many columns to be published...from the very first time I entere Olsons, I exclaimed and acclaimed its uniqueness...that wonderful produce section, so superior for a towm in the middle of nowhere, and to top it! a plant center as well!
Within my direction, Cactusnstuff of Gila Bend, Az., became one of their best customers, and their plants grace several gardens in Gila Bend, including my own, modest but spectacular, across the post office.
Hurrah for Olsons nursery, their new order of plants is mostly violas and pansies( I have a sampling of those remarkable variations in my side cottage garden), which survived the recent freezing with flying colors of continuing bloom!
Now they need to order stocks as well for their wonderful cinnamon fragrance.
And dont forget petunias, so easy! to grow awarding with glorious color and evening fragrance. My gazanias bought from Olsons bloom daily, if the sun is out, a sparkling of color, mainly oranges and yellows, some with inside flower markings, planted now until April, so they can develop proper root systems to stand the summer heat, they will live and bloom throughout the year!
If you leave the dead frozen foliage on such as lobelias, my blues, my pride and joy, if surviving, they will come up and thru that, I did prune that off nevertheless, and they arise again to participate in the red, white and blue theme of my garden within the other colors of a rainbow...and I continue to disperse millions of those three colors of wildflower seed around town, in the city watered by hose in ground of same, none more than planned six inches in height.
I gave some to local Ajo bus driver Steve, to disperse at the church he attends. So if anyone has such a request, let me know. The three are red crimson clover, white sweet alyssum, fragrant, and California blue bells, supposely the most intense blue possible!
Decades ago, after my poetry presentation at the then Bisbee Poetry Festival, a woman said to me, "You are an excellent poet, but why are you so emotional?"
Sorry. its an occupational hazard,
just like Mother Nature and its interactions with our gardens and our lives.
You can buy now, most places, bareroot packaged roses for a reasonable price. Done, slit the packages open but not removing them, soaking them in a five gallon bucket of water WITH some vitamin B-1 for several hours before you plant them...good luck...JB
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/OUTLAWPOETGARDENER .
1/9/07:
2.
column unprinted as yet.
Carnations are nice, fragrant too, but stocks smell like cinnamon, like cool weather, plant them now!
Aproximate ht. 18", mix 1/2 potting soil or mulch with existing soil. A little gypsum in bottom of hole with a bit of compost if you have some. They dont mind freezing weather at all. Always trim off flower heads when mostly seed pods AND they'll reward you with yet more flowers...Gazanias like heat, but if you plant them now!, they'll live all through summer, flowering fresh every day, demanding you look at them...petunias are showy but they'll end in June, except the Wave variety, which wiil endure longer and spread in a round upto 3 feet!
Plant sweet peas now, soaking the seed in warm water overnight, and applying innoculant if you have some. Parks seed Co. has a cannister for $8.95, 1 800-845-3369, if you plant regular beans or peas, they need it too, for guaranteed germination. Its a nitrogen fixing bacteria.
Plants need oxygen release in the soil, so dont water them constantly, they require drying out for that, except for water lilies!etc.
1 800 845 3369 will get you a Parks seed catalog in which is a highly fragrant corkscrew vine, or buy the regular one at garden centers, grows fast and then faster, once established, lavender thus the name lightly fragranced flowers.
Prefers daily watering, but stands godawful amounts of heat, no special soil, or insect problems. The catalog one is said to be so fragrant, one flower can sweeten a room.
A fine shrub actually a large perennial is the Blue Potato Vine, its not blue, doesnt have potatoes, and its not a vine. The flowers are lavender, its a member of the solanium family which includes tomatoes, peppers and potatoes. and in its growth habits up to 6 ft., it sorta resembles a vine, but it doesnt cling. Loving watering regularly, in summer daily, it will bloom every day! Mine has hundreds of flowers, more in spring and summer, daily. It is spectacular!
1/10/07
3.
unprinted as yet:
From www.geocities.com/jbarta00
/OUTLAWPOETGARDENER .
This is an older one, below,
Ajo Corridor Times may already have
to print, nevertheless, its very good information!:
3.
From www.geocities.com/jbarta00
/OUTLAWPOETGARDENER .
NEW EASY WAY TO GROW VEGETABLES!!
I am apalled, at all the houses, I pass by on the transit, and never see any vegetable growing.
Its so easy, especially successful in desert areas, if you use my Reverse French Indonesian Method.
You lay out your garden hose in a large oval shape, as NEW EASY WAY TO GROW VEGETABLES!!
I am apalled, at all the houses, I pass by on the transit, and never see any vegetable growing.
Its so easy, especially successful for the desert, if you use my Reverse French Indonesian Method:
You lay out your garden hose in a large oval shape, as large as you wish, 10 feet diameter is good. You then dig out the soil, and slope the sides,
good not more than 12 inches ht, if that. the slope inside will reveal a middle concave depression, in which you will put now and over time, mulching materials.
As well as about 2 inches to start on the sloped sides. Watering?, well, you can bury in the slope, an upside down soaker or sprinkler hose, for saturation, with some of it covering middle.
Weeds?, you can cover all soil with black plastic film, at least 3 mil, Gila Bend sells a roll, 10x25ft.for about $10.00, cutting slits on slopes to plant seeds such as lettuce, or carrots, anything that grows under 18 inches ht.
In the depression, in the middle, you can plant tomato, or squash, or even melon. But be advised this method will grow fast super plants, because, water seeks its own level, and when you pour water into the middle, it will seep into the side slopes!. Ah yes, be sure if using plastic film, use pitchfork to put holes in it, especially on lower inside slopes and middle depression.
As time goes on, you add mulch and even kitchen wastes in center area, in time will compost naturally,
It doesnt hurt to sprinkle area once in a while either. NEXT YEAR, You will have humus or composted mulch, even if not aged, to dig in and do all it over again!
The memories of the abundance this method produces will haunt you for years. J.B.
4. unprinted:
1/13/07:
From www.geocities.com/jbarta00
/OUTLAWPOETGARDENER .
Its gonna freeze tonight, hard! I covered up some, but for all, I watered extremely heavily, even a few feet in front the beds.
Its an older citrus orchard method. Less dangerous and polluting than fire pots. A new method is circulating air fans, but know this, as it freezes, the water lets off heat, as well inside the leaves full of water.
I'll know in the morning whether my perewinkles freeze, they did last year.
On purpose, I have no heat in my cottage, just putting on more clothes, sweaters etc.
KNOW THIS< HEATING AIR REMOVES ITS OXYGEN!
Since I nicotine, I have enough problems getting enough oxygen, I dont need any more.
Recently given a test for lung capacity, I scored 95 out of a hundred!
Then too, I eat lots of veges, take proper vitamins, always have, plus I'm a fresh air devotee.
Oh yes, I also eat wild edible veges, lambs quarters, wild radish, and wild mustard greens, all containing vitamins and minerals missing in our store bought hybrid versions.
Am I healhtier, yeah, but I'm old and diabetic, its all uphill for us, going downhill.
Walking and gardening have both been scientifically documented to be excellent excercise, I dont sit long periods in front of the tv, I dont have one.
Am I eccentric? of course!
Its worse than that, I sleep on the floor, no back problems and lots of excercise getting up to standing.
How lucky we are, plants are immobile, and should they evolve to otherise, no doubt, we"ll all get more excercise, running.
5.
1/17/07: unprinted:
This afternoon toward dusk, I sat down with pruners and large scissors*, pruning frozen foliage back, and
all showing green and starting over!
While I worked, I planned the nxt step, I'm going to plant inbetween everything, gazanias in every color I can find, because they went through the freezing unscathed AND will all summer long blooming riotously. No insect problems, no special soil.
Plant them now until March so they can develop root systems to stand the heat.
Another fantastic plant is Dusty Miller. Same as gazania, but their leaves are silver splashes, as contrast for other flowrrs. A new one, its name is New One, has really large leaves rather than the fern leafed types.
Another is a desert verbena, lays low to the ground, a carpet of lavender to blue flowers, a mass of them with same attributes of the above two.
Dont forget the "wave" hybrid petunia, stands a lot of heat, may not make it
through summer, but its 3 ft. round mass of reds, purples, pink, salmon or white will star for a long time in that heat!
Plant them now until March for best results.
I hve decided to not mention Cactusnstuff this time, I may be out front with a picket sign. Near the glorious pillars of red bouganvillea in pots, I garden consulted into being.
*At our dollar store on Martin st., you can buy some very large heavy duty scissors, excellent for trimming most plants
except for thick stems.
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/OUTLAWPOETGARDENER .
6.
unprinted:
I may have discovered a preventive for the flu, which i went through in October. Being an experimental gardener,
I am as well a cook, researching nutrition for decades.
Recently, I while cooking soup (which I am doing for Cactusnstuff as well) added
a diced beet and turnip which I had sat out for some days to see if they would somewhat dry. They did, and I now think that concentrated whatever liver and kidney cleansing properties, they are documented to contain.
I have been since the flu, been getting its symptoms, its all over town, and on this particular day, I had them all, But as soon as I ate a bowl of soup, the symptoms vanished like magic!
And a following day or two, symptoms again, bowl of soup again, and they disappeared.
I'll email the pentagon.
Now back to gardening, as stated previously, sow your larkspur and sweet pea seed now! As well as English peas, kale, collards, cabbage, brussels sprouts, etc. Know those fancy snowpeas for Oriental cookery, you can grow them too! An excellent seed catalog is Johnnies Selected Seeds in Maine. Call 1 800 877 JOHNNYS for free catalog. Too, they have the finest, I have ever seen, herb seed section with pictures and details of their culinary or medicinal uses. A collectible seed catalog, no doubt whatsoever, AND they pride themselves on shipping orders as quickly as possible, which they said, when I called them to compliment everything they do, as well that.
I now have nearly 50 various catalogs of plants, but know this, not all are honest, go to
www.geocities.com/jbarta00
/OUTLAWPOETGARDENER . to read my expose on a few really dishonest companies.
Johnnies also has really low prices on allium bulbs, which when they bloom will startle anyone with their uniqueness, no doubt reporting them to UFO groups!
By the way, radishes are also body
cleansers, try this!
grate some then put them on a flour tortilla with cheese,
toaster ovening them, for about a minute, or long enough to melt the cheese
and you'll swear they're potato hash browns! I planted some just as they came from Olsons, so I could harvest their greens for salads or soups.
Let me add a couple of quickies, the entire cabbage family contains a cancer preventive, called sulfaraphone. Buy a bottle of brown mustard, made out of whole mustard seed and add a tablespoon to your soups. All seeds contain vast amounts of elements to start off the plants, and this is a painless quick way to get sulfaraphone. And recently documented by scientists is that cilantro or coriander, a daily favorite of Mexicans, removes from the body, heavy metals, especially lead and mercury. Add ground coriander seed to your soups for an intriguing flavor as well as sulfaraphone and removal of those heavy metals. Isnt science remarkable?
7. 1/18/07, unprinted.
I have decided to feature all thru my plantings, Gazanias! They went thru the freezing! blooming the day of! As they will all thru the summer!
Storm the fort, demand Olsons garden center bring more in! 6 paks, 4 inch pots, cheaper that way.
Except for blue, they have all the colors of lets say, petunias, that will die in June in the heat, but not gazanias!
On page 49 of Parks seed catalog you can view all their fantastic color and variations of, in those colorings. Free catalog, 1 800 845 3369.
Originally from Africa, they have to had severe conditions of winter and summer, to do what they do, bloom daily, too, however, take off their faded flowers to have more flowers, but, as they grow larger spreading, even that wont be necessary!
No insect problems!
A Paul Simon somg says something like "Take the keys get on the bus"...and ride to buy gazanias, lets see how many different colors we can find, scour the nurseries and garden centers!
The above was written in the influence of Choclate para mesa Montezuma, a wafer to make a traditional drink, I eat like crackers, just one, and you will have glorious energy, amidst the multi flavors of chocolate, cinnamon, allspice exploding with pleasure within its sugars!
Guess what?, the cinnamon scientifically proven to regulate insulins, great for us diabetics.
(Note to lannette, Ajo Corridor Times, when you publish this one, go to right side of this page and I will have a link to others as I do them, keep in mind this is for my future book, hopefully of those printed columns.)
By the way, there is a product called Superthtive, which is a decades old formula that you can add a capful of, to any gardening solution, you apply and it will super their growth, speed of growth etc.
Both WalMart and or hHome Depot carry it. It can be used instead of Vitamin B1 for plants, because it has that in it.
My front bed dichondria groundcover, only an inch high is beauteeful, a solid mass of Irish green. It will show off the gazania well or anything, dichondria doesnt interfere with other plants planted in it, sort of a living mulch.
On page 54 of Parks catalog, you can order an oz. of its pelleted seed for only $4.10 and on page 10, a very expensive type for hanging baskets.
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/OUTLAWPOETGARDENER .
