Old fashioned varieties naturally grown to sustain the vigor and wellbeing of the individual consumer, the environment, and the community. Instead of using unhealthy insecticides, we use bioactive integrated pest management. This includes such practices as planting cover crops, green manures, interplanting, crop rotation; we also plant crops specifically to attract biological allies to assist with insect control, mulches shade out many weeds, as well as cover and green manure crops. These practices help prevent plant nutrient leaching during our occasional heavy rains by holding more water in the soil profile for plant use. They also assist in avoiding drought conditions as well as satisfy plants which require constant moisture in the root zone, such as tomatoes, without over watering. Occasionally, and not very often in the past three years I have been in Valencia County, we have had to resort to pyrethrum sprays to control pests that were overwhelming the garden, such as squash bugs. Pyrethrum is a good organic insecticide made of ground up chrysanthemum relative called, commonly, the painted daisy, and is innocuous to mammals; the bugs don't like it very much though. Healthy soil, and healthy plants, make spraying unnecessary for the most part. We also use trap crops to attract the bugs away from the stuff we really want. Some for them, and some for us. Over in one corner of our garden we have included a habitat for some predator insects that go a long way to rid our garden of caterpillar types of things. I have only seen one tomato horn worm in the four years I have been here, and have grown lots of tomatoes each year.

    Some ways we keep the soil in good tilth and with a healthy compliment of plant nutrients are to use, as above, the green manures (plants grown to be turned under while still immature and tender like rye or wheat or even buckwheat), animal manures, and cover crops, also compost and mulches, as well as turning under all plant residues in the fall (as long as there are no root crops in the row we are going to harvest in the winter, or diseases on the crops to be turned under). I know, the modern way is to remove them and compost, burn, or send them to the dump. The old fashioned way, assuming of course the soil and crop is kept healthy and well, is to turn the residues under to rot, and feed the succeeding crop. After all the residues are old plants we don't need any more, and the new plants (next season) will need the same building blocks to grow new vegies. Since our sandy soil chews up anything we put into it much faster than in other soil types, we need to replenish the organic matter constantly to even keep up with the losses.

    Windbreaks are being put into place to mitigate wind problems (and to make it more comfortable for the workers too), and soaker hoses are slowly replacing some of our furrow irrigation. Both of the above practices are helping us to conserve water and will enable us to eventually increase the garden size somewhat without using more water than we have been in the past.

    Over the past couple of years I have had (in approximate order of planting time): carrot, bunching onions, parsley, spinach, beets, chard, lettuce, radishes (little round red ones to crunch between the teeth and long straight white ones to stir-fry), lemon cucumber, white eggplant (doesn't seem to get bitter like the dark purple ones do sometimes), okra, peppers, squash, tomato, corn, melons, green beans, garlic, kale, basil, chicory, sunflowers, amaranth, and dried beans. Quite a haul! I am glad it doesn't all come ripe at the same time. There is a bunch of other stuff I am working on too, like celeriac (celery root - which grows much more easily than the long straight kind which prefers a swamp - more or less), salsify or scorzonera (both called oyster plants - carrot shaped roots which are used like parsnips or potatoes or cooked carrots - or oysters since the flavor is mildly reminiscent), and a ton of other stuff. If I left out any of your favorites, please let me know. Some of the crops I have not perfected a system for growing them reliably yet, like spinach and green beans. I know, most people find them so easy. Oh well, I never did follow the crowd. But I am getting better with them. Another of my failures over the past few years has been the mulberry tree, which actually started quite nicely. It is old enough to put on flowers now and bear fruit. The only problem is that it put on those cute little catkins (male flowers that shed pollen), which is, of course, a fruitless mulberry. I guess I will have to start a few more and plant a little cops to ensure I get at least one female tree. Mulberry pies are so yummy. I have heard that birds prefer them to other fruits, so I need to get some more started this year. Also, I just last year got the first good stand of carrots since I arrived at Mulberry Gardens. Not hard, just tricky in this dry, sandy soil with the strong spring (and winter this year) winds.

Here is an alphabetical list:
 

Main crops which work well almost all the time for me. Expect these from the first year.	Experimental crops which I haven't grown regularly. Some of these added each year as I learn.	Perennial crops which I am working to get established. Eventually these will be added.
Amaranth - greens and stalk Basil Bell Pepper Carrots Casaba Mellon Chard Cucumber - lemmon Corn - sweet, Indian Eggplant - rosa-bianca Garlic Kale Lettuce Leeks Loofa Okra Onion Parsley Radish Scallions Summer squash Sunflower Tomato Watermellon Winter squash	Beans, dry Beets Broccoli Brussels sprouts Cabbage Cauliflower Celeriac - celery root Edamame soy - green Endive - Escarole Fava beans Florence Fennel Garden pea Green beans Kohlrabi Rutabaga Salsify Savoy Cabbage Spinach Sweet potatoes	Apples Artichokes - globe and     Jeruselam Asparagus Peaches

    I tend to grow the older varieties of vegetables (not all, but progressively more as I am able to obtain the seed). The older varieties tend to do better here as some of them tend to have much more aggressive root systems than the modern varieties. I also believe they are more nutritious as they are the plants which helped the settlers children survive the gauntlet of childhood diseases and thrive to enable them to plant more vegetables for their children. Modern varieties are a spin off from the commercial market garden industry who want vegies to all look the same, same size, same color, and to ripen at the same time, with good shipping qualities like tough skin and exceptional firmness; and long shelf life - all at the expense of flavor and nutrition.

    The year year 2008 serves as a springboard for Mulberry Gardens, and you, dear people, my first consumers, are to be part of my beta testing process, and thereby will help shape what gets grown and marketed from the very beginning. Good luck to us all, thanks a lot for your support, and may I say, you are the other half of the "we", and "our" referred to in this text, for you are a large part of this enterprise.

    My initial idea is to have a biennial news letter (by e-mail for those of you able to do so - to keep our costs down), as well as a biennial meeting (these twice a year, not every other year) to enable you to get into the discussion and help shape our operation at Mulberry Gardens. I truly think this can be a win/win solution to our own personal food supply. A winning solution to us each personally, (including you the consumer and me the grower), as well as for our community. Please feel free to offer up your input as it occurs to you and I will make every effort to integrate your ideas into our overall operations plan.

Larry Edgar, operations manager.