Biochar - Creating A Coral Reef In Your Garden

One of the cool characteristics of a tropical coral reef is the huge surface area that hosts many living sea creatures and a whole ecosystem.

Did you know you can build a coral reef "like" structure in your garden by using pyrogenic carbon.

What is pyrogenic carbon?

1491 - America Before Columbus

Last week we had several history lessons, we are transitioning from the history of several world changing plants to considering how several civilizations "bio-engineered" their soils. Charles Mann in his book 1491 talks about what America was like before Columbus. It is a very interesting read and has much food for thought. He says the Native American populations were vast. To feed their civilization they were able to grow massive crops through highly advanced agriculture.

At the same time that the North American Natives were building their civilization with temperate soils the cultures of the central Amazon were building their civilization in rain forest soils with extremely low fertility. Thousands of years later the soils they engineered are some of the most fertile in the world. These soils are so persistent that they actually grow back when the top layer is removed.

Both civilizations sustained hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions with their ancient growing techniques. I think there is a lot to learn from what they did.

So how does this apply to Market Gardening in Minnesota?

My Watermelon Was Developed in South Africa

There is nothing better than watermelon in the heat of summer. Watermelon thrive in hot dry climates and like to grow in loose sandy soil. We had an amazing crop last summer and have an encore planned for this year.

Did you know that watermelon originated in southern Africa, where it grow wild. We all know the stories of the Israelites lamenting the eating of watermelon from the Nile Valley when they were wandering in the wilderness. The delightful melon migrated quickly to China, Europe and the Americas in the 16th Century.

Many of our modern watermelons grown commercially have the variety called...

My Sweet Corn and the Aztec Empire

Did you know we owe the delights of modern sweet corn to Aztec Empire about a thousand years ago. They developed a wild grass species with an ear on top into the modern multi-ears maize stalk we have today.

Corn was a staple of the Aztec people located in central Mexico and is still popular with peoples in this region today.

So why did corn get such a prominent place in the Aztec empire instead of watermelon, cabbage, or broccoli?

My New Baby Potatoes and the Ancient Incas

This week we are talking about some historical events that affect the plants we grow in our gardens today. So it might feel like a bit of a time warp for the next few posts. But I think you'll be interested in a bit of historic facts and how they affect us today.

"Whooo Doggie", we dug some new baby potatoes this week and they were amazing. I think it is the compost we plant them in but those spuds always taste way better than the commercially grown ones. I wonder if the ancient Incas looked forward with anticipation to their first harvest as much as we do.

The potato in all of its hundreds of varieties originated in the Andes mountains and was bred and refined by the Incas. The ancestors of these peoples in the Peruvian Anes still grow them today.

So why did the Incas grow potatoes and why is that significant to us.