Meet Mike in Chantilly next weekend!
Mike will appear at the Capital Remodel & Garden Show at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly Friday, Feb. 27, through Sunday, March 2.
Special deal: Enter promo code “McGrath” to get $4 off online tickets.
Don’t avoid the most heavily sprayed fruits and veggies—grow your own instead
The Environmental Working Group has just released their annual “Dirty Dozen” report, revealing which supermarket produce has the highest levels of pesticide contamination.
It’s no surprise that apples and peaches take the No. 1 and No. 2 spots on the list, as they are difficult to grow. But some of the other most heavily sprayed foods, such as cherry tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and cucumbers, are real head-scratchers, as they’re very easy to grow organically. The only other easy-grow exceptions on the list are grapes, which require a lot of attention and care, and celery, which really only grows well in a couple areas of the country that have very unique climates.
But it’s easy to grow the rest, and this is the perfect time of year to plan a garden! So let’s do just that, as we devote today’s tips to eating fresh food non-toxically by home-growing the fruits and veggies that failed the supermarket test.
Peppers are easy! (It’s comedy that’s hard)
Sweet bell peppers and hot peppers are both on this year’s list of the most pesticide-contaminated fruits and vegetables found in supermarkets. But both contain amazing nutrients and are easy to grow your own.
Now, unless you have a lot of experience and the right equipment for indoor seed starting, start with live plants from a garden center instead of seeds. Plants grown poorly indoors will continue to do poorly outside, and starting from seed is a much harder trick to learn than outdoor gardening.
Selection: When it comes to sweet (bell) peppers, plants with smaller fruits (such as baby bells) and non-typical shapes (such as sweet, Italian frying peppers) will produce much more good eating over the course of a season than big-fruited bells such as the classic California wonder (which takes forever to mature). And they’ll produce their first ripe fruits much earlier in the season. Choose hot peppers based on the level of culinary heat you like (and don’t go nuts; many super-hot peppers just go uneaten after a few mouth fires).
Build a nice raised bed (no wider than 4 feet, so you never have to step on the light loose soil in the bed) or fill large containers that have superb drainage with half compost and half soil-free mix such as professional mix or potting soil. Make sure the bag feels light and is free of junk such as chemical fertilizers and so-called water-holding crystals.
Wait to plant these warm-weather lovers until nights are reliably in the 50s. Peppers should be the last plants to go outside in the spring. Make sure they get eight hours of sun a day; don’t feed them chemicals (just compost, worm castings or a nice fish and seaweed mix) and let them color up fully before picking. Green bell peppers have zero nutrition and sugar, while peppers that reach their final colors (like red or orange) are super-sweet and nutrition-rich!
C’mon, if you can’t grow cherry tomatoes…
The Environmental Working Group reports that cherry tomatoes are among the most heavily sprayed crops in the supermarket, which is crazy. Cherry tomatoes are one of the easiest, most problem-free crops you can grow!
And you don’t even need a garden — just an area that gets eight hours of sun a day, preferably beginning first thing in the morning, where you can place a few containers that have excellent drainage. In fact, don’t waste precious garden space on cherry tomatoes; they grow great in containers, especially close to the house where you can grab a few sweet treats whenever you go outside. (Try them in big hanging baskets; you’ll never go back!)
Fill those containers with half compost and half soil-free mix and wait until the nights are reliably in the 50s to plant these warm-weather lovers outdoors. And then pick promptly. Removing the ripe ones right away signals the plant to keep pumping out lots more of the tasty little treats!
Time to taste your first real potato
Of all the foods on the Environmental Working Group’s newly-released list of the 15 most heavily sprayed fruits and vegetables, potatoes might be the easiest to grow, and one of the most rewarding. In fact, if you’ve never grown your own, you have no idea how delicious the humble spud can be! Fresh-picked, home-grown potatoes are sweet and juicy — as tasty a treat as a fresh-picked tomato!
Get some certified, disease-free planting seed potatoes. Do not use supermarket spuds, as they can harbor disease and have probably been treated with sprouting inhibitors. Plant whole potatoes (don’t follow the advice to cut them up) a couple of feet apart and about 6 inches deep in your loosest, best-draining soil or container.
In a couple of weeks, you’ll see green leaves appear above ground—the sign that the potatoes are now growing below. Watch for the plants to flower (yes, potatoes flower; they’re very pretty). When the flowers fade, pull them off and mark the date. A month later, you can dig up those super-tasty small “new” potatoes. Or just let the plants continue to grow until the first frost to get full-sized ones. (Dig carefully, but deeply and widely; you sometimes find the best spuds a foot or more away from the plant!)
And don’t rush toward Russets. Instead, go for the gold! Golden-flesh potatoes such as Yukon gold have a naturally buttery flavor and make the best mashed potatoes!
Fruit trees? Sure; just be ready to work
The Environmental Working Group’s report reveals that apples, peaches and nectarines are the supermarket produce most heavily sprayed with pesticides. What can you do about it? Buy organic, of course! But if you have the room, plant a few trees of your own this spring.
Be selective. Don’t buy whatever happens to be on the floor at a big box store. You want to choose dwarf varieties that will stay a manageable size, and stick with selections that are naturally disease resistant to cut down on potential problems in advance.
Plant at least two trees of each type (two different apple varieties and/or two different peaches) to get good cross-pollination, and place each tree in an area where it will have plenty of room to grow and still get lots of sun and great airflow.
Be prepared to prune them heavily every spring (I’ll be happy to guide you on this task; just ask) and remove half of the developing fruits early in the season. (Called thinning, this task is essential to getting good-size fruits at the end of the season.) After that, a couple of sprays with a specialized clay product (such as Surround from Gardens Alive) will keep pests and diseases at bay without chemicals of any kind.
The payoff will be many pounds of insanely sweet fruit after a few seasons have passed. Once a tree reaches maturity at year five or six, you can expect 20 pounds of fruit or more per tree.
