Hi Jacob and welcome to the forum. You will find a lot of gardeners on this forum that don't use chemicals. I seem to be allergic to a lot of things so I would love to see fewer chemicals used in farming, gardening, and food preparation. I have removed lots of things from our diet because of GMO tampering, and heavy chemical farming and the deeper I delve into the subject the more unhappy I am with commercial farm practices. In fact, if I had been typing this last night it would probably have been a rant. I have avoided soy products and canola oil, and limited corn for a long time, but since my husband has kidney disease, I have had to watch many more things. I am trying to limit all of the common vegetable oils and use only coconut and olive oils.

I have felt pretty safe with wheat. I have wondered why so many people now have celiac disease and gluten sensitivity when wheat is not GMO. After learning about some research findings yesterday, I began searching the web and found that some farmers are using RoundUp as a pre-harvest treatment. Now how smart is that? I wanted to rant. It isn't just wheat but other things that I had thought should be safe. Just have a look at this article.

Here is a link that might be useful: Preharvest Staging Guide

Carol, I've had my own temptation to rant. A few years ago I could buy organic corn from Paula's Bread website twice a year. A few years ago it disappeared from their price list. I called and she said that it had become almost impossible to raise organic corn because of GMO corn contaminating so much of the seed stock and leaving so little space to grow it. So we started raising our own thanks to George who gave me some heirloom seed. You should be able to buy organic wheat though. I still get it through Paula and there should be other sources too

Thanks Dorothy. I have wheat and I think mine is safe, but I hate to think about the things I might buy that are not safe anymore. I bake most of our bread and cook most everything from 'scratch', but it seems you have to watch every ingredient these days.

I have been known to grind popcorn, hoping it will be safer. I was gone all summer and only had tomatoes and peppers planted where we were staying. I planted one raised bed with a few tomatoes at my house and they produced without any care at all. It wasn't a big crop, but it is amazing that they continued to produce at all. I have a zuchetta squash that is still producing which was a volunteer. It is all over my garden and into my neighbors yard. We are eating them as summer squash now, but several had advanced beyond that stage and hardened up like winter squash. I cut one the other day and I even liked it as winter squash. It turns golden inside and looks like winter squash but isn't sweet like acorn or butternut. Al even liked it and he normally doesn't like winter squash, so I rarely grow any. Now that I know this one is OK as a winter squash I will just leave them to mature each year at the end of the season when I am getting tired of the summer squash 'glut'. LOL

Earlier in the week we had green beans from the garden that were also from volunteer plants. After not having a garden this year, and not much of one last year, I am ready to plant a really big one next year. My gardening place is a real mess, so I have lots of work to do this winter.

We are getting heavy rain right now and the Mesonet station is going on and off. I hope I get this sent before the power blinks off also.

We will have to discuss diet at another time.

Jacob,

Very nice to meet ya. I really appreciate your desire for organic farming. I'm happy the movement is growing.

bon

Dorothy, I think the storm has passed us for now, so I will try again.

I knew that you and George were growing your own corn and I planted dent corn one year but the wind took it to the ground. I really don't have enough room to grow corn and so I use my limited space for other things. I may try to sneak in a little next year if I can find a spot, but it won't be a significant amount. I have seed for several types and may even have some from George that is a couple of years old.

We learned six months ago that Al was in Stage 3 kidney failure. We were told that it was not reversible and would continue to get worse, but we might be able to slow it down. We didn't like that prognosis and decided to do everything we could to keep it from advancing. He didn't have the habits of booze, smoking, coffee or tea so that part was already taken care of. He has always loved vegetables so that was a plus. I have always cooked with whole grains, so that didn't require a change. He had to limit protein and I also quit using any cooking oils that I thought might be dangerous. He misses hot dogs and bologna sandwiches, but he hasn't had any trouble with anything else. (I could live the rest of my life without missing those 2 things).

This week he had the same tests run again that were done 6 months ago, and his numbers were amazing. He not only had not advanced, but had returned to the kidney function that he had 2 years ago. He still has problems to correct, but I think we have proven what diet can do, so we know we are on the right track.

Jacob, can you define "radical farming" for me? LOL

Anything that is grown today on the farms is some kind of hybrid and technically a GMO. All the cereal grains are certainly not the same as they were 50-60 yrs. ago. Take a look at all the vegetables & fruit, bred for looks and shelf life. If you read the packages nearly every thing comes from some foreign country, so who knows what has been sprayed on it. They use chemicals the U.S, wont allow. The collages are the hand maiden of the chemical companies as chemicals are all they teach now days. Spray chemicals on the ground in the spring then spray again when the weeds & pest come. The days of organic farming are long gone.

Carol, I had no idea Al was having health problems. I am so happy for both of you that you were able to reverse some of the problems!! I have heard of others who were able to do that. I will tell you, my gastro doc once told me that he had never had a patient willing give up caffeine so they didn't have to take meds. They just take the meds and go on. I am not anti meds at all, but I couldn't in good conscience bill my insurance company the huge amount of money for meds when the solution was in my hands.

After a time I was able to have caffeine, but I will always have to be careful I think.

Jacob, sorry, I forgot to say "welcome to the forum."
Carol, I am so sorry to hear that Al has kidney disease. I have just finished reading the book "Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill" by Udo Erasmus and I think that giving up the cooking oils had a big part to play in Al's recovery. According to the author, who did his doctoral thesis on fat and oil metabolism, the only safe oils are unrefined ones eaten cold or in baked goods. He advocates no frying at all. I haven't gone that far yet, but for years have used olive oil for low temp sauteing. I use Udo's oil--his brand--for salads and other cool uses.
I just wish a strict diet would reverse Parkinson's. Glenn has also given up some things. He loves Beef Brats and used to eat a package almost every week. But the MSG really aggravates the tremors. So I read labels a lot more carefully now.
Lisa, I gave up milk, eggs, and wheat for two years back 20 years ago when I tested allergic to them. After two years of no cheating, the Dr said I could try each again one at a time to see if I could tolerate them. Now I eat all three but not every day as I used to.

Soo sorry, Jacob, this is what is known as "Hijacking a thread" and it does happen here sometime. Carol is an old friend here that we haven't heard a lot from the last couple years. Hope some people in your part of the state chime in.

Lisa, Al has really bad knees that cause him a lot of pain. With the kidney problem, he needs to limit all meds, so he just has to 'gut it out' a lot of the time. When he learned that he had kidney disease, he just said he wanted to live and would do anything he needed to do. Although I limit his meat, I will watch him feed part of it to the dog rather than eat it, so he cuts it even more than I do. We have many meatless meals, but usually have some type of meat for one meal each day. He eats eggs and cheese, but much, much less meat.

His doctor was amazed at how the numbers had changed. He said he had seen that happen only a very few times in his many years of practice and he is retiring this month.

I have always had an interest in nutrition, gardening, and all things food, I guess, but for the last couple of years I have immersed myself in permaculture, and done a lot of research about food and farming. I have learned so much, but there is so much more to learn. The result of this is that I just get more and more angry about the things that have been labeled as healthy that are being found to be very dangerous. We have been sold a bill of goods in so many areas, and although I didn't fall for all of them, I did embrace some. I should have been smarter.

I'm so happy to hear the news, Carol!

Dorothy, I think I stole Jacob's thread, but maybe he will come back and get involved in the discussion. I hope. He may think that many of us are radical. LOL

Auther, I plant mostly open pollinated seed but also use a few hybrids. I am not afraid of hybrids, but I see many people confusing facts between hybrid and GMO and they are, of course, not anywhere near the same. Since it is much cheaper to plant OP and save seeds if you wish, it seems to be much more practical to me. In addition, these verses are from the first chapter off Genesis and I take them quiet literally.

"11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good."

I just feel more comfortable planting a seed that will produce a plant and make a seed "after it's own kind".

Holy crap! Hi folks.
Glad to see folks on here.
By radical farming I meant practices against the norm, which is so called conventional farming. I was hoping to find folks who weren't going to quote bible verses, but don't want to stop people from their own beliefs. I am not into the idea that some god created nature and blah blah, and was hoping to find folk that could leave that out of the convo as well.
I am not into GMO crops and grow open pollinated seed with my partner. We came from Oregon and the pests here make it a real challenge to grow without chems. But we are learning and using local info and testing new techniques in hopes to bring these methods back and bring new ones forward.
Are there any Wiccans out there or Athiests or Agnostics or Christians/Muslims that are open to other beliefs about nature? Hate to keep bringing belief into this, but want to find a community that doesn't use religion or god as their basis of farming. I look forward to meeting all types of folks also, so please don't be afraid to discuss. Just expect me to bring an alternative perspective to faith-based nature beliefs.

On another note, anyone know about Paw Paws?

And thanks for the welcomes and very sad to hear of some of the things you folks and famlies are going through. Lots of good vibes to you all.

Let me suggest you don't come on a forum and immediately ridicule people that are different from you on your first post.

Hi Jacob,
Welcome to Oklahoma and welcome to our little spot on the web. I've found so much gardening wisdom around here and learn something new with pretty much every post. I'd love to talk garden with you. My relationship to Christ as my savior is the framework of all things in my life, big and small, including the lifestyle of gardening. In fact, the more I learn about plants, the more I am in awe of my God who created them. It is the basis of everything in my life and I'm not really going to be able to separate it. I'm sure there are lots of views on here but frankly the only one to bring the topic up that I have seen is you. I'd love to hear about your experiences in gardening in another region vrs here and I hope you stick around and share!
Christina

Jacob,

We have a broad spectrum of belief (religiously) on this forum. I am an evangelical. I know that's a pretty broad term. Most of the terms are so broad these days, that one has to explain what they mean when they use them. I believe in a literal, grammatical, historical interpretation of the of the Bible. I have a Masters of Divinity from Grace Theological Seminary, in Indiana and am also a graduate of what is now Colorado Christian University and Moody Bible Institute. My faith is very important to all areas of my life.

My wife and I are into seed saving and garden organically. We are very much into basic homesteading skills and produce most of our own food. I will include a link to the Green Country Seed Savers website. You are most welcome to participate there as well.

I differ in some areas of belief with a number of my good friends on this forum. But here on the Oklahoma Gardening Forum we discuss gardening. In any area that one's belief affects their gardening, then they are welcome to discuss that. But no one here is out to turn the forum into a tool for evangelism.

I'm glad you mentioned that you arrived here from Oregon. The cultural difference between there and here helps shed light on your comments. I understand that you only mean good and no offense at all was taken. I look forward to getting to know you and to your input in our group. From here on, I'd recommend that you simply address gardening. Be aware that abrupt references to others beliefs could be offensive.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Here is a link that might be useful: Green Country Seed Savers

I think if you will read back through our posts, you will find that each of our personal beliefs are not thoroughly discussed. I imagine most of us might have briefly mentioned something because it is tangential to something we are talking about it (say, I mention I am in charge of the flower garden at my church), but that is usually as far as it goes.

You are in the right place to discuss gardening in Oklahoma.

If you want to discuss religion or lack there of, I suggest visiting the Hot Topics Forums. WOO EEE, that place gives me heartburn and I have finally weaned myself off of even checking it.

This post was edited by lisa_h on Sat, Oct 11, 14 at 21:37

I certainly didn't intend to cause a fight and only mentioned the two bible verses because of what they mean to me in relation to gardening and seed. I would never try to push religion on someone who is resistant to the idea, but neither do I want them to push a denomination or ideology on me. Many of us on this forum are good friends and we have many different religious and political views and none of that keeps us from discussing gardening or sharing seeds or plants.

Hopefully there wasn't any fight ; )
I hope I didn't come across negative. That wasn't my intention.

George

George...Hey, I am from Denver originally. I grew up east of Denver, but my dad lives in Centennial now so I am back that direction every so often. It has changed sooooo much from when I was a youngster. Denver/Aurora has crept right to my old neighborhood. There are townhomes and apartments where I only remember wheat fields. In fact, I can remember when there were so few people there that all of our mailboxes were at the end of the road!

As difficult as Oklahoma can be to garden in, let me tell you the plains of Colorado are nothing to dream about either!!

(...and another hijack :) )

LOL! I have a brother in Colorado. The scenery is great. But, Lisa, you're absolutely right about Colorado and gardening. My bro had snow over a month ago!

George

Hi Jacob. Eric from Norman here. Welcome. I think you'll find this forum to be only about gardening, with many extremely experienced and knowledgable people. Religion never comes up; in fact, this is the first time I've encountered it here.
Organic farming is awesome, so best of luck. In my smaller yard and garden, I try to stay organic, so I use fish emulsion by the gallon. Smells awful but works wonders, on pretty much everything I grow. Also, amend the heck out of your soil with compost - no such thing as too much compost in our hard clay soil... Gardening here is certainly a challenge, but this forum and other web resources make it a lot easier. Have fun.

I apologize if I offended anyone. I also don't think I ridiculed anyone either.

So, does anyone know about Paw Paws?

This post was edited by CopperPennybath on Mon, Oct 13, 14 at 8:51

Well, here's all I know:

They require male and female plants for pollination.
They are supposed to grow in our climate.
I purchased a couple little ones, several years ago, planted them, and they all died. The fact that they died doesn't necessarily mean they won't grow here. One of these days I'm going to try it again.
My wife's grandparents, in Southern Illinois, grew them successfully. They LOVED the fruit. They never had to do anything to them to obtain really good quality fruit.

Hopefully someone else will drop in with more information.

Thanks. I hear they do well in Eastern Ok near creeks and rivers and are the only native tropical fruit plant to survive in North America after the last Ice age. I love the taste of them.
I would love to find out where to wild harvest them on an Okie river.

Paw paw's used to grow wild between Branch & Paris, Ark. back about 100 years ago as told to me by my Grandpa. But he said he never saw any after he came out here. He thought it might be to dry or something. But that was just what he thought that doesn't make it so. You will just have to experiment with some and see. Muscadine grapes grow wild all over Ark. but they are hard to grow here as I have tried and failed but someone else might have had better luck.

One more thing that I forgot to mention. I try to grow things that grow better under drought conditions such as Okra, Cowpeas, sweet potatoes, some tomato cultivars, and hot & bell peppers. Sweet corn will grow if planted early enough in the spring. Water melons , cantaloupe and squash will grow if you can do battle with the squash bugs & vine bores. Any kind of greens will do good if you can keep them watered but that goes with every thing, Water!

I've been trying to sustain myself with gardening for years. Usually have to plant a large garden to try and overcome the bugs, critters and weather and get a decent crop.

While I read about people trying to grow their first garden, often times it is to small to be considered sustainable by my definition. I would consider it a supplemental garden. And I applaud them for what they accomplish .

I grow for a local farmers market and I do grow hybrids and some open pollinated varieties to maximize the crop and provide some less grown varieties.

I think with the type of climate we have and the multitude of insects we have to deal with, a chemical free, sustainable garden is going to be more challenging .

But I agree the less chemicals we use, the better the product. instead of trying to grow chemical resistant varieties, we should focus on improving and stabilizing non hybrid varieties for our regions. I think the small back yard gardens would have better results with less cross pollination.

I don't know if saving the best is the answer or saving the average to stabilize a known producer. I think a comparison would need to be done to see if you need the cream of the crop or the average producer to see if the size of the product dictated the final outcome on the next years crop from saved seed.

Some of us are not getting any younger and it might take years to get the results over an average of conditions grown.

I'm leaving my job the end of the month so hopefully I can get back to doing what I enjoy next spring. growing food!
I'm in SE ok so my dirt(clay , gravel) will be different from the Okema area. I think it is more sandy, clay.

There is lots of information on this site and friendly people that do not mind sharing it.

My dad was the son of a share-cropper and times were hard, he and his brothers would hunt for small game along the Arkansas River bottoms and south past Paris to help put food on the table. I can remember him talking about Pawpaws growing wild. It seemed as though they had a short shelf life and would fall from the tree and go bad quickly. The small game seemed to like them, but there was very little larger game in Ar. at that time. In hard times people will shoot what the need and not worry too much about hunting season.

Dad moved to the Greenwood area around 1940, that is the area where I grew up, and still live. I liked to deer hunt when I was young. Most of the wild muscadines I would find were south of where I live by about 25 to 100 miles, but I did not hunt a large area. You can often gut a dear and find muscadines, acorns and berry types of fruit in the deer.

I have seen Paw Paw plants growing along the Buffalo River, in AR. I can't say that I've observed them here in Tahlequah.

George

There was a company growing (and selling) PawPaw plants in Eureka Springs AR, but their website seems to have gone inactive in 2013. At least we know they will grow there.

Stark Brothers sell the grafted ones.

Here is a link that might be useful: Stark Bros.

Here is some PawPaw information that might be useful.

Here is a link that might be useful: PawPaw

I haven't been on the forum much the last couple of weeks so am a latecomer to this thread and had to read forever and ever before I could catch up on everything that had been said so I then could comment.

First, Jacob, welcome back to Oklahoma and welcome to the forum. We do have many folks here who garden organically or at least as organically as possible, so I think you'll find more kindred souls here maybe than you were expecting to find.

My family and I have lived and gardened here in Oklahoma since 1999 and I have sprayed a synthetic, broad-spectrum pesticide exactly one time in all those years and that was this past summer for grasshoppers. So, while I cannot say I garden in a way that is 100% organic, I'd say I am using organic and sustainable methods at least 99% of the time.

I have a very large garden and raise as much of our food as I can, and spend most all of my so-called free time preserving the home-grown food for future meals via canning, freezing, dehydration and fermentation.

When you garden organically, it is a lot harder (and a lot more expensive and a lot more labor intensive) than gardening (or farming) conventionally, but it also is a lot more rewarding when you know you're putting food on the table that wasn't treated with synthetic pesticides, acaricides, fungicides, etc. and that wasn't fed with synthetic fertilizers. I like knowing that I work hard every month of every year to improve the soil we have here and make it better...and better....and better....over time. I like knowing that the amended soil gets better every year, produces better every year, and produces food worth eating.

Having said all the above, when we bought our land and built our house, I felt like I was the only person in southern OK who was trying to garden organically and sustainably. The really nice and kind old farmers/old ranchers who lived around us couldn't wait to tell me how I was doing everything wrong and nothing right and was doomed to failure. They meant well, but drove me up the wall. I never tried to convert them from conventional farming or ranching to using organic methods and it drove me up the wall that they felt the need to stop by daily and visit me and point out all the things they believed I was doing wrong as they endeavored to convert me from organic gardening to conventional farming methods. Still, I always treated them with respect because my parents reared me to have respect for my elders, and these guys were in their 70s, 80s and 90s when I was in my 40s, so I bit my tongue a lot and just kept on doing my thing. Eventually, as they saw our garden produce bountiful, beautiful harvests, and often earlier than their conventional plots did, all their snide comments about organics pretty much stopped. Only one of the old farmer/old rancher guys was not like that, and I appreciate Fred so much for just letting me be me. If he thought I was an organic idiot lost in the wilderness, he never, ever once said so. He always gave me manure from his barn and old spoiled hay from his fields, and tons of molasses feed tubs for container gardening, and in the process, he became the best friend I made here in Oklahoma.

My friend, Fred, is still gardening and still ranching and now in is his early 90s. He can run rings around me to this day, and I hope he lives to be 110 years old because I cannot imagine my life without Fred in it. I hope that you find an encouraging person or group of people in your area that will become that important voice of gardening know-how for you that Fred has been for me. Everybody needs a person like Fred in their lives.

Keep an eye on what is going on in/with the Oklahoma Food Co-Op because I bet there are some organic and sustainable farming and ranching groups involved in it, and the same thing is true of the local farmer's markets.

I second everything Robert (BusyOne) said about the need to have a larger garden to make up for the fact that we have serious prolonged weather and pest issues here in this state. I always plant a lot more than I think we need, and that allows for crop failures whether they are caused by weather, pests, diseases, etc. In the years when there are more serious challenges, we still get plenty of food for us in all but the worst drought year (like 2011). In the years when the weather is kinder and the pest problems are not insurmountable, we have huge surpluses and I usually can preserve enough of those surpluses to last 2 or 3 years, which is nice to have as back-up if the next year or two is a rough year with lots of problems.

You probably are not going to encounter anything here in OK that someone else on this forum hasn't already encountered, and the folks here are generous with sharing their solutions. Still, there are some pests that are hard to defeat organically some years. Thankfully, pest populations vary a lot so that while grasshoppers may eat your bean plants right down to the ground one year, they may not be a problem at all the next year. Gardening successfully, happily, sustainably, and as organically or as naturally as possible here does require enormous willpower and self-control, but it can be done. I had to train myself not to panic when any given pest was devouring things because, usually and almost always, there is a way to overcome those pests. Even the huge hordes of migratory grasshopers won't ruin your garden entirely every year, but 1 or 2 years out of 10. when they are at their peak population, it can be very hard to defeat them either organically or conventionally.

Finally, the biggest problem I have as an organic gardener is that I am surrounded by folks who use chemical herbicides that drift on the wind. That is a problem that is very frustrating and I don't always have a good way to avoid damage from their use of herbicides. Some years I have major damage (this year was one of those years) from herbicide drift, but other years I barely have any at all. Luckily, we now are surrounded more by ranchers than by farmers, and the ranchers around us don't seem to use herbicides nearly as often as the farmers do....but then, the railroads, various residents and even the county and state use herbicides along roadways, utility lines, etc., so the issues with herbicide drift are real and likely never will go away. If I had to garden surrounded by conventional farms on all 4 sides of me, I'd likely be certified insane by now just from knowing all the chemicals they were spraying were drifting onto our place from time to time.

Dawn

Appreciate all the info folks. Much thanks.

Feel free to become well acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Oklahoma Squash bug for they will become constant companions along your journey. Their lineage is long and fortuitous. Their religious indoctrination compels them to dominate the world. They usually contain themselves to the curcurbit patches in glutenous fashion, but even these are not sufficient at times as they intend to dominate the world through massive reproduction. They overlook any and all importation restrictions and guidelines and have no respect for authoritative presence or other bug cultures. Equally, they will override the patches and invade insecure garden sheds and even homes that are not on guard for their invasions. Yes. Mr. and Mrs. Squash bug are bent on dominating the world and establishing the Squash Bug Caliphate. And their point of entry to dominate the world is Oklahoma. They're easy to eradicate when their numbers are few. When their numbers are too high you can only pick off some here and there and hope for the best with all the rest.

May the winged sky gods protect you.

haha

bon