Sundown Farm™

Organic gardeners work the bugs out

Stephen Lyn Bales

Any good gardener needs to know as much about the “bugs” that feed in their gardens as they do about the plants themselves.

Bill Johns is no exception. This summer, Bill and his wife Margaret have tried their hands at organic gardening in an initial effort they call, “Beta Test 2001.” They have an ideal low-lying garden spot behind their home off Old Stage Road.

Their home office is filled with books and plastic containers with some of the insects that have turned up this season. The Johns are used to tackling big problems. Both have master’s degrees from UT: her is communications, his in business administration. They believe in living in harmony with nature.

“Humans and nature need each other in order to coexist,” says Bill. “Nature is a mirror for us. When we work together in harmony, we both flourish. When man destroys nature, he destroys himself.”

To reach this end, organic gardeners use no chemical pesticides to combat the various plant munchers. Chemical insecticides may work in the short term but in the long term these same poisons can leach into the local waterways, killing the aquatic life found there. Poison is poison, after all. Also, garden pests may become “superbugs,” developing an immunity to today’s pesticides.

Organic gardeners seek natural methods to outwit their foes. To do this, it helps to understand the adversary’s lifestyle.

On a recent visit to their garden, Bill and Margaret identified several unwanted guests for me. On one bean plant they were able to point out the various life stages—eggs, larva, pupa and adult—of the Mexican Bean Beetle. These small Dijon-mustard-yellow beetles are the “black sheep” of the ladybug family. There are over 400 species of ladybugs, most are beneficial because they eat aphids. Gardeners since the Middle Ages have known of their benefits. A few species of ladybugs, however, are not helpful because they eat plants. The Mexican Bean Beetle is one of these. They’ll decimate many types of bean plants by “skeletonizing” the leaves. When they’re finished only the lace-like skeleton of the leaf will remain.

The Johns also have both Spotted and Striped Cucumber Beetles, small, yellowish beetles that feed on a variety of garden plants, including corn and cucumbers.

Squash Bugs can cause mega-damage to cucurbit corps, especially squash and pumpkins. Related to stink bugs, these members of the Hemiptera insect order suck plant juices. The real damage is cause by toxins released into the plant by the flat-backed true bugs. These toxins flow throughout the plant, causing all the leaves and shoots to blacken and die long before the fruit can form.

With “lessons learned” and yields that “exceeded expectations,” the Johns are already looking forward to next year’s crop. They hope to have an awesome set-up and to be able to outwit their uninvited guests naturally. We wish them well.

To contact Lyn call 577-4717, ext 24 or e-mail him at lbales@ijams.org.

Organic Gardeners Keep it 100 Percent Natural

Stephen Lyn Bales

If you’re a gardener, it’s time to reflect on last year’s successes and plan for 2003.

What better way to pass those long January evenings than to settle into your favorite easy chair and leaf through seed catalogs.

Organic gardeners plan with nature’s natural processes in mind; as the French would say, they world “au naturale.” Recent studies have shown that although organic gardening may not produce quite the yields of gardeners using chemicals, the organic gardens cost less and do not harm the environment with surplus chemistry. Example: excess synthetic fertilizers can wash from a garden plot into the closest waterway and cause algae blooms, throwing the ecological balance of the stream or pond out of whack.

At the end of the 2001 growing season we visited Margaret and Bill Johns who live off Old Stage Road. They had just finished their first “trial” season as organic gardeners. Over a year later, we wondered how their 2002 garden had fared.

This year the Johns moved their main gardens into raised beds. This made it easier to week, work, water and harvest. It also improved the plats root systems and produced better yields. For an added nutrient, they used organic fish emulsion as a fertilizer and straw mulch to help the beds hold moisture. They also installed soaker hoses to save water and watering time.

Garden pests are the band of any gardener. This year the Johns used companion gardening (plants that can grow together and are beneficial to each other). As Bill writes, “some plants repel the non-beneficial insects that are attracted to another companion plant. Examples would be planting radishes near cucumbers to repel Mexican bean beetles. Other useful plants that can be used organically in the garden include garlic, horseradish, nasturtiums, white geraniums and chili peppers.”

Another way to control pests is to make friends with their enemies. The Johns released 10,000 ladybugs and set out praying mantis’ egg cases. Both are beneficial, they eat plant-eating pests. The Johns also set out soldier and ladybug lures to attract still more six-legged helpers.

Bill says, “we did not see the 10,000 ladybugs daily. (Some perhaps moved to neighboring farmland.) However, we had an ever presence, probably 1,000 percent increase from the year before.” Bill concludes, “our insect issues from 2001 were decreased by 85 to 90 percent.”

With a much bigger harvest this past fall than the year before, the Johns are anxiously awaiting 2003. Nothing spawns success like success. To learn more, the Johns recommend “Carrots Love Tomatoes” by Louise Riotte and “Planet Natural Organic Pest Control Catalog” available at www.planetnatural.com.

Thanks Margaret and Bill.

Enterprising farmers like healthy new lifestyle

By ANGELA PATTERSON, pattersona@knews.com
August 24, 2005

At the end of May, I stopped working out with my personal trainer. I was happy with where I was, and went to the gym faithfully to continue working those trouble spots.

But then I got lazy.

I started skipping workouts, opting to veg in front of the television rather than run on the treadmill. Then I started sneaking a burger here, a slice of pizza there. (After all, don't ketchup and pizza sauce count as servings of vegetables?) All of that eating and inactivity has caused a tightness in my jeans that is all too familiar. So now I drag myself back to the gym every night, and deny myself the joys of chocolate cake and french fries. It's so hard to get that weight off, but it's so easy to put back on. Go figure.

But the other day, I talked with someone who is in the same boat as many of us and decided to make a more permanent change. Bill Johns, a Fort West subdivision resident who ran for Farragut mayor this past election, said he and his wife, Margaret, were busy people who traveled all the time, and therefore ate whatever was quick and easy. While this was beneficial to their schedules, it was bad for their waistlines.

Growing tired of being overweight and out of shape, the Johnses tilled a small patch in their large backyard, threw down some seed and used traditional methods to try growing their own vegetables.

"It was a lot of capital investment up front," Johns said of the garden they started in 2001. "But we looked at the time it took to buy groceries, the time in the car, the gas used and the quality of food we were eating. So we thought we'd try growing our own. We had no idea what we were doing. The one thing we realized is that we sucked as farmers."

But being the type-A, business-minded people they are, they decided to take a more "corporate" approach. Bill and Margaret whipped out the charts, diagrams and latest research, and created a plan to use organic gardening to grow their own food. Goals were set, and projections were made. They planted everything from blackberries to squash. In 2002, they harvested more than 1,600 tomatoes, many of which they gave away to family and friends.

In 2003, they implemented container gardening, started an herb garden, and the fruit trees began to produce. In 2004, additional beds were added. As more friends and business associates began to ask to buy the fruits of their labor, the couple's capitalist spirit began to rise.

Out came the charts and diagrams once again to form the business plan for Sundown Farm, for which they've picked the tagline "The Smallest Farm in Tennessee." At the 2005 Grainger County Tomato Festival, Bill and Margaret debuted the Sundown Farm brand, hoping to partner with other farmers with considerably more land to grow products to market under the Sundown Farm brand and meet the demand for its products.

Though they are economically minded, the real reason the Johnses did this was to get healthier and do something they enjoy.

"We love to be outside, and this gives us the opportunity to do that," Johns said. "Growing and preparing our own food not only makes meals healthier, but it's more enjoyable. We cook and prepare every meal, which forces us to converse with one another, spend more quality time together. Our desire to change a bad habit has resulted in a lifestyle change that's brought us closer together."

The Johnses even gave away their microwave, as they don't buy anything prepackaged anymore. Now that's dedication to a new way of life. I'd venture to guess that most of us aren't at that place on our journey to healthy living, but at least when we're ready to give up our fast food for a fresh salad, we know where to get the veggies.

Backyard Birds: More Fun to Watch Than Television

Stephen Lyn Bales

There’s something about being cooped up inside in winter that makes watching the backyard birds that much more enjoyable.

Perhaps it’s because we’re inside, racked with cabin fever, and they’re outside active and free. And the show only gets better as spring approaches and their avian activities turn to building a nest and raising a family.

Marcey Wheeler and her husband, Tony, watched last spring as a chickadee made repeated mysterious trips to their outside door mat.

It turned out that the ardent bird was retrieving dog hair. Their two dogs, Ticker and Zoey, often lie on the mat and the chickadee even showed a decided preference for Zoey’s finer hair. (No offence, Tucker.) Birds often use animal hair to line their nests and finer is softer. When I brush our dog I like to leave the shed fur in clumps outside in the bushes for the birds to find.

Another interesting behavior recently observed by Chris and Jerry Campbell of Tellico Village was the yellowish woodpecker that was drilling holes in their trees.

Again, what’s the deal? This modus, operandi is the work of only one local bird: the yellow-bellied sapsucker, a woodpecker that only spends its winters here. It drills perfectly round holes (like people that collect maple sap from trees and for the same reason) except the sapsucker likes the sap of more kinds of trees than just the maples.

Bill and Margaret Johns do a lot to attract birds and other wildlife to their yard. The Johns are avid organic gardeners and like most “green thumbs” are always experimenting with new crops and techniques.

The Johns also share their bounty. They “decoupaged” some of their leftover gourds with peanut butter and sunflower seeds, which the birds found appealing. The sunflower seeds came from plants they had grown. Bill and Margaret’s pumpkin patch literally “took over the yard” this past year. They cut the tops off some of the leftovers and watch as the squirrels and birds came to eat their fill of pulp and seeds.

A decorative topping of peanut butter and whole, shelled peanuts made the leftovers even more alluring. Birds have also been seen collecting cotton from a few plants the Johns grew last season. Margaret says they use it “to weather strip” their winter roosting homes.

All of these are very creative ways to interact with backyard birds. It’s also a huge help to them.

I recently read that a chickadee has a 50 percent greater chance of surviving the winter if it finds a friendly backyard bird feeder.

To learn more, come to Farragut Town Hall, Tuesday evening, Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. I’ll be doing a program about backyard birds. In addition to showing slides and playing the songs of the most common ones, we’ll discuss ways to make your yard greener and more “bird-friendly.” The program is part of the “Living Clean & Green” series sponsored by KUB and WBIR Channel 10.

Please, stop by and say “hello.” It’ll be great fun. Thanks to all.

Migrating Monarch Butterflies Create Memories

Stephen Lyn Bales

Our monarch butterfly column a few weeks ago sparked a lot of interest. Mary Anderson wondered about the kind of trees the monarchs winter on and the status of the Mexican mountaintops they fly to. Similarly to the tops of the Smokey Mountains, the high peaks in Mexico that serve as the winter havens for the monarchs are mostly forested with conifers, primarily firs and pines with some cypresses.

The dominant tree is a fir called the “oyamel” by the Mexicans. The international Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary Foundation has worked the past several years to collect funds to protect the mountaintops from being logged. Recently, Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo signed a decree to enlarge the protected monarch sanctuaries from 62 square miles to 216 square miles.

In the core zone of each sanctuary, logging is forbidden. Locally, Dr. Bob Harris e-mailed; concerned he hadn’t seen any migrating monarchs. Dr. Bob is a retired anesthesiologist and a seasoned naturalist. He was relieved when some finally flew past their terrace in Sequoyah Hills late in the month.

A little farther west, Bill and Margaret Johns saw five to ten a day fly through their backyard off Old State Road in early October.

I spoke with regular reader Debbie Cavanaugh at Five Sisters Garden Gifts a few weeks ago. She remembered seeing monarchs one October a few years ago at Seagrove Beach on the Florida panhandle.

It was a perfect, calm day; the ocean was unusually flat. She and several other people were in shoulder-deep water, enjoying the gentle surf. They all were amazed as they watched dozens of the orange butterflies fly past them headed straight out to sea over the Gulf of Mexico. “It’s just one of those kinds of memories that stay with you forever,” said Debbie.

My most recent memorable monarch encounter happened on the beach as well. Late last month, Lindalee and I vacationed on Cherry Grove Beach in South Carolina.

The weather was ideal, sunny with warm breezes. Over the course of five days, I counted 607 passing monarchs there and at various other spots along the coast south to Huntington Beach State Park. At times, as many as four or five a minute fluttered by, seemingly in no real hurry.

This section of coastline must serve as a monarch flyway because if you draw a line on a may from Cherry Grove to Huntington, the line points straight to Mexico; and crosses Florida roughly at Seagrove, the site of Debbie’s butterfly adventure. Watching these amiable flyers slowly pass and knowing where they are going is an inspiration; what an example of intestinal fortitude.

You might think all of this butterfly watching is a pretty mundane way to pass the time, but to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau, “the secret to a happy life is to simplify.” Thanks to all.

©2006 Bluewater, LLC