Taming the unruly tomato vine

Published on June 1, 2011 in Gardening, General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

By Barbara Damrosch,
We’re all rooting for the tomatoes right now, hoping for fast growth, strong stems and branches laden with fruit. How easily we can forget what happens when tomatoes run amok.

It’s probably too late to warn you not to grow too many of them and not to plant them too closely. But without dampening your enthusiasm, let’s talk about support. How much you invest in that is up to you. The easiest thing is to do nothing and let the plants flop on the ground. This works with the determinate types, which stop growing after a few feet and set all their fruits at once. But the indeterminate vining ones must be trained upward before their heavy fruit brings them to their knees in a tangled, impenetrable mess.

Tomato cages, if they’re strong, work fine. I make mine out of concrete-reinforcing wire, which I buy in five-foot-wide sheets from a building supply store. This sturdy mesh has six-inch-square openings through which I can easily reach the tomatoes for picking.

I form it into cylinders 16 inches in diameter and set them over the young plants to guide their ascent, pinching out the suckers at the bottom. (A sucker is a little shoot that emerges in the angle made by the leaf branch and the main stem.) The lowest suckers emerge just above the first pair of leaves, the smooth-edged seed leaves. Left to grow, they would branch out rather than up and just get in the way. After that, there’s little to do except remove wayward branches and a few more suckers if growth is rampant. Continue reading ‘Taming the unruly tomato vine’

E coli outbreak in Germany adds 365 more confirmed cases

Published on June 1, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

The mysterious German E coli outbreak that has killed 16 people shows no sight of abating, with 365 new cases confirmed on Wednesday.

The source of the outbreak remains unknown, though the majority of those affected either live in Germany – particularly in or around the northern city of Hamburg – or have travelled there recently.

The German disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), reported 365 new E coli cases today, a quarter of them involving the hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious complication resulting from E coli infection that affects the blood and kidneys.

European Union officials said three cases had also been reported in the US, adding that most infections reported outside Germany involved German nationals or people who had recently travelled to the country. On Tuesday, a Swedish woman became the first person to die outside Germany after returning from a trip there.

On Wednesday, the northern state of Mecklenburg Western Pomerania issued a plea for blood donations in case the number of victims continues to rise.

German authorities initially identified cucumbers imported from Spain as the likely source of the outbreak but they admitted on Tuesday that further tests on the cucumbers showedthat, while contaminated, they did not carry the bacterium strain responsible for the deaths. Continue reading ‘E coli outbreak in Germany adds 365 more confirmed cases’

AVA widens test on veggies from Europe

Published on May 30, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

THE Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) has gone from flagging only vegetables from Spain and Germany to flagging greens from the rest of the European Union (EU).

The widening of its ‘hold-and-test’ requirement comes on the heels of a deadly E. coli outbreak in Germany, thought to be spread through contaminated cucumbers imported from Spain.

The ‘hold-and-test’ procedure refers to the practice of sending suspected items for tests and withholding their sale until they are found to be free of contaminants.

On Sunday, the AVA had said it would place imported leafy vegetables, cucumbers and tomatoes from Germany and Spain under hold-and-test, but it has since confirmed that cucumbers from Germany, Spain and Denmark are not brought in here.

Some, however, do come in from the Netherlands; between January and last month, 69kg of cucumbers were imported.

Yesterday, the AVA spokesman said: ‘In view of the recent situation, AVA will place imported leafy vegetables, cucumbers and tomatoes from the EU under hold-and-test, should there be such imports.’

AVA widens test on veggies from Europe

E. coli-infected cucumbers may have been sent to Austria, Hungary, Luxembourg

Published on May 29, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes, Organic Ag and Vegtables.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic — Spanish vegetables suspected of contamination with a potentially deadly bacteria are being recalled from stores in Austria and the Czech Republic to prevent the spread of a deadly outbreak, officials said Sunday.

The death toll from the bacteria rose to at least 10 people, and hundreds across Europe have been sickened.

The Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety said it was informed by a European Union warning system that two German companies had issued an immediate recall and sales ban of cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplants they had delivered in to stores in the Alpine republic. The agency said that some of the vegetables may have been sold and urged consumers to throw them away.

The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority said cucumbers from a contaminated shipment also went to Hungary and Luxembourg. There were no immediate reports of illness there.

The cucumbers transited Germany, where health officials said Sunday one more person had succumbed to the bacteria, raising the death toll from nine to 10. Continue reading ‘E. coli-infected cucumbers may have been sent to Austria, Hungary, Luxembourg’

Local Lettuce with Certified Food Safety labeling?

Published on May 10, 2011 in Organic Ag and Vegtables.

Contributed by Alan Rudo

I’ve lost my confidence in buying local lettuce after purchasing a head of Romaine with a slug inside from a vendor at Pahoa’s Farmer’s Market this past Sunday. What really makes me angry was the labeling, which read, “Hamakua Springs:Certified Food Safety.” It wasn’t until, I went to wash the lettuce, that I discovered the slug inside the plastic wrapping. I am disgusted to think that I stored this deadly slug inside my refrigerator for even a few hours. Thankfully, I discovered the slug before anyone consumed the lettuce. I contacted the grower Hamakua Springs and told them how upset and disappointed I naturally am because rat-lung disease kills people. Their reply was more pathetic than I imagined, “We go to a lot of trouble trying to address the rat lungworm issue. I went to the community meeting at Kalapana Sea View Estate, about rat lungworm disease, in early 2009. We take this issue very seriously.” This was followed with an explanation on the rat-lung cycle and oh, yeah, “we’re sorry.” Here I’m trying to buy local, support the farmers and I get lettuce labeled, “Certified Food Safety,” which might have killed someone. Where is the oversight? Where are the inspectors? Why are they able to call their product “Certified Food Safety?

Get a jump on your spring planting

Published on February 27, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

by Diana Duff
Special To West Hawaii Today

Spring is fast approaching. Gardeners are itching to start their summer gardens. One way to get started now, before the summer rains come pouring down, is to browse seed catalogs, order some interesting varieties and plant them soon.

Most plants will mature about 90 days after seeding, so you can start harvesting veggies and enjoying flowers by June if you plant early in March. With more than a month before we get longer days and warmer, wetter weather, it’s a good time to plant seeds.

Start by dreaming. Though we can garden year- round, we can use some dreaming downtime. Check seed catalogs online or order some to ponder in an easy chair. Several companies have seeds that do well here and come highly recommended from local gardeners.

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange offers hundreds of varieties of flowers, herbs and veggie seeds. It emphasizes varieties that perform well in warmer climates like ours. Its Cosmic Purple carrot might be worth a try.

At ctahr.hawaii.edu/seed, you’ll find a list of seeds that have been perfected to grow well in Hawaii. Its Anuenue or Manoa lettuces are tried and true for great salads. Continue reading ‘Get a jump on your spring planting’

Mizuna is a flavorful herb perfect for New Year’s tradition

Published on December 29, 2010 in Cooking, General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

This week you’ll see lots of mizuna at farmers markets and in supermarkets. Also called pot herb mustard or Japanese mustard, mizuna is a traditional ingredient in island versions of ozoni or rice cake soup consumed on New Year’s Day by families of Japanese ancestry.

Mizuna has feathery, somewhat spiky dark green leaves and a narrow white stalk. Its crisp flavor is somewhat reminiscent of mustard. Mizuna is often used in soup and stew preparations and in stir-fry mixtures, holding up well but shrinking in volume as it cooks. Buy twice as much as you think you’ll need.

Young mizuna greens are often used in mesclun, adding a nice spice to these salad mixes. Young or mature, mizuna can be eaten raw and is an excellent addition to salads throughout the year.

Hawaii food writer Joan Namkoong offers a weekly tidbit on fresh seasonal products, many of them locally grown. Look for “Fresh Tips” every Wednesday in the Star-Advertiser.

Mizuna is a flavorful herb perfect for New Year’s tradition – Hawaii Features – Staradvertiser.com

Hawaiian Grown TV – Maui Onions – Kula Country Farms Video

Published on December 20, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

Maui Onions have long been considered among the best and most flavorful onions in the world. The Maui Onion only grows in the deep red, volcanic earth on the upper slopes of Haleakala, Maui’s world-famous dormant volcano.

Maui onions are a variety of sweet onion which are widely cultivated on the Hawaiian island of Maui, although they can be grown in other regions as well. Like other sweet onions, Maui onions lack the sulfur which causes the strong odor and sharp taste associated with onions. The State of Hawaii has invested a great of money in marketing their famous onion variety, putting it on par with Vidalia onions from Georgia, another sweet onion variety. Many markets carry Maui onions in season, along with other sweet varieties, and if you live in a temperate zone, you may be able to grow some yourself.

Hawaiian farmers claim that a true Maui onion must be grown on Maui, because this distinct onion cultivar flourishes best in the rich volcanic soil of Mount Haleakala, the dormant volcano which dominates the landscape of Maui. The volcano’s rich, distinctive red soil may well be responsible for the distinctive sweet flavor of the Maui onion, although the warm weather on the island probably has something to do with it as well. Continue reading ‘Hawaiian Grown TV – Maui Onions – Kula Country Farms Video’

Farmworker killed by truck remembered as “good person”

Published on December 11, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

A 70-year-old Waipahu farm worker who died when a truck backed into him at Aloun Farms last Saturday was identified by a family member as Pedro Cervantes.

The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s office said Cervantes died of multiple internal injuries from the accident.

Cervantes was hit about 1 p.m. on a dirt road across from the Waipio Costco on Ka Uka Boulevard.

“I knew him as a good person,” said Monica Cablay, 18, a distant relative of Cervantes. She said he would visit her house on special occasions and left behind children and grandchildren. “He just looked like a happy person.”

Police have opened a third-degree negligent homicide investigation. The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations is investigating the death.

Farmworker killed by truck remembered as “good person” – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

Roasted beets are sweet treat

Published on December 8, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

One of the most popular root vegetables is beets, the root of a plant whose greens are edible and delicious, too. Plentiful at this time of year, especially on the mainland when root vegetables are abundant, beets have been elevated from boiled and canned status to gourmet with new cooking techniques and varieties.

Salads of roasted red beets with goat cheese come to mind as the epitome of beet preparations of recent years. Golden or yellow beets have made their appearance as well as chioggia beets, the two-toned striped beets of Italian origin. Pickled, roasted, steamed, pureed or raw, beets are part of our contemporary tables.

When buying beets, it’s better to buy them with their tops so you can see how fresh it is — droopy greens indicate age. But beets hold up well when stored in the refrigerator. There’s no way to tell whether a beet is sweet except to eat it; knowing your beet grower can help you get fresh, sweet and firm beets. Continue reading ‘Roasted beets are sweet treat’

Chayote a healthful addition to garden

Published on December 5, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

by Diana Duff Special To West Hawaii Today
Growing food is becoming increasingly appealing to Kona gardeners. When considering what to grow, we need to choose plants that grow and produce bountifully here. It also helps if their growth habit fits into our garden and their flavor fits into our personal palate preferences. Chayote squash can offer all this and more for many local gardeners.

Chayote is a vining member of the Curcubitaceae, or gourd, family. The vine can grow on the ground or onto any support, spreading as much as 20 feet from the roots. Chayote is a perennial tropical vegetable and a valuable food source that is cultivated today throughout the tropics. In addition to producing edible fruit nearly year round, chayote’s stems, tuberous roots, heart-shaped leaves and vining tendrils are also edible. Once the small, cream-colored flowers that appear beneath a leaf or branch are pollinated, they mature into the edible pear-shaped fruit.

Chayote is a native Mexican plant. It was an important staple in the diet of the Aztecs and its name is derived from the Aztec word chayotli. The Mayans ate the fruit as well as the starchy roots and added the stem shoots, as a green, to their bean dishes. Chayote remains an important ingredient in the Mexican diet today. Continue reading ‘Chayote a healthful addition to garden’

An Almanac of Extreme Weather

Published on November 28, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes, Globel Warming and Vegtables.

THE news from this Midwestern farm is not good. The past four years of heavy rains and flash flooding here in southern Minnesota have left me worried about the future of agriculture in America’s grain belt. For some time computer models of climate change have been predicting just these kinds of weather patterns, but seeing them unfold on our farm has been harrowing nonetheless.

My family and I produce vegetables, hay and grain on 250 acres in one of the richest agricultural areas in the world. While our farm is not large by modern standards, its roots are deep in this region; my great-grandfather homesteaded about 80 miles from here in the late 1800s.

He passed on a keen sensitivity to climate. His memoirs, self-published in the wake of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, describe tornadoes, droughts and other extreme weather. But even he would be surprised by the erratic weather we have experienced in the last decade.

In August 2007, a series of storms produced a breathtaking 23 inches of rain in 36 hours. The flooding that followed essentially erased our farm from the map. Continue reading ‘An Almanac of Extreme Weather’

State gets tougher on farm, fair taxes

Published on November 17, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

A chaotic scene broke out last month at the Kailua Open Market when tax agents clamped down on so-called “cash economy” businesses, leading to cancellation of the 36th annual Mayor’s Craft and Country Fair Saturday and prompting state tax officials to meet with vendors this afternoon at Makiki Park.

The crackdown by the state Tax Department’s year-old Special Enforcement Unit comes as dozens of vendors and small businesses across the islands have begun holding holiday craft fairs in homes, parking lots and large halls. The tighter enforcement requires sellers to show proof of general excise tax licenses, keep records of sales and provide sales receipts to tax agents to comply with Hawaii law.

The city Parks Department Monday announced that the fair at the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall had been called off.

Randy Yasuhara, a recreation specialist for the department, said the decision was made because the state is more strictly enforcing laws on vendor sales, and that vendors without general excise tax licenses could be liable for fines.

Tax officials have been invited by city parks officials to speak to market vendors at a meeting today at Makiki Park, said state Tax Director Stanley Shiraki.

Sakhone and Griffin Twigg, owners of West Valley Farms in Waianae, were issued a $670 citation at the Kailua Open Market on Oct. 28, allegedly for failing to produce records of transactions for their produce sales that day. Continue reading ‘State gets tougher on farm, fair taxes’

Farm owners face new charges

Published on October 29, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

HONOLULU – The owners of Hawaii’s second-largest farm face new federal charges that they exploited dozens of Thai workers by lying about their wages and confining them to the farm.

A federal grand jury re-indicted brothers Alec and Mike Sou of Aloun Farms on charges that they lured the Thai workers to Hawaii with false promises of high wages, and then kept them working by threatening deportation and confiscating their visas.

The Sous initially reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors but then disputed some of the facts they had earlier acknowledged. Chief U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway last month rejected the deal, and the Sous instead pleaded not guilty.

The Sous would have faced up to five years in prison under that agreement.

Now, the Sous could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of the new charges handed down Wednesday.

Attorneys for the Sous said Thursday that they would plead not guilty today to all 12 counts. Continue reading ‘Farm owners face new charges’

$196K returned to Aloun operators

Published on October 14, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.

A federal judge has ordered the return of $196,000 the operators of Aloun Farms had previously paid as restitution for 24 Thai workers they are accused of exploiting.

Brothers Alec and Mike Sou paid the money in August after they pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit forced labor in connection with the importation of 44 farm workers from Thailand.

The money was not distributed but held by the court. It was to be distributed to up to 24 workers at $8,000 each worker. At the time the Sous agreed to pay the restitution, the government had identified 21 workers as victims of human trafficking.

The $8,000 represented up to half of the upfront money the workers paid recruiters to get the farm jobs on Aloun Farms.

The Sous withdrew their guilty pleas last month and are scheduled to go to trial next month.

$196K returned to Aloun operators – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

The Garden provides plenty at Common Ground

Published on October 9, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes, Sustainability and Vegtables.

It’s an uncommon dining experience: you turn mauka off the highway in Kilauea, there are no advertisements, no string of cars looking for parking, no delivery trucks dropping off packaged food. No, it feels more like you have stumbled upon a 60-acre farm that happens to have a tranquil, open-air restaurant, where bananas and coconuts hang from the doors. A few feet beyond the tables are herb gardens. Beyond that is a massive garden, with rows and rows of vegetables. “You can sit down and look at where your food is coming from,” said Jay Sklar, chef and food-services director.

The Garden restaurant at Common Ground — a resource center for the community with many projects focused on sustainability — is leading the way to show what is possible for restaurants who embrace the “farm-to-fork” concept. When Common Ground — formerly Guava Kai Plantation — began the farming process over two years ago, the old guava trees, which were no longer able to produce fruit, were cut and chipped into a nitrogen-rich compost to make the soil healthy. They now continue to make their own compost with various materials on site, and mix it with oxygenated water in order to make a “tea” they spray on the crops. Sklar said they use no petro chemicals, and the practice of permaculture is used, meaning the landscaping is edible and plants are strategically placed in order to naturally benefit each other. Continue reading ‘The Garden provides plenty at Common Ground’