84-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 6, 2002
On Being a
Farm Wife
(and other hazard:
Joyce Bupp
“Ummm, what do I smell?”
On any given day around here
about lunch time, the answer to
that query could vary widely.
One recent morning, it was the
aroma of beef tenderizing in a
slow oven in a sauce of brown
gravy, waiting to be flooded into
a waiting pond of mashed pota
toes. That proved a workable
choice on this particular day
when I grabbed lunch, headed off
on an errand and returned to
find the leftovers vanished, with
a used dinnerplate and eating
utensils in the sink. Sometimes, it
might be meatloaf and scalloped
potatoes, or baked chicken and
baked potatoes. Perhaps a casse
role or lasagna or ham or spa
ghetti sauce or soup simmering
on a back burner.
On days with a spare minute,
the mid-day atmosphere around
the kitchen might hint of a cake
in progress, or cookies just about
ready to come out of the oven.
Late summer finds the kitchen
reminiscent of a tomato cannery,
as the basement shelves get
stocked with our annual needs of
canned tomatoes, tomato sauce
and salsa. A favorite of chillier
weather is the house hung heavy
with the fragrance of apple butter
cooking down in the oven.
But on this day, the greeting
uttered by those entering the
house is slightly less enthusiastic.
“Ughh, what is that smell?”
Most folks could probably
make lots of guesses, and still
come up short the correct answer.
And when you finally admit what
it is, the answer might generate a
blank look.
“Ground. I’m cooking ground.
Or to be more environmentally
correct, I’m cooking soil. Potting
soil.
The house is full of this pun
gent, earthy scent because I don’t
care to repeat a frustrating short
cut undertaken last year. A
pointed note written by me to
myself that I came across a few
days ago issued specific instruc
tions in the capital-letter, com
puter-style, equivalent of shout
ing.
“Do not try to start these to
mato seeds without sterilizing the
soil.”
See, last year, in a time crunch,
I didn’t. A day came when realiz
ation hit that it was well overdue
to start tomato seeds if I was
going to have my favorite variet
ies to plant out in the garden,
specifically those not usually
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available as started plants. Pack
ets of seed were here, I had just
neglected sterilizing starter medi
um in which to sprout them. So, I
used clean containers and com
mercially-packaged potting soil,
which I really thought was steril
ized. But I didn’t read the label
for that specific criteria.
It was a short-sighted shortcut.
Because the seeds sprouted,
poked their little heads through
the soil surface, and soon after
keeled over with damp-off dis
ease. Which is generally prevent
able simply by sterilizing starter
soil a few hours in a slow oven to
kill the responsible bacteria. Or,
irresponsible bacteria, maybe.
Whatever, I ended up buying
tomato plants and restarting a
few specialty ones. And they all
seemed to take incredibly long to
start ripening.
This season, it’s back to the
proverbial “Square one,” aiming
to repeat the earliest-ripening to
mato I’ve ever grown. It’s a
plum-type called Enchantment; a
thoughtful reader out there sent
me some seeds years ago with a
recommendation on how early it
was. After starting them inside, I
plunked two of the little plants
into those wall-o-water devices,
sort of a mini-“teepee” with
water between two layers of plas
tic which protect the plant from
chills, or worse.
Once they got roots established
and the sun grew brighter, the
plants literally climbed out the
top of the plastic shell complete
with blooms ready for pollinat
ing. They were the first to ripen,
and the last still on the vine
months later when frost hit.
Naturally, I was enchanted by
the qualities of the Enchantment
tomato and ordered more to keep
on hand.
So, please excuse the pungent
odor temporarily permeating our
house.
Our tomato-loving family is
hoping it’s the smell of success.
4 Islands
( Pot-In-Pot’ Grows Trendy
COLUMBUS, Ohio A rela
tively new landscape and nursery
stock production technique that
combines conventional field and
container practices is finding a
successful niche in the industry.
Pot-in-pot (PIP), the technique
of growing container trees and
shrubs in a holding pot perma
nently placed in the ground, is an
alternative system to field cul
ture, or growing trees and shrubs
directly in the soil. Pot-in-pot is
becoming very popular but it has
some critical issues that need to
be considered.
‘Pot-in-pot is an increasing
trend in the United States,” said
Hannah Mathers, an Ohio State
University nursery and land
scape specialist. “Container pro
duction is getting to be a bigger
deal. On the West Coast, con
tainer production represents
about 45 percent of nursery pro
duction. It’s anticipated that con
tainer production will continue to
grow and eventually pass field
production, and pot-in-pot is
part of that growth.”
Mathers speculates the grow
ing popularity of pot-in-pot pro
duction is due in part to the
many advantages the technique
offers landscape and nursery pro
fessionals over field production.
‘For one thing a tree can be
sold year-round in container pro
duction,” said Mathers. “If you
put a tree in the ground, you ba
sically only have two time peri
ods to lift that tree for sale,
spring or fall. But with pot-in
pot, you’ve got a lot more flexibil
ity with the material.”
Trees and shrubs raised in pot
in-pot production also tend to
grow faster because the soil-less
medium used to grow the plants
enables professionals to add ad
ditional fertilizer and water,
something that can’t be done
with soils.
“What used to take two years
in the field could take only one
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year in a container,” said Mathe
rs. “So you can turn more units
off that acreage of land, about
three times the production versus
field culture.”
Pot-in-pot production is also
more environmentally friendly
than field production because it
reduces soil mining, a condition
where the topsoil is removed with
the root balls in conventional
field culture.
Research has shown that soil
removal due to ‘mining’ has
enormous implications to the
economic viability of a field nurs
ery. It is estimated that the har
vesting of 44-inch diameter
balled-and-burlapped stock can
result in the loss of 470 tons of
soil per acre.
This is an aver
age of 94 tons of
soil lost per acre
during a 5-year
rotation or 2.8
inches of topsoil
lost in 5 years.
“Of course
pot-in-pot re
quires relatively
permanent
modifications to
a nursery field
that result in
soil profile
changes,” said
Mathers. “But if
for some reason
you reverted a
field from pot
in-pot back to
conventional
culture, the soil
levels wquld be
virtually un
changed.”
Despite such
advantages,
however, the
biggest draw
back in develop
ing a pot-in-pot
system is the
cost, which can
run $30,000-$32,000 an acre.
Mathers said drainage and irriga
tion are the two biggest driving
forces behind the high cost. “A
drainage line needs to be placed
under every row of pots, because
whenever you grow a plant in a
container, you get what’s called
perched water, where a certain
amount of water in the container
never evaporates,” she said. ‘So
you need the drainage system to
eliminate as much of that water
as possible.”
Trees and shrubs grown using
the pot-in-pot technique may be
of higher quality, but Mathers
said the market for such quality
has to exist for a business to be
successful in selling its products.