•A free workshop on organic gardening will be presented at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 8 at the John E. Kirkpatrick Horticultural Center, 400 N Portland Ave., Room 101.
Robert Stelle, an organic gardener and vendor at the OSU-OKC Farmers Market, will lead the discussion on spring and fall organic gardening. For more information, call 945-3326.
•The Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture is sponsoring a free organic gardening workshop in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Risk Management Agency from 2 to 6 p.m. Sept. 9.
The workshop will cater to people interested in small-scale organic production for farmers markets and other direct-marketing channels. Organic gardener John Leonard will discuss practical considerations for people just starting, and he said he looks forward to conversing with other experienced growers. For more information, call (918) 647-9123.
Is it ready to pick?
Organic Gardening magazine offers these tips on when to harvest organic produce:
Asparagus: Harvest the third year after planting. When stalks reach 6 to 9 inches tall, cut or break them at the soil line.
Beans: Beans snap in half when they're ready. Pick them every other day.
Broccoli/cauliflower: Cut 6 inches below the fully formed main head. Continue cutting side shoots as they form.
Cantaloupe/muskmelon: When skin is netted and the fruits separate easily from the vine, melons are as sweet as can be.
Carrots: Harvest when the roots are at least ¾ inch in diameter and before the ground freezes, or protect them with a thick layer of straw.
Corn: Puncture a kernel with your fingernail. If a milky fluid flows out, it's time. If the liquid is toothpasty, the corn is overmature. Silks should be brown.
Cucumbers: Cut from vine when cukes are a deep green and seeds are still soft.
Storage onions: When about half of the leaves topple, push the rest over. Let onions cure in the soil for a week.
Potatoes: Dig spuds when the vines die back.
Winter squash: Harvest when your thumbnail does not readily pierce the skin. Leave a 2-inch stem to avoid storage rot.
Tomatoes: Harvest at full color. An overripe tomato quickly loses its firmness. Never put them in the refrigerator.
Watermelon: Pick when the tendril closest to the fruit's stem withers and the belly turns cream to yellowish.
Ever eaten a Cherokee purple tomato? How about a red and yellow German stripe?
Chances are if you shop for your fruits and vegetables in a conventional grocery store, the only tomato that ever made it to your plate was a thick-skinned red one. But as organic growers know, there are so many other possibilities.
When it comes to taste, most organic choices far exceed their mass-produced cousins. But is the trouble of going organic worth it? Organic gardener John Leonard said he thinks so.
Leonard describes the flavor of his Cherokee purples as though he's savoring a full-bodied bouquet.
"Cherokee purples, they are the fine wine of tomatoes. It's the best blend of sugars and acids you can have in a tomato. It has a real earthy undertone to it — very rich and full of flavor.”
But they look different. So, at first, Leonard had to give away his purple tomatoes for free to skeptical customers.
"It went from, ‘My God, I'm not going to eat that!' to, ‘Give me more!' We almost made addicts out of people,” recalled Leonard, who grows organic fruits, vegetables and herbs for two restaurants and two farmers markets at his Organic Gardens acreage in El Reno.
Cherokee purples demonstrate the slow but certain rise in organic produce.
While it is typically more expensive and often more difficult to grow, many consumers are willing to pay extra and drive farther to buy organic fruits and vegetables. And the trend is growing.
Folks like knowing that the food they eat was grown without pesticides and genetic modifications. More than anything, they like the taste.
Oklahoma counts 20 certified organic produce farms in the state this year, according to the state
