Subject: Re: Frost-free Organic?

From: [email-masked] (BRateaver)
Date: 3 Sep 1996 23:10:47 -0400

You have the typical Mediterranean climate. You have 2 seasons. Summer is
for tropical plants, like tomato, eggplant, pepper, along with the usual
strawberries,  and corn, cucumber, herbs,squash, pumpkin, etc.

Then you have the winter season which is mostly roots and greens, carrots,
turnips, beets, lettuce, bok choy, chard, etc.  You cannot usually mix
things from the 2 seasons, because it is daylength that counts.

I once helped the farm advisor who was trying to teach the immigrant
Hmong, etc. farmers to be organic. They just could not understand why, in
good, sunny summer, the cabbage would be a stunted 3 inches high. They
were used to similar daylenghts all year around. I showed them veg.
catalogs, which plants to seed now or later, and iit was hard for them to
grasp the idea.

But you can keep tomatoes, for example, thru the winter, usually, and some
things like lettuce you can grow in the hot season, instead of the usual
winter, but you have to shade well. Even then it wants to bolt easily.

Stay with the correct daylengths and you will be OK on most things. You
should have my book, Organic Method Primer UPDATE, which is the most
comprehensive in the world, and in the 100 pp of cross-referenced index,
you would find daylength plants listed, and day-neutral ones.  In fact,
there is info here you would never find anywhere else.  Very complete. A
once in a lifetime ease of finding what you need to know, fast.

B. Rateaver