sara, Author at Seed St. Louis

Growing Water Chestnuts in St. Louis

Posted on February 5, 2021 by sara

by: Dean Gunderson

If you want to try something new and different this year and still get a fair amount of food than water chestnuts are worth a try.

There are actually two different, unrelated crops that are commonly known as water chestnuts; Eleocharis dulcis and Trapa natans. Trapa natans is a floating aquatic plant that can grow in water up to 15 feet deep whose seeds are eaten whereas Eleocharis dulcis is an aquatic plant that likes to grow in shallow standing water of around 4” deep whose tuber like corms are eaten. It is Eleocharis dulcis that we did a grow trial of at the demonstration garden in 2020 and from here on out that is the species we will be referring to when we say water chestnut.

shows a tadpole swimming in one of our water chestnut "ponds" — Side benefit of growing water chestnuts is building habitat. We had quite a few tadpoles living in our water chestnut “ponds.”

Although water chestnut is a perennial in hardiness zone 9 and higher where winters only go down into the 20’s at their lowest, in St. Louis it’s grown as an annual. To get a good harvest when growing it as an annual it needs about a 7 month growing season. It’s an aquatic plant that likes to be grown in standing water. Different aquatic plants prefer different water depths but it is generally accepted that about 4” of standing water is optimal for water chestnut. Also like pretty much all crops they do best when they have full sun.

HOW TO GROW WATER CHESTNUTS

FINDING PLANTS AND STARTING SEEDLING

The first thing you need to do to grow water chestnuts is to find water chestnuts to plant. Water chestnut plants are grown by planting fresh water chestnuts, similarly to how garlic or potatoes are grown. The tricky part is that although water chestnuts can be found in just about any grocery store in a can, they are much harder to find fresh, which is what you need. Your best bet is to look at an international grocery store or to find some for sale from a grower online.

Small water chestnut ready for planting — A small water chestnut ready for planting

The water chestnuts can be quite small for planting, in fact the ones we got were very small as you can see in the picture. Once we have the water chestnut starts we planted them into individual pots in potting mix and put all of the pots into a tray to hold water. Then we put them under our grow lights just like all of our other seedlings. When they are little they need plenty of water but don’t need to be in standing water so we just watered them until water came out of the bottom of the pots and stated going into the tray beneath them.

At this point you just treat them like your warm season vegetable seedlings, keeping them inside with plenty of light and water until the temperatures warm up.

GETTING A PLANTING AREA READY FOR THEM

Based on our trials this year any container that can hold water and that you can put in full sun will work. The kiddie pools worked well for us and they are cheap and easy to get. They also give you a pretty large growing area for how much soil you need and for the cost of the container.

Once you have a container picked out you need to fill it with soil. The kiddie pools we had we put 5-6” of soil in the kiddie pool. A good garden mix is best. Since it’s essentially a pot the plants only have the nutrients that are in the soil you put in there, there roots can’t wander so you don’t want to put just topsoil. Nice rich soil is best. We added some potting mix to ours because we had it and it worked but all the perlite (the little white beads that look like Styrofoam) floated to the top.

PLANTING AND GROWING THE WATER CHESTNUTS

Once your container is prepped it’s time to plant. They are warm season plants so it is best to wait to plant them outside at the same time you would plant your tomatoes, beans, and squash. They spread quite a bit over the growing season so you also don’t need many plants. We only planted 6 little water chestnut plants in each kiddie pool and they were full by the end of the year as you can see in the pictures below.

Left picture shows water chestnuts soon after planting when the kiddie pool looks sparse. Right image shows the kiddie pool totally full in September — Left: water chestnut containers on July 22nd. Right: water chestnut containers on August 21st

Once they are planted just water the container until a minimum of one inch of water is standing on top of the entire surface. Then the rest of the growing season all you need to do is add more water anytime there isn’t standing water on the surface. If you keep them watered enough so there is always standing water there will be virtually no weeds and you won’t need to weed the container.

HARVEST

show a hole dug in the side of the pool full of water — A hole dug in the side of the water chestnut container allowing you to bale the water out for harvest

In the fall you will start noticing the tips of the green tops will start turning straw colored and drying out. Over several weeks they will continue to turn from green to straw colored moving from the top down. This is normal and a good sign. It means that as winter is coming the plant is recognizing it and putting the energy that’s in the green tops that are inedible down into the water chestnuts below ground that you want to eat. Once the tops couple of inches are straw colored you no longer need to keep it flooded.

Once the tops are mostly straw colored, or if a cold period down into the mid to low 20’s or lower is coming it’s time to harvest.

The first step is to drain off the water. The easiest way to do this is to dig a hole in the container all the way down to the bottom on the side big enough for you to reach down to the bottom with a cup or other thing that will hold water. You can see an example in the picture below. Then fill up the cup with the water and dump it out. Continue to do this until the water is all drained from the container.

Then all you need to do is work up the soil with a trowel or your hands. Since the soil is so wet it’s generally easy to just work through the soil with your hands and pull out the water chestnuts as you find them.

series of images showing how the water chestnuts grow on the ends of roots and showing them in someones hand for scale — Water chestnuts grow on the ends of roots. The soil is usually soft enough that pulling the whole plant out will yield many of the water chestnuts.

STORAGE

showing a bowl of muddy water chestnuts in a metal bowl ready to be stored — These freshly harvested water chestnuts are ready to be put in a plastic bag in the fridge

As with most root crops it’s best to not wash the water chestnuts. After harvesting they are generally caked in mud and this is actually good. It will help keep them wet and protected from drying out. Store them in a loosely closed plastic bag in your refrigerator, ideally in the crisper drawer. As of this writing we have had them stored this way for over two months and they are still nice and crisp.

PREPARATION

The only preparation needed is to wash them and peel them. I found the best way to wash them is to take a handful and rub them all together in your hand vigorously under running water and the dirt comes off very quickly. Then peel them with a knife or vegetable peeler.

After that use them however you like. They are edible raw but are also great in all sorts of dishes to add a nice fresh crunch to almost any meal.

OUR 2020 TESTS TO DETERMINE THE BEST STRATEGIES TO GROW

Since not everyone has full sun and because setting up a growing area that will hold standing water might not be easy for everyone we grew our water chestnuts in 4 different beds with different situations to see what was most important to get a good yield of large water chestnuts. The size of the water chestnuts is particularly important because they have to be peeled so even if you get a high yield if they are the size of a large bean it’s not very feasible to peel them vs. ones that are the size of a large walnut are much easier to peel. We used four different beds to compare the impact of soil depth, sun, and water level on yield and the size of water chestnuts. The four beds were as follows

Bed 1: Full sun 8” deep kiddie pool with several inches of standing water all year
Bed 2: Full sun 8” deep kiddie pool with a hole in it that was watered heavily but not flooded
Bed 3: Partial sun 8” deep kiddie pool with several inches of standing water all year
Bed 4: Full sun 24” deep rice bed with a hole in it that was watered heavily but not flooded

Bed 1 is what is generally recommended by others. Bed 2 is to see if the water chestnuts could be grown in heavily watered but not flooded conditions similarly to how some rice varieties can be grown with minimal yield impacts. Bed 3 was to see how much impact level of sun has on yield and water chestnut size. Bed 4 was to see if a deeper bed would result in higher yields by comparing it to Bed 2 as a simulation of growing it in ground.

TEST RESULTS

side by side images showing how much more vigorously the plants in Bed 1 grew than in Bed 2 — Bed 1 on the right, Bed 2 on the left on August 21st. Although they both filled the bed by the end of November it was obvious when this picture was taken that the plants in bed 1 were much happier

What we found from the tests were that the most vital factor to both yield and size of water chestnuts is sun. Bed 3 had by far the lowest yield and smallest size water chestnuts. Most of the water chestnuts in bed 4 were two small to feasibly peel. Water level was the next most important with Bed 2 and Bed 4 yielding more than bed 4 but about half the yield as bed 1 per square foot. The size of the water chestnuts in the unflooded beds were nice and big still. Soil depth seemed to have little to no effect on yield or size of water chestnut. The size of the water chestnuts in Bed 2 and Bed 4 were almost identical and the yields were also very similar. The only real difference that was noticed was that the water chestnuts in Bed 4 were more spread out whereas those in Bed 2 were almost all growing right on the bottom of the kiddie pool so harvest was much faster in Bed 2.

shows a size comparison of water chestnuts from a flooded bed and an unflooded bed. those fro the unflooded bed are about half the size — Left: water chestnuts from unflooded Bed 2. Right: water chestnuts from flooded Bed 1

What all of this seems to suggest is that shallow pots like kiddie pools will work fine as long as you grow them in full sun and to maximize yields you really want a container that will allow standing water.

2021 TEST RESULTS

After our success in 2020 we grew water chestnuts again in 2021. We confirmed our results from last year harvesting a pound per square foot in the containers that were in full sun and flooded and slightly less in those that were heavily watered but in containers that had a slow leak. We also confirmed that those that were in full sun produced large water chestnuts. In fact this year the chestnuts were on average much larger than last year now that we know what we are doing, making them much easier to peel.

In total we harvested a little over 29 pounds of large water chestnuts from 1 raised bed lined with plastic and 2 kiddie pools.

After seeing that the water chestnuts grew fine in the kiddie pool that was watered heavily, but had a leak so did not have standing water, we decided the next step would be to see if they could grow in a normal raised bed that was watered heavily. Unfortunately they did not survive, let alone produce a harvestable yield.

We also tested to see if the container size affected the yield or water chestnut size and received promising results. Whereas last year we planted in large kiddie pools about 5′ in diameter, this year we planted in both a 5′ diameter one from last year and a 3′ diameter one to see if the smaller size would have a negative impact on the yields. What we found was although the water chestnuts were slightly smaller than in the larger kiddie pool they were still large enough to peel and the total yield was comparable per square foot.

So our results from last year stand that full sun is critical for large water chestnuts and yield and that the more water they get the higher the yield. We also confirmed last years results that depth of container doesn’t seem vital, with the kiddie pools yielding equivalent to the raised bed per square foot. Finally, we found this year that container size, at least down to a 3′ diameter kiddie pool (7 square feet), doesn’t seem to negatively impact harvestable yield.

Low Tunnels

Posted on September 11, 2020 by sara

by: Dean Gunderson

One of the most adaptable items in the gardens is a good set of wire or pvc hoops to create low tunnels. Depending on what fabric goes over your low tunnel hoops it can protect crops from early or late frosts, overwinter cold hardy crops, shade crops to keep them cooler in summer and fall, minimize pests, or minimize disease.

So what is a low tunnel? Low tunnels, also called quick hoops, are like a small greenhouse that covers a raised bed or rows of in ground plantings that you can’t walk into, unlike a greenhouse or high tunnel. The structure of the low tunnel that holds the fabric up is usually made of wire or pvc pipes and are bent into an arch shape and just pushed into the ground at the edges of the raised bed or on the edges of the in ground rows of plants. These hoops hold the fabric material up above the plants so the fabric isn’t just laying on the leaves of the plants. The fabric it pulled taught and secured to the ground to hold it in place.

How to Build a Low Tunnel

The first step of building a low tunnel is putting the hoops in. You can use any material that can be made into an arch but the most popular is a heavy wire, which you can bend into a hoop or can be purchased prebent, like these. Another readily accessible material that can easily be bent into an arch is a thin pvc pipe. You just push the ends of the hoops into the ground at least 4”-6”. You should place one hoop on each end of the raised bed or planting row and then another hoop every 3-4’ between those end hoops.

Wire hoops ready to be covered with low tunnel plastic

Then cut your cover fabric of choice 4’ longer than the bed or row you are trying to cover and drape it over the hoops (different fabric options and the uses for each type will be discussed later).

Draping the low tunnel plastic over the wire hoops

Low tunnel plastic in place and ready to be secured — The low tunnel plastic is in place and ready to be secured with sod staples or bricks

Then secure the ends of the fabric to the ground. This can be done in several ways. The cheapest and simplest is just to put rocks or bricks all along the ends of the fabric to weight it down to the ground. You can also secure the fabric with sod staples, like these. Just bundle up the ends of your fabric and push the staple through the bundled edge and all the way down into the soil. Space these staples every 9”-12” along the sides that don’t need to be opened regularly. Knowing if it needs to be opened regularly brings us to management considerations.

showing pushing the sod staple through bundled up plastic to secure it — This is how you bundle up the fabric on the end and apply the sod staple

Showing that you want to push the staple all the way into the soil — Make sure you push the staple all the way through the plastic and down into the soil to hold the plastic down tight.

One of the most important things to remember is that you need to access the plants under the low tunnel. So you can put the sod staples all the way around the low tunnel but it might be easier to do sod staples on both short sides and one long side but use rocks on the other long side so it’s easier to open and close that size so you have easy access to your plants. Another thing to remember is that if you are covering the plants to protect from frost for season extension in spring and/or fall remember that our weather can swing wildly in St. Louis in those seasons so having the cover on when it’s cold is important but if then there is a day that is a little warmer, even if it’s not hot, but it’s sunny the plants can actually overheat just like a car sitting in the sun. So especially those times of years you might need to vent your low tunnel. This would mean opening up an end of the tunnel during the morning and then closing it again in the evening if it will be cold that night.

The Fabric Options

There are several different options of material to cover the low tunnel with and, which material to use depends on what the goals are. Below are 4 different cover options for a low tunnel. Each section describes the material, what it can be used for, and how to manage a low tunnel for that use.

Insect Netting: This mesh material is great for covering crops if you are trying to keep pests away from your crops, especially in the summer. It is airy enough that it doesn’t cast shade and also doesn’t retain heat. It is also airy enough that rain will go through it so you don’t need to open the low tunnel to vent heat or to water your plants with insect netting. This can be especially helpful to set up and put over brassica crops to keep out cabbage worms and cabbage loopers and to put over squash to keep out squash vine borers. It can really be used over any plant to keep out pests and the diseases those pests might be carrying. The main thing to keep in mind with using insect netting is that a net that keeps out pest insects will also keep out pollinators. So if you need pollinators in order for your crop to produce, like with squash, you will need to remove the netting once the plant starts flowering or you will need to hand pollinate. An important note about insect netting is that it is best to cover your plants as soon as you plant them. If you wait there is the possibility that the insects will already have laid eggs in the soil or on the plant and then if you put the barrier over you are trapping the pest in with your plant.
Low Tunnel Plastic: This plastic is simply sheet plastic that can be put over low tunnel hoops for season extension and/or overwintering. This type of plastic is perfect for putting on in early spring to warm up the soil faster in order to plant sooner or putting on in late fall to keep the soil warm longer in order to continue harvesting later in the year. If put up in late fall over cold hardy crops it can help to overwinter those crops so they can be harvested all winter long. Clear plastic will heat up more than white plastic but both are used. Plastic is the material that will heat up the most so is the best option if you are tying to overwinter crops. Since plastic doesn’t allow air flow it will definitely need to be vented on sunny days to prevent overheating especially in the spring and fall if used for season extension. There are also types of low tunnel plastic that have either slits or holes punched in it to prevent overheating, like this low tunnel plastic. These types don’t need to be vented manually. Plastic also doesn’t allow rain to go through it so you will periodically need to open it up to water the plants.
Shade Cloth: This material looks like a loose weave mesh and is usually made of a colored plastic material, oftentimes black. It is designed to cast shade on the crops underneath it. Shade is particularly helpful in late spring-early summer when trying to keep your spring crops cool so they are less liable to bolt and will keep producing as it starts getting hot. It can also be put on in late summer in order to keep your fall crops cool as the seeds germinate and start growing in the hot sun of summer. As this is just to cast shade it doesn’t need to go all the way to the ground and leaving some gaps at the bottom helps increase airflow. As it is a loose mesh rain will go through to water the crops.
Row Cover: This is maybe the most adaptable cover for a low tunnel. It can be used for all 3 of the things the above fabrics can be used for but generally not as good as the fabric that is specially for those 3 things. It is a spun fabric that looks similar to the type of fabric that dryer sheets are made of. It traps heat and therefore is often used for season extension. For protecting from early or late frosts it is generally easier to used than plastic because is less liable to overheat but it is not as good for overwintering because it doesn’t trap as much heat and allows more airflow increasing cold winds. It is also nicer than plastic in regards to watering because it allows rain to get through which plastic doesn’t. Row cover also casts shade but only about 15% whereas most shade cloth for vegetables is 30%-40% shade so if doubled or tripled up it could serve as this purpose a little better. However, as it does trap heat unless you can allow a lot of airflow it can actually be counterproductive if you are casting shade to try and keep things cool. It is also good as an insect barrier. In this regard it does just as good of a job as insect netting with all of the same considerations discussed above when it comes to insect netting. The main problem with using row cover to keep insects out is that as mentioned it also retains heat so can cause overheating when trying to cover squash, brassicas, or any other crop in the middle of summer, when there are so many pests.

Another thing to consider when it comes to selecting and using your low tunnel fabric is that you don’t necessarily have to just do one layer or even just one type of fabric. As mentioned you could double or triple up row cover to make it cast more shade. It is also common to do multiple layers of row cover in order to increase how much insulation it provides to protect crops from lower temperatures. A similar thing can be done with plastic. Doing two layers of plastic will protect the crops they cover from lower temperatures than a single layer of plastic. This works because the air between the two layers of plastic acts like an insulation layer. If you are trying to protect your brassicas from cabbage worms and loopers and also want to cast some shade to help them through the heat of summer you could put on a layer of insect netting and then a layer of shade cloth on top.

All in all the next time you have an issue in the garden don’t overlook how useful a low tunnel can be and maybe consider using one to increase your yields and lower your work load.

Demonstration Garden Update August 19, 2020

Posted on August 19, 2020 by sara

by: Dean Gunderson

This has been an interesting year in the demonstration garden for sure. We miss all the people we usually get to see on Saturdays so wanted to give everyone an update on some successes and failures so far this year. Our biggest challenge was for several months we didn’t have any of our wonderful volunteers to help us and we were struggling. Thankfully we are now able to have some volunteer help and it has been incredibly beneficial in getting the garden growing beautifully. Our other challenges are things that I’m sure many of you have been dealing with in your own gardens. The frequent heavy rains have led to a lot of our tomatoes splitting and our brassicas have been inundated by cabbage worms, cabbage loopers, and harlequin beetles. We also have a seemingly endless number of rabbits that have forced us to put fencing up around nearly every bed to prevent them from eating absolutely everything. These issues have forced us to be more vigilant about getting our fencing up, picking off harlequin bugs, cabbage worms, and cabbage loopers, and using DE and BT when necessary to control those pests.

An image of one of a caterpillar eating a collard leaf and the damage they cause. — One of the several types of caterpillars that like to eat brassicas such as collards and cabbage.

Despite these challenges we have been able to grow some really delicious produce that is being donated to a local food pantry in East St. Louis every week. We have also done experiments that have already yielded interesting results and have several more in process that are progressing nicely.

Cauliflower is a vegetable that is one of the hardest vegetables to grow in St. Louis’ climate for most gardeners we know. So this spring we did a cauliflower trial in an attempt to find one that would be easy to grow in St. Louis. We selected varieties that were stated to be heat tolerant and fast maturing. They were all disappointing……except one. The variety named ‘Minuteman’ produced a small, but decent sized, head of cauliflower. We harvested the heads in late June, at which point they had endured 12 days of 90F degree or higher temperatures and yet the heads were still tender and delicious. So we are doing a larger planting of ‘Minuteman’ this fall to see how well it does as a fall-planted variety here.

A picture of our 'Minuteman' cauliflower head with a hand next to it for scale. It's about 4-5" in diameter — Our first head of ‘Minuteman’ cauliflower from our trial

In addition to the cauliflower trial, we are also growing several different types of white-fleshed and purple-fleshed sweet potatoes. We selected varieties that are claimed to mature in a similar number of days to the ever popular orange-fleshed ‘Beauregard’ sweet potato that we have always grown to see how they compare and if they would be good varieties to start growing regularly. So far they are all growing well so stay tuned for the update this fall when we harvest and do the comparison.

A few years ago we started on the adventure of making a “paddy” and growing flooded rice and it has been very successful (you can read all about it on our blog if you are interested). So this year we decided to go bigger and try other aquatic edible crops. We are growing water chestnuts in two flooded old plastic kiddie pools. We are also growing wapato (aka duck potato) in an old tank we used to use to wash lettuce. Water chestnuts and wapato both create nice crunchy edible tubers. We are also growing 4 different types water lotus. We are growing one tank with the native water lotus and three domesticated varieties of the Asian water lotus. Water lotus create large crunchy tubers similar in flavor and texture to a water chestnut but also create really interesting leaves and gorgeous flowers during the growing season that give way to seed pods with edible seeds.

A pictures showing water lotus, rice, and water chestnuts growing — Water lotus blooming with our rice paddy in the background with rice on the left and water chestnuts on the right.

Gateway Greening’s Growing Gardeners Contest

Posted on July 7, 2020 by sara

For the month of July, we want to challenge youth gardeners to engineer an original solution to a problem in the garden. Send in your pictures or videos and a written description and we will choose a winner at the end of the month. The contest is open to students entering grades 2-5 and students entering grades 6-8. Winners will be featured on Gateway Greening’s social media pages and receive a Gateway Greening stuffed gardener bear or a Gateway Greening t-shirt! See below for contest details.

Grades 2-5

July: Engineering in the Garden

Plants need space in order to be happy and healthy, but you do not need a big yard or a garden bed to grow a plant! Many people use small containers to grow vegetables and herbs on their porch or in their windowsill.

Scientists use the word engineering to describe the process of creating a solution to a problem. For the month of July, we want to see what creative ways you can find to grow plants in a small space. Find a container to repurpose as a planter or build your own! Then fill it with soil and drop a few seeds of your choice in it. Be sure to give it lots of water and sunshine. Send in your pictures or videos of your new planter with a written description of how you created it, and we will choose a winner at the end of the month.

Rules

Who: Open to students entering grades 2-5

What: Engineer a solution to gardening in a small space by creating a planter or repurposing something you already have as a planter. Submit photos or videos of your new planter and a written paragraph explaining how you created it. Include your full name, contact information, school, and the grade you will be entering in fall 2020 in your email.

When: Entries must be submitted via email by July 31st. The winner will be contacted by August 7th.

Where: Submit entries to [email protected] with the subject line “July Youth Contest 2-5”

Winner will be determined based on creativity and resourcefulness. Upon receiving permission from your guardian to share your name and photos, winners will be featured on Gateway Greening’s social media account and receive their choice of either a Gateway Greening stuffed gardener bear or a Gateway Greening t-shirt.

Happy engineering!

For inspiration, see some of the containers Gateway Greening has turned into planters at our Demonstration Garden!

Grades 6-8

July: Engineering in the Garden

Watching the plants in your garden grow from tiny sprouts to towering fruit-bearing plants sure is fun! But even the strongest plants have competition from predators. Pests like beetles and caterpillars love to munch the leaves of plants, while birds, rabbits, and squirrels will sometimes eat the seeds, fruits, or other parts of the plant. This pesky problem leaves gardeners in need of solutions.

Scientists use the word engineering to describe the process of creating a solution to a problem. For the month of July, we want to challenge youth gardeners to engineer an original solution to a pest problem in the garden. Send in your pictures or videos and a written description and we will choose a winner at the end of the month.

Rules

Who: Open to students entering grades 6-8

What: Engineer a solution to a pest problem in the garden. Submit photos or videos of your solution and a written paragraph explaining your solution. Include your full name, contact information, school, and the grade you will be entering in fall 2020 in your email.

When: Entries must be submitted via email by July 31st. The winner will be contacted by August 7th.

Where: Submit entries to [email protected] with the subject line “July Youth Contest 6-8”

Winner will be determined based on creativity and resourcefulness. Upon receiving permission from your guardian to share your name and photos, winners will be featured on Gateway Greening’s social media account and receive a Gateway Greening stuffed gardener bear or a Gateway Greening t-shirt.

Happy engineering!

For inspiration, see some of the ways Gateway Greening keeps pests out of garden beds using fencing and onions along the perimeter of the beds.

The Ever Controversial Japanese Beetle Trap

Posted on June 29, 2020 by sara

by: Dean Gunderson

To trap or not to trap, that is the ever present question when it comes to Japanese beetles. The shiny green Japanese beetle was introduced to the northeastern United States from East Asia in the early 1900’s and has made its slow march south and west ever since. It has been in the St. Louis region for quite some time now and most gardeners have had at least one run in with this pernicious pest. Although it doesn’t feed on many vegetable crops it likes quite a few fruit trees and shrubs. These voracious eaters can defoliate whole plants if allowed. The way they eat leaves is pretty characteristic as when they feed on leaves they will eat everything except the veins of the leaves leaving a skeletonized leaf behind.

characteristic Japanese beetle leaf damage — Characteristic Japanese beetle leaf damage on a hazelnut bush

The hardest thing about Japanese beetles isn’t identifying them or figuring out what damage they do, it’s how to get rid of them! Since they are an invasive species they have very few predators so their populations can get quite large and controlling them is left to the gardener or orchardist.

But what is the best way to control the population? You could, of course, use synthetic insecticides or organic broad spectrum insecticides such as spinosad or pyrethum. However, using these as the main control would require multiple applications over several months and this option will have a negative impact on insects other than Japanese beetles including beneficial insects and pollinators.

The main tactic recommended by those who want to avoid using insecticide sprays is to knock the Japanese beetles off the leaves of the plant into a container of soapy water below where they will drown. Although this tactic works on small garden plants and for a small infestation, it’s not a feasible option if they are eating your apple or cherry tree since you can’t reach the top, where they usually start feeding on a tree. It’s also not very feasible if you have a major infestation. I can personally attest to a time when I had it on some hazelnut bushes and after knocking off the beetles into a bucket of soapy water 5 times in 1 day there were just as many at the end of the day on the bush as there were at the beginning.

There are other options for control that are less work and non toxic to beneficial insects like milky spore, a natural soil dwelling bacteria that can kill a significant amount of the Japanese beetle grubs in the soil before they emerge to eat your plants. This bacteria can be very effective at controlling Japanese beetles long term but can also have some problems. First it’s a long term tactic. If you have Japanese beetles feeding on your plants right now milky spore isn’t going to do anything to stop that. Also, it doesn’t control those flying in from neighboring properties as Japanese beetles can fly several hundred yards (1). This means for those in urban and suburban areas milky spore will only have limited success unless you get neighbors to join in. Those with large properties would typically have better success with milky spore but then there is the issue of cost. Although milky spore can remain effective for 10-20 years once applied, it can cost as much as $35 for enough to treat 2,500 square feet. So for a large property it can get costly.

The ultimate control is if there could be an insect that naturally feeds on the Japanese beetle. In fact, two predatory insects that feed on Japanese beetles have been found and introduced to the United States for just such a use; Tiphia vernalis and Istocheta aldrichi. Tiphia vernalis has been found to parasitize up to 58% of Japanese beetle grubs killing them before they emerge. Istocheta aldrichi has been found to parasitize up to 20% of adult Japanese beetles killing them before they could lay eggs. So together they could theoretically reduce the Japanese beetle population by almost 70% (2,3). Alas, although these have been introduced and established in the United States neither have made it to the St. Louis region yet and you can not purchase them yourself. So for now we will just have to hope they make it here one day.

So then again the question is what option is there if you don’t want to use insecticides, have a large infestation, and milky spore isn’t feasible for you? The answer to that question is the much maligned Japanese beetle trap.

No, not those little flimsy ones with the small bag that they sell at most hardware stores in the summer. I’m talking about a big mass trap. Many say never use the traps because they attract more to your yard then they catch. This is true if the trap is too small (as most of those bag traps are) or are not used correctly, but if used properly studies have found they can reduce the numbers to the point that they are not an issue. One study even found a 97% reduction in Japanese beetle feeding on the plants they were trying to protect (4,5).

Japanese beetle trap attached to a 5 gallon bucket lid for mass trapping

The disconnect between these studies that find them to be effective and many people’s personal experience saying they are not effective seems to be trap size and placement. The problem is that many put the traps by the plant they are trying to protect. Then because they only have one or two traps and the trap has a small bag, it will fill up in a day or sometimes even a couple hours. What this means is that you are putting something that attracts Japanese beetles right next to the thing they are already attracted to and like to eat. So if they are flying toward the trap and run into the plant first they are going to eat that plant. Many will still be caught in the trap when you place it by the plant you are trying to protect. But, as soon as the trap is full they will fly on over and eat your plant you so kindly lured them to. So unless these traps are being emptied often so that they are never full, than they are certainly bringing more to the area than they capture.

The University of Missouri and Lincoln University have found two things that are key to making the traps effective. What they say is that you must make sure you have a large container to trap the beetles in. The second important step is to not put it by the plants but instead, around the perimeter of the area you are trying to protect. You also want to make sure that the traps are spaced no further than 200 feet apart so that you have a continuous perimeter of the lure scent to attract the beetles. By placing them in a perimeter around your property it means that Japanese beetles emerging from the soil are attracted to the edge of your property instead of towards the plants you are trying to protect. Also, those flying in from neighboring properties are intercepted and trapped before they get to your plants. If you have a relatively small property, such as a regular city lot, with the 200 foot spacing you may only need one or two traps. You would place the traps on either end of your property and or the place farthest from the things you are trying to protect. Having a large container to hold the beetles that fall in the trap helps deal with the issue of them filling up too fast and makes it more feasible to empty the containers as needed. Or if you use a really big container you might only need to empty it at the end of the Japanese beetle season.

Large trashcan mass trap. These generally only need to be emptied at the end of the Japanese beetle season.

When they need to be emptied there are a few tips to keep in mind. When you empty the container it is best to dump it into a container of soapy water to drown any that are still alive. It is also best to empty the traps before 9:00 am or after 6:00 pm because they fly during the day. Before or after those times they rarely fly, which makes it much easier to empty the traps. Once the Japanese beetles are all dead you can then decide what to do with all that organic matter. They can be put in your compost bin or just pour them on the ground at the base of your fruit trees. If you then put wood chips or other organic matter over them they will compost nicely and the bugs that were eating your fruit trees are now fertilizing your fruit trees. It is important to know though, that because they are very high in nitrogen that they smell pretty strongly once they are dead. So if you find the smell to be a problem, covering them with wood chips or throwing them away might be your best option.

Lincoln University made instructions on how to make a mass trap like the trap described here. You can find the instructions to make your own here. These instructions show attaching the trap to a large outdoor trash can but you can use any lidded container. We have had success with lidded 3 and 5 gallon buckets. These smaller containers are much easier to empty, move around, and store when not in use but need to be emptied more frequently. Our adapted instructions using a smaller container can be found here. If you would like to make your own, you can buy the tops to the traps at our store online for pickup. We also sell the dual lures which are the most effective lures for trapping Japanese beetles and are rarely sold in stores. These are great if you want to make your own traps and in future years you will be able to reuse the trap you made and just have to buy the lures.

It is also important to note that for best results the traps should be put out as soon as you first notice the first Japanese beetle. Although the traps are really good at intercepting Japanese beetles it’s harder to entice them off of something they are already feeding on. So if you have plants that are heavily infested with Japanese beetles the best option is to place your traps and then either remove the Japanese beetles by hand or by knocking them into soapy water or by using an organic insecticide like spinosad. If you have to use the insecticide, as long as the traps are already placed you should only have to use it once.

Action Steps

Posted on June 25, 2020 by sara

As Gateway Greening works to address equity and justice, we commit to the following action steps.

Statement From Gateway Greening

Posted on June 15, 2020 by sara

Gateway Greening continues to be deeply saddened by the effects of police brutality in our communities, both locally and nationally. We have been taking this time to reflect on our organization’s role in the Black Lives Matter movement. We pledge to continue to use our social media as a space for these conversations and to do our part to keep the movement alive until change happens. We are following the leadership provided by Forward Through Ferguson during this time, and encourage all to see the resources and goals they have laid out.

Police brutality is a symptom of systemic racism in this country, as is access to education, healthcare, and food. Within our mission, we aim to educate and empower people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. Part of this mission includes fighting the systemic inequalities that keep communities from accessing fresh food, culturally important food, and making autonomous food choices. Now, more than ever, people need resources to help them grow food for themselves and others. During the height of the growing season, we believe we would be doing a disservice to the communities we serve by not providing the resources we have promised to deliver. At the same time, we cannot resume gardening content posts without acknowledging the shift, and without delivering the promise that we will continue to share anti-racist material.

We also want to address the questions about our action steps moving forward. This movement has been impactful on our organization, and has come during a time when we are going through internal changes. In order to make sure our action steps are as carefully thought out and as impactful as possible, we have been taking time to reflect, organize, and question what these steps will look like for Gateway Greening. This has and will continue to take time, but by putting in the work now, we will create lasting progress in our services and the communities we serve. We will be releasing our action steps soon, and appreciate everyone’s patience.

Thank you to the organizations in St. Louis who have been working hard to lift voices of color and bring attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. Thank you to Forward Through Ferguson for providing clear action steps. Thank you to the individuals who have shared their stories and hardships during these times. Together we can enact change and carry the movement forward.

Virtual Earth Day

Posted on April 1, 2020 by sara

Processing Rice

Posted on March 20, 2020 by sara

by Dean Gunderson

This is the second Part of our series on growing and processing rice. To learn how to grow your own rice check out our blog post on it here.

So the rice is grown, the plants are harvested and have been dried, but now what? How is this dried grass plant turned into a bowl of delicious cooked rice? Well with the right tools, the right know-how, and a little bit of elbow grease it’s possible to grow rice starting from seed and ending in any rice dish desired.

Fully dried rice bundles ready for processing

When it comes to processing rice there are three main steps. In order, those steps are to thresh the rice, dehull the rice, and finally to winnow the rice. Threshing is the process of removing the seeds (the grain) from the rest of the plant (the straw). Dehulling is taking the hull, which is the papery straw-colored covering that surrounds each individual rice seed, off of the grain. Winnowing is separating out the grain from the chaff, which is the name for the hull once it’s been removed from the grain. So let’s start at the beginning.

All that’s required to thresh grain is a little force. There are many ways to thresh rice but probably the easiest way for garden scale production is the trash can method. For this all that is needed is a trash can or some other large container. Grab a small bundle of dried rice plants and hold them about halfway up the stalk with the top of the plant, where all the seeds are, inside the trash can. Then vigorously move the bundle of rice back and forth hitting the inside walls of the trashcan until the grains have been knocked off into the trash can. After doing a couple of bundles you will get a feel for how fast to move the bundle and how much force to hit the sides with. It does require a fair amount of force so don’t be timid about it.

Rice bundle before (left) and after (right) threshing using the trash can method

There are plenty of other ways to thresh rice that can be tried if desired. One way is to cut a length of old garden hose and while holding the rice inside a trash can beat the seeds with the piece of hose to knock them off. Just beating the plants on the ground is another easy way to do it and the main way people have threshed grain since the beginning of agriculture. The main downside to this method is the seeds will often go flying and make a mess. Another way that is particularly fun if working with kids is to put the dried plants on a tarp and cover them with another tarp or the other side of the same tarp. Then have the kids walk or stomp all over the plants. This force will knock the seeds off the stalks. The main downside to this is that it takes more work to separate the seeds from all the straw.

Now to the hulling. Hulling requires the twisting, rubbing, or grinding of the seed with just enough force to rub the papery hull off but not grind the grain into flour. There are theoretically ways to do this without anything special and there are a lot of ideas on how to do this online. The internet suggests everything from rubbing it between the palms of the hands, laying the seeds on the table and rubbing them with a cutting board, twisting them on the ground under foot, a mortar and pestle, and on and on. We feel comfortable saying that all of these techniques are great and will work fine……if the goal is to eat a tablespoon of rice. Staff and Gateway Elementary students tried all these ideas. Even energetic kindergarteners stomping on the rice yielded only a small cup of rice.

Students helping to hull rice by jumping on it sandwiched between two tarps

Luckily one of our AmeriCORP VISTAs Evelyn, was able to find a solution. She was able to design, build, and write instructions on how to make a simple but really effective hand crank rice dehuller out of a cheap grain grinder, some rubber, and glue, for less than $30. So have a look here, do yourself a favor, and just build one of these, it’s pretty simple.

Using the DIY grain dehuller

If you have any questions we are happy to help. The building instructions also have detailed instructions on how to use it. Essentially though it works by putting the unhulled rice in the top and cranking the handle until it all comes out and then run the same rice through again two more times and it is all dehulled and ready for the final step.

Now the last step is winnowing the grain from the chaff, which is just cleaning the grain. Chaff is very light and airy whereas the grain is relatively heavy. So the chaff just needs to be blown off. There are two main ways of doing this and which method to use is up to personal preference and the quantity of grain to be winnowed. If there is only a cup or two of dehulled rice the easiest way is usually to put it in a big bowl. Take the bowl of rice and chaff outside and while constantly swirling it inside the bowl forcefully blow into the bowl. The chaff will blow up and out and the heavier grain will remain. Keep doing this until all the chaff is gone.

Dehulled rice ready to be winnowed

The other method is the most common method and the best if there is more than a cup or two. This method requires two large containers and a breezy day. Although it’s best to do this outside because it can get messy if you want to do it inside a fan can replace the wind. Hold the container with the rice and chaff about 18” or so above the empty container, which should be sitting on the ground, and slowly pour it into the empty container. The heavy rice grains will drop into the container but the lighter chaff will get carried away by the breeze. Keep pouring the rice and chaff mixture from one container to the next, increasing the distance between the two as you feel comfortable. Then once the chaff is blown off all that will be left is the ready to cook rice.

Now also don’t forget to use all that straw and chaff from the rice processing. The straw and chaff are great mulches for the garden, suppressing weeds and conserving moisture in garden beds. In addition to its use as mulch, the chaff can also be used to make seed starting mix, which is used to start seeds indoors. Mix 1 part rice chaff with 2 parts coco coir, which is a waste product of coconut farming, to make a good, sustainable seed starting mix.

I forgot, there is actually one more step left to process the rice, the most important step! Now it’s time to cook and eat some homegrown and processed St. Louis rice. Enjoy!

Central Asia Regional Bed Varieties: by Cameron Lee

Posted on October 31, 2019 by sara

Take an Agricultural Tour of the World with Gateway Greening! For the next few weeks, we’ll be posting a new blog post each Monday highlighting a regional bed from our Demonstration Garden. While these posts will not include growing instructions, they will be history lessons on the agricultural practices of regions around the world.

One of our regional raised beds in the Demonstration Garden this year is growing plants that were originally domesticated in Central Asia. While many people often overlook this region, some of the world’s most common foods are native to the area. Even something that many consider being uniquely American, such as apple pie, can trace its roots back to Central Asia. The region is unique in that it served as a confluence of culture between Europe and Africa to East Asia and India. Perhaps best known for Marco Polo’s journey on the Silk Road, the geographical location of Central Asia allowed the exchange of ideas, commodities, and luxury goods to travel between Europe and Asia. Stretching from the Caspian Sea in the West to China in the east, from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the North, this region has a fascinating history where great empires rose and fell. This region includes the modern-day countries of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan. Home to a wide array of varied geography, like the high passes and mountains of the Tian Shan, the vast deserts of Kyzyl Kum and the Taklamakan, and especially the seemingly unending treeless, grassy steppes.

Zhongar-Alatau national park in eastern Kazahstan, which contains stands of the wild ancestors of several domesticated fruit species. The most famous of which are the stands of the wild ancestors of the domesticated apple. Some can be seen at the bottom and right corner of this picture.

This vast region contains picturesque landscapes that played a significant role in shaping human history. Countless trading caravans, herders, soldiers, and artisans all traveled along a series of trade routes that later came to be collectively known as the Silk Road. The resulting economic traffic through the region gave rise to the legendary Silk Road cities of Bukhara, Khiva, Loulan, and Samarkand. It is important to note that the “Silk Road” was not a road by modern standards, nor was silk the only commodity. It was a cultural and economic phenomenon of exchange and interaction that helped shape the world as we see today. The prehistoric Central Asians connected the corners of the ancient world and helped to spread innovations across the continent. While silk was by far the most valuable luxury commodity traded, goods like precious gemstones and minerals, luxury goods, spices, domesticated crops and animals, ideas, and technology were all exchanged throughout the ancient world. The dispersal of crops and animals remained unmatched until the Colonial era. Crops like wheat and millet traveled along the Silk Road, with millet becoming the summer crop of the Persian Empire and adopted by the common people of Rome and wheat to Han China, grown during the winter season, was transformed to make noodles and dumpling skins. The movement of domesticates saw a change in culinary traditions, gave rise to crop rotation cycles, as well as globalizing regional cuisines.

While Central Asia is seemingly a vast, desolate expanse today, parts of it were considered to be gardens of Eden for millennia. Until the first millennium BC, much of southern Central Asia was a lush expanse of short shrubby forests, which included wild cultivars of pistachio, almond, cherry, and English walnut trees. The mountainous regions were once covered by sea buckthorn, Russian olives, wild apples, hawthorn, mountain ash, and a wide variety of nut-bearing trees. While much of these forests are gone today, there are still small, vibrant pockets of agricultural land that continues to produce fruits including grapes, pomegranates, and sweet melons. The Memoirs of Babur or Bāburnāma, compiled between 1483 and 1530, chronicles the travels of Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur, including his observation:

“Grapes, melons, apples, and pomegranates, all fruits, indeed, are good in Samarkand; two are famous, its apple and its grape. Its winter is mightily cold; snow falls but not so much as in Kabul (Afghanistan); in the heat, its climate is good but not so good as Kabul’s.”

During Bābur’s time, Samarkand was the capital city of the empire of Timur. Set by a fertile oasis watered by the Zarafshan river, the city was the center of education and commerce. In the heart of the city, Timur and his successors constructed the Rēgistan, an Islamic university that rivaled the grandness of European palaces.

Although many would influence Central Asia, the introduction of Islam had the most significant impact on the region. In 751 CE, the Abbasid Caliphate along with their ally the Tibetan Empire fought against the Chinese Tang Dynasty in order to control the Syr Darya region. Fought at the Talas River, the battle resulted in the Islamization of Central Asia. The Islamization of Central Asia has had profound impacts on the region, with the adoption or blending of the Islamic religion into native cultures. During this time the cities of Samarkand, Bukhara, and Urgench prospered and were centers of Islamic learning, culture, and art in Central Asia. Though the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century would slow the process, Islam remains the dominant religion in the region today.

The adoption of Islamic architecture also led to the construction of ornate Persianate gardens and orchards, with the crops irrigated using a complex system of conduits. Perhaps the most significant achievements of the Qarakhanid period (840-1212 CE), was the development of elaborate irrigation systems and expanding cultivated farming land into the deserts, even digging a one-hundred kilometer (sixty-two mile) canal connecting the Taraz region of southern Kazakhstan to the Ferghana lowlands in Uzbekistan. The agricultural practices of the region following the Mongolian conquests were preserved in Persian agricultural manuals, such as the Irshad al-Zira’a (guide to agriculture) composed in 1515 in Herat, Afghanistan by Qasim B. Yusuf Abu Nasri Harawi. The book discusses irrigated gardens and elaborate pavilions, going in-depth about the cultivation of wheat, barley, millet, rice, lentils, and chickpeas; viticulture; garden crops, including cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, radishes, onions, garlic, beets, and eggplant; herbs and aromatic plants; fruits and nuts including, melons, pomegranates, quinces, pears, apples, apricots, plums, cherries, figs, mulberries, and pistachios. The prominence of rice is also attributed to the period. These gardens and orchards were later expanded upon, under the stewardship of the tenth-century Qarakhanid ruler Ibrahim ibn Nasr. Large-scale game and hunting preserves were created. The gardens and orchards were well-maintained, in fact, Suzani Samarkandi, the only poet of the Qarakhanid court whose writing survives today, stated that Samarkand was “a paradise on Earth.”

Central Asia was a critical region in shaping world history. The cultural effects from the region still affects us today. The Silk Road revolutionized agricultural practices, changed culinary traditions, and saw the spread of innovation across the ancient and medieval world. Highly lucrative, any empire that held control over parts of the Silk Road often experienced economic advantages. One of the largest empires in history, the Roman Empire even benefitted from the Silk Road. By enacting tariffs and taxing commodities arriving from the east, Rome was able to experience unprecedented economic growth. According to Pliny the Elder, advisor to Emperor Vespasian, estimated that more than 100 million sesterces of bullion left the empire as a consequence of the international commerce. Giving Rome the economic power to fund their wars and become an ancient superpower.

Beckwith, Christopher I. Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 2011.

Choi, Charles Q. “Silk Road Travelers’ Ancient Knowledge May Have Irrigated Desert.” LiveScience. January 12, 2018. Accessed August 23, 2019. https://www.livescience.com/61408-silk-road-helped-irrigate-desert.html.

McLaughlin, Raoul. The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy & the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia & Han China. Pen and Sword, 2016.

Spengler, Robert N. Fruit from the Sands: The Silk Road Origins of the Foods We Eat. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2019.

Stevens, Chris J., Charlene Murphy, Rebecca Roberts, Leilani Lucas, Fabio Silva, and Dorian Q. Fuller. “Between China and South Asia: A Middle Asian Corridor of Crop Dispersal and Agricultural Innovation in the Bronze Age – Chris J Stevens, Charlene Murphy, Rebecca Roberts, Leilani Lucas, Fabio Silva, Dorian Q Fuller, 2016.” SAGE Journals. June 1, 2016. Accessed August 23, 2019. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0959683616650268.