Peaceful Belly worker Angi Hronek carrying kale plants into garden for fall planting

Clay Erskine prepping plants for planting

Clay: Let’s just finish out this bed and then we’ll move on . . .

Hand: Clay and Josie Erskine of Peaceful Belly Farms are in a field on a warm August day pulling kale starts out of plastic trays.

Clay: We are planting our fall brassicas, which is the family like cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, kale, all cool season crops.

Hand: The Erskines say gardening doesn’t have to end in the fall.  For those willing to make the effort, gardening in Southern Idaho can go right through winter.  Josie Erskine:

Josie Erskine planting kale for fall garden

Josie: Well, you can plant food in the fall that you can harvest later like in October or November and December.  And then it will stop growing for a little while and then you can start harvesting it again at the end of January and February.  So you have things that will overwinter here in our climate like kales and spinaches, broccoli and then with just a little bit of protection, either like a row cover or a hoop with some plastic on it, you can get lettuces and frisees and turnips and carrots to overwinter

Hand: The key is putting the plants in the ground early enough to get established — and right now is a great time.

Clay: But it is a challenge ‘cause it’s really hot right now and all these crops like the cool and moist weather.

Hand: So, you need to pamper those new plantings for a few weeks.

Clay: We have overhead sprinklers, so what we can do is cool them down and keep their soil really nice and moist.  With a drip irrigation system, it would be more difficult, they would get kind of stressed out in the heat and the dryness.

Hand: Besides planting kale, cauliflower, and lettuce, Josie Erskine says . . .

Kale starts ready to plant

Josie: . . . you could even plant little potatoes and you would maybe get some little teeny potatoes.  You can plant peas right now as long as you hoop those when the fruit comes on ‘cause the fruit doesn’t like frost but they’ll grow great and you can get fall peas.  You could do beets, like little baby beets that you overwinter.  Mizuna, frisse, radicchio.

Hand: But why bother with the added hassle of cool season crops?

Josie: They’re sweeter.  They have higher sugar content.  You’ll eat some of those vegetables in the winter and they taste completely different.  They’re so much sweeter.  It’s like they have to put so much energy into themselves just to keep alive and you can taste it.  It’s almost like how an apple after the first frost gets sweeter, so do these vegetables.

Hand: So, for those willing to do a little extra work in August, a cool season garden might take a touch of the bitterness out of the coming winter.

(Hand) For the Market & Garden Report and Boise State Public Radio, I’m Guy Hand.

Photo By Tom Banse

More Northwest farmers will feel the collateral damage from a festering trade dispute with Mexico. The Mexican government Wednesday slapped new tariffs on imported apples, cheese and sweet corn. Mexico is using expanded tariffs to pressure the Obama administration to restore a program allowing Mexican trucks into the U.S. Correspondent Tom Banse reports.

A first round of tariffs imposed last year on potato products, pears, cherries and Christmas trees cost Northwest farmers tens of millions of dollars. Now the addition of one of the Northwest’s iconic exports raises the stakes. Mexico announced that effective immediately, U.S. apples will also be subject to a 20 percent tariff. Mark Powers of the Northwest Horticultural Council says Mexico is the number one export market for our region’s growers.

Mark Powers: “The whole point of these retaliatory disputes is to inflict pain and believe me, our industry is feeling it.”

Powers says exporters have to eat the 20 percent tariff or lose the sale to other countries. He says that’s unfortunate because Northwest farmers have nothing to do with the cross border trucking dispute behind all this. The Teamsters Union is trying to keep out what it calls unsafe foreign competition. Mexico charges that stance violates the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Copyright 2010 Northwest News Network

On the web: Mexican Government’s complete list of retaliatory tariffs (in Spanish)

Selected Northwest commodity exports subject to retaliatory tariffs by Mexico:

Apples 20% tariff rate (new)
Wine 20% tariff
Potatoes 5% (newly lowered from previous 20% tariff rate)
Pears 20%
Cherries 20%
Christmas trees 20%
Onions 10%
Apricots 20%
Fresh grapes 20%
Toilet paper 5%
Sweet corn 15% (new)

Listen

Counting fish at the Bonneville Dam fish ladder. Photo by Tom Banse

NORTH BONNEVILLE, Wash. – Banner runs of salmon and steelhead are migrating up some Northwest rivers this summer. Not since dams were constructed on the Columbia and Snake Rivers have this many sockeye salmon returned. Meanwhile, the 2010 summer steelhead run is on pace to be the second highest on record on the Columbia. The modern record for steelhead was set in 2001.Correspondent Tom Banse explores possible explanations for the unexpectedly high salmon returns.

Bonneville Dam was finished in 1937. Ever since, fish counters have sat in front of big underwater picture windows there. Fish ladders at the dam funnel spawners past the windows.

Jane Jackson: “Whoa! Look at that big, big Chinook… Steelhead…”

Park ranger Jane Jackson calls out the fish as a human counter keeps track with a clicker.

Sound: (clicker)

Jane Jackson: “Wow! A wild Chinook… and another one. Hatchery, hatchery….”

Tom Banse: “We’ve got a big group here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven coming by the window…”

Rarely have salmon and steelhead filled the windows as they have this year.

Jane Jackson: “Oh, that one has got a scrape.”

The run of endangered Snake River sockeye has set a modern record. The returns are more than double the pre-season forecast. Right on its tail comes a blockbuster steelhead run. Columbia River wild steelhead are listed as threatened. Steelhead resemble salmon, but are technically an ocean-going trout.

Sound: (splashing of fishermen)

Downstream of the dam, dozens of fisherman cast lines from the riverbank for marked hatchery-origin fish.

Jeff Seale: “Ha! Holy smokes, look at that.”

Sport fisher Jeff Seale reels in the biggest steelhead he says he’s ever caught. It’s longer than his outstretched arm and weighs maybe 14 pounds.

Jeff Seale: “Last year was good and I’m hoping this year is just as good.”

Nearby, fisherman Mike Lazelle of Carson, Washington throws out some theories with his line.

Mike Lazelle: “It’s probably good ocean conditions have led to a good run this year. I’m sure it’s probably nothing we did.” (hearty chuckle)

Biologists say it’s hard to prove cause and effect because there are so many variables in play. A spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would like to believe that all the money spent on dam improvements “is finally paying some dividends.”

Tribal fisheries biologist Stuart Ellis sees benefits from a court order to spill more water over the tops of dams in the summer. That’s instead of running the water – and young fish — through the power turbines.

Stuart Ellis: “One of that likely has occurred with these particular fish is that we’ve had really good outmigrating conditions for the juveniles.

A colleague of Ellis’ in Portland, Jeff Fryer, mentions that fishing has been greatly reduced in places to protect threatened runs.

Jeff Fryer: “Back when I started in the late eighties when you had a big run we’d harvest 50 percent or so. It was a much bigger harvest allowed.”

Then there’s the question of whether increased hatchery production can explain higher salmon returns. State and federal fish & wildlife agencies discount this possibility. They say hatchery production overall has held pretty steady.

A caveat now. Stuart Ellis points out that for every Northwest salmon run that’s exceeded the pre-season forecast, he can find one that’s struggling. For example, this year’s run of Lake Washington Chinook is falling way short.

Stuart Ellis: “You have to have enormous humility to work in this business, because these fish are masters at faking you out. As soon as you think that you’ve got some real understanding of what these fish are doing and what kind of factors are influencing their survival, something will change.”

Ellis is sure salmon will need intensive management into the foreseeable future. He says the region’s growing population, a warming climate and increasing demands for water are just some of the reasons why.

Copyright 2010 Northwest News Network

On the web: Bonneville Dam Fish Count and Webcam

Listen

Signs of a neglected garden

[HOST INTRO] In the dead of summer, gardening can feel less like a relaxing diversion than a test of endurance.  Enthusiasm fades as the mercury rises.  In this installment of the Market & Garden Report, correspondent Guy Hand talks to gardening teachers Clay and Josie Erskine about some cures for the summertime gardening blues.

More signs of a neglected garden (mine)

Josie: I think a lot of people feel guilt that their garden, when it turns a hundred degrees, starts dying.  They feel guilty about it.

Hand: Josie Erskine says a lot of gardening guilt sprouts up as temperatures soar this time of year.  But she has some advice.

Josie: You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, ’cause gardening isn’t always about making it through a full season.

Hand: She says you should adjust your gardening goals to reflect your personality.

Josie: Sometimes when you start a garden what you realize is I only like to garden in the spring.  That’s when I like to garden.  I don’t even like to garden in the fall.  And I think embrace that.  Embrace the fact that you’re a spring gardener.

Letting a summer garden go fallow may make you a happier gardener

Clay: You can also, like Josie was saying, just plant a spring garden . . .

Hand: That’s Clay Erskine

Clay: . . . and then come late June, early July, pull it out, put some straw down there and just let it go fallow for the summer.  The weeds won’t grow if you don’t put water on it and then come spring, that will have broken down enough, you can just work that straw into the soil and plant your spring garden again.

Hand: Clay says, you could also plant a low maintenance cover crop. But if you want vegetables through the whole season, Josie suggests planting a small garden that’s closely connected to your daily life.

The best decision might sometimes be to put down that hoe and head for the river

Josie: Look at your path from where you step out of your car or get your mail to your front door.  Sometimes we put our ornamentals in that area, but really maybe if you have sun there that my be some of the best places to put your vegetables, because you walk past those multiple times a day.  It will make the maintaining of those things a lot easier, especially if you don’t have to walk out your back door and walk far across the yard.  If they’re just right there you can give them a drink of water before you even walk in your house.

(Music fades in) Hand: After all, most of us don’t garden for survival.  We garden for the satisfaction.  But when summer temperatures start to burn that out, Clay and Josie Erskine suggest one more thing.

Josie: Just garden for fun, if that’s what you like to do is garden for fun and every year you feel frustrated in August when it’s just a big singed up thing, get over it, you’re gardening for fun.

(Hand) For The Market & Garden Report and Boise State Public Radio, I’m Guy Hand.

OSU Extension fisheries expert Kaety Hildenbrand says people began calling the Lincoln County Sea Grant office with stories about glowing pink shrimp.

Kaety Hildenbrand: “One person had made herself a shrimp salad and sat down to watch a movie and turned out her lights, and the salad started to glow. Another person was thawing some shrimp overnight in their sink, which is not a great way to thaw shrimp, but that’s how he found it.”

Hildenbrand says bio-luminescent seafood could be the result of one of several different non-toxic bacteria.

Kaety Hildenbrand: “So it’s not from waste or pollution or anything like that. It is from a marine bacteria. There’s varying reports about whether it’s super-common or not. I think the biggest issue is how often do you eat seafood in the dark.”

The glow also can occur in other seafood, such as salmon. But Hildenbrand says that there have been no reports of illness from the luminescence.

Listen to the audio of this story

Copyright 2010 KLCC

Redfish Lake in central Idaho will live up to its name this summer. An unusually large number of red-backed sockeye salmon will soon swim to their spawning grounds in the shadow of the Sawtooth Mountains. Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports Idaho fisheries managers hope this year’s stellar return will become a trend, rather than an exception.

Before the Snake and Columbia River dams were built in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, sockeye by the tens of thousands made the 900 mile swim from the Pacific Ocean back to Redfish Lake. But the dams reduced the fish return to virtually nothing. The lowpoint came during the ‘90s, when only 16 sockeye returned.

But Jeff Heindel from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game says the run is rebounding. Hundreds of thousands of young hatchery sockeye have been sent oceanbound during the last several years. He says many are finding their way back.

Heindel: “If we get 1,500 fish to the basin this year, that’s wonderful. We haven’t seen it since 1955. But we’re still a long ways from recovery of that species. But I’m confident that we’re at least heading down a path that we can see the endpoint.”

Heindel says many variables will determine whether the lake’s sockeye population will continue to increase. He says the state hopes to build a new hatchery just for sockeye in southern Idaho during the next few years.

Copyright 2010 Northwest News Network

Listen

According to a researcher at Washington State University, some peach growers in Oregon reported losing 50% of their crops last year. The flies originally came from Asia. The same species showed up in western Washington 2009, and again this year.

The Washington Blueberry Commission has been working with researchers to figure out how to control the fruit flies. Alan Schreiber is the director of the commission. He says it is unclear how major the damage will be.

Schreiber: “This pest is either gonna cost us a lot of money to control it or it is gonna cost even more amount in terms of loss production. We are really holding our breath in waiting to see if we had the ability to control the insect or not.”

Growers have been setting up traps to help catch the fruit flies. Doug Walsh is a professor at Washington State University. He believes organic growers are most susceptible.

Walsh: “Obviously, it’s a new pest in our area. The shame that we have right now is we had a very large increase in our organic blueberry production here in eastern Washington. We have a number of pesticides that can control this insect that’s relatively easy to control with the insecticides that are available, but it’s the organic producers and the backyard growers that I am concerned about. ”

Walsh also says the pest is seasonal, and they tend to increase in a warmer weather. He hopes that a cold winter in eastern Washington will help depress the fly population.

Copyright 2010 KUOW

To listen to this story go to Northwest Public Radio

Photo by Tom Banse

This weekend, around 30,000 people are expected to descend on Sequim, Washington for that small town’s 14th annual lavender festival. Organizers boast it is North America’s biggest celebration of the purple herb. Lavender festivals are blossoming all over the Northwest. There’s another one in Twin Falls, Idaho this Saturday and on San Juan Island, Washington Saturday and Sunday. Correspondent Tom Banse takes stock of what’s become a growth industry.

If “U-pick” lavender or lavender sachets aren’t your thing, maybe you’ll succumb to lavender body butter, ice cream, salad dressing, lavender BBQ rub, eye pillows or dog bandanas. Those are just some of the cottage businesses that have sprouted lately based on the fragrant herb.

Mary Jendrucko: “It just caught on.”

Mary Jendrucko and her husband planted a lavender farm near Sequim in 2000. Membership in her local growers’ association has tripled since then.

Mary Jendrucko: “I think it’s because the world is so crazy and people want to relax. Lavender has those known qualities for relaxation.”

Jendrucko says one nice side benefit of the dramatic growth in the lavender business is seeing farmland preserved which otherwise might be converted to housing developments.

Lavender businesses in Oregon recently reached the critical mass needed to form their own industry association. Last weekend, lavender lovers had no fewer than seven different festivals to choose from across the Northwest.

On the Web:

Sequim Lavender Festival

Oregon Lavender Association

Lavender Festival – Twin Falls, ID (July 17)

San Juan Island Lavender Festival (July 17-18)

Copyright 2010 Northwest News Network

Listen

Ripe cherries wait to be picked in a orchard outside of Prosser, Wash. A new contraption nicknamed the cherry thumper may drastically change how those Northwest fruit get to market.

PROSSER, Wash. — The legend of John Henry pits a “steal driving man” against a steam drill. John Henry wins the contest but in the long run, machines have prevailed in the American economy. Now, researchers at Washington State University are developing a modern day contraption that could put cherry pickers out of work. The “cherry thumper” is the size of a sedan. It thumps tree limbs to drop the fruit onto a conveyor belt. Correspondent Anna King went to check it out at WSU’s cherry test farm in Prosser.

During the cherry harvest nowadays, it’s not unusual to hear the pickers sing. Maria Arebalo belted this one out last season.
Sound: Maria Arebalo
But one day, the sound of cherry picking could be this.
Sound: Cherry thumper
This machine is nicknamed the cherry thumper. It looks like an oversized video game. With a seat, two joysticks and a robot arm. I get Matt Whiting a scientist with WSU, to fire up his invention.
Matt Whiting: “It’s comprised of a thumper, knocks the branches back, fruit fall onto a catching conveyor, they are brought up to the top of the machine, another conveyor brings them to the rear, leaf litter is removed in the field and there is a standard cherry bin collecting the fruit at the back of the machine.”

Qin Zhang, a member of the mechanical cherry harvest team, drives the cherry thumper at a test orchard outside of Prosser, Wash.

Sound: Machine thumping sound, conveyor squeaking sound [under]
Early summer is Whiting’s go time. He has just about two to three weeks during the peak of cherry season to do all his field research for the year. If Whiting can get this thing working properly, farmers could replace hundreds of cherry pickers with one thumper. Whiting says labor is one of the most expensive costs for cherry farmers.
Matt Whiting: “The holy grail would be to have a fully mechanized harvest. We’ve studied that the last few years and we found that the picking costs per pound have gone from by hand from 20 to 24 to maybe 25 cents a pound to 2 to 3 cents per pound using this prototype harvester.”

Whiting says that price includes the purchase of the machine. The U.S. Department of Agriculture thinks it’s such a good idea that it gave Whiting 4-million-dollars to develop the project. Now he has a team of 11 working on everything from nuts and bolts to consumer packaging.
It’s not the only contraption Whiting and his team are developing. They’re also working on a cherry shaker that looks like a weed-eater.

Qin Zhang and Matt Whiting of Washington State University show off their cherry shaker that’s in development and the fruit it can quickly collect.

Sound: Cherry shaker
It could be used in older farms where the trees aren’t suited for the thumper.
These two machines have big implications for the rural economy in the northwest and the cherries you buy in the store.
Last year during the peak of cherry harvest there were more than 40-thousand cherry pickers working in Washington alone. Mechanization means there would be far fewer of them. It also means farmers and consumers would have to get used to cherries without stems. The machines knock the cherries down and the stems stay on the tree. Stem-less cherries are already hitting a test market this summer in Missouri.
Sound: Thumper
If all goes well on the test farm – you might be see the stem-less orbs in your stores in about four more summers.
I’m Anna King outside of Prosser, Washington.

Copyright 2010 Northwest Public Radio

Listen to the audio of this story on KUOW public radio

Courtesy Outdoor Idaho

This Thursday, Outdoor Idaho will air a show on Idaho’s vibrant local food scene.  It’s a story that Idaho Public Television producer Thanh Tan has been working on since last summer — a subject dear to her heart. Here’s what Tan says about the show:

“I always tell people one of the pleasures of working at IdahoPTV is the fact that producers get to pursue projects they are passionate about. In my case, I love food. I cook for myself. I cook for my friends. For me, making a delicious dish from scratch is incredibly therapeutic. I believe the act of sharing food brings people together and sparks great conversations.

So when I got the green light to produce an Outdoor Idaho about the local food scene in Idaho – I was ecstatic! Production began in the summer of 2009. Since then, we’ve traveled all over the state to gather video and sound. We will continue to put the finishing touches on the show right up until the July 15 premiere.”

Courtesy Outdoor Idaho

“Eating Local” will look at the increasing numbers of small farm operations that sell directly to consumers, part of a growing local food movement that supports more than 50 farmers markets statewide.

Courtesy Outdoor Idaho

Thanh Tan says her research for the show reveals that America’s industrial food system brings seasonal goods to grocery stores year around. But it also sends locally grown crops and money out of state with food items traveling an average of 1,500 miles before arriving in stores.

“The opportunity to see how hard some farmers are working to diversify their crops and strengthen our regional food-shed says a lot about how much Idahoans care about each other and our economy,” Tan says. “After watching ‘Eating Local,’ you may never look at your food the same way again! At the very least, I think you’ll be inspired by what Idaho farmers have to offer — and wonder whether we’re capable of producing even more of our own food.”

Here’s a video clip of the upcoming show:

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

“Eating Local” on Idaho Public Television’s Outdoor Idaho will air this Thursday July 15th at 8:00/7:00 p.m. MT/PT and repeats July 18 (Sunday) at 7:00 p.m. MT/PT. See it in HD July 15 (Thursday) at 9:00/8:00 p.m. MT/PT and July 18 (Sunday) at 8:00/7:00 p.m. MT/PT. The discussion continues on a live DIALOGUE on “Local Foods” July 15 (Thursday) at 8:30/7:30 p.m. MT/PT, which repeats July 18 (Sunday) at 5:30/4:30 p.m. MT/PT.