“Fourteen months — that’s the average age of an apple on the shelf in the United States,” organic farming advocate Matt Collogan told those gathered to hear him speak at the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s Fred and Alice Stanback Coastal Education Center March 11.
Agriculture, Collogan said, created communities thousands of years ago, and farming has the power to reshape modern society.
Collogan said backyard gardens that don’t use chemical fertilizers benefit humans both directly, through the elimination of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from people’s diets, and indirectly, through the conservation of the environment that provides the food.
“You’ve got your fresh honey with your beehive,” he said, “your water tank and cistern … your fresh rosemary and basil, you’ve got your chickens out there. … Everything you need, you just walk right to it. You don’t need to go to the store anymore.”
Anyone with a small amount of land can grow his or her own food, he said. The need to plant crops in evenly spaced rows is a misconception that wastes space, water and fertilizer. He described how to make a keyhole garden with crops planted in concentric circles and one short path from the perimeter to the center allowing the plants to be watered and harvested.
While manicured grass and open space might look nice, Collogan said the most productive yards are a mix of plants that yield a variety of food and also provide a diverse habitat for insects and animals.
“Low maintenance, high yield,” he said.
There are factors to take into account when planting a backyard garden, he said, but appearance is not a top priority.
First to consider is which plants need the most pruning, fertilizing, harvesting and watering. Those plants should go closest to the gardener’s house. After that, placement of plants will be dictated by sunlight requirements — taller plants should not shade shorter plants — and interspecies relationships.
“Some plants like each other more than other plants,” Collogan explained.
Walnut trees, for example, release a chemical called juglone into the soil, so only certain plants like tomatoes can grow nearby. In general, he said, Wilmington’s sandy soil supports a variety of crops but especially pomegranates, blueberries, kiwis and figs.
Mushrooms also grow well in the region, he added, and they don’t require soil, direct sunlight or frequent watering.
“You just get a log, drill little holes in it, plug the holes with spawn … soak it in some water and put it in a shady spot. Six months from now they start to fruit and then for the next seven years you have shitakes. It’s ridiculous,” he said. “Why aren’t we all doing this?”
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