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Show A Farm Sunday, October 21, 1990 The Daily Herald, Provo, Utah - Garden Dairymen to pay fax in '91 under new farm legislation garden can have small compost production A small Many gardeners - WASHINGTON Dairy farmers will pay five cents for every one have small yards, too small to build a serious compost pile. Even if they were able to save all their lawn clippings, leaves, weeds and vegetable refuse, it is doubtful if they would have enough material for a compost pile. So, as a result, their materials go to the city landfill. But, more and more emphasis is being placed on recycling, particularly as the cost of maintaining landfills escalates, and there are fewer and fewer places where landfills can be located. Also, new restrictions on landfill construction designed to protect the underground aquifers are making them more and more expensive to operate. There are two ways the small-yar- d owner can make a compost pile. The first is to collect materials from the neighbors, and the second is to supplement the garden debris with sphagnum peat moss. If you don't have a special compost bin or enclosure, here is a method you can use to make valuable, and inexpensive, compost for your garden. In warm weather, it can be fully composted in about a month, but in cold weather it will take longer. Mix your garden and kitchen materials (vegetable peelings and clippings, lawn clippings, weeds that haven't gone to seed, and other garden trimmings) about half and half with sphagnum peat moss. Use three plastic garbage cans to do your mixing, aerating and storing. It's best to do your mixing where you intend to store the compost, because it may get too heavy to move around easily. As you fill a can with the materials, add a shovelful or two of garden soil, or manure. You can also add some nitrogen fertilizer, y0y D hundred pounds of milk they produce next year under new farm .Ineanklna Zimmerman bill provisions crafted in a marathon bargaining session. House and Senate conferees met p for 14 hours of negotiating, which finally ended at 3:45 a.m. today, to complete work on a final version of the 1990 farm bill. In addition to clearing up differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, lawmakers had to find ways to cut $13.6 billion from agriculture programs over n five years to meet new targets set by Congress. The negotiated package authorizes $40.8 billion in farm spending through fiscal 1995. The dairy tax is essentially dairy farmers' contribution to reducing the federal deficit by $500 billion by non-sto- IS ' jy 4 UAHDbN EDITOR since composting uses up the nitrogen in the ingredients. Blend the ingredients by pouring them back and forth between the first two cans. After it is vrell mixed, pour half a gallon of water into the can of compost and set it in full sunlight. Aerate the compost every few days by pouring it from one garbage can to the other. If liquid collects in the bottom, or it smells like it is fermenting, add more peat moss to soak up the liquid. If the clippings are slow in breaking down, add another shovelful of manure, or a cup of fertilizer. You can be sure the decomposition will proceed quickly when the weather is warm, but it will slow down as the weather cools. Even in winter, however, the sun is warm during the day and its heat will allow the composting process to continue. If you are composting during the warm weather, you should be able to generate a can full of healthy-smellin- g compost in about a month. This compost is ready to enrich your garden soil. Store the finished compost in the third can while you process more in the other two cans. It's a good idea to save a little of the finished compost (a few shovelfuls) to use as a starter for the new batch, instead of beginning again with garden soil and manure from high-nitrog- scratch. You can also save a canful of composted peat moss to mix with the dried leaves you collect each fall. Mix them at a 0 ratio and add another half gallon of water per can. As the composting begins, the mass should decrease in volume, so more leaves can be added. The finished compost is wonderful for indoors and outdoors. In your outdoor flowerbeds and gar50-5- dens, work the compost into the soil around the plants. This can be done by working it into the top three to four inches of soil with a hoe or other garden tool. Compost can be a valuable addition to your vegetable garden as you prepare it for planting in the spring. The peat moss is like a sponge, holding up to 20 times its normal weight in water. Compost provides much-neede- d humus to clay soils, and gives body and substance to soils high in sand. In both cases, the compost will hold the water and will aerate the deficit-reductio- 1995. Lawmakers agreed to tax farmfive cents per hundredweight of ers milk next year and 11 cents per hundredweight from 1992 to 1995. Although farm bill conferees agreed to the tax, it would not become final until Congress approves it as part of the new fiscal 1991 budget. Lawmakers also agreed, however, to a mitigating provision that would allow farmers to get their tax refunded if they could prove they did not produce more milk than in the previous year. Under the system, farmers would pay the assessment and be refunded at the end of the year. The refund provision was eagerly sought by producers. They argued that farmers deserve the refund for not contributing to a dairy surplus that forces the government to spend money buying excess milk products. "What we're trying to do is soften the blow," said James Mul-hera lobbyist for the National Milk Producers Federation. Dairy production currently goes up about 3 percent each year, while consumption increases about 2 percent. The Agriculture Department spends about $600 million each year on dairy programs, most of which involve supporting milk prices through purchases of cheese, butter and nonfat dry milk. pressed for other Producers provisions to mitigate the effects of the tax even further but were unsuccessful. The bill also includes an option tax by for replacing the requiring USDA to study other ways to cut dairy spending. The study would be completed by fiscal 1992 for possible implementation instead of the tax. That is good news for dairy producers who oppose the tax, but still prefer it to a cut in the dairy support price, which was not changed from the previously approved $10.10 per hundredweight. nt Farmers, ranchers receive mixed prices Prices received by Utah farmers and ranchers in were mixed, according to the Utah Statistics Agricultural The steer and heifer price was down 70 cents per cwt. $74.10 er Service. Cows, at $51.50 per hundredweight (cwt.) were down $2 from August, but $3.30 above September of last year. from a month ago, but $4.90 above last year. Calves, at $93.60 per cwt., were down $5.90 from the previous month, but were up $1.80 from the previous year. The sheep price was $22.40 per cwt., unchanged from last month, but $6.50 above last year. Lambs, at $47.50 per cwt., were $1.50 above August, 1990, but $15.20 below September 1989. Wool, at 70 cents per pound, was unchanged from last month, but 60 cents below last year. soil. Peat moss alone has few nutrients, although it is a valuable soil aerator. Adding garden wastes and nitrogen make it more than a aerator, but rather a fine soil amendment. Dedicated gardeners recognize the value of compost because it improves the soil, but also recycles materials that normally would go to the landfill. LOAN Winter great time for gardening By GEORGE BRIA POUND RIDGE, N.Y. (AP) When the air gets nippy, people ask me if I've put the garden to bed. Never. The cows that watched me weeding the corn in July see me in snowboots and earflaps in December picking Brussels sprouts for Christmas dinner. Some of the tastiest and most nutritious crops thrive in autumn and are still good in winter. The year-roun- d gardener looks forward to chilly nights to put flavor into parsnips and sprouts. He or she makes room in the vegetable patch for other hardy crops like late broccoli, Chinese cabbage, kale, collards, beets, leeks, carrots, turnips, spinach, Swiss chard and other greens. Scientists say cool weather affects the metabolism of some plants, promoting sugar buildups and concealing less attractive flavors. When frost is killing tender crops like tomatoes and beans, hardy vegetables are just reaching their prime. One of the best of these crops is Brussels sprouts, some of us think. Long a favorite in Europe, sprouts are strangely missing from most American gardens. The National Gardening Association estimates only one gardener in 10 grows them. "Perhaps too few gardeners have picked fresh, frost-sweeten- sprouts in late fall, cooked them stage and just to the served them with melted butter," the association says in its gardening guide. Some gardeners may have fum fork-tend- er bled by planting sprouts or too late. In my garden, north of New York City, time is October, coinciding too soon trowel or spading fork. To protect them from the bitterest cold, mulch them with leaves or hay and then harvest them as you desire all winter long and into early spring. In the South, they may be dug a few at a time and stored in the refrigerator, where the cold will sweeten them. g all sumBroccoli, mer, acquires an extra tang in autumn. This vegetable is an ideal garden crop in my area, for a single planting in early spring will yield large heads in summer and then florets deep into November. Breeders have also produced varieties, like Waltham and Green Valiant, that are planted in midsummer to yield large central heads in the fall. Romanesco, an Italian heirloom variety recently offered in U.S. seed catalogs, produces a gorgeous chartreuse head. Broccoli, especially eaten raw, ranks at the top of nutrition charts for its vitamins and minerals. Also outstanding nutritionally, kale yields tasty greens in the fall and winter. Its lacy leaves add a nice touch to the salad bowl. Late lettuces with names like Arctic King and North Pole produce deep into fall and early winter. Third harvests are prolonged in coldframes or under transparent synthetic covers. Peas will yield a fall crop, although not as abundant as in spring. Cut back to ground level in late fall and mulched deeply, Swiss chard sends up fresh tender leaves in early spring. miles the best with the 50 first frosts. If planted in early spring, they mature in midsummer with inferior taste. If planted too late, the plants don't grow enough. You have to experiment in your own climate, and especially with conditions in your own garden, to get it right. Parsnips, one of the sweetest of vegetables, are also curiously absent from many gardens. Perhaps a yen for instant gratification turns some of us away, for parsnips and attention. require waiting Planted in early spring, the edible root doesn't start sweetening until the autumn chill a waiting time of six months and more. Some growers think they don't reach their best until they have wintered over almost a year after sowing. Like carrots, parsnips are difficult to germinate. After numerous failures outdoors, I resorted to sowing them indoors in flats under lights where I could keep them both warm and damp. This worked, giving me nice seedlings to transplant in May. Because parsnips are a root plant, the soil must be worked carefully to remove stones. I use an iron bar to punch deep holes, which I fill with compost, and plant the seedlings in those. After these initial efforts, the plants need occasional watering, but that's about all. I start digging up my parsnips after a few hard frosts, using a nice-tastin- deep-thrusti- FAST LOANS Cut calf loss to diarrhea death because of diarrhea can be avoided through quick and effective treatment, according to Clell Bagley, Utah State University Extension veterinarian. Diarrhea in calves from birth through four weeks old, commonly called scours or enteritis, is a major health problem on many dairy farms. If a calf comes down with scours, act quickly to avoid rapid dehydra Calf SECURED tion, shock and death, he said. In addition to consulting a veterinarian, treatment includes the use of fluids, electrolytes, gels and antibiotics. Calves less than two weeks old should be fed oral electrolyte solutions in place of milk or milkrepla-cerFrom eight weeks to eight months, watch for pneumonia. Calves that have suffered from diarrhea are susceptible. BY REAL ESTATE Equity loans Second mortgages Fast refinancing Low, low rates Private investor lunds Loans from $5000 to $250,000 note rate annual percentage rate Thinking of a new purchase: FDIC Boat or Recreation Vehicle? (si New Appliances? tout J LENDER Christmas? Wasatch Hunk is havin a consumer loan sale this month for qualified buyers at rates much lower than other financial sources. Signature loans are also available at remarkably reduced rates durin this sale period. Take advantage ul this inoiity sale now and tor the upcoming holiday season. Visit any of our lour branch offices for full details on this excinn offer. Rate based on a loan for $10,000 for 12 months. Rate is subject to change one year November 1, 1991, Some restrictions may apply. Loan Sale offer expires October 31, 1990 When banks say no, we say yes! s. MEMBER New or Used Car? In NEW WORLD FINANCIAL 226-081- 2 WE'RE kids on :he move even lo.m made dunru: this sale, Wasatch Bank is pleased to make a contribution in 'in name to the huh m the Mmv program to huv brick1 lor their new builJint',. Your name will he niilikled on a plaque as a contributor to this worthwhile project. Kids on the More is an caik intervention preschool serving infants and toddlers with developmental disabilities I .i t n era n. ti TUES. 23rd WED. 24th sweaters Big savings on alt maternity and infant 8 So. State Orem Between Smith's and Shopko 95 226-867- mm 10am-9p- Everyday but Sunday 4& mc in: i. d 1 m m v t si mi UNW a1 .ir.JJc-l.iv- it 1 BOB WASATCH m OREM SANTAQUIN BANK PLEASANT GROVE Hmigmwn and proud of it! LEH! |