Andi's Blog

Nematode cooking was worth the work

With the help of my husband, who has a degree in diversified agriculture and is an experienced soil scientist, I have developed an interest in gardening. Some foods, such as honeydew melon, tomatoes and pineapples just aren't very good in the store, either because they are selling commercial varieties that ship well and look good but don't necessarily taste good, or the produce is picked too early. In addition to our garden produce being of higher quality than store bought goods, I also like that fuel wasn't wasted flying the fresh food in from the mainland or another country, and the food we grow is free of pesticide. Aside from all that, I've found there is simply something satisfying about getting my hands in the dirt and successfully growing good food.

I even look forward to throwing on my rain coat on wet nights and hunting slugs. I pick them up with chop sticks so my hands don't get slimy. Our biggest nemesis by far has been the root knot nematode. The tiny worm-like critter is too small to be seen by the human eye. It lives in the soil and can only travel an inch a year. Yet, they reproduce like crazy and bore into the roots of plants until the roots are knotted and practically destroyed, depriving the plant of nutrients and water. When Chris lived at lower elevation, he solarized his garden using a layer of black plastic and a layer of clear plastic to heat the soil until the nematodes were killed. At our new elevation of 1,500 feet, most days cloud over by 11 a.m. and the soil never gets hot enough to kill the nematodes. We also tried planting sun hemp and mustard greens that are supposed to deter nematodes, but this did not help. We got fed up and replaced all the soil in our garden with new soil, only to find that soil also contained nematodes. Finally, we acquired a used water heater and modified it so it would heat water to a boil. Chris built a frame just the right size to hold a tank full of water (he can do math) and that frame let the hot water soak into the soil and heat it hot enough and long enough to kill the nematodes. In areas of the garden that are sloped, the fame didn't work so well, so he welded a steamer and fed a hose from the water heater to the steamer. It produced plenty of steam and it did work, but it took a long time, tons of electricity and was so labor intensive we gave up on that method.

Since the hot water treatment, the garden has done amazingly well. The plants grow larger, produce much more food and don't turn yellow and die prematurely. It was a lot of effort, but the garden has never looked better. And because we have a photovoltaic system, we didn't have to pay for the electricity to heat the water.