BEETLESS' GARDENING GLOSSARY
(info./disclaimers) (index) (gardening guide)
Allelopathy:
the exudation by one plant of chemicals that inhibit the growth of another
plant.
“American”
crops: crops originating on the American continents – usually (but not always)
frost-tender subtropicals or tropicals, from Central or
Antagonists:
incompatible plants, either or both of which may interfere with the other’s
growth, health, taste, reproduction, etc..
Bentonite:
an absorbent aluminum silicate clay formed from volcanic ash and used to line
ponds, dams, and the “homesteader’s bathtub.”
Biodynamics:
a practical-spiritual approach to organic gardening and farming, based in the
work of philosopher Rudolph Steiner.
Biointensive:
gardening techniques designed to maximize productivity while minimizing use of
space and resources.
Bioregionalism:
the art of knowing, and living within the natural limits and character of,
one’s home place, or bioregion.
Bleach: a
chemical agent used to sterilize pruning shears between cuts to avoid the
spreading of disease.
Brassicaceae:
the cabbage family (see “mustards”).
Bugs: most
commonly (in this context) refers to insects in general; less commonly, refers
to “true bugs,” a subset of that group.
C:N ratio:
the ratio of carbon to nitrogen in, for example, a compost pile (where the
ideal ratio is about 25:1 at the outset).
Carbon-rich
browns: essential elements in a compost pile.
Castings:
earthworm turds.
Central
leader: a pruning style in which a single “central leader growing from the main
trunk fills the center of the tree.
Clay: fine
sedimentary material, with grains smaller than 0.002 millimeters in diameter.
Cloche: a
mini-greenhouse, often constructed of clear plastic draped over PVC pipes (see “cold
frame”).
Cold frame:
a season-extending mini-greenhouse, often placed directly over a garden bed
(see “cloche”).
Colloids:
substances composed of many tiny particles suspended in a gel-like mass, with a
high proportion of surface area to weight.
Community
Supported Agriculture: a farmer-consumer partnership in which shareholders
become more closely associated with a farm, paying a yearly fee and receiving a
weekly basket of various vegetables (and sometimes other foodstuffs) throughout
the growing season.
Companion
plants: complement each other in nutrient and water requirements, growth
habits, and demands for light; attract good bugs and give bad ones a fright;
they can also discourage diseases, promote soil life, and keep down weeds.
Compost: a
mixture of decaying organic matter, often used to enrich soil and improve soil
structure.
Compost
tea: a liquid amendment prepared by soaking finished compost in a barrel of
water.
Cover-crop:
a crop grown specifically to protect, condition, enrich, and turn back into the
soil, or to be used as compost, adding rather than subtracting organic matter
in the garden or farm system.
Crabgrass:
any of certain grasses of the genus Digitaria;
a troublesome perennial grass; second cousin to quackgrass.
Critters:
animals.
Crumbs:
aggregates of soil particles.
Crummy:
slang for a beat-up old motor vehicle, especially one used on mucky physical
jobs like tree-planting.
Devas:
plant spirits.
Digging
fork: a heavy-duty fork meant for working the soil, with tines stronger than
those on pitchforks and not flat like those on potato forks.
dioxins:
suspected gifts, absolutely free of charge, from the industry which supplies
grass seed for our golf courses and lawns.
DNA:
deoxyribonucleic acid.
Double-digging:
any of several methods of hand-cultivating the soil to two spade-depths,
described in detail in the books of John Jeavons.
Drip tape:
plastic irrigation line that leaks water at specific points, sometimes through “emitters”;
a more durable alternative, “leaky hose,” made from recycled rubber tires,
seeps water all along its length.
Dung:
sunshine.
Equisetum:
horsetail, a plant high in silica, valued for its antifungal properties.
Factory
farm: an animal concentration camp created to supply humans with meat, eggs,
dairy and other animal products.
Five-hundred
(500): one of the nine basic Biodynamic preparations.
Garden
cart: a two-wheeled alternative to the wheelbarrow, more stable and able to
carry larger loads, but not able to maneuver narrow paths between beds.
Garden
spade: a rectangular-headed digging tool, far superior to pointy-tipped shovels
for digging garden beds.
Gopher
plant: Euphorbia lathyrus, also
called “mole plant.”
“gray”
days: days on which, according to the Biodynamic calendar, no work with plants
should be done, due to unfavorable planetary and stellar alignments.
Green
Gulch: a
Green
manures: cover-crops or other plants incorporated back into the soil.
Hardening
off: the process by which a plant is acclimated to being outdoors in the cold,
wind, rain, heat, sun, etc..
Humus: a
brown or black organic substance resulting from the decay of vegetable or
animal matter.
Impact
sprinkler: an overhead watering system that goes “click, click, click, click
(etc.)” as it shoots off spurts of water.
Inoculant,
compost: any of several organism-rich materials (manure, finished compost, worm
castings, soil), layered into a compost pile to facilitate its composting.
Intern: (a)
a student or apprentice, learning partially through practical, hands-on
experience; or (b) unpaid or underpaid labor.
Jackson,
Wes: author, teacher, researcher, and founder of The Land Institute, which is
attempting to develop perennial polycultures (“natural systems agriculture”) to
replace annual grain production on our natural prairieland.
Jardinero: gardener (Spanish).
Jeavons,
John: author, teacher, researcher, and popularizer of biointensive growing
techniques.
Kelp meal:
a soil amendment made from seaweed, rich in trace minerals.
Lime: a
mineral form of calcium oxide, commonly used to reduce soil acidity (raise pH).
Living
mulches: cover-crops or weeds left growing where beds are not occupied by
planted vegetables.
Loam: a
benevolent mixture of sand (large particles of disintegrated rock, often silicate),
clay (fine particles), silt (intermediate-size particles), and organic matter.
Malos por la salud: bad for the health (Spanish).
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima
culpa: “it’s my
fault, it’s my fault, it’s absolutely totally my fault” (Latin).
Mollison,
Bill: author, teacher, and founder of Permaculture.
Mulch: a
material applied to the surface of the soil -- to provide nutrients and organic
matter, to prevent evaporation of moisture, to reduce weeds, to prevent soil
erosion, and/or to moderate, raise, or reduce soil temperature.
Mushrooms:
fruiting bodies bearing spores of fungi that live underground, bursting through
duff without making a sound.
Mustards:
used interchangeably with “brassicas,” “crucifers,” and “cole crops” to
indicate members of the cabbage family, Brassicaceae.
Mycorrhizal
fungi: keep soil rich and alive; help trees and microbes alike to survive.
N-P-K:
Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium.
Nitrogen-rich
greens: valuable ingredients in a compost pile (food scraps and/or
nitrogen-rich manures can supplement or substitute).
Open
center: a pruning style in which the center of the tree above the main trunk is
left open.
Organic
matter: matter derived from living organisms.
Parasites:
will make live matter dead.
Permaculture:
a contraction of “permanent agriculture” and also of “permanent culture”; a
design system for sustainability.
pH: a
measure of soil acidity, ranging from 1.0 (impossibly acid) through 7.0
(neutral) to 14.0 (impossibly basic), with most vegetables preferring a
slightly acid soil (pH 6.0 to 7.0).
photosynthesis:
why we are here today.
PVC:
polyvinyl chloride; bent pvc pipes are often employed as hoop supports for
plastic cloches.
Quackgrass:
Elymus repens, a creeping grass with conspicuous white rhizomes.
Radiation
frosts: frosts which occur under clear night skies at air temperature above
freezing.
Rainbird:
brand name of popular overhead impact sprinkler.
Raised
beds: garden beds that are raised above the natural level of the land -- often
created by double-digging.
Red Sails:
a favorite variety of red looseleaf lettuce.
Reemay: the
brand name of a multi-purpose spun polyester fiber used for frost protection,
heat or water retention, pest or pollinator exclusion, shade, or territorial
marking.
Rhizome: a
horizontal stem, usually underground, which sends out roots and shoots from its
nodes.
Rock dust:
finely ground-up rock.
Rock
phosphate: a mineral form of phosphorus.
Rototiller:
a motorized rotary cultivator and soil pulverizer.
Sand: large
particles of disintegrated rock, often silicate.
Saprophytes:
break down dead matter instead.
Secaturs:
the L.L. Bean of tools, a hybrid of scissors and pruning shears.
Seedflats:
boxes in which seeds become seedlings.
Seedling: a
seed that’s germinated; love made manifest.
Seeds:
love.
Self-sown:
having reseeded itself (planted itself from a previous generation’s seeds)
without human intervention.
Sheet
mulching: any of several techniques of covering over existing vegetation and
soil completely with a thick layer of mulch materials, then planting into or
through the new layer -- or, in some cases, using the mulch mainly to smother
unwanted vegetation, then moving it aside at a later date and planting into the
weed-free soil below.
Silt: fine
sedimentary material intermediate in size between sand and clay.
Soil
microorganisms: microscopic and submicroscopic soil life, especially bacteria
and protozoans, living at specific soil depths.
Spuds:
potatoes.
Stacking
functions: performing several functions with each element in a system -- a
basic principle of Permaculture design.
Steiner,
Rudolph: the Austrian philosopher whose agricultural lecture series in the
1920s inspired the development of Biodynamics.
Sucker: a
secondary shoot coming from the base or roots or a plant.
Summer
pruning: pruning done to stimulate better fruiting.
Sunchokes:
Symphylan:
a small wormlike soil creature that feasts on organic matter and plant
rootlets.
Tannic
acid: “a lustrous yellowish to light brown amorphous, powdered, flaked or
spongy mass [or liquid form thereof] having the approximate composition
C76H52O46, derived from [hence contained in] the bark and fruit [and leaves] of
many plants …” (The American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd edition) [additions
mine].
Thinnings:
plants removed from a seedflat or bed because they are growing too closely.
Tilth: that
desirable, crumbly structure in a soil that results from the activities of a
healthy soil biota and sensitive cultivation practices; also, the quality of
careful self-cultivation in a person.
Tuber: a
fleshy, swollen, usually underground stem, bearing buds or “eyes” which may
give rise to new shoots.
Un buen maestro: a good teacher (Spanish).
Un buen patron: a good boss (Spanish).
Urine: a
valuable source of nitrogen for compost piles or in the garden, when used
appropriately and in moderation.
Vavilov
Centers: “evolutionary hot spots” located in a narrow belt of land close to the
equator, where ninety percent of the earth’s vegetable life forms reputedly
came into being.
Vermiculture:
the cultivation of earthworms (directly in the garden soil) or of manure worms
(in bins or in manure or compost piles).
Volunteers:
self-sown vegetables; also, self-sown plants of any kind.
Ward, Tom:
herbalist, wildcrafter, Permaculture instructor, appropriate-living guru,
tree-house designer, and specialist in culvert maintenance.
Water
sprout: a rapidly-growing, usually weak, vertical shoot coming off an
established limb of a woody plant.
Weeds: can
be good compost-makin’s or can keep the soil from leaving garden beds; they can
be delicious too, better than other vegetables for you; they condition soil;
good insects like ‘em too.
Windbreak:
a hedge, fence, or row of trees which lessens or blocks the force of the wind.
Windrow: a
long row of cut hay, grain, or other vegetative or organic matter, left to dry
(before being bundled) or to compost.
Winter
pruning: pruning done to influence shape and growth.
Zone one: the “household” zone in a Permaculture landscape.
Excerpted from The Beetless' Gardening Book: An Organic Gardening Songbook/Guidebook, copyright 1997 by Chris Roth (info./disclaimers) (index) (gardening guide)