Making It Grow Minutes

One way many bats find their supper is by flying around and emitting radar like sounds and listening to the signals that bounce off potential prey, a system called echolocation. The signals differ from species to species according to the bats’ body size, size of the intended prey and the sensitivity of that bat’s hearing. When a bat detects a potential meal is, it increases the frequency and zeros in. It’s pretty hard to catch an evasive insect on the wing with your mouth, and some bats have a structure, the uropatagium, they can use like a catcher’s mitt. Biologists have had difficulty distinguishing bats by their calls, but thanks to technology, even a homeowner can get relatively inexpensive devices that identifies noises from different species letting you know you which unseen aerialists are helping you with pest control.

In the United States, we have forty-seven species of bats with 14 found in South Carolina. Most US bats and all of our bats are insectivorous with spiders thrown in, too. As such, they are hugely beneficial. Agriculture is the driving force in South Carolina’s economy, and the estimate is that insect suppression from bats is worth one hundred fifteen million dollars a year just in our small state. Maybe you’re not a farmer – how about that bats, especially the little brown bat, use mosquitoes as a major part of their diet, including many that carry West Nile Virus. Bigger bats eat bigger insects with the largest numbers including Lepidoptera, moths and butterflies and their super destructive larvae; Diptera – the true flies which includes mosquitoes, Coleoptera – those crunchy beetles, and the bees, wasps and ants in the order Hymenoptera. Their full stomachs translate into money in the bank for farmers.

Bats are among the most misunderstood animals we encounter – or don’t encounter as many people have never seen a bat. But with the of onslaught of the pandemic, bats which are truly beneficial, have gotten a bad rap. Although bats do harbor a large number of corona viruses which don’t seem to make them sick, most scientists believe the virus mutated and infected an intermediary animal, perhaps the pangolin, and that animal transmitted the virus to humans. Bats cannot give Covid 19 to humans, but researchers fear that humans could transmit it to bats. That’s why bat researchers now use all the super protective gear when working with bats that we are used to seeing medical workers wear. As humans move into spaces once occupied by wildlife, it’s likely more diseases will mutate and jump from one species to another.

The Audubon Society’s Francis Beidler Forest is the world’s largest untouched cypress-tupelo swamp, the perfect habitat for Prothonotary warblers, sometimes called swamp warblers. Specific birds have been tracked returning to the exact same hollowed out tre, year after year to build their nests. When a foot or two foot above water, these nests are less likely to be raided by racoons.

Jay Keck, who works for the South Carolina Wildlife Federation, called recently to thank me for re-upping my membership. As we chatted, he told me his group has partnered with Andrew Jackson High School whose students build bird boxes not only for screech owls but for Prothonotary warblers, as well.

Even if you don’t have a large yard, you can use a small raised bed or even containers on a balcony to give your kids a hands-on experience growing vegetables, cooking and eating them, and learning about their history and importance. The South Carolina Botanical Garden has series with these fascinating topics – The Great Pea Race which Thomas Jefferson and his friends started, Wartime Secrets of Carrots – how important they were in Britain in World War II -- how corn, beans and squash, the three sisters, enriched the diet of native Americans, and ending with how pizza ingredients take you on a world-wide adventure. Seeds and supplemental materials make this both a hand’s on and virtual experience for young people including a Facebook page to share photos, recipes, and experiences. Search the South Carolina Botanical Garden for more information.

The South Carolina Botanical Garden is on the campus of Clemson University. The Garden is open for people to walk in and enjoy, with rules requiring masks and social distancing. In our coldest months, the magnificent camellia collection is alluring. But the beauty doesn’t stop there.

We are entering the long, dark days of winter which we hope will lead to a safer spring and summer as the Covid 19 vaccines become available. For some fresh, new activities for any children in your life, the South Carolina Botanical Garden has developed a program that encourages kids to get outside and garden by sending packages of seeds especially selected to grow well in our state, but the support and experience doesn’t end there. This series delves not only into the history of such topics as the “three sisters,” but cooking and growing tips as well. Seeds are mailed and the learning experience is strengthened by emails and videos specific to the crops being grown. The first planting begins in February with the Great Pea Race. Search South Carolina Botanical Garden for all the upcoming events.

My oldest daughter had asthma when she was young, and we had to be careful when getting a Christmas tree that it wasn’t fragrant. And now days I know several people with severe allergies to perfume, lit candles, or other smells. So a wonderfully fragrant tree might be wrong for your family. At the South Carolina Christmas Tree Association website, the farms list the types of trees they have available. You can make decisions about which farms have the trees best for your needs by first going to Clemson’s Home and Garden Information Center and search for Selecting a Christmas Tree, Fact sheet 1750. They list all types of trees and tell you the complexity or lack of fragrance, how strong the branches are, shades of green with certain hues, and how well the needles hold on.

If you search “South Carolina Christmas Tree Association,” you’ll find ways of locating a farm near you. Click on “Member Farms” for the address, hours, types of trees available, and other services like premade garlands. Most have bow saws for you to use to cut your own tree and help you get trees out of the field. Usually they’ll put your tree on a shaking platform to remove any loose needles or debris before bundling your fresh tree to prevent wind damage. If it’s more than an hour after your tree is cut before you get home, saw off one more inch and immediately put it in a bucket or the stand filled with water. Check that water daily – fresh trees are thirsty and will keep their needles and fragrance longer when well hydrated. Don’t mist trees, water does not mix with electric lights.

The South Carolina Christmas Tree Association is a group of farmers who grow Christmas trees. Trees are a crop, a renewable resource. They add oxygen to the environment and when disposed of properly return nutrients to the soil, serve as temporary brush piles where small animals shelter, and even improve fish habitat in water ways. If you get a locally grown tree, the carbon footprint is as small as a reindeer’s print in the snow. On the other hand, artificial trees are made of plastic, and the carbon footprint travels from the oil fields to the manufacturer, the retailer and to your home. They never really break down instead becoming part of the microplastic pollution damaging the earth. Find a Christmas tree farm near you and take the family for a trip that will last in their memories for ever.

When my children were little, going to get a Christmas tree was a great family adventure. With eleven-foot ceilings, we wanted a great big tree and kept a bamboo pole as a guide and we’d strap it to the top of the car to take in the field with us. Back then, lots of farmers planted Eastern Red Cedars, a great native tree for wildlife, but very prickly if it dries out. Nowadays, Search the South Carolina Christmas Tree Association website to find a wide variety of trees to pick from and if they offer sturdy stands, garlands, or premade wreaths. Talking about those trips brings back fond memories for me and my kids – why don’t you start a Christmas tradition with your family this year with a safe and exciting shopping trip in the great outdoors.

A sharp-eared listener wrote me a nice note saying he thought I’d made in mistake in talking about health benefits of peanut oil. I checked and sure enough I said that as a monounsaturated fat, it lowered your HDL cholesterol as if that were a good thing. Well, I had it backwards. We want our HDL cholesterol, the excess which can be eliminated by our liver, to be a high number relative to the LDL type which can clog up our arteries. Now, cholesterol is necessary for life; our bodies manufacture it. Fortunately, we can use diet and exercise to try to keep the good HDL number higher and the LDL number lower. However, even with the best lifestyle choices, some people need meds to help as the one thing we can’t change is our genetic inheritance.

George Washington Carver developed several soups using boiled peanuts and they are delicious but somewhat bland, and you need boiled peanuts. I’ve found an exotic soup that is vegetarian, as we all have some family members or friends we need to prepare such a dish for. This one uses butternut squash which is the dickens to cut up but I’ve found it already peeled and cubed in some stores. You cook it with coconut milk, veggie broth, peanut butter and exotic spices, then blend when cool.

Fifty-two year ago I went on a high school “educational” tour to Europe. In Amsterdam, we stayed on a government training ship for their naval recruits -- this was no luxury cruise ship, believe me. But the food was delicious. The Dutch colonized Indonesia in the late fifteen hundreds -- spices were among goods Europeans wanted, nutmeg and cloves came from this colony.

While looking up information about peanuts, I found an NPR story that included a YouTube video of Burl Ives and Johnny Cash singing “Goober Peas,” a song about the Confederate Army. Burl Ives tells the tale of Mr. Goober pulling up a peanut plant and giving it his name, while Johnny Cash said his grandfather called them ground peas.

There are two main types of peanuts – bunch and runner. Runner peanuts have long underground stems with shells containing seeds growing the length of that runner, and these peanut plants cover the entire surface of the field. These are the ones I see growing in fields in Calhoun County.

Peanuts start off growing like many other plants. Farmers plant seeds, individual peanuts, when the risk of frost is over. The plants emerge, grow about eighteen inches high and those with runner types vines eventual cover the entire field. The yellow flowers that bloom are self-pollinating.

Until two thousand and two the United States government had a quota system on how many acres could be planted in peanuts. Since that program ended, South Carolina farmers have gone from 10,000 acres to over eighty-thousand acres today. Peanuts grow better here than soybeans and are more profitable, and, of course they are important to plant in rotation with cotton as they have the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen, replenishing soils depleted by the heavy feeding cotton. Over 400 South Carolina farmers now incorporate peanuts into their cropping systems and we have twelve buying points where farmers take their peanuts, have them graded and sold. In the United States as a whole, people eat 7.6 six pounds of peanuts a year – mostly peanut butter, but I bet here boiled peanuts are pretty high on the consumption chart.

When the tremendous benefits of George Washington Carver’s regime of rotating cotton with peanuts resulted in huge numbers of peanuts being grown, it created a dilemma. There wasn’t much demand for peanuts – we weren’t making peanut butter sandwiches or roasting peanuts or using them for candies. But Carter developed mind-boggling uses for this plant. Paint pigments, different types of paper, sweeping compound, and charcoal were some of the items made from the shells or vines of peanuts. Peanut butter, oil, hand cream, face cream, soap and axle grease were made from the peanuts themselves. Also, Dr. Carver was way ahead of the fad for almond milk – he made a milk substitute from peanuts that can still be made for those who can’t tolerate lactose – so you can enjoy a glass of milk with your pb&j sandwich.