Pile accomplished

Did it! Pile accomplished!

Build your pile like lasagne ...

Sunflower salks

Leaf pile update

Day 1, 2, and 3 of a leaf pile:

As pictured, last fall a landscaper dropped off a truck load of leaves. Supposedly shredded by his equipment, I found much of it is intact leaves which of course matted down in wet layers with dry pockets in the pile too. In other words, minimal decomposition.

The book "Step by Step Organic Gardening" warns that leaf piles become sodden matted layers incapable of decomposing. True. He recommended shredding with a machine.

Well, I have s shredder and they are a pain with leaves. I've done it. Imagine lifting 1000 pounds of leaves rake full by rake full, unclogging jams, throwing out nasty dust. Time, noise, fuel - it's simply not worth it.

Solution? The chickens. All it took is a pitchfork to toss them a big pile each day. They are one happy flock! They break down the pile doing their instinctive scratch of search. and they get amply rewarded with worms. Each day they finish a full wheelbarrow. I would say about 2 dozen worms are in each. So the hens remain very motivated workers!

So the leave pile is more the half gone. I used probably 1/3 to mulch paths in the garden. And the girls have been working on the rest.

Get serious! (about compost that is)

First, I have always had compost piles. They were never elaborate or highly technical. Just kitchen scraps, weeds and plant debris and fall leaves tossed in a pile in any random idle spot on the property. Left for one to two years, it would be dismembers to pull the finished product and the remainder used to start a new pile. That was my low effort technique. The compost then went to the root ball area of tomatoes and they've always produced healthy plants like the Mortgage Buster that put out a 2 lb fruit.

Also last fall I picked up a Rubbermaid compost maker for free and that has now received all the kitchen scraps. I 'inoculated' it with red wigglers that I collected from the loads of rotted manure. It is amazing that is was 75% full when I started, and we've add weekly to it, but now is at 40% full. I will be checking for finished product this week - having been to busy to even think about it up until now.

How much do I get per year? Maybe 2 cubic yards at best? Why shouldn't it be more? So my thinking has moved to being more proactive and productive after reading Ogden (see previous post) and Nesbit (sp?). The alter uses a frame built like lincoln logs and the former uses cinder block and sod.

So currently the plan is this. I have leaves (dropped off by a landscaper last fall). It is wet and matted in layer. Currently 1/2 the pile has already gone to mulching the garden paths. The other half will be distributed along the fence. The chickens will be put to work scratching the matted leaves into shredded leaves. I had been tossing a wheelbarrow full per day and they keep up wonderfully. So now I've spread the pile of leave a bit and put up a fence. I will then let loose the chickens on it. This will shred and spread manure on it.

Next I will soak batches in a water brine of chicken manure. You absolutely need moisture and the nitrogen boost should help break down the high carbon content leaves.

Finally I will fetch another load of spoiled straw. I will ensure gets a good soaking from the hose.

I will be shooting for a 8x8x4 piles. To avoid moisture loss I plan on cover with a dense layer of grass clippings which should mat nicely. And it will be criss-crossed with sunflower stalks saved from last year to provide air channels to through the pile.

This should satisfy the requirements for rapid decomposition:

• moisture
• carbon nitrogen balance
• ground up organic wastes
• critical mass of minimum 4 foot square
• aeration
  

Springing into summer - the pause the refreshes ... not.

Note the heavily mulched paths

Temps are finally ready for summer crops of corn, melons and beans. At this pause in the season it is time to:

• get you mulch down! Soil will dry quickly now. Mulch the beds AND (uppercase, bold, italics) your paths. Your paths will be wicking water as quickly as the the bed - duh!
• before you mulch, cultivate. It knocks back weeds, loosens hardened soil crust thus allowing rain to be absorbed and not run off, and allows side dressing of fertilizer and manure teas to go right to the root balls.
  
• reseed where you had spotty germination. If you are redoing peas soak overnight in the fridge. Chard or beets, nick, soak and plant.
• thin your plants to proper spacings. You can easily transplant a bunch to a free area or to a spot with poor germination. "But it will set it back" - no. It will delay the transplant. So your beet harvest is spread out a little longer. That means beet greens and beets harvested over a longer period of time ... perfect!
• evaluate your expected harvested. I was way to easy on carrots - time for a whole new row! And the wife wants dakon radishes. 60 days to harvest - not a problem.

In looking back, I wasted a lot of time during rainy weather. True, you can't till or dig. but I could have finished mulching the paths, starting summer seedlings (instead of direct seeding), pulled more weeds (which come out easier in wet soil). Things that are no stealing time from fair weather chores. I'm filing it away for future use - rainy weather => get busy.

A book review of "Step by step organic gardening"

Found this book (Amazon link) at the thrift store. The author, Ogden, was a writer for Organic Gardening. I like it quite a bit. Some take away points:

1. prefers long straight rows, laid out with string, and no paths
2. sheet composts with fresh manure in the Fall with a even layer that can be plowed under in the Spring
3. eschews tillers because they kill worms - instead breaks up clods with a potato hook
4. and uses the potato hook to hoe weeds - after 2 or 3 passes, plants are well established

As I said, I liked it quite a bit. I do like having paths though. He says you are just wasting hard earned fertile garden area. And that's true. But I like walking in the garden and it makes it easy to harvest. Besides I put my paths to use. After creating the paths (spade the plot, toss the soil of the path up on the bed, then till), I put down manure, leaves, then straw. This is an active compost heap which roots will seek out. Believe me when I tell you, by crushing the straw under your feet you will have accelerated its decomposition. Also my paths:

• improve drainage by raising the bed a little extra due to the soil of the path being tossed up on it
• proving a draining channel for heavy rains
• are a source of water holding humus as the leaves and straw break down.
  

I think his tiller observation is spot on. I've often mused that the tiller is really grinding worm bodies into the soil which is the nutrient spurt in the beginning of the season.

But my goal is to have enough organic material in the beds so that they do not even require annual tilling.

The sheet composting idea is one I've already practice. I would take it to the next step though. Any seed bed that is idle should be either growing a green manure crop or have rotted manure and mulch tilled in for conditioning. Fresh manure is not recommended for an active seed bed. It's hot (PH wise) and not at all balanced for plants.

My point is that you simple cannot waste time in building good soil. Especially is this true in Fall. By preparing the plots in Fall, you are ready for Spring. You won't be moaning that you are wasting precious days waiting for the soil to dry before tilling. You raised beds will be ready to accepts transplants at exactly the right time.

So I would recommend the book for any beginner. It gives you a "system" and should work. Remember my other post, adopt a system, plug yourself into it, and evolve it for productivity and efficiency.

Chapter 4 - What have you learned from Spring?

Note the deer footprints tip-toeing through the beans

Now that the spring rush is over, and the garden 'is in', I've already learned a lot of new things.

Here in zone 5 we actually had scattered frost on our 'frost free date' of May 15. That ain't fair. So for next year I will do a better job protecting the garden. The frost took out 1/2 of the sprouted beans - it was a gamble anyway and will quickly be replaced when reseeded. But I should cover them anyway. I have a huge tarp (someone was throwing out a pool cover) that could have been used.

Also I noted that some warm season plants are more cold intolerant than others. I don't mean kale versus tomatoes. I mean that some warm season plants can handle some cold temps (though they will not grow). The squashes and beans were real sensitive - tomatoes, watermellon, patty pans did ok as did cucumber.

Lesson 1: have a good plan for plant protection and execute it

Tarps and blankers, or hoop cloches, etc. should be used for protection. And the hoop tunnels can be used to actually accelerate early growth.

Second, I see way to much weed growth already. I used a stirrup hoe and it goes pretty quick. Still, how to cut down on all that growth? And where does it come from? Well in the past I've never been to fastidious about the weeds. That and incorporating manure are probably the 2 biggest sources. Now manure you have to have. So this year I'll tackle point 1 better. Besides, I'm now convinced a tidy garden will encourage birds to find the bugs. I've read where people advocate bio-diversity in the garden so good bugs get bad bugs and they need habitat. But I don't agree anymore. Good bugs will come find them if they want. So rather than bugs, I vote for birds. I even am going to put up bird feeders to attract them as allies.

Lesson 2: do better weeding especially not allow weeds to go to seed

I have been dumping nutrient rich water on plants closest to the paths. They are 10% bigger and a lot greener than the other even though I applied fertilizer. So I need to up the doses.

Lesson 3: fertilize like you mean it; get scientific, following recommended application rates

I've been getting some spotty germination. It could be due to old seed for some (like the spaghetti squash) and crappy supplier (Burpee's and Livingston). For now, that's OK, this is just a kitchen garden to learn from. But if I depended on it to augment a retirement income or if I had paying customers I would buy from top-notch suppliers like Johnny's Select Seed.

Lesson 4: garden like a pro means getting the best seed

A second cause for spotty germination has been seed bed care. For small seeds, I should have blended in, say, 50% screened compost in with the tilled soil along the 3 or 4 inches of the seeding row. Then after sprouting the seedbed should never go completely dry. I would estimate watering every other day unless it rains. It would also help to cover with burlap if it is in full sun and hot temperatures.

Lesson 5: treat your seedbeds like a child day care - the added attention is only required for a few weeks

But overall I'm now finding I have time to just stop and admire the progress in the garden. No frantic days of exhausting tilling, stooping, transplanting. How nice!

On varmints - harmful and beneficial

Well, they are all varmints. Even the good ones. They are your problem, in your locale.

Here's mine.

The lineup up for good ones are:
chickens
domesticated rabbits
cats

Bad:
groundhog
opposum
racoon
feral cats
rabbits

The chickens free range only at the end of the growing season when summer crops are done and the others are under hoops or, like spinach, are seeded and fenced in. We keep 6 good prime egg layers (currently 1 year old Rhode Island Red). The rest of the time I have a mobile chicken coop (bigger than a chicken tractor, but still a full size coop). I is a 4x6 platform that slides on waxed up 4x4's. I move it down a fence row weekly. I dump lots of leave along the base of the fence to attract worms and crickets (and gardener snake just popped out of one yesterday). When a new run is erected, the chickens just dive into those leaf piles. Chicken heaven! But chickens can escape so you need to fence in the gardens. Which segues into groundhogs.

Fencing all gardens gives you a head start in case a ground hog moves into the area. You'll see them munching grass outside the fence for about one week before they decide to invade the garden. So have the have-a-heart trapped baited with strawberries in the place you saw them last. If birds steal the strawberries, put a piece of bird netting over the opening. It will stop the birds but not the groundhog.

I've had rabbits in hutches but I don't think the small amount of manure is worse the time, the feeding, and dealing with any offspring. I imagine for meat it might be worth it but we are mostly vegetarian here.

And finally cats - fairly useful for the rodent population but certainly not 100% effective. I would say 25% effective. You would have to have 4 or 5. Keep them pretty hungry, and have good "mouser's". But our 2 cats could not be counted on to keep the mice at bay. So every Spring when I would get out the mower or tiller I would see mice come out of the engines where they had built nests. Mouse traps were a little effective - snapping a mouse once a week. But the only deterrent was moth balls. Cover your equipment in a trash bag, and toss a handful of mothballs inside.

Dog's aren't on my list. But if you had a breed that does a job for you, great; like the kind that watch over sheep. Other than maybe barking at invading deer, I don't see any value added (other than companionship). I think getting your fencing deer proof standard should solve that. And lately I even augment it by parking my car near the garden facing the fields with the window slightly down and the car radio tuned to a talk show. Then I put my smelly T shirt from working in the garden looped over the mirror. Ha! If that doesn't deter them then I might as well sit out there with a TV and deer rifle because they'll just walk up to you.

'Possum and feral cats I trap all the time and drop off at the ASPCA. I used to catch a lot of skunks (you cover the trap with a tarp so they don't feel alarms and squirt). But not anymore. Maybe the local fox population got them like they do any Canada geese that think they can breed in the open corn fields. Feral cats come down the block from the feed mill where they like them to hunt the rats and mice. But they carry disease and fight with my cats which are kept outdoors. So I trap them and the ASPCA will determine if the carry a disease which mean end of life right there. Otherwise they try to have the adopted (ha! these things are thick-boned and will pounce at you!).

The raccoons and fox can decimate you chickens as can the hawks. Raccoons are imaginative and persistent. So the coop must be secured at night. Fox are opportunists. We left the coop door open one night and the fox stole 9 out of 11 chickens. It killed and stashed the rest. There were new piles of feathers every morning in different places on the property. I tried a trap but he/she would not go for it. So we just a more careful with the coop.

I do like ducks but they are so low on the food chain! Wandering dogs, raccoons, fox, etc. It just seems like a waste of money and affection ;-)

We've had goats, when the kids were young and drinking milk. I remember trying to keep up the consumption with production and making many goat milkshakes for the kids. But we don't use much milk so it's not worth the time to milk and care for them. And they are excellent escape artists where normal fences mean nothing. And electrical fences give the pleasure in pain. And chaining them in makes them sitting targets for roaming dogs especially when the roam in packs. We've experience that horror too.

The previous owner of my property had sheep - and just for the purpose of clipping the lawn - he was a veterinarian. I suppose some my like them. Again, time is required for feeding and managing the grazing areas. Since I am not doing anything of it as a business I can't see putting the time into it. I'm not running a petting zoo here!

Chapter 3 - If I only had the time ...

"If I only had the time ...". How would you end that sentence?

... I would start a garden.
... I would weed and hoe more.

Well thanks for all the wrong responses.

... I would start to work my way down my priority list.

See, if you have a good system, the garden will take care of itself. Weeds, they can go another day or 2 or even a week. And besides, you are in the habit of walking into the garden with a oscillating hoe in hand and, with a quick hit, a newly seeded bed or borders to the garden are tidied up as you walk by - time spent 3.5 minutes. Watering? Well you know it won't mean the garden dies off. See you built soil and mulched so that your vigorous plants have reserves in the roots. Anyway, you have a hose ready in the garden. It is attached to your sprinkler or drip hose. You set the timer device on the faucet to 1 hour. Done! - time spent 60 seconds.

So it is your system and you are part of that system. For example, all beds are fifteen and the sprinkler is tuned to hit a bed on the left and right with coverage for 15 feet. You develop the system. Pick someone's, anyone's. Just start it and refine it for yourself. You don't even think about it; you are integrated and it runs on it's own with a minimal mental and physical effort.

So instead you of "weed more" you have all this free time. And wisely you've taken some notes (perhaps just mental notes) in the form of a priority list. Like what?

If I only had the time ... (list item goes here)

... I would expand the garden and try some herbs/corn/celeriac/etc
... I would do some groovy garden furniture/trellising/gravel on a central pathway with focal point on a pond/fountain/sculpture
... I would put up a marten birdhouse
... I would add bird feeders in the garden to put my allies to war with the bugs
... I would experiment with red mulch for the tomatoes and aluminum foil mulch for the squash

Get it? Now how would you finish the sentence? Add it to the comments.

Chapter 2 - Taking care of baby seedlings

We left off with perfectly sculpted raised beds. And you have back filled those pathway trenches with spoiled straw or leaves. Next is to get the nursery room filled with with your babies.

Transplanting is always the best. There is immediate gratification to seeing a garden filled with growing plants. In addition you can mulch immediately.

Your babies need food to grow quickly. Rotted manure and decomposed leaves add very little to the nutrients they need. You have 2 choices. Fertilizer or nutrient rich compost. Fertilizer does not have to be an evil thing. If you want to be organic, then buy an organic fertilizer. Depending on your soil analysis you can add whatever else is missing - all organic. And urine, diluted 1:10 is free, sanitary, and full of nitrogen. If you take vitamins, guess what? It further enhance the strength.

Nutrient rich compost is the alternative. Building a compost pile to be nutrient rich is a science. In "Living the Good Life" Nearing talks about it. But my point is your dirt is not fertile enough to support vigorous and healthy plants. They will succumb to drought, bugs and disease.

Remineralize your soil. I can only get gravel dust, but better amendments are available. you will see that the flavor of the vegetables improves.

Direct seeded plants benefit from pre-soaking (in the fridge for peas), scoring (beets), and under a cover of burlap (especially carrots). It is imperative to give them sufficient watering (irrigate or sprinkler). The sooner they get foliage, the faster they will take off in growth.

It's in the roots! What? The plants ability to withstand stress either drought, bugs, and other setbacks (like you harvesting the lettuce in a pick and come again method). So your primary goal is to develop a huge root support system for the plants. Now you see why tilling and fertilizing is not enough in the 'normal' gardeners plans.

• You need soil with tilth so that the roots can become expansive.
• You need healthy soil organisms that nurture and live in symbiosis with the plant.
• You need drainage to prevent water logging and suffocating the roots.
• You need depth for the deeper roots to have a pipeline to water.
• But you need something to hold that water at that depth. I look for semi-rotted branches, blast them through my shredder and toss a handful every time I spade deeply. I have even soaked the chips in a wheel barrow full of chicken manure in water broth as time permits.
• Eliminate competition from other roots.

Chapter 1 - Tools that match the technique

Shovel, rake, hoe ... and medium sized rototiller. You can get it done with those if you can get leaves and grass clippings (do not use if the neighbor had weed killer put down). The tractor above is overkill - but at $250 it was a bargain.

I've been buying and selling all the machinery and they all become the 'right tool' in different cases. But I'm ready to dump them all.

In my system, the steps are:
1. with a truckload of manure (must be aged manure if in spring - can be fresh if done before winter), spread with a shovel. Depending on your organic matter content, you may need lots of manure. In that case, get a dump truck (rented at Home Deport or hired).

2. lightly till it in

3. before seeding you beds, dig each bed down to a spades depth and only slightly turn. You do not want to totally upset the organisms in their layers. But you do want to get organic material spread to lighten the tilth. Lightly chop any shovelfuls that are nasty, dense dirt to make the next step of tilling easier. Note: a broad fork seems logical here - after prying down on the handle, pry up and kick in the organic material - but I've yet to get one.

4. scoop out your paths. I don't go to deep - but this trench is important. Toss the dirt up onto the bed.

5. now till again - if you still have more manure, add it before tilling.

6. rake it smooth. You now have soil ready for a raised bed.

7. using the handle of the rake, impress you rows into the soft soil. You get nice straight rows and the pressure on the soil squeezes the air out - reestablished the water wicking properties.

Done! With Prep 101

Prep 102 - added techniques
1. I have water drainage problems. So first I installed some drain pipe in the worst areas. Second I use hugelkultur to further lift the bed. Basically dig a trench, put in a layer of rotting wood (should feel like balsa wood) and organic matter, toss back the soil. Don't make a solid level of wood. Allow some channels for pure soil - in other words, a coarse net.

2. Paths - after the weeds start growing in the paths, loosen the path soil (shovel or fork). Put down a layer of Fall leaves preferably run through the mulching mower. Then some long straight sticks (distributes the weight when walking on the path) and finally straw (give it a nice look). I have a source for spoiled straw, so nutrients are trickling into the leaves for worms and roots to work over for the next year.

3. Rows of carrots and other long germination seeds are marked with mason string (is reusable when all your beds are a uniform 15 feet), or kite string - and I also put in a radish seed every one foot. Carrots also get a cover of burlap - works wonders to prevent scorching and drying of soil!

Rules for easy weeding:

- You must hoe to knock back weeds - do it often (5 to 10 days) if you direct seed. If you can, transplanting is the way to go. But you direct seed things like beets and carrots.

- You must mulch ASAP. Use a light dusting grass clippings (you don't need much!). With string identifying the rows, you can start put down the clippings right away. I like the "hoe once" idea so strong weeds get set back one week to the crops.

- As you till, you must pull up the rhizomes of quack grass, fescues, bind weed, etc. Then when you rake, do it again. This takes time the first years. But it must be done. Sorry you got stuck with a crappy location ;-)

- if the weeds got away from you during vacation - get a weed wacker - set it to a short string length - and grind them to the ground. Mulch again heavily.

- if the weeds overran your carrots, just get the lawnmower out, cut the whole garden bed. Then watch how the carrots (with root reserves) bounce back way ahead of the the other weeds. Mulch again heavily.

Any suggestions for improvements or tips that worked for you?

Gardening has been more fun than blogging

Wow, it has been almost a year. Time to start blogging again. The problem is gardening has been for fun than blogging. Nevertheless, I've learned a lot and I think sharing my successful techniques is important as more people realize that with a garden you can feed your family. And it's not just the 'wholesome food' aspect. It includes the urgency during tough economic times.

I'll start posting some of these cool techniques that generate 100% success, minimized labor at startup and weeding, and makes your garden look great. Let me know if it makes sense to you. I know I've read gardening books with '1001 tips' for the gardener. And, sure, it's nice to know you can cage tomatoes or even hang them upside down. But how do you get good soil tilth? How do you actually do a raised but without paying for expensive lumber? How can I mulch without paying for bales of straw? Well here are my ideas. The next post will be an overview.

What has been happening in the garden and the world?

In the garden:

1. I've tilled in 6 pickup truck loads of aged manure
2. and 2 loads of leaf mold (shredded and decomposed leaves from the township)
3. bought a water container to be mounted on a garden tractor trailer to wheel 55 gallons
of pond water when summer hits
4. everything is in except corn
5. my raised beds are a hugelkultur like (read more here)
6. Bought 2 tractors. One has the rear mounter tiller! It was $250 - a great deal
The other tactor is a Sears with a 3 bin grass catcher. Along with the bagging push mower all clippings are used for mulch.

To do:
1. get truck load of spoiled straw from the stables to use in garden paths
2. finish all the deer fencing
3. plant corn using the Golden Harvest seeder

In the world:

What if Wall street employment suffers from new legislation. Here is an offer from Jesse:

Retraining may be a daunting task

According to the email below there is some concern among employees in the financial services sector about their future employment prospects if reform legislation should be enacted, and some tentative, but perhaps unrealistic plans, of coping with it if it happens are expressed.

I can always use a little help around the kitchen and the yard, cleaning up and minor repairs, and I would gladly pay a fair wage based on effort, moderated by experience and capability. My son and helper is leaving for university soon to begin his studies in engineering, which is the manipulation of real things for practical purposes with benefit to the customer. So it might be unfamiliar to you. And I am not getting any younger.

...
I suspect there will be a lot of cheap labor available from dislocated FIRE sector workers in the years to come, as well as from those serving out community service judgments. At least the highways will be cleaned of litter. Perhaps exposure to the common people and honest labor will do them some good.

I am a little concerned that this type of person probably has little or no practical skills, but they do claim to bring high energy and a willing spirit, so it could be put to work on the cleaning up of America and Europe, and the rebuilding of their infrastructure. They make themselves sound like teachers, firefighters, policemen, or even soldiers, but there are dimensions of duty and honor and self-sacrifice and service to others in those callings far beyond any monetary recompense of which they probably have little experience or even a vaguely realistic expectation.
...

And if you should happen to play any card or board games with them, I warn you beforehand, they cheat, obviously, clumsily and shamelessly, to win, with a somewhat cavalier regard for the written rules. Ah, but I forget, that has long been your raison d'etre, your hallmark, and a particular area of specialization and expertise.