quick update ... from France

Business trip to France ... garden in U.S. -- can I do both?

I'm back now and here is what happened in the garden in 10 days while away.

Compost pile is cooking! Loss of 50% of mass and cooking!

The herb beds needed weeding but the week in Pennsylvania was sunny and toasty so they benefited from the shade. Weeding done! Loose soil helped do the weeding - parsley. oregano and dill all doing great!

Chineese cabbage has bolted (conclusion: start for transplant alot earlier! or do as a Fall crop).

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!