New Year's "sort-of-resolutions"

I've made a list of things I'd like to do better, or differently, in my garden this year. Not necessarily "resolutions", but things to try to do. And not too many things. Three seems like a good number.

Label plants better: I think this has been on my New Year's to-do list for several years now. One problem is that I like to use compostable wood labels, but they, hmm, compost, in garden soil during the season. I'm going to use plastic this year. I'd really like to know what's in my garden.

Save more seeds: This "resolution" is an incremental one. I don't want to save ALL my seeds, just a few more. Saving seeds is easy for many plants, saves money, and in the long run can produce strains that are better adapted to my garden. It also gives that sense of satisfaction and connectedness to food and garden. Vegetables to save seed from should be OP (open pollinated) varieties - meaning that they breed true if they are not cross pollinated. They should also be varieties that I love to grow every year. I save a number of flower seeds, but not many vegetables. Here's my list to try for: (* means one's I already save)

     Basil: Superbo
     Beans: Maxibel, Jumbo, Shung Wang*, Wax pole*
     Corn: Baby Golden Popcorn
     Peppers: Thai Hot*, Joe Parker Numex  
     Soy Beans: R Swain Green
     Tomato: Opalka, Polish Linguisa, Mortgage Lifter

This list has 12 varieties. Three that I already save: two pole beans and a pepper. Ten additional varieties. Beans, peppers, soy beans, and tomatoes are easy to save since cross pollination is rare. Corn bees will be easy for me - even though they cross pollinate I'll only grow one variety of each.

Prepare my soil better: Good soil is the most important thing for a vegetable garden. Mostly this requires soil tests (every 4-5 years is good), addition of appropriate amendments, and usually lot's of compost. But it's easy to skimp on compost if time is short. I'll make it a priority in the spring to test and appropriately amend my soil.

preparing bean and corn beds

Last weekend I prepared the soil of my bean bed and my popcorn bed.

Since beans don't need added nutrients, I didn't do anything to the soil of this bed, which is where my tomatoes grew last year. I hadn't touched it since late last fall and it was thick with weeds. I loosened the soil a little with a fork and pulled all the weeds. Now its ready to go. I will plant bean seeds this week.



Since corn needs a lot of nutrients, I did as much as I could for this bed. Last fall I planted cover crops, a mix of winter rye, clover, vetch and field peas. Then on top of this, in the winter and early spring, I layered on a good cover of horse manure. I reseeded with clover again in early spring. The rye grew to about 2 feet tall and the clover was nice and thick. On Sunday, I cut down the rye and turned the soil. It looks really nice with lots of worms and other crawling bugs. Next time I am at the garden, I will plant my popcorn.

double digging

Before we planted my Mom and Dad's garden last Sunday, we double dug it. My dad gave us instructions. (I had already spread a good 4 inches of new compost on the garden.)

First we dug a 12 inch trench and moved all the dirt to the far end of the garden. (We I say "we dug" here, I will mostly mean "my husband dug".) Then we turned the adjacent soil into the trench to progressively move the trench down the garden. The result is a bed loosened and amended 12 inches with minimally disturbed "structure", which means happy worms and other soil inhabitants.

The bottom layer was dense and very hard to dig. I hope this year's vegetables will benefit from this nice preparation. It took about 2 hours for the 3 of us. A good team project.

preparing Mom and Dad's garden

Yesterday I went up to my parents house and enjoyed a day in the dirt. I had ordered a truckload of compost to be delivered. I was expecting a morning delivery, but as my luck had it, it was a 5:30 pm delivery. So I had time to do a lot of raking and prep work, but had to scramble to get the dirt spread and turned before dark.

My parent's garden plot is about 15 by 50 feet, by my guess. It is against the woods with a westerly exposure, so it gets lots of midday and afternoon sun. As the trees to the east grow, my parents have been gradually inching the garden out into the yard to get more sun.

The plot has a few things growing in it now. Perennial rhubarb, and herbs oregano and sage. Also three nice rows of garlic.

I had meant to order enough compost for a 2-3 inch layer, but looks like I was off by a factor of 2. It was pretty intimidating after the truck left to be standing there by an enormous pile - just me and my shovel and the setting sun. I surprised myself and did get it spread. Then I limed (10 lbs) and added a little organic fertilizer (Garden Tone, 5 lbs). And I was able to turn about half of the plot before Skippy insisted it was time to go home.

I ended up with 4-6 inches of compost. This is almost too much, but from what I've read, it should be OK. I will try to go back and double dig the whole plot down to 12 inches. (My Dad may get a friend in with a big rototiller before I get back to it, but I just hate to think what that does to all the worms he has.)

The compost is dark and even and looks great. No mixed in trash, no sticks or rocks. Just very nice and good smelling stuff. I hope it will produce a bumper crop!

Note added: Here's the link for the compost that I added: Agresource Compost. Looks like its already pH adjusted - so I didn't need to add lime. I'm also noticing that the weeds prior to prep seem to be "sweet" soil weeds: dandelions and chickweed. Well, at least tomatoes like the soil sweet, as do peppers and zucchini. The carrots and beets may not appreciate it. We'll see.

a nice fresh pile of horse manure

I still can't get over how great it is that a local horse owner brings his extra *** to the community gardens. A fresh big pile today.

Skippy has gotten very grown up about the pile. No more rolling in it or eating it. He gives a brief sniff and moves on.

So I shoveled a barrowful, maneuvered to my plot, and dumped it onto the bed that will grow my popcorn next year. Such pleasure to think about what will grow next year.....

more horse manure

I collected another wheelbarrow full of horse manure for my garden today. I'm pleased to be accumulating a good layer of this. The good news is that Skippy refrained from eating it today. The bad news is that he decided to roll in it. It seems to be very cool stuff to a dog. Does he look a bit embarrassed in this photo? At least he's clean.

horse manure for the garden

lasagna gardening

OK. Time to start thinking about next year's garden. Here's a photo of a plot at the Belmont Victory Gardens where the gardener does "lasagna gardening". (That's a thick layer of horse manure and wood chips on the top.)

I'm starting to feel guilty about tilling my garden and this was a big discussion topic during my Thanksgiving travels.

Here's are highlights from my quick research on the topic.

"Lasagna gardening is method of layering organic materials and compost right in the garden and then planting directly in these layers. Its a time saving organic gardening method developed by gardener and writer, Patricia Lanza, which requires no digging." Lasagna Gardening by Colleen Vanderlinden. At Amazon.com: Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding! by Patricia Lanza.

"A Japanese guy named Masanobu Fukuoka started the idea of no-til gardening/farming with his book One Straw Revolution. There was also an American woman called Ruth Stout and an Australian woman named Ester Deans who both promoted the idea in their day." (from a comment Patrick left me)

"To make a lasagna garden: stake out your garden site and begin building beds layer by layer. First layer is something heavy like thick newspaper or flattened cardboard to kill the existing grass. Next layer is 2-3 inches of water absorbent material like peat moss or coir. Next a 4-8 inch layer of compost. Another layer of coir or peat, and then yet another layer of organic material, like grass clippings on top of the coir, and on and on until the beds reach 18-24 inches high. Finally, the tops of the piles may be sprinkled lightly with bone meal and wood ash for added phosphorus and potassium. One of the greatest advantages to lasagna gardening is that you can layer your beds and plant your crops all in the same day. When you're planting a lasagna garden, no digging is required. For transplants, simply pull back the layers of mulch, drop in the plant and pull some mulching materials back over the roots. Sowing seeds is easy, too. Sprinkle a little finished compost over the area you want to plant, sow the seed, and cover it with a little more of the finished compost. Press down on the bed to secure the seeds and water thoroughly." An Introduction to Lasagna Gardening by Ellen Brown

I've always used old-fashioned cover-crop-and-till gardening methods, but was thinking of setting up a lasagna bed for comparison this year. My concerns are:

- Where do you get all that fresh organic material? I'm not going to go out and buy plastic bags full of peat.

- Why compost in my garden? I have a nice compost pile. I collect it all year and it'll be really nice this spring. Plus I have access to composted yard waste from the town.

- Why not grow a cover crop? Growing a legume crop a very efficient way to generate nitrogen. Cover crops require tilling in the spring and aren't compatible with no till methods.

- Why try to save time in the garden? Its only a small plot and some exercise is good.

- What if you don't have enough worms to mix the soil and poke holes in the layers? Layering is a perfect method of preventing water from reaching the lowers levels. Layered soil has the poorest drainage rate.

- And if its important that worms mix the soil, why not help them by turning it myself?

- Newspaper lying around the garden is not very attractive.....

- No-till methods may be important to prevent erosion in large fields, but for a tiny home plot on flat land, erosion is not an issue.

- How can you do a soil test on a lasagna plot? Which layer would you sample?

I seem to be talking myself out of this method here. Maybe I'll stay pro-till another year.





topic: soil

horse manure for the garden

I used horse manure in my garden recently but a fellow gardener suggested it was not so good as a compost or mulch. From what I read on line, it seems that there are several reasons to skip this manure as it contains weeds seeds, deworming drugs, herbicides and high Mg levels.

Ann's Organic Garden: Just say nay to horse manure for mulch, by Ann Lovejoy


topic: soil

horse manure for the garden

Someone leaves manure from their horses once a week at our community garden. All the gardeners scramble to collect this and dump it on their gardens. Today I joined in. I shoveled a wheelbarrow full and brought it to my frozen garden. I spread it out in the center. It needs to compost, but should provide good nutrients in the spring.

Only problem is Skippy. I don't know what is so exciting about horse manure to a dog. Bllaagghhhh. Oh yuck... I may need to skip the horse manure thing next time.

thick cover of clover and rye

I'm pleased with the patch of green manure I planted early this fall. The clover and rye did very well though the field peas and vetch didn't do much. My later sowings (too late) did not sprout as well.

topic: soil

winter cover crop

Ouch - my first mention of the word "winter"....

My cover crop is sprouting. Little bits of green between the wood chips and the garden tools. I pulled my beans and squashes, limed and planted cover seeds last week. I have a mix called "Fall Green Manure Mix" from Johnny's Selected Seeds. As Johnny's writes: "A mix of winter rye, field peas, ryegrass, crimson clover and hairy vetch. The peas, clover and ryegrass will winter kill to provide organic matter and soil cover. The hairy vetch and winter rye will regrow in the spring to provide nutrients for crops to utilize."

Most of my garden areas still have crops growing. I won't clear them until frost. In these areas I'll plant only the hardy winter rye.

topic: soil

turning the soil of my raised beds

My spring routine is to turn the soil of my garden beds. Today I turned three of my beds. I use a standard garden shovel and flip the soil over onto itself - the way my dad showed me years ago. If I have a cover crop, this gets turned under. This year I have a light cover of winter ryegrass. I like the wait a week or so, but sometimes right away, I smooth the soil level with the backside of a metal rake. Finally my irrigation lines get buried and the beds are ready to plant.

Tomorrow the skies are forecast to cloud over and rain is scheduled for the weekend. Once it clouds up, I plan to transplant my broccoli, kale, onions, endive and some lettuce seedlings into the garden. Exciting! My first garden transplants of the year. My pea sprouts are doing well and if I have time, I'll sow another row or two of pea seeds. Another sign that spring is here is that there is an endless amount of garden work now.

To turn or not to turn? I've recently heard that turning ruins the structure of the soil. I'll have to read more about this. To me, turning mixes in the cover crop, aerates the soil, and is a spring activity I look forward to. With only 360 sq ft, it doesn't take very long. Afterwards I feel like I've done some real work. I can throw my clothes in the wash, eat and sleep well, and look forward to planting.

topic: soil

sure signs of spring