Winter Rye seedings.

A true sign that summer is gone is when I begin actually seeding my beds with Winter Rye.  I have been doing this for about 4 years now since I read an article about it on the Rodale Institutes' web site.  October is about the furthest you can push the summer growing season in my area.  In fact, it seems like this year that summer is going to close out early.  Temperatures are leveling off and we have started to see nighttime lows that are beginning to get into the upper 50's.  I don't doubt that we will have a period of Indian summer still to come but, in the final analysis, most of my plants have given their last production at this time. 
I have cleared out all my lettuces, beans and cucumber plants recently.  This week, weather and work permitting, I am going to thin out my non-producing tomatoes and pepper plants.  By the end of next week, all the plants will be removed and thrown in the composters along with my last bag of last years leaves.  Yes, I still had some left.  These will continue to compost through the winter albeit at a slower rate than during the peak summer season.  Once they are all removed, I will seed all the areas with the rye I bought this past weekend from Meyers' Seeds here in Baltimore.
The Rye should continue to grow up until the first hard frost we get.  My experience is that even with a hard frost, they will continue to grow but at a much slower rate.  And, when the weather turns in the spring, they come back to life and begin to grow at their earlier rates.  This gives you excellent green manure when you cut the grass down in the early spring.  You just cut it like grass and let it rot in place.  I will get into more detail on this next year when the time comes.
The goal right now is to get as thick and lush of a seeding in of the rye as possible.  It may take a couple of seedings but if your seed is new, it may take only one time.  I have the other two gardens I help with to seed in for the winter also.  So, it's going to get a bit busy in the next couple weeks but it's all good.    
After these beds are seeded in, I will start to concentrate on growing plants inside my two structures that I have.  I will write about those at length in my next post.  So, for now, that's all there is to report.  Until then, Happy organic gardening everyone!      

Regenerative organic certifications?

Just read about this method for farmers to take organic to a new level.  While 90% of this involves farms, there is a section on soil (aka Dirt!!) health which is of interest to me.  And it should be to you too.  Seems the fine folks at The Rodale Institute in Kutztown, PA have taken sustainable and organic certification to a new level.  I know that this certainly doesn't apply to my backyard gardens, but I always try to keep a finger on the pulse of what this group is researching.  R. I. Rodale was a pioneer back in the 40's for organic practices.  Talk about cutting edge and being way before your time. Check out their site - it is chock full of information that even a small gardener like myself can use.  I intend on watching what happens with this new certification and how their soil section can benefit my growing practices. 
Until next time, happy organic gardening everyone!

To begin again.

To begin again is part and parcel of the life of a gardener or farmer.  Many people think that the cycle of gardening starts in the Spring when all is fresh and the world is becoming new again.  I believed that for a long time too.  But as you become more experienced, you begin to realize that it may actually be in the fall that the garden begins again.
For me, fall is the time when you take inventory of what worked in your garden and more importantly what didn't.  You need to assess all aspects of the pervious season to see where your crops failed and why.  Why is a very hard question for any gardener to ask.  It goes to the very core of what went awry. 
For the last week or so, I have begun to clear out my various plants very deliberately.  There was one huge failure in the garden this year and that was cucumbers.  Usually a very easy plant to grow, I had 8 plants from which I picked zero cucumbers.  Talk about frustrated.  I logged about 6 cucumbers that the pesky squirrels in my neighborhood stole.  I know this because I found them strewn about mine and my neighbors yard.  But still, in a routine year, I should have had far more than just 6 cukes.  So, there is something else that occurred.
I do believe that I may have had them too close to several other plants which may have resulted in lower production.  Too much intensive planting may have wiped out the nutrients and water to a point the cukes just didn't get enough of either.  I will have to research this a little more in relation to the beans and lettuce I planted near them.  I may have been a little over ambitious. 
One issue I was keenly aware of this year is the lack of bees in the garden area.  There just didn't seem to be much activity.  I am going to take a couple of steps to try to fix the problem.  First, I am going to fit in an area of pollinator plants that will draw and support bee populations.  Hopefully that will at least get them to visit my yard.  Secondly, I am going to investigate starting a Mason bee colony around my garden.  I tried that a couple of years ago with no success but this time, I am going to double the effort.  Mason bees are very docile and rarely sting people.  They are usually just interested in pollinating. 
There was another issue that I alluded to earlier.  I was doing the intensive plantings because I was overly ambitious with the numbers of tomatoes and peppers I grew.  That, along with adding sauce tomatoes to the mix, made for tight quarters in the garden.  Plants generally do not like to be compacted.  The soil can be depleted to a point that the plants deplete the nutrients they need and there is less air circulation.  All of which contribute to poor plant quality.  So, next year, the number of peppers and tomatoes will be reduced measurably in order to give myself room to space things out appropriately.  I should see better quality and quantities in all respects.
So, if you're not already working your garden this fall, you still have plenty of time.  I am currently adding heaps of Leafgro brand soil conditioner.  It's a US Compost council organic certified blend of leaves and other ingredients.  I am giving all my beds about an inch for the winter and then I add winter rye for a green cover crop.  The rye traps nutrients into their roots and holds it there until the spring. 
Well, that's about all I have at this time.  Hopefully you found a few nuggets to help you in your endeavors in the garden.  Until next time, Happy Productive Gardening everyone!