Garden preps and other musings

It's March and you know what that means - Spring is here - almost. I'm generally not an optimist so I do not get too excited but after today, one can hope. It was a beautiful day and I got to enjoy it immensely. After a visit to the doctor for a routine appointment, I came home and indulged myself. I decided it was time to mark the beds and get things moving.
So, after checking the measurements and verifying all was right, I roped off the front beds. It didn't take a lot of time but I wanted to be sure everything was aligned. My goal, after all, is to maximize the spaces I have. So here are the beds that I'm establishing. They run northish to southish. My yard, like most yards, does not run true north and south. 



This bed is 18" wide and 21' long. It will be the first year that I have gardened in this area so I will obviously have to amend the soil heavily this year. I have lots of compost but that will have to augmented with other materials. I don't look for this to be a big producing bed but with the right mix of amendments, it may be enough to get some production. Anything I do add will be certified organic. I generally look for the OMRI certification on anything I purchase.
The second bed shown below is 2.5' wide and 21' long. This area is a long existing plot of my garden. Naturally, it should be a productive plot but will need a treatment of compost and maybe another ingredient.


My third and fourth beds are a blend of two previous beds. They are 2.5" wide and 12' long. The third bed (on the right) is about 50% new area and 50% existing bed. The fourth bed is heavily an existing bed. In fact, I will be moving some of the dirt from it to bed 3. And again, bed 3 will need amendments and compost.



The fifth bed is about 18" wide and 21' long. It is also a new bed so I will follow the same protocols as to the other new beds. 


Having completed the outlining of the beds, I then cut the beds to fit the sizes of them and transferred the excess dirt to the beds. This was done to establish the walking paths between the various garden plots. Once I was finished with the edging of the beds, I raked each walk path. This was the final step to firm up the beds and walkways.

I think the garden is starting to come together. Shortly, I will have to work on the other two smaller plots on the other side of the main walkway and them run my hand tiller through the beds to get them ready for planting in early April. Much to do, so little time as usual.
I am always amazed by the rare things I find at stores I had no idea carried the items. For instance, I had no idea that TJ Maxx carried this



Or this



I did get this work light very cheap at Sears due to the store being closed. Sad end to an American icon. 



Well, that's all there is for now. It's time for me to get the seedlings started. I am excited to see if there is any difference in them by starting them in my greenhouse. And, as always, until next time, Happy Gardening everyone!

Beginning of another year

Here's hoping that you had a wonderful New Years and this year is your most productive one yet.  As we inch into the new gardening season, one has to take stock of where you are in order to guide your efforts to an even more glorious harvest.  For me, this year, that means many things.
First off, I have decided to forego my ususal routine of growing most of my own vegetables from seed.  I have decided to purchase most of my plants from two or three growers in my immediate area.  My reasoning for growing my own plants was that the growers were not offering the plant selections I liked to grow.  There was a paucity of heirloom plants available and an overabundance of the usual hybrid varieties.  For me, there is nothing like the taste of the heirlooms.
After visiting the various plant sellers throughout last year, I noticed that between three of the them, I could find almost all of the varieties I wanted.  And, to make it all the better, they were at very affordable prices.  It appears that the growers have finally caught up to me and other gardeners in regards to the superiority of taste of the heirlooms.
I still do need to take stock of my seed inventory which I will complete this week.  An indirect result of the aforementioned decision to curtailing my growing efforts will be a much smaller seed stock and, of course, less purchasing.  I just need to be sure I have the seeds for the various plants that can be started directly in the garden.
All of this will allow me the luxury, if you will, to concentrate more efforts in building my soils to peak richness.  Last fall I planted winter rye in all three of my beds to overwinter them.  I have written several times last year about the benefits of this which I firmly believe in.  The beds are in great shape given the weather we have had recenlty.  Two weeks ago we had wind chills in the negative 10 degree range and have just entered another colder than normal period this week.  It's supposed to right itself by this coming Friday.
Here are the beds as of last week.  I think they look great and the rye is actually holding up much better than I would have anticipated.

               

I will be waiting until probably late February to cut the rye down to the soil level.  Then I will wait for the cuttings to rot for about a week or two.  Once rotted, I will work them into the soil with either a fork or a light roto-tilling.  The object is not to distrub the roots or the sub soils.  This serves many purposes.  The cuttings will act as an immediate green manure, the roots as nutrients for the plants over the growing season as they break down and the light rototilling will not introduce imbedded weed seeds to the sun and warmth required for them to grow.
After I do this, I will need to add a mix of composted horse manure and compost in order to build the necessary fertility and structure in the soil.  One has to be careful to be sure that the manure does not have wood chips or shavings in it as those are detrimental to vegetable growth.  People sometimes use cow manure but that is courting disaster with pathogens if it is not composted correctly.  My choice is to use the safer horse manure.  I will be researching various local suppliers of this as I like to stay as local as possible.
I also have a new 8X6 greenhouse to place in my gardens.  Not quite sure where but my guess is at the end of my beds at the southernmost end.  This will, by proxy, be a reason to reset my beds.  I am thinking of getting rid of my blocks and do a more intensive planting scheme.  I am still playing with various alternatives so I havent really come to any hard choice although I will need to do so in a short time.
Well, that's all the news in the gardens at this time.  Just begining to piece it all together one step at a time.  So, until next time, Happy Gardening to everyone!       

It's getting there

Sunday was a fairly nice day all-in-all.  The weather was improved over Saturdays' chilly day that had a consistent wind which was not all that inviting.  So, I decided to take advantage of the sunnier and warmer afternoon Sunday and begin to get things moving.  First order of business was to cut the winter rye down that I had planted in the late fall.
The rye really took off over the last month so that proved to be a great bonus.  As can be seen, it was quite high thanks to the weather.

So, I proceeded to cut the various beds down in order to stunt their growth.  The idea here is to begin the process of getting the decomposition process started and not to cut the rye down all in one time. But rather, to do it in stages so as not to relase all the nutrients at one time.

 I stopped the process here in order to take a picture to show what I mean by cutting the rye down.  I purposely left about an inch or a little more uncut.  One point here also is that I cut the grass using hand held scissor trimmers.  This results in less of the grass being thrown everywhere and getting more of the rye to stay in the beds.  And, I get my share of exercise in the early Spring sun.  A string trimmer just launches the grass all over and a good portion usually lands outside the beds.
Once it is cut, it should look like the following:

 Once the cutting is completed, you should water the grass to speed up the breakdown of the material.  I will follow up with a mid week watering.  You don't have to soak the beds but rather, you should be watering just enough to moisten the cut grasses only.

Once that was completed for all three beds, I took a little rest and then decided to check the winter salad garden I have had.  I knew I needed to water it given the warmer temps we have been having. So, here is what I uncovered.

Everything looked better than anticipated.  My plans are to cut the lettuces and the spinach plants in the first two rows and then pull them out.  I need to make room for Broccoli and Cabbage at this point which will need covering for the next month or so.
After watering them and covering them back up, I decided to look in my shed to locate the plastic along with the tube supports to build temporary shelters for early start lettuce and spinach plants.  I usually plant these crops in my hydroponic systems but I have another use for that system this year.  And, given the other two gardens I have at my disposal - a total of about 5 K square feet - I have ample room to grow whatever I want in those.  I also have a small plot in the community garden I assist with in which I can plant about 32 more sq. feet of plants.  This year will be very challenging for me to fill all this space.  A nice issue to have but it can be overwhelming.  One thing is for sure, I will be very busy this year.
I pulled out various items and found my 5 plastic mini greenhouses that will allow me to cover up seedlings or plant seeds directly in the ground while not being concerned about freezes that can occur. That will be more than enough for my purposes.  The mini greenhouses are shown below.

                                                                                                                                                  

They have vents and are high enough to allow for substantial growth of the plants in them.  I will probably use them to begin early season plants from seed.
I also have supports and the plastic to cover them that I can use to cover about 32 square feet of space.  I will have to set them up and then decide, given all the new found space I have, what plants I will grow.  My main goal this year is to have a balanced crop of which we can put up some for over the winter.
The season is upon us and there is much to do.  Hopefully, I can get it all done,  Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone!

A lot has been happening.....

Even though I have not posted for awhile, all due to a very busy few months, I have been quite active in both getting the garden set for winter and experimenting with winter gardening.  I hope that everything settles down to a point where I can post more often.

Most people shut their gardens down after the typical season is over and stop all activity after removing all the dead plants.  There is nothing wrong with that.  That was what I typically did every year.  But after seeing a plateau in both the quality and quantity of production in my gardens, I did research on how to improve the soil.  I soon realized the value of using cover crops in my garden beds.  I have written about this in previous posts but I certainly believe it bears another mention.

Cover crops can be a whole array of plants that you grow in your beds that will add structure and nutrients to your garden.  They can be planted any time of the year but I do it at the end of the planting cycle.  I have settled into a pattern of growing winter rye every year.  Winter Rye grows well into early winter and remains quite vibrant throughout.  I was a little delayed in getting it started this year but it has done pretty well given it's late start.  As can be seen in the picture below, it is filling in pretty well.  If I had been able to start it earlier, the growth would have been much more robust.  A reminder that in gardening, it's about the timing.

This will suffice though as it will continue to grow over the winter season.  It will prevent soil erosion, give me a green manure that I can cut in the Spring and the roots will supply structure and nutrients over the next growing season.  

While the rest of the garden is on auto pilot, I decided to experiment with growing cold weather crops in a structure.  It has it's challenges for sure.  In the mid-atlantic area, we get some pretty cold temps and snow during the December through February period.  So, I have decided to utilize the structure as seen below.  

By itself, it will not offer enough protection for the whole season.  While I am not an expert, I am going to use a multiple layer approach to see if it will work.  I have no illusions that I will get robust crops on my first attempt.  As I said earlier, this is an experiment.  But, any crop I do get, will be a bonus.  

So, here is a chronological look at where I am at this point in time.

I planted the crops about 3 weeks ago and they have grown as seen in this above photo I took Saturday.  I have various lettuces in the first set of rows with spinach in the middle set and in the far row I have onions, carrots and La Rosa lettuce.  

Temps have been dropping steadily lately and we are under a frost warning tonight.  So, this morning, I went out and added layers to move my effective zone up probably 2-3 levels.  From my guess, this is now probably at a zone 9-10 area.  That supposedly will get me to lower Georgia or northern Florida zones.  

I first put a layer of vegetable spun fiber over the crops inside the structure.  I put in sticks and then pinned the fabric down on the ends so it would be taut.  The fabric does not touch the plants that way. Then, I took some UV heavy duty plastic and put it over the structure itself as seen below. 

This should allow the air inside to warm up during the day and slowly cool off during the night. Again, no assurances this will work but I think it gives me a fairly decent chance. 

I am also doing the last of composting that can be achieved.  I cut my front lawn for what I hope is the last time.  In doing so, I cut it very low which produced a pretty large amount of clippings.  I collect the last cuttings of the season as I believe they do not decompose fully and thus can cause various issues in the Spring.  So, here is the final collection.

Given they were very wet when I cut them, I am going to let them sit out overnight to dry.  This insures that there will not be any ammonia smell due to their fresh state.  Once dried, I will use them in each of the three composters I have.  This will add bulk and allow me to add leaves to get one last burst before the real cold weather hits.
Another facet of the year end gardening around here is rounding up of leaves that are currently falling.  As seen below, I get a pretty good supply from my tree.  I do have to augment it by picking up my neighbors leaves.  I've even been known to stop on my way to or from work and pick up a few bags.  It always has amazed me that people don't use this free source of nutrients in place of the artificially produce fertilizers that they do use.  I really have no issue with grabbing the bags regardless of what people may think.  I can't seriously remember the last time I bought any soil for my garden.  It makes sense to me both monetarily and environmentally.

Well, that sums up the activities in the garden at my house.  Hopefully you are enjoying the last of the season and are doing your necessary prep work for a great start to your garden season next year. Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone! 

Pre-season Fall gardening preparations.

Yes, it is almost that time of the season again.  Yesterday was absolutely a beautiful day so I decided to take advantage and do some preps early.  I cleaned out my bed that has protection for when the weather takes a change in course.  So, I pulled the few weeds there were and decided it was time to add some of compost for nutrient enrichment.

I pulled several shovel fulls of compost and screen sifted them so that I wouldn't have any unfinished compost in my beds.  Here is a picture of before and after compost to show you the reason for the sifting.  The compost in the wood bin is unsifted and  you can certainly see the difference in the compost in the wheel barrel bed.

Then, after sifting several loads, I unloaded it into the bed where I am going to attempt to grow the winter crops.  This is probably about ten shovel fulls of sifted dirt.

I then spread it out to even the bed out.  I will let it now sit and work its way into the soil beneath it.

So, I will water this area a few times to allow for the compost to release the nutrients deeper into the soil.  That, in turn will supply the plants I put in there with the nutrients at their root level.

All the while I was doing this, I was being closely watched by our neighbors super inquisitive dog Meg.  I don't mind a bit.  She's really a sweet dog.  Hopefully she is picking up some pointers.

While I was doing all these preps, I noticed there were several cucumbers and a lot of new pepper blooms.  I watered the area around noon yesterday and followed with another soaking in the evening. A ritual that I always follow with no bad results.  

So, this morning, I went out to the garden and picked the cucumbers.  Can't believe all the cucumbers and peppers I am getting this year.  And no, I am not complaining.   

We will be enjoying these over the next few days.  There is nothing like eating fresh vegetables you have grown from seed to what you see.  Very satisfying indeed.  Well, that's all for now.  Hope you are having a great season.  Happy Gardening everyone!