Great Gift Idea for Your Winter Friends

Posted on by admin Posted in Tangents
Great Gift Idea - Seed Wreaths

Great Gift Idea – Seed Wreaths

What a great idea from Cooks Garden Center!  Using the different colored seeds for the different shades.   Almost makes me wish I’d grown more sunflowers – although the squirrels and the chickadees have made sohrt work of everything that was out there.  My daughter denuded several large sunflowers and we found we needed to continuously shake the seeds several times a day so they wouldn’t go moldy.  Her original intention was to save the seeds, but her fascination with the chickadees has gotten the better of her, so most of them are gone.

There are recipes out there for making your own as well, such as “The Mother Huddle” tutorial here, Stephanie Lynn’s interesting use of gelatin here, and several more ideas from “hlkljgk” here.

“Hlkljk” makes note that birds have a hard time with peanut butter(since they have no salivary glands), so be sure to mix in corn meal as well.

They are a great gift idea for craft fairs, too!

Starting 11/1, $4.95 Flat Shipping on Bird Seed Wreath orders with code FLATWREATH through 11/6!

Outdoor Gardening is Over? Not Quite…

Posted on by admin Posted in Soil

We’re getting our first frost tomorrow morning, so the remnants in the garden will be coming in.  Most of the tomatoes got struck down by a late blight – except for “Matt’s Wild Cherry Tomatoes” that are the best thin skinned cherry tomatoes around IMHO.  The only reason you don’t see them in the stores is because they don’t travel well.  From the garden to the kitchen is fine, and they’ll last up to one week in the open air (we don’t like to refrigerate the tomatoes – takes away from the taste).

All that’s left to do in the garden is

  • dig up a few more potatoes
  • clear the heirloom debris
  • sanitize the tomato cages
  • lay down a killing mulch
  • wood chips for the paths (we fill our recycle bins with wood chips from near our “transfer station” aka dump that have been piled there since 2008) – about 1/2 of a path between the beds every week
  • roll up and store the hoses
  • mulch and manure the asparagus patch (have to get more of these growing again!)
  • prune back the blackberries

Nope – the outdoor garden still has plenty to be done before the snowfall – just doesn’t inspire as much as the spring when the snow peas and the radishes burst forth with their green tenacity and hardiness, but it’s kind of a “thank you” to your garden for a season of fresh food.

Gardenhacker’s Garden Update

Posted on by admin Posted in FYI

The potatoes are taking off, despite the extreme wet weather,  bought some starts at the Williamsburg Farmer’s Market including some orange melons, Paul Robeson Tomatoes, and an heirloom I never knew about: Northampton Paste Tomato(aka Northampton Italian Plum), went down again and picked up some Early Girl tomatoes and some European Oxhearts (always wanted to try these).  The cucumbers never sprouted, so I picked up a couple of these as starts too.  The peas finally showed up, and after digging through my collection of seeds I found some “Boston Marrow” and “Yugoslav Finger” squash (similar to Patty Pan – a family favorite).  They all seem to be sprouting (thank God – a summer without Patty Pan around here would be bad…).  The first of the strawberries came up, along with the Alpine strawberries that are putting up a good fight with the grass in my yard (the kids are helping them too, saying “Don’t mow there, Dad!”).  Never was one for a putting green for a lawn, but I may need a mini-combine to harvest soon.

The horse farm where I typically get my aged manure from has given up on me and spread it over their own pastures, so it will be late summer/early fall before I can “harvest” more of that,  but there’s always wood chips for the pathways.  May put out a sign saying “Wood Chips Wanted” and see what happens if I get lazy and don’t want to cart the stuff on the weekends when I bring our recyclables to the transfer station.  Off to plant the beans, transplant the new tomatoes and generally scuff around picking out the odd weed (oh, and cut the grass, too).

Don’t Ask, Don’t Till

Posted on by admin Posted in Fertilizing, Lasagna Bed, Soil, Watering

Earthworms from the compost bin by goosmurf on flickr.comLife as a worm

You’ve found a great place to live: plenty of rotting vegetation, roots that have expired, leaving nodules of nitrogen and plenty of other edible goodies, including fungi and an abundance of leaves right at the surface. Life couldn’t be better.

Then – the vibrations begin: your perfect world is torn apart with metal tines tossing you into the sunlight, crushing and plowing through the eggs carefully layed. Digging back under is easy, but everything is a tumult. Where there were tendrils of fungus and decaying roots, now lies a mixture of all. Plenty of air, to be sure, but surface nutrients and subsurface moisture are all a jumble. And what of the fungus? Months of growing and reaching out to roots for the symbiotic trade of sugars in exchange for nutrients needed now only here and there. Which way to grow? And how?

At least the weed seeds have it better: they’re close enough to the surface to be awakened by the sun. Their roots begin to reach down into the soil as their leaves begin to reach into the air, there will be food again for the fungus, hopefully soon enough to survive and strike up exchanges anew.

Dry Soil - by Steven MinnsBut then the rain. Pelting the bare earth, a slurry forms on the surface, choking off the fresh air. The sun resumes, creating a crust almost impenetrable save for the most ardent and hardy of plants. New plants are introduced, but without the canopy of other plants, the rains will continue the onslaught of suffocating slurry drying to crust as the heat from day after day of sunlight drives the flora and fauna deeper into the soil.

Weeks pass, the added oxygen speeds the breakdown of the nutritive matter, creating a bloom of food for the plants and fungus alike – but only until the rains come again and wash out the nitrogen, potassium, calcium and phosphorus, creating a famine once again. Repeatedly the world of the worms are disturbed as weeds are pulled by the roots, carted off to who knows where. Still, it’s better than the pathways, where trodding feet and wheels crush the soil so compact that it’s nearly impossible to penetrate.

compost heap with pumpkin growing by hardworkinghippyYet, there is another place – under the compost heap, where nutrients slowly leach down, more as the days heat up, yet staying comfortable and cool.  This no till area hasn’t got  many roots, but at least it’s undisturbed. Perhaps this will be where we live this season. The periphery has many plants, only the occasional trodding while the weed eater cuts around it’s circumference, adding to the nutrients slowly, naturally. Here, where conditions are ideal and the forgotten garden seed takes root, we find the most bounteous of all the garden plants and the gardener scratching their heads wondering how they could possibly create such a place in their rows of average yielding plants.

The no till garden does have many advantages. Yes, there are paths, but the crushing of the soil is cushioned by a healthy depth of wood chips. Nutrition in the garden proper is stacked in layers, suppressing the weed seeds and decomposing slowly, only occasionally disturbed by the harvesting of plants. Fungal tendrils reaching from the woody paths into the garden, transferring the nutrients to the crops in exchange for the sugars needed for growth and eventually bloom with their umbrella-like tops or other novel shapes.

No-Till Garden, with straw mulch by stellar678The soil texture, riddled with worm paths leave ample room for air to infiltrate, since roots need both air and water. Worm castings are abundant, and the surface – covered by manure, grass clippings and compost, naturally generate more nutrition as it is gently warmed by the sun while keeping the soil underneath cool and moist. Pastures and forest floors for eons have been built up in layers, disturbed occasionally by grazing animals who leave deposits of their own in return. Plants of all types and the supporting flora and fauna have adapted well to this environment. So, instead of questioning a worm as to how they’d like their home treated, don’t ask – and don’t till.

 

Based on the book Weedless Gardening by Lee Reich

Available at Amazon

 

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  • Earthworm Photo Credit: Goosmurf – used under the Creative Commons Attribution license. http://www.flickr.com/photos/goosmurf/3828755105/sizes/l/in/photostream/
  • Dry soil by Steven Minns.  Used under the Creative Commons Attributions license – http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevenminns/3818797878/
  • Photo Credit: hardworkinghippy. Used under the Creative Commons Attribution license.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/hardworkinghippy/100033277/
  • No-till garden by stellar678.  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution license. http://www.flickr.com/photos/slybeck/3484900281/
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Gardenhacker Garden Plan for 2012

Posted on by admin Posted in Lasagna Bed, Soil

Plan for gardenhacker beds 2012

The plan this year is less experiments, more volume.   The hugelkultur bed did well last year, as did the lasagna (sheet composting) beds, with mixed results in the box beds and the failure of the wicking bed.  Okay, not a complete failure, I just had to water it more than I had anticipated.  This year, we are sheet composting everything, since it’s easy to do (in fact, it’s done, save for one more harvesting of the lawn clippings for the “sheet composted ofer leaky plastic liner”, with wood chips between the rows.  Thanks to a wet start, the wood chips are holding a lot of water and breaking down quite nicely.  Once the garden is established, the walkways may be screened with a new “killing mulch” layed down and a new layer of wood chips, taking the screened wood chip/compost mix as a mulch over the grass clippings, and possibly another side dressing of horse manure.  According to a couple of compost calculators, a 1:1:1 mix should work out just fine, considering the screened wood chips will mostly be the consistency of wet leaves.

The biggest point of musing and planning now is how much to plant and when.  Immediately, or perhaps tomorrow, the potatoes that have sprouted in the cellar will have to be placed into the soil, or composted.  Snow peas are behind schedule: they should have been out there a couple of weeks ago along with the lettuces.  Protecting the carrots from ol’ long ears will have to be planted out in short order, and the cukes will need to be stared indoors to keep them from rotting in case we have another couple of weeks of rain.  I am still wanting to try my hand at melons as well, so there may be a couple of more plots/rows layed out for these, but with our short growing season and the need for warm soil, this could also be a challenge.  The strawberries have been planted and mulched as of this week, and the daughter’s gardens seeded with sunflowers, strawberries, and some other flower mixes that don’t come to mind.  My youngest has been happy to help, my elder has been keen to plan, my wife is recouperating from her successful completion of her Master’s Degree (Woo hoo!), and together we make a great team, as well as a great family. Well, time to look over my seeds and start planting!

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True Square Foot Gardening

Posted on by admin Posted in Soil, Tangents

square foot gardening with square stones between for easy managementAn intriguing garden idea: Create a garden you can walk through, while giving the plants ample room to grow. By alternating a foot of growing area and a foot square “stepping stone”, arranged like a checker board.  Indeed, even the roots should be able to grow underneath the brown “stones” – or cement squares, hexagons or circles. These would not only give you room to stand within your garden, but would also provide places (perhaps boxes?) for vermiculture, “trough composting”, a small pail under one could store your tools?  While on the surface it may not look like the best use of space, the blocks would effectively block out weeds, allow for root growth underneath, while vining plants could easily crawl anywhere, and “training” them would be a breeze.

The only downside would be if you were unfortunate enough to have the perfect climate for slugs: they would be hiding under half of your garden, unless you put copper plates down, and at the price of copper, this doesn’t sound like a financially sound solution.

At the end of the season, simply move the squares over the top of the previous year’s bed, add amendments and compost to next years squares.

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Early Blight Organic Solutions

Posted on by admin Posted in disease
Early Blight

Early blight – photo credit: wikipedia.org

Early blight on tomato plants starts on the lowest leaves as dark spots, working it’s way up to eventually consume the whole plant.  This fungus (Alternaria solani) overwinters on the debris in the soil, especially on the remains of the same or similar plants. Other plants are also susceptible to this fungus, including the close cousin potatoes, peppers, eggplants and even basil, especially the Genovese variety.

Preventive Procedures

  • Crop rotation can minimize this problem along with the
  • removal of all of the plant debris,
  • purchasing disease free potato seeds
  • tomato plants with the “A” or ASC” (Alternaria Stem Canker) to provide resistance from getting the disease (though many desirable varieties do not have this resistance)
  • Watering in the morning or minimizing splash of water or soil onto the leaves
  • Liberal mulching around the plants so no bare soil can get splashed onto the lower leaves
  • Utilizing drip irrigation of various types to minimize splashing when watering

While preventative measures are worth the effort, what happens if you find this fungus has taken hold?  There are several chemical sprays available, though as most people wish to remain as organic as possible (including ourselves), we will instead focus on these solutions.

  • Physically removing the leaves from the lowest portion of the plant and remove from the garden area completely.  Disposing of the material is recommended, since composting would only reintroduce the fungus.  This will also increase the air flow around the plant, causing the morning dew to evaporate quicker (the fungus needs the moisture to begin it’s infection)
  • In extreme cases, removing the soil is a possible solution, especially if there has been a reoccurance.

Organic options include

Be sure to follow the directions exactly.

At the first sign of this disease, take action! You don’t want to spread to any of the rest of your plants, or your neighbors, since wind can transfer the fungus as well.

Check with your local agricultural extension too.  There may be other wild plants in your area that harbor these diseases.

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Great Public Domain Book Available Online

Posted on by admin Posted in FYI

There is a wonderful reference in the public domain regarding plant roots. Written in 1927, this book illustrates the root growth of many vegetables in a variety of conditions.  sustainablefarmer.com has made this book available online at http://www.sustainablefarmer.com/pdflibrary/library-rootdevelopment.pdf.  While the book focuses on the locale of Lincoln, NE and Norman, OK – it’s information is notworthy for any gardener.

Topics include:

  • Modifying the root environment
  • Adaptation of roots to environment
  • Root adaptation and crop production
  • Interrelations of plant, soil, and climate
  • Activities of roots in subsoil
  • Number and size of plants
  • Tillage
  • etc.

Read more at http://gardenhacker.com/hidden-world-of-plant-roots/

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Vertical Garden DIY

Posted on by admin Posted in Container, Watering

Vertical Garden using a palletWe’ve seen several vertical garden DIY’s from using old shoe organizers to custom crafted walls.  They have always intrigued, but not to the point of pulling out the saw or rearranging the shoes to create one.  This is an easily created vertical garden could be created in a couple of hours, filled and planted, then set out in the yard without looking like an eviction was taking place, or set on our unfinished cellar floor near the sump pump with a couple of modifications (like a small aquarium air pump and a tube into the sump) to automatically water the garden.  If you have an old plastic kiddie pool (not the inflatable type), you could keep the moisture off the floor too, and make your own “aquaponics” garden too!  Uh-oh,  the project muse is rearing her head – hide the hammers!  See the complete Vertical Garden DIY at designsponge.com

Couple of ideas:

  •  A 4″x24″x36″ pallet would hold approximately 2 cubic feet of soil
  • Strawberries could be planted every 12″, interplanting them with lettuce or borage
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Thumb Controlled Watering Pot (via funinthemaking.net)

Posted on by admin Posted in Watering

Thumb controlled watering pot made from a syrup jugThis is an excellent easy to create waterer for just about any garden.  funinthemaking.net has a great idea for those syrup containers that I hate to throw away.  They’re sturdy, look good and I knew there had to be another use for them!  Gets the creative gears flowing!

By putting a small hole in the top, you can control the flow of the water by simply holding your thumb on the top.  The little handle makes it easy to hold with your index finger (usually reserved for my coffee cup handle).   Easy instructions for the thumb controlled watering pot at their site.  Great job, Funinthemaking.net!

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