Day 71 – Tomato Comparisons

Posted on by APerkins Posted in 30 Min., Container, Hugelkultur, Lasagna Bed, Wicking Bed

Tomato plants are all a little small, but the one picked up at the Williamsburg Farmer’s Market is outdoing them all. Of the tomatoes from seed, the lasagna bed has the most green, while the hugelkultur bed is almost the same height and only slightly less dense. The self-watering bed is only slightly taller than the banana box bed.  The other tomatoes that are looking small but hearty are the third picture – these in banana boxes.  The one to the left was only planted last week, while the other two have been in their boxes for about three weeks.

Tomatoes from the four different beds.

Clockwise from the top right: Lasagna bed, hugelkultur bed, banana box bed, self-watering bed.

Tomato plant from the Williamsburg Market growing very well in the banana box bed

Tomato plant from the Williamsburg Market growing very well in the banana box bed


Three tomato plants in banana box beds, the last two looking quite healthy.

Day 71 Bed Comparisons Snow Peas and Beans (plus a cuke or two)

Posted on by APerkins Posted in 30 Min., Container, Hugelkultur, Lasagna Bed, Wicking Bed
Collage of Beans and Peas in the different beds. Gardenhacker.com

Clockwise from the top: Lasagna Bed, banana box bed, hugelkultur bed, wicking bed

The Lasagna bed is the definite winner, the wicking bed and the hugelkultur bed tied for second place, with the banana box beds taking last place. It must be noted that the lasagna bed was fertilized with a layer of grass clippings, a layer of manure, another layer of grass clippings, then allowed to “mellow” over the winter, while all three of the other beds are a mix of fallow garden soil and some compost, along with grass clippings. The lasagna bed has been popularized by Patricia Lanza’s book Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!

 

Day 71 Continued: Squash in the Different Beds

Posted on by APerkins Posted in 30 Min., Hugelkultur, Lasagna Bed, Raised Bed, Wicking Bed
Four pictures of patty pan squash as on 2011-07-11 in the different beds. Gardenhacker.com

Clockwise from the top right: Lasagna bed, banana box bed, hugelkultur bed, wicking bed

Patty pan squash are a delicious summer squash that resemble a cross between an acorn and a UFO. They are delicious, reminding one of zucchini, though slightly firmer. Often times they are picked when only four to eight ounces (2-4″ in diameter), but the insides are edible up to over one pound, where the skins get tough, and the seeds begin to form in earnest. As shown in the pictures, patty pan squash really enjoy composted manure and rich soil. Pattypan variety is a bush type, making it an excellent choice for smaller gardens. Lettuce is often planted as a companion and the broad leaves shade the hot mid-summer sun so the lettuce won’t bolt as easily.

Here, the lasagna bed and the wicking bed are tied for first, with the hugelkultur bed taking third, and bringing up the back end is the banana box beds.

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Comfrey Tea Composting Update – PU!

Posted on by APerkins Posted in Fertilizing
Comfrey coming into bloom

Photo Credit: Linda N

Within the first two days, the comfrey tea was looking dark brown, and not smelling at all. Great! I did it – or so I thought.  “I’ll just let it go for a week – let it get really ‘good’.” Not such a great plan.  After one week, it was smelling like a septic system gone awry.  I removed it from the bubbler, cut it with ten parts water and fed several plants, including:

  • One tomato plant – banana box garden(bbg) proper
  • One tomato plant – bbg – extended (with wicking bed)
  • One tomato plant – bbg – extended (with no wicking bed)
  • One patty pan squash – bbg proper
  • One box potatoes – bbg proper
  • One brocolli – hugelkultur bed
  • One patty pan squash – hugelkultur bed

These plants have similar ones next to them, so if there are any good or bad effects, it should show up within a couple of weeks.  The rest of the swill went onto the compost heap.  After a quick thunderstorm, there was no smell in the garden – thankfully!

Next experiment will be to use one quarter the amount of comfrey, and 1/2 the amount of water – the stone I have is about the size of a cherry, so there’s not a lot of oxygen getting through the mix.  Anyone else have experience with comfrey composst tea?

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Aerobic Comfrey Tea Update

Posted on by APerkins Posted in Fertilizing

As mentioned in an earlier post, I was looking for and found my “bubbler” from the old tank, complete with the hose and a small air stone.  Cut down a lot of comfrey, put about 1/4 of a bucket full (compressed with a rock), added water, started the bubbler and added the lid.  Within two days, it was a dark muddy color, and didn’t stink.  I didn’t stick my face in it, but it didn’t knock me over when I removed the lid, either.  This is a good thing, since it’s right near our front door!  Have a lot more comfrey I can experiment with, but I may just continue to aerate five gallon buckets full throughout the rest of the summer.

Aerobic Compost Tea – look up  Dr. Elaine Ingham “…Bacteria-dominated compost is best suited to vegetables and herbs, while fungi-dominated compost is good for berries and fruit trees. …”

“… For a four gallon batch, continue to aerate the brew for twenty four hours.  The aerobic tea is ready to use when it has either an earthy or “yeasty” smell or a foamy layer on top. If it smells bad, continue to aerate it until the smell goes away…”  -from http://burlingtonpermaculture.weebly.com/uploads/4/2/8/9/4289790/liquid_fertilizers_handout.pdf

Related:

http://commonfarm-theflowerfarmer.blogspot.com/2011/05/comfrey-tea-how-to-because-plants-need.html

http://www.goldsilverchat.com/BBchat/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7439

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30 Minutes – Day 63: rain is a four letter word…

Posted on by APerkins Posted in 30 Min.

…we did have a sunny couple of days, but they’re always punctuated by overhanging clouds and rain on the weekends and days off.  Despite that fact, it is possible to dig in the old compost pile to create more beds (previous post re: temporary wicking beds), weed – about 20 minutes, planting bush beans into the strawberry “pyramid” – about five minutes – and picking more strawberries!  They are supposed to be reaching the end of their season about now, but so far have not shown signs of slowing.  No problem!

The cucumbers are not liking the cool soil, they are growing in slow motion, where the patty-pan squash are growing like crazy.

Broccoli so far are growing real well on the lasagna bed and on the hugelkultur bed, disappearing completely from the banana box bed (not enough soil, I think), and spotty in the wicking bed.

Bush beans are growing well everywhere, as are the snow peas.

Carrots – starting to show up in the banana box, covered them so varmints won’t mow them down unless they find their way under the inverted plastic strawberry containers.

Let’s see – what’s left?  Potatoes are going strong, the volunteers shipped to a friend who’s garden is also spotty, but they’ve been able to get their carrots further along, and have bruxells sprouts, while their broccoli refuses to grow – go figure.

Tomatoes are doing well in all beds, with further plantings going into newer experimental beds.

Need to decide where to plant the chard, and mark it so I don’t pull them up as weeds.

A Temporary Wicking Bed

Posted on by APerkins Posted in Container, Watering, Wicking Bed

Wicking beds are popular wherever it is dry or there are water restrictions, but that should not stop anyone in the northeast or northwest United States from trying one.  Basically, you are making a small tray underneath your plants that hold water, similar to self-watering containers for your home.  Soil will wick the water up to one foot, more than enough for this 2″ tray.  By adding compostable materials like comfrey stalks, the added benefit is more nutrients for the plant.  The one we are making here should last at least one season, and if the soil berms hold (not yet created due to all of the rain), could last up to several seasons.

We’re using a banana box here, since the double-corrugation holds up well.  Additionally, we are using a sheet of plastic, a tube and some material gathered to sit in the “tray”, and some newspaper.  These materials can be replaced with more permanent materials if you find you like the results.

Here are the steps:

  1. plastic for temporary wicking bedmeasure the bottom of your box and cut a piece of plastic that is four inches longer and wider.  For us, our box was 15″x20″, so our plastic was cut to 19″x24″
  2. put the plastic into the box so there is two inches of plastic up the walls on all sides of the box.
  3. comfrey stems added to the plastic tray for the wicking bedAdd material into the “tray” – this can be gravel, hydroponic stone, or – since this is only temporary, you can add just about anything.  Here  we’ve added comfrey stalks – you can use weeds, wood chips, plastic tubing, etc.
  4. Add a plastic tube to the corner for watering and monitoring the water level.
  5. Permeable layer - in this case newspaper - to keep the soil out of the tray.Add a “permeable layer – in this case newspaper to separate the soil from the water in the tray. If this was a permanent wicking bed, you would be using perforated plastic or garden fabric at this point.
  6. Add the soil and plant!  We’ve used a layer of “square foot garden mix” that was left over from some other plantings, and a layerSalamander found in with our compost. of composted soil.
Digging up our compost, a salamander narrowly missed it’s maker, and rode on top of the compost and shovel to the temporary wicking bed.  We moved it back to it’s home after the photograph.

What Should Follow in Crop Rotation

Posted on by APerkins Posted in FYI

A quick FYI post of the best crop rotation practices:

  1. Root Crops
  2. Legumes/Brassica
  3. Tomatoes/Peppers
  4. Sweet Corn/Curcubits (cucumbers)
A six crop rotation would look like this:
  1. Legumes
  2. Brassicas
  3. Root crops, carrots, parsnips, potatoes
  4. Corn, curcubits
  5. Tomatoes, capsicums, eggplant
  6. Green manure crop t0 replenish the soil and tilth
Oddly, lettuce is a heavy feeder – according to http://www.harvestwizard.com/2010/10/crop_rotation_planning.html

Day 59 – Strawberries Everywhere, and Comfrey Tea

Posted on by APerkins Posted in 30 Min., Fertilizing

We came back from a much needed vacation, and have not needed to water the garden.  Weeding is another matter, at least around some of the beds, but no need for pumping water – it rained here at least as much as it did in Florida (which was hot, but worth it!).  The strawberries yielded about three pints, minus about one pint that either rotted or were eaten by the slugs.  Everything else – carrots excluded – has continued to grow at a good pace.

In the weeding arena, we’ll be clipping back more of the grass in the established strawberry plots, while the new plots are doing quite well without our help – the grass clippings have suppressed the weeds almost completely.

Comfrey was in need of clipping as well (a ten minute job) and has been added to the compost barrel (top cut from an old plastic barrel, set almost sideways for easier turning) and we may be able  to create a “comfrey tea”.

There are two versions of comfrey tea that I know of: one is a smelly concoction where you fill a bucket with 1/2 comfrey leaves, then top off with water, adding a rock to hold them under for about twenty days. If you do this, keep the lid on it to keep the flies away, and so you don’t need to smell it.

The second method, if I can find it, is  a more “aerobic” method in which you use an aerator (from a fish tank) to keep the oxygen in and the anaerobic creatures in check.  Hoping this creates a less smelly concoction (update 2011-07-03 – yes, it’s not as smelly!).

To use, dilute the concoction in a 10:1 mixture (ten cups of water to one cup of strained smelly comfrey tea). Use the tea as a side dressing every ten to fourteen days, stopping at thirty days before harvest.  This can be used as a foliar spray which is reported to slow the powdery mildew mold spore that is almost sure to be a problem in the northeast.  Spray every 10-14 days, stopping thirty days before harvest.  DO NOT use comfrey on established lettuce or spinach, as the rich nitrogen content may cause it to bolt.  Use care with carrots, too, as too much nitrogen can cause cracking and forked carrots.

Comfrey has a good amount of N P K, as well as other micronutrients that plants love, and slugs will eat and crawl away with – so if you are just using the leaves and stalks, burying them instead of just leaving them on the ground.

Day 55 – What to do with Volunteer Plants

Posted on by APerkins Posted in 30 Min., Container, Tangents

I’ve had a lot of volunteer potatoes popping up throughout the garden.  Some of them quite deep.  The best thing to do with volunteer plants (if you know what they are) is to

  • replant them, filling in areas that didn’t sprout.  If you find you have too many to care for, you can also
  • give them away.  The third thing you can do with volunteers is to
  • create a “patio garden” – placing them into containers and using them to either dress up your porch, create a border up and down your driveway, placing them on bare spots on the lawn, near trees if they like shade, or
  • below and beside the compost pile to take up any leaching nutrients.

The rest of the garden “volunteers” consist of weeds, most of which are at the edges of the beds.  They are easily turned over, though there have been a few clumps of resilient grass that have begun to grow through the root ball too.  These have to have the soil shaken from them, then we either lay them out on the driveway or on a piece of plastic until they’ve dried out, after which they are added to the compost heap.

Many of the surrounding grasses that have not been mowed have gone to seed, so they will be left alone for about another four weeks.  The comfrey are in full bloom, and the bees are having a field-day, so I will wait for the blossoms to drop before I cut them back (to about 0ne foot tall), placing the stalks onto the compost heap, or – if a quick shot of “green” is needed, mowing them and taking the bagged grindings to either make a “tea” with, or just putting them under a little bit of top soil.  Leaving them on top of the ground, especially with the wet weather we’ve been having, is an open invitation for the slugs, we’ve found.  Under a couple of inches of soil, they break down quickly and the worms appear to appreciate it.

Sadly, we have not had any “Matt’s Wild Cherry” tomato plant volunteers this year, which have been a perennial favorite for snacking when in the garden, so they will be on the list for next year, if I can’t find the seeds I’d saved last year.

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