Paper Mache soil blocks

I thought about this early winter but got side tracked.  I will try Iceberg lettuce and Black beauty eggplant. It won’t be a big deal if it doesn’t workout because my son started plants for me and there are big box stores and lawn and garden centers near by.

I shredded 5 pages double page width of newspaper and folded them to fit in the shredder opening.

The shredded newspaper was covered with water and left to set over night.

The next morning I put the paper through a blender and strainer and I had my paper Mache slurry.

I was able to make eight blocks out of this batch of slurry and will plant Iceberg lettuce in these. My next batch, I want to make extra slurry to have blocks to dry out and test them for rehydration.

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Accessable garden update

This is my Grandson Dan. Sorry for the apple branch in front of his face. He is in the process of top dressing the fall leaves and decorations. There is nothing that will excite a red worm like pumpkin. There will be substantial shrinkage by Spring and I will top dress again with composted horse bedding.

The four beds are filled and nothing to do until spring.

The upper garden is filled also, while nearly. The cyclone fence in the center will be taken out and there is enough soil to fill the beds on the right.

2010/11 winter garden and 2011 summer garden

I am only a Month late but that was unavoidable. Every thing is planted except two tomatoes that I am waiting for the second set of leaves. There is a total of 18.7 sq ft under irrigation with an automatic fertilizer injector. The injector is set for a weak solution of 20-20-20 every time the system comes on which is one min every two days.

The container closest to the camera has Romaine lettuce planted. The second container has Iceberg lettuce Planted. And the third and fourth containers will be used for the second planting. Later the first and second container will be used for the third planting and so on until the end of season.

The first and second from the left are carrots, the third is celery and the fourth is parsnips. I have never grown these in the GH before so this is pretty much an experiment but I hope they do well.

The container closest to the camera is red radishes.  The second container is white radishes. The third container is basil and the fourth is dill. The buckets on the floor are for the tomatoes.

I guess this is the start of my 2011 garden. In total there are 70 cloves of garlic planted. The ones in front of the telephone pole are soft neck and the ones behind the pole are stiff neck. I was a little concerned about the continuous open space on the outside row but the cloves are well rooted and the sprout is about to break through the surface.

Soil test is in and I think I will have a BM

After I seen the third year core sample of the raised bed, I just had to get a soil test to see what was going on. I have always known that garden worms were beneficial to the garden. But I did not know just how much work they did.

Unless you follow my Journal there are three Posts that you should read to get the background on the raised bed soil.

1. First year core sample
2. Second year core sample
3. Third year core sample

Penn State claims a 4-5 day turn around on soil samples. I sent the sample in on Tuesday and received an eMail copy today and a hard copy will be sent via snail mail. I requested the standard test($9) and % organic matter($5) and eMail data($1) for a sum of $15.

I was interested in the PH and Fertility of the soil but I was curious as how much organic material was present since the only thing deposited in the beds was organic but the soil did not seem as it was only humus. As it turns out at 25% organic material, I have just been feeding the worms and they have been building up the soil. John

 

 

Couldn’t help myself, one more potato tower

Last year I built three towers to satisfy my own curiosity about growing potatoes in a tower. The one tower was a complete disaster because of a transparent tower that caused leaf development 10” from the surface. The other two did very well with potatoes developing over a 16” length of underground stem. These were short towers as I was not looking for a lot of potatoes but I did want to see the anatomy of a potato plant and just where the potatoes grew from.

While researching potato towers I found many people claiming success and a few that said that it was not possible. At the same time almost everybody claimed that early potatoes did not do well in towers. Well the Yukon Gold is our early potato, and the Kennebec is our mid-season potato, so I went with the Kennebec for my test.

After I harvested the broccoli and cabbage it opened up a pathway to a volunteer Yukon Gold potato plant and I decided it was time for it to go. That crazy plant had lifted that bed about three ins.

 

Later when I was cleaning up the debris I noticed that there were potatoes growing on that part of the stem that was above ground. If you look close at the lower most potatoes you can see leaves growing behind them and they are below the potatoes above.

 

Now when someone talks about potato towers this photo pops in to my mind and I wonder why Yukon Gold potatoes do not do well in a tower. I figure the only way to get that photo out of my mind is to have another experiment so here goes another tower.

There is a Yukon Gold with four chitted buds planted at least 8” deep in the base as you see it.

 

The tower was then filled with amended potting soil which puts the seed spud about 15” below the surface. I will fill the tower as the weather compresses it keeping the soaker hose about 2-3” and the seed spud about 16”+ below the surface. Wish me luck, John

Zone 5 and I have to get pro active

Its going down to 34 tonight and 33 tomorrow night but it looks safe after that. The potatoes have been planted, the spinach is up and looking good, onions, asparagus and garlic are also looking good. Come Monday I will plant lettuce, endive and more spinach and onions. On Tuesday I will plant four tomato plants and keep the hot caps handy. Toward the end of the Month, I will plant the peppers and eggplant. Still to come are broccoli, cauliflower, summer squash, winter squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, beets and several herbs. After the garden is planted I will re mulch the path ways, plant posies and re mulch the posy beds. In the mean time the grass is growing like a wild fire and there is about two years worth of fire wood piled in front of my compost bins. 

Second year RB/SFG core sample

This year’s core sample was taken adjacent to last year’s sample. There was only about an inch of recognizable compost on top and it spilled out onto the floor when I tilted the tube to remove the sample. When I removed the sample, it just fell apart. The bed is about 88% full of what looks like plain old garden soil thanks to the many worms. At the end of next growing season I expect the beds to be nearly 100% filled with soil/worm casing. Then it will be interesting how the moisture retention will be and how the plants perform.

A close-up photo of the core sample.

This is a photo of semi-finished compost that the beds were top dressed with this spring. As usual all comments are welcome.    John

Sweet Potato harvest for 2009

This is my sweet potato harvest for 2009. A total of 21lb 9oz or about one lb per square. I planted 20 squares with one slip per square (SFG style). At $0.52 per slip, I am not sure they are worth the space. They are Georgia Jets and I would be interested in what others have harvested this year, particularly in the northern climates. As usual, all comments are welcome. John

The last potato tower for 2009

I should give a recap on the tower. The base of the tower is 8” deep. Two Kennebec seed potatoes were planted 6” deep, then two tiers added and filled with compost. The seed potatoes ended up about 16”+ deep. This was not an incremental filling of the tower. The tower was filled within 15min of planting. After about 2-3 weeks the one sprout broke through the surface and the other never showed up. When harvested there were no signs of it ever trying so it turned out to be a dud spud.

This is the first spud harvested. The stolen is coming from an area very close to the surface. I do not know if it was above or below ground but not any where near the seed potato or root zone of the main plant. The stolen is bent around so as to get a continuous view from potato to stem.

Here you can see three stolen near the top of an underground stem. On the end of that stem is a portion of the seed potato that is about 16” away from the upper most stolen.

The next three photos are a closer photo of each stolen so you can trace it from potato to stem.

The total weight of the potatoes were 4lb 14oz.

 

The largest was 1lb 3oz.

As Usual, all comments are welcome.   John

My follies with trellising squash

I have been planting Burpee’s hybrid zucchini and butterbush squash for years. This year I decided to trellis the squash to conserve space. The zucchini was easy to tie up to the trellis when the vine was small but as the vine grew wider and stiffer it became more difficult. We had a relatively mild summer storm and this photo is of the top of one vine that had broken off of one of the plants. What broke off was about 1 ½” of the tip of the vine with about 2-3 small leaves and blossoms. I had hoped the plant would start a new branch but it eventually died.

Both zucchini plants had a problem with the leaves in back buckling and falling forward over the tip of the vine and damaging the new blossoms. I had to be vigilant at removing them from that area.

The clincher is, the plants were growing approximately the same place as last years non trellised squash. Last year the squash grew across the pathway and up against the next bed. This year the trellised squash leaves grew with in 3-4” of the adjoining bed, so I only saved 3-4” of space.

The Butterbush squash were planted about 10” in front of the trellis and a dowel rod placed from the plant base to the trellis. It was easy to tie the vines to the dowels.

It became obvious that the vines did not want to grow north although there was plenty of sun. In this photo you can see about four times the growth toward the south as there is to the north. I decided to let them go where they wanted and sacrificed the onions planted to the south of them.

The vines are dieing back and the squash are ripening. There will be about 25 squash, enough for my wife and me but not very many to give away. This is the same area that the squash grew in last year in a conventional hill planting and I will be doing a comparison post about last years yield to this years SFG style of gardening. As usual, all comments are welcome. John

Who sez potato rhizoms don’t grow on the stem?

Because of the Late Blight hitting my tomatoes this year, I terminated the potato plants in an effort to save whatever crop I had. The Yukon Gold potatoes look great and the Kennebec potatoes are smaller but the perfect size for DW and me. I could have left them grow but I did not want to take the chance. Since I did terminate the plants, I decided to harvest the first potato tower. I covered the building of and the growth of the tower in an earlier post. Now it is time to see what I got.

 

The tower is 20 ½” tall. I tied garden twine around the main sprouts and attached a bungee cord to keep the plant in position as I remove the compost from around the spuds and rhizomes.

 

This is the first spud I came to. It is about 16” above the seed potato I had planted. The rhizome and potato were growing horizontally not upward like many people say.

 

The second spud was located about 13 1/2 “from the seed potato.

 

Here I started to remove the next level.

 

There seams to be rhizomes with marble size potatoes everywhere.

 

This is the potato plant as removed from the soil. It is about 20” from the tip of the green to the seed potato. There were three nice potatoes below the seed potato. I hope this answers some questions as where potatoes grow on a plant.

 

The weight of the potatoes on this plant is meaningless but it was 3 lb 3 oz. As usual, all comments are welcome.

The anxiety of gardening.

After the devastation of my tomatoes by the Late Blight, I was more than a little anxious about the condition of my potatoes. The Yukon Gold potatoes had been dying back but I thought it was the normal time for them to be doing so. Two 2’ X 8’ beds back to back in the foreground are YGs and had been cleaned off. The two beds behind them are Kennebec potatoes and look great, I do not think they are affected (yet). Both types of spuds exceeded 40” in plant growth and as you can see, my pathways should have been about 6’ instead of 18” wide.

 

This photo is of the bed on the left. I lifted the spuds for the first 14” only on Aug 07^th

 

These two spuds were harvested on July 20^th from the same 14” area and weigh 1lb 7oz

 

These spuds are the same ones in the first photo and weigh 6lb 2oz. The total weight for 2.33 squares is 7lb 9oz or 3lb 6oz per square. If these two squares are representative of all the squares in the potato beds that will be 204lb of potatoes. Do any of you have tomatoes that you want to trade for potatoes? Hummm….. I wonder how a slice of potato would taste on a hamburger.

John

A remarkable potato.

After the garden had been planted, I had a volunteer potato sprout. I soon pulled it out, after a few days, another sprout appeared, and I removed it. Eventually two more sprouts appeared from under the frame of the RB/SFG. I thought if that potato wants to grow that much I will let it go and see what happens. Well I needed to access the backside of the pepper and eggplant beds to harvest and the potato plant had to go.

 

I found a pile of potatoes on top of the path and a couple under the edge of the bed. That crazy potato had raised the bed from 3” to 4”. There is about 2” to 3” of wood chip mulch on the path.

 

That one potato plant produced 31/2 lb of potatoes not counting the many small ones. The scale looks like crap but weighs very accurately. The basket weighs exactly one lb. Make sure to read the rest of the post after this next photo as this potato also raised some interesting questions.

 

The next series of photos are of a portion of the stalk that I cut off that shows various views of potatoes that were growing totally off the ground and potato stolons above leaf branches. In addition, these are Yukon Gold potatoes that are not supposed to do well in a tower, now I am wondering why. Maybe another experiment is coming next spring. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John

There’s trouble in River City

Late blight on tomatoes and maybe on potatoes. Well until last week, I did not know what I had. I knew that I was having some sort of problem with the tomatoes what I did not know was that it could also affect the potatoes. What a bummer. It is the same blight that struck Ireland in the 1840s

 This is what the tomatoes looked like the middle of July.

This is what they looked like a few days later I knew it was not blossom end rot.

It was clear that every thing had to go.

The next two photos are of the same spot before and after the blight. There were between 30 and 40 tomatoes on each plant.

The vent to the GH is right behind the tomato plants. Now do I have to fumigate the GH or what????

 As usual, all comments are welcom.         John

Guess what is for supper

I checked the YG potatoes today too see if I would be getting any potatoes this year. They were about 4” and 10” from the end of the bed on 2 plants. Both potatoes were about an inch under the soil and I am hoping there are larger ones underneath. The potatoes are about the size of a baseball and weighed 11oz

 

PT1 is doing very good and I cannot wait to harvest.

 

There is a second sprout from the spud in the PT2 that broke the surface several days ago. The “Dud Spud” is still a no show and it is doubtful that it will.

 

The TPT is not looking very good. The largest sprout broke when it came to the seam of the two carboys but is still trying to grow. All of the tips though are turning brown and I think the GH is too hot this time of year to grow potatoes. I removed some of the soil so there is about ½” left above the sprouts. I hope that they will recover.     John

 

I do grow veggies other than potatoes

I have been posting about potatoes so often I thought I should show you my other veggies. This is my asparagus bed. I planted two-year-old crowns and supposedly, I can make limited cuttings next spring. They look so spindly I sort of dough it.

The bell peppers are Big Dippers and are loaded with blossoms.

The Bibb lettuce is fantastic and will be my annual lettuce. It also did very well in the GH last winter.

The broccoli looks good and is about to develop heads. The three plants in front are purple cabbage.

I have not grown Brussels sprouts for a while and will not be able to predict outcome until late summer. And another three purple cabbage in front.

The Butterbush winter squash have sprouted and have to grow about 10” North to reach the trellis. I will tie them to the sticks to get them off the soil as soon as possible to help me combat the squash bugs.

Cauliflower is not showing any sign of heads yet but it usually takes longer than the broccoli.

The eggplant is chucking full of blossoms and looking great.

I free sowed the endive and thin it as we eat. As soon as I thin it, it fills back in.

Onion plants are just taking root and hard to see. I also planted 12 Alisa Craig onions that can get up to five pounds each.

Cannot say much about the tomatoes except they are on there way to higher places.

The Zucchini are on there way to the first rung of the ladder. I will see how this goes.

The sweet potatoes are growing slowly, the weather has been very cool but I hope the roots are developing well.

Ok, I have to say something about the potatoes. The ones in the foreground are the Kennebec and the ones in the background are the Yukon Gold. The fence to the right is four ft tall. As usual, all comments are welcome.

Sprouts in the TPT (transparent potato tower)

The seed potatoes have sprouted and have about 18” to go to reach the surface. The first photo shows three and possibly four sprouts and minimal roots growing. Once the roots get into the compost, I expect the sprouts will grow much faster.

 

This photo is the second seed potato, which shows only two sprouts. The curious part is the sprouts look greener and appear to have leaves forming. I do not know what to expect from either one. It would be great if they made it to the surface though. I will make regular updates in my journal if you are interested in potato towers. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John

Some think there is no intrigue in gardening

2009-05-31

 

Today, I was filling a compost bin from a pile of kitchen, lawn and garden debris that had accumulated from late winter/early spring. While doing so, I noticed a particularly long sprout. Upon investigation, it turned out to be a potato sprout about 16” to 18” long. There were several small sprouts along the length of the main sprout (see red arrows, there are several on the underneath side you cannot see). Are they lateral stem sprouts or stolons?

 

 

The next two photos are enlargements of the areas of the red arrows. The plot thickens and what timing for my experiments in my journal with potato towers. Stay tuned for further developments. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John

 

I dig potatoes

2009-05-26

 

While not yet, but I am looking forward in anticipation. The Yukon Gold potatoes are growing gangbusters.

 

They were planted 8”deep 16 days ago and are now 16+” tall.

 

I do not remember what day I planted the Kennebec potatoes but they broke through the surface about 4-5 days ago.

 

Which brings me to the potato tower; I planted one Kennebec spud in the tower 8” deep the same time as the other Kennebec spuds.

 

It broke through the surface the same day as the first Kennebec spud in the beds and I quickly put the first tier in place.

 

This is a close-up of the previous photo.

 

The next morning I filled the tier about half way and placed some compost up against the plant to the leaves.

 

This is a close-up of how I covered the plant. It is about 2-3” below the surface of the compost.

 

By the next morning, it had grown another couple of inches and I pulled some compost into the hole covering the stem.

 

I repeated this for two more days and the tier was full.

 

I added the second and last tier and will repeat the process until it is full. The tower is 20 ½” tall and that should be enough to show if the process works for me or not. As usual, all comments are welcome.    John

One thing leads to another

2009-05-17

 

The trellis in yesterday’s post is 15’ long and I used 16’ hog panels which gave me two12” pieces of scrap panel. I wanted to try growing summer squash vertically and needed to come up with a trellis to grow two summer squash plants on. I had some old fence posts on hand and some outdoor electrical cable ties and the two scrap panels was all I needed. Now if I can encourage the Zucchini to grow up the trellis, I will be in Hog Heaven.

 

Tonight will be the second night in a row with freezing or below freezing temperatures. I gathered up enough containers to cover the veggie plants but the apples are in jeopardy. All I can do now is to hope for the best. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John 

  

A trellis for winter squash

2009-05-16

I was calling my trellis the ‘Mother of all trellises” but that was being a little presumptuous. The cyclone fence around the garden was four feet tall and I thought that would be a little small for summer squash. My DW and I love the Butterbush squash and it vines about five or six feet so I wanted to increase the height of the existing fence to six feet high. The problem was the fence producers do not make couplers to extend the height of the corner or line post. I knew there had to be something out there I could use.

 

What I found was automotive tail pipe couplers and since line/corner post came at a minimum of six-foot lengths and I would be scraping two feet, so I also used two-foot lengths of tail pipe.

 I reinstalled the original top rail on top of the extensions.

  

The trellis will be holding about 110 to 120 pound of squash so I added a line post in the center of the span.

 

I added cross members also to tie in the seams of the panels.

 I checked Tractor Supply’s web site and they claimed to have cattle panel on stock. After driving 20 miles I found out they only had hog panel. The hog panel is made using the same gage steel and the same size, 36” X 16’ so that is what I used. I wish I had taken a photo before I unloaded the truck. Can you imagine hauling 16’ long panels in a Ranger with a 6” bed? You can see at the far end of the trellis where I added a diagonal support to the corner post. When I finish the fence and gates at the open end, I will also add diagonals at the corner and on the line post. We get some strong summer storms with high winds so a little support will not hurt. As usual, all comments are welcome.    john

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

While sitting on the porch having a BM

2009-05-13

While sitting on the back porch having a BM and waiting for my butt to catch up with me, I was recapping my accomplishments of the day. I mowed the lawn, planted the sweet potatoes, Peppers, eggplant and ran some errands. I started to plant with the sweet potatoes; I remembered a post by Granny about using vinyl floor tile for a template to space plants in a RB/SFG bed. Ok I made my template, now what do you do with a floor tile with a 2 ¼” hole in the middle and a 2” auger? You plant plants of course.

 

I cannot believe the condition of the sweet potato slips when you receive them. It is amazing that they survive the ordeal. Next spring I will be saving some of the smaller tubers and try to root them in time for planting. I need some information on how and when to try it though.

 

Last year a pesky wabbit wiped out the sweet potatoes after it was too late to buy replacements. As a result, a fence was installed until they are big enough not to be destroyed by the wabbit.

 

The eggplant came next; they are planted at one plant per 2.7 squares.

 

Then came the peppers also at one plant per 2.7 squares. Tomorrow I will plant the Cole crops. That will leave only the squash and the continuing planting of the salad bed. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John

 

My cobbler cobra

Sinfonian had commented about the watering system in my potato tower and I realized that, that post did not get transferred from the old journal to this one. I wish I had access to the old journal to see what else is missing. Anyway here it it again While converting the rest of my garden areas to RB/SFG, I decided to try potato towers at the end of the pathways that would be wasted space. As I was roughing in the plumbing for the irrigation system, the back half of my pea brain was thinking about the water requirements on an elevated potato tower. The base of my towers will be 10″deep and each addition will be 6″ deep.

My solution was a plumber’s nightmare. The soaker hose will be just below the surface where I plant the spuds. As I add height to the tower, I can move the soaker hose just below the new surface and repeat for each height increase. All I need to do now is learn to play the flute so the hose will rise to the new height it self.  As usual all comments are welcome.        John

Sometimes your mind is changed for you

While cleaning up the shop, I checked the potato chitting progress. To my surprise, some of the sprouts were turning black near the very tip. I do not know if it was the low humidity or the temperature variation but it never happened when they sprouted in the fruit cellar. I decided to plant them as soon as possible. 

 

My potato beds are 2’ wide and I use a folding rule as a guide to plant location. I will start 6” form the end of the bed with the first row and 12” from the end of the bed with the second row which stagers the plants from row to row. A bulb planter works nice in compost to produce a 2” hole 5” deep which is perfect for the small seed potatoes. 

 

Here you can see the full bulb planter and the hole I just made with the spud in place. I use the small end of a dial rod to poke the compost out of the planter and back into the hole. The pieces of mini-blind slats are used to mark the location of the last spud in a row. If I have to leave for some reason, it can be difficult to see where I stopped.

 

After all seed potatoes are planted, I top-dressed the beds another 3” bringing the depth of the seed potatoes to 8”.

 

I also planted the potato tower and top-dressed it. All potatoes that were planted today were Kennebec and were planted in the same fashion. 

 

I could not help noticing how the Yukon Gold potatoes were growing. They were planted two weeks to the day before this photo. If the Kennebec potato in the tower grows this fast, it will require daily attention and early in the morning before the sun hits the plant stem. I think I understand why some people say they got additional potatoes but it was not worth the effort. Nevertheless, I am going to try to do it correctly and we will see what happens. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John 

The Tomatoes are planted. (both of them)

We are supposed to have a day and one half with out rain and the grass is too wet to mow so I planted my tomatoes. Another attribute of gardening in a soil less mix is you can plant right after a rain and not ruin the soil. In this photo, I have dug a trench about 6” deep and about 10” long. I add about a hand full of garden tone and a tablespoon of Epson salts and mix them into the soil. Then I will trim the bottom leaves off for about 8” above the root ball and lay the plant horizontally in the trench.

 

I temporarily tie the plant to a stake until it grows upright on its own. Then I will install the tomato cages after any danger of frost is past.

 

As usual, all comments are welcome.    John

Soil Block Recipe–Again–And–Again

Time is running short and I have to get some seeds in the SBs.  My trials to date have been;  In the following photo the SB on the left is 50/50 CS/compost. The one on the right is 100% compost.

After drying for a couple of days, I split the blocks like you would a ripe Georgia peach.  This photo shows the 50/50 block split in half with little fragmentation. I think much too dense for seed starting.

The 100% compost block, split but did not just fall apart. I think it would be acceptable for starting seeds.

In this photo the block on the left is the two blocks from the first photos crumbled and a third block made from that material. It would be about 25% casing. The block on the wright, has more compost added bringing the casting down to about 15%.

This block is about 25% casing.

 

And this block is about 15% casings.

At this point, I think that since the top several ins of my RBs are compost, the percentage of casings are irrelevant. The seedlings will be growing through 100% compost before reaching any worm casings. On my next go around, I am going to use 100% compost, you probably knew this is where I was headed. As usual all comments are welcome.    John

Daaah—-Soil Block Recipe

The soil blocks are doing fine except the Cole seedlings. With the dried blood, they are just too eager to grow. I have been thinking of using 100% compost and trying different things to bind it together, after all that is what they will be growing in when planted in the garden. The right side of my head said yes do it while the left side said, no, you already have the answer. It was something somebody said in one of the comments but I could not remember. I do not know how many times I scrolled through the journal reading and rereading the comments on all the soil block posts. I just could not find it. In a deep sleep at 2:00 this morning, my eyes popped open and I said to myself “Core Sample”. You know that was the end of my sleep, I came down stares and looked up the Core sample post and there it was. And here it is:

 

Sinfonian says: March 12, 2009 at 5:31 pm  (Edit)

Cool idea John. And yes, it does look like a soil block. Maybe when I make more I’ll just do it in the garden pulling mix from the beds. Hehe.

 

The core samples will contain worm casings, garden soil that the worms brought up and all stages of decomposed compost. To produce 100 SBs I will need 16 cores, guess what I will be doing today? Also the SB composition will be the same as the garden.

 As usual all comments are welcome……John

Composting 2009

I was not planning on Bloging about this today but decided it would be of interest to composters and soon to be composters. I finished shredding yesterday, last falls garden debris along with grass clippings, a few leaves, all the annual flowers, 11 hanging baskets, about 15 rotting pumpkins and 4 bundles of corn with ear corn attached. I thought I would have enough shredded material to fill one of my 3 X 3 X 3 bins and was planning to add some urea to get it to heat up. This morning, about 36-38 HRS after I started shredding, I was going to build my compost pile. To my surprise there was steam vapor coming off like crazy. I think I was grinning from ear to ear. Now I am planning on letting it set until it cools to about 120 DEG then add some urea and fill my bin.

I inserted my compost thermometer and sure enough, it was at 150 deg. I am hoping that, adding the urea and the aeration from filling my bin, it will reach or exceed 165 deg to kill any weed seeds that may be present.

Soil Test

Since I had the core sample, I decided to do a soil test. The test chambers on the left side of the containers are lighter in the photos than they were with the negated eye. I think the light averaging of the camera screwed it up. The Nitrogen test was between N1 and N2, the Phosphorus test was between F2 and F3 and the Potash test was between K0 and K1. I think I will add some 10-10-10 sparingly this year.

 

The pH test indicated between 6.5 and 7. I also had some pH test paper and it indicated between 6 and 7. I will not do anything for the pH this year.

   

SFG core sample

While I could not take, it anymore and just had to see what is going on down there so I took a core sample today. The SFG bed is 8” deep so I cut a piece of 3” drainpipe 8” long and drove it into the bed. I then sliced the drainpipe length wise to free the core. I was not surprised when the top portion just fell apart. I was surprised though when the bottom portion had a smeared surface. It had a good percentage of organic material but there seemed to be a material that was like plain old garden soil. Could it be worm casings?

 

I broke up part of the bottom portion just to look-see. There were several wormholes that did not show up on photos but they were active. I still cannot believe that they could make that much casing in a year’s time.

 This is a close up of the bottom portion of the core and it almost looks like soil blocks. Does that mean that through time the beds will fill up with worm casings? As usual, all comments are welcome.

 

 

Got Peppers

All of the garden seeds are planted and all of the heated sand bed is occupied. Next will be the posies which I dislike planting because they are so tiny. They are like dust and you cannot plant just one.

About 15 peppers stuck there heads out this morning and when they are all sprouted and develop there second set of leaves, they will be moved to the greenhouse. They have been under the humidity domes for 10 days and you can see they are still very damp.

 

For seedlings, I like using misters. They do not beat the seedlings down and each mister cover’s app. 24”dia. I have a mister every 12” of shelf length so the coverage overlaps and insured good coverage. After about 2-3 weeks in the greenhouse, I will transplant them in to 4” pots.

 

Mother Nature finally relented

Well maybe not with aging but the weather was beautiful. Sixty-five deg f and partly sunny. I was able to get the rest of my apple trees pruned and I am hoping to get them sprayed twice with oil spray before they blossom. She (MN) has not been very kind since early fall, I am hoping she will have a conscience and give us a nice growing season.

 While I was pruning the apple trees, the UPS truck showed up with my block of coco coir and new burners for the BBQ grill. Both will require there own entry for the journal. 

Hooray hooray—-they are sprouting!! Yipee

I wonder if I could sell these to GNC???

Happy New Gardening Year

After watching, Granny, EG and Safonian and eating my heart out, it is finally time for me to start my plants. Today I started my peppers:

Ten Big Dipper

Ten Red Bell

Ten Poblano

Five Picante

Five Sweet Bananas

Five Midway Red

 

The first photo shows the pepper seeds in the little divots. I placed two seeds in each divot, with this being my first time trying soil blocks, I wanted a little safety factor for success.

 The brass acorn nut makes a divot close to ¼” deep, which for most of my plants will be ideal. I filled the divots with fine grind vermiculite.

  I placed the seed flat on a heated bed of sand @ about 80 deg f and placed a humidity dome over it. The air temperature inside of the cabinet ranges from 60-65 deg f during the day and 50-55 deg f at night. Which I think is ideal.

Just a few minutes later, you can see the condensation collecting on the inside of the chamber. It seams that everything is working the way it should. Any way the 2009 growing season is underway and I feel like celebrating.

The humidity dome app. 24 hours later.

If you snap your finger on the dome, the condensation runs down the sides and you can see what is going on inside without opening the dome.

 

Gardening Survey

 

I screwed up and broke the link between the survey and the database located on the host. If I try to reconnect, I may lose all the data. I only received a hand full of votes in as many days out of 165 votes, so I will just let it end here.

John

 

 

 

What style of garden do you have?

The Traditional row garden replies surprised me; I thought they would be a large majority. In addition, I should have supplied more answers like Wide Row, Lasagna, and container.

Answer	Replies	%
Traditional row garden	53	32
Raised bed with sides	51	31
Square foot garden	31	19
None of the above	30	18

 

 

How long have you been using your current style?

The last answer on this question should have been, More than 10 years.

Answer	Replies	%
1 year	30	19
2 – 5 years	61	38
5 – 10 years	44	27
None of the above	27	17

 

 

What type on media do you use for plant growth?

I think the none of the above replies on this one probably uses lasagna style or a commercial media of some kind.

Answer	Replies	%
Traditional garden soil	84	52
SFG recommended mix	13	8
Modified SFG recommended mix	14	9
100% compost	21	13
None of the above	31	19

 

 

How do you prepare the bed for planting?

Some people that responded as none of the above did not think that spading by hand was tilling.

Answer	Replies	%
No till just plant	54	34
Till in the spring	41	25
Till in the spring and fall	45	28
None of the above	21	13

 

 

How do you amend your soil?

The number of organic replies surprised me; also, some do not think fertilizer as being an amendment. I think anything added to anything, is an amendment. 

Answer	Replies	%
Organic	118	73
Synthetic	2	1
Combination organic/synthetic	36	22
None of the above	5	3

 

  

 How do you irrigate your garden?

I just asked this one out of curiosity.

Answer	Replies	%
Automatic	21	13
Manual	118	74
I do not irrigate	17	11
None of the above	4	2

 

 

What best describes your over all yield?

I think I asked this one out of devilment since there is no standard to judge by. Data that you can find is usually geared toward the commercial farmer and is very conservative.  

Answer	Replies	%
Below average	11	7
Average	81	49
Above average	70	42
None of the above	4	2

 

Top dressing a raised bed

 
Having no formal education in gardening I am always questioning what I do. Recently there was a discussion on one of the forums about vermiculite. I do not remember the specifics about the discussion but it led me to this inquiry.

I had sent this email to the Schundler Co. the largest vermiculite/pearlite producer on the east coast.

Hi my name is John and I have used vermiculite extensively in the garden and a hobby greenhouse. I have read that vermiculite does not breakdown do they mean chemically or structurally? After about three years I cannot find any of it. Should I be replacing it after so many years?

This is their response.

It is a “soft” rock which is to say it may have just been crushed to the point that you don’t recognize it.  For aeration and water retention you should replenish it.

Now I get in trouble it got me to thinking. I have put literally tons upon tons of compost on my garden every year for 36 years. After all that time and compost the height of my garden has not changed. This leads me to believe that when compost is totally decomposed it must be about as thick as a layer of dust. Also I have learned that it takes a very long time for peat moss to decompose. Some of my friends from the forums are SFG purest and justly so they use the recommended mix of 1/3 peat 1/3 vermiculite and 1/3 compost with very excellent results. Can I assume if I had a 6” raised bed and filled it with the recommended mix and did not top dress it for 3 to 4 years I would end up with about 2” of peat with just a residue of compost and vermiculite?  If this is true then shouldn’t you top-dress with a mixture of 50% compost and 50% vermiculite and blend/till it with the remaining mix from the previous year to maintain the integrity of the SFG?

Any comments to set my thinking straight would be appreciated

John

My plunge into Square Foot Gardening

Early December, 2007 I was in the process of building the boxes for the raised beds. I was a little apprehensive about setting them on top of excellent garden soil I had built up over a 35 year period.  They will be 8ins deep and filled with finished compost, hopefully before the hard winter sets in.

Mid December, My progress to date is, the two boxes on the left and the three boxes in the center are finished and in place. I am currently building the three boxes for the right. The poly tubing will be about six ins. below ground level and the soaker hose will be about three ins. below the bedding surface. Can’t wait for spring!!

Mid April, Every thing is in place and ready to plant. A good amount of effort later I’m still hoping I did the right thing.

Mid June, I’m feeling very good about making the move to SFG. Some people say you can’t grow vegetables in 100% compost or you should have between 5% and 8% compost well these are growing in 100% compost. Every thing is doing well except for two boxes because of a pesky wabit but I think he has moved on.