I've never been really keen on forcing my plants to survive events that they couldn't normally survive on their own. This includes covering for frost. Now, to be fair, I didn't plant any of my cole crops during the proper time in which they should have been planted. I also didn't get my tomato or cucumber seedlings transplanted until a few days into June. This all turned out to be a very good thing because we got one last frost here on the Sunday before memorial day. The community garden where I have a few things planted this year lost a lot of crops due to the very late frost. I got lucky because I was too busy to plant anything until June 3rd!
Here are a couple of updated pictures of the garden in my back yard. I still have one bed to cut and prep which will host my beans and corn and some root veggies. The largest bed in the photo is half sewn with buckwheat and amaranth and the rest is tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, basil, celery and peppers. The 5x5 that you see in the photos has been prepped and contains lettuces, spinach, herbs, garlic and onions.
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| From Garden |
I double dug the half of the garden which would have the food crop in it. Double digging is probably the hardest garden-related activity I've ever performed. The digging is relatively easy, but my beds were littered with roots and so moving one trench into the next was a chore. The roots held everything together except the top layer, which would landslide into the trench ahead or behind. The whole point of double digging it to loosen 24" deep while maintaining soil structure and I found that to be a very difficult thing to do well. Maybe I'll try again in a couple of seasons.
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| From Garden |
I found some info online about "trench planting" tomatoes. I had a couple that had grown a bit wonky so I tried the trenching method. Of the 8 plants I put in, I trenched 3 so we will see how well they do.
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| From Garden |
The final step was to layer about 1.5" thick of compost on top of the beds. This step is crucial, as compost has an amazing water retention factor and acts somewhat like mulch with water. The only hard part about using only compost is that it is amazingly suited to grow things, which means any kind of weed or grass seed that ends up in it grows amazingly well. Compost added every year also greatly helps the structure of your soil. Layer after layer builds up to be a lovely high structure of organic matter and nutrients.
I began building the beginnings of my new composter a while back. Here are some images of that. I still have 2 more frames that same size to build, as well as a door for each and a lid.
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| From Permaculture |
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| From Permaculture |
I ran out of leftover cedar for the side with one plank to go! I have some more on standby now until I have some time to cut it and install it. This container is about 3 cubic feet, the size required to successfully hot compost all compostable materials (including vegetable cellulose plastics). The next 2 units will attach to this one and will also be about 3 cubic feet. I also plan on building another unit near the chicken coop once that is completed to allow for the composting of manure for fertilizer.
I suppose that is enough for this post. I will be updated more and more as the summer progresses and my projects get more complicated. I am thinking I'll also highlight some of the tools I use from time to time for reference material.
I need to work on a new sign off. Stan Lee calls everyone "true believers" and most newscasters say something like "stay classy San Diego". I need a little quip to end with. I'm thinking something like "Until next time, keep growing!" but anything I come up with sounds stupid in my mind...so just check back here frequently this summer for more updates.
