As the end of the year approaches, it's a good time to report on a few updates to previous posts and to consider what I said I'd do this year in light of what I actually did. At least I hope to do that, if my computer and Blogger effect enough of a truce to allow me to complete the post.
When I wrote this post on how Mike and I keep phone service costs low, we did not have a cell phone. I admit I felt somewhat smug about it. It was a small way for us to resist creeping digitization and its requirement to be available to anyone at any time as well as a cost saving and environmental benefit. However, it became clearer every time we traveled out of town that pay phone availability has diminished too much to not have access to a cell phone when we are traveling. Since Mike's mother had given us a couple of her no-longer-used cell phones to recycle properly, we charged one of them up, determined that it worked, and now buy 30 minutes of phone service every three months so we have a phone to use when one or both of us is away from home. We don't need or want text service so we don't pay for that and it is a dumb phone since we can get access to the Internet through library computers when we are away from home. It adds $40/year to our phone costs, an annoyance but the cheapest way we know of to have phone service when traveling. And we did not have to buy a new phone to get service.
I discussed our continuing use of obsolete computers in this post. It probably shouldn't surprise me that not long after I completed the post, the Mac SE's monitor image started to develop a waviness that I understand is common as it ages. Apparently there is a fix, but because it involves opening the case I have been reluctant to make the fix, or to put it more precisely, to ask Mike to open the computer and make the fix. So far I have been able to ignore the waviness and it tends to lessen after the computer has run for a half hour or so, but I do not know how long I have before the fix will be required to see the monitor image.
Meanwhile, the OS that this computer uses grows more obsolete. While the computer itself works fine, browsers for Internet access are a major issue. TenFourFox is the only one being maintained and it doesn't seem to be working well with Blogger. I've experienced considerable frustration getting the last few posts put up and I'm still not sure how I got the previous post up. It may be time to look for a somewhat less obsolete computer that doesn't require wireless service. Or else time to write posts at home and put them on a jump drive so I can post them from the public library's computer.
In this post I discussed the gutters Mike hung on our garden shed so we could collect rainwater. The tank filled by late October so I could use the collected water when I planted the garlic and potato onions. All was fine until the first four inch snowfall earlier this month. Yes, I'd forgotten to take account of the effect of snow sliding off the shed roof onto the gutters. The gutters are now on the ground, where they will stay until April. Unless we come up with a better system, we'll put up the gutters up in April, about the time the growing season starts, and take them down when the growing season ends in November.
Now that the updates are done, let's take a look at my goals for 2013 and see how they compare with what we actually did.
Reducing the impact of drought: because we had much above rainfall through the end of June, I confess to not being as motivated to research into swales and add mulch to the perennial beds as I should have been -- especially since we experienced a flash drought in late summer and fall. But we did add the gutters and downspout to the shed roof and started collecting rain in the 500 gallon tank. Call this one a partial success, with plenty left to do this year.
Creating a shaded place for summer sitting and cooking: we accomplished this with a sturdy tarp made to hold down loads on trailers, which we attached to the conduit framework over our existing patio. It proved to be sturdy enough and well enough attached to not be damaged by the close approach of the May 2013 tornado. Later in the summer we purchased a barbeque pit that is large enough to roast a turkey in; Mike roasted one last month over charcoal and a little fruitwood and it was delicious. He also built a rocket stove which so far is only a partial success (we need to use it more so we learn its peculiarities). But since we now have the basics of a summer kitchen, we accomplished this goal.
That's enough for today. Sometime in the next month I'll post my goals, garden and otherwise, for 2014. In the meantime, have a peaceful and pleasant New Year!
In which I discuss our practice of living simply in the greater St. Louis, Missouri metropolitan area.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Saturday, December 14, 2013
What my garden told me: results of the 2013 garden dialogue
Back in May I posted about using the scientific method to
conduct a dialogue with my garden in my effort to learn to work more skillfully
with Nature’s patterns. While I want to grow a lot of food in a small space
(and perhaps inspire some of you to do the same thing), I also want to leave
that small space better than I found it. In order to do that, I have been
conducting an informal scientific dialogue with my garden for the past 15
years. In the linked post I discussed how I use the scientific method to help
me become a better gardener as well as the particular questions I asked my
garden to answer this year. Now that most of the harvest is in, it’s time to
find out what my garden told me.
In early 2013 I had learned about soil re-mineralization and
its beneficial effects on gardening from Steve Solomon’s 2013 book The Intelligent Gardener: Growing
Nutrient-Dense Food. The result was that the major question I asked my
garden to answer this year is, what effect would proper soil mineralization
have on the yields that I am able to obtain? I wanted to know the answer to
this question because I am trying to grow a larger fraction of the vegetables
that Mike and I eat, and some evidence suggested that lack of a properly
balanced soil mineral base might be one issue that is keeping the yields I
measure lower than what appears to be possible.
To help answer this question, I had a soil test done by the
laboratory Steve Solomon recommended early in the gardening season and used the
process in his book to develop a complete organic fertilizer tailored to remedy
the mineral deficiencies in my garden soil that the soil test revealed were
present, as I discussed in this post. Then I formulated a set of questions for
the garden to answer in 2013, in the form of hypotheses that I thought were
reasonable to expect from a more appropriately mineralized soil. The hypotheses
were:
Yield,
defined as pounds harvested per 100 square feet, should increase for those varieties
I grew in 2013 that I have also grown in past years, or at least not decrease.
Those
minerals that were in excess in my soil at the start of the gardening season
should show a reduction in excess, and those minerals that were deficient
should show a reduction in deficiency, by the end of the growing season.
Varieties
that I have grown in past years might have improved flavor and/or improved pest
and/or disease resistance this year.
Besides these questions, I also grew several new varieties
of vegetables to see if the new varieties offered any improvements versus the
ones I have grown in the past.
Now that most of the rest of the harvest is finished and the 2014
seed catalogs are hitting my mailbox, it’s time to finish the analysis so that
I can decide on the questions I’d like answered in 2014. Because some of you
might be interested in the data (not to mention checking to see if my analysis
is correct), I’m reporting it below. But many of you just want to know the
conclusion. So for you, a summary of what my garden told me:
Yields were affected by many
different factors, but in the few cases where the effect of soil re-mineralization
could be clearly discerned, it was positive.
Taste was mostly not affected, but
a few varieties seemed to taste better. Pest and disease pressures were reduced
compared to previous years.
The effect of soil re-mineralization
on post-season mineral levels is unclear and will require a lot of thought to
determine what the soil told me and how to respond.
This year’s results were sufficiently positive that I’ll re-balance
the soil minerals next year and see what my garden tells me as a result. No
doubt I’ll ask other questions of my garden in 2014. Once I’ve formulated them,
I’ll put up a post or two on what my garden and I will be discussing in 2014.
___________________________
Now for those of you who want to see all the data and my
analysis of it, and for those of you who might be considering if you want to
ask your gardens some questions in 2014 or make use of my results in your
gardens, keep right on reading. It’ll be a long post so you might want to have
your favorite long-post-reading beverage at hand.
While you read the following, keep in mind these different
aspects of the art of scientific dialogue:
knowing what questions you want to
ask;
knowing how to set up the dialogue
so the garden gives you the answers to the questions you asked rather than to
some other questions you didn’t realize you asked till the end of the season;
and
figuring out what questions you,
the garden, and the larger environment asked that you weren’t aware of or could
not have known at the start, and how those questions affected your ability to
answer the questions you wanted to ask.
Because I’m working with a living system that is inherently
powerful and unpredictable and that is connected to a far more powerful and
unpredictable environment, I have to accept that the garden and the environment
will ask and answer some questions of their own which may hinder how well some
or all of my questions can be answered. Among those questions this year were
the effect of a hot, dry fall on the fall lettuce, which prevented my obtaining
an answer to the question of which of the lettuce varieties I tried to grow did
best in the fall garden.
As I expected, I did not ask the question about yields as
skillfully as I could have because I allowed too many other controllable
aspects of gardening to vary. Among those, I did not include controls
(varieties I’ve grown in the past) for some of the crops that I grew, and I did
not plant some crops at the same spacing as I did in the year in which I had
the highest yield. Since not all varieties perform the same even when
everything else is held constant, not including a control often prevented me
from determining if the yield in 2013 increased for that crop. Similarly, since
yields depend on crop spacing, in those cases where I changed spacing for a
control variety I could not determine if the yield increased in 2013. Such is
life. Since I didn’t decide to ask the question about the effect of soil
re-mineralization till I had already planned out the garden, purchased seeds,
and started some of the plants, I knew that I didn’t design my garden trials as
well as I could have to obtain the answers I wanted. But I still grew lots of
food and enjoyed myself and learned a lot from my garden. And as they say,
there is always next year.
Back to learning what my garden told me. I’ll address the
three big questions I asked it in turn.
Question #1: did soil re-mineralization result in increased
yields?
The best way to answer that question would be for everything
else – weather, planting dates, crop varieties and spacing, added compost
amount and composition, and so forth – to be exactly as it was in previous
years, with only the soil fertilization added to each bed changing. The weather
varies a lot from year to year and that inevitably affects how well I can
answer any gardening question. In addition, I have changed crop varieties,
spacing, and planting dates for some of the crops that I have grown over the
years and changed how much compost is added to each bed, as well as other
(sometimes unintended) changes. In order to disentangle effects due to
re-mineralization from effects that might be due to some other change, I’ll
start with a table of the previous highest-yielding varieties of various crops
along with the varieties that I grew this year. I’ll include the recommended
spacing from the 8th edition of the book How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons, the spacing and
planting date for the year in which I got the best yield previous to 2013, and
the 2013 spacing and planting date.
Table 1. Planting information for highest yielding crop
varieties and varieties planted in 2013.
Crop
|
Variety
|
HTGMV spacing, inches
|
Past spacing, inches
|
Past planting date
|
2013 spacing, inches
|
2013 planting date
|
Dry bush bean
|
Midnight Black Turtle
|
6
|
In-row 6, between-row 6
|
5/18/09
|
||
Dry bush bean
|
Beefy Resilient Grex (F4)
|
6
|
3 seeds planted in each
spot; in-row 12, between-row 12
|
6/12
|
||
Beet
|
Cylindra
|
4
|
In-row 4, between-row 4
|
4/15/12
|
In-row 6, between-row 6
|
5/17
|
Beet
|
Sugar
|
7
|
In-row 6, between-row 6
|
5/23/11
|
In-row variable,
between-row 12
|
5/17
|
Bok choy
|
Prize Choy
|
Not given
|
12
|
Sown 2/28/10, TP 4/24
|
12
|
Sown 2/15, TP 5/13
|
Broccoli
|
Green Goliath
|
15
|
15
|
Sown 2/1/06, TP 4/14
|
||
Broccoli
|
Nutri-Bud
|
15
|
15
|
Sown 2/7/12, TP 4/19
|
15
|
Sown 2/15, TP 5/11
|
Cabbage
|
Early Jersey Wakefield
|
15
|
15
|
Sown 2/1/06, TP 4/14
|
15
|
Sown 2/15, TP 5/11
|
Cabbage
|
Golden Acre
|
18
|
18
|
Sown 2/15, TP 5/11
|
||
Carrot
|
Danvers 126
|
3
|
In-row 4, between-row 4
|
4/15/12
|
In-row variable,
between-row 6
|
5/17
|
Corn, flint
|
Cascade Ruby-Gold
|
15
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
6/24, 6/27, 6/28
|
||
Corn, pop
|
Unknown yellow
|
15
|
In-row 12, between-row 24,
3 to 4 seeds per spot
|
6/21/09
|
||
Eggplant
|
White (store-bought)
|
18
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
Planted 5/11/12
|
||
Eggplant
|
Black Beauty
|
18
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
Sown 3/13, TP 5/22
|
||
Eggplant
|
White Beauty
|
18
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
Sown 3/13, TP 5/21, 5/22
|
||
Garlic
|
Inchelium Red
|
4
|
4
|
Planted 11/16/99
|
In-row 6, between-row 6
|
Planted 11/10/12
|
Leek
|
Giant Musselburg
|
6
|
6
|
Sown 2/1/06, TP 4/14/06
|
||
Leek
|
Bleu de Solaize
|
6
|
6
|
Sown 2/3/12, TP 3/29
|
In-row 6, between-row 12
|
Sown 1/22, TP 4/24
|
Lettuce
|
Anuenue
|
12
|
9
|
Sown 3/7/11, TP 5/7
|
9
|
Sown 3/13, TP 5/13
|
Lettuce
|
Bronze Arrow
|
12
|
12
|
Sown 3/7/11, TP 5/7
|
12
|
Sown 3/13, TP 5/13
|
Lettuce
|
Pirat
|
9
|
9
|
Sown 2/28/10, TP 4/23
|
9
|
Sown 3/13, TP 5/13
|
Onion, multiplier
|
Potato
|
Not given
|
6
|
Planted 11/26/05
|
8
|
Planted 11/10/12
|
Onion, bulb
|
Dakota Tears (yellow)
|
4
|
In row 6, between-row 6
|
Sown 2/28/10, TP 4/8
|
In-row 6, between-row 12
|
Sown 1/22, TP 4/24
|
Onion, bulb
|
Rossa di Milano (red)
|
4
|
6
|
Sown 2/3/12, TP 3/28
|
In-row 6, between-row 12
|
Sown 1/22, TP 4/24
|
Pea, shell
|
Little Marvel
|
3
|
In-row 6, between-row 6
|
Sown 4/3/12
|
In-row 6, between-row 6
|
Sown 4/5
|
Pea, snow
|
Blizzard
|
3
|
In-row 6, between-row 6
|
Sown 4/3/12
|
||
Pea, snow
|
Oregon Giant
|
3
|
In-row 6, between-row 6
|
Sown 4/5
|
||
Peanut
|
Tennessee Red Valencia
|
9
|
In-row 12, between-row 24,
3 to 4 seeds per spot
|
Sown 6/3
|
||
Pepper, sweet
|
Carolina Wonder
|
12
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
Sown 3/13, TP 5/21
|
||
Pepper, sweet
|
Italian Frying
|
12
|
12
|
Sown 1/27/07, TP 4/30
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
Sown 3/13, TP 5/21
|
Pepper, sweet
|
World Beater
|
12
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
Sown 2/4/08, TP 4/30
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
Sown 3/13, TP 5/21
|
Potato
|
Elba
|
9
|
In-row 12, between-row 24
|
Planted 5/1
|
||
Potato
|
German Butterball
|
9
|
In-row 12, between-row 24
|
Planted 4/18/11
|
In-row 12, between-row 24
|
Planted 4/30
|
Potato
|
Rose Gold
|
9
|
9
|
Planted 4/7/06
|
||
Radish, winter
|
Black Spanish Round
|
Not given
|
In-row variable,
between-row 12
|
Sown 8/13/08
|
In-row variable,
between-row 12
|
Sown 8/16
|
Radish, winter
|
Red Meat
|
Not given
|
In-row 6, between-row 6
|
Sown 7/20/09
|
In row variable,
between-row 12
|
Sown 8/16
|
Squash, summer
|
Benning’s Green Tint
|
15
|
In-row 12, between-row 48
|
Sown 7/12
|
||
Squash, winter
|
Lady Godiva
|
18
|
In-row 48, between-row 48
|
Sown 7/6/09
|
||
Squash, winter
|
Sweet Meat – Oregon
Homestead
|
18
|
In-row 24, between-row 48
|
Sown 7/3
|
||
Squash, winter
|
Waltham Butternut
|
18
|
In-row 48, between-row 48
|
Sown 7/2/11
|
In-row 24, between-row 48
|
Sown 7/11
|
Squash, zucchini
|
Dark Green
|
18
|
In-row 36, between-row 48
|
Sown 6/20/09
|
||
Squash, zucchini
|
Costata Romanesca
|
18
|
In-row 48, between-row 48
|
Sown 5/23/12
|
In-row 12, between-row 48
|
Sown 7/12
|
Sweet potato
|
Ivis White Cream
|
9
|
In-row 15, between-row 24
|
Planted 6/21/08
|
||
Sweet potato
|
O’Henry
|
9
|
In-row 12, between-row 48
|
Planted 5/29
|
||
Tomato
|
Arkansas Traveler
|
18
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
Sown 2/17/12, TP 5/12
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
Sown 3/13, TP 5/22
|
Tomato
|
Hungarian Italian Paste
|
18
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
Sown 2/17/12, TP 5/11
|
In-row 12, between-row 12
|
Sown 3/13, TP 5/21
|
Turnip
|
Purple Top White Globe
|
4
|
In-row variable,
between-row 6
|
Sown 8/16/08
|
In-row variable,
between-row 12
|
Sown 8/16
|
In the table
above and in the rest of the post, HTGMV refers to the 8th edition
of How to Grow More Vegetables. HTGMV
suggests planting on a triangular grid to maximize overlap of the crowns of the
plants at maturity. The HTGMV column gives the spacing, in inches, to use for
each crop according to the Master Charts in HTGMV. The Master Charts do not
differentiate potato onions (a perennial onion that splits into smaller bulbs,
grown by planting single bulbs in mid to late fall) from bulb onions, thus
there is no entry in the HTGMV column for potato onions. Winter radishes are
not differentiated from salad radishes and bok choy is not shown in the Master
Charts so these also lack entries in the HTGMV column.
Table 1 shows
that I now plant most varieties at a different spacing than HTGMV suggests and
often in rows, sometimes short rows across the width of the bed (my beds are
all 4 feet wide by 25 feet long), sometimes long rows down the length of the
bed. Note how much
farther apart I plant many varieties now than I did in the year when I got the
highest yield, and how much some of the sowing and planting dates have changed.
I’ll talk more about that when I discuss the yield results shown in Table 2
below.
Table 2.
Possible yields from HTGMV, best previous yields, and 2013 yields. All yields
are given in pounds per 100 square feet. The HTGMV column shows possible yields using the HTGMV method
of gardening, based on Ecology Action’s research. They suggest beginners use
the low number for planning and comparison purposes, good gardeners the middle
number, and excellent gardeners with favorable climates and soil the high
number. The next two columns are the best previous yield I have obtained with a variety
and the yield I obtained for that variety in 2013. An asterisk shows harvests
that have been completed but not yet weighed, thus yield data is currently
unavailable.
Crop
|
Variety
|
HTGMV
yield
|
Previous
best yield
|
2013
yield
|
Dry
bush bean
|
Midnight
Black Turtle
|
4
/ 10 / 24
|
12
|
|
Dry
bush bean
|
Beefy
Resilient Grex (F4)
|
4
/ 10 / 24
|
*
|
|
Beet
|
Cylindra
|
110
/ 220 / 540
|
34
|
104
|
Beet
|
Sugar
|
91
/ 182 / 364
|
141
|
179
|
Bok
choy
|
Prize
Choy
|
Not
given
|
182
|
121
|
Broccoli
|
Green
Goliath
|
26
/ 39 / 53
|
76
|
|
Broccoli
|
Nutri-Bud
|
26
/ 39 / 53
|
12
|
40
|
Cabbage
|
Early
Jersey Wakefield
|
96
/ 191 / 383
|
167
|
77
|
Cabbage
|
Golden
Acre
|
96
/ 191 / 383
|
156
|
|
Carrot
|
Danvers
126
|
100
/ 150 / 400+
|
122
|
187
|
Corn,
flint
|
Cascade
Ruby-Gold
|
11
/ 17 / 23+
|
*
|
|
Corn,
pop
|
Unknown
yellow
|
11
/ 17 / 23+
|
16
|
|
Eggplant
|
White
(commercial strain)
|
54
/ 108 / 163
|
151
|
|
Eggplant
|
Black
Beauty
|
54
/ 108 / 163
|
50
|
|
Eggplant
|
White
Beauty
|
54
/ 108 / 163
|
57
|
|
Garlic
|
Inchelium
Red
|
60
/ 120 / 240+
|
39
|
12
|
Leek
|
Giant
Musselburg
|
240
/ 480 / 960
|
107
|
|
Leek
|
Bleu
de Solaize
|
240
/ 480 / 960
|
96
|
34
|
Lettuce
|
Anuenue
|
75
/ 150 / 300
|
90
|
113
|
Lettuce
|
Bronze
Arrow
|
75
/ 150 / 300
|
89
|
52
|
Lettuce
|
Pirat
|
75
/ 150 / 300
|
104
|
68
|
Onion,
multiplier
|
Potato
|
Not
given
|
78
|
33
|
Onion,
bulb
|
Dakota
Tears (yellow)
|
100
/ 200 / 540
|
44
|
18
|
Onion,
bulb
|
Rossa
di Milano (red)
|
100
/ 200 / 540
|
54
|
34
|
Pea,
shell
|
Little
Marvel
|
25
/ 53 / 106
|
17
|
10
|
Pea,
snow
|
Blizzard
|
25
/ 53 / 106
|
17
|
|
Pea,
snow
|
Oregon
Giant
|
25
/ 53 / 106
|
5
|
|
Peanut
|
Tennessee
Red Valencia
|
4
/ 10 / 24
|
5
|
|
Pepper,
sweet
|
Carolina
Wonder
|
68
/ 136 / 204
|
48
|
|
Pepper,
sweet
|
Italian
Frying
|
68
/ 136 / 204
|
126
|
99
|
Pepper,
sweet
|
World
Beater
|
68
/ 136 / 204
|
83
|
54
|
Potato
|
Elba
|
100
/ 200 / 780
|
75
|
|
Potato
|
German
Butterball
|
100
/ 200 / 780
|
35
|
38
|
Potato
|
Rose
Gold
|
100
/ 200 / 780
|
111
|
|
Radish,
winter
|
Black
Spanish Round
|
Not
given
|
123
|
15
|
Radish,
winter
|
Red
Meat
|
Not
given
|
120
|
32
|
Squash,
summer
|
Benning’s
Green Tint
|
75
/ 150 / 307
|
39
|
|
Squash,
winter
|
Lady
Godiva
|
50
/ 100 / 350
|
87
|
|
Squash,
winter
|
Sweet
Meat – Oregon Homestead
|
50
/ 100 / 350
|
71
|
|
Squash,
winter
|
Waltham
Butternut
|
50
/ 100 / 350
|
47
|
22
|
Squash,
zucchini
|
Dark
Green
|
160
/ 319 / 478+
|
44
|
|
Squash,
zucchini
|
Costata
Romanesca
|
160
/ 319 / 478+
|
36
|
313
|
Sweet
potato
|
Ivis
White Cream
|
82
/ 164 / 492
|
74
|
|
Sweet
potato
|
O’Henry
|
82
/ 164 / 492
|
64
|
|
Tomato
|
Arkansas
Traveler
|
100
/ 194 / 418
|
647
|
500
|
Tomato
|
Hungarian
Italian Paste
|
100
/ 194 / 418
|
948
|
458
|
Turnip
|
Purple
Top White Globe
|
100
/ 200 / 360
|
101
|
9
|
Knowing what the
garden told me about yield for each crop I grew, I have to translate what it said into answers to
the questions I asked as well as the questions I didn’t realize I was asking
and that the garden and environment asked. To do that I need to discuss a
number of factors that can affect yield in addition to soil re-mineralization.
Then I’ll look at each crop in turn to tease out the different effects.
Crop Spacing. There is a complex relationship between
spacing and yield. Crops that are planted too close together compete for
nutrients and thus don’t yield as well on a weight per unit area basis.
Increasing the spacing increases yields, but only up to a point. Once the spacing
gets so large that some of the soil minerals go un-utilized by the crop, yield
begins to decrease. HTGMV’s suggested spacing is supposed to be that for which
yield is highest for each crop. Table 1 indicates that I have tended to use
wider spacing than HTGMV suggests for many crops. This in turn suggests that my yields will tend to be low for those crops.
Planting date. Crops need to be planted at the time
when the weather patterns are favorable for their growth and development. In
general, that means that crops that like cool spring weather should be planted
in late March or April here, while plants that need many weeks of warm to hot
weather should be planted in May or June and crops that need cool fall weather
should be planted from June through August depending on their maturity date. Examination of Table 1 suggests that in some cases I planted too late in 2013,
based on both generally accepted planting dates for this area and the planting date I used in
the year of highest yields.
Crop variety. Gardeners and farmers find that some
varieties are better adapted for their conditions than are others. In general,
the better adapted a variety is, the higher yield it can give, other factors
being constant. In other cases certain varieties are larger or smaller than
other varieties of a particular crop wherever they are grown. A larger variety
planted at the same time and at the same distance might be expected to yield
more than a smaller variety, unless excess competition becomes a factor.
Shading. Some of the crops I grew, notably the
peppers and eggplants, were shaded by more-vigorous crops grown next to them.
Shaded crops will not yield as much as their less shaded or un-shaded
counterparts.
Nutrient demand. Some crops do not need as much nutrition
as do others. Steve Solomon includes a table of low, medium, and high demand
vegetables on page 16 of his book Gardening
When It Counts. All else being equal, proper soil mineral balance might be
expected to have the biggest positive effect on high-demand veggies and the
least on low-demand veggies.
Weather conditions. Excessive heat, cold, rain, or drought
compared to what is experienced in an average season can reduce the
yield of crops susceptible to their effects. In 2013 spring proved to be cool
and wet. June and July tended cool and wet while August through October were
warmer and dry. Late August through September was excessively warm and dry, with
negative effects on fall crops.
With that in mind
I will look at each crop to consider how the various factors may have affected
the yield I obtained in 2013 compared to past years.
Beets. The yield I obtained is somewhat higher in 2013 than in
2011 while I harvested the same number of sugar beets per unit area this year
as 2011 according to my records. That
suggests that soil re-mineralization may have had a mild positive effect on
this low-demand crop.
For ‘Cylindra’
beets, even though I used row planting, I got about the same number of beets as
I would have if I had used HTGMV’s triangular planting pattern and suggested
spacing. Planting in rows is much easier so I plan to continue to do so. The
yield of ‘Cylindra’ may have benefitted most from growing the beets more
thickly as I harvested about three times as many beets this year per unit of
space, and the yield increased by a factor of three as well.
Bok choy. Table 1 shows that I planted bok choy
about three weeks later in 2013 than in the previous best year. Because the St.
Louis area has very short springs followed by hot summers, spring-planted crops
have little leeway in planting date to obtain the best yield. The reduction of
yield this year may be due to late planting and perhaps stunted growth
resulting from the three months between seed sowing and transplanting versus
the two months generally recommended and done in the best-yielding year.
Broccoli. Another crop I planted late and after
too long in the seedling stage, which may have lowered yield in 2013. However,
varietal differences in yield cannot be ruled out as a possible factor in the
results in Table 2. To learn this I would need to grow both broccolis the same
year with all else held constant. Note that the yield of ‘Nutri-Bud’ broccoli
increased by a factor of 3 in 2013 versus 2012, despite being planted late in
2013 versus at the correct time in 2012. Since broccoli is a high demand crop
that would be expected to show a significant increase in yield with proper
fertilization, this seems to be evidence of the beneficial effect of soil
re-mineralization on its yield.
Cabbage. The 2013 yield of ‘Early Jersey
Wakefield’ cabbage is strong evidence of the deleterious effect of late
planting, as I have planted this variety at the same distance for many years.
Interestingly, ‘Golden Acre’ cabbage had double the yield of ‘Early Jersey
Wakefield’ despite the planting distance being larger and other factors the
same. I will grow both cabbages again next year.
Carrot. I harvested about twice the number of carrots per unit area
in 2013 as in 2012, so the increase in yield in 2013 may be attributable to that
rather than soil re-mineralization, as carrots are a low-demand vegetable.
Eggplant. Eggplants are a medium-demand vegetable
so one might expect that they would have yielded better in 2013 than in past
years. Comparing 2013’s two varieties to the ‘White’ eggplant of 2012, this
year’s plants underperformed. However, the ‘White’ eggplant of Table 1 was a
purchased plant, possibly a higher-yielding variety, as opposed to the two
open-pollinated varieties I grew from seed in 2013. The purchased eggplant was
also much larger than my homegrown seedlings, which may have allowed it to start
yielding earlier. Still, of the several other open-pollinated varieties of
eggplants I have grown in the past, none yielded as well as this year’s two
varieties. Thus soil re-mineralization may have had some benefit on yield,
especially considering that ‘Black Beauty’ has a reputation for low yields.
Since our hot,
long summers should favor eggplants I have wondered why my eggplants have not
performed closer to the mid-range yield listed in HTGMV. A close perusal of the
Master Charts suggests that I may have been overcrowding them. The suggested
spacing in HTGMV amounts to about two square feet of space per plant while I
have been allotting them one square foot of space per plant. That fact, and the
fact that the 2013 eggplants were crowded up against much taller tomatoes and
may have suffered from excess shading and competition from them, may explain
the rather low yields this year. A
good test of this possibility would be to plant some of the 2014 plants at one
plant per square foot and others at one plant per two square feet and monitor
the yield at each spacing. I will also ensure they are not shaded by taller
plants.
Garlic, leeks, and onions. The beds with the garlic, leeks, and
onions were planted before the soil test results arrived, thus they did not
receive the mix designed to re-mineralize the soil. In addition, all of these
vegetables were planted at a larger planting distance than in the years with
the highest yields resulting in fewer plants per unit area, and the bulb onions
were planted late in 2013. Thus I expected none of these to match the highest
past yields, and none of them did. I planted next year’s garlic and potato
onion crops at a 6 inch spacing, hypothesizing that the combination of soil
re-mineralization and a closer spacing will result in higher yields in 2014
compared to 2013.
Lettuces. ‘Anuenue’ yielded slightly better in
2013 than its previous best year, ‘Bronze Arrow’ and ‘Pirat’ worse. ‘Anuenue’
is a later-maturing, long-standing lettuce developed for hot climates. That may
be why it did better than the other two in a year in which they were planted
later than is recommended for Missouri.
Peas and peanuts. The peas and peanuts were planted in a
bed that was prepared for planting before the soil test results arrived, thus
it did not receive the soil re-mineralization mix. In addition, the peas showed
poor germination, perhaps because I did not pre-sprout them before planting. (I
did not pre-sprout in 2012 either but that was a much warmer spring than 2013,
reducing rotting due to cold soil.) Also, the peas sprawled too much due to my
not supporting them. Thus the low yield in 2013 was not a surprise. I was
gratified that the peanuts yielded as well as they did since it was the first
year I grew them. I will grow them again.
Peppers. I expected pepper yields to be higher
than they were because peppers are a high demand crop that would likely benefit
from soil re-mineralization. However, the ‘Carolina Wonder’ and ‘World Beater’
plants suffered from considerable shading by taller crops on either side of
them, while the ‘Italian Frying’ plants were less shaded. Its lower yield than
in the best previous year may be partially attributable to being planted three
weeks later and partially attributable to the shading it experienced. See
below, however, for a different and noticeably positive effect of soil
re-mineralization on the pepper crop.
Potatoes. The spacing used for the highest-yielding
potato crop is equivalent to that recommended in HTGMV and is far closer than
the spacing I use now, thus I did not expect to match the best past yield even
if the plants responded positively to re-mineralization. I use the much wider
spacing because of the sprawling nature of potato plants: it keeps them from
shading nearby crops, and I can hill up the widely spaced plants. The result of
note this year was how much better the yield of ‘Elba’ was than ‘German
Butterball’. ‘German Butterball’ yielded 7.6 times the planted weight while
‘Elba’ yielded 15 times the planted weight! It also produced a few large
potatoes per plant that were easy to harvest and it tasted delicious. I’ll be
planting ‘Elba’ from now on.
Winter radishes and turnips. These seem to have suffered from
excessively hot fall conditions and from my not thinning and weeding them in a
timely manner. I planted them in the area where cabbage and broccoli had grown
without adding more fertilizer, so there may have not been adequate nutrition
left for them to fulfill their potential.
Squash. The low yield of ‘Bennings Green Tint’ doesn’t reveal that
this was the first year after a number of years of trying that I got any of
this squash at all. The very much higher yield of zucchini in 2013 is likely
due to a combination of soil re-mineralization (it is a medium demand crop) and
a variety well suited to my conditions. At first glance the planting date for
winter squash appears very late for this area and suggests reduced yields versus
HTGMV’s possible yields, but past experience has shown that earlier planting
results in much less squash due to squash bug attacks killing the vines.
However, I may try earlier planting again since other pest problems seemed less
this year, a point covered more below. The ‘Sweet Meat’ squash yielded better
in 2013, but the later planting for ‘Butternut’ may have had a negative effect
on its yield.
Sweet potatoes. I planted the equivalent of 40 plants
per 100 square feet of ‘Ivis White Cream’ in 2008 while I planted the
equivalent of 25 plants per 100 square feet of ‘O’Henry’ this year, yet the
yield of ‘O’Henry’ was not much below that of ‘Ivis White Cream’. Given this,
‘O’Henry’ made a better showing. I do not know if this is because ‘O’Henry’ was
planted about a month earlier, because the larger spacing meant it had less
competition, because it is a higher-yielding variety, or because of the soil
re-mineralization (sweet potatoes are a medium demand crop). I prefer to plant at the 48-inch
between-row distance because it is easier to dig out the crop. But I might
alter the plant spacing across the bed in 2014 and keep track of the yields of
the different parts of the bed to get a better idea of the optimum spacing for
‘O’Henry’.
Tomatoes. While I did not see much difference in
yield for ‘Arkansas Traveler’ from 2012 to 2013, yields were much lower in the
six preceding years. I had trouble with disease affecting the plants in the wet
years of 2008-2011 while 2012 was very dry, which I suspect greatly reduced
disease problems that year and thus boosted yield. Compared to 2012, 2013 was a
wet year so I was pleased that this tomato yielded so well, close to its best. ‘Hungarian
Italian Paste’ yielded about twice as much in 2012 but it also yielded less in the
six years preceding 2012 than it did in 2013.
Overall,
therefore, where the effect of soil re-mineralization could be separated from
other changes from year to year, the effect seems to be positive. However, I’ll
need to pay more attention to plant spacing, planting dates, and varieties
grown in future years to better answer this question.
Question
#3: effect of re-mineralization on flavor or pest or disease resistance
The most
noticeable change in flavor was in the ‘Early Jersey Wakefield’ cabbage. My
notes say that this year’s crop was very sweet with none of the off-flavor that
cabbage sometimes gets. I cannot attribute that entirely to soil
re-mineralization because the weather was cooler and wetter than usual while it
was growing, but a balanced soil may have contributed. ‘Anuenue’ lettuce also
had excellent flavor with no bitterness whatsoever and the heads were very
dense and crispy. I wasn’t as impressed with it in previous years, but the
Fedco seed catalog does list these as varietal attributes. It may be that soil
re-mineralization allowed it to reach its full potential as lettuce is a medium
demand crop. At any rate I will grow ‘Anuenue’ again. ‘Bronze Arrow’ lettuce
also seemed less bitter this year, but ‘Pirat’ lettuce seemed more bitter and I
may look for a replacement for it. Otherwise I noticed no flavor differences in
those crops whose taste I know well.
While I had
hypothesized that I might have less trouble with harlequin bugs and squash
bugs, I did not predict that cabbage moths would be less trouble, which turned
out to be the case and was most welcome. I didn’t notice any harlequin bug
problems as I sometimes have with cabbage-family crops after midsummer. The
squash bugs did eventually show up but by the time they did, the squash had
already set fruits. I think I had some squash borers also but they did not seem
to be much of a problem. Overall pests seemed to be less of a problem in 2013,
which I attribute to the re-mineralized soil since I know of no other way to
explain this.
Over the past
few years I have been plagued with one or more diseases affecting the pepper
and tomato crops. This year every single pepper plant survived the entire
season! Although yields were lower than the best I’ve gotten, they were
improved over those of the past few years. All of the tomato plants of the two
varieties in Tables 1 and 2 also survived the season. I think this can be
attributed to soil re-mineralization since the wet conditions in May and June
would have promoted disease as noted in previous wet years.
Question
#2: effect of soil re-mineralization on post-season mineral levels
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