tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post8074328438433932899..comments2024-03-11T02:25:25.123-05:00Comments on Living Low in the Lou: What I’ll discuss with my garden in 2014SLClairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17307602613058790026noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post-87013988468954552192014-03-12T15:37:04.317-05:002014-03-12T15:37:04.317-05:00It'll be interesting to see how the Australian...It'll be interesting to see how the Australian Brown onions do here! I bought the seed from an heirloom seed company. I chose them because they are intermediate day, thinking that is more appropriate for our latitude.<br /><br />No rocks here - yes, that sounds weird, but it's thanks to glacial processes. The bedrock is a meter or more below the surface of our soil! I find more human artifacts, like nails and parts of glass and ceramic items, than pebbles when I dig in the soil. So no chance to use local rock to warm up the soil or collect moisture.<br /><br />With frost I find that the vegetable garden frosts before anyplace else. Under the trees it stays a few degrees warmer. Must be due to differences in the sorts of microclimates that you have versus what I have.<br /><br />Lots of farmers use hoop houses here. At their scale they can make good profits from the crops they grow in them. I don't but I am growing some lettuce on the glassed-in front porch, using it as a glass house (greenhouse is our word for it). Besides the issues you mentioned (watering, diseases) which I also see as problems, others for me are our severe thunderstorms and snow in winter. It's more effort and cost to make them so they can withstand wind and snow load issues. Rather than a hoop house, I plan to grow more food crops on the front porch next winter. Lettuce and dill have done very well this winter.SLClairehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17307602613058790026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post-67562709792920449022014-03-12T15:20:37.312-05:002014-03-12T15:20:37.312-05:00Finally time to respond to your thoughtful comment...Finally time to respond to your thoughtful comment!<br /><br />Our wastes go to a sewage treatment plant, so we are certainly losing minerals to it. We have to be hooked up to it. I have a book on composting humanure but am not ready to try it yet.<br /><br />If El Nino materializes we would be more likely than not to have an average to slightly cooler and wetter than average summer. Either way would improve growing conditions versus the last few summers.<br /><br />I have some nitrogen fixers: crimson clover as a ground cover in the veggie beds (experimenting with this); a native shrub called indigo bush, Amorpha fruticosa, planted near most of the fruit and nut trees; and white clover which is filling into the mowed lawn areas. But I can use more and will be working toward doing so.<br /><br />The wide swings in winter temperatures make it difficult to overwinter biennials like beets and carrots in the ground. If I don't mulch them, the freeze/thaw cycles kill them. If I do mulch them, small mammals feed on them and thus kill them. So I have not been saving seeds from them to date. This year I do plan to replant some of the remaining carrots from the ones I've kept in the root cellar and save seed as I grow non-hybrid varieties. My husband eats beet greens sometimes but he cooks them. I don't much like their taste, either raw or cooked.<br /><br />I was surprised that the peanuts didn't get predated on. Though the vegetable beds are fenced, it's minimal. Rabbits can and sometimes do get in, but they don't seem to damage much. An advantage of being in inner suburbia is no deer or other large herbivores to feed on the vegetables. Folks who live a little farther out have serious problems with deer.<br /><br />I have been mounding the potatoes - we call it hilling them up. This year I'll try it both ways in different parts of the bed to see how it affects yield.<br /><br />Horseradish is a spring or fall crop here. I've had some in the past but I had to remove it - it spread too much - and haven't decided on the best location for the new crop. But I expect to grow it again.<br /><br />Yes, I start peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes indoors in order to extend the season. In fact they are in the process of germinating now. I grow both zucchinis and cucumbers, not always in the same year however, depends on what else I want to grow.<br /><br />I think the similarity of plants is more due to cultural similarity than climate similarity since our winters are much more severe. How often and how much do your lows drop below 0C? Our lowest temp this past winter was -22C. Early this month, which is the beginning of our spring, the low dropped to -15C. I'm not sure how our summers compare in normal years.SLClairehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17307602613058790026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post-62612427895253533632014-02-22T04:17:55.706-06:002014-02-22T04:17:55.706-06:00Hi Claire,
Had to interrupt the comment to let th...Hi Claire,<br /><br />Had to interrupt the comment to let the chooks run around the orchard. They get a bit grumpy - despite their spacious deep litter enclosure - if they don't get a run in the orchard.<br /><br />Good to see that you do random experiments in the garden as you just never know what the results may be. I reckon a lot of the advice we all receive is based on commercial best practice, rather than what can actually be achieved.<br /><br />Ah. You do use Egyptian Onions. I see. The traditional use for them here - because of their size - is for pickling which is why I produce the apple cider vinegar. Yeah, they are a bit small compared to the Australian brown onion (the standard onion here) for everyday use.<br /><br />Thanks for the tip re potato onions, I'll check them out. Interesting.<br /><br />It is usually frost free here, but if there is ever a light frost then it settles on the mulch. It is definitely a frost attractor. Do you get frost forming under your trees drip line? I suppose with your description of the ground freezing means that it is probably quite all encompassing.<br /><br />Thinking about your half a metre of frozen soil (thanks for the metric), have you ever tried raised beds using rocks to stabilise the soil. The rocks provide thermal mass and the raised soil which is exposed to the sunlight heats up far quicker in the spring giving you a few weeks extra of the growth season. I use these here and have several hundred metres of rock walls (of course rocks are only becoming in short supply in recent times. I coined the phrase "peak rocks" in an article here!). I also grow a few tropical plants next to huge rocks and this seems to give them an edge, although they are still very slow growing.<br /><br />Fair enough about the decomposition. Interesting about your location being 39N. I'm at 37.5S but at 700m altitude and have the same issue (although winters sound relatively mild here compared to your location) about spring and autumn being short. You just don't seem to get the in-between seasons here, but tomatoes will ripen fruit outdoors until late May - early June even though it is cold.<br /><br />The old timers up this way used to (and some still do) have ornate glass houses - some of which used to be heated. Some of the people I know use hoop houses. You are correct when you say that it extends the growing season, but the downside here at least is that they require watering. I reckon, they'd also build up diseases too and over summer here they have to be shaded otherwise the plants cook, despite opening either ends of the hoop house. The old style glass houses had panes at the top that could open thus letting out the warm air.<br /><br />A guy I know about 60km to the west of here has his aquaponics - fish and plant - systems in a hoop house and despite shading has to run an air conditioner in the hoop house to avoid everything dying on extreme weather days. Last weekend he was telling me about a week or two before that when it was about 44.5C outside and 37C water temperature. There are downsides to hoop houses, as well as the upsides. My gut feel is that good selection of plant varieties and the availability of water on extreme days trumps the advantages of a hoop house here though. I have no idea how they would work in your conditions though?<br /><br />Would you consider a hoop house?Fernglade Farmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950962122594709186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post-34025910517152158382014-02-22T02:44:32.083-06:002014-02-22T02:44:32.083-06:00Hi Claire,
Quote: "I hope that as the garden...Hi Claire,<br /><br />Quote: "I hope that as the garden soil improves it will need little if any added minerals and organic matter beyond the compost I make."<br /><br />I wonder about this issue here too. As a thought experiment, if you are currently bringing in food from elsewhere and some parts of those plants end up in your compost, then you are probably OK. If however, you eat some of the produce from your garden and then your manure ends up in the municipal wastewater treatment plant, then you'd most certainly be losing nutrients from your garden that way.<br /><br />Being honest, I haven't gotten my head around this issue, even though my own wastes are all processed and returned to the soil via a worm farm. It is really complex and leaves me wondering about it.<br /><br />Have you considered planting nitrogen fixing plants? You probably are doing this by default anyway if your garden (beautiful photos by the way) contains a large enough diversity. There are also deep rooted mineral miners such as the comfrey and borage family too. <br /><br />Acting on your last year’s observations is very insightful.<br /><br />I wonder about the spacing issue too. Your strategy of acting and observing is very sound. Here, it depends on the season and availability of water. Sometimes, very hot summers where water is readily available will mean that close spacing can be used as it reduces evaporation. Wetter summers are the exact opposite as close spacing encourages disease and provides hiding spots for leaf munching insects. What sort of summer are you expecting?<br /><br />With your beets, do you also eat the leaves as a salad green?<br /><br />Carrots are self-seeding here. Have you thought about trying non hybrid varieties?<br /><br />It will be interesting to see how your fall broccoli crop goes. Summer is hard on brassicas here because of the cabbage moth. As an interesting side note, I've noticed that the predation from these moths is less every year as predator populations are building up. A parasitic wasp has recently moved in here which devours the cabbage moth larvae in a most unpleasant way.<br /><br />haha! A local guy who has a delightful French accent at the seed savers group who has been growing in this area for 30 years, laughed in my face when I mentioned my ambitions of growing melons. I can see him now thinking, "ahh, you Anglos are soo stupid". hehe. Sorry for that departure into silly land. I reckon it may be possible if you started the cold tolerant variety plants inside during the winter and then selected the earliest growing fruit of that particular for a few years in a row. I've shaved 1 month off my tomato harvest over the past few years through selection.<br /><br />Good to see an Aussie in your onion selection. I recommend tree onions (or also called Egyptian tree onions) as they are real givers in low soil fertility and very low water requirements.<br /><br />I'll be interested to see how your peanuts grow. Predation from the local wildlife (and my dogs) for peanuts is intense so it is hard to get a crop. They are reputed to be excellent atmospheric nitrogen fixing into the soil plants.<br /><br />With your potatoes, do you mound soil over them as the plant grows? That is the done thing here. It is interesting as this year, some of the potatoes have set seed which a local guy tells me that you can also plant and get a slightly different variety. The potatoes are currently in flower here (which I'm told means they are producing tubers and seed).<br /><br />Yeah, peppers and eggplants require full sun and lots of it. Surprisingly the fruit is quite small here because of the variability of the climate. Do you start your plants indoors?<br /><br />Have you tried summer radishes such as horseradish?<br /><br />Blacktail mountain is a common variety promoted by organic seed suppliers here. Watermelon is a tough school as it requires adequate watering which I can't provide.<br /><br />Do you grow zucchinis or cucumbers?<br /><br />It is really interesting the similar plants growing in your area. I wonder if this is a product of culture or whether we just have similar climatic conditions?<br /><br />Cheers<br /><br />ChrisFernglade Farmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950962122594709186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post-9155434779147173512014-02-17T14:33:32.987-06:002014-02-17T14:33:32.987-06:00You make a good point, and I appreciate your shari...You make a good point, and I appreciate your sharing your experience with me. I'm reminded that the orderliness that I like in the vegetable garden tends to be somewhat inefficient in terms of the time required to achieve it. That's one of the things I plan to pay attention to as I work in the garden this year.SLClairehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17307602613058790026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post-34320807759197172302014-02-15T16:51:18.241-06:002014-02-15T16:51:18.241-06:00You are still using too much energy to plant potat...You are still using too much energy to plant potatoes. Try this.<br />1) Lay out your rows with stakes. Mine are 75 feet long and 3 feet apart.<br />2) Mark your rows with your dry fertilizer mix. Don't bother with a string. Walk down one row and back on the other so you always end up on the same side of the plot.<br />3) Walk down a row making a trench with your Warren hoe (look it up if you don't know what it is). Come back on the next row.<br />4) Walk along the row dropping cut pieces from a collander or bucket about 8-12 inches apart. If they don't fall straight, don't worry about it. Come back on the next row.<br />5) Walk down the row pulling the soil over the potatoes with your Warren hoe. Come back on the other row. This is the time when you flick any outliers back into the row. Do not obsess about spacing. It will be good enough.<br />6) Walk down and back on the rows heel-and-toeing it and with your weight partially supported by leaning on your Warren hoe.<br />7) Voila. You have not bent over once. I do this every year and I am 64. I also hill with a bow rake without bending over.<br />8) Get good with your hand tools. You should be able to flick things around with your hoe.<br />Walterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09458420994949500662noreply@blogger.com