Crying in the local beer

Horrible year for the garden.  2 months of rain helped spread blite in my potatoes, mellons that flowered but didn't produce, a drastic reduction in potatoes, and so on.  I also realize I still need a lot of work with building the soil here.  But, even the CSA farm near me had to cancel one order and has diminished her returns.  How are others doing?

Re: Crying in the local beer

Crying with you Burl! What another odd seasonal year with the weather. Harvest for us was extremely late this season and we got hit with two frosts in late June. 

I just finished tucking in the garden and many of us are still in the fields! It was a devastating year for some of the farmers…again!

(My strawberry field was a hit however!)

Pour me another!

Re: Crying in the local beer

To build your soil watch nature, she never leaves bare soil, mulch with anything you can get your hands on to stop soil leaching away in heavy winter rains I mulch with compost, with spent crop remains,( not blighted ones ) chicken bedstraw, or green manure, even cut down weeds if not seeding. The worms will till the soil underneath, readying it for spring planting, and as the mulch decomposes adding humus. Where I grew up in Jersey C.I. they farmed on steep slopes leading down to the sea, in the spring they collected seaweed from the spring tides, stacked it till the salt washed out then spread it on the land in the autumn adding nutrients and water holding capacity. You get as much out of the soil as you give back to it.

Re: Crying in the local beer

So true Gael! I am in garden season number 4 or coming into it and I am just now seeing the effort of our hard work show in our soil. There are less weeds, the soil “looks” beautiful and it crumbles wonderfully in my hand. Our first season the earth was black, solid and a hammer could not break up the clumps. AND the weeds were a nightmare. BUT…my garden still grew and somehow my tiny little seeds came to life. 

It takes time to make good soil and I have done much experimenting. This year I finally have enough compost of my own (took two seasons) to mulch in. Last year I did all leaves and found I had to rake them off even after attempting to dig them in.

I lose on average 10 pounds during this time of year…now remember we do our work all by hand, no machinery and we are now at half an acre in garden alone…then there are the flower beds all over! We have to design a pedal powered gadget of some sort! AND…I had the nerve to expand it a wee bit this season!

Interesting tid bit about the seaweed.

Re: Crying in the local beer

Good luck with next year Denim. Yes and with seaweed their tomatoes and potatoes had wonderful flavour. I'm trying rockdust on a few beds this year, it mineralises the soil and thus aids growth, many soils are minerally depleted these days. and supermarket veg are 40% down on mineral content. we need those for health. Composting will add depth of topsoil too, so your soil fertility will improve with every application. I saved some heritage tomato seeds from a pack of supermarket tomatoes, mine grew twice as big as theirs. My soil is like yours crumbly, and water retentive, and it was rock hard clay and not much depth, it used to crack not now. The worms like it, and thy attract moles lol

Re: Crying in the local beer

I moved into a new development and the soil is terrible.  My gardens are building up, but no worms yet.  Not a good sign.  That is due to the garbage dirt / sand that was put down.  Apparently, worms won't slither about in it because it cuts them.  So, they are not going to journey to the gardens without a lot of pain (it would be like walking on glass except for a worm it would be your entire body).  If I had the money I would replace the entire yard.  All I can do is continue composting.  Next year, unless the ecovillage comes about, I may place some of my gardens outside the yard, at the entrance to the woods, where there is no “Dube Dirt.”  (I call it Dube Dirt because Dube is the name of the contractor).  Take care.  Burl 

Re: Crying in the local beer

“Dube Dirt”…oh we had some of this stuff when we moved here as well. 

Takes time and much hard work. 

Best to you as well Burl.

Re: Crying in the local beer

Burl, try composting then mulch with straw or spent hemp or whatever you can get hold of, winter rains can wash away a lot of topsoil. In spring you can rake off what hasn't decomposed and you should have better condition soil underneath. Nature never leaves bare soil.

Re: Crying in the local beer

Hi Gael, 

Great point. One can see this in play when you walk in the forests or wooded areas in the fall time. Just look at the ground, always covered and not so neat looking as we seem to strive for. I use straw in between my rows, or beds. I like it because it is soft to kneel on. So naturally I used it as a top cover before as it was easy enough to rake off on top of the rows BUT…I am switching to leaves and getting rid of all my straw. The straw does seed and while it isn't hard to manage it is just another thing to manage. We have bags of leaves on hold at our municipal drop off center, this will take another few years to get to where I would like to see it but well worth it.

Re: Crying in the local beer

I sometimes confuse straw and hay. I thought straw didn't seed?  Leaves makes sense, though.  Since most of my property is wooded, there is plenty of leaves.  I put some seaweed down on a couple of gardens….but my concern there is the amount of gas I'm using to go the 60 minutes to the Ocean.  but, then again, some of my clients live 30 minutes from there.  So, it might be timing.  But, then there are soooo many leaves.  Why do all that?

Re: Crying in the local beer

My neighbour said she gets hemp for her chickens bedding, so I might try that next.

Re: Crying in the local beer

I need to find out more about hemp.  Seems to be a wonderful, all-purpose plant. 

Re: Crying in the local beer

Hemp is very ecologoiically sound and I believe can be used to build…. mixed with clay I think.

Re: Crying in the local beer

Here is a very interesting link on hemp and also it's use in building

http://transitionculture.org/2006/05/25/building-with-hemp-a-review-and-a-competition/

Re: Crying in the local beer

Zephyr is so right. Thanks for sharing your experience & wisdom. Bensoph, no worms is an indication that the person that was steward of the land before you, used chemicals or pesticides. That is what can drive away the worms as they have been poisoned.

Strong, healthy plants require fertile, healthy soil.  Chemical fertilizers destroy the microorganisms and worms that are required to make your topsoil rich and fertile.

The legumes when they’re dug in to the soil or plowed into the soil like this are referred to as “green manure.” This will build back up the soil that was destroyed by the predecessor.

And you can see, with the earthworms converting that to castings, and the nitrogen that we put back in that we captured at the root level, this is very, very richly fertilized.   Before I plant anything, I’ll put down kelp meal, fish meal and bone meal. For vegans, these fertilizers can all be translated into something workable so not to worry.

Re: Crying in the local beer

Actually, the land was forested.  It was the soil that was put down…it was primarily sand. 

Re: Crying in the local beer

How does this all seem now?

Re: Crying in the local beer

Slowly getting better.  It's going to take time, though.  Burl