Our Subsistence Pattern

With no snow to speak of and the ground even starting to thaw a bit I have been out and about hunting for the right soil medium in which to start my onion, leek, celery, and celeriac seedlings. Normally we try to make our own "homemade" potting soil that does differ slightly each year depending upon what type of materials we can come up with. For the most part I just try to produce a semi-fine soil that is able to retain moisture and remain pliable without hardening up. Our house is heated with a wood stove and the one drawback of this is the lack of humidity in the air, this lack of moisture tends to cause the soil in our seedling trays to harden very quickly making it difficult for the plants to germinate and grow. So when it comes to potting soil my focus is on keeping the dirt soft and arable.

This season I am using a rather interesting mixture. I am lucky in the sense that I have a massive pile of decomposed sod which will make up the bulk of my potting mix. This combination of topsoil, dead grass, and fine little roots should work well.

Also added is my own version of peat moss, in this case a common green moss that grows in great abundance around here. After I fill a tote it is dried by the fireplace before being added to the mixture in order to help with water retention.

Lastly, strange as it may seem, I incorporated a couple of vacant red ant nests to help keep the soil from hardening. I scoped these potential amendments out last summer. Every once in a while for reasons unbeknowst to me the nests are abandoned never to host ants again. Red ants in these parts build large mounds using materials gathered from their surroundings, in my case these materials are largely made up of very small twigs, pieces of dead grass, and other debris that should provide excellent soil aeration. I hold these particular ants in high regard as they are very omnivorous, thus helping to keep many of the so called "bad" insects in check as nature intended.

A wheelbarrow full of ant nest, we have lots of these nests around but only a couple that were abandoned.

Here is a closeup of the materials ants use to build their mounds.

Yes Silke, he does tend to be quite the little helper. Rowdy's job was to break up all of the clumps.:)

I cannot remember the last time, if ever, I've had the good fortune of being able to work in the garden in December, December 20th at that. What an absolute treat for me to not have any snow this time of year. Last year we had a historical record of snow for this month (60'), starting December 16th I believe. So yesterday I was out and about in the garden prepping the soil for next season by adding composted chicken manure mixed with bean pods and straw to our rows. The ground had thawed and with the days rain had become a mucky muddy mess but I will take that over numerous feet of snow that make any gardening impossible. Perhaps we will enjoy an El Nino after all.

Row mulched with manured bean pods under which are the remains of our parsnip bed

I am once again focused on enriching our soil through a form of sheet mulching. Before winter I pulled up all of the remaining plant materials, broke them up a bit, and distributed amongst the garden rows. According to Emilia Hazelip, whose superb gardening video I have recently listed under a picture on my side bar, plants synthesize from light and only receive a small portion of their mass from the soil. The rest comes from air and light and if left in the garden to decompose will give back much more to the soil then they take out.

Is this true? I'm not sure but it certainly worked for us this past season and is a method that fits nicely into our garden scheme. Will leaving the plants remains in our garden cause a carry over of disease? I don't know, but I do know that so far we have never had any disease issues in the garden. Bugs yes, disease never. We usually follow this procedure by adding compost in the spring but I am more then happy to use this snow free Christmas present to get started a little early giving the bean pods and straw extra time to break down in the soil.

In this section we had corn that was diced up and left. It will eventually be covered with compost that will aid in its decomposition.

The below rows were home to cole crops. We chopped up and left any bad leaves and roots behind and have begun to cover with a straw chicken manure mulch.

And so begins the tedious task of planting the "soft" crops. This is what I consider any temperamental vegetable that shivers at the mere mention of a cold night and must be constantly pampered in order to live. These are the plants that I must diligently tend from seed to florescent light and later on to the greenhouse, finally hardening off under row covers outside. It is with great joy that I am able to free myself of this burden, or perhaps I should say commitment, that so intimately connects me with these particular plants and finally set them free to fend for themselves in the cold hard earth... hopefully not too cold. Tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries/gooseberries, various peppers, eggplants, certain herbs and even a few litchi tomatoes all fit into this category. I love growing my own food but I must say that caring for numerous seedlings is not a task I greatly enjoy.

We made the decision to plant our tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries and a whole lot of flowers about two weeks earlier than usual this year as the weather forecast looks really good as far out as the weatherman's eye can see. Normally cool and rainy going into Memorial Day weekend we have had 75-80° days and close to 50° nights. The most important indicator that it is time for planting is all the volunteer tomatoes coming up in the gardens.

We plant these three in pretty much the same manner. A deep hole is dug and filled with a rich compost that was held aside especially for these particular crops.

Tomatoes are buried as deeply as possible using soil that was excavated from the bottom of the hole to form a bowl around the plant. This sandy soil is a little more sterile than the compost and helps prevent against blight or other viral issues brought on by water splatter.

Field fencing is used to make sturdy cages and each plant is then tagged. Each and every cage will be also staked to the ground before the plants get much bigger.

Tomatillos and ground cherries are planted in a similar manner but instead of a cage I sometimes plant them in a row using two sections of fencing to hold them in place. Cross sections of bailing twine will be run across from side to side as the plants grow in height to keep them from falling over on each other.

This will work for tomatoes as well but ours are mostly indeterminate and get much taller and heavier, if we're lucky, so I prefer to use the cages for the majority of them. Cages also seem to allow for better air circulation which is an important preventative against disease.

We ended up with over 53 different tomato varieties and around 80 plants. The goal being to have at least 1500 medium to large fruits for canning, freezing, drying, and a large selection of seeds going forward. Thanks in part to http://grungysgarden.blogspot.com/ for exchanging some unusual seeds with us, we are having fun with tomatoes this year. The hardest part seems to be giving away the extra plants... a good problem to have for a change.

We have come across more of these yet to be identified salamanders in our gardens this year then ever before? This one was hiding in the compost pile.

I grew up watching westerns, any spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood. An older John Wayne also had me enthralled with tales of gunfights and arduous cattle drives. The one thing that most of the westerns had in common was that it was not cool to be either a farmer (sod buster) or a sheep rancher. As a child I always wanted to be one of the gunslingers of days gone by, but alas, I have become a sod buster and chicken rancher (wrangler) instead... and proud of it.

We (I), perhaps foolishly, decided at the last minute to expand the gardens, and so sod busting has been my spare time hobby of late. I needed a sunnier location for tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants to grow and will hopefully have it ready in time for the June planting of those three. This "needing more room" seems to be a yearly occurrence for me.

One of the benefits of removing tons of sod is the great mulch pile it will create. By the time I'm finished we should be set on that front for at least a couple years.

Unfortunately, I did disturb numerous "Carabus nemoralis" or European ground beetles hiding in the grass. If you come across any of these guys, leave them be as they are a most excellent nocturnal predator of cutworms, maggots, and other garden pests.

I also ran into these not so beneficial little crickets, but had not the heart to harm little Jiminy and let him live to sing another day.

This past fall I decided that I have had enough with compost piles. Each year we end up with this massive pile of debris from the fall garden clean-up. Every spring one wheel barrow after another of composted material is hauled into the garden. In between we have to keep this huge pile turned so that it will break down enough to use. So this last fall, instead of continuing the ritual of hauling stuff to the pile, turning and waiting, and then hauling it all back into the garden. I decided to leave it right where it was.

They call this sheet composting, which is simply working matter straightaway into the soil and letting it break down there instead of in a pile. Supposedly, this can cause a temporary depletion of nitrogen in one's soil. This is not a issue for me as my soil is a little too high in nitrogen anyway, mostly due to the giant, hot, pile of compost that I have been using. Too much nitrogen is conducive to aphids and this has been a problem for us lately; one reason I am looking for a different method of adding organic material to my garden.

Before winter I pulled up all of the remaining plant materials, broke it up a bit, and distributed it amongst the garden rows. My fava bean plants, of which we grow many, were chopped up and added lightly over the whole garden. Weeds were left to grow after August, being careful not to let them go to seed, so that they would be there to provide material as well. We are fortunate to have a yard full of maple and mountain ash trees that shed huge amounts of leaves every year and these were also spread throughout the garden.

Wood ash was then added to each row, our soil is very acidic and this helps to neutralize it. I'm always careful to spread it lightly so as not to make the soil too alkaline. Potatoes like acidic soil while my brassicas do not...hence the aphid problems. Ash is obtained from the wood stove and also collected from burn piles created during spring clean-up. It must be stored in a manner so that rain will not leach the beneficial nutrients away and is kept in buckets in the barn - after it has cooled of course. I have observed in previous years that some crops really love having a bit of ash worked into the soil around them. I have grown freakishly huge carrots and beets in areas where ash has been spread.

The project was concluded by shoveling a thin layer of dirt over the top of everything. It is now up to the worms to work their magic. I know from prior experience that whereas bacteria break down a hot compost pile earth worms do most of the work in an area that has been sheet mulched. I always find many more worms in a cooler pile of leaves or compost than are ever found in a really warm one.

Hopefully the outcome will be good, saving time and effort. I will then only have a small kitchen scrap and chicken manure pile to tend which does need to be hot in order to destroy pathogens.