End of Season 2020

 

Furnace filters replaced, check; water filter replaced, check; drains cleared, check; septic tank pumped out, check; outdoor power equipment cleaned and serviced, check; garden cleared, cultivated and over-seeded with winter rye, check. We are ready for winter!

With COVID and forced telework, this was the first season I was able to go with total organic pest control. There is nothing like keeping a daily check on the patch and reapplying various organic sprays exactly when needed. All and all if was an excellent season.

The last remaining crop for winter is our kale. This year we planted a full row of Lacinato and a second row of Dazzling Blue, Red Russian and Premier COL (one third of each) in late August so it would be up and well on its way by heavy frost. Last year our crop was nipped by an early heavy freeze before it had a chance to harden off to the colder weather. This year we were careful to get it up and under row cover before the heavier frosts.

Since kale can take some pretty cold temps, the row cover is little more than insect grade Agribon. Just enough protection to hold off the worst of the freeze and still provide some heat retention and good light transmission. This usually keeps us with kale well into January.

Late Summer Goings on in The Patch

 

I saved the Indian corn from last year's Thanskgiving table decorations to see what kind of yield I would get; planting four short rows at high density (two of the dark maroon, and two of the tri-color; selecting seeds that were more on the dark purple side). Damn, every kernel sprouted, and most stalks have at least two good ears forming up. And unlike the modern field hybrids, some of these have topped off at 12 ft.!!!! But there is a lot of variation in individual phenotype. Some of the stalks are stunted, have weird ear formations or were so weak as to fall over. This is not unexpected for wild open-pollinated varieties. I can't wait to see what kind of total yield I get and most will be ground for meal but some saved for this year's fall decorations or to give away. 

Indian corn (aka flint corn, native corn, etc.) was the primary corn of my Virginia dirt farmer ancestors. There really was no modern hybrid corn like we see today until after the Civil War.

Here in late summer the really good news is that Japanese beetle season has finally ended; yeah! It is always a battle with these guys. But this year with me being on extended telework due to RONA, I was able to keep a close eye on the bait trap and actually have time to do daily hand picks and almost daily spraying. Organic sprays are nice, but there is little to no persistence especially following rain. I've never been home every day before so this certainly has been a unique garden season. I'm hoping by increasing the diligence this season and applying milky spore under the most susceptible plants, maybe we'll be able to finally tune these pests down a bit. I also hit the ornamental (weeping) cherry with a commercial systemic pesticide this year. The protective effect was miraculous. But you can't use that on anything destined for fruit consumption.

And I was bound and determined to keep the aphids and cucumber beetles under control this year. A combination spray of Neem oil and insecticidal soap applied every three days or so and once a week spinosad seemed to do the trick. So for once we got a full season worth of cucs and squash out of one planting. I suspect too that taking a rest year off last season may have helped break their reproductive cycle. And there is nothing like being able to pick the best-of-the-best for a batch of homofermentative dills. And just in time for the first dill heads to go to seed. Can't wait to crack these open.

So all and all its been an interesting season. For the first time in 18 years I was available to run out and do daily maintenance. Only a few minutes between conference calls or for longer periods over lunch meant a vast increase in the quality of produce and not letting the weeds and other things get out of control. I am very grateful to have had this once in a (working man's) lifetime opportunity.

Soon it will be time to prepare the early spring rows for the fall and winter crops. Already we have broccoli and cauliflower seedlings almost ready for sitting out. The fall carrots and beets were planted this week, and it won't be long before the kale rows are prepared. These will be staggered so as to have health near-mature plants ready by the first heavy frost of the fall. Then they will go under a row cover for winter time greens.

 

Renovation of the Compost Bin

I finally got around to switching out the compost bin this past weekend. Originally it was a circular structure about two yards in diameter made of 2X4 fencing with a couple of feet of rat wire around the bottom to hold in the small material after breakdown. This served us well for nearly 18 years as a fill and forget (no turn) bin system. The new bin was made of three untreated skids with the lower slits covered over with planks from a fourth skid. The front was closed off with a section of the old bin held in place with two T-posts.

But I thought it was time to give this a bit more attention and convert over to a bin that is turned on a regular basis. This switch out was only the second time in 18 years that I've harvested true compost. After removing the top foot or so of undigested material I was able to pull out 8 wheelbarrow loads of good quality compost. This went directly to the main patch for augmenting the soil.

Other than that, the weather continues to be unusually cold with two nights this past weekend getting down to freezing. This most likely will lead to some loss of strawberry blossoms. But since they are so thick, a little thinning might be good.

Spring Time Check In (Rona Edition)

Spring has sprung and a new garden season is underway. After taking off last year to give the beds a much needed rest, this year will be especially important to get back into the hang of seed starting, crop rotation and enhanced production through succession planting.

I say "enhanced production" because with the currently raging COVID pandemic (aka "The Rona"; aka Wuhan Red Death, CCP Virus, Wuhan Lung AIDS, Kung-fu Flu, Chinese Lung Clap, Chinese Bat Cancer, Chinese Lung Crud, all courtesy of the Rott) the latest contagion to crawl out of the  Chinese petri dish, we'll be needing all of the fresh veggie supplementation we can grow over the next few months.

Last summer there were three superficial tills of the beds to suppress weeds and keep our notorious clay soil workable, followed by over seeding with winter rye. After the last till, I over seeded the main plot with buckwheat. This was a spectacular cover crop that was left in place to die down and overwinter. And back in February that too was worked in.

Right now we have a very early crop of mini bok choy, mustard greens and (not pictured) a couple of broccoli. Soon to be followed with more greens and lettuce. Kale and chard were direct seeded last weekend but with the temperature drop these will be delayed a bit. And by May we should be starting tomato and pepper seeds indoors together with more direct seeding outside of squash, beans and cucs.

The other big chores last weekend was to do a final straw-in of the strawberry bed that was established last season. This will be the first time doing this in one of the long beds which should make harvesting a lot easier than doing a big bed in the main plot. I also planted the new raspberry sets in their bed. This time around there were five "Jewel" black (summer bearing) and five "Anne" yellow (ever bearing). These will be ready for first crop next summer.

Other spring time beauties around the compound (as always click on the pic for a larger view):

Heartleaf Brunnera

Regina cherry

Red Bud

Fall 2019 in The Patch

The late summer planting of buckwheat did its duty and just last week we mowed it over. The growth was incredibly vigirous and reached almost three feet in places. But the rains knocked much of it over. We'll leave it just like this as a good winter cover until the first spring work up.

The raspberry bed's first winter off is serving as our kale and collard patch with some Asian mustard greens on one end to get us into late fall. Once the hard freezes arrive we'll put a spun fiber cover on the kale and collards to minimize winter deep freeze damage.

There's really nothing like running out to the garden and grabbing a Nappa cabbage and some Asian and mustard greens and doing a quick stir fry. The precise reason why everyone should have a kitchen garden!

Summer 2019; A Well-Deserved Rest

As planned back in the winter, this was to be the first "rest" season for The Patch in nearly fifteen years of constant production. Beginning with the spring work up, I went through three separate plantings of winter rye followed each time by a shallow till once the growth was up to about four to six inches in height. This did a fairly decent job of keeping down the weeds although I had to resort to some limited hand weeding last month as the summer heat brought out the worst of the crab grass and purslane. I'm always amazed at just how fast purslane grows under near drought conditions and the volume of biomass that is produced by just one plant. Apparently it is a highly nutritious edible but I have yet to give it a try.

Following the last rye work-up two weeks ago I over seeded with 10 lbs of buckwheat. This is my first time using this cover crop. It sprouts almost overnight and quickly reaches a foot in height. Our stand is about to bloom where it will double as bee forage. Buckwheat is an annual and highly frost sensitive so it will remain in place until late fall. At that point, after it dies down, I'll decide whether to work it in with the fall leaves or just leave in place until spring. Depending on how strong the stems wind up being it may require a light mow first. We shall see. Regardless, cover cropping not only helps maintain soil structure and stability, but it also acts as a host for beneficial arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. As a microbiologist I've been researching this topic the last few weeks and will have a post on it soon. Although I have no formal training in agricultural micro, I'm amazed by just how little we really know about beneficial symbionts and the greater plant microbiome.

We also decided to re-establish our strawberry bed in the long row this time around; making picking a lot easier next spring. It will also be easier to apply the bird block mesh in this kind of row configuration. After three cycles of work up they were finally mulched with straw. So now its a matter of keeping the side leaders cut back but allowing them to fill in between the mother plants. These were "Galletta" plants from Burpee. So far they have been very vigorous with no sign of fungal outbreaks. All 25 plants in the bundle survived.

Besides cover cropping and strawberries the only other real plantings were a couple of rosemary plants for fresh kitchen use and maintenance of five red bud trees for transplant into our wild border next spring.

The raspberry bed received the same rye cover cropping as the main bed but didn't get any buckwheat as this bed will be planted in a few days with fall greens and lots of kale for over wintering. Next spring we will once again establish a new bed of raspberries.

2018 Season Wrap Up; Monsoon Edition

Nothing like waiting a year (almost to the day) to update what normally is a fairly active blog. Postings were nonexistent for a number of reasons; busy schedules, etc., etc., etc. But mainly due to the strange weather year and crappy growing season we had in 2018. With the light table upgrade it was supposed to be the best season ever; right? Being able to produce all sorts of seedlings under commercial grade plant lights. Unfortunately not!

The Washington County precipitation record still stands at 76.6 inches (1996) while 2018 went down at 67.1. We moved here in 2002 and there is water laying in fields and flowing across back roads, to this day, that I have never seen before. The ground was saturated by mid summer and now we have a slight snow pack. All liquid water now must find its way to the lowest point. Except for evaporation, there is no place else for it to go.

It took forever to get into the garden last spring to do the first till. The strawberry crop rotted in place, and the bug populations exploded. Trying to use organic spays would have meant having to apply them almost nightly. I finally had to resort to a commercial orchard spray to keep the cherry trees from total destruction. Even something as basic as succession planting for lettuce was DOA. The only consultation prize was a very good crop of summer squash. With just enough break in the monsoons I managed to get in six hills; three yellow and three green zucchini. We managed almost a full month of stir fry once they started to come in.

So if it ever dries out enough this spring to till, the strawberry bed will be moved to the long bed. The raspberry bed was due for renovation anyway so that will get some rest. And after fifteen years of constant cultivation, the majority of the Food Patch will be taking a well deserved year off in 2019 for rest and solarization. The raspberry and big beds in particular. The long bed will be used to "hopefully" re-establish a strawberry bed and for salad greens, maybe. For this round the strawberries will go into proper row fabric to control weeds.

Meanwhile, as an experiment I raised a flat of mini romaine lettuce on the light rack. The seeds went in the week of Dec 10 and are ready to harvest this week. I also have a couple of seed blends for microgreen production that I want to give a try as an addition to commercial salad mixes.