Past Gardening Methods - Show and Tell!

The 4th and final post in the "6 Rules of Gardening" series.

     When you're a gardener, you're an experimenter, a scientist of sorts.  You research, gather information, and attempt to prove the validity of said information by putting the concepts into practice.  There is definitely a learning process involved, and in trying new things sometimes we fall backward rather than moving forward along the progression.  Ok, lets be honest, sometimes we catapult backward 150 miles an hour, and wonder what the heck we did wrong.  But at my house, I call that "Adventure!"

     My first real garden was probably around the Summer of 2000.  The hubby and I borrowed a gigantic moose tiller from a neighbor to loosen up our mouse sized garden plot.  Lets just say that was quite a job!  Then we formed wide raised rows, covered them with black plastic, cut holes in it and planted started plants from the nursery.   It was a beautiful garden with a bountiful harvest.   I don't remember all the things we grew, but I do remember cutting off tons of stems of green tomatoes right before a big frost, and bringing them inside in boxes to ripen.  This method seemed to work ok, but I was amazed how many weeds still grew beneath the plastic, and made their way over to the holes where the plants were growing.  Not to mention it was a heck of a lot of work.

I actually found some pictures of it!  Hooray!   Click to Enlarge!

 

 The next few years at our next home, we grew corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and gourds.  Seemingly without struggle, if I remember.  With the exception of weeds.  (I hate weeds by the way... I don't consider weeding therapeutic as some do.   If I'm gardening, I want results, not weeds. :-) )  Heres a fun story:

I remember we had a tiny little gourd plant that wasn't doing well.  It lost 3 of its only 4 leaves within the first week we planted it.  I thought for sure it was a goner.  Then one day my sister-in-law came by and I showed her my garden.  She asked about the sad little plant and I told her it would probably die.  She knelt down, caressed the plant, named it Joe, and told it to be fruitful and multiply, or something like that.  Then she kissed the leaf, got up and walked away.  I stood there thinking what a crazy loon!    The next day the last leaf fell off.  "Pah!" I thought, "talking to plants... whatever!"  Well 2 days after that the plant had new growth.  A week later it had 4 or 5 new leaves.  And every day after that it seemed to double in size.  Within a few short weeks it had vined and traveled to the back fence a few feet away.  That one plant grew enough vines to cover the entire back fence (We're talking 20 feet or so) and produced more than 150 gourds that summer.  It was the nuttiest thing I had ever seen.  Still I wasn't about to put the plant whisperer on any pedestals quite yet.

Another move, another chance to setup my garden.  This time I chose Square foot gardening.  My hubby helped me to build vinyl boxes, and we even ran water lines directly to the boxes.  I used "Mel's Mix" (A recommended soil mix in the Square foot gardening book) to fill the boxes, and I planted.  The ground in this new home was like solid bedrock.   When were planting our fruit trees, I bought both the boys their very own Pick Axe.  And every time they dug a hole, they came up with an 18 inch boulder.  It was a miracle we got anything in the ground at all, and an even greater miracle that it grew.   I liked the garden boxes, but I noticed that there was too much drainage.  The mix did not provide enough water holding properties and my garden was always dry.  We did still have a beautiful garden, and produced alot of food.  We even greenhoused it at the end of the season and kept tomatoes growing into December until the weight of the snow collapsed the plastic and the PVC supports.

I do like the SFG concept of growing lots of food in small spaces, AND I learned alot about vertical growing.  I grew a couple of 15 lb. Banana squash' vertically on the trellises I learned to make on the SFG website.  But I don't think the soil mix is ideal in the area I live in.  The weather here is much too dry.    I have pictures of this somewhere, but I couldn't locate them quickly, so I'll try to update this later.

I think what I'm getting at is that no one method is the "be all" and "end all" of gardening, and I think we can learn a lot by trying different methods.  And its FUN to learn new things, so by all means, try stuff!

When we moved into our current house, it was June, and I was desperate to get a garden in and growing as quickly as possible.  So I scanned the yard and tried to see what would be the easiest location to tackle quickly.   I decided to use the 6 inches of dirt between our block retaining wall and the fence.  Plus it was waist height and easy to care for.

Click to Enlarge!

I got over 300 tomatoes that year off of just a couple plants!

All the tomatoes, butternut squash, peppers, and cucumbers are from the garden.  It was so pretty I decided to decorate with it!

I have to be honest, my garden as evolved and changed every year, but I love it!  The last few years I have been using the mulching strategies I learned in the Back to Eden film,  and I feel like it has changed the whole game, and made things more doable.  I'm getting older, and could be in better shape, so the less physical maneuvering involved, the better!  Please, Please, Please!!!  Take time to watch the film.  If you love to garden, it will be time well spent!   Good luck, and please post your questions and feedback below!  I'd love to answer garden questions you may have and help you have a successful year!

Also search "Garden" at the top of the page to find all of my other posts on Gardening and see photos of my more recent gardens, raspberry boxes, and more!

What came first, the Chicken or the egg?

Its springtime, and around here that means babies.  We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of several babies this month on the farm.  I have a couple goats who should be delivering anytime, and a Sebastopol Goose who is sitting on a clutch of at least 7 or 8 eggs that should be hatching this week.

    I even have a broody hen, which I haven't let set on her eggs yet, but I think I am ready to give her some.  Why pull out the incubator when I have a willing mother hen ready to do all the work?  

   Many of you have asked me at one time or another what kind of chicks I recommend.  And while that  depends largely on several factors, the one factor that most people care about is egg production.  All the ones listed below lay nice brown eggs unless otherwise noted.  If you just want a chicken that lays an egg daily, and you don't care about anything else, you can choose between quite a large list:   

One of our Black Stars with her brood.

Black Star (sexlink)

Red Star (sexlink) 

Easter Eggers (Americaunas) (green eggs)

Buff Orpingtons 

White Leghorns (white eggs)

Black Australorps

Rhode Island Red

Barred Rock

Delawares

     But did you know that some of these birds are have a much higher feed to egg ratio, and will even lay an egg a day for 365 days?  Does that matter to you?  If it does, your very best choices are going to be the Black and Red Stars.   They also have a good temperament, and are good foragers in a free ranging setup.  I have even had one go broody and hatch out 10 eggs all at once.

  If you are determined to have white eggs, the White Leghorn is a good choice.  This is the bird that lays most of the eggs you find in stores.  But your eggs will still be better if you are raising a free range bird.   I personally like to have "easter eggs" all the time.  I like to have several different colors of eggs in my basket.  So i have white, brown, pink and green layers.

My Coronation Sussex with her newly hatched babies

     Orpingtons are a heavier breed, and tend to eat much more.  They do still lay very well, and double as a good table bird if you wanted to butcher a few.  Also one of my favorites in this same category are the Light Sussex.   They are an excellent Table bird, and lay a medium size pink egg, daily.  They are good mothers too, and tend to go broody in early spring.

More rare birds that still lay well:

Light Sussex (pink eggs)

Coronation Sussex (pink eggs)

Speckled Sussex

Brown Leghorns

Blue Andalusians (white eggs)

These birds tend to be more in the “pretty feathers” category, but will still lay eggs for you pretty well.  5-6 eggs a week or more.  I really like the Sussex, they are a great all around bird.  Andalusians are good layers of white eggs, they are very small, lightweight birds, with a good feed to egg ratio, and are also foragers.  I could never keep mine in the pen.

I like to keep a mix of pretty birds, good layers, and unique egg color in the coop.  My current flock consists of a few Americaunas, a light sussex, some Black stars, a white leghorn, and a couple of mixed birds.  Any old farmer will tell you that mixed birds lay better eggs.   Black Stars are actually a mix of Rhode Island reds Roo and Barred Rock Hens.  Red Stars are also a mix of Rhode Island Reds Roo and Delaware Hen.   I also have some fancy feather birds, a Coronation Sussex and a breeding trio of Golden Cuckoo Marans.  Now Marans don't lay worth a darn.  2-3 eggs a week in their best season, but they lay dark chocolate colored eggs, have feathered legs, and are very pretty birds.  So to me, that makes them worth keeping around.

If you have any specific chicken questions, feel free to email me, or leave them in the comments below so all can benefit from the discussion.

A Raspberry Patch

Below you will see the evolution of my Raspberry Patch.  The first 4 pictures are from Spring of 2012.  The rest are from this Spring (2013).  Remember, you can always click on the photos to Zoom in.






Clockwise, from top left, I tilled up some grass, raked out the grass and roots, planted Raspberry Starts, and then mulched with Goat Manure/Hay mix, and then Straw in the middle.   I did put Cardboard under the mulch.  This was BEFORE I watched the Back to Eden Film.   I don't necessarily think what I did was  a bad thing, except the tilling was unnecessary.  I could've just planted directly IN the grass and then put Newspaper around all of the plants, and composted and mulched on top.

Here is My Raspberry patch THIS year.  I should've gotten a photo when everything was green.  I did get several handfuls of beautiful Raspberries in the fall.  The tips of the plants bore, as you can see in the photos.

We put those Raspberries in in a hurry, so I didn't really do everything how it should be.  So this year we went out and worked on the patch some more.

My tough kids hauling the railroad ties.

Railroad ties in place with newspaper under to help kill the grass.

Stakes in place to run ropes for supporting raspberries.  I also mildly pruned the berries.

I read that you should prune anything that fruited the year before.  So I did.  Then I read that Raspberries that fruit the first year, will usually fruit on the end.  But if you leave those canes, they will produce the rest of the way the second year.  So unfortunately I won't find out if that's true.  Also  I hope with all the mulch I added, that the Raspberries aren't buried so deep that they can't find their way out.  Updates will follow as I see progress.

A Garden Box Tale

    This is sort of a Show and Tell post so you can see some of the particular areas I'm working on in my yard.  I will try to scatter a few more of this type of post in between so you can see the applications of what I am writing about.

    Last week, I was digging in a garden box that i had also mulched last year,  to see what its looking like underneath.   This box had been the vein of my existence for almost the whole time we’ve lived here.  When we moved in it was full of Golden Raspberries, but it was so overgrown with grass, that in an attempt to dig out all the grass, we slaughtered most of the Raspberries.   

     I dug that box out every year for three years, and replaced the soil, with potting soil, and every year it was overtaken again.  Last year, after watching the Eden Film,  I decided to give it one last try.  I covered up the grass with 4 layers of newspaper, and added the 4 inches of mulch, and then planted several starts from my greenhouse in it.   The plants did not do so well,  (the box is to the far left of the photo) because the soil composition was not good to start with.  There was a strange powdery mineral type substance that was surfacing in a few places on the top of the box.  This was the only picture I could find of it from last year.  But I know the mulching was working its magic on the ground beneath though, because this year, the grass is gone and I found beautiful, dark composted organic material and several worms crawling around. 

This is what it looked like when I went out to clean and prep it for this year.  There is a tiny bit of grass in the corners, but it came right out.

Look at this rich soil!  See the worm in the middle?

I am excited to plant in here again this year.  Plus a few of the Raspberries popped up last year on one end of the box, so I will let them take over again, little by little, and let the box go back to being a raspberry patch.  Only this time, one without weeds!

I added another couple inches of Mulch and then wrapped a short fence around the base, to discourage my Chickens from digging in there and throwing out all the mulch.  We'll see if it worked.  :-)

Mulch - "The Earth is Meant to Be Covered"

    I know I keep referring back to this fabulous gardening movie, Back to Eden, but when you find something so Golden it is hard not learn from your mistakes and change what you're doing so you can see results.   

    As I mentioned in my "6 Rules of Gardening" Post, (click to read) Mulch is a key factor to a successful garden.  It also reduces the workload of the typical gardener after time.  Much of the information I will be sharing here is taken directly from "Back to Eden" so if you don't want to watch the film, you can learn some of the key principles here.

    "Everywhere in nature where man has not been, the ground is covered.  The ground is meant to be covered, it is a living organism. [It can be compared to skin for animals, feathers for birds, scales for fish, etc.  When you take the cover off, it becomes vulnerable]"

    I had never thought of dirt or soil before as a living organism.  But when you think about it scientifically, it most definitely is.  When we change our thinking to reflect that it is a living thing, it then makes complete sense to "protect it."  As soon as I understood this concept, I pictured in my mind all of the dead, non-fertile soil I have seen various places throughout my lifetime.  Most farms and large gardens that are cleared and tilled at the start of each season are empty, light colored, dull plots of land until the seeds are added and the soil amendments and fertilizers to make them grow.   Crops have to be rotated each growing season to avoid over-depleting the soil of nutrients.  But sadly, much of our soil is already grossly depleted.  This photo is a bit of an exaggeration since this particular land is also suffering from drought, but the compaction and lack of color are consistent with depleted soil.  

     Farmers spend thousands of dollars on soil amendments, fertilizer, and even pesticides, and year after year are facing the same problems again with each new growing season.

     Paul in the “Back to Eden” film, takes us on a journey, that leads our thoughts back to the Creator.  He talks about how God gardens the earth, and what we can learn to both improve our yields, and simplify our process when we mimic what nature is already doing.

     The next time you have the opportunity to walk through a forest, or field or any areas that are mostly untouched by man, kneel down and dig into the dirt, and explore what you find.   For example, in a forest you find leaves, pine needles, pine cones, twigs, seeds, etc. in various stages of decay laying atop the rich black composted floor.  This is because in nature all of these things drop to the ground and are left untouched to be broken down by the microorganisms in the organic materials as well as the soil.   Animals come through and crunch up the leaves and twigs, the wind blows and mixes things around, and the rain comes and wets everything.  All of this creates a natural covering for the ground.  Its what helps to keep weeds down, and give nutrients to young growing trees and plants.   In a field you will find the dead fallen grasses and rocks and other things covering the ground.  

     “The ground is meant to be covered.”  What can we learn from that statement when we apply it to our own corner of ground that we have the privilege of caring for?  The answer is Mulch.  Lots of Mulch.

According to Paul (Eden Film) the best mulch is wood chips.  But he also says that he has tried other things successfully as well.  Wood Shavings, Compost, and even Rocks, just so long as the ground is covered.   

     The reason wood chips work so well is because they act as a sponge, absorbing as much moisture as possible when it rains and holding it until the ground beneath needs it.  They also, amazingly don’t blow away in the wind, they stay put.  They never compact, are always soft, and always allow for air to be present.  You could even drive a truck on it and it wouldn’t compact.

     Mulching is not a new concept.  People have been using this idea for years and years.  What makes it so amazing to me, is understanding how it works, and then putting it into practice correctly and seeing the results.  

    I have an excess of Goat manure available at all times, as I’ve mentioned before.  So when I was at a loss for composted material, often I would dump loads of the fresh manure mixed with hay in many areas of my yard just to help keep the weeds down.   A few years ago we tore out the grass in one end of our yard to create a large garden area.   I covered the whole thing with the manure/hay mix to help mulch the area.  I was amazed the next spring at how few weeds I had to pull before planting my first garden in that area.   Plus having the nutrients from all that compost sitting on top of the ground proved to be another benefit.

    Paul explains that as it rains and these materials absorb the moisture, and then release it.  It actually releases a type of “compost tea” down into the soil below, carrying with it the nutrients contained in the organic matter sitting on top of the soil.   This is exactly what happens with wood chips.  They absorb all the rain like a sponge, and when the ground below and the roots of the plants call for water, they are getting the modified, improved water that is being release WITH nutrients from the wood chips, and decomposed organic materials above.  

    So last year we decided to put the mulching into practice properly in a couple of our garden areas.  We prepared the garden the way Paul showed to prepare a NEW garden area, just to be sure we kept the majority of the weeds down.   We lined our entire garden bed with 3-4 layers of newspaper, and then sprinkled a layer of topsoil over it.  Literally sprinkled.  Not much at all.  You could still see quite a bit of newspaper.  Secondly we did a thin layer of compost over that, and then finished with about 4 inches of wood chips.  The garden looked fantastic!   Then we proceeded to plant directly on top of the newspaper, by pushing the mulch out of the way with our hands, making a hole, and putting in the started plants I had grown in the greenhouse.  After planting, we put the mulch back carefully around the plant, and because of the season, we used the green Wall of Water Protectors to ad additional warmth and frost protection to our plants.

The kids helping prep the the garden area with compost and mulch.

     We had a beautiful garden, and most of it did quite well.  We had a few areas where an overgrown tree prevented enough sunlight from getting through, stunting the growth of some of those plants.  but everything else did really well.  

     So far I see almost no weeds, and because we had a very cold winter with lots of snow on the ground, the wood chips are holding the moisture in the ground, and composting the under layers.  I am excited as we come into year two to be able to continue to enjoy the effort we exerted last year. 

This is in July when the garden was in full force.  We had no weeds all Summer, and as you can see everything grew and produced beautifully!  I love having what I call a "mixed use" garden, so that there are attractive flowers as well as productive plants.

Pruning Trees to Grow Low and Produce More Fruit

Fruit trees are one of my passions.  It is the naturalist and the prepper in me that dreams about picking fruit off of my own trees, eating it, canning it, and baking with it.  We have moved a lot in our married life, and I have planted fruit trees in every house we have lived in, and never stayed long enough to eat the fruit.  :-(  Our first house I planted 2 apple trees, and we moved 2 years later.  Our next home I planted a couple more, and we moved again.  Our 3rd home I thought we would be there long term, so I planted 9 trees, all different varieties, and 3 years later, just before we moved, my Apricot tree fruited.  I was so excited, I watched every day, waiting for the perfect day to pick them.   One evening as I inspected the fruit and decided it was ready, I resolved to pick it in the morning because I heard that fruit picked in the morning is always sweeter.   The next morning I went out with bucket in hand only to find Apricot pits all over the ground, and my tree picked clean.   The deer had beaten me to it!
     Tree pruning is like an ancient art form.   The first few times I tried it, I really wasn't sure that I was doing it right, and I probably wasn't completely.  But each year was a little better, and this year it was almost intuitive.  I could "see" what needed to be done in a way I hadn't realized before.  I still have a lot to learn, but I think my trees are starting to shape up nicely, and I'm excited to see how they grow.  This year I took before and after photos for a couple reasons.  First of all so I can track my progress, and secondly so I can show you what I'm talking about when I give you some pointers.

     This is my Dwarf Cherry tree. This is the only one that I didn't take photos of from consistent angles, but its a small tree, so I think you can get the idea.  The most important thing with these smaller trees is to open them up and allow light an air to flow through even after the leaves come in. Sweet Cherry trees should be pruned to a Modified leader system.  This means that the trunk extends from the ground all the way up to the where the highest branch begins to deviate.

    There are two main systems for pruning trees, the Modified Leader, and the open center.  I have a few examples of both to help you see what that means.   Open Center refers to a tree whose trunk divides into 4-5 branches going out laterally at a couple feet above the ground.

     This is a peach tree, and Peach trees should be trained to the "open center" system.  If you can see, I opened this tree up quite a bit, as well as "topped" the tree to maintain a low growing tree that will branch out laterally.   To encourage outward growth rather than upward, you follow a branch that is heading up and when it splits or a new branch is growing off of it, you cut off the original branch just beyond the new branch.  The tree will then focus its efforts on this newer portion as it is now all that is left on the end of this branch.  Click on each photo and view it larger so you can study the differences and try to understand how and why I pruned the way I did.

This is a 2nd year Nectarine tree, which I did some minimal pruning on to stimulate growth.  And actually I think that one coming straight off the top should go too.  Sometimes its a process, and when you step back and just look at your trees for a bit, its easier to get the whole picture.  When you are just doing minimal pruning, you want to take 1/3 of the total length off of branches that were last years growth.  This stimulates the tree to grow and produce more branches.                                                 

    

This is my Fuji apple tree.  It is in about its 5th year, and finally produced a few apples last year.  Not sure why its been struggling, but I think it is going to be great this year.  That is IF it produces.  Some apple trees only produce every other year.  As you can see, this one has some fun, funky growth patterns which I rather like, and am trying to encourage.  Mainly I opened this tree up, and topped several branches.  Also I directed some of the branches in the back to grow sideways as the neighbor has expressed that he'd prefer I don't let the tree grow over onto his side of the fence.   Even though you can't tell, there is plenty of room for this tree to grow without crossing the fence line, so I am trying to be a good neighbor and train it to grow wide rather than deep.  See the one branch jutting off to the right?   I could even support and stake that at some point if I wanted to continue the growth on that.  Also that one growing downward on the left should really be cut off, but I like it, so I'm going to watch it and see how it does.  This is another good one to zoom in on for detail.
     I got a lot of good information on tree pruning from my county extension office.   I found a great PDF file with pictures and step by step instructions, and upon searching for it again, I found it is still there, so here is a link to it:  "Pruning the Orchard"  It has a lot of good information, but the picture of their before and after samples are really hard to see so I have posted my own here.   There are some good diagrams of different parts of the tree and what to prune as well.

     The other thing I wanted to touch on quickly is spacing of branches.   Often a tree will develop a very "upward" growing pattern.  I have found this to be especially true with Apple Trees.  So it is important to insert "spacers" between branches and encourage them to spread out a bit.   Some trees are more fragile than others and occasionally in the effort to expand the space, I have broken the branch, so be very careful here.  If you look closely, to the right,  this is another apple tree, and I have
pruned it to the central leader system, and added a few branch spreaders, but I think only one is blatantly visible here.   If you look closely at the unpruned tree on the left, you can see the shape of the branch before pruning and spreading.  This is a gentle distance so as not to break the branch, but it will encourage a more lateral growth pattern.   Also the end of this branch should get some new branches this spring, and I will choose one of them next year to train outward as well.  Making the tree wider and wider each year, and trying to control the heigth.   To create a branch spreader, I simply use one of the pieces I have pruned off of the tree.  Often it is possible to find one with a "y" shape on the end that will keep it in place better.  And the pressure caused in spreading also holds the stick in place.  I rarely have them fall out, and in some cases I have to actually remove them because they were on too long.

As you can see there are two spreaders in this photo, one is circled and the other has an arrow.  The one in the back is harder to see but it is pushing that skinny twig branch out and away from the tree so it doesn't crowd the middle and prevent light and air from getting all through the tree.   It has been said that you should prune a tree so that birds can fly through.  And with an Apple tree you should have enough room to throw cats through it.  :-)  I think we could fit a cat or two!   Happy Pruning, and remember, its an art!  Enjoy it!

A Whole New OLD Way to Look at Gardening

     I recently came across an amazing film that changed everything I thought I knew about gardening, and plants.  It is well done, professionally filmed, and it has the potential to change your life.  There are several key concepts introduced here that when applied even to the simplest backyard gardens, have immediate and long lasting results.
    This is a full length film so plan sufficient time to watch it, or you can watch it in sections as it is easily set up to do it that way.

Click on photo, then scroll down to find video

     Even in my own backyard garden, I have been able to start applying some of these principles, and in the first year that I have used them, I can see some HUGE improvements and positive changes in my yard, my dirt, my plants and my crop. This years gardening should be even easier because of what I have put in place last year.

     I love the main idea of the film which is that God is the great Master Gardener, and by observing what we see in nature and learning from it, we can assist him in creating something beautiful in our own yards.  Each concept is laid out and explained in such a way that it makes amazing sense.
     I would also recommend purchasing the DVD if nothing else, just to support this great effort.