Just A Quick Peek

In the past week our daytime temperatures have ranged from eleven degrees below zero to today's sixty degree reading.  A walk about was absolutely required.  The pictured strawberry bed has finished its second year.  The new plants were allowed to send out runners.  Despite the jumbled mess in the picture, time was spent weeding here while trying to limit the number of new strawberry plants.  Our plan is to have two rows of plants separated by a clear area one foot wide down the center.  The clear area needs a lot of work.  It appears that there will be enough new plants to start another bed.

We have never tried to grow all of the strawberries that we need.  It was easier to visit a nearby pick your own business.  That option has disappeared so we are considering growing our own.  One of the unanswered questions is just how long this planting will remain productive.  We have no need for huge berries to display at the fair but we have no interest in processing the tiny fruit that will appear over time.  If a second bed is started in the spring, it will have two years to fill in before we would expect a crop.  By then we will have had two crops from the existing bed and that might be the time to clear these plants.  Watch and try to learn is how we proceed.

This ground was cleared of pasture grass last spring and planted with potatoes.  That successful crop was followed with intensive soil improvement.  Weeds and stones were removed.  Lime, manure, sand and compost were worked into the soil.  Garlic was planted in October then covered with a thin layer of finely shredded leaves.  Strong winds removed much of that mulch so the wire fence sections were placed to try to hold what remained in place.  That wire could have been removed today since snow will likely return soon.  The wire needs to be gone before the garlic emerges early in the growing year.  The small stones at the edge of the bed carry the name of the garlic variety planted in that location.

Few people would get excited by this dull brown patch of ground but I am thrilled with its appearance now.  This bed remained fallow last year.  Some time was spent removing weeds before they had a chance to set seed.  Last fall this ground was cleared and also amended with  lime, manure, sand and compost.  Then the shredded leaves were thickly placed hoping to smother any remaining weeds.  No weeds can be seen here now and that is great news.  This coming spring, the leaves that remain will be raked aside and the soil turned to mix in the expected thin black layer of rotted leaves.  Then this ground will become home for our onion plants.  Our hope is that this soil will remain relatively weed free as the onions grow.  We expect to spend some time removing weeds but hope that the weeds will be few in number since weeding onions always breaks some of their leaves.   What an unexpected pleasure to be out  to closely inspect the garden soil in mid January!

The Garlic Bed Awaits

This is our garden near the back woods.  We looked here for new ground that had not been contaminated by several years of trying to grow diseased garlic.  Slow to learn, our first crop here was garlic from our old stock.  That poisoned the far bed that now supports strawberry plants.  We will never plant garlic in that area again and the soil borne disease seems to have stayed put.  This year our seed garlic will be planted in the near bed.  It was newly opened this spring.  Potatoes were the first crop planted here and they provided us with a substantial harvest.

Twelve five gallon pails of soil amendment and a sprinkling of lime were added to this ground.  Our mix contains our own compost that never contained garlic, Black Kow dehydrated manure and peat moss.  This soil is vastly different from what we have near the house.  Here stones are relatively few in number and this ground contains a great deal of clay.  The clay retains moisture helping the plants survive rainless periods but it bakes nearly as solid as bricks.  We will try to add soil building  amendments that will loosen this ground.   The relative lack of stones has prevented the completion of stone paths between the planting beds.  Reground tree bark mulch covers the path separating the two halves of this garden.  Anything organic fills the path between two beds.
 

Our major hurdle remains clearing the ground of quack grass and preventing its reentry.  Repeated applications of dried grass clippings encourages the quack grass root system to move out of the ground and into the rotting grass clippings.  Rolling large clumps free of the soil requires persistence but the weed is nearly completely removed.  Followup removal of missed roots eventually clears the ground of this pest.

These four planting beds have been cleared of weeds and three of them covered with leaves collected last year.  Some of the leaves have experienced a trip through the lawn mower while others await their turn.  The chopped leaves decay much faster than the whole leaves and are far less likely to be wind blown about.  Despite this effort, some of our treasure of millions of weed seeds will find an opportunity to grow alongside of the desired crops that we plant.  We would prefer that our garden remain weed free but all that we manage is to give our desired plants a head start.  Some hand weeding is timely completed thereby feeding the compost pile.  We are certain that this is a never ending task.

This bark mulch moat is intended to keep the quack grass from reentering the planting beds.  Both the cardboard base and the bark chips will rot but removing the weeds is rather easily done.  We previously tried landscape fabric but the weed roots firmly anchored themselves in the fabric.  The tops of the weeds could be pulled free with great difficulty but the remaining roots quickly sent up new growth and completed their steady march into the planting beds.  This modified system will likely work better.  We need to take this system around the corner and to the far edge of the new garlic bed.

Twice Used Tree Leaves

Last summer two hills of squash grew here.  Fresh grass clippings were placed under the young plants to discourage weeds.  After frost ended the squash plants, all vegetation was removed and composted and the ground was left bare.  When the village trees finally dropped their leaves, this planting bed received a thick leaf cover.  Various wire cages were placed on top of the leaves to keep them in place.  Today we needed to clear the leaves away to make room for new plants.

This planting bed is bordered by pasture grass.  That means that it will fill with grass runners with each passing day.  Our attempt to win this battle involves expendable plants and leaf mulch.  Three of the sunflowers that reseed freely here were  planted near the peas.  Three cone flowers that also multiply freely were planted next.  A catnip, a rose campion and a poppy round out this planting of free plants for the moment.  When additional weeds are cleared, more temporary or expendable plants will be given a place to grow.  The leaf mulch placed here today came from the bed cleared for planting.

We needed to clear the planting bed so that the basil and pepper plants could finally be released from their pots.  Our frost free date is June first so we are not that far behind.  This ground will be left bare for some time.  Exposure to sunlight is thought to be of some benefit to the soil.  We will then open a bag of tree leaves that were chopped by our lawn mower last fall.  A trip through a sifting screen will give us small sized leaf pieces to be placed under the basil and pepper plants.  These fine old leaf pieces will look really sharp and will nearly rot away be fall.  Weeds will be few in number on this ground then and the rotted leaves will add a much sought after layer of black to our soil.  A generous application of limestone will be followed by new leaves as winter approaches.

This bed of peas is just across the stone path next to the basil plants.  After putting the seeds into the soil, full sized leaves were placed on the bare soil.  Room was left open to allow the peas an easy trip into sunlight and fresh air.  Once the peas were up, the leaves were pushed close intending to keep the weeds away.  The soil under the chicken wire was left bare and we expect to see some weeds there.  The peas have a good head start so our next job here should be picking fresh peas.

We are looking for techniques that will decrease the work required to keep the gardens looking tended.  Some time is required to gather and place the leaves but once they are on the ground plants can reach harvest with little additional effort from us.  A recent inspection of the garlic bed in the garden by the woods revealed a nearly weed free planting.  The garlic will be harvested in little more than five weeks from now and what weeds are present are small.  They will not negatively impact the growth of the garlic now.  Only my pride will require some time spent pulling weeds there.