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Productive garden day

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I fertilized this morning! I used the fish emulsion and seaweed product that I’ve got. I cannot get the sprayer to work so I had to mix the stuff in the sprayer then pour from the container to a small watering can. I need one that can apply the stuff in a finer spray. I think I used way too much of the stuff, but oh, well. The Chandlers need it. The ground looks so dry where there aren’t plants or compost on the soil.

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Chandler strawberry plants as seen from the north end of the bed

I was very tired this evening but I did manage to hoe next to the summer strawberries (and a bit in the bed); rake some grass over the dry, old bean bed; and pick a few strawberries. Picking berries always involves a lot of removal of old leaves. I didn’t have anything handy for slug killing, but I saw more than on recent days. Some parts of that bed have worse slugs than others.

Rain is possible on each of the next 10 days. I have planted nothing. 😦 At least there is still grass. 20160407_190130.jpg

 

 

Thinking about the “stale seedbed” technique

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So many farmers who are doing the cutting-edge stuff with organic food gardening are doing this “stale seedbed” thing- you prep, fertilize, water, and then throw down a plastic tarp for however long until you need the bed. The weeds will be dead, the fertilizers and compost mixed in due to macro soil life, etc. I’m talking about Curtis Allen Stone, Paul Kaiser of Singing Frogs Farm, and Jean-Martin Fortier (I’ve read Stone and Fortier’s books in the last year, and Paul is local and frequently written about). I’m listening to The Urban Farmer with Curtis Stone, Season 2 episode 1 (on the Permaculture Voices podcast  on Soundcloud). I see it’s not archived yet on the website.

I first heard of this in my classes at SRJC, and it referred to tarping weeds for 2 weeks at the hottest time of the year. But prepping the bed first really helps a farmer be ready to put crops in the ground when it’s the appropriate time of year or when they need the crops.

I wonder what the long-term effect of this is on the soil life (especially during hot weather, for example, in a place where the ground is usually dry). How can it not be bad for the soil?

That bed’s been hoed!

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It took about 4 hours of work to get the weeds hoed out of this bed and 6 or 10 inches away from the plants!

Alrighty, the Chandlers have been hoed. The plants are so small and most of the buds have been so small that I think these may have to stick around until next spring. I guess I need to stop pulling the buds off, though. We (mostly Z) have been getting our irrigation going – the leak on the right was fixed! Now maybe I can fertilize (starting with a kelp/seaweed product). This reminds me that I need a new sprayer.

My hands are killing me from hoeing, but the bed needs a good going-over with the Cobra weeder (http://www.cobrahead.com/). No time. Last year’s berries need some maintenance, and I need to hoe alongside the summer berries I planted this spring and last fall. I also have more to plant. The water line doesn’t quite reach the end of that bed. I think that if I run out, I might just put the crowns (if they are still ok to use) at the end of the Chandlers…

One of the next beds I’d like to get going (because it has so little grass growing) is last year’s bean and pea row (it also had one cherry tomato plant). There are all these weird holes there- check oneout! Hopefully just from gophers, but why were so many holes not closed back up? The surface of the ground is scarily dry. 😦

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A rather large hole that has a crack coming off of it. The ground looks like a cross between Petaluma Adobe and cement

I hoed enough that it looks like I need to hoe

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I hoed the Chandlers, so now they can get some daylight! This photo shows “after” with “before” below. I was hoping to put a bunch of compost on the ground, but I’m rethinking that as the sow bugs get to be really bad after I put compost down. I hate to leave the ground bare!! Hopefully these plants will grow a bit more very soon. They really want to make berries. Meanwhile, Z and T picked a couple of strawberries from the old patch this weekend!

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those Chandler strawberry plants are just to the left of center- you can see a few taller fava (or bell?) bean plants in there

In other news, I got 2 packages of seeds today 🙂 Z and T worked on getting irrigation to the “new” strawberries, as it’s going to get hot this week!

Sometimes getting things done hurts

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Yesterday morning I had kind of a rough time in the garden. I couldn’t get the mower started. It has to be on perfectly level ground and it can’t be in grass that’s taller than like 4 inches. Then I kinda punched myself in the face trying to pull up my shirt sleeves. THEN I was putting compost out around the new strawberry plants and stepped YET AGAIN in the trenches alongside the bed and sprained my ankle. I kept going and didn’t elevate much and it hurts a lot more today.

I did hoe a few more feet where more strawberries can be planted soon 🙂 But we need to fill in those trenches before mowing, fertilizing, or even planting can happen. It’s just not that safe out there. And I need new boots. (and sneakers, which is impossible for me to find) I really like these boots, so hopefully I can find another pair. This is an expensive week, with our trash bill and preschool and seeds all being paid for in one week! I guess that’s what bank accounts are for.

Soil is drying out

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Well, I still can’t quite plant anything because the soil is so wet. T found a moisture gauge today and kept sticking it into the soil. It was either extremely wet or off the end of the thingie. He and Z spread some wildflower seeds around because he was desperate to plant things. Aww!

I weeded the strawberries and put compost around the Chandlers because the soil is starting to crack. Gotta get more organic matter mixed into that sandy clay loam. The gophers are out there in the Seascapes again 😦 (we do not have time to trap them and Z doesn’t want them to be set in case T is in the garden and curious about them). I started weeding the north end of that bed so I can maybe plant a few strawberries at that end.

T and I did a bit of organizing our seeds today. They were stored up high but he got to them. I have moved them to a place where they are out of the sun, but I need them to be on a bigger shelf. I also need to order seeds!!!

I am wondering what other folks store their seeds in- I had plastic shoeboxes inside of a clear plastic tub, but the lids were moved around the house and there have been moths and other bugs in there 😦 The bugs may have gotten in from open packets of seeds that I left out after planting sessions (like, if I knew I was going to plant more the next day). Sigh.

Oh, I found a weird egg sac. I wasn’t sure what it was so I picked it up and smushed it. It was white, around the size of a marble, and the eggs inside were pink. I threw it out of the bed and I feel bad that I did that since I don’t know what kind of creature it was from.

Things are starting to get moving

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Today Z did a bunch of mowing on the north side, and a bit on the south side. In a lot of places you can still feel your feet sink a bit so I’m glad he skipped a lot of the south side. He did do the path to the compost – I’ve been planning that as my next wood chip project.

This week I weeded the strawberries and put out more wood chips and turned the compost mess once. The kidlet was sick Thurs-today so I haven’t gotten as much done as I might have. Today I was able to find most of the garlic and onions (including that which was mowed and a few gopher holes). More weeding to come.

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the new strawberries. i think i took this picture on Monday. See below to see how they have recovered!
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the plants at the front and at the um top left are the newest (there are none in the far right)

Slowly drying out…

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We are still drying out after last week’s 7-8 inches of rain. Today I found standing water on the other side of the plot, so I brought 7 or 8 wagonloads of woodchips out. I covered most of the rest of the path through the middle of the garden, out to the wet spots. I didn’t manage to cover them fully as the sun was going down and it was dinner time. Hopefully tomorrow.

The strawberries are really getting there- nearly all of the recently planted crowns are doing fine. The wettest area of the bed is so nearly-dry that you can finally see the trenches that we dug (!).

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there is still water pooled in the trenches we dug

Meanwhile, the Chandlers are still there but the grass around them is growing faster than I can keep up with. The Chandlers themselves are not growing much.

The garlic is still there, too, at least in part. I found this bug that needs looking up (if I’ve photographed enough details of it). Hoping it is a beneficial predator.

'What is this bug?
Who are you?

Lots of rain

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We got roughly 2.5 inches of rain (as of 10pmish) today. The path into the garden (after the gravel ends; it is pretty low) is flooded at least as badly as it was on Monday and Tuesday before I put 9 wagonloads of compost on it. I can’t imagine what a mess the strawberries must be. Wow, this picture is blurry!

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Flooded pathway into the garden

1.5 inches into the day’s rain, the noaa website said that we’ve now gotten 88% of our normal rainfall for this point in the year. What were we at a week ago? 78%? Our total annual rainfall is about 36 inches, but it stops raining by mid-Mayish and the new rainfall year begins on October 1st.

I… must… plan… summer and fall crops…

I think that I will start to get it together in time for planting a lot of fall crops this year. Before then, I’m not so sure.