The Modern Victory Garden

My garden is not just a hobby.   I definitely enjoy it and find great pleasure in the time I spend in the garden, but I have a definite purpose to what I do.   To put it simply, the primary objective is to feed this household with all of our vegetable needs and as much of our fruit as is possible, and to do it in a fashion that is economical, significantly less reliant on fossil fuels, and produces food that is nutrient dense and of a quality surpassing that which I could acquire even from local suppliers.   The challenge is to do this in my “spare” time and within the limiting factors of my property and location.   Specifically, tall trees surround our property so only a portion of our land receives adequate sun exposure for most vegetables.   In addition, I live in a coastal/maritime climate that is cool and frequently cloudy.   The combination of these two factors means that most vegetables grow more slowly here than they usually do in other areas that receive more sun exposure and warmth.   On the plus side though, our mild winters allow us to grow and harvest frost-hardy crops virtually year-round and our abundant rainfall through much of the year means that irrigation efforts are generally minimal and mostly confined to the brief dry period we get in late summer (Mid July through September).   

Since I garden with purpose, I find it useful to periodically take stock on how I am doing.   Reflecting on what is working (and what is not) helps me to make useful adjustments and often challenges me to increase my efforts in certain areas.   I have been thinking about a couple of topics lately but one in particular has been occupying my focus more than others – that being the goal of achieving greater independence from fossil fuels in the food production garden.  

The abundance of fossil fuels is declining and demand globally continues to climb.   As a result, everything made with oil has been (and will continue to) cost more.   Many things in my garden are products of oil – the PVC pipe I use for grow tunnel supports and the plastic sheeting that I drape over them, the hose I use to water my garden with, and even the waterproof gloves I love to wear in the garden – all are examples of how fossil fuels are present in my garden.   I know I will not erase oil from my life or my garden, but I do try to consciously make decisions to keep my fossil fuel dependence as low as I can practically make it.   To the extent I purchase an oil based product, I want it to be something that will be durable and long lasting as opposed to a repetitive input to the garden production system.   Making those kinds of decisions and efforts translate into economic savings and ultimately a more sustainable food production garden.    

The things I think I am doing reasonably well at to keep my fossil fuel dependence minimized in the garden include:

• I almost entirely use manual tools in my garden.   The tools I regularly use include a sturdy and well-engineered broad fork (for aerating and loosening the soil), a shovel, garden spade, garden fork, pitchfork, a hoe, a rake, a three-pronged cultivator, and a scuffle hoe.   I have acquired over the years some really well made tools and I take good care of them.
• I don’t use chemical fertilizers that come from fossil fuels and I don’t use oil based pesticides or herbicides in my garden either.
• I reuse and recycle garden pots and planters.   My friends and co-workers often bring me pots to reuse such that I am actually heavy on inventory of them at the moment.   Occasionally my supply gets depleted but I have found that all I have to do is mention I could use some and people start bring them to me in great number.
• I use my PVC hoops, plastic sheeting, and bird netting over and over again.   When not in use, I carefully store them away to keep them from unnecessary sun exposure that causes deterioration.

Things I need to improve on (or have recently started changing) include:

• I still use a gas powered weed whacker about four times a year to clean up and mow down the weeds and grass in the garden walkways.   It’s really the last vestige of gas powered tools left in my garden tool arsenal that gets regular use.   The amount of walkway area makes it rather impractical (and expensive) to try and put down weed barriers and mulches.   Mowing and trimming truly is the simplest and least fussy option with my raised boxed edged beds and larger garden size.   Consequently, I am planning to look into purchasing a narrow (small) push reel mower to keep the main walkway areas mowed down and then when my current gas powered trimmer finally dies (as they always eventually do) I will purchase an electric trimmer to use on a more limited basis to trim up against the edges of the beds periodically.   I need to learn how to properly sharpen the blade of a reel type mower though if I go this route.   A knowledge and skill I currently do not have.
• I use plastic starter cell packs to start seeds in.   I rinse and reuse them a few times, but they are thin plastic, which cracks easily, and often I only get two uses out of them before they must be discarded.   About a month ago, I purchased a basic soil block maker and am intending to begin using it with my next seed starting efforts.   I plan to just repot the seedlings into larger recycled pots  so I did not purchase anything but a basic medium sized block maker (cost about $35).   I have a learning curve ahead of me with this, but I think it will be ultimately more economical and certainly less resource wasteful.
• I need to work harder at keeping my purchased and transported inputs for the garden as minimal as possible and to find local (preferably free!) sources for items I do need.   Less packaging and less transportation means less fossil fuel dependence.   Food crops are generally heavy feeders and deplete the soil if a replenishment program is not constantly employed.   Compost is a great amendment but rarely of high enough quality to provide all that food crops need nutritionally without the addition of other fertilizers.   I periodically remineralize the garden soil with the applications of rock minerals which provides slow release phosphorus and potassium, but the garden still requires applications of nitrogen sources on a regular basis.  Recognizing this, I am going to begin a separate compost bin operation to gather up pure (not mixed with bedding) chicken poop from my hens and try and create a more concentrated composted chicken manure product and to do it in such a way that I don’t lose too much nitrogen via leaching and off gassing.   That will require using a more closed container approach for this particular composting.   Not sure what I will repurpose for that project, but I am on the hunt for something that will serve the purpose. 

I have other topics that I have been thinking about recently, but I will save them for some future blog post.   Do you think about this topic in the context of your vegetable garden and do you have things you are working on as a consequence?  

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Someone noted in the comments on this week’s Harvest Monday post that my carrots were cute, thinking they were baby carrots.   Unfortunately, that was not the case (although I can see why it looked like that).   While they were indeed relatively young carrots, the real reason they were short and small is that I had already trimmed off the tips, which had carrot fly damage.   I always trim and clean my harvested produce before I weigh or photograph them.   I don’t weigh items that are damaged and I generally try not to weigh parts of the plant that are not edible.  That is why my carrot tops are always trimmed off, corn husks removed, etc. before I weigh.                         

I had some carrot fly damage for the first time last year and that should have been a sufficient enough warning to trigger me to take immediate action to put reemay row cover material over the plants, which is truly the only organic method to manage this particular pest.   However, I personally really do not like to use reemay in my garden because even though the lighter weights allow a great deal of sun to pass through, it still blocks a certain percentage of it.   In a growing climate like mine where the sun is often blocked by cloud cover, I am not anxious to put yet another filter on the sunshine by using reemay.   In this case though, I really should have taken action this spring to protect the carrot patch with some protective cover.                  

For those not familiar with the carrot fly, let me give you a brief introduction to this damaging little garden pest.   Carrot fly are small flying insects that look somewhat like an ant with wings.   The female lays her eggs in the soil close to carrots so that when hatched out her tiny maggots have a food supply.   The maggots feed on the carrot root and create dark tunnels and decay.   Carrot flies are attracted by the smell of carrots.   One way to help avoid an infestation is to try not to weed or harvest when it is damp or breezy and avoid unnecessarily crushing the actual carrot leaves.   Some people grow carrots next to a different more strongly scented crop (such as onions or garlic) to control the carrot fly.   There is some research that supports this approach but the effect is fairly negligible and not a true protection but rather more of a first line of defense.   It is also generally understood that carrot flies are “low fliers” that will not fly above a certain level from the ground. Some people plant their carrots in tall edged containers that are elevated up off the ground to thwart the low flying carrot fly.   Personally, I grow too many carrots each year for that to be a practical potential solution.   The most practical and proven effective method to manage this pest is to 1) avoid build up of the pests in the environment by using good crop rotation practices (never planting carrots in the same place in consecutive years); and 2) covering the crop with a protective barrier materials from May through the end of August when the carrot fly is generally active.                             

Usually one of the first things you may notice that indicate you have a carrot fly infestation is that some of the carrot tops become yellowed or discolored.  

By the time you notice foliage changes on the plants though, some damage has already been done to the root.                      

Since I knew I had a carrot fly infestation problem and it would only get worse the longer the roots were allowed to remain in the ground, I chose to pull all of the two main carrot beds this evening, leaving the few odds and ends I have planted in various other beds as well as the recently planted fall carrot patch that is just emerging.   I pulled quite a nice bunch of carrots… or at least they would have been nice if they were free of the carrot fly damage.   

As you can see, there is quite a bit of damage done to most of the roots.   However, there is no need to completely waste a crop with damage like this, as it is quite possible to salvage useful portions with careful trimming.   I was able to trim this mess up to provide 1.25 lbs of perfectly nice chunks of carrots that I will further slice up and cook for tomorrow night’s dinner.      

The final task I completed this evening was to cover the newly emerging bed of fall carrots with reemay.    Hopefully I got the cover on them before the carrot flies could smell the tiny new emerging plants.                    

Next year’s carrot patch will start off with covers right from the first planting up and hopefully I will get back to growing beautiful carrots once again.              

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Next weekend is my daughter’s graduation ceremony and a little family get together is planned for afterwards here at the house.   I want to use this weekend to get ahead of the garden chores so that everything is in good shape and can be largely ignored next weekend.   Here’s what I got done today:

• Moved the Siletz tomatoes out of the greenhouse
• Whacked the weeds in the garden walkways
• Sprayed all the tomatoes with an organic fungicide
• Sprayed the broccoli and cabbages with Bt solution
• Fed the onions a fish emulsion drench
• Fed the Siletz tomatoes a kelp emulsion drench
• Pastured the chickens for a couple of hours
• Fertilized the Lawn

It was a fine day (75 degrees with lots of sunshine) so working outside was a pleasure - which is probably why I managed to knock through almost my entire “to do” list in one day!   The one thing I did not get accomplished today is starting some more seeds – broccoli, cabbages, kale, and pac choi.   I will tackle that tomorrow and get them going in seed trays in the greenhouse.        

I moved the Siletz tomatoes from the greenhouse this morning because I had never intended to leave them in the greenhouse all season.   It was crowded in there with them taking up the entire center area of the greenhouse, which makes air circulation less than optimal.   They stayed in the greenhouse quite a while though because of the cool/wet weather we have been having.   However, today marks the beginning of a prolonged improved weather forecast for our region so I decided to get them out into the full sunshine.                

These plants are setting fruit so I also gave them a drink of kelp emulsion, which is a good organic fertilizer with a higher ratio of phosphorous to the nitrogen or potassium components.   There are several tomatoes formed, some in clusters, and the plants are flowering profusely.                          

The other tomatoes in the garden are all flowering but there is no fruit set on any of them yet.   Luckily, the super early started Siletz plants are working on providing me with some early tomatoes.   The greenhouse is a lot less crowded now without the Siletz tomatoes taking up the whole center area.   The Celebrity tomatoes, which will stay in the greenhouse all season, are doing very well.                              

A good sign that summer is about to arrive and maybe stay awhile is the first zucchini plant blooms.   Today I saw the first female flower blooming on the Gold Rush zucchini but sadly since there is not a single male flower open yet, the tiny fruit has no chance of being pollinated and going on to a harvestable size.   Keeping my fingers crossed that some male flowers start opening up soon because fresh zucchini sounds mighty tasty right now.          

The two beds planted up in the three sisters combination of corn, pumpkin, and beans are doing okay despite the weeks of cool and wet weather, however, they obviously were appreciating the increased warmth and sunshine today.   The pumpkin vines are starting to run already.                                 

Both the potatoes and the pea patch wanted to lay over a bit with last week’s very heavy rains but they seem to be bouncing back now that it is drying out.   I am quite amazed at how much the potato patch has grown in a relatively short period of time.   Here is the potato patch as it looked on May 8th.   The plants were just beginning to break soil and emerge.                

And here it is just a little over a month later on June 12th!                           

The potato plants are just starting to flower, which is a good indicator that the spuds are starting to form under ground.   In a few weeks, I will start checking to see if the new potatoes are big enough to start stealing now and again from under the plants.                                                          

My cat Sid spent the day following me around as I worked on things, keeping out of the way but within viewing distance of wherever I was at.   He seemed to particularly enjoy spending time under the raspberry canes.   I caught him napping there quite a lot today.                                    

The last of our many rhododendron plants is blooming right now. The rest have put on a spectacular show already and are dropping their blooms, but this one is the last hold out and is closing up the spring rhodie bloom season with a bang.   

Tomorrow will be a lazy Sunday since I got so much done today, however I will definitely spend a little time getting some seed starting done in preparation for the summer planting of fall cole crops and greens.                        

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

It's that time of year again; the slugs are out in force and hungry for the tender young plants that are emerging in the garden beds. Living as we do in the maritime Pacific Northwest and in a house that is in a small clearing surrounded by dense forest - means that slugs are my number one garden pests. Through years of experience I have found several tried and true methods for slug management - and proven several other often-recommended solutions as essentially worthless. I thought it might be worth while to share with you some of what I have learned on this subject.          

First off, let me just say that without a doubt the most effective method of slug management is to do an early morning garden inspection and just pluck them off and either drop them into a small bucket of soapy water OR fling them far into the dark woods.   If this is done about twice a week spring through fall - the populations are kept more manageable.  It does require getting up quite early a couple of days each week. In addition, it requires that you invest enough time to give a careful inspection of your plants - making sure you find the ones hidden inside the folds of leaves etc.    

The second most effective method is the use of copper collars. I have found they work really well overall but unfortunately they are not a complete solution. First, they are only practical to use on larger items like cucumbers, broccoli, etc.  Second, if a leaf is drooping down over the edge of the copper collar to the ground, slugs will use the leaf as a bridge and climb aboard the plant. Despite these limitations, I have had stellar success with copper collars and have accumulated quite a few of them.   What is particularly nice about this slug management tool is that they are permanent and completely reusable. They only require a clean up with either some metal polish or some steel wool to remove the build up of tarnish that a season of use puts on them. Here's a picture of my 2009 broccoli planting with the collars in place

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Of course, those are not possible to use on smaller items or large block plantings like my pea patch or bean patch - so here are some other methods I employ along with the hand picking:

• Copper tape wrapped around the perimeter of an entire raised boxed bed - sold with adhesive backing on them this works well but the tape is so thin that this only lasts for a few years before peeling away. I have this on one of my long vertical grow beds and it has made a HUGE difference. That bed has very little slug activity in it.   
• Diamateceous Earth ("DE") sprinkled around the outer perimeter of a growing bed area. If you remove the slugs carefully prior to putting the outer band down of DE - you don't have to dust the plants themselves. I use this stuff with great caution because if you accidentally inhale some of the dust you can really damage your lungs. Works fairly well if you don't get lots of rain for a spell and if you apply it with great care.
• I no longer use any natural mulch around plants. A thin layer of compost is okay, but I have found it is best just to wait until fall to lay down a heavy carpet of compost on the beds or just work it into planting holes when transplanting. But the reality of gardening in the rainy Pacific Northwest is that you are much better off to never layer on mulch around plants because it is a home for slugs. Deep mulching (ala lasagna gardening) is a disaster if you live in slug territory.
• Keep walkways mowed down and weeds whacked near beds - they are a home for slugs.
• Place a wood plank or board in the bed where it will not interfere with your plantings. In the afternoon, turn it over and remove all the slugs that have retreated to the cool damp underside for the day. Dispatch them in the same manner as you do for the hand picking "walk about".
• I keep an old pair of salad tongs near the garden area because they are the perfect tool for grabbing and flinging slugs with! Don't worry the salad tongs stay in the garden and are not the ones we use for meal serving!  It really does work though because the longer handles give greater throwing distance when flinging them AND I don't have to touch the larger slimy ones with my bare hands. Sadly, this does not work with the baby-sized slugs and there is nothing for it but to grab them with your fingers. Ewww... not fun but necessary.

These are all methods I regularly employ and I have found them to be effective in varying degrees.  However, what I have found to be a complete waste of time was the often-recommended beer trap solution.   My experience was that it was a lot of fussing around - cleaning them out to remove the rotten slug bodies bloated in moldering old beer and buying cheap beer or mixing yeast and sugar solutions to refill the containers sunk partially into the soil - all just to capture a scant few of the varmints. I would not recommend it at all.                     

That's my experience in the land of the slug - maritime Pacific Northwest.

After much delay, the raspberry, strawberry, and cranberry plants have all finally been put into their respective beds in the garden.   The weather forecast Thursday night was calling for windy rainy conditions for the next four or five days beginning late on Friday night.   With this in mind, I raced home from work on Friday evening, threw on my "working in the garden" clothes, and dashed out to plant the bare root raspberries and strawberries that had arrived on Monday and been sitting ever since due to unusually bitter cold conditions.   The weather had warmed up considerably on Thursday and Friday (not warm, but not frigid either) and it was dry and mostly sunny - so this was my brief window of opportunity to get this important task completed before the heavy rains arrived.     

The first thing I attended to were the raspberries.   There are 10 "Heritage" bare root plants that are going into an area that we just finished clearing last Sunday.   I dug 5 deep holes in a line approximately 2 feet apart and then dug another five holes in a line that was offset 2 feet from the first line of holes - staggering the holes so that they alternated with the first line.    In the bottom of each hole a ½ cup of general purpose organic fertilizer (5-5-5) was mixed with compost and the soil at the bottom.   The bare root plant was then placed carefully in the hole and a mixture of compost, native soil, and some potting soil mix was used to refill the hole around the root system.   The soil was pressed to firm it up and then the plants were watered thoroughly.   Bare root nursery stock is always discouraging at first because they look essentially dead and it often take quite a while to come out of dormancy and begin growing.   As a consequence they are not much to look at now - but here are my raspberry plant "sticks".  

Once the raspberries were safely in place, I focused my attention on the bare root strawberry plants.   I ordered 50 "Ozark Beauty" plants which is the same variety I currently have.   I ordered these because I am adding a second (larger) bed of strawberries to the garden this year.   The new bed is 4'x8' and the existing bed is 3'x8'.   The new bed had been previously prepped and was basically ready to go.   I broadcasted some general purpose organic fertilizer over the soil surface and then used a hoe to cultivate it into the top few inches.   A rake was then used to smooth the bed out.   The strawberries were placed into the soil using a hand spade and I was extra careful to ensure the crown of the plant was just above the soil line.   If strawberries are planted too deeply the crowns tend to rot.   The plants are spaced 1 per square foot in the new bed such that there are 32 plants in the 4'x8' bed.   I used most of the remaining plants to fill in some gaps in the existing bed.   I had started cuttings from an old bed last summer and used them to plant up the 3'x8' bed but not all of them took hold so there were some places that needed filling in.    

The last chore to be completed before it got too dark, was to plant the cranberry plants.   These are potted plants so they were fast to put in.  These 8 cranberry plants went into a 2'x8' bed that used to have strawberries in it.   The soil had been previously heavily amended with leaf based compost and rock minerals (rock phosphate and greensand) and so it was in great shape as a new perennial planting bed.    Before planting out the cranberries, I sprinkled some garden sulfur (to acidify the soil) and general purpose organic fertilizer over the bed and worked it in and then raked everything smooth.    The plants were popped in - spaced approximately a foot apart in a slightly offset/alternating pattern and then were watered in well.   Here's a picture of one of the cranberry plants.  It's a little hard to see because they are a burgundy color which does not contrast much with the dark soil underneath it.   

Right now the plants are basically just small "twigs" but they grow into a low mat and create a nice ground cover effect.  I have several other cranberries growing in front of the shop underneath some blueberry bushes.  I think these new plants will produce better though because the soil conditions are much better in the garden beds than in front of the shop.   

The berry planting was finished just as it was getting too dark to work.   Put all the tools away and called it an evening.   I am hoping to get some more  plantings done this weekend in between the rainstorms.   I have onions, broccoli, cabbages, and kohlrabi that have been growing and hardening off in the unheated greenhouse which really need to get into the ground soon.   I also wanted to get the big pea patch going this weekend as well.   Not sure how much of all of those tasks I will be able to get accomplished (the weather will dictate that to a large degree) but I am hopeful that at least some of it will get done.