Saturday, March 3, 2012

Potatoes are making a break for it!

Two days back we, the gang of spuds and I, decided to wing it (Go Wings!) and plant them up. Or deep down. Yes, definitely deep down. That was their choice. I could have gone either way with doing that or just tossing them on top of the lawn. Either way something is bound to happen with them. It would be heaps easier finding them all at the end of the season wouldn't it?!?

This years method of choice is to place the heavily chitted pieces directly on top of the 2nd layer in the double-dug process. First foot layer being most of the top soil. The second is the broken up hardpan, heavy clay in my case. Break up the hardpan with a garden fork. Place one piece every 9-12". Layer the topsoil back over it. Thus making them about a foot down. What this will eventually give you is a bed that only has to be bothered with twice. Once during planting and twice at harvest. No constant hilling needed. How good is that!

Updating everyone on the brassica and lettuce plantings. They are all snug and thriving. The subfreezing days and nights haven't fazed them. Yesterday the blustery weather did wreak some havoc on the garlics planted out on the first. Those in the east garden bed were unaffected. The green house structure build last year keeps the wind out with the large shoji like screen panels on the sides. A number of garlic from the front yard were roughed up. The winds were strong enough to bend the tops completely over. Not to worry. I am positive its transitionary, when it warms up they will resume taking off.

Oh yes. Picked up some Azomite this afternoon. I'm sure everyone is familiar with it. Rock dusts to remineralize our depleted soils. Apparently in the early 20th century there was a senate report discussing (circa 1920) this. If I recall, our soils contain 80% less minerals. What this means for you and I is even as we are meeting our caloric needs we possibly are still starving ourselves. Our foods to no fault of their own have no way of being as nutritious as they should be. Taking vitamin supplements is a joke. Many of them are never digested. They are simply being flushed down the waterways. The only one I consume is B12. A vitamin derived from the bacteria that creates it. Not animal nor plant. Another side effect of our modern living is the lack of helpful microbes because of irrational cleanliness. A dusty carrot from your organic garden isn't going to strike us dead, Folks. Just remember to replace the minerals in our soils. We are all expecting that produce to lead us to better health.

We purchased a number of plastic seed trays today from an amazing local garden shop. It was exciting finding Azomite there. Saved $30 over having it shipped. V and I spent the early evening planting up a bunch more spinach, beets, radishes, and the various 11 flower varieties. Our soil mixture is a blend of coir, perlite, compost, Azomite, and myccorhizae. I think it should provide a good foundation for them to start. Later I will plant them into garden soil amended with more Azomite, compost, and myccorhizae.

Sadly some of the plants seem to be a little off. I've been thinking that they need a bit of fertilizer. Yesterday, we purchased fish emulsion. Oh geesh. What a horrible idea that was. It smells horrid. I'm sure it is quite useful. The thought of it, however, makes me decided to return it for a refund. Here's to sticking with plant based nutrition. Leaf mould. Green manures. Rich compost tea.

Oh! Lastly. You all know that we planted corn. 5 kernels of which have become quite the foot tall plantings. That was until Kiki decided to give them a trim. Replanted them to one gallon pots a piece. Good thing we purchased a bunch of large day lilies last year for the english garden. Now we have a few good pots to repurpose. They were done with the dixie cups after several weeks. The roots were running races around the bottom of the cups. When I gently broke them apart from each other (they were incredibly woven together amongst themselves) the roots were over a foot long. Incredible. That should hold them out for another couple weeks until after last frost when the final decision of putting them in blocks of 5 gallon pots for the season or in a bed to their own will be made.

Happy Gardening everyone!

ps. look out for that supplemental in the works.

8 comments:

  1. To help you with your slug and snail problem, sprinkle Epsom Salts around! It not only help kill those pest but it feeds the leaf crops, just be careful and don't over do it. Sounds like you have the other part under control! Thanks for the update!

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    1. Not slugs or snails around here. At least yet. Other than the one I found in the middle of winter hiding in the parsley cloche but he was evicted long ago. Thanks for the tip. Ill keep it in the tool box for slug season. :)

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  2. i'd never heard of azomite before but that sounds like great stuff, i'll have to look into it more. have you thought of using kelp (liquid or dehydrated) as a fertilizer? it doesn't have the exact same nutrition but that's my animal-friendly replacement for fish emulsion. liquid kelp works great mixed with epsom salts and sprayed on tomato leaves for foliar feeding in the summer. i also use alfalfa meal, coffee grounds, and sometimes banana peels. and compost, of course.

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    1. I'll look into the Kelp liquid. I was leery buying the emulsion in the first place but after using it to water the crops Im set on returning it. My poor plants now smell of rotten fish. I want something that I can use and then just graze the garden later on and not worry whats on them. :)

      Azomite is good stuff. The concept of remineralizing the garden to get our nutrition instead of non digestible pills is a good one. The other big one I know of is Gaia Green.

      Think of this: Your plants can only thrive as much as the least available nutrient available will allow them.

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  3. lol "go wings" !!!! =)

    I've not ever heard of Azomite---how much remineralization is occurring with my generous use of homemade compost? Probably not enough.

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    1. Yes, Indeed, my local gardening friend! Go Wings!

      That is the thing we are missing. The mineral cycle. Composting is great to build up the organic matter in the soil. It also increases bio-diversity and the soil microbes to create a living medium. All great things. The lack of minerals however will never magically appear unless we actively place them there. IE through use of added rock dusts. Or the slower process of bringing mineral rich composted plants from off site. Problem with the later is that something around 90% of worldwide soils are mineral deficient/ depleted. Adding the direct soil of minerals once bound up in rocks brings those trace nutrients back into the gardening loop. :)

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  4. Sounds like you have been very busy. Our potatoes are slowly trying to find their way upstairs..Last week there were fine this week all are sprouting.

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    1. Last evening I noticed V had bought a bag of red potatoes and they were very sprouting. For some reason I became excited. :)

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