Giving Up on the Garden for This Year, Sort of

The heat and no rain has killed my Roma tomatoes...ARGH! It didn't matter how much I watered them. Same was true for most of my summer garden. About the only plants that are doing fairly well is Mel's experiment bucket garden. My straight neck squash and zucchini finally put on some female and male flowers respectively. The only problem is they have no counterparts. I've never had such a bad gardening year. It only took three weeks of blistering heat and weed growth to do it.

But I have a plan for a better spring next year. What I don't plant in the fall will get a new foot of hay, a layer of compost, and at least 6" of fallen leaves (when they drop). I'll sprinkle the whole thing with nitrogen rich blood meal and let it cook for fall and winter. I'll do the same for the fall garden when I finish harvesting it and it will cook all winter. There should be very little of the weeds left by spring also. I hadn't planned building 8" more inches of soil but I gotta do something. Short of spraying an herbicide on it, I can't think of a better solution. Besides, the worms and other beneficial organism will love it. I'll be hitting up the orchard after the trees and bushes go dormant. I'll spike them with Jobe's Organic fertilizer stakes this year too for good measure. I want to sow amaranths and millet around where Mel has planned the new coops and runs for extra goodies for the chickens. We just love our chickens. It's also a good shield from predators.

I ain't tilling no more.  Uh, uh, no way, no how. I'll be saving pennies all fall and winter to afford more of the landscape fabric and pins. We'll also be investing (Haha! They're free) in more five gallon buckets to make Mel's experiment a reality in a big way for all my tomatoes and pepper plants. I'm thinking 40 more buckets and two more stands to start with. So we'll both have a busy winter projects. I'll probably splurge and buy a couple 1"x 10' PVC pipes even though we probably have something that we can make do with here, but I'm not sure if we have enough to do 40 pots. I've got to get another 1/2" PVC pipe for another quail triplex watering system anyhow.

This time, I plan on spreading the landscape fabric underneath the bucket benches. I sure got tired of pulling the weeds that kept growing up between the wire shelving, because we didn't do it in the spring.  Lesson learned. Isn't it amazing how we keep learning as we go in homesteading?! Even when we think we know it all we are still learning. That's what I love about this lifestyle.

So it's back to the drawing board for our organic garden, sort of, to get the weeds under control again. Honestly, it was time to pile on a fresh layer. It should be done every year and we skipped last year because I wasn't able to do it. Usually it's about 6" worth not 18", but it's been a couple of years. All that composting being done shrinks with time. Healthy, nutrient rich soil equals better produce, Over the winter, I'll also be sprinkling wood ash too.

Yes, next spring will begin a great gardening year, starting with revitalized soil and less weeds.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Three Sisters Method of Planting

I REALLY want this from Amazon!

As many of you readers know, we don't do anything by conventional means on this Cockeyed Homestead. Last Sunday. I touched on the way I plant our garden. I do what works for me. I grow an adaptive garden which makes it easier for me to care and harvest my produce. I use the square foot gardening method to plant my garden in zone, but I'll also interplant these zones with multiple crops of vegetables and herbs.

Now I not only do square foot gardening and companion plant, but I throw succession planting also. With a small amount of growing space (less than 1/8 an acre), I can harvest what we need for a year. I get triple duty and harvest from the same square foot of space I have to garden in for optimum results. I don't make raised beds anymore but use the whole garden set up in "rooms" or different sections. The whole garden has had years of ground up tree stuff, hay, straw, cardboard placed on it for years to build and condition the hard packed clay soil into a nutrient dense growing medium. Why would I plant in single rows with plants two foot apart. To me, it's a waste of space.

Hey, what can I say. I'm the eclectic minded in all things. There are many ways to build a gardening and gardening. I do a little bit of most of them in my organic garden.

This leads me to today's topic, the three sisters method of planting. Now if you follow the square foot gardening method, you can plant four corn seeds in a square foot section, or nine climbing beans/peas, or one squash/pumpkin/gourd/sweet potato per square.

I don't do that. I expand my square to two feet. I'll plant three corn seeds 6" apart, seven bean/peas around it three weeks later, I'll plant more for a bumper crop harvest of dried legumes. I'll plant squash/pumpkin/gourd plants in each corner. In the spaces between the squashes/et al, I'll plant nasturtiums and marigold flowers to deter nasty insects and diseases. I'll skip the next square foot and do it again on down the row or section. I do leave myself 3' around each mound to maneuver.

This year around my 46 bi-colored corn, I'm planting black eyed peas, kidney beans, and baby lima beans to dry next week. Two weeks after they begin to sprout I'll go in and plant more bean/pea seeds. Since the peas and beans will be drying on the vines, I want to have plenty to harvest. I planted my corn transplants in my garden last week so next week I'll plant seeds and transplants of vegetables and flowers around the corn.

I honestly love this method of planting. It's a no brainer for weed and pest control. Yes, it takes up space in my little garden, but oh, the havest! In case you are wondering, I do not like pole or runner beans. No fencing required. The stalks will remain in place until the last of the beans.peas are harvested. 

Down in the orchard, I'll be planting my dent corn later in the summer. The ears will dry on the stalks and harvested before the first frost. This is my winter chicken feed and my grits/corn meal/ corn flour. We won't be 100% self sufficient in this, but close to 75% but that's better than having to purchase it all. Oh, Before I forget the mention it. I'll grow three black oil sunflower seed in the 6" center space in the corn. So I guess my cockeyed garden is FOUR SISTERS. 😄 I'll also be planting them in and around my dent corn too. My bunnies and chickens LOVE their snacks. 

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Transplants Are Done Now What?

Well, we spent the week sowing seeds into assorted pots, containers and soil blocks. Now what are we up to on the homestead? We tilled under all the hay, straw and compost that we spread to overwinter in the garden and orchard. This is the last till under on this scale that we'll have to do. From now on it will just take a rake and fork. Yes, we've finally built up enough good, organic soil in these areas!

HURRAY!!

It's taken a couple of years of work to get to this point. Our soil is once again teeming with all healthy organisms and worms galore. We can dig over two feet down and not hit granite nor hard packed clay. The soil may have streaks of the red clay throughout, but it's light and fluffy for good oxygenation of the root systems. As if we needed further proof, this winter has been one for the record books for rainfall. Not once during the deluge of rain fall did the garden flood even with several inches of rain. This sure beat three years ago when you needed galoshes to walk in the garden area.

The gate posts Mel built out of the Sweet Gum tree she chopped down and pallets fell over winter. Too much rain, high winds, and weight snapped off the trunks at ground level. She has plans for a new set up for this year. The garden gates will be housed with an arch way with climbing roses in raised boxes on either side. We are aiming to beautify or spaces this year now that we have firm outlines and good soil within. I'm thinking of the Rosa Rugosa. They are a single petaled rose that should give us ample rose hips at the end of blooming season.

Remember, us being a small homestead of only two acres, everything has to do double or triple uses. In this case attract pollinators, rose hips for health and nutrition, and beauty(and fragrance). Our herbs and flowers also do the same thing plus deter the bad predators in our garden like cut and cabbage worms, aphids, etc.

Of course, I'm still waiting on Mel to give me the bottom line on what she needs to purchase. She's great at planning and building projects, but she's slow in determining cost of a projects. Since I'm the one footing the bill, I kind of want to know.This irritates me a bit because it shoots any budgeting plans I have in the foot.

Garden gate fell!

While the arched arbor with roses climbing over them would be grand, I just want a gate that will keep our free ranging chicken out of my growing vegetable patch. I don't want a repeat of the darn, blasted chickens again like the first two years of gardening here. They've done their job of denuding, eating pests, fun scratching, and fertilizing our garden all winter long. Now is my turn to play.

In two weeks, we'll start planting our cool weather crops like English peas, radishes, beets, carrots and lettuces so the gates need to be fixed. So far, the chickens have not messed with the garlic and leeks we planted last fall. Here's hoping they survive in the orchard. I don't want to even plant in the garden before the gate goes up. Not to mention my having easier access (safer) into the garden.

So we're setting up the garden to be planted. This year Mel set up the garden plan with a little input from me. Just the opposite of the last three years. Maybe her Hodge podge way of planting will work better this year with decent soil. I'll definitely be mulching it all in and watching.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Jo

 

We're Still at it- Putting the Orchard to Bed

We're down in the orchard this week again. We're a few weeks late with this project. The outside temperatures during the day are a brisk 40 ish degrees. The on and off again cold rains have put us behind. We're putting the orchard to bed for the winter. I bought two rounds of straw. They were cheap enough at $40 a round. That's a lot of straw and we're spreading it by hand! If we could just snap the twine and netting holding it all together and simply roll it out on the tiers it would be easier, but they are so blasted big and heavy, we can't.

We dumped one round on one side of the orchard and the other on the other side. About midway down on the five tier levels. We were thinking smarter than harder. We each grab a cart and wheel barrel full and spread it along each tier. Once we reach the other side, we do it again. This time with the other bale. It would go faster with many hands, but we've only got three so we keep plugging away at it. Between the two of us, we can cover a 4'x75' tier in a day laying the straw 12" deep. This is on top of the wheat, barley, oats, and wheat orchard grass we planted in the spring.

On top of the straw we are broadcasting bone meal, blood meal, and sifted manure and straw from the bunny barn and chicken coop to speed the composting process faster. The larger chunks have been broken down to where they are in usable 1/4" size. Mel built a compost/manure screen to do this. Then, we spread another 6" or so of straw on top.


Fresh chicken manure is nitrogen rich, but it will break down with the straw and rains so it will be plantable by spring.While most compost mixtures are 2:1 carbon to nitrogen our orchard leans more the 4:1 carbon to nitrogen using half aged to fresh chicken manure. Yes, chicken manure has that much nitrogen. The late fall/early winter rains will water it in.  Eventually, snowfall, will do their part in keeping the mixture moistened during winter.Thank you Mother Nature. Again, we are working smarter not harder.

How do I know this about fresh or half aged chicken manure? The straw bales that we seasoned and planted in last spring, we broke apart this fall. We seasoned them with hot chicken manure. They were cooking and fertilizing our Roma tomatoes all growing season. When we pulled the last of our tomatoes up, the bales fell apart. Other than a very thin outside layer of wheat straw, it was all compost inside. All I had to do was pull off the baling twine. Neat, huh! I figured to get two years use out of the bales, but that didn't happen.  Each of the bales were also full of earth worms, a double whammy of benefits. The same will be true with the orchard.

This should be the last time we have to do so much in the orchard to build up the heavy clay soil. They say, the third time is the charm, I'm hoping so. All will be tilled in to lighten the clay even more in the spring. The whole area will be sown with orchard grass and wheat to keep weed seeds from coming up in the orchard. We had fewer and fewer sprout the last two years. The whole area besides where the apple trees, fruiting bushes, and grapes are. We can now dig down a foot and not hit any hard, compacted clay or granite. That's been the whole point of doing this. It will only get better from here.

The year after, spring 2020, we'll be sowing dye source, wild flowers on the lower tier under the pecans and black walnut trees to hold unwanted weeds to get a foothold. They'll self sow themselves while the two-year old trees mature. I've read that there is concern that black walnut trees can poison and area for edible crops, but dye source flowers should do well. At least until the canopies of the trees block the sun. Then, we'll sow orchard grass back into that area and plant the wild flowers for dyes one tier up. But that's a job for four years from now.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Jo

Building Organic Garden Soil, Finances, and Homestead Design

Well, the cardboard is laid. At least it is all out of the house. It was quite a pile. Since Mel is in summer mode, she's spending the majority of her time, in not building mode, on the screened back porch because it is cooler. The formal dining room was being used as the cardboard storing area. All the shipping, drink, and assorted boxes are broken down as flat as they can go. All the packing tape is removed. Who wants plastic in their organic garden, not me.

When we get a goodly stack, table and surrounding floor is covered, we set about moving them where they are needed. These areas right now, is the vegetable garden for stubborn weedy patches and the orchard. It's a slow process building soil this way, but we're in it for the long haul. Doing something the right way always takes time, but the end results are worth it.

I'm waiting on the rains next week to thoroughly soak the cardboard in place. Then, I'll cover it all

with straw and hay. I'll wait until it rains again to soak it all in place before I add the compost layer or sprinkle bone meal over the area. I'll repeat this process again and again throughout the fall and winter seasons (without additional cardboard layers). By the time the snow falls, it's time to quit and let it all cook during the rest of the winter until early spring. This type of layering is a "lasagna" gardening technique for building organic soil. Instead of a chopped leaf layer, Mel will blow leaves from the property. Instead of peat moss, we use wheat straw and fescue hay (both are relatively available and cheap here). Two 4x5 rolls of hay ($45) will cover the 1/4 acre orchard in several inches. We roughly measure each layer by the foot.

Worms love the wet cardboard. They are drawn to it devour it, and lay their eggs in it. Then, they will get started on the upper layers during the winter speeding up the composting over winter. The worm tea fertilizes the broken down material. They'll also break up the hard clay. So long as you feed them, they'll stay in the area. They'll multiply at will in the warm, composting layers creating a bio-diversified soil mix. In the orchard, this will be the second year of doing this and the last giving us almost four feet of new soil to plant in.

Building soil this way, on such a large piece of land isn't easy. It's time consuming and often back aching labor. It would be easier and more expensive hauling in three dump trucks worth of top soil and compost in. But there is no telling what is in those truck loads. From experience, I've found "compost" less than half composted material (branches and too green stuff mixed in). Fill dirt and top soil is often riddled with weed seeds just waiting for the opportunity to sprout. I want to reduce my labor not increase it.

Last year, we did a "back to Eden" layering with shredded trees and branches waste with a combination of cardboard and straw for the orchard. We had an abundance of tree "trash" after hurricane Irma blew through. This year, not so much. Thus, the lasagna gardening technique. Sometimes, one method just isn't doable because of the expense. I mean nothing beats free with a minimum of labor afterwards, right?

We're building this homestead on the cheap because we don't have thousands of dollars to do it with  Granted, I did shell out $1500 to have the orchard area cleared and terraced. It was necessary to expand our homestead infrastructure. It will return to me many times over in produce, grain, and straw... not to mention fruit and wine.

This was a major expense on my fixed income. Anything over $500 a month is what I consider a major expense. Still, I'm thankful that I have that amount of sort of dispensable income being on just Social Security and my retirement check. I owe of this all to my beloved's careful financial planning. God give him rest. With Mel full time on the homestead and not working outside the homestead, it's a blessing to be sure.

Cockeyed Homestead layout design

We are planning our homestead with aging in place in mind. After all, nobody is getting any younger. It's only smart. We are both sexagenarians already and women to boot. That's not to say that being women alone is a hindrance, but working smarter, as well as harder at times, does come into play more than if we had a man around to do the heavy lifting. The majority of our housing, barn/workshop, gardens, orchard, livestock are all in half an acre rather than spread out over our two-acre property.  This is only partly due to the landscape of the property. The other part is accessibility  in the design layout of ours.

I had thought to plant my berries and grapes on the top tier of  our orchard but changed my mind and planted them on the second tier from the top. The berries and grapes are easy enough to tend to on the second tier. The berries and grapes enjoy full sun on the second tier and protected from strong winds that can sweep through the hollow. Once the fruit trees mature and grow in size, the berries and grapes will have even more protection, but still have plenty of full sun because of the terraced hillside.

Example of our elevated pallet raised beds

On the top tier is more shaded so it's perfect for the raised pallet beds with herbs. While most herbs love full sun, the sun gets pretty strong and heated in Georgia. The partial shade will benefit them on the top tier. There will also no watering issues because of them being elevated beds. A simple soaker hose system attached to the 375- gallon water tote should supply them with ample wet stuff throughout their growing season. The beds will over winter with a thick blanket of compost and mulch.

Did I mention that these beds do double duty? In the space below the beds we stuff with large, perforated, black trash bags filled with moist leaves. These leaves will compost and form mold that increases the biodiversity. Ants and worms will work to break down the leaves over time. This way the space these beds take up do double duty. To make removal of these bags easier, we tie long pieces of baling twine around the top of these bags with the other end wrapped around a nail on the outside of the raised bed. The baling twine is recycled from the bales of straw and hay we purchased during the years.

We'll even reuse the bags too until they are too torn up to use again for leafing. Then, they will be cut into 3" strips and braided them to form weed deterrent mats under the fruit trees. The braiding will allow water to seep into the ground and it makes them stronger. They'll have many more years of reuse to them. I even reuse baling twine to make these. As the trees grow they will need bigger mats so nothing goes to waste. I'll even leave rows gap stitched together so I can plant garlic in the gaps. Garlic keeps moths and other pests away from fruit trees. On average, every five rows of braids gets a gap row for garlic, onions, or leeks. So once again, this shows multiple reuses/repurposing of items that usually end up in landfills. It doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to work. Nothing goes to waste on our homestead until it is definitely unusable again.

Y'all have a blessed day.