Weekly Garden Thread - April 2-8, 2022 [Garden Goals for 2022 Edition]

April 2, 2022 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memorium

[Pollard]

Link on prepperwebsite to this - https://prepschooldaily.blogspot.com/2022/04/recyclables-to-save-now-for-gardens.html

Starts out talking about unavailability of Jiffy pots but then only talks about small containers. Link at bottom of article goes to another about homemade potting soil/mix but all recipes use coir or peat moss which still have to be purchased.

Even my oldest books 1967/1977 mention spaghnum/peat. The one from 67 is The Complete Book of Composting from Rodale and it does have one potting soil recipe where peat is one of a few options.

1 part good garden soil
1 part compost, leaf mold, peat or other form of humus
2 parts sharp/coarse sand

[Pollard]

Another NPK of everything site

https://npkofeverything.com/
https://app.npkofeverything.com/

2243 items and counting. Start typing item/ingredient name in app to quickly filter or fill in desired NPK amounts as lower and upper range.

Items I have at the ready

oak leaves——— 0.80 - 0.35 - 0.20
comfrey———— 1.80 - 0.50 - 5.30
goat manure—— 1.35 - 1.00 - 3.00
Chick manure-— 5.00 - 2.00 - 1.00
bone meal——— 2.00 - 11.0 - 0.00
Wood Ash——— 0.00 - 3.00 - 16.0 and raises pH

Manures are as dried manure.

Biochar is not listed and I didn’t find it elsewhere aside from mention that it does raise K and Ph levels.

I thought comfrey was all N and was surprised to see the K three times the amount of N. No mention of dried, fresh or tea. I’ll have to look around for more info on it. Mine might be big enough to clip some leaves this Fall.

I made more potting mix yesterday by using the other I had made but adding leaf mold and just a little soil. By Fall, I plan to have a mix or some mixes figured out using what I have here plus some sand I’ll need to buy. I’ll just get a yard of it which ought to last a long time since the mixes can be reused. I need some for raised carrot beds too.

[Pollard]

My poor little seedlings I put out this week are getting hit with 30+mph gusts today. I’ll have to water this evening when the wind dies down as I’m sure this wind will dry out the top inch or two of soil. Calling for a low of 31 tomorrow night but in reality, the low happens at 5-6am and only lasts an hour so I think everything will be fine. All brassicas/lettuce/peas and hardy greens. House will block some wind and I can use a couple of 2’x10’ sheets of roofing metal to block more. Back to the low 70s next week. If it’s not too windy, the maters and peppers can get a little outdoor time.

My list;

Inoculate Shiitake logs
Supports for maters, cucumbers and pole beans.
Clean other IBC tank and get them set up on pallets and fill them for garden & goat water.
Move former goat pen to put around big garden area
Get seed taters and plant in that area
Keep up on succession seed starting and planting
Plant pole beans, cucumbers, watermelon, carrots, corn and dill - not in that order
Weld up high tunnel hoops and get in the ground
Prep soil for high tunnel spot
Cover high tunnel $$$
Plant Fall/Winter crops including Winter food plot(s) for goats
Continuous cutting/splitting of firewood to clear land and keep warm next Winter

Need to get one more IBC tank so I can have two for harvesting rain water off the high tunnel and one for goat water. Guy up the road is giving them away but he kept the cages they come in to put firewood in. I don’t know what will happen when I fill them with no cage. I can always make cages out of pallets.

Sometime in the next year or so I want to start making implements for my little tractor to use in the high tunnel or outside of it for that matter. Bed shaper, maybe with plastic mulch dispenser. Various things for planting, cultivating and harvesting. The market gardeners all use standard 30 inch beds but my tractor has 24 inches between the tires so I’m doing 24” beds. I suppose I could add 3” wheel spacers to get to 30” gap between tires. That way I could get standard market garden tools that are all 15 or 30 inch like the 30” broad fork and baby greens harvesters.

I’d really like to make a little money with this at some point and think there’s a decent customer base here from Apr to Oct. Many thousands flock here from the St Louis area for the weekends every Friday when the weather’s not nasty. There’s also a college town nearby that has two markets. That’s years down the road. First thing’s first. Get good at growing and feeding us.

[Pollard]

[Ellendra]

They don’t have “biochar” by that name, but it does have “corncobs ground charred” which is one type of biochar. Apparently that’s a 0-0-2.01

Looks like a fun site to poke around in.

[Ellendra]

Cool biochar article: https://www.biochar-journal.org/en/ct/32-How-biochar-works-in-soil

[KC Burke]

Holy Cow

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Well, unless I move someplace else it won’t happen. I am in a suburb inside of city limits. City code would restrict it to 10’x12’, about big enough for tools and lawnmower and gas cans and other stuff. (Might be big enough to leave behind whatever it was Diana was talking about in her picture!)

(Low tonight 29 degrees! Should be OK in the low tunnels, but I threw a tarp over them in case. I also ran a pipe wrap cord in the one that had the tomatos in it for a bit of heat.

Plum trees/lilacs. Covered several with gardening fabric bag hoping to preserve the blossoms.)

[Pollard]

Ain’t it purty. The pic is a link. He’s in upstate NY and has no tractor and is no-till. All done with hand tools. Rarely uses the walk behind tractor. He does hire help and I’m sure he gets top dollar being where he is. He grows and sells all kinds of stuff that people here in MO would look at and think it’s alien food or something the cattle might eat, at least in the rural place I live.

Arugula? Isn’t that the sound the old car horns used to make?

He also named off a lot of Johnny’s Seeds F1 hybrid varieties which are 30-50 cents per seed. Grafts all his tomato plants.

BUT - his techniques with using hand tools only, I think is pretty good. He’s put a lot of thought into everything and has a common sense approach to things.

Funny thing is, I found his videos right after making a post here talking about building or buying implements for my little tractor.

Of course he doesn’t show the early years when he was probably pulling his hair out while pulling grass out. Existing grass is a whole lot different than later weeds. Probably took several years of hard work to get things weed free. He’s also one of those that is selling courses. Low low price of $2800 for lifetime subscription. LOL

Who’s lifetime? My 19 year old daughter or this 50 year old youtube guy?

As usual, I’ll gleam whatever knowledge I can get from free videos and articles but my situation is completely different than his. I did give my email in exchange for a free mini-course. One of four videos was pretty cool. It was about marketing techniques at the farmer’s market and he had some good tricks as far as presentation up-selling and attracting attention. The latter is actually something that walmart uses. Low price leaders.

His market allows putting a couple of small tables in the walking area in front of his booths so he sticks 3 for $5 deals out there, then his checkout arrangement makes people walk the length of his booth so they see everything up close while standing in line. His display is like his farm, mixed colors, grid like patterns. No big glob of several green items. Spices close to the cash register. Whoever works the register knows the twofer/3fer deals so if someone walks up with two $2 maters because they missed the 3/$5 deal, they point it out and probably hand them that third mater and get that dollar.

[metmom]

Whose place is that?

[metmom]

Upstate NY has some pretty good soil.

I miss it. It’s far better than the stuff we have here in NH.

[Pollard]

Intro; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uiDfncIPQ0
Family garden; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzGG_YTd1Qw
Channel; https://www.youtube.com/c/NeversinkFarm/videos
Weed Free; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCVSIlanSvI (2 parts)

[Pollard]

The North half of MO is better farm land than where I am. They grow crops in the North half. They grow cattle down here due to hills, 5.0-5.5 pH silt/clay soil and rocks. I've got 2-3 acres of decent soil and the rest is rocky hills.

[metmom]

Thanks for the link. Never heard of them and I am not familiar at all with that part of the state.

[Pollard]

Not upstate like I thought. It's West of Connecticut. Neversink NY - Claryville NY area. He's a perfectionist and a thinker. I like that he's pretty much zero machine. Good shtf farming techniques.

He does buy compost and organic fertilizers. Kelp, fish meal, feather meal and one other ingredient I can't think of at the moment.

And I had no idea that wire hoes - wire weeders even existed. Nice and lightweight. I've got plenty of leftover pieces of 200k psi high tensile wire that's thin yet very stiff. Can't even bend it by hand really. I can bend some pieces up in a vise and make a set of wire hoe heads and I'm sure I have something around here to use as a handle. He also uses a tilther. Mini tiller that runs off a cordless drill. I think Elliot Coleman invented it. Johnny's sells them for almost a grand.

I've got one of these I need to drop off at the Stihl dealer and have them service the fuel system. New primer bulb, filter, hoses, clean the carb etc.

Good for mixing in compost/amendments. Just a really fast garden rake.

[metmom]

Might as well get the equipment serviced while parts are still available and your money is worth something.

[metmom]

I am definitely interested in the by hand stuff.

Machines are handy but without gas or part, pretty much useless..

[Diana in Wisconsin]

We have that same tiller and it is the perfect tool for small jobs or tilling raised beds...which I don’t recommend you do unless it’s a ‘soil emergency.’

I’m not lazy; just more pro-permaculture these days. ;)

Beau uses it to make me easy-to-plant rows in The Big Garden for my Gladiolus and rows of cutting flowers.

[Pollard]

I have a regular tiller too but I think it works me more than I work it. Brings up a lot of weed seeds too. No-till and hand tools are the goal but the full size tiller is good for breaking new ground and the small tiller will be good after that for mixing amendments into the top 2 inches until I have good tilth.

I’m going to go over the big garden area once with the big tiller since it’s back to grass/lawn and then I’ll probably sell it.

Since I fed the goats hay on that area, I’ll till it, rake it and cover it with plastic for a while and solarize the soil. Ought to be nice and rich but also loaded with grass seed. Not hot enough yet so the plastic will have to stay on for months. End of July or maybe even wait until end of Aug.

Need to till it soon though while it’s a good time of year to sell a tiller. Big tiller sale money will pay for small tiller service and then some. The same tiller goes for $8-900 this year and I’ve only had it for two years and used it twice. Have all the literature for it and it ought to clean up and look like new. Always been under a roof. Might get enough money to buy plastic for the high tunnel, especially if I can find the parts to fix the Stihl myself.

[Pollard]

Added your root crop fertilizing post to my profile page.