first dig 2016

with no clear idea yet of when planting day may be , i set out to the garden this morning to spend a few hours working on turning under the green manures in preparation for that event...there were seven beds to address and i spent my limited time there working on what seemed most pressing, including the three beds that had winter rye beginning to develop seed heads, and a bed colonized by sunchokes ( next post )...so i took the garden shears and mowed the manures down and began the process of turning them in...this is only the first dig...it will take a few more turnings and some heavy work with the warren hoe before the beds are ready so i will obviously be heading for the garden after work in the coming week or so to start the other three and continue with what was begun this morning..i had planted alfalfa in the beds to set nitrogen and out of curiosity i pulled a plant up to have a look at the roots...what i found was the sugar secreting nodes ( they are the small, lighter colored parts of the roots...fairly well defined by the soil on my fingers ) so the beds should be well supplied with nitrogen, with even more coming as the organic matter from the winter rye decomposes...couple of weeks and we are home free.

alfalfa

shorter days, somewhat cooler temperatures, creeping die back in the garden = autumn...officially it begins two weeks form this coming wednesday but the time has come to begin preparing the garden beds for winter and, by extension, next spring...my intention is to get out into the community garden next weekend and begin removing the finished plants and prepare to plant green manures, cover crops, and the work with garlic, the first of the fall planters...to get a grip on what i will be doing ( never planted alfalfa before today ) i went out back first...alfalfa is a legume usually grown as forage but since it is a pulse it will set nitrogen as readily as any other...it will, if started early enough, also winter over providing some roots to hold the soil together...the second potato patch in my yard has been fallow and raising a crop of creeping charley since i harvested so this afternoon i dodged the mosquitoes and turned it over with a shovel...broke it up with the warren hoe ( top photo )...i have several packets of alfalfa seed ( second photo ) that i ordered last spring with the rest of the garden seed ( i have been planning this for some time...looking for a good green manure match ) they will cover one hundred square feet of bed and this potato patch was about forty...so i dumped about half a packet into my hand ( bottom photo ) broadcast the seed, and raked it in, adding a fair watering to help germination along...i will add the proper bacterial inoculant after the next rain ( forecast for wednesday )and...after the alfalfa has had time to establish itself...i will add in a bit of winter rye to aid nitrogen retention...i have enough seed left to cover five of the beds in the community garden...i also have ample winter vetch seed as well as dixie clover...so we can still cover all the beds...and it is probably just as well...alfalfa exhibits the curious trait of auto-toxicity...after a bed has been seeded with alfalfa it is difficult to reseed the next season, so like potatoes, the beds it is grown in need to rest and the crop rotated to another area...potatoes should be rotated out of beds for a minimum of three years ( not because of auto-toxicity, but because of viruses and pests )beds need only a year of rest from alfalfa...so the experimentation with matching plants to soil and climate continues...tuning takes time...we will get there...more on the alfalfa as it comes up.

new zealnd white clover

yesterday's heavy rainfall made today a tailor made day to plant some new zealand white clover...i mixed a batch of rhizobia bacteria innocualnt and then dug a few shallow trenches in two beds ( three sisters' and the cucumber bed )...i then liberally sowed seed ( third photo ) in the trenches ( fourth photo..even if it's difficult to see )...poured the innoculant mixture over the seeds and closed the trenches...i used distilled water for the innoculant because chlorine in tap water will kill the bacteria in the innoculant...since the soil is already moist and i poured more water on the seeds with the innoculant the seeds should be able to germinate before we have to water..this will allow a large enough rhizobia colony to form so that it can survive watering with chlorinated water and continue to fix nitrogen in the soil...this clover is a perennial and so should return each year...we can continue to plant vegetables between the rows of clover and the plants can benefit form the clover's nitrogen fixing symbiosis with the rhizobia indefinitely...sustainable fertilizer with no runoff...neat.

post-holiday campus trip

early morning on the day after the holiday found me home alone and with some spare time so of course i went to check on the gardens...there was frost on the green manures again this morning and the yellow peas would seem to have seen better days...the winter rye is going strong and there is still some clover tucked away in there as well as the hairy vetch...we will be looking in on them all winter to see what's up...i can see some yellowing in the winter wheat though...surely a sign of the onset of dormancy...there is wheat going dormant in my back yard as well so i am wondering if the wheat knows something we don't...the overwintering plants we had last season showed no signs of dormancy and if i am not mistaken i was still harvesting brussels sprouts in january of this year ) admittedly small, salad sized ones but sprouts none the less...they were good too )...so i am wondering if this winter will be different...we shall surely see...the bottom photos are of the community garden around eight o'clock this morning...the mulch covers all look good and we are buttoned up for whatever winter brings...more in a week or so as the maintenance trips will continue until we begin to plant.

fluctuations

with a temperature of around five degrees fahernheit it was cold when i got to the garden this morning...three days ago it was sixty degrees and raining which cane a few days after what constituted the first really measurable snowfall here this winter...it will be above freezing soon no doubt as winter steadily become recognizable as a stable, seasonal weather pattern...confusing to both me and the perennials...the brussels sprouts aren't confused anymore...just frozen...and the intermediate wheat grass and the easten gamagrass have gone entirely dormant but that may have more to do with day length than temperature...certainly the yams ( provided those burrows i saw a few weeks ago weren't made by predators...i can hope, but i am not sanguine ) and the asparagus ( and, with luck, the teosinte ) are slumbering...but the wheat grass domesticate from kansas are still fairly green despite the cold and the lack if any sort of snow cover...i was concerned all last winter ( what there was of it ) about the lack of a snow cover on the winter wheat but they did just fine so i will try to lose the concern for now...the last of my seeds fro next season have arrived..so there will be beets, peppers, turnips, squash, snow peas, radishes, potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, ramps, hopi blue maize, northern tepehuan teosinte, ginseng, and lamb's quarters in the garden and as autumn approaches i am going to try a new green manure mix that includes winter rye, yellow peas, hairy vetch, annual ryegrass, and dixie crimson clover...i will be treating them all with inoculant to encourage rizobia...some of it will winter kill but some will winter over to spring and enrich the soil for a new season...no chemicals here.