Beds

One resource I've been relying on very heavily this summer is "Great Garden Companions" by Sally Jean Cunningham. I found this book in the MULCH shed and it has been an EXCELLENT resource. It may be a bit dated (it was published in 1998) but it's all about planting this in a way that they benefit each other and you don't have to use external chemicals. In her very first chapter "Getting ready to Garden" she talks about why raised beds are so important. Not only does it show CLEARLY where the paths are in your garden (because you really shouldn't walk on the beds) it allows you to build soil that is healthy, nutritious, and excellent to work with. 


The MULCH south bed had individual raised beds, however last weekend we had two HUGE thunderstorms that washed a lot of the soil into the paths. One of the many consequences of large storms (another being the flooding I experienced in my basement this weekend... where I sleep. I do so love living in a house). So I've decided to start a project of re-lifting the beds. I'm literally digging the path, but I think that the work I do will really benefit the beds in the long run. The soil isn't that good. It needs a lot of rehabilitation. And at the end of the season, I'm going to see to it that it gets plenty of compost turned into it and is properly "fluffed" (in Sally's immortal words). Ideally when you're making the paths you rake the topsoil off and onto the center of the beds. I can't do this because the soil is so dry in crusty that there isn't really a layer of topsoil that can be raked. Hence the shovel. While giving the beds the full rundown they need isn't necessarily plausible right now, I did do a lot of work on some of them and tried replanting. Hopefully with some love and care, I can get the Black Beauty Zucchini and Haogen Melon to grow. 


In the late summer, sally recommends layering materials on the beds so that they're ready to plant in the spring. I don't want to directly plagiarize her, but essentially it's like making a passive compost pile that will process over the winter. Layering greens and browns so that enzymes can go to work and seedlings will have lots of nutrients the next spring. Soil is SO tricky. It needs a lot of care and attention the first couple of years so that it can be fertile. There are tests that you can have done to see what the balance is and ph level and from there you'll know what you have to fix. It's painfully obvious when it's off though. The North bed of the MULCH garden is rich with plant life right now, and the South bed... is not. 




Today I harvested garlic scapes. Scapes are the would be flowery parts of the garlic, but you really don't want them to bloom or else energy that should go to the bulb goes to the flower so you have to break them off. There are wonderful recipes to put the scapes into (mostly pesto from what i've seen but they're essentially like chives). You can usually buy them at farmer's markets so I highly recommend trying them out!

Sustainable Landscaping

For the past couple days I've been pretty heavily researching sustainable landscaping. It seems that green engineering may be my future... but we'll see.
The director of facilities has agreed to help sponsor a new design for the backyard, since one was never really put into space. Avid readers (if I have any) will remember that I already did some planting in the backyard. This would be an expansion of what's already there. The tricky part of the EcoHouse backyard is that it's not just shady. It's got a variety of different sun levels. It actually makes the project a little more fun, however. This is a rough I compiled of the things that have already been planted in the backyard (click to see the whole picture):

It's pretty rough in terms of presentation, but the location of everything is accurate. The grey represents shaded areas, and the dark grey on the sides represents the sidewalk. The lower left corner of the yard tents to accumulate a lot of water because of the location of the downspout (the long brown rectangle) so I've been looking into moisture tolerant plants. So far, using suggestions from the DNR and availability at the Outback Nursery (just for example prices) I've compiled a database of plants categorized by their of shade, moisture, type, size, and overall benefits. I'm still finalizing this list, but once I have the plants I really want, I'll draft a couple planting plans.
What I think we're going to try (since there's still a great deal of weeds in the yard) is using weed killer on the more troublesome plants and weeding the rest. There's a whole lot of creeping charlie that I'll cut back and then spray. Herbicides and weed killers are a tricky choice. Whenever possible it's better to just weed or cut back the problem plant, but sometimes the only way to stop them from coming back is by spraying. When used in small quantities, they don't do nearly as much damage.


The other issue I've been dealing with is chipmunks. In addition to poor soil, the South bed has a chipmunk neighbor. It's been eating all the little plant sprouts so that they don't even have a chance to survive. So how do you get rid of chipmunks? Well, the simple solution is to trap them. You can use live traps or deadly traps. But then what if they come back? Where one chipmunk was another is sure to appear, right? So other suggestions online were using predator urine (like fox or wolf urine, found at many hunting stores) which tend to scare away any pests. When my family got a cat, he was the most effective chipmunk trap we ever had. While we never found bodies of rodents (thank god) he certainly kept them away for our yard and our neighbors. So I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I'll probably do a combination, with help of the facilities department.

Weeding

Weeding is a tedious and necessary part of gardening. You plant things you want, you pull things you don't want. There a couple ways to try to avoid weed growth (though I've been assured the battle is never won). One is mulching. When things start to sprout, mulch with woodchips or what have you around your seedlings to keep anything else from coming up. There are different mulches for different plants, though I think woodchips are a pretty safe bet. Mulching with compost is also a good idea. The other thing is clover. Clover is a pretty active ground cover that a lot of people weed, but I read in "Great Garden Companions" that it's decent at preventing other- more harmful- weeds from taking root. So for now i'm leaving the clover, if it starts to look threatening I'll pull it. 

Beans

In the North bed of the garden we have 3 rows of pole beans. Pole beans like to climb (think Jack and the Bean stalk) the interesting thing about them is that the stalks are actually a little grabby (I think they have tiny hooks) that allow them to hook onto a pole and wrap around them. Ideally when you plant the beans you'll plant poles alongside them so they have something to climb, or you could also create a sort of Teepee around them, go here for more information. 


We didn't give the beans anything to climb when we planted them, but we did line the rows with poles to mark where they planted. So I just spent the last hour and a half stringing twine across to give them something to grow along. I'm hoping that this works, so far they're holding on just fine, but I won't know until tomorrow if the beans will actually grow along them of their own accord. I'll post pictures tomorrow to give examples (forgot my camera today). 


In the South bed of the garden I did a little bit of soil rehabilitation. Ideally soil is 40% sand, 40% silt, and 20% clay. A lot of the beds seem to be pretty sandy, given that they don't hold on to water very well at all, and the surface is left crusty and unfriendly to planted seedlings. Contrastingly, the soil over by the EcoHouse has been super compacted and has a higher percentage of clay (when I water the plants in the back yard the water tends to sit in large puddles for a while). I had a lot of soil left over from planting in the back yard, so I brought it over to the South bed and mixed it in (along with compost for organic matter) to the beds that were so hostile nothing planted had grown (and lived). I'm thinking I'll apply to the sustainability office for funds to plant new seedlings there in a couple of weeks. 


There are tests you can have done to test the quality of your soil. Overall, it should be fairly apparent given how your plants are growing and what happens when you water your soil. Soil compaction is also an issue! You don't want people walking on your beds! Aside from the fact that they can kill your plants, when people walk on the beds they compact the soil and make it hard for future plants to spread roots. I've had some problems with this over in the North bed, where there are painters working on the French House. Despite the chicken wire and the CLEAR indications that it is a vegetable garden, I found footprints in my tomato bed and a broken seedling! Ah! The best thing to do to avoid this is to make clear paths using dry leaves or wooden planks, and hope people are smart enough to pay attention to the signs. When all else fails, put up a sign with an explanation!


Yesterday my friend Nick and I endeavored to harvest some of the rhubarb over by the EcoHouse. We harvested about half the patch. I heard that the more you harvest it the more it grows, but just to be safe we left a significant amount. We didn't have enough to make a full pie (which we had hoped to do) but we chopped it up into little pieces, partially covered it with water, added a cup of sugar, and let it cook down to a jelly. We ate it over ice cream, yum!


The elderberries are starting to ripen so I can't wait for that next project! I've heard of some great ideas for what to do with them. I just have to beat out the birds!

tree planting

So I FINALLY got all the plants I bought for the EcoHouse yard into the ground. I had to get help from Terry Gorman of the security office so that I didn't accidentally dig into any wires or pipes. (If you're ever planting anything that needs to go deep in your yard, make sure you know where things are). As it is I NARROWLY missed some wires when I planted the raspberry transplants... EEP!

I don't have internet so that's part of why I haven't blogged in a while. Hopefully I can start getting more posts up. It's actually kind of cool though because I'm blogging from the garden right now. 

Anyway the soil in the EcoHouse yard has a high percentage of clay, which means it has a tendency to hold onto water. This is a problem because when it rains, the water can't seep into the ground. Taking this into consideration, we mixed a hefty amount of compost with the soil as we planted. Hopefully that will help the plants establish a little better. As it is, they'll have a tough time of it. Once plants start to establish they have an overall positive effect on the soil, they tend to make it better for other plants after them. I have a feeling this will be a multiyear project.

Over in the South MULCH garden, I have a chipmunk problem. Unfortunately there is no magic plant that will deter chipmunks, so I only have a couple of options. The first one I want to try is rebuilding the fence. While it is rabbit proof, the chicken wire has holes that are big enough for a chipmunk to easily run through. It's eating the plants I have sprouting down to the ground, and has killed a bunch of the seedlings. The other option I have is to trap it, but if I trap it then another chipmunk will come and take its place. So I'll get some funding for new fences from Suzanne. 

In the North bed things are doing WONDERFULLY. The soil there is SO good! The beans are getting so big I'm going to have to give them things to climb soon. More info on that once I research it. Also the seedlings I planted there are getting bigger... no chipmunk to eat them! (also, I saw a cat prowling around, so maybe it's helping my cause). Anyway, I'm off to go shower before tour guide training (my OTHER job on campus this summer) but hopefully I'll have an update later this evening with information on beans.