Garden Switcheroo

Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmers Market. This episode was originally going to cover the construction of the crescent bed from its humble beginnings almost six years ago. Unfortunately, when you take thousands of pictures spread across two cameras, finding the right photos becomes quite the herculean task. In short, this episode is late because I ran out of time organizing it. So instead I’m going to swap this episode which was supposed to be posted on the 1^st of November for the one intended to be posted on the 15^th. The good news is that the episode for the 15^th too covered how a garden bed was built, so they were thankfully in the same vein even if not quite regarding the same exact topic. So, Today I will be showing you the new vegetable bed and the methods I use to both build new high-productivity beds and how I expand them when needed.

The original bed was  roughly two row's wide and the soil was a mix of recovered topsoil and spent potting soil.

The basics of the bed are pretty simple I laid it out and planned it to be a simple ‘vegetable patch’ no frills but a definite winter harvest was the idea. The original dimensions of the bed were small, eight feet and three inches of workable space with a sic inch border that would be covered in at least an inch of long leaf pine straw. The above picture was taken in early October. But I realized this wasn't quite enough, so the bed was later expanded, and you get what the next picture shows.

I know it looks bigger, but what you cant see under the pine straw is the sloped soil edge the addition added two more rows worth of arable area to the bed.

So the expansion used more recovered soil, spent potting soil from seasonal crops and any compost I had on hand, it only doubled the useful area. Once this was planted out, plans for a third expansion were being mulled over. I do not have a picture of when I added two more feet to the bed's width. However I had the presence of mind to photo-document the fourth expansion which made the bed it's current size 8' 6" by 8' 3". Ironically as an unintended effect of the expansions, the cold season crop's maturity dates are staggered meaning more harvests over time, a total win in any book.

The first step is to break out the hoe and peel back the grass, weeds and whatever else is in the way of the expansion.

The above is where I strongly will disagree with some gardeners; I never put down cardboard, or weed block. It isn't that I dont think either method will work, it's that I think of them as counter productive. Weed block last a long time and is a barrier to your plant's roots as much as it is to weeds and may trap moisture in an undesirable way. Cardboard sounds nice on paper (no pun intended), but you dont know what chemicals were used to make it and you have no real idea of how long it will take to stop being a barrier to roots. If you have a year to wait for the cardboard to decay then yes cardboard is a good idea, but why wait? A good clearing of the land can have you with viable food stuffs in a month or two. using a hoe to clear a small patch of lawn isn't even that difficult when it comes to workload. So, as you can see I used a  stirrup hoe to uproot and destroy the grass and weeds present but there is a second step to this.

 

A steel rake can  smooth the land and also pick the uprooted weeds out of the displaced soil so you dont lose your new sub-soil layer.

 Using a steel rake or a spring rake are both valid means of picking all those weeds out of your new sub-soil. You want to keep your soil, but not the weeds and with a rake you can get the vast majority of anything that might try to regrow out of the way of your desired plants. This method also causes the least disruption to the soil as a whole and is better in the long run for your garden's biology. I did say that I'd created a new sub-soil layer and this needs clarification. Firstly, by definition, 'Top soil' is whatever makes up the first layer of the soil regardless of if that layer is a few millimeters thick or inches of rich loam. In of that sub-soil can be any one of the layers of soil below that which can clearly be called soil but isn't what you'd consider acceptable for growing crops. The soil under these beds is clearly a brown-gold dirty sand. It's not surprising the lawn grass in that area was in decline.

 

This is all the weeds, grass and other stuff pulled out of the dirt in the foot print of the bed expansion.

 As you can see above, a lot of unwanted weeds and grass can fill a 2'x8' area, though only the weeds could have been called healthy.

That is 5.5 cubic feet of recovered topsoil, spent potting soil and moderate decomposition compost in the wheel barrel.

The next step is to add the new 'top soil' to the bed. In this case the soil is a mix of what I had on hand, and will be sufficient until next year when I top dress the bed with finished compost, or something like Black Hen. Notice the contrast between, the subsoil and the new topsoil. It is very important to make sure your new soil layer is starkly contrasting in quality to the old because it's an invitation to soil organisms to move into the new layer. In a year or two it wont be much of a surprise to find large earth worms in the soil as well as the fungi that will inevitably make their presence known.

Please note that a portion of the bed area is sloped and the arable area is just toe flat 2'x8' up top.

With the new topsoil in place you get a better idea of how the soil has been placed since there is no pine straw masking the edges. Some of you who see this might ask why I didn't just dig this new soil into the ground/ why the bed is mounded/raised. The answer is simple, by raising like you see, it's very difficult for the crops to get waterlogged, also there is a slight slope and this allows the plants and the bed to absorb runoff by virtue of surface area to do it with. This should reduce my need to irrigate this bed and may also reduce fertilizer use.

 

The steel rake is at play again.

 I always tamp the edges of a new bed with the steel rake to reduce any soil erosion that might occur after a new bed is placed. You can do the same thing with certain types of hoe, or an actual gravel tamper, though, the steel rake makes those nice crimp lines which are photogenic. Right after the tamping, the section gets planted out immediately, dont worry a full plant list is going to be posted.

Here is a picture of all those weeds and grasses that got hoe'd. They are in a 6 cuft wheel barrow which shows that 3-4 cuft of non-compostable green material was removed.

The finished bed.

 The last two steps are to apply pine straw to the exposed edges and to haul off any debris that resulted from the expansion project. For all you readers with eagle eyes, you probably noticed the color difference in the pine straw. This isn't because of the age of the straw, it's because the more brown pine straw is from Long leaf pine ( Pinus palustris )of which I have a single specimen on property. The flaxen colored pine straw which has a noticeably differing texture is from a White Pine ( Pinus strobus ) of which I have one specimen on the property also. It's needles are much smaller, last half as long as a mulch but are a shed in fair quantities in late autumn.

So lets talk about that plant list;

 6 × Kale, Dazzling Blue
 7 × Kale, Dinosaur
 6 × Kale, Scotch Blue Curled
13 × Kale, White Russian Kale
 1 × Collards, Alabama Blue
 6 × Collards, Green Glaze
 3 × Mustard, Japanese Red Giant
 3 × Chard, Swiss
 8 × Turnip, Golden Ball
 5 × Garlic, Elephant
20 × Garlic, Jeremiah's Heirloom
 1 × Comfrey, Bocking 14
36 × Carrot, Chantenay Red Core

 As you can see I took this winter garden quite seriously, the only perennial in the entire thing is the Comfrey and that is because it's sitting on a pile of still composting grass clippings and unfinished compost. Just in case there are some out there who do not know, comfrey has the ability to speed up decomposition of organic matter, it's roots can pulverize raw compost into soil within a year. It's leaves have medicinal properties but can be fermented into a fertilizer compound. But anyway, stay tuned for another update later in the week. If you have any questions about the winder veggie bed or bed building in general dont hesitate to ask.

By the way, some didn't believe me when I said Red Giant Mustard turned outrageously red when exposed to frost.

In the same vein as the mustard some didn't' believe my reason for why dinosaur kale is called that. It's hard to see in small plants but in mature ones it really does look like the skin of a large reptile.

With all that garden goodness covered this is the part of the blog where I have to advertise for the Fayetteville City Market. Now I know you readers probably don’t much like advertisements, but by booth at the City Market helps to cover the costs of running the test garden and literally maintains the Research & Development budget that is used to bring you the information that has made up the backbone of this blog. Also, as of the start of 2019, my booth can now process credit or debit cards thanks to the acquisition of s a Square reader so your payment options have doubled. With that said, if you want to get some GMO-free, Organic vegetables, herbs and fruiting shrubs come on down to the Fayetteville City Market on 325 Maxwell Street in downtown Fayetteville between the Hours of 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on Saturdays. Even in bad weather the market goes on though you might have to look for me under the ‘arches’ of the Transportation Museum’s front entryway.

Plants & Stuff Available Now:

All The Stuff:

Soup Kits: $6.00

Seasoning Packets: $2.00

Vegetables:

Collards, Green Glaze: 3” - $3.00

Mustard, Japanese Red Giant: 3” - $3.00

Kale, Scotch Blue Curled: 3” - $3.00

Kale, Dinosaur: 3” - $3.00

Swiss Chard: 3” - $3.00

Flowers:

Coral Bells, ‘Marvelous Marble’: 4.5” - $5.00

Houseplants & Annuals:

Polka-Dot Plants: 6” - $5.00

Kalanchoe 4.5” -$4.00

Coming Soon:

Whole Garlic

Ginger roots

These days I am generally at Leclair’s General Store once a week, for the weekly Sustainable Neighbors meeting at 5:30pm through 7:00 pm. If you have questions then I will be there to answer your questions. Since our meetings have an open-door policy you don’t need to sign up for anything or join anything, you can come on in ask for us and join the meetings. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market or pay attention to what Sustainable Neighbors is doing at the link below.

https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/

                        This brings to a close the twenty-second LITFM post of the new year, stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 15^th of November. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.