Welcome back to another episode of Lost In the Farmers Market, and sorry for the bad mangling of Green Day’s song ‘Wake me up when September Ends’ but let’s be real the elections have been brutal. Fortunately for all of you this isn’t a political blog, well not in the normal sense so I’m not even going to talk about the elections any more than you’ve just seen. Nope, though I do have to comment that we have officially had more tropical storms and hurricanes than in any prior year; below is a link to a CNN article that lists all of them.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/11/us/2020-atlantic-hurricane-season-fast-facts/index.html
Now, that is pretty insane and we still have about a month and half to go in the year. By my fast count that’s twenty-nine storms in total. I don’t recall us ever running out of names and having to go into the Greek alphabet for names but we’re up to Theta, all the while Eta is still slapping around as we speak. I don’t know about all of you out there but if we get close to Omega, I’m building an Ark. Joke aside the reality is that the storms, the pandemic and other events are a direct result of climate change. It was predicted that as we mess with the global temperature via things like deforestation and pollution, we would have more storms, the seal level would rise and of course more pathogens would go full-on pandemic. We as individual can make small decisions to lessen our impact and in our own way that helps slow down the damage being done by the masses. For every square foot of garden you plant you trap some carbon and extract some C02 from the atmosphere and possibly other harmful pollutants in the air, soil and water. If anything given the horror side-show that 2020 has been planting a plot of garden can act as a means of shoring up your mental health, this year’s veggie patch is bigger and better than it’s ever been. In fact here’s a picture of the finished task;
To start this picture-heavy discussion I have to answer a simple question. Why did I add extra area onto an existing and productive vegetable bed? Well, I didn’t do it because I wanted more veggies, I did it to solve a yearly problem with cold-season crops for sale at the market. Every year I produce more plants for sale than I could ever sell. This is done for two reasons, firstly I do need some for my own growing operations, but also I need some to counter losses that will inevitably happen. Some plants just aren’t vigorous or get eaten by bugs or simply die for reasons unknown. Other plants are so vigorous that they out grow their existing pot and this catches my eye and they end up as a specimen or something I propagate to obtain the seed or cuttings. More often than not some plants don’t sell and I wind up with too many using up resources in a pot too small for them to really reach full potential. So to remedy some of that I added 2’ 3” to the width of my veggie bed to utilize some of those plants that are the most numerous on the growing trays. Either way it’s a win in general, I mean look at it! All you gardeners out there know that feeling you get when you set something like this up and then look at it maybe, right after, and then a week after and then a month or so after and there’s this intense feeling of contentment. You built that and it’s successful because you wanted it to be. Ironically that is why we are here today; I wanted to show you how the above garden was expanded because it demonstrates how I actually start new garden beds.
It all starts with peeling back the lawn. For those of you who are regular readers of this blog you know my stance on lawns. For those who don’t the TL;DR version is that lawns are mostly worthless. They don’t produce food, they don’t enrich the soil, they attempt to compete with crops, and they require extra maintenance to look their best. So with that said out with the lawn and in with the vegetable bed. My favorite tool for this is a stirrup hoe which as you can see in the picture has a truncated triangular head that allows it to get under the lawn (or weeds) and separate the fine roots from the greenery. It’s pretty much a guillotine for plants when you really think about it; and it’s not too far of a step to think of lawn grass like an un-elected monarchy. Another advantage to using a Stirrup how in comparison to other types is that it cuts relatively straight lines and you really don’t work as hard to get the same effect. Before anyone jumps on me and says ‘Hey I thought this blog didn’t advertise!’ we don’t but tools and materials do come from wherever they come from and you can’t always cover over the brand logos. So in the wheelbarrow I have several bags of Black Kow composted cow manure. I use this because its consistency is uniform and its price for a 32lb bag is about $5.00 which is fairly economical. The product quality is very reliable and there is a bit of clay and sand so it’s weighty enough to not readily erode in the rain. Black Kow also is also 0.5-0.5-0.5 (NPK) in terms of nutrient so it cannot burn unless you concentrate it artificially somehow. For the record; from the actual bag of Black Kow, it also adds 1.0 in chlorine, now that part is interesting. As it turns out plants need Chlorine since it is important in the function of plant stomata opening and closing. Now for those of you who don’t study plant biology, this means that Chlorine is critical to a plants ability to exchange gasses which improves their impact on reducing carbon foot prints.
So the next step is to remove the cut bits of grass and weeds and then do a double check for any survivors and remove them too. Inevitably at this stage I find bits of wild Bermuda grass, and a few stolons of Centipede grass. As much soil as is possible is returned to the area and the edges are trimmed a little more.
To cover an area of 2’ 3” by 10’ at a rate of roughly 2.5 inches deep on average it takes all of three out of four bags of composted manure. The fine ridges along the sides that you see in the composted manure are where I tamped down the sides with a hard rake just to firm up the outer boundaries of the soil so they don’t erode as much if it rains. At the center of the bed expansion the composted manure is 2.5” deep at least but this tapers in the border to add more resistance to erosion.
Now we move onto the fun part, the planting. Those eagle-eyed readers out there might notice I planted a LOT of green Swiss chard, Marrowstem Kale and some smaller hard to identify plants. This selection of cold-season food plants was not due to my own preferences. As some of you know I sell food plants at the downtown market, and inevitably I produce more than I sell most of the time so surplus has to go somewhere and waste not, want not. I had an overabundance of Swiss Chard this fall, and so to reduce inventory about a quarter of it went into this project, the same is true for the Marrowstem Kale. The Kale though is a bit of an oddity, it was a new introduction and folks didn’t seem to want to take a chance on it, which is a shame. As they say, you can lead a gardener to the kale patch but you can’t make him or her eat it. Seven 3” potted Marrowstem Kale plants went into this project. The little plants in the top third of the new bed are another item that I trialed this year, Rainbow Lacinato Kale. Those seedlings are the best of the third attempt to sow a full tray of the stuff. The first two trays failed and the third was so slow-developing I realized I would not have saleable plants before the frost. So the best of that tray went into the garden, twelve individual growing cells that hopefully will show me what the Rainbow Kale looks like. Supposedly Rainbow Lacinato Kale is called that because it’s stems and by extension it’s foliage develops a variety of colors ranging from shades of green, to yellow, red, purple pink and supposedly blue, but we’ll see. You can bet that when they develop there will be pictures posted up here for your viewing delight.
Although it’s a given that the soil I used has a decent amount of nutrients for the crops planted. It is for the best that nothing is left to chance and a slow release mineral-based fertilizer with micro nutrients is applied. This fertilizer should be effective for a few months which is more than long enough for this crop.
The cleanup of assorted shrapnel is one of the last steps but is also an important stage in getting things done. All this dead lawn will be dumped in the hedgerow and either it will contribute to the hedgerow by growing or become soil for other things.
The next step is the application of Long Leaf pine straw by way of pitchfork. Pine straw is an effective mulch because it has so much surface area to resist erosion. Quality pine straw can last up to two years as an effective barrier. Also it is very good at stopping weeds and even encroaching grass has to struggle to go over or under it. When pine straw breaks down it becomes organic matter which helps the soil, but it does not block rain from getting through to the soil so unlike weed block it isn’t going to be a long term problem. While Pine straw does slow down the movement of water it is not enough to cause water-logging or soil loss under normal conditions. It is also inexpensive; the local rate per bale of pine straw is $3.88 to $4.75 roughly speaking. It only took two bales to do the entire perimeter of the veggie patch. For the record two bales shored up 41 feet of garden border at an average depth of 1”.
The last step of course is watering it all in because by planting these plants I’ve caused a bit of trauma. I tear up the peat pots before I plant to make it easier for my crops to grow beyond their boundaries. I know that the advantage to peat pots is that you don’t have to do that, but when it comes to food crops for use at home, I don’t leave that to chance.
As a final thought for this post before we move on to the advertisement part of this post, I know some of you are wondering why I just used composted cow manure instead of potting soil or something lighter. Well erosion is a thing, but the compost makes for the sub-soil in the first year, I cap it in the second year with spent potting soil which then better mimics an enriched soil profile. In the long-run the soil ends up blending due to the actions of my own maintenance of the bed and the actions of soil-borne organisms. It also the best remedy in the long run for the solid sand soil on my property and a good way to recycle resources.
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.
Fresh Produce:*
Soup Kit: Parsnip: $6.00
Soup Kit: Turnip: $6.00
Seasoning Packet: $2.00
Garlic Bulbs: $1.00
Food Plants: (3” Peat Pots) (ALL ON SALE!!!)
Arugula: $2.00
Cardoon, Artichoke: $2.00
Carrot, Chantennay Red-Core: $2.00
Collards, Carolina: $2.00
Kale, Lace: $2.00
Kale, Marrow Stem: $2.00
Kale, Scotch Blue Curled: $2.00
Kale, Winterbor: $2.00
Kohlrabi, Cossack: $2.00
Swiss Chard, Green: $2.00
Swiss Chard, Red: $2.00
Spinach, Avon: $2.00
Coming Soon:
Ginger
*You can special order a specific vegetable by the pound if you want anything specific that is in the soup kits or any specific herb contained in the seasoning packets. Vegetables are sold by the pound and seasonings are sold by the ounce when sold individually.
We have a new place to share information and work on groovy sustainable stuff! You can look for Sustainable Neighbors in our own Nextdoor.com group under the name “Sustainable Neighbors of Fayetteville”. You don’t have to live in Fayetteville to join but it is a private group so feel free to request to join us if you are signed up on the Nextdoor.com site.
https://nextdoor.com/g/ybvdm226x/?is=nav_bar
Unfortunately, Covid-19 is still mucking up the works in terms of meeting in person. The good news is that Sustainable Neighbors does have a Discord Server. You can request access through our Meetup.com page or you can request access via our Nextdoor.com group. The meetup.com page is below for anyone looking to join us.
https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/
Since our meetings have an open-door policy you don’t need to buy anything or maintain any sort of attendance standard, you can come on in and join the meetings. When this Covid-19 mess calms down we may be able to resume normal in-person meetings. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market. This brings to a close the twenty-first LITFM post of 2020; stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 13th of November. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.
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