This is our fifth growing season out here. The first two years was mainly hacking out scrub and mending fences from 20 years of neglect on the “Old Bartley Rental House” as it is known by the locals. Goofed up a few times trying to work with somebody else’s lack of vision just because it was there and seemed easier at the time. Back in the early 50’s electricity and propane was all the rage so retrofitting this place to accommodate all things peak oil hasn’t been very easy, and some of it is just going to have to be put up with. Like the garden area being uphill from where the gray water line runs out of the house, shade trees being on the southeast, and the long axis of the house being oriented to taking full advantage of that summer afternoon sun blast. But five years of planting stuff in all kinds of experimental ways has shown me what works well and gives indications that this self sufficiency thing is doable.
Right now we have enough raw calories in storage, canned up, and in the ground to make it through to next spring even if an EMP turned all things fucko bazzoo.
The key was to finally wrap my head around the idea that ultimately, everything has to go to the garden. How and when to put what where is like a puzzle – and I spent a lot of time trying to fill in large hunks of similar background colors instead of finding the corners and edge pieces first. Here is the first installment of the mechanics of what worked…
Raking up the fall leaves and dumping them into in four foot wide windrows covered with a two inch layer of manure is the place to plant the early squash. No matter how much rain you get the squash roots don’t rot and there is a super rich humus zone where the dead leaves come into contact with the manure. The best part is the pile stays moist with very little water in dry spells since it’s basically mulch pile. So the yard gets raked making the wife happy, the barn gets cleaned out for good critter housekeeping, abundant squash to eat and lots left over to feed the pig and chickens. Once the plants are exhausted in late summer, fork or till the whole row into the ground (noting about 5 billion earthworms) and its a cowpea patch. And if you don’t know about cowpeas – learn up. Ultimate doomer crop. Grows anywhere under any conditions. Inoculate them the first year to make sure nitrogen fixing bacteria are in the ground, pick the pods when they dry up brown and stuff ‘em into feed sacks for shelling during the long winter nights by the fire (family bonding and all that shit). Once the cowpeas get done with their thing sow winter wheat or rye or some other cover crop in the bed. There’s your corn bed for mid spring planting.
Spring is nice to see after spending all winter in battle with the woodstove but it quickly becomes a nightmare of too much to do all at once. So far, every year I have fucked up and tilled up the whole garden plot with grand visions of thousands of square feet of lush kitchen vegetables only to wind up with a giant weed patch from all the disturbed earth not getting planted in time ‘cuz the damn lawn needs mowed or some shit. No more of that insanity – winter wheat over everything besides the squash/melon leaf windrows. Chop it into the ground when something is ready to plant, and if it has headed up it’s chicken feed and straw for nest boxes and corn mulch. Where I planted winter wheat last year I did not have a weed problem this year. Repeat – no weed problem, just a nice loose earthworm laden bed suitable for the early spinach and peas or whatever. But I wanna talk corn… and that’s a post all by itself.
Fucko bazzoo, that’s a new one on me, ha ha! And I was a sailor! Anyways, that’s some damn good information there. I woulda done the same thing, tilled like hell and went for a huge crop of somethin’ or other. Now I know better!
Hey Comrade,
I’m just getting into the cover crop thing here myself. All these visions of sitting by the fire with my feet propped up all winter long kinda bit it when I realized that to take this gardening thing to the next level ment I was going to be working the garden year round. The problem here is rain. In the winter we get 70 to 100 inches, and in the summer none. Well not exactly, but the 0.01 inch so far this summer don’t amount to squat. Any fallow soil in the winter is beat to something thet resembles sandstone with all the nitrogen washed out. This year the plan is to take the fallow spots and plant rye with vetch. The vetch will make nitrogen which the rye will uptake and store in the stalk. All will get turned under in the spring to build humas and provide nitrogen. So that is one problem with a bit of a start to fix. Steve Solomon has a good collection of cover crop info at Soil and Health. http://www.soilandhealth.org/index.html
The next small detail here is that we are fundamentally out of water. Currently down to about 100 gallons a day on the irrigation well. Happens every year about this time, so no real shock, but I’ll be counting days and cutting showers short when we finally have to switch to the water tanks. So in an attempt to find a solution, me and the missus cut a willow switch and witched a couple of places in the yard. Needless to say I’ve been busy with a shovel. So far It looks like there may be some pretty good water if I can get a bit deeper. If nothing else, it keeps me from thinking too much about this stinking war we are trying to get going. Anyway, Hey Ain’t Farmin’ Great…..
Tired John
I do the same thing and my patient dh retills until things get planted. I had just decided to till only as needed – after a fall break up on the new place. Hope you write the corn post soon.
Steph, writers block re: corn. Actually more of an all around mental lockup – I’m on auto-staggar for the most part. Mindlessly mowing and mulching ans moaning planting cowpeas as I go. Like my man tired john says, that whole next level thing means there is no late summer early fall break before the chainsaw and splitting maul come out.
We have a 100 gallon a day self imposed limit also. But 100 gallons a day down the graywater pipe, into the catch tank, up to the water barrel in the barnloft via sump pump and to the garden via 300 feet of 3/4 black plastic tubing means the tomatoes and squash doesn’t dry out. 100 gallons a day, used strategically can keep 5000 sq ft alive. One gallon will soak 5 sq ft, that’s 500 sq ft a day every ten days for half of our garden space. Like I say, “it can be done”.
For dryland stuff don’t till the cover crop under. Just mow it real close with a scythe and plant in the stubble. Use the “hay” as mulch when the seed emerge or install the mulch at transplant time. Gives the worms something to do. That only works for bed planting – the dirt never gets stepped on. For row cropping… why the fuck would anybody row crop anyway? Intensive cultivation is what doom/ permaculture is all about. Leave the row crops to the agri-business workers (formerly known as “farmers”).
You might check out Elliot Coleman’s “Four Season Gardner”. He is up in Maine and harvests stuff all year long. Its just been updated – I have the older version & its worth the money esp. now that we will have room to garden. Dick Raymond (Joy Of Gardening) has some good practical ideas on how to get a lot of food with less effort. I have the “Gardening for the 90’s”. Now I know where Dad got the idea to dble row the beans. Saves lots of effort with 2x crop in same space. I also did the onions in a bed & it was great having to weed what would have been 10ft of onions but in a small bed about as wide as a kneeling adult. Finished in no time.
Idea for you: Raymond does peas in a block – just till, sow like wheat, rake/till in and let grow. Harvest by working though sitting on a small three legged stool. The ones that get missed when little get to dry and become soup peas. The double row worked for 30 years so the peas should also. (green peas not southern cow peas) Otherwise green peas aren’t worth the effort kwim.
If you don’t mind – we just bought a place in the country and I’m trying to figure out how much seed & stuff we should be thinking about buying. I put what I came up with in a chart to try to make it manageable. Would you look it over, compare it to what you planted & tell me what you think? Thanks. I know you are busy so if not that’s ok too.
Other gardeners are welcome to put their .02 in too.
Sure thing steph, just be prepared to cut by 75% what I think is appropriate, hehehe.
I go nuts at seed ordering time….
The zone you live in would be real helpful to figure out what you can double crop.
Yeah, me too.
Well we were just moved into zone 7 but as that is Ozark Mountain area I’m trying to be conservative and do 6/7. That leaves a lot open but bugs are the big concern. I could grow anything in IL prairie soil but AR has me learning all over. It isn’t just ‘oh look a looong growing season’ there’s bugs, heat, bugs, lack of water, bugs and more bugs. Very different from growing up. Never realized that plants could stop producing if it got too hot, just thought cold was the problem.
Have you tried the over-winter seeds at Territorial? Plant in mid-summer to fall and harvest in spring. Looks like an idea, but want to talk to someone who has done it.
They say I’m in 7 but I plant for 6b.
Yea, bugs. I just let the corn earworms have the first third, I don’t care if there are a few tracks in the cob. Mineral oil (or even cheap veg oil) sprayed on the silks as soon as they turn from green to pink helps a lot if you want to try that. Spinoza (sp?) is an organic bacteria that really puts the screws to any leaf eating bug and won’t hurt bees if you put it on at night – by morning it’s dry or something and not harmful to the bees anymore. I zap the ‘tater bugs about three times during the beetle season and that wipes ‘em out. I have taken the time to pick them off and squish the orange eggs by hand just to see if it can be done. Gotta do it twice a day all through beetle season and it’s a pain in the ass. Good job for a kid, though.
Good rule of thumb around here is if it burns up before harvest time from the heat plant it in the fall garden.