June 4 , 2015
When harvesting various crops there are other tasks that I
perform while harvesting, some of these tasks are specific to individual
veggies.
Summer squash (both zucchinis and crooknecks) have the most
additional tasks.
I plant my summer squash very early and most years blooming
starts before bees find the squash. I have to hand pollinate each female flower
in order to start harvesting squash.
Squash plants have both male and female flowers on the same plant. Male
flowers are very different from female flowers. The female flowers have an
ovary attached at the base of the flower. This is just a very small
unfertilized squash.
I simply strip the petals off of a male flower and paint the
female with pollen. One pass over the female flower is all it takes.
As I am pollinating and collecting the daily harvest, I am
looking for squash bug eggs and cucumber beetles
http://thegardeningcook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/2gardens.jpg (adult and eggs)
http://pixgood.com/squash-bugs.html (nymphs and eggs)
I harvest of a morning and the beetles are sluggish so I
crush them as I go. If I find a cluster
of squash bug eggs, I cut them off the plant (section of leaf and smash them
with a rock). They are surprisingly tough. If I find eggs then that plant gets
a through look over for adults. Many times they are at the base of the plant,
and when found they are dispatched too.
As I am performing the above tasks I am also clipping off the
older fading leaves. This does a few things. Most are old leaves and are
prostrate on the ground, they give squash bugs cover. Pruning off the older
leaves helps stimulate plant growth as well. This pruning allows for good
ventilation to the plant when Powdery mildew arrives in mid-August.
As I am harvesting I also pull weeds. These weds are not
competition to the squash plants but they do rob the soil of nutrients that I
have built. The chickens will turn these weeds into eggs.
Powdery mildew appears in mid to late August with high
humidity and warm days with cool nights. I do clip the leaves that are most
affected and collect the leaves in the harvest tray to be destroyed or disposed
of. Leaving them in the garden will spread the mildew.
I do spray the mildew of an evening every 7 days (cannot get
rid of). I spray with a solution of 1Tbs of baking soda, 1 tsp liquid ivory
soap to a gallon of water. And cover all surfaces including the stems. This
year I plan to use Actinovate (a natural fungicide) at first signs of powdery
mildew. It has worked on mold in my plant trays that I grow transplants
in. No action against powdery mildew and
your squash will die fairly quickly!
Questions? I can be
contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more
garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com
June 11, 2014
Soil
fertility, I have written on this subject a number of times but for organic
gardeners it is the “key stone” that holds everything together.
I prefer to use compost. The simple reason is that you do not
need to let a bed be fallow while the previous crop or green manure decomposes.
Just harvest, remove the plant material and till in 2 to 3 inches of compost,
grade the bed, and plant.
Say you want to create fertility in a different way. There
are different options. There is the slow approach of just using crop rotations.
This is where a different unrelated crop is grown in a bed with each different
rotation. A rotation would be seeding, maturing, harvest, and preparing the bed
for the next crop. Green manures are planted specifically to increase soil
fertility when it is tilled into the bed. And cover crops are grown to retain
fertility by preventing leaching or surface erosion by wind or rain. When a
cover crop is tilled in it becomes a green manure as it decomposes.
A very good book, sadly it is out of print but can be read on
line is “Green Manuring” by Adrian J. Pieters (New York: John Wiley, 1927).
This is a very good book dealing with soil fertility. The book was written
before the wide availability of manmade fertilizers. Funny how traditional
agriculture used to be organic!
Besides creating fertility, green manures can break up a hard
pan by sending down taproots. Two examples would be alfalfa or oilseed
radishes. Also green manures can be used to combat soil pests such as root knot
nematodes. A couple of examples would be Idagold mustard and Secale cereal
(winter rye). The mustard produces a nemicide as it decomposes and the winter
rye trap the females in the roots and they die when the winter rye decomposes.
Green manures can produce biomass such as the winter rye and
mustard that help build humus in the soil as they decompose. Humus helps retain
moisture, prevent soil compaction and is much more efficient at providing
fertility to plants than just soil. Green manures can also provide nitrogen to
the soil with the use of legumes. Some examples of legumes would be alfalfa,
vetch, green beans, and garden peas. If these plants are allowed to mature to
provide seeds there is no net increase of nitrogen. In order to provide the
most nitrogen to the soil these plants need to be in full bloom and tilled in
at that time. White clover can produce 100 to 150 pounds of nitrogen per acre.
This is more than enough to provide the following crop with enough nitrogen to
mature.
The following web site is ear marked on white clover but
anyone can easily navigate to other green manure crops.
The only real draw back to green manures is that they need to
completely decompose before planting the next crop.
Questions? I can be
contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more
garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogspot.com
Questions? I can be
contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more
garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com
June 18, 2015
Raised beds? I frequently have folks tell me they have raised
beds. I can remember back in the 70’s when Organic gardening was growing in
popularity that you HAD to have raised beds.
Myself, I am not sold on them here in Far West Texas. So many
books say this is a must do. Many folks take this as gospel and do not question
it.
Let us take a look at raised beds and see how they can be
beneficial or detrimental.
Reasons for having raised beds may include: a need to drain
and warm wet soil in the spring, it is difficult to bend and stoop, or does
that bedrock near the surface causes a problem. I would like to compare where I
used to live in Central Oregon to here.
Central Oregon received most of its precipitation during the
winter months. Here in West Texas most of our precipitation comes during the
summer. Central Oregon was located at
the 45 parallel and we are at the 30th. It took a long time for the
soil to warm and dry out (central Oregon the soil frost line was 12 to 18
inches down in the ground). Our frost line might be an inch. Most years I have
found the soil to be near 50 degrees 4 to 5 inches below the surface.
By using raised beds in Central Oregon I could plant my
garden around the 30th of May. I garden year round down here.
West Texas soils are well drained, by using raised beds makes
them even more so. Also the raised beds tend to have even warmer soil (depends
on how the beds are formed) Plants stop blooming at 95 and go dormant at 100.
Raised beds can also expose your veggies to more wind. With raised beds comes
maintenance, whether it is wood or even just raised earth, the retaining needs
to be maintained.
I have sunken beds that have a berm on the north side of each
bed. This makes for a low wind profile and catches any precipitation that may
fall. I have even gotten water from my paths to flow into the beds. My garden
sits on top of caliche. The depth to surface is anywhere from 6 inches to 18
inches, with the majority being around 12. Yes the shallow soil does dry out
quicker but this is mediated with compost added to the soil. This form of beds
works quite well for me. I do not presume that this will work for everyone.
Each gardener’s location is unique.
Most garden books are written for more humid, less windy and
less sunny locations. They don’t have our heat either. So my point is to determine
what you want to achieve, experiment, evaluate. If it works, then go full
scale. Some garden techniques (form elsewhere) may make your gardening
experience more difficult.
Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more
garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogspot.com
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