September 24, 2015

Good morning, It seems like yesterday but it has been 6 years since Deb put together our book of “Organic Gardening West of the Pecos” . Deb especially liked the “West of the Pecos” part of the title.

We keep talking about doing 2.0 but just not found that “roundtuit” yet. It will happen. Life just has a way of happening.

Funny how I seem to recall being somewhat complacent in the garden. I thought My learning curve had mellowed. This was before the year 2011 hit. The year started out fine enough then along came February. February's emergence on the stage brought some of the coldest temps seen in decades in west Texas. The garden recorded a low of 1.5 degrees. Funny how February brought some of the coldest weather in years but the cold was done by mid February. The race was on for some of the hottest days in May and June. Normally we have few if any century mark days. The summer of 2011 had several.

That summer is when I really got the feel for what evaporation and transpiration meant. Up to that point I only had the textbook definition, the summer of 2011 was a living definition. It was harsher than what I ever imagined.

It is funny even though I would start watering very early in the morning and finish by mid afternoon, it would still be a couple years before I finally got a drip system.

Yes I will say up until the first week of February of 2011 there did seem to be a bit of a “normalcy”to the weather. From February 2011 on it became a whole different book.

Some of the new things I have learned that should go into the next book 2.0: AG70 (the heavy fabric) can be used year round, a very watchful eye towards bugs is mandatory (because their populations can explode unexpectedly), drip systems do boost veggie production exponentially, cold pressed neem oil has some limitations, a huge insect outbreak has nothing to do with garden culture, a wonderful temporary greenhouse can be built with AG 70 and greenhouse film, indeterminate tomatoes are not necessarily the best choice in the desert.

These are just a few things that would be included in 2.0. 

Someday!

Save for kohlrabi and the parsnips all of my fall seed are up. The kohlrabi was reseeded and the parsnips can take up to three weeks to emerge. This is why if I do not get a take on that sowing there will not be any parsnips this year.

A mysterious critter thinned out some of my chard seedlings. I have reseeded and put a collar around the seeds. We can hope this works. It really does help when you can identify the culprit.

I have beaten back the pin worm out brake in the tomatoes, so I hope to have toms clean past freezing (of course they will all be ripening inside), Okra is not happy with the cooler nights but is still producing though. It would be nice if we got a frog choker and end the burn ban. Really need to smoke some jalapenos.

We did get 2 tenths on Monday night, not my frog choker but I will take it. Oh yes I am curious to see what the winter and the next year brings. I am sure it will be full of surprises!!

September 21, 2015

Avalanche  September 10th column

September 10, 2015

For way too many years I watered my garden by hose. This made for some other than hydrating the veggies exhausting and time wasted days.

A couple of years back I finally came to my senses and installed a drip tape system.

My well is a steady but a very low producer and the drip tape is very low volume. It distributes 20 gallon an hour for every 100 feet of tape. Drip tape fits my needs. The idea is to water long, slow, and deep.

Just putting an irrigation system in, does not mean you can walk away and all is taken care of.

Here in arid country, water is everything, vigilant and continuous observation is important.

What follows are a few things that are important to do in order to keep the water coming.

Drip systems have filters that need to be flushed on a very regular basis to keep sediment from clogging the filter. It is wise to have a second filter on hand so that you can regularly clean the filter and in case a filter “dies” you have a backup. If you are on a well this filter needs to be changed regularly too.

It is wise to have a few extra of all the different fittings that connect your filter to your distribution tubing (drip tape).

Drip tape is not an irrigation product that can take much abuse without developing leaks, couplings that can quickly repair the tape is extremely important to have. I always have several couplings that I can perform these repairs with.

Because you are not able to actually see all of your plants being watered, it is very important to observe how your plants are doing. Are the plants wilting or do the leaf margins look like they are burning? These are signs of inadequate water. It is paramount that you find the cause, which could be; the need for longer watering, clogged filter, broken fitting or even a break in the tape to name a few things.

If you run your system at night it is important to at least turn on the system in the day on occasion. Once the system is on, take a walk in the garden and listen for any localized “geysers” to be repaired.

Recently I had a Javelina get into one of my sweet potato beds and munched on the leaves. Lucky for me I found where it got into the garden and that was rectified. What I did not see was where its hooves had cut the tape in a few places. The plants at the end of the beds began to dry out way too quick after each water cycle. Turning the system on and listening quickly located the breaks and all was repaired.

Each irrigation system is different but doing some regular maintenance and having some repair parts will surely keep the water going where it needs to go.

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

September 17, 2015

Good morning, this is an interesting reprint from the year after the 2011 drought

9/27/2012

Good morning, It is hard to believe that another year is swiftly coming to an end. What a ride this year has been. Hands down it has been my most productive. I can visually see this just by looking at the cases of can goods that Deb and I have put by. Not to mention the weekly harvests and trying to get it all in the frig to cool. It was a welcomed change from last year, which by the way had been my most productive year up until this year. I think that the timing of the rains was perfect. I do not think that we will hit the historical yearly precipitation average but 13 inches has been just a little bit of heaven.

I am glad that I got my summer veggies in by the middle of March because the “angry season “ seemed to start early by the middle of April. It was a welcome shot in the arm that we got the big rain in May. I am not sure that I could have handled two and a half solid months of blistering heat, especially after all of last year.

With the heat of June I did loose some tom blossoms but not a whole fruit set like last year. I had adapted my watering techniques to better suit the veggies. Watering or the lack there of was one of the big lessons that I learned from last year.

With the rains of July, the greening of the hillsides was not too far behind. What a wonderful relief. After a year of brown and looking at all the huge burn areas almost made one think “will it always be like this?”. The rains not only provided the means for the wonderful greening but was the key ingredient for a huge insect hatch. This year was over the top. This is my thoughts as to why. 2010 was a moist year, this is what made for a good insect crop and they left their legacy as eggs. Last year there was no rain but the insects were protected in their egg cases ( I suspect like weed seed they can remain viable until conditions become conducive for hatching, maybe years). I think the drought reduced the beneficial insect population. When the rains came the ball court was theirs and boy did they play. I managed to keep my head above water until the squash bug population exploded. It is rare that you have a bug name that directs you what to do with them. All the squashing did not seem to control them, although I think it was quite therapeutic. I do not think they will be as bad next year but I will have to revise my control procedures toward them. I am formulating plans. There will be a sequel on squash bug control in the future.

After the demise of my cucurbits at the mouths of squash bugs, the summer veggies began to slow. This was merely coincidence, the cause was cool nights. The fall and winter veggies are liking the cooler nights and are responding accordingly. I am still hoping that the transition will be smooth.

As this year winds down, I find it is time to start planning for next years garden December is not to far off and it will be time to start my chile and tom seedlings for February transplant to the cold frame. Ah what a wonderful circle.

The new chard bed is doing quite fine but I seem to be battling aphids in the new kale bed. I do not know if I am giving too much or not enough attention but I am leaning towards to much. Some times just letting things be is all that needs to be done. I think that this is a reflection of how I have been at war with bugs all summer and that maybe I need to sit back, breath deep, reseed, and reset my focus. Worst case scenario is there will not be a lot of kale for awhile longer. Shucks, gosh darn geewilikers!

How funny the more things change the more they stay the same!! 2015 has been a very buggy year too.

With last weeks”cooling” (I use that word loosely), I managed to get a good portion of my fall sowing done. I am seeing emergence and the percentages are looking favorable. I will have a better idea once they start developing the first leaves. I seeded heavy so that I can transplant if there are holes in the plantings. I am still a bit apprehensive about the parsnip and spinach sowing. Both of these veggies do not like hot weather to germinate. If the parsnips don't take there will not be parsnips this year. They are a long crop that NEEDS to be harvested before growth resumes in the spring. Regrowth causes them to turn woody. Most parsnip seeding instructions have them being sown in the spring and then harvested in the fall. Cool to cold weather is what makes them sweet. We do not get much of a real cool down until the middle of November and last year the cool down did not happen until Christmas. BOY did it when it did!!! My concern of sowing in the spring is that these would be huge roots (several pounds) and would not be merchantable due to their size. So I opt for gourmet baby parsnips. As for the spinach, I can reseed once the day time highs start to be in the mid to lower 80's. It is pushing it right now but sure would like to start harvesting in October. Time will tell.

This has been a very odd year and I would not to expect anything different with the fall. Long range forecasts has our winter this year to be De Ja Vue all over again. I hope for snow and not ice, or at least that is my vote!

And one last note. The Alpine Farmers Market now has Tee shirts for sale. The Logo is the chalk drawing done by Deirdre Hanlon-Jones of Lo & Behold Photography. They are $15 dollars plus sales tax. There is a nice selection of sizes. Proceeds will go for market improvements like a very nice sized tree, more canopies , or tables.

 

By the by, You thought it felt a bit warm lately NOAA has this September as the second warmest since 1930!

September 14,2015

 

avalanche column  Sept. 3, 2015

Every September I like to start planning my next year’s garden. I used to wing this each season and just plant as the season progressed. This really ended up being a very inefficient way to do this. Stocking in the beds, successions, seed procuring was all very haphazard.

I soon progressed to graft paper that labeled each bed by number and I would leave 3 lines so that I could write in the successions.  The problem with this is losing  my “cheat sheet” so to speak.

I used to subscribe to the Mother Earth News and in one article that they had was a garden planner. And they gave a link to a garden planner site. I did the 30 day trial and felt that this is a very good tool. Since finding this planner I have noticed there are more out there. This is the link to the garden planner site that I use. They still have a trial period and then if you like it there is a yearly fee. I want to say $25.

http://gardenplanner.motherearthnews.com/gardenplanner/gardenplanner.html

What I like about this site is that you can have a permanent map of your garden. It is very easy to copy last year’s garden into next year’s. This is handy if you start a bed in 2015 but won’t finish harvesting in the spring. I start both garlic and onions the first of November and do not harvest until May or June. This is the same with winter crops such as beets, chard, and kale to name a few.

You can also custom select or write in your own veggie varieties. It keeps track of successions so that you have a healthy time frame before replanting that bed to a similar crop. This helps control garden pests both wind bourn and soil bourn.

You can easily click through the months to see how your garden progresses through the year. I must say that this is a plan, it is not in concrete and you can wing it through the year.

A very good example was snow peas last fall. I over wintered them as usual but with our cool spring they were slow to produce but when they started they produced into May. This was unheard of!! My plan had tomatoes going into this bed the first of April, but with getting 5 to 10 pounds of snow peas a week, I delayed the toms. A few clicks on the plan and this change was noted.

You can also set bed densities so that you know how many plants are needed for each bed. This is helpful to let you know how much seed that you need or if you are purchasing plants how many plants you need.

Since starting to use a garden plan I have increased the efficiency of the garden and my time. Plus you can print off your plan or view it on line. There also is a record of each year’s plan; this is nice to see how your garden changes throughout the years. I highly recommend doing a garden plan.

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogspot.com

September 10, 2015

Good morning, Since my friend retired that provided me with delivered to my doorstep organics, I have been looking for a new source of even sized easily compost-able material.

Recently I picked up some of the grains left over after the first stage of beer making over at the brewery in town. This stuff does heat up nicely. It does need to be turned frequently, because it very easily compacts on itself and then goes into an anaerobic condition because it does not have enough air to continue breaking down. This stuff does get quite aromatic.

A friend of mine gave me some wood shavings from furniture manufacturing. I plan to mix some of these shavings with the brewery leavings. On paper this looks to be quite favorable. The stuff appears to generate enough heat and it will be interesting to find the right carbon to nitrogen level to compost down. The leavings being so wet is why they compact down and stop air flow.

I am not opposed to the aroma (it is the smell of fertility). I like a bit of a warm to hot compost pile, because it has a sterilization affect and it becomes usable a little faster too.

I have access to horse manure and this stuff makes wonderful compost, but has irregular sizes. The uneven sizes (straw and road apples) makes it difficult to keep the moisture consistent for a hasty break down. A mulching machine would be very advantageous. Even sizes is best!!

Save for when I clean out the chicken coops to make compost, the use of manure has one draw back and that is the addition of rocks to the garden (not so with my chicken poop). This would not be a problem if I had a way of screening the compost before adding it to the garden.

Here lies the real biggy as to why I really want to get the compost recipe right with the brewery leavings. No additional rocks to the garden. Even if you screen the larger ones out there will always be the pea gravel and smaller that gets through. When I have it I can go through many many hundreds of pounds (if not tons) of compost each year. This would leave the soil surface in the beds with a “mulch” that at some point would need to be removed.

Being a one man show it just makes it a lot easier if MY compost-able material is all even sized, easy to build piles with, and rock free. It just makes gardening a lot easier. Compost is my gardens back bone.

The fewer steps that I need to take to get the compost-able material composted and into the garden would just make things a lot easier.

I like a 14 day compost and this is only achievable with even sized material.

Looking at the weather forecast on this Tuesday morning and it looks like we will be getting a bit of a cool down ( I so very hope so). The temperatures have consistently had temps above 90. Test germination’s have been very poor, so I decided to hold off on sowing until the weather cools. It looks like my window of opportunity has a arrived. It is predicted to be a cooler wet fall. The weather this year has been so bizarre and I hope this fall has it's own garden challenging surprises. Time will tell.

I find it so amazing with my most recent squash bed It looks like anything that can, has cross hairs on it. The list of villains is impressive. Cucumber beetles, squash bugs, melon worms, spider mites, and powdery mildew. My last bed had a premature death from mosaic virus due to the cucumber beetles. So far I am able to keep the squash bed bugs populations down to tolerable levels. It has been one of those years and I really would not expect the fall to be any different.

My last crop of toms is coming along. I did notice that the tomato pin worms arrived and weekly sprays of Bt and cold pressed neem are keeping them at bay.

This is the first year where I have gotten a third growth cycle with the butternut squash. I wish I had room for this third crop but I don't so I am letting what are on the vines mature while hold back water. It will be nice to have 2 less beds to contend with.

It has been a good year for growing although I sure could have used a few more clouds in the sky. Cloudless skies have paid their toll on the chiles. I need to figure how to cover them to cut the sun. The chiles have cavities that heat up and burn. Immature and mature alike.

Due to all the August heat the garden did have a bit of a slow down. I have been able to get a new chard /kale bed transplanted and a beet bed to take so there should be an up tick in veggie harvest soon. I am seeing an uptick in harvest with most of my summer veggies. They just didn't like the heat. Come to think of it, I didn't either!!

Oh yes gotta love a challenge!!

September 7, 2015

with this post of Avalanche columns I will be current.

August 20, 2015

Last week’s chart lets me know that you do not need to manipulate soil temperatures much in order to reap huge benefits.

Knowing what our climate is like, it becomes easy to create little micro climates.

Recently I had some one ask when she could plant spinach. She had a recipe she was dying to try and was wondering if she could sow spinach in the summer.

This is where the chart comes in handy. Spinach much prefers the cooler end of the temperature scale. I have grown it in the summer. This was a huge effort for a very underwhelming and pathetic crop. NOT worth the effort.

But all is not lost. By knowing our climate you can do some manipulation. Usually by the middle of August, night time temps start to cool off. The temps start to dip into the 60’s and by September into the upper 50’s and low 60’s.

Last week’s chart shows that spinach germinating in 77 degree soil only takes 5 days to germinate but only 28% of the seed do. But if you can lower the soil temp to 68 degrees, the days to germination are 6 with a doubling of germination to 52%.

How to manipulate? This really is quite simple, just place several heavy quilts on the location of your soon to be seed bed during the day. In the evening remove the covers to be exposed to the night time cooling, only to recover in the morn.  A quick read thermometer can be inserted into the soil so that you can track your chilling. As long as you are diligent with the day and night routine, the chilling will happen fairly quickly over the course of a week or two.

Once you get the soil chilled enough go ahead and sow a seed bed that you will transplant your spinach seedlings from. Continue the day and night ritual until you start to see your spinach germinating. At this point you will need to stop using the quilts and use a piece of fabric that is supported with wire hoops just inches off the ground to give room for the spinach to grow.

When the spinach is a couple inches tall it can be transplanted to its maturing bed.

It is important to note that plants will grow in warmer or cooler soil than what they will germinate in.

I like to use my heavy fabric because it does let enough light through but it also has a little bit of a cooling effect.

Say you want to heat the soil in the spring, just use some black plastic with a layer of clear plastic over the top of the black. Depending how early you are doing this you may want to cover the whole bed. Then cover the bed at night with blankets and remove during the day, all the while monitoring your soil thermometer until planting time.

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogspot.com

 

August 27, 2015

It is very funny but I get the distinct feeling that folks think that the veggie season is almost over. I am thinking “really?”.

I like to think that the season is just getting started. I will admit this wet season has been a bit of a bust, but none the less from now until the middle of November is our gravy season (usually starts in July). ANYTHING that can be grown in West Texas can be grown at this time.

I must clarify a little bit here. Some of the things that I grow during this time are not harvested until mid-winter and into next spring.

One must not forget that our winters are perfect for winter gardening.

Why do I say this? There are a few very good reasons. Most winters the soil never gets cooler than 45 degrees 5 inches down, normally we have few if any long term freezing days, winter days are sunny for the most part, living at the 30^th parallel our days are never shorter than 10 hours, and even though we will have freezing days  they are followed with 60 degree days. 

There is one season that I do not try to start any plants during; it is what I like to refer to as the angry months. They are usually May and June but April is a frequent side kick.

I like to grow through this season instead of starting plants during this time. I feel this is the NUMBER One season that will discourage “newbie” arid land gardeners. Here again why do I say this? Save for this past springs “angry months” which were very pleasant and moist are usually stupid hot.

Normally we can expect 60+ mile an hour winds all day, 100 degree heat and pretty darn close to sitting on ZERO humidity. Most plants, mine included, go dormant at this time. Because mine have well established roots that extend deeply into the soil survive because it is much easier to keep these plants hydrated. Whereas trying to grow a seedling that might have a six inch root ball or seeds buried inches down in the soil is a real challenge. Mulching will help with the hydration but there is that heat induced dormancy that there is no solution until it cools down.

This is why I plant traditional “northern” spring crops in the  fall to mature early spring and use our brief mild spring time (mid-February to the end of March) to establish my summer garden to easily cruise through the “angry months” only to be welcomed by the best time of the year to grow; July through November 15^th.

Yes in Far West Texas it is ALWAYS gardening time!!!

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogspot.com

September 3, 2015

Good morning, yes it is that time of year again when I start to plan my next years garden. I like looking back at the last year first. This does give me a chance to correct short comings and improve my gardening skills.

There are exceptions but usually most of my problems are operator error. Operator error is much easier to correct. The exceptions, like severe heat and drought, I have no control over but I must learn to adapt. Adapting is mandatory.

Last fall was a protracted warm one and this did catch me by surprise. I did most of the my usual fall plantings and since we did not have the mid November cool down, a lot of fall veggies got a bit large going into winter. This past winter, once it did arrive, was rather chilly and damp with most of the moisture coming as ice and snow. This had a immense chilling affect on the soil and garden. This also rendered the fabric with little to no frost protection. Where the fabric gets its frost protection capabilities is from soil warmth. For a good portion of the winter until the middle of March, the soil surface temp was near or below 32 degrees, so there was no soil warmth for the fabric to hold in. Growth was slow due to the cold conditions and the over cast skies.

These are conditions that are unchangeable, but delaying planting if these conditions were to prevail again this winter would be an adaption. Long term weather forecasts has this coming winter to be a repeat of last. I hope that it is snow instead of ice. It just doesn't bring things down like ice can. Snow can be moved.

All of last winters moisture made for a very buggy year that even started in the dead of winter. It wasn't until I harvested some boc choi that Deb pointed out a critter I knew nothing about. But this critter wreaked havoc in the garden until I discovered it. I had put the boc choi on the stove for Deb to use for supper. When she went to clean up the “dirt” that had fallen off of the roots, she discovered that the “dirt” was moving.

Latter with close examination, I noticed the soil surface in the covered beds was crawling with them. They were caterpillars, maybe 1/16th of an inch in size and soil colored, apparently were eating the organic matter on the bed surface. Once this was gone they started munching on plants. They had little affect on mature plants but they devastated emerging seedlings. I thought I had cut worms and could not find any. I didn't see the real culprit until the boc choi. The use of Bt eliminated the problem. I feel that I have always had these bugs in the garden but with all the winter precip their population exploded. This would be a recurring theme through out the year. From one bug to the next.

Most all of the bugs would be controlled with either Bt or cold pressed neem. That is until the cucumber beetles arrived. I ended up using a pyrethrin based spray to get them under control. Sadly they infected my summer squash with mosaic virus before I got them under control.

The problem with the use of most sprays is that bugs can build up a resistance to them, that is all except for cold pressed neem. Neem does not kill the bugs directly like most other pesticides. If the cucumbers come back again next year, I will need another spray to rotate the pyrethrin spray with to help prevent this potential problem. A lady at market used a different spray that brought her cucumber beetles into control. This sounds like it would be a good rotation spray to help prevent their immunity potential.

This was the first complete year with a watering system. My body very much appreciated having it.

When I planted the garden there was ample moisture and all the plants responded accordingly. Once it became apparent that we were going to have a hot dry summer (rainstorms that flooded elsewhere only left my garden marginally dampened), the drip system was my only water supply. It wasn't until I noticed water stress in the okra (a very drought tolerant plant) That I discovered that I was derelict of duties. Some of these operator errors was flushing the drip filter and changing the well filter more frequently. I added more time to the drip run times too. This has helped with the water stress.

Back in the spring I had left four beds fallow to solarize for nematodes. By the time that I realized that my normal solarizing season had moved into summer I really was over it. I did lay film over these beds, I did not bury the edge. I am hoping that by eliminating any vegetation in these beds that some of the nematode population starved. We can hope.

Even with having four beds fallow, I still way surpassed any previous years veggie harvest. I was thinking of further reducing my production, but with all the surplus we managed to put a lot of canned food by for winter veggie sales. Putting all that food by was a real challenge especially as hot as the summer turned out to be. I guess I will be a martyr and keep the plantings the same. It is nice to have the production and still have 4 fallow beds. This will allow me to do some different fertility practices with cover crops and green manures.

It is an amazing thing, every year the garden has been in production the following year has always exceeded the previous year. I feel that I have peeked the production, but I do have 4 fallow beds. It is nice to have the capacity to do a little more growth when the market needs more production.

Yes like all years there are “those” moments but it has been a good year.

Due to age and heat the garden is slowing. This should change as the days cool down. There is a prediction of a cool moist fall. Well when it arrives I'll bank on it. This has been a real weird weather year.

The first planted okra has bee clipped back because the tops got barren. Some of the new growth is already blooming and starting to produce. My first planting of toms had some water issues but are now making a come back and are blooming nicely. I did not have this problem in my second or third bed and they will be maturing soon. It looks like it will coincide with the forth bed finishing. The long keepers are blooming and setting fruit so I am ever hopeful that we will have toms into January or February. They will be harvested just before freezing and ripen slowly through the winter. My new planting of summer squash is producing and I hope to soon list it.

Fall sowing will start soon. The soil was too warm for some seeds in test beds and germination reflected this. It would be nice if the day time highs got into the 80's and this would help immensely.

Patience!!