January 30, 2017

Facebook post

When I write about gardening, I report on what I have done that works or doesn't work for me. This does not imply that I know all the answers. It is hard to know all the answers when I have only scraped the bucket in figuring out what the questions are..

I am writing to pass on what I am doing. Is this what everyone else should be doing? By no means. I am a firm believer that we can learn from the past and improve on this. The wheel has already been invented and maybe others can use some of what I do or adapt it to their needs.

I am not afraid to try something only learning that that was not a great idea after all.

Last fall was such a situation. I am trying minimum tillage for many reasons and I am in the experimenting stage to see what works .

Established cover crops were burned down with the use of greenhouse film. The days were warm / sunny and this worked well. Dead material was left as a mulch and planted through. This worked fine for taller transplants but seedlings were destroyed by flee beetles. There also was a “miller” moth flush last fall. These moths are the parents of cutworms.

There were a few things that I should have done but did not.

Leaving the film on too long would warm soil too much for fall plants. Sooo I took the film off. I did not immediately cover with fabric. Once removed, the flee beetles and moths came in to this nice habitat I had created for them, and reproduced to no end. This really effected my seedling survival rate.

It can be said that hind sight is 20 /20.

First after removing the cover I should have: A, tilled under the debris (I would have had to have a decomposing period to do this); B, raked this debris off to compost; or C, have immediately covered with fabric to stop both of these insect's access.

Of these alternatives noted above, the tilling would be a non starter because there would be a 2 week delay for decomposition.

Raking off and covering should solve this problem or covering until I could rake the debris off.

By growing a cover crop, New Zealand clover for an example, a fair amount of bio mas can be produced in the soil from its roots. If the clover was allowed to begin to bloom then there would be the added benefit of nitrogen added to the soil.

Any cover crop that was burnt back and raked off would add to the soil. There is as much growth above ground as there is below the ground. Roots just decompose a lot quicker. It is the lignin in woody material that slows its decomposition and helps build soil humus.

It is my intent to mulch the beds with a compost that is high in lignin slowly working its way into the soil.