So now that you know exactly how much of each individual element you need to remineralize your particular square footage, it should be easy, right? Wrong. Coming up with the proper ratios of elements in natural form is just mind boggling, a labrynthine math problem that used to take me weeks to figure out. It’s […]
I first became acquainted with the theory of remineralization back in 2013 after reading Steve Solomon’s The Intelligent Gardener. It’s a very good book for anyone interested in soil science, and a fun read if you’re at all interested interested in the geeky side of things. And his main point makes a whole lot of sense. Anyone familiar […]
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my farm area is suited more for growing rice than veggies. This year has been especially wet, with thunderstorms nearly every other day, and my garden is suffering. Despite all the work I’ve done to raise the beds through copious additions of organic matter every year, the water […]
Our property is full of gorgeous, huge old trees. We love the shade they provide… but that also means they drop So. Many. Leaves. It’s just insane. We used to fill up the pickup truck’s bed with leaves six to seven times from the front yard alone. That’s not a bad thing (well, except when I’m actually faced […]
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. For 6 years I’ve had a compost pile by the kitchen for all our compostable things, dinner scraps, paper towels, veggie tops, etc., which gradually fills up the bin every year until I take out the finished stuff in the spring. I’ve already talked about how I also […]
I’m probably overdoing it on the hugelkultur here. I mean, I don’t even know for sure if it really works! But since I can’t help but overdo things, I went ahead and made one of my worst, soggiest beds into a long, low heap of branches, covered with brush I cleared out from around the garden […]
One of my very first harvests every Spring is black, not green. I deliberately set my coop’s run directly on the soil in order to be able to use the deep bedding method. The method is simple: every time the bedding starts to look gross, you add another deep layer of organic material on top. It’s that simple. […]
So, I haven’t written for a while. …It’s complicated, let’s leave it at that. But in the mean time, things have been trundling on over here, and I’m ready to start a brand new year. Complete with all the frozen mud, snowmelt, and endless spring rains that the change of seasons brings every year. If […]
They say you’re supposed to get a soil test every three years. I’d gotten one the spring of 2010, right after the land was cleared, but it was an over-the-counter sort of thing and told me nothing beyond soil ph (backfill hill, 5.1; bottomland 5.5). I was of the opinion that if I just kept […]
Both of the girls graced me with two hour naps this afternoon, and I got so much done in the garden! I spread 12 wheelbarrows – 72 cubic feet – of compost on top of the first three newly-tilled beds. I’m using it as mulch, to plant through, because it’s still fairly rough. That’s just […]