Spring or Fall Garden Soil Improvathon

When we first started expanding our garden we had nothing but clay soil to work with to get things established. Things did not grow so well that year..but after that year we started getting results..and now the soil  no longer looks or feels like its clay beginnings. It has totally transformed into loamy lush dark soil that is chalk full of nutrients and love! Our veggies have responded in turn by providing us with a bounty of fresh veggies. What is our secret? Bribery? No. Special varities of veggies? No. Spend all day and every day in the garden? No. The answer: Compost..lots of compost and tilling everything in during our busy fall or spring augmentation sessions. We use whatever we have..well composted leaves, manure, our own chicken manure, grass clippings and food scraps. It is a never ending cycle of improvement! And it works wonders for your soil.

In this video we grab all the compost we can hold…then put it on top of our beds. We give the chicken manure to the beds which need it the most then move on to using our leaves. We till it all into the beds and get things totally ready for the next growing season..so come along for a chicken poop adventure where we hope you will watch it all and not leaf. Groan.

Obviously improving the soil is not the only thing we do.

 

Measuring Level and Measuring Lettuce

Prepping for next spring and cut away 1/2 of the insulation around the bottom of our place. We are going to be putting it back on before winter but we wanted to get some measurements. Looking at things under our place and it looks really good and dry. We were not sure how it would turn out 12 years ago but it is much drier than I could have hoped for with not much sign of rodents.

Dry..but shifting slightly over the years. The good news is that the beams are very accessable for jacking. The bad news is that the thick bed of crusher dust and the thick layer of gravel are compacting when attempting to Jack them with the bottle jack. We will need to dig these all out to create a large enough footprint on stable ground to jack. Or slide 3 26ft beams under and Jack from there. We will see in the spring!

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..and our Bok Choi might go to seed for the 2nd time this season..might be too cold for bees. Lettuces still going too.

..and sad days..the backhoe is taken off the tractor and replaced by our back bkade. Which means winter is nearby. Yuck

The good news about all the levelling and jacking Bunkie work we did…we actually think it will go fairly smoothly when we apply the same principles to our place. Fun!

We started trimming out parts of the Bunkie..or pairing parts that need protecting from the elements.

…and more YouTube. Supporting the loft with lag bolts and kludging a beam to the wall.

 

Fall Turns

A record breaking zucchini!

8 years is up and our battery bank is toast. Long live the new Trojan T-105’s!

The first night with lights in the bunkie.

I would do a better job of describing the rest if WordPress would show me my uploaded and placed images. I am betting bike shots. A melon grown from our company pile, harvesting day and curing or veggies. 120lbs of potatoes. Great garden year and still harvesting lettuce, Bok Choi, kohlrabi, carrots, beets and Swiss chard after an early frost. Followed by 3 weeks of warm weather. Killed the tomatoes. We had harvested many and canned many too but there was a late batch coming on which would have made it based on the weather afterwards. Oh well, still a great harvest for the mostly new garden.

..and the tiny home/Bunkie/home office work keeps pressing forward. Wiring and insulation is in. Lights roughed in and usable via a fuse bar and a neat control panel.

 

More Bunk

I thought a new title might add some flare to an already tired subject to blog about. Bunkie work and gardening. And canning.

The work has gone from outside to in. 3 windows added and a new patio door. New to us anyway. 2 of the windows and the patio door were free. The patio door has some fogging but we sealed it up and covered over things with privacy screening. Great stuff.

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Wiring, insulation for 3/⁴ done and some vapour barrier installed ta boot. The rest was awaiting loft finalization..which we just knocked out. Went swell once we flattened the main log beam to make good square contact. More support and finishing is needed but smooth sailing from here on out..once we vent the propane exaust from the fridge. And install the woodstove. And finish the needlessly complicated 12v system. Been fun so far and not to bad a state for a twice snow collapsed shed. Yes, the first 2 did not sink into a swamp. This one is sure to stay up. My neighbor was by and works on metal buildings so I asked him his opinion of our construction job and sealing up of the metalwork around the windows and doors. He thought the structure would ‘…not budge before we die.’. A* has never been more happy.

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Making Annuals

Wow..we get to save ourselves nearly $4 in annuals! What a savings!

OK..not so thrilling but into part 2 of dealing with addictions with shrubs. Propigation through cuttings from a coulple of annuals which we did not use last year as well as a ground cherry and Wandering Jew. The plant. We cut them off from the parent plants 3 weeks ago. Applied root starter then and now all of the seedlings have healthy root growth. We wanted more practice with starting plants from cuttings so we can attain more shrubs and bushes this coming spring via the same method…we are going to do another round of annuals this week too..it is too easy and from 1 plant we should be able to get 20 clones or so in total.

..and we planted lettuce. We have ( and ordered more of ) waaaay too many seeds. So for sun we are trying to grow some lettuce inside.

Prepping for later in the month where we will be putting our veggies into pots as we await the last frost!

 

Some 1st Year Garden Results

Garden producing..the new beds need more soil augmentation this fall/spring to help with the soil quality but we are happy enough with things for year 1 with the long bed..

Not wanting to be too adventurous with new varieties we stuck to some of our known favourites..but tried out ground cherries ( a variety of tomato?) and really loved them!

..we already ordered/recieved a pile of shit…manure for future augmentation..many of our other beds need manure too so we ordered big. We also have fall plans to ‘islandize’ some of our perennials..the war of the perennials has been tough on some while allowing others to flourish..to the point where many of our original beds look completely different due to some plants taking over. We want to keep some of our favourites but these always seem like the ones who are losing bed wars…so a new area of isolation!

…and the manure is in another newer area we are creating with fill from the new area I am pulling stumps from..but more on that later.

 

Garden Growing

Well, the garden has been doing OK..soil needs more work as there was too much clay to fix all at once. We made the bed too wide and it is hard to really work as a result but we will make due for now. We also created 2 new smaller and less wide beds for next year ( the park pic ). One thing we did do with these 2 beds is add char ( near 10% ) to help things grow..I have seen that it does not work out in year 1 ( but that was OK as we mostly want to establish the bed now and did not expect vigorous growth in the new beds)…we will see! Next year we are going to have much more concentrated beds.

..and a shot of A* from a recent foggy hike.

 

 

How to Make a Huge Batch of Grape Jelly

Step 1: grow grapes and spend time nurturing, supporting and trimming the vines for maximum production\
Step 2: go back in time 3 days to a simpler time when birds did not know that the grapes were a food source…

dang you birdholes! I had plans to eat several hundred biscuits with that jam! I think next year we will harvest a little earlier and not wait for the weather to turn cold..the birds apparently did all damage over the course of 1 day..’Hey, D- I noticed a bunch of birds in the yard yesterday’ but they were not back when I cam home today’ maybe some netting for end of season…or an early harvest..or an ambush. I have a year to plan.

 

Full Swing

Nice to have the heat of summer back..and the garden is starting to pop..including there new Scarlett runners ( in a temporary space for this year while we finalize the yard space).

And the grape trellis is really growing like crazy..had to trim it down twice already as it was getting hard to walk by without the vines attempting to pull you in..looks like a bumper crop this year. Soon all the perennials will be flowering too which will help beautify the situation…very dry for the last month too…which is odd for the area.

 

Chow and Jam

No,  not the chow and jam dance moves..

We have not really done much canning and with the tractor and the potential for a proper cold room (and room/plans for a bigger garden) we wanted some practice..

Making a concerted effort to try to use what we produce..not that the grape vines produced much.