Some Unusual Frugal Potting Soil

With no snow to speak of and the ground even starting to thaw a bit I have been out and about hunting for the right soil medium in which to start my onion, leek, celery, and celeriac seedlings. Normally we try to make our own "homemade" potting soil that does differ slightly each year depending upon what type of materials we can come up with. For the most part I just try to produce a semi-fine soil that is able to retain moisture and remain pliable without hardening up. Our house is heated with a wood stove and the one drawback of this is the lack of humidity in the air, this lack of moisture tends to cause the soil in our seedling trays to harden very quickly making it difficult for the plants to germinate and grow. So when it comes to potting soil my focus is on keeping the dirt soft and arable.

This season I am using a rather interesting mixture. I am lucky in the sense that I have a massive pile of decomposed sod which will make up the bulk of my potting mix. This combination of topsoil, dead grass, and fine little roots should work well.


Also added is my own version of peat moss, in this case a common green moss that grows in great abundance around here. After I fill a tote it is dried by the fireplace before being added to the mixture in order to help with water retention.


Lastly, strange as it may seem, I incorporated a couple of vacant red ant nests to help keep the soil from hardening. I scoped these potential amendments out last summer. Every once in a while for reasons unbeknowst to me the nests are abandoned never to host ants again. Red ants in these parts build large mounds using materials gathered from their surroundings, in my case these materials are largely made up of very small twigs, pieces of dead grass, and other debris that should provide excellent soil aeration. I hold these particular ants in high regard as they are very omnivorous, thus helping to keep many of the so called "bad" insects in check as nature intended.

A wheelbarrow full of ant nest, we have lots of these nests around but only a couple that were abandoned.

Here is a closeup of the materials ants use to build their mounds.


Yes Silke, he does tend to be quite the little helper. Rowdy's job was to break up all of the clumps.:)

I'll have my radish and eat it too!

Mr. H, with a frenzied gleam in his eyes, declared "No matter how hard it is, no matter how long it takes, I will not be denied a radish! Oh, the root maggots might have gotten the best of me in years gone by, but no longer." This year I fought back, I grew the 'podding radish'." He exclaimed amid peals of deranged laughter.

I have tried and failed miserably to grow any sort of a decent radish for years now. I tried different varieties; big radishes, watermelon shaped radishes, black radishes, and white radishes. I even tried French radishes that I assumed must be so foreign to the northern reaches of Idaho the worms would not possibly be able to understand them... all to no avail. I tried growing them individually at the far corners of my garden. I put down ash. I even attempted to grow them through a plastic weed barrier. The maggots soundly defeated me on every front, burrowing into the fruits of my labor just before they could be harvested.

Then, last year I grew podding radishes. Oh yeah, I beat the dirty little buggers at their own game. No juicy little roots for them to tunnel through, no not one. The podding radish gives you all the delicious spicy flavor of a radish without the maggots. The loathsome monstrosities never could figure out how to crawl up the stock, which they would have to do in order to get at the pod.


You see, the podding radish, or rat-tailed radish, produces small inedible roots. The radish quickly bolts to seed and provides one with numerous plump edible pods that are a most delicious addition to salads and stir fries. The pods are best when harvested while still young and tender. As far as I know all radish seed pods can be eaten, but podding radishes were bred for their much larger more flavorful pods. No more maggot ridden radishes for me, no sir none at all.

Here is an informative article on podding radishes. http://www.kitchengardeners.org/rat-tailed_radish.html.

Leafminers

Leafminers have become a substantial pest issue for us over the past couple of years causing damage to many of our leafy greens. Spinach, beet greens, tomatillo and ground cherry leaves, beetberry, French sorrel, and especially Swiss chard all seem to be the prime targets in our gardens.

Late spring spinach (note the outline of a worm in bottom corner)

Flat of Egypt beet greens

Swiss chard

The small gray flies lay their eggs in neat little clusters on the underside of the leaves.

As the maggots emerge they get in between the leaf tissue mining their way throughout the leaves as they feed.

The first of the many cycles they go through each year seem to be the most damaging for our crops and as the season progresses the damage inflicted becomes less noticeable. The only solution I have come up with to combat these little nasties is to pull off the tunnelled leaves and feed them to our ravenous chickens.

On a smaller scale one could attempt to destroy the egg clusters before they hatch but we grow too much chard for that to be a practical solution to the problem. I have noticed a huge number of parasitic wasps going after the maggots in the leaves but the pests still seem to outweigh the predators.

One thing I am going to do is allow the birds into the garden for a brief period this fall and the following spring to help combat any overwintering insects. If anyone has found an organic method of relieving themselves of these exasperation's please do tell.

"Too close a look can oft temper ones enthusiasm for a natural salad" - Mike :)

Our Food Garden Realized

Most of the gardens are finally planted and burgeoning with new growth. The sod I removed from the newest addition is a distant memory making way for a diverse variety of new plants.

Plants like tomatillos, ground cherries,

and even a few litchi tomatoes.

The sage is all abuzz with nectar seeking insects.

Valerian reaches towards the heavens with lilac scented blooms.

Volunteer tomatoes and sunflowers thrive alongside the onions and flax.

The heirloom Umpqua broccoli plants, whose seeds I am attempting to save, are flowering just as the Russian kale has finished and is now podding up... perfect timing. I was worried about keeping both from flowering at the same time, although crossing these two might prove interesting... perhaps another time.

Thick stalked purple podded peas are standing tall with a little support.

The last two years have brought a plethora of predatory insects, frogs, and salamanders into our gardens to help defend against the bad. I have never seen so many ladybugs like this one gracing some of last years parsnips just beginning flower.


I'm not sure whether our grandson or the robins like the strawberries better. We divided and transplanted over 1,500 ever-bearing plants early this spring and did not expect to get berries this soon, if at all this year. Almost every one has fruit in various stages of development... lucky us.


The tiny English walnut trees seem happy, I planted 50 nuts last fall and ended up with 46 trees in the making.

Purple carrot flowers are most intriguing,

but these Egyptian walking onions have got to be the strangest alliums I have ever seen, tentacle upon tentacle sending feelers in every direction. They arrived this spring all the way from Michigan via my gardening and greenhouse hero and master of all that is allium, El, of fast grow the weeds ... thank you, thank you!


A pox upon my house if I dare forget to mention the vibrant growth taking place with these prodigious tomatoes, some of whose seed I received from Dan & Val of Grunt and Grungy's Garden.


The hard work out of the way, I now look forward to strolling through our little food gardens enjoying the wondrous selection that we are privileged to partake in. Who am I to be blessed with such fortunes while so many go hungry? The world's inequities are hard to understand.

The Worms Crawl In

Thanks to issues with cabbage root maggots the planting of certain brassicas, mainly cabbage, broccoli, brussels, cauliflower, and kohlrabi can be quite a chore in our gardens. The adult, similar in appearance to that of small housefly, lays eggs in the soil next to the stems of cole crops. When the larvae hatch they make their way down to the roots and eat tunnels throughout the root system causing the plants to eventually fail.

"One of the solutions to this problem, and the one that works best for us, is to cut squares of perforated weed barrier and place them around the base of each and every plant" he says with an exhausted sigh. Floating row covers can also keep the flies off cole crops but wind and water issues prevent us from using them. Besides, what fun would simple row covers be when one can look forward to cutting and placing hundreds of little squares instead. :)

First we separate, in this case ruby perfection cabbage plants from the tangled web they have weaved in my flats. Yeah, I planted them a little too close together and this is why I'm planting this particular batch out now rather then waiting until they are bigger as I normally do. We used really old seed and did not expect such good germination.

We plant them as deep as possible, even covering the first little set of leaves with soil. Planting this deep enables the cabbage, with its shallow root system the ability to access more soil moisture. Also this helps to keep it from flailing about in the wind... an issue we have, especially in the early spring. We actually have to put wooden stakes on the east side of full size cole crops to keep occasional wind gusts from literally ripping them out of the ground.

Then I put a small (6x6") square of weed barrier, with a slit cut half way down the middle, around the base of the plant making sure to leave a slight bowl shaped depression so that water will more easily penetrate through to the roots of the cabbage.

Cover with dirt and I'm ready to move on to the next one. In the past we also added a little wood ash around the plant as this seems to work as a repellent as well.

I'm planting my cabbages in three different stages this year, hoping to come up with the perfect heads for winter storage. As much as I love cabbage it is certainly not one of the easiest crops for me to grow due to weather, insects, and my general lack of a green thumb. Perhaps this will be the year I finally master this most simple of all vegetables to grow.

"Cabbage: A vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head." - Ambrose Bierce, American writer (1842-1914)

General disclaimer:

This post is in no way meant to diminish the worthiness of a root maggot or any of their kind. I am aware that we all have a right to live full and productive lives to the best of our abilites. Some species tunnel through cabbage roots while other species place numerous little squares to prevent tunneling.

Stupid maggots.

Sod Buster

I grew up watching westerns, any spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood. An older John Wayne also had me enthralled with tales of gunfights and arduous cattle drives. The one thing that most of the westerns had in common was that it was not cool to be either a farmer (sod buster) or a sheep rancher. As a child I always wanted to be one of the gunslingers of days gone by, but alas, I have become a sod buster and chicken rancher (wrangler) instead... and proud of it.


We (I), perhaps foolishly, decided at the last minute to expand the gardens, and so sod busting has been my spare time hobby of late. I needed a sunnier location for tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants to grow and will hopefully have it ready in time for the June planting of those three. This "needing more room" seems to be a yearly occurrence for me.


One of the benefits of removing tons of sod is the great mulch pile it will create. By the time I'm finished we should be set on that front for at least a couple years.


Unfortunately, I did disturb numerous "Carabus nemoralis" or European ground beetles hiding in the grass. If you come across any of these guys, leave them be as they are a most excellent nocturnal predator of cutworms, maggots, and other garden pests.


I also ran into these not so beneficial little crickets, but had not the heart to harm little Jiminy and let him live to sing another day.

Forced to Operate

We do not normally have any issues with wireworms, the larvae of a click beetle, attacking our crops but I did find these fellows enjoying one of my onions.

The onion was leftover from last year, at fall harvest I often leave the smaller onions in the ground so that they can be used as early spring greens. I was transplanting this one to another location and noticed it had been violated by wireworms.

I was forced to operate.

The onion pulled through but the wireworm's fate was not at all pleasant.