Garden Babies: Garden Update 3

Raspberries planted this year have produced an unexpectedly good yield.  Caveboy approves. 

Summertime, and the food is easy.  My oldest son is wandering the yard, foraging for raspberries and grazing on chard. It's a funny thing for a 3 year old to be into, but I'll often see him wandering around with a big red and green leaf in his hand.  This is what I was hoping for when I cranked up the size and scope of my garden after he was born.

Last year, as he turned two, the only food in the garden that was ready for him to pick and eat were the tomatoes in the hoop house.  And eat them he did.  My wife assumed that we didn't get many tomatoes last year, and the yield wasn't what it could have been had I not killed 2/3 of the plants, but the rest were victims of the Caveboy.

Sungold tomatoes from 2014.  This variety is great for children to forage for. No doubt this one was eaten by Caveboy shortly after this picture was taken.  

Next year the younger child will be almost two years old, and there will be so much more to eat. Those raspberry plants, pillaged from a patch that grew out of someone's yard to takeover a public area, will be in their second year.  In addition the strawberries I planted under them will start to produce fruit, as will the haskap and red currant bushes.

Two rows of berries will become at least 4 when the hugel beds, now covered in squash and corn, are conditioned for shrub growth.  Maybe I won't even have to prepare meals for my kids next July and August. 

Foraging and gathering seem to be natural activities for children, and they probably should be. Our forest dwelling ape ancestors had to forage for their food, and the need to gather likely contributed to bipedalism when climate change removed forest from the equation and left our ancestors in open woodlands, or savannas.

Our 10 month old has recently become bipedal, and this of course allows him to gather thing from one part of the house, and move them to another, and to run towards the edge of the deck causing multiple panics a day for us parents.

I would definitely encourage anyone with even a brownish green thumb to plant some permanent, edible plants.  Much of what I have planted will need very little water or care once it is established. A 25 foot row of raspberries can produce up to 25 pounds of berries in a year.

July Garden Update: This Year's Successes

Since I didn't get around to updating in June, the garden successes are for July.  And it's a good thing I waited until July so I could see how great some of these things have been.

Hydroponics

I am doing two things differently this year.  Previously I used pea gravel, and it did work fine. However I found it difficult to clean at the end of the season, and new pea gravel has so much sand and silt in it, it is also hard to clean to prepare it the first time.  I decided that I would try larger gravel, so that I wouldn't have to clean it as much on either end.  

Tomato roots growing down into the gravel.  The foil keeps light off the gravel, preventing algae growth and overheating. 

This seems to be working great.  My tomatoes are much better off than they were last year, but I will attribute that to not making some of the same rookie mistakes I made last year which damaged my plants.

Tomatoes getting big, quickly.

Notice the fan in the background.  That is another alteration this year.  It can get very hot in the hoophouse, which in turn can prevent tomatoes from pollinating.  I keep this fan on during hot days to keep air moving across the top.  It can also help to keep dew from settling on the leaves overnight.  
Woodchip Hydro?
I know that a lot of people who grow hydroponically use coco coir, shredded coconut husks, as a grow medium.  It is expensive, but hold water longer and therefore doesn't put you at risk of losing your crop if the electricity goes off one afternoon.  The problem for me is that it is expensive.  I decided to look up why growing in wood chips is not doable.  It turns out, that it is.  So I planted one tomato in wood chips, which I only water once a week.

Wood chips seem to be growing a health tomato plan.  

Woodchips are very often free. You can get them in Larimer County from the dump, or at the transfer station behind Rivendell School.

Wicking Buckets
I am continuing from last year where they seemed to keep up with the hydroponic tomatoes.  However not that I haven't over flooded or dried out the hydro plants a couple of times, I can really see the difference.  The do grow well in the buckets, and likely use less water than plants grown in the ground, but they don't compare to hydroponic tomatoes.  Not yet at least.  I probably need to work on my soil mixture.

A wicking bucket is a great idea for a low water use, container garden. 

The Wicking Bed
Now that it is July, and I have used the buckwheat to condition the soil to correct my mistakes of over amending, I am moving the wicking bed over to the success column.

I only have three plant in it, because I wasn't sure it was going to be ok, but they are doing great and I never have to water them, since the reservoir collects rain water from the top of the hoop house every time it rains.

Wicking bed with two peppers and an eggplant, and the remnants of the buckwheat.  

Coco Coir
"I thought you said you don't buy that?" I don't, but if you happen to live somewhere where medical (or even recreational) cannabis is legal there is likely a huge supply of free, once used coco out there.  Coco can be use many time for hydroponics, but since cannabis is such a high dollar crop, most growers only use it once and then throw it away.  Many don't know what to do with it.

I may use it next year for my tomatoes, but I have already used it as a soil amendment, and mulch.  Here in Northern Colorado we have a lot of clay in our soil, so an amendment like coco is a great way to loosen it up, and add some organic matter.  It rots slowly, so you don't have as much of a concern with nitrogen uptake as you might adding something woodier.  Also, since it has been fed for hydroponic use, you will be adding a great mixture of plant-ready nutrients to your soil.

Yep, they would just throw that out.  Mulch this year, in the soil next year.  

Permaculture
I have put together a couple of areas in my yard that are meant to be "extra sustainable."  These have been fun experiments, and are working pretty well.  Now that it is summer, and it isn't raining every day, one of the areas that was part of a failure earlier has become a success.

The Squash Garden

Super water efficient garden was not great when it rained a record amount, but it's awesome now

I have not had to water this area of the garden yet, but I did once just to empty my new rain barrel...
There are trenches, known as swales between each row, which I have filled with wood mulch.  The rows are covered with black plastic mulch.  When it rains water is held in the swales, and then wicked sideways into the garden beds.  The black plastic keeps moisture from rising vertically from the soil.  I have a soaker hose underneath with which I can passively water using the rain barrel.

It's sort of legal now, in Colorado

I'm sure there are places to get free barrels, but these were $3 each at Hageman's Earth Cycle.  They used to contain the clay-based dyes for their mulch.  You won't likely get all the dye out of the barrel, but it should be fine for watering the garden.  I won't put it into the hydroponic system, however. The spigot was $5, and the flexible downspout was about $8.  Add in a paint net and you are looking at $15-$20 for this 33 gallon barrel.  I hear you can often get 55 gallon drums for free from car washes.

Hugel Kultur

Bury some wood

Hugel Kultur is the practice of building garden beds on big mounds of dead wood.  The idea is that as the wood rots, great soil will be created with a lot of organic matter in it, and a great fungal environment for growing shrubs, bushes, and berries.  It is also supposed to hold moisture longer than dirt, and therefore require less watering. The very obvious problem with this is that the fungus responsible for rotting the wood will use up the available nitrogen while doing so.

While reading up on hugel kultur, I came across several instance of people who had bad "luck" using this method.  Many people try to overcome the nitrogen problem by adding manure. The problem with this idea is that that nitrogen won't be available to the plants until it also rots, and in the meantime they have probably added too much, therefore burning the plants root which are starved  of nitrogen in the first place.

How did I overcome this? Easy: urea.  "Hey, that's not organic." Nope, but point out to me where I said this was organic gardening.  I find it to be not too much of a sin against sustainability because, unlike potassium and phosphorous, nitrogen is not mined.  It s taken straight from the air using the Haber Process.  The sustainability argument against the Haber Process is that natural gas is often used as a catalyst.  I am ok with this.

I did add some chicken poop in with the wood, which will break down over the years and provide a lot of nitrogen, but I added enough this year to feed corn. I used corn so, along with the squash planted under it, partly because its roots will get down in and amongst the rotting wood to help it on its way.  Also it is a high nitrogen use, and so will use much of the nitrogen I added to prevent an over abundance when the nitrogen from the chicken manure becomes available, and subsequently when nitrogen is released by the dying fungus.

Cucumber on a hugel stack

This is a silly little experiment.  Playing of the ideas of hugel kultur and grow bags, I made a hugel stack.  I stacked some logs vertically, wrapped them in reemee, and added some dirt on top.  I water it by filling a juice carton top, and letting it drip.  It seems to be doing ok.  I did this just so I could see what the wood will look like after one growing season.


This post is getting long, so I will stop here.  Hopefully I can get part two out soon.

Also coming soon: It's squash season! Since I'm from New Mexico, that means calabasitas.  When my corn is ready, and some tomatoes, I will show you how to make the best, garden fresh, calabasitas ever.  

Tell me about your favorite summer garden meals.  

June Garden Update

I have several posts in the works, but I thought I would bring up to date some of my successes, and failures for this season so far in the garden.

Some problems this year: 

1.    Over amending the soil
2.    Too much water
3.    Bolting bok choi

      The following two are only problems because of the wet, wet spring

•    Over mulching
•    Cornseed Maggots

Next Post...
Fun experiments and successes

1.    Hugel kultur
2.    Greens in the hoop house 
3.    New hydroponic nutrients
4.    Babies working in the yard

Too Much Poop/Water
I don't have any particular method I follow when amending my soils. Because of this, I really have no idea how much I should add of anything, or what all I have put in.  I know that straight chicken poop can "burn" crops, but I have had success in the past growing corn in a bed with a lot of coop scrapings.

I am sure that I added to much to the wicking bed in the hoop house.  Nothing would grow in it, and there were mineral precipitates on clods of soil when they dried.  Another problem here is that we have had so much rain this year, and I have set the reservoir to be filled by runoff from the hoop house, that the soil is always totally wet.

Solution: Cover Crop

I planted buckwheat in the wicking bed to help condition the bed for a winter planting of spinach,  Over time my mistake of adding too much chicken poop would be fixed as it broke down into more available nitrogen, but this will help expedite the process.

What else does it doe for me?

• Phosphorous: Buckwheat can extract phosphorous from the grow medium that is in forms unavailable to other plants.  After I chop it in September, that phosphorous will be available to the crops that come after it.  
• Soil Conditioning: Buckwheat puts out a lot of roots into the top 10 inches of soil (which is the total depth of my bed), and leaves the soil much more loose and friable than if nothing had been done. 

Too Much Water/Mulch
After making sure my garden would be as drought tolerant as I could make it, it has been raining nearly every day.  This has caused the soils to remain totally muddy, and my mulch to start rotting quickly.  Also, it has been really cool, and the combination of wet and cool has been a problem for starting squash directly in the soil.

Once the soil is warm, squash seem to pop up the day after they go in the soil.  Otherwise they can become food for maggots, which happened to my entire first planting of squash.

It was fun to dig up the seeds and find them eaten from the inside out.  Now that it is warm, I will have plenty of squash.  To be fair to myself, I knew that I had planted early (late April), but some years that would have worked just fine.  It was as much a Hail Mary that I would be able to have some really early squash, as it was naivete.

Bolting Bok Choi/Poor performing kale
I am not sure what accounted for the immediate bolting of the bok choi I planted in April.  It could have been a combination of too much water and wood mulch, and perhaps an over amending of the soil in that raised bed.  The kale in that same bed is not growing well either, and usually I have felt that kale will grow no matter what I do to it.

I decided to split this post up so that it doesn't get too long.  Next I'll talk about what is working, and what has been fun.

Caveman Brain or Thank You Jimmy Fallon Thank You Notes

I have heard it said that if you want something done it is best to delegate it to a busy person (if you can't do is yourself, of course). As a severely ADD person, this is an especially true bit of wisdom for me.

When I have a lot on my plate, I feel like I can get anything done.  However, when there is nothing much going on, don't expect me to be able to self-activate.

For over a week now we have been visiting my wife's family in Ohio.  A majority of this time has been down time (though I re-painted a barn, and rebuilt a barn door in the first couple of days).  I could have used this time to finish several blog posts I have started, or think of something new to write.  Today I had a block of several hours to myself while they all went to church. Instead of being creative, or useful in some way, I have remained in my PJs watching 20 straight segments of Thank You Notes on Youtube.

I should have this published before they get back, so all is not lost.  Now I will go eat the egg I fried half an hour ago.

PS There is a hypothesis that ADD is the pre-agricultural norm.  Unless something really has to be done, we like to preserve calories and go to mental hibernation. Producing dopamine all the time must be exhausting, but it gets the garden weeded in August.  

Easy Eggs for Camping

There are no better scrambled eggs out there than the ones you make from your own backyard chickens. The one exception is the scrambled eggs you eat when you are camping regardless of the source.  Everything just tastes better when you are outside and hungry.

My brood from 2010

Taking eggs camping, and especially backpacking, can be a daunting task.  Sometimes you just keep them in the carton in the cooler and everything is fine.  Sometimes you get those fancy camping egg cartons and they break all over the place.

A couple of years ago when we were responsible for breakfast for 12 on a winter hut trip, my wife came up with the idea to simply break the eggs into an old peanut butter jar.

This last weekend I decided to take it one step further and put all the ingredients in the jar too.  It did indeed make for some tasty scrambled eggs.

Her'es what I like in my eggs.

For the three of us (my wife, the two year old, and myself) I broke six egg into the jar.  I like soy sauce for saltiness and flavor, green chile, because I am from New Mexico, and yogurt for fat. I usually add butter as well.

You want some kind of fat or grease for really good scrambled eggs to help keep some of the really tasty proteins strong and so they don't squeeze out the water.

At Camp, Pre-Scramble

At Camp, Post-Scramble

Notice I taped the top, just in case it got loose.  To scramble, just shake vigorously just before you pour it in the pan.

I like a really hot, and well oiled, pan to cook it quickly.  I only cooked half of this at a time to avoid over cooking some of the eggs.  You know you have over cooked your eggs if they leach some water when they hit the plate.  I would guess that eggs are overcooked 99% of the time. Most people tend to overcook them, and then continue to overcook them some more until they evaporate all the water that got squeezed out of the eggs from cooking them too long.

With a hot pan, your eggs should be done in 10-30 seconds

 Mix quickly when the eggs hit the pan and pour the nearly done eggs onto your plate.  They will continue to cook and will set up right there in front of you.

Morning protein for a long day of, biking, hiking and climbing

How long will these be good for? With a cooler I'd feel safe 4 or 5 days out.  For backpacking you probably want to have this for your first breakfast only.  However if you have a food irradiator, you could keep it in that jar for quite a long time.

Happy Eating,

Charlie

Wicking Bed in the Hoophouse

In the past couple of years I have only grown in the middle of my hoop house because that was the easiest place to reach.  I am planning on digging it down 10 to 12 inches this year to allow for more head space and growing space for the tomatoes.  In addition I wanted to add some thermal mass to the edges to keep heat in and block out wind.


In building the retaining walls for the earth mound that was to be at the the edges I realized that I could put a raise bed in there.  So I dug it down and used this opportunity to try a wicking bed.

Caveboy in the 2014 hoop house in May. Except for this hydro bed, all the growing has been in the center.  

What is a wicking bed?
A wicking bed is a method of planting which allows for maximum water usage when growing in soil.  It is more efficient even than hydroponics, assuming one actually replaces the water in their hydro system as often as recommended.

How does it work?
One of the biggest problems with growing in soil is water loss.  Water is lost into the air when watering from the surface, and water is lost into the ground as well.  Mulch can help prevent water loss into the air, especially if you use a drip system.

Wicking beds address both of these issues by watering from below the bed from a reservoir.  The only way for the water to go is up, into the soil where the plants roots are.

A typical layout looks like this:

http://www.earthanedge.com/earthan-beds-how-they-go-together/
(I don't  have a fish pump.  I just fill it with water)

The reservoir underneath is usually filled with small gravel or sand which move water upward through capillary action.  Between the soil and the reservoir there is usually a barrier of some sort to keep soil and roots from getting down into the gravel, but it isn't always used.

As the soil above dries, the moisture is drawn up from the reservoir.  In this way the plant regulates soil moisture to whatever level it prefers.

You can't over-water these beds because there is a drain at the top of the reservoir.  Once it is full, it is full.

Instead of piling soil here, I decided to dig down several inches: maybe 3 or 4 to set the reservoir in ground a bit.  In order to use runoff from the hoophouse, and overspill from the wicking bed I dug a shallow ditch to direct excess water into one of the swales in my berry patch.

North edge of the hoop house

Digging in clay is fun. 

Reservoir Liner
After digging out and leveling the reservoir, I lined it with landscaping plastic.  I placed some old roofing tar paper I had in my shed below it to prevent puncture from rocks and roots below.

Tar Paper

Staple it up

Adding water to check level, and troubleshoot the drain.

Reservoir Medium
The next step was to add the gravel.  I used the pea gravel from last year's hydro set up.  I'll be using river rock this year for hydro because it is easier to clean.  The PVC tube sticking out is  for watering. It connects loosely to another 2" pipe and then a 1" pipe to disperse the water slowly into the gravel.

I will only grow on one edge, so I have indented there for more soil contact during initial watering. 

Happy berries

Dividing Soil From Reservoir
Then I laid the weed guard across the top and stapled it to the board that defines the inner edge of the bed.

Weed guard covering the bed and the watering hole

Peat Moss
For good transmission of moisture upwards, soil high in organics is best.  I have clay so I have amended the soil a little.  First to make sure moisture is transferred easily I added a layer of peat moss to the top of the division.

A thin layer of peat moss

Soil Mixture
As I mentioned, my soil isn't the greatest.  I won't be fertilizing this bed for a couple of years so I added some mulch and chicken coup mix (complete with feathers and mummified mice) and hoed them together with soil I dug up from the middle of the hoop house.

Poop. Dirt. Mice.

With each layer I added a little more peat moss to ensure good moisture transmission.

All full! 

Get it Wet!
The last two steps are to make sure the entire bed is wet to start the capillary action and to cover with mulch.  I plan on growing peppers in here. If I'd had this bed before, they'd already be growing.

 The next step is to actually plant some peppers.  I'll let you all know how that goes.


I'll write about the berry patch project soon, but I can tell that one of the swales is working nicely.  I've taken the other out to try to figure out why it wasn't holding water.

Water stored below the mulch in the swale between berries and rhubarb.  Like a wicking bed, this water will move into the planting mound as it dries.  

Death in the Meadows

This Wednesday we went for a hike with the Nature Tribe group at a natural area in the city.  Before we started out I found this dead vole with her still living babies suckling from her lifeless body.  

Caveboy wasn't interested in learning about it.  His favorite book these days is Who Pooped in the Park so I thought he would be excited to actually see an animal up close, but the tall grass was making it hard for him to walk and he just wanted to get back to the trail so he could run.

I didn't try to press the issue too much because I could see that he wasn't going to be able to pay attention.  We found plenty of tracks and scat later on the hike to talk about.  We saw some horses too.

He wasn't ready to focus on this little animal in the grass, but the older children were (ages 3-9 or so). They looked at the scene and discussed the meaning of it with each other.  One mentioned that he wished an owl would just take it.

That is part of the fun and the purpose of these hike: to build my children's village with people who take an interest in nature are willing to think about these things.

Kids: there are more interesting things in the ditch than on the trail

Later in the hike Caveboy did his best to keep up with the big kids.  Part of raising a conscious child is having the right big kids to try to keep up with.  Thank you to the NoCo Nature Tribe for letting us be part of the tribe.

Garden Season

Spring is here and I haven't posted anything in the past couple of week because I have been busy getting the garden ready.

Gardening in Colorado can be tricky business.  The first frost is usually in September, and the last in May.  The summer can be brutally hot and dry, or very cool. Nearly every year there is hail to contend with.

Glacial advance during hail storm of August, 2008

Additionally two of our neighbors have cottonwood trees near my fence line. Cottonwood roots make it nearly impossible to grow in the soil within the reach or their roots.

Over the past few years I have come up with a few ways to deal with many of these problems, which I will go over at some point.  For now here's what I've been up to.


Mulch

Free mulch from the City of Fort Collins

In the past I haven't been too good about mulching, except where I have used black plastic mulch.  With free mulch from the city, one would be foolish not to use it.  Here in the desert we must do everything we can to keep the moisture in the soil.

Irrigation 

I can not grow in the portion of my yard that used to be designated as the garden due to the neighbors cottonwoods, so a few years ago I built these raised beds and moved garden soil to them.  They have been great for a lot of reasons, but I have been watering them by hand.  After a few weeks I find I just don't have the patience to do it properly.  So this year I added irrigation to each planter.  

I realized after putting it in that this wouldn't work.  I needed a 90 degree bend. 

This should work better

Beauty.  That's much better. 

This year's Bok Choy, planted in March

It should be a lot happier under mulch and with its own irrigation

Berries

Avis' Permaculture Homestead

A friend posted this video on Facebook awhile back, and it inspired me to plant a berry patch.  Apparently Calgary has a similar climate to Fort Collins.

My first berries. I will add many more soon. 

The "Before" of the berry patch

My rhubarb will be happy that it will finally be getting some attention because of its proximity to the berry patch.  I will talk about the trenches, the "swale trails" in future posts about the berry patch.  Of course it involves a lot of mulch.

The Boys

Get 'em working young. 

 Of course what I am really trying to grow in my yard are my two young sons.

Danger baby

Hydroponics/Aquaponics

Last year's setup during the Mother's Day snow

I built the hoop house in the portion of my yard where the cottonwood trees are.  In order to continue to use it, I would have had to move it or figure out how to grow out of the ground.  I decided to try my hand at hydroponics, and with some trial and error, I had some awesome success.  It turned out to be a great year to do it as it was really cool, and many peoples tomatoes did not ripen until late September.  I had ripe fruit by early August, most of which was eaten by my older son.  

August tomatoes. Easy picking for a 2 year old. 

The day before Mother's Day, 2014

Mother's Day, 2014

Possible Aquaponics Experiment

 I grew peppers and basil in this tray last year on the same system as the tomatoes.  I will try an aquaponics, deep water culture, system with this small reservoir for greens.


Other things to talk about
This post is getting long, so I'll cut it off here.  I do want to talk about some things that Colorado gardeners might find interesting like:

How to over-winter spinach

Planted in September, 2014

Chicken Poop

Cleaning out the coup for fertilizer

Beer

Probably not, but here's the first hops of spring

That's all for now.  Enjoy and please let me know what you'd like to hear more about.