A Gardener's Retreat

Recently, I found the most wonderful book at a Library book sale.  Published by Storey Publishing, the book is Secrets to Great Soil: A Grower’s Guide to Composting, Mulching, and Creating Healthy, Fertile Soil for Your Garden and Lawn by Elizabeth P. Stell.  If you have found yourself confused about how to improve your soil, this book is the answer.  It’s become my Bible in this year’s effort to get our garden soil into shape.

The first step, according to Stell, is to figure out what kind of soil you have, so in an effort to answer that question I did a couple soil tests on the soil in our plot.  This soil is somewhat better than what would be there otherwise, but is still pretty close to the basic garden dirt that we’re all dealing with.

The first test I did was a “structure” test.  I took a set of four samples from different parts of the garden, and took them in such a way that I got a slice of dirt from the surface down about 6 inches.  I mixed the samples together and then put about a cup and a half in a mason jar, to which I added water to the very top of the jar.  I then added 1/2 teaspoon of ‘natural’ dishwashing liquid and shook the jar.  Over the next couple days, I watched and waited as sediment layers developed.  The results are shown below:

My amateur assessment of what I saw is that the dirt I sampled is about 97% homogeneous sandy loam, with another 1-2% dark organic matter, and a trace amount of outright silt. (The silt is that fine powder that lies on top of most of our garden plots and tends to blow away when it hasn’t rained in a while).  The sand in our sandy loam is fine grained with just a bit of grittiness when wet.

One noteworthy tidbit:  it took a long time for the some of the silt to settle out of solution. Moreover, the water that remained never did completely clarify — some of the silty clay remained in solution a week after the test.

pH Test Tube

On to the pH and nutrient tests.  I will admit, I did not spend top dollar on my test kit.  It was a RapiTest product that cost $5.98 at Agway and has enough test tubes and test chemical capsules to do 4 pH tests and 2 each for Potassium, Phosphorus and Nitrogen.  After much mixing, shaking and adding of water (making me feel a little like a Junior Chemist), I succeeded in capturing some results.

Here’s how the least improved soil from our garden plot tested out:

pH – very acid – 5.0 or below
Nitrogen (N) – very low
Phosphorus (P) – low
Potassium or Potash (K) – very low

I was not at all surprised by these results.  The soil samples I took were from areas where I hadn’t added any soil amendments recently, so it was to be expected that soil fertility would be low.  I was a little surprised by the acidity as I would have thought that the absence of leaves and evergreen needles in our plots natural compost would have kept it more neutral.  Not so, as it turns out.  My sample tested unmistakably acid.

While a number of vegetables will grow in soil with a pH of 5.0 and up, my researches tell me that they are happiest in the 6.0 – 7.0 range.  However, Stell says that if you add lots of organic matter (humus, compost, leaf mold, manure), your plants will be able to tolerate greater acidity.  The task for me is to figure out how to raise the pH of  our plot into the neutral range.  I’d like to do it without adding lime, so now I’m looking at mulches again to determine which is the most ‘neutralizing.’

The Gardener’s Retreat Herb Garden team has been busily working on the rejuvenated herb garden, and we’re happy to report that we’ve made some progress.  The beginnings of a structured (but not too structured!) herb garden are in place, some herbs have been planted, and we’ve even labeled a few of the early arrivals.  There’s still lots to do, but we feel good about where we are a month into the season.

We started the project by defining the perimeters of the herb garden space; in this case, we laid out a circle with a piece of twine which we had tied to a stake in the center of the circle.  Nancy and Chris dug a border all the way around so we’d know where our circle was.  After that, we all weeded and dug for all we were worth until the garden was clear of tall grass, roots, stray apple mints, and the like.  In the process, Lise discovered a very strange cache of soft round fleshy mushrooms under a patch of grass.  Not wishing to disturb them, she left both the clump of grass and the mushrooms in place.

Once the entire circle was cleared out, we weeded and shaped the perennials that were already there.  This included large clumps of yarrow, bergamot, irises, wormwood, coreopsis, skullcap, and other carryovers from the old garden.  Although not all of them are “herbs” in the usual sense of the word, we thought they’d earned their place.  We also kept a few wildflowers here and there, including black-eyed susan, bladderwort, cinquefoil, red clover and sheep sorrel.  Some are pretty, others medicinal; all are indigenous to the meadow.

The next step was to lay in paths with straw.  We had originally conceived of a sort of medicine wheel pattern with paths leading into the center from the four directions.  Although appealing, the garden itself resisted the design, putting large established plants everywhere you wanted a path to be.  In the end, we let the garden tell us where the path was and so it spirals in from the entrance on the left.  Users of the  garden will notice that the shortest distance is not the path between two points but we hope that everyone will relax into the meditative spirit of the place and use the path (although I have caught myself hopping between points on the path more once than while planting).

Although there is still more weeding and clearing to do in places, we’re starting to put in plants now so they’ll have time to establish.  If you have herb plants that you would like to donate, please leave them at the herb garden next to the straw pile at the entrance and let us know what you left . We’ll get out there and find a place for your plants, either in the herb garden itself (on the medicinal or the culinary side) or in one of the flower beds.  Please don’t plant things yourself as there is a method to our madness, and we want to make sure everything goes in a good spot.

Finally a word about usage:  It’s our goal to have enough going on in the herb garden so that people can pick a bit here and there.  But please don’t pick just yet as most plants are very small.  Once things get big enough, feel free to take sprigs as you need them, but remember that 30 families are using this garden and leave plenty for others to enjoy.

We’ll have more herb garden news later, when we have a little more to talk about and show.  Once the garden is more planted out, we’ll do a tour for gardeners and friends.

We’ve had our garden plot since 2006 and grown a lot of food in it.  But up to now, we’ve not given much back to the earth who made those tasty vegetables a reality.  But after a couple disappointing seasons and a sober look at our situation, we realized we needed to revitalize our soil with something more substantial than just organic fertilizer mix.  Our dirt needed organic matter, specifically, the kind that you get from decaying plants.

I did a little research and learned that leaf mold is a great source of organic matter for gardens.  Fortunately, that’s something we have in abundance at home, so we carted large batches of it over to the garden in tubs and added it everywhere, but especially in all the places where we knew our future crops would want rich soil.  That was a good start but I wanted more, and soon I had my sights on the Nature Mill XE Plus Indoor/Outdoor Composter.  My father-in-law obligingly bought me one for my birthday and since then, we’ve been able to side dress the more hungry crops with homemade compost.  It’s pretty hot, having only seasoned a few weeks, but our plants seem fine and if anything, beefier than usual.

Today, we checked on everything after the rain and were impressed with how much our seedlings and starts have grown.  The beet and chard circle in the middle of our space is packed, and although I had thought I was planting sparsely, it looks like at least a few of those borage plants are going to have to go somewhere else…  The kale is also performing well, and the tomatoes too.  Over in the squash patch, the zucchini are puny but have lots of flowers, whatever that means, and the cucumbers which I planted recently are struggling up at a glacial rate.  But I have no doubt they’ll be flourishing soon enough.

Cedar Waxwing - Masked Bandits of the Birds

The surprise for this week was the radishes, which had been producing big bushy tops and puny radishes.  I thought the soil was perhaps too fertile and that I might not get much of a crop this year.  But today, I noticed a large purple radish bursting out of the soil under a giant leaf top.  Hmmmm, I thought — that doesn’t look underdeveloped.  So I looked around some more and noticed that I had a few other radish gods going that had come out of nowhere.  Across the aisle in the other radish bed, the radishes were large but not huge, and the tops less bodacious than those of the first set.  So I’m guessing that the big tops do have overly fertile dirt but nevertheless, they are making big radishes so I can’t complain.

Pest alert:  if you’re wondering what got your strawberries, it was the cedar waxwings (a type of bird) who became bold and besotted with them just at the time they reached their peak of perfect ripeness. Alas.

A lot of people have been asking me where I get my herbal bug spray, by which I swear.  Well, I finally looked it up on the Internet last night, and wouldn’t you know, it’s made by Pura Vida right here in Brattleboro.  The product is called Bug Dope (“Fighting the war on bugs”) and it is the best herbal bug spray I’ve ever used.  Not only is it effective, it smells great and is safe for kids and pets.

I got my bottle from the maker herself, Judia Ziegner, at a Newfane craft festival.  But you don’t have to go that far to get yours.  Pura Vida have a shop, right near the archway in Harmony Lot (sharing space with Malisun).  If you can’t make it down to the store,  you can also order the product at their web site, vermontoils.com, or by phone at 802-254-8776.

I talked to Judia this morning (to make sure they were still making Bug Dope) and she filled me in on the active ingredients.  Essential oil of lemongrass keeps away horse flies and black flies while thyme oil repels ticks, mosquitoes, and no-see-ums, giving you all-around protection.  The version I bought also contained rosemary which seems to be helpful as well in the bug repelling department.  Bug Dope comes in a 4 oz. spray bottle and costs $12/each or 2 for $20.  While this may seem pricy at first, consider that it is effective, safe, fragrant, and natural, not to mention local!

And finally, a word to the wise — the black flies are biting.  The one day I didn’t bring my Bug Dope, I got nailed by them and my face did not enjoy the experience.  So bring something for biting insects when you come to the garden, because they’re vicious this year.

The Fence

We plan to get the poultry wire all the way around the garden this Monday (6/3) from 6-8 pm. Please come and help the fencing team with this push. Its a big job. Most important: wear bug spray!

Leadership Team

From February this year, the leadership team (LT) was made up of a handful of people who wanted to rethink the organization of the garden to resolve past challenges. This group had hammered out some working policies for moving forward, created a successful membership drive, and negotiated a relationship with Post Oil Solutions and a lease with the Brattleboro Retreat. As of May we had 3 LT members- all of whom are volunteers: Sandy Pagniucci- Community Liason, Carol Crompton- Treasurer, and Lisa Kuneman- Facilitator.

The LT added 2 new members and an Herb Garden Manager in May: Sharon Barnard is filling the LT role of Gardener Rep (albeit a modified version of the role as spelled out in the 2011 policies), and Chris Bates is the LT’s Special Project Coordinator. Lise LePage, who created and maintains our website, is working to revitalize the community herb garden.

Regular Leadership Team meetings are held on the 3rd Monday of each month, from 6-8pm at 72 Main Street (downstairs in the Brattleboro Food Coops offices). Any body can come.  To add an item to the agenda, contact Lisa at this email address (agrcg1@gmail) prior to the meeting.

Mowing

As of last week, Special Projects LT member Chris Bates gave up on trying to fix free, broken donated mowers and purchased a new mower! Without a shed to protect it from exposure to the elements, we need to figure out a plan for using it. As far as a system for mowing goes, we know this much… (See our new post Mowing News for more.)

Pathways

This year we have had lots new members join! This is exciting. It’s also an opportunity to review some expectations that help us maintain neighborly relations.  If you plant, or leave items in the pathways, it can impede mowing efforts and trip up gardeners who are navigating the pathways with their hands full or with the wheel barrow.

How’s your garden growing?

June is well underway, we’ve had typically variable New England weather.  What’s working so far? What isn’t working so well? Are your seeds coming up? Did you lose anything to too much rain? Have you seen the bluebirds nesting in the box just outside the fence? Have you been attacked by swarms of mosquitos in the evening? (I have!)

Send your personal garden news- we’ll share it via email and on the website. Looking forward to hearing from you all!

Lisa Kuneman
for AGRCommunityGarden

As of last week, Special Projects LT member Chris Bates gave up on trying to fix free, broken donated mowers and purchased a new mower! Without a shed to protect it from exposure to the elements, we need to figure out a plan for using it. As far as a system for mowing goes, we know this much…

1. Mowing of the area outside the fence and the pathways inside the fence each represent a shift.
2. Each area needs to be mowed weekly- that means 2 shifts per week.
3. Obligation to take a shift will rotate through the list of mowers- which will be posted on the bulletin board, and reminders will be sent via email.
4. Sharon will monitor mowing progress and send out reminders.
5. Once a mower has completed their shift, they should mark the date and the time spent on the bulletin board or contact Sharon (sharonbarnard207@comcast.net).

More to come in a little bit…