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.

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.’

 

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.

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.

This weekend, the first full weekend in May, we spent quite a bit of time out at the garden plot, laying out our seed beds, putting in all kinds of soil amendments, and planting some seeds.

In the past we’ve always gone with boring rectangles for our seed beds.  They worked and were simple to lay out, but for some reason I’ve never been satisfied with them.  This year, we decided to shake up our usual four-square arrangement, and lay in some curves and circles.  So except for a square strawberry bed, everything else is curvilinear.  I’m especially proud of the new beet and chard bed, which is an oval island between paths.

A tip:  We found that laying in the new paths with straw helped us to see the seed beds better.

 

Another new thing this year is flower borders.  I’ve always admired those French and English kitchen gardens with their pretty and useful arrangements of flowers and vegetables.  So this year, I bought a mixed seed packet of “Water Wise” flowers and I’m planting them in borders between beds.  I also planted borage with the beets (who knows if they like each other, but I thought they might look interesting as a pair) and climbing nasturtiums between our pea plants.  Can’t wait for seedlings!

Soil amendments this year include bags of manure from Agway, bins of leaf mold out of our back yard, and some North Country Organics fertilizer mix (from right here in Vermont!).  We also plan to straw mulch as soon as we have some plants going.

Not much else to report except that we discovered (and unfortunately dislodged) a medium sized brown toad from the dead sage plant in the middle of our plot.  We are leaving that area of the plot semi-wild and I left a bunch of dead sage there so he or she can move back in if it wants. In the wildlife department, we’re also going to leave the large healthy cinquefoil and celandine plants which took up residence this spring.  They make pretty flowers and this time, they seem to really want to stay.

Pictures next time!  We forgot the camera….

New community gardener HB sent this helpful post for the benefit of fellow gardeners:

Hi fellow gardeners! Lisa asked me to put together some tips for growing successfully in sandy soil. So here they are.

A little bit about me: My name is HB and I’m a farmer (though currently working an off- farm job). I started out farming in Maine in 2003 and since then have spent time growing food in Southeastern Washington; Portland, Oregon; West Oakland, California and then spent last season back in Freedom, Maine.

One thing I’ve learned (and that I love about farming/gardening) is that no one ever knows all there is to know. Below are some things that I’ve found to work but I’m excited to learn with and from all of you too.

Additionally, it’s really nice if you are a beginning gardener (or beginning in anything) to have some immediate successes. Hopefully what follows will help you grow some delicious and beautiful things.

Big Picture
When I think about growing in sandy soil, there are a two large picture things I think about first:

1) Sandy soil drains faster than other soils, and

2) sandy soils tend to not hold on to nutrients as well as other soils.

These are not hard and fast rules, just suggestions…

1. Tend away from those plants that are total water hogs.
   • Celery comes to mind
2. Tend away from those plants that need a ton of nutrients
3. Add soil amendments when you can
   • this is true for most soils) adding things like bone meal, manure, compost, alfalfa are great slow-releases of organic matter/nutrients into the soil.
   • things like fish and blood meal will help plants grow big and strong but contribute less to the overall health of the soil over time.
4. Root veggies (beets, carrots, parsnips…) can have real success in sandy soils!
5. In order to reduce the effects of water leaching nutrients from the soil, keep the majority of soil covered with plants the majority of the time.
   • This is a great general rule! it helps prevent evaporation/erosion
   • In sandy soil it’s really great because it helps keep the water that is in the soil in the soil.

**What’s that saying– there’s more than one way to skin a cat? I’m sure for every tip mentioned above, each person you ask will have several experiences in direct contradiction to my words. Take it as you will and don’t be afraid to try some exciting things! You can always feast on the community rhubarb that’s already coming up…hb

 

Because my calendar said that this weekend was good for planting — and because the weather, time, and timing were also right — we went over to the garden to work on our plot.  There wasn’t too much to do.  We turned over the dirt and pulled out a bunch of grass roots that were snaking their way through the soil.  Luckily they were really easy to pull out after the rain.

Good news!  We have worms, big fat juicy worms.  This is our third year in this plot and every year we do what we can to amend the soil  Last year it was leaf mould.  Apparently our efforts are starting to pay off.  I’m going to bring more leaf compost tomorrow — that’s about the only compost our backyard will produce.

In the “what’s growing now” category, we are pleased that despite the munchings of whatever allium-loving critter, our four clumps of perennial chives are growing big and strong.  The catnip is doing well too, and I transplanted one to the common perennial garden so eventually, there will be some for everyone to enjoy (if anyone is looking for catnip in the meantime, ask us).  

It’s never a Spring day at the garden if I don’t plant something, so today I planted snap peas.  I hope to get a few meals out of them this year — I’ve never had much luck with peas of any kind so this year I’m confining my efforts to this one variety and we’ll see how we do.

Tomorrow, we’ll be back to plant lettuce (butter crunch, romaine), radishes, carrots, and sorrel, which I found at Agway today and had to buy because I’ve always wanted to try it.  (The French make a sorrel soup they swear by but where does one find sorrel in America? I now have the answer — you grow it yourself.)