Misc/Chat Pics of my start of a "Back to Eden" garden

[West]

no, not sevin, but diatomaceous earth. We buy the stuff in 50# sacks; about 20 bucks. 50 # ain't enough for a year in Oklahoma... but it helps... I think.

 

[cnote]

My neighbor after the second year using Back to Eden method, seems like everything is stunted. Nitrogen problem? He is thinking of abandoning the chips. Do you folks add fertilizer to the chips? The garden is definitely lacking something.

 

[Slatewiper]

My neighbor after the second year using Back to Eden method, seems like everything is stunted. Nitrogen problem? He is thinking of abandoning the chips. Do you folks add fertilizer to the chips? The garden is definitely lacking something.

Are the chips laying on the top of the soil or did he till them in? Tilling them in will most definitely rob the plants of nitrogen. Is your neighbor sure of the source of his wood chips? Not all wood chips are created equal and there are certain trees you want to avoid altogether. You might also want to check on the depth of the chips. 2-3 inches is plenty. One more thing lol. Check for soil moisture under the chips. Sometimes the chips make it hard for the water to penetrate very deeply. Don't just check the surface either. Get a shovel and dig down at least a foot. The soil should be moist throughout.

 

[naturallysweet]

My neighbor after the second year using Back to Eden method, seems like everything is stunted. Nitrogen problem? He is thinking of abandoning the chips. Do you folks add fertilizer to the chips? The garden is definitely lacking something.

Was it just woodchips? I put compost or animal manure down, and then put the woodchips on top. The woodchips are of course not just woodchips, but also leaves and needles which help to provide nitrogen.

 

[BadMedicine]

Thanks for the resurrect!!

As far as robbing nitrogen.. MAJOR misconception.. ONLY during the first year or so, maybe 2 for wood chips that have lots of surface area.. after that they are covered in organisms and start to leech nitrogen.

The hugelkulture method prefers older and rotting wood, but even fresh cut logs will be in that state in a year or two under ground. The first couple years, you need soil also, and just put the chips 2-8" on top... after a few years you can plant directly in those chips and add 2-6 inches every few years,.. the bottom layers turn into very viable growing medium in just a couple years...

I'm putting in a couple hugelkultur beds this fall and winter.. weather willing. I really like the idea of long term leeching of nutrients and a live miccorizol and bacterial humus pile! Great help making soil where I am... lots of manure and lawn waste 'green manure' definitely helps and speeds the process.

 

[dunebuggy]

If you've seen the first Back to Eden movie, which is for free at http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/#movie, you can now see "Part 2", which is a 2 hour documentary of Paul's farm, as he gives a tour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM_gtZb8qyk

An enormous amount of information in this video. I started a Back to Eden garden this year, and it's been excellent. No weeding, two-thirds less watering, less slugs. Some parts of the garden started slowly, but once horse manure was lightly applied on top, boom!, off they sprouted.

I simply followed the instructions here: http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/how-to-grow-an-organic-garden.html

A layer of paper over the original grass and dirt, then some compost soil, then wood chips, and finally a sprinkling of manure. This method has finally made gardening enjoyable. Before, it was constant weeding, watering, and watching how the soil hardened. But after a decently hot summer, the soil underneath the chips is in excellent condition. I feel so lazy now.

One note on planting: simply make a furrow in the wood chips down to the soil. I drop the seeds on the soil, and then sprinkle a quarter inch or so of dirt and manure over them. Do Not cover the seeds with wood chips at this point. Then I keep the seeds decently moist for the first week or two. Finally, once they are tall enough, I tuck the wood chips around their stems and let them go...

 

[cnote]

Are the chips laying on the top of the soil or did he till them in? Tilling them in will most definitely rob the plants of nitrogen. Is your neighbor sure of the source of his wood chips? Not all wood chips are created equal and there are certain trees you want to avoid altogether. You might also want to check on the depth of the chips. 2-3 inches is plenty. One more thing lol. Check for soil moisture under the chips. Sometimes the chips make it hard for the water to penetrate very deeply. Don't just check the surface either. Get a shovel and dig down at least a foot. The soil should be moist throughout.

Chips are laying on TOP of the soil....Not tilled in. His depth is about 6" of chips.....Soil moisture is great, damp, worms galore and fungi.

This is his THIRD year of gardening and the plants are stunted, still producing, not robust and large like the first year.

 

[cnote]

One note on planting: simply make a furrow in the wood chips down to the soil. I drop the seeds on the soil, and then sprinkle a quarter inch or so of dirt and manure over them. Do Not cover the seeds with wood chips at this point. Then I keep the seeds decently moist for the first week or two. Finally, once they are tall enough, I tuck the wood chips around their stems and let them go...

This is exactly what he does.

 

[Loon]

I only use pine chips or pine shavings from the chicken coop. Our soil lacks sulfur so the pine helps with the acidity. The pine chips also break down within a year and help build great soil. Pine needles are also good to add to soil if your soil needs acidifying.

 

[Milk-maid]

My neighbor after the second year using Back to Eden method, seems like everything is stunted. Nitrogen problem? He is thinking of abandoning the chips. Do you folks add fertilizer to the chips? The garden is definitely lacking something.

You need more than just wood chips,... That was not made perfectly clear in the Back to Eden video, what you need is decomposing green leaves as well as wood chips.

When I watched the video a 3rd time, I finally caught where it was said by the lady on her front porch being interviewed. That is one of the big secrets to this.


Trees that are felled by electric companies in the middle of summer are the best because they still had leaves when put through the chipper. This is where we got all our free tree mulch.

I am in my first full year of Eden gardening. I put them all down at the end of last summer. I let it rest all during last winter and didn't do too much to it this summer.

To do it all over again, I would have put thicker layers of newspaper and cardboard down so that weeds didn't break through. But it's nowhere near the amount of weeds I battled before.

This summer the garden broke out in numerous mushrooms all over the place, just hundreds and hundreds... this is a really good thing since it is a sign of the wood decomposing.

I would also say to be generous with the Azomite in the garden bed. Remember most dirt left anywhere is badly void of minerals at this point. We need to give back generously.

MM

 

[Milk-maid]

I put in a couple of starter eggplants. They are huge!! Even got volunteers ears of corn!

This was my first summer basically leaving it to rest.
In my raised beds I did loads of potatoes and what bounty.

 

[dunebuggy]

This summer the garden broke out in numerous mushrooms all over the place, just hundreds and hundreds... this is a really good thing since it is a sign of the wood decomposing.
MM

Yes, mine also had tons of mushrooms sprouting through the wood chips. It looked wonderful.

Cnote, is he spreading manure across the top of the chips? That's what finally kickstarted mine into full gear. Some plants were doing ok without it, but others were weak and spindly until the manure arrived.

Again, if possible, this 2nd video documentary of Paul's garden can help a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM_gtZb8qyk

 

[Sherrynboo]

My thoughts would be not using enough manure. Most of my stuff does great as long as I use chicken manure. I noticed a tomato plant that came up in my compost pile and it came up through some pretty hot chicken manure and it is THE BEST tomato plant in my entire garden!

Sherry in GA

 

[packyderms_wife]

This is an excerpt from a newsletter I get from a lady in East TX. She is in the same zone as I am so most of her info is pertinent to my area.


It is time to get your onion plants in the ground here in the south! My very best onions are always those I plant in early January! You should have already planted your garlic in the fall (October around here), BUT, you can still put some out if you will hurry! You have lost some time for growing your prime garlic, but it will still be worth the effort. If you didn't get your garlic out yet and want the article on how to grow it, then contact us and we will send it to you.

Remember, both garlic and onions love soft soil, lots of manure, lime, other rich additives (or fertilizer if you are not an organic gardener), to be kept well watered and be sure to keep all blooms pinched off for more bulb growth! Watering well and growing them early keeps them sweeter. When your onions get dry they get hotter.
Below is our original 1999 article on raising onions that has been updated with additions through the years.
--Linda
Bluebird Hill Farm

ONIONS, "OH WHAT BREATH"!
Onions are easier to grow than some things, in that the majority of its growing season is when most of the weeds are growing making them easier to take care of. Onions love to be side dressed with straight chicken manure (one of the few crops that can take that) and lots of ashes, lime, cottonseed meal (if you didn't have a strong enough or sufficient amount of manure), and phosphate. I get chicken manure straight out of the hen house to do my onions, garlic, okra, corn, broccoli, collards and cabbage. Cottonseed meal can be used economically for those who don't have livestock to help keep an organic garden fed. Some people think they would keep chickens just for eggs and meat, but they forget the important aspect of using their valuable manure to keep themselves fed in other ways. The same with the rest of your livestock. Livestock can even be kept penned up in areas you want to garden and then moved on to leave you a place that has already been fed and ready to be turned under.

Let me also remind you that those of you who have fisherman in the family can enjoy wonderful fertilizer from the remains from cleaning the fish! Last year (2010) one of the greatest productions I had in my tub garden was the tub I put a bunch of fish scraps down into from one of my grandsons fishing outings!! Don't waste this valuable asset. Add it to your garden or compost!

Putting phosphates out on your garden (or containers) will last for 3 years!! Good news!! On using the super-phosphates. It is not AS organically correct, but OK and so much cheaper if you struggle with your budget. It doesn't take very much to go a long way. We use mostly side-dressing methods (which means we do not broadcast, but put the additives right on the rows where we are growing). Phosphates keep plants growing more rapidly. Slow growing, yellowing or stunted crops often indicates a need for phosphates. If your green beans or corn show red streaks, that is supposed to be a sign that your phosphates are low (but not on Kandy Korn it is naturally red streaked).

Our onions grow sweet, large and keep well, despite what they say about 1015's not keeping well. I am still using my spring 1015's and normally do. Sweet onions come from growing fast (which means the soil was rich enough to KEEP them growing), consistent water supply and lime. If it gets hot and dry before they mature (mature is when their tops fall over, then they are ready to pull) supplement them with water or manure tea to keep them going and sweet! Onions without plenty of constant water are hot onions! (Another word about storing onions here in the South--mine are in an open vegetable shed and even with these 20 degree temperatures they usually only freeze the outside layer, if we are not staying at 20 degrees). So when storage room runs out, don't despair. I know my grandmother, who lived in the Timpson area of East Texas, used the well pump-house, under the house, and even in a deserted chicken house to store potatoes. A whole lot of the "perfect" storage we are hear about is for the FAR north, or for PERFECT conditions. My great grandfather stored his sweet potatoes by mounding some dirt in the fields where they were harvested (he had a plantation) to keep them out of wet ground, put some straw (or hay) on top of that, then the sweet potatoes, more hay and some boards or old shingles, etc. to knock rain off and "there they kept very well". Again, this is here in East Texas.

Never let onions or garlic bloom. This robs the growing nutrients that need to be going to the bulb. Leaving the blooms on sends it instead to the flower, and thus seeds! Keep them snipped off as they appear! Yes, they are beautiful, but they rob flavor and size. After pulling your onions, usually by first of June, allow them to lay out to dry some in the sun (but, not if it is 100+ degrees--I find a shadier area if our temperatures have risen this high). We then cut the tops and let them finish drying under shade trees, or in flat ventilated trays in our vegetable shed. If you put them up too wet, they will spoil!

You can use the old method also of braiding the tops together to make a "rope" of them to hang in the attic, or wherever you can keep the rats out of them.

Store away some onion seeds in an airtight container, or even in the freezer, for growing your next year's onions if you want to grow your own plants, or if you foresee difficulties in the future where plants may become available. (As long as the seeds are available, they are cheap and easy to get). The seeds will be grown in the fall in a small bed where the seeds are sprinkled and grown very closely. They will then be pulled up (in bunches just like you buy in the store) the next January to transplant with wide spacing to give your onions room to grow large.

You never knew it took so long to raise onions did you?!! Basically 9 months to get an onion! This little bed of onions will need to be very clean and free of weeds, and kept watered consistently and carefully. You also want the soil to be rich. (A word of wisdom from one who has had to learn everything the absolute hard way. Poor soil means poor crops! Rich soil means abundant crops! You CANNOT just go out, till a piece of ground, go throw out some seeds, and think you are going to eat heartily. This is especially true since many of us live on worn out soil. Your yield will be in relation to what you do for your soil. Your yield will also be in proportion to how weed free the area is kept and plants kept thinned enough to make room for their growth without competing with other plants for the nutrients, water and sunshine)!

Remember your local county extension agent has many free materials you can get for the asking, and keep the answers jotted down that people give you when you ask questions. When you can't remember who you asked and their answer, you will be so thankful for all the information you can find. Keep a GOOD notebook with planting times, varieties of seeds you planted and their yields, lessons you learned, failures, successes, varieties of fruits you planted and whatever amendments you gave the soil and when. This will be wonderful resource material for next year, and the years after, and as you try to put together what works for YOU and YOUR land!

As we have told you MANY times, fill your libraries with farming, canning and how-to books. You will have some handy information at your fingertips when you can't find someone to answer your questions. Computers and internet are wonderful to find answers, but should difficulties come, what will you use? Even without national difficulties, we still have power outages in our area, sometimes a week at a time. If you are trying to accomplish something (or have something to do during a long outage) you need information. Again, computers are wonderful, but I need hard copies of information, writings, and etc. to hold onto!

Things learned in small quantities (backyard gardening) can help teach you for large quantities when you are ready to garden in earnest or in hard times (i.e. financial, disasters, war or otherwise)! Remember the wars could increase at any time and leave you needing to grow your own foods (as in the Victory Gardens of World War II!). Wisdom keeps us from feeling "too comfortable" and ready to take care of ourselves and our families as needed! Don't leave yourself without basic "survival" knowledge. Most people today cannot survive for longer than a week, if they can make it that long!! Start, or keep, learning now and enjoy the "fruits of your labor"!

Sherry in GA

Now with paragraph breaks.