Healthier, Happier, and Smarter... With DIRT!

Long ago, I used to feel a teensy bit of shame when I was out in the garden and I'd pull up a carrot, wipe it on my pants, and then eat it even though there were remaining clumps of soil in the little grooves of the root. I felt a bit uncivilized. I've long since abandoned that shame for the not-to-be-duplicated experience of grazing straight from the garden. Turns out there may be some very good reasons not to be afraid of a little dirt.
I recently heard a brief story on "The Environment Report" about recent studies that suggest that certain bacteria found in soil not only improve immune system function, but may also be reducing anxiety and making people smarter! (Minus typos, like the one in the article's title.) There's also a Discover magazine article that gives a brief explanation of the findings.

Apparently, you don't need to munch handfuls of soil or lick the sand off your spinach, just breathing in the bacteria as you work outside is enough to reap the benefits.

Spinach, Garlic, and Some Double Digging

   The temperature is hovering around 80F this afternoon. Yesterday it was the same, but with some really summer-like sun rays. I'm afraid that my overwintered spinach is going to bolt the first week of April. I've hosed it down the last two days so that the breezes would keep the temperatures down. Plus, it is DRY here. I actually *needed* to water the lettuce sprouts so that they didn't shrivel. We'll have to see how the spinach pulls through. I ate a leaf this morning and it was spit-it-out-look-around-for-something-else-to-shove-in-to-get-rid-of-that-taste bitter. Not all of the plants are bitter, though.

   There was one raised bed in my (I might just start calling it an allotment because it's not my land) garden that I had not attacked with a pulaski yet. The ground inside the "raised bed" was actually concave. I hacked at it and removed all the quack grass rhizomes and then it was *really* concave. It needs some serious soil therapy. I know that I could have tried the lasagna method and laid down layers and layers of wet newspaper and then piled on lots of organic matter (leaves, manure, grass clippings, etc.) but I really just don't think the quack grass will die, even with 3 feet of new soil on top of it. That stuff is evil. EVIL. I'm not experienced in the lasagna method, but it sounds REALLY GOOD. No digging. However, I used the double-dig-lasagna mash-up method. I busy-beed it all over the yard collecting leaves, dried grass, and chicken and llama manure. I dug about 15 inches deep into the "raised" bed area and then put in a layer of manure, covered that with a leaf/dirt mix, then topped it off with 3 inches of original soil. I did this in 3 of my beds. It took about an hour. (HAHAHAHA!) It took the past 3 days. My back is killing me. I've seriously lost 2 pounds since Monday. I say "half-assed" because I didn't do a bunch of reading and research before I did this, I just dove in. This does not mean that I skimped on the actual labor part.

   I ordered some cover crops from Johnny's Seeds for a green manure project. More on that part of the story later.

   After I stabbed my foot with the garden fork (without realizing it - really) there were several minutes of panic during which I decided I was going to lose my foot because my veins are spontaneously erupting. I came inside, R.I.C.E.d it, and reasoned that I must have knocked my foot with a sharp object. Not healthy, this obsessive mode of spring gardening. After about an hour, I was able to head back out and finish the double-dug mash up.

   I hope this is the year I get to eat a spinach salad (not just graze on preciously short-lived plants).  And I hope that soon, when I close my eyes, I no longer have visions of stringy white quack grass rhizomes dancing before my eyes.

  

fall planted garlic progress

pile of quack grass rhizomes drying (and dying!) in the sun

what's left of the compost-pile-that-never-got-hot after I buried a bunch of it under the garden beds

the new raised bed after I raised it with lots of organic matter

crispy brown garden

Good News, Bad News

Ugly carrots, but tasty

Little symmetrical green rows of hope

Candy roaster winter squash, looking like King of the Garden

All of the sweet pepper plants are loaded with fruits. I've picked four or five green ones to lighten the load on each plant. These sweet babies should turn red and make us all very, very happy.

This is a green zebra tomato, getting its stripes!

The bad news is that the groundhog is climbing over the fence (I've watched it) and eating the plants that are in their prime. She won't touch the towers of bolted lettuce. She doesn't munch on the bolting beet greens. She picks the plants that I have my eye on... it's like she can read my mind. These broccoli plants were my pride and joy for a week or two. I guarded the little seedlings. I congratulated myself on waiting until after the June heat-spell to plant them. They were thriving in our cool July weather. There's not much I can do other than shoot the groundhog. I don't want to shoot the groundhog because 1) I don't own this property and 2) It's too late to save the broccoli anyway. I might try the live trap, but I'll bet the skunk will find it first. Maybe something's wrong with me, though, because I've got some kind of zen thing going on with this groundhog right now.

The groundhog likes the carrot tops, too. The soil here is just not great. Because this is my first year in this garden, there are plenty of rocks (and marbles and broken flower pots and plastic dinosaurs) that need picking out. The soil needs more organic matter. And I'm not sure about the pH, but maybe these carrots don't love alkaline soils. It took me two years to create fabulous, carrot-loving soil in NY. The kind of soil that you can reach your hand into and bury it up to your elbow. Carrots are picky.

Thinking Like a Carrot

Hans Jenny is credited with the statement that there is often more life below and within the soil than there is above it, including Homo sapiens. Soil is the medium of the art of growing vegetables. As I reflect on the three growing seasons I've spent on my little half-acre, I recall the first swing I took of my pulaski into the rocky soil I would make my garden. It was frightening. I've long been aware of the value of good soil, composting and maintaining a balance of organisms and nutrients in the soil. I knew this ground was going to take some work. It was gravelly and rocky at the same time. I had to remove piles of vegetation that prefer poor, acid soils. It was wet or dry, with not much spongy organic matter to hold moisture at an ideal level.

Elliot Coleman, one of America's authorities on organic farming, emphasizes soil fertility as any wise grower does. But he also emphasizes using resources within a farm rather than importing them. This principle appeals to me because of its efficiency. Spending money on rotting organic waste seems counter-intuitive, especially when most rural homes are surrounded by one such renewable resource: lawn. We have at least 3 acres of mowed lawn. (We reduced our lawn by more than half when we moved in.) I put a bag on the back of the push mower to collect the leaf and grass clippings. Sometimes the harvest I will get from mowing the lawn is the only thing that gets me out there to fire up the Husky mower. The grass clippings serve as mulch and compost. The leaves add fabulous organic matter to the mix. Of course, the chicken manure and bedding play an important role in soil fertility, but it does need a bit of time to compost. It's very rich and some plants don't like that. So, I tend to grow heavy feeders like squash in a bed to which composted chicken bedding has been added. Then, of course, there are all of the weeds we pull and food scraps to add to the compost.

I have imported some fertility. We lucked out and got a load of rich, black soil from a friend. I also loaded up the truck with alpaca poop last year after a neighbor offered. But I really don't need to do much of that.

After 3 years, the soil here is amazing. I'm still learning a few things: don't put the compost pile too close to the garden if you want to reduce potato beetle attacks. Some harmful fungi can thrive in a slow compost pile. In the future, the compost pile will not be right next door to the vegetables. I'll haul it in to reduce some of the pest attacks I experienced this year. And, I still need to solve the disgusting problem of root maggots. I have learned to rotate crops and it seems to be giving the plants a boost when I do it right.

As I take a break from gardening, I'll do my own knowledge composting by reading some material on soil fertility and pest management.