In article ,
"None4U" wrote:
"Billy" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:
None4U wrote:
Hello,
Id like to hear from you about my garden I put in. The neighbors are
apparently baffled by it. I'm not 100 % sure either . I will give
you a brief description and why I did this. And criticism will be
greatly appreciated. This is the first garden I've put in in about
10 years. I gave up because I bought horse manure and the weeds from
it overran my garden year after year and I couldn't kill them off.
Primarily morning glories that choked my plants and made a jungle . I
became motivated by the No work garden book by Ruth Stout.
The garden is 30 by 16.
Feet.
Since you go on to use inches this is probably in feet. Perhaps you
should
recall that the USA is about the only country that still uses such
primitive
measures. I thought it was because they have 12 fingers and toes but
apparently polydactyly isn't so common so there is some other reason.
The US government has a vested interest to keep people stupid.
Its tilled horse manure at least 15 years old.
It is a wonder there is anything left after that long. It must be chilly
around there.
I put 4 bales of hay on it a month ago. And spread it around .
3 lbs of 10-10-10 fertilizer and made 4 rows of garden fabric 4 feet
wide. And laid them with two inches spaces between them. And I
have treated timbers covering every edge of the fabric. So it wont
move or blow away.
I take it this fabric is porous?
Yup.
So where do you walk? In the 2in slot? You should leave a path for you
and
your barrow otherwise you will compact the soil.
The fabric is 4 feet wide. Except for the corn the plants are in the
middle. Theres four feet between the rows. You just walk on the fabric
I pick up one side of the fabric , spread the hay aside. and put
plants in . Then cut a hole in the fabric so the plants will fit
through the fabric. . Wherever I want the plants at. Then I put the
fabric back down and the timbers to hold it.
It is a bit time consuming to do this. To get the plants in and the
holes cut in the right place. But weed control has been a major
issue here. Every year.
The fabric is for weed control. The hay is there to turn to mulch for
next year. And was my original plan for weed control. I didn't know
it didn't work on morning glories until I got Ruth Stouts later
books. So I added the fabric.
I bought two flats of plants
The Rows are east to west.
Not ideal. North-south is better. The sunward sides of the E-W rows
will
get much more sun than the pole side. If you run them N-S both sides get
the same, of course in the antipodes we run them S-N.
Oh ,
Row 1 is north.
Row 1 has 36 corn plants about 1 foot apart in three rows. And 3
tomato plants 3 foot apart centered.
Is this sunward or poleward? I am guessing poleward so if the tall stuff
is
at that end it is OK.
Sunward, and the tall stuff is north.
Row 2 has 10 tomato plants about 3 foot apart
On row 3. I cut the fabric lengthwise down the middle and put in 6
eggplants , 2 foot apart. And four pepper plants about 2 foot apart.
Outside the fabric rows . Far south. In the soil I put in about 40
onion sets. And I have a 2 foot section about 25 feet long left over.
And the 2 inch spaces between the rows for other plants. I'm not
sure what to put in there but I'm out of plants. I have Beet ,
broccoli, and carrot seeds I could put in there. I've got sugar,
snow peas and provider bean seeds too.
The rest of the flats. and the partial sun items lettuce, celery,
more onion sets I put in another small rough soil plot by the house
as it gets partial sun.
I don't know your climate so I am not sure about planting onions, peas
and
broccoli with the summer veges.
Ohio, growing season is May to Oct. Snow is in Dec to April. Were
just past frost risk now.
I would grow these through winter but my
summer is very hot and my winter is cool but does not have snow or ice.
Somebody who is more familiar with your region would advise better.
The ground and Everything freezes . Im not familiar with any winter
gardening techniques here. Everyone plows .
I did the fabric technique three years in a row and it works pretty
good. But not with the hay under it. I've not ever used hay before.
This
is my main concern. Will the hay do something bad sitting there
all year under the garden fabric. Or am I ok.
If the fabric allows air and water to penetrate there shouldn't be a
problem.
It does
Id really like to have a continuous mulch garden and put on 6 inches
of hay every fall. And let it sit and compact through the winter.
And I was going to just cover the plot for the year and kill
everything off and start next year.
But I came up with this idea.
I haven't left much out.
Anything wrong with what I did.
Thanks
Diesel.
I don't see anything really bad about what you have done, there are a
couple
of areas to improve. It might have been quicker and cheaper to let all
the
weeds come up, nuke them and then use mulch for weed supression but since
you have bought the fabric you may as well use it.
I am dying to know what the neighbours said.
The neighbors said it looked like crap and wont grow anything through the
hay. With the hay laying around. It looks pretty nice now with the fabric
on it.
David
What sticks out to me is the 4 bales of straw which have a carbon to
nitrogen ratio of 50 to 100. Four bales probably weigh about 240 lbs
(109 kg) probably need a pound of 10-X-X to give a C/N ratio of 25, to
keep the microbes from sucking up all the available N in consuming the
straw's C. This disregards any N that may be in the 15 year old horse
manure. You could also use 30 gal. of fish emulsion, or 4 lbs chicken
manure, or 7 lbs of horse manure.
Before I put the fabric on it. I put 2 lbs of 10-10-10 on it. Now that
you mentioned fish emulsion. I have a gallon of concentrated fish emulsion
with no use. Im going to put that on there to get rid of it. The hay was
240 lbs. The fabric does flow water and air.
Can I keep putting hay on it every fall for mulch. And get good soil after
a couple years.
Yeah, but I don't know why you are using the fabric cover. Normally, you
would put down your amendments (manure, rock phosphate, wood ash, small
chunks of charcoal from fireplaces or BBQs), cover with newspaper or
cardboard to suppress weeds, and cover all with mulch. After a couple of
weeks, poke holes in the layering, down into the dirt and plant. The
mulch and paper will suppress the weeds, and retain the moisture. The
manure, and the bi-monthly feedings with fish emulsion will allow the
microbes to consume the mulch, and the life cycles of the soil microbes
will feed and nourish your plants and make topsoil.
See if you can't get the following books from your library to further
explain what is going on:
Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
http://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microb.../dp/0881927775
/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815176&sr= 1-1
Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture
(Paperback)
by Toby Hemenway
http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-S...ulture/dp/1603
580298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271266976&sr=1-1
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html