all organic gardens, some amended with leaves,
shredded bark, plant debris from last year, a
few (onions, beets, chard) had a layer of worms/
worm poo put underneath them. rotation planting.
some cover crops and green manure used.

the lack of rain is a challenge but most things
are coming along fine.

the multicolored swiss chard is very nice to
look at and the eating it tastes pretty much
like spinach to me. which is good because last
year when we tried spinach it bolted as soon
as it could. some of the swiss chard (the darkest
red) has tried to go to seed (in the first
season). i pulled those and ate them.

almost all the beans sprouted (only one type was
a problem) and almost all the gardens are looking
nice and green now. one of the bean patches is
being raided by a family of muskrats/groundhogs/
woodchucks, but i gave the largest one something to
think about the other day with the air gun and i
haven't seen it since. the rest of the children are
probably still around though. at least these don't
eat the entire plant back to the ground so many bean
plants have resprouted. i just need to keep an eye
on them... funny, they have a few thousand square
feet of mixed legumes to chomp on that is back further
closer to the ditch and i wouldn't care much, but they
decided to eat the beans instead. it doesn't help
that we have a highway installed for them to come up
into the yard (covered trench for drainage) -- i think
i'll be redoing that next year to fill it in.

the chipmunks have had a major population boom this
year. after all the snakes i've been seeing i was
hoping they would not be quite so many. and while i
didn't have as many strawberries this year i still did
have some, but the chipmunks have also been feasting
on them. the everbearing strawberries are on their
second round of flowering/fruiting. for the chippies
i'm putting out rat traps and plinking with the air
rifle has thinned a few. however, it is very funny
to watch them eat the poppy pods climbing the plants
and flipping around. yet Ma was not happy when 98% of
her sunflower sprouts/seeds were eaten.

the 2nd and 3rd strawberry patches had some production
this year, but the multiple early frosts and the chipmunks
have kept me from harvesting much. perhaps 10lbs of
berries from them total (and about 40lbs from the first
patch). i have bags of shredded bark and leaves to put
out into the back strawberry patch as soon as i can get
to it. in this heat, i'm not doing much heavy work in the
middle of the day. get some light stuff done in the
morning and whatever watering needed and then it is siesta
time until 2pm, weeding bouts in 30 minute chunks for the
few gardens i have left to do. not much weeds, but i like
to keep after them.

at the moment i'm more tied up with fixing broken
stuff and patching the roof (again, i sure hope i found
the leak this time -- no rain lately to test it out).
no tree froggy up there...

the onions i planted with a layer of worms/worm poo
are doing really well and the tomatoes are also growing
quickly and flowering. the first roma is on one of the
plants. with the lack of rain we've been filling up
the buckets every three or four days. with the recent
heat (mid to upper 90s) i'm watering frequently enough
to keep everything from wilting, but hoping for some
actual rain. we've had less than two inches of rain
the past six weeks. i think the average around here is
about three inches a month. not much forecast, but i'm
sure hoping for one of these "chances of a thundertorm"
to actually happen soon.

still many of the flowers are doing fine as they are
natives and do ok with the periods of drought we can
have. that lets me keep up with the veggie gardens
and the other ornamentals that we don't want to lose
in the heat (mainly the clematis since those are the
most expensive to replace).

the garlic i should be able to pull for curing/drying
in a few weeks. some relatives stopped over the other
day and one of them hadn't ever seen garlic growing
before so i randomly pulled garlic for him to take with
him to plant this fall. all first season bulbs, a few
were quite small, and one was four inches across. an
interesting survey of soils and starting clove/bulbule
sizes. when i harvest it will be fun to snap a few
pictures of these.

the early planting of peas went well. harvested
a few rounds and now they are looking sad because
of the heat and the broken stems from harvesting.
next time i'll snip them instead of pulling, but
i think i'll just leave these now to get more seeds
to replant.

turnips, being eaten. i'll keep growing these. Ma
doesn't like them, but at least she'll tolerate me
cooking them. to me they are close enough to a brocolli
or cauliflower stem (peeled and diced). i like them
fried and browned like potatoes or onions. i'm trying to
cut back on cheese lately, but i could imagine they'd be
really good au-gratin with a nice layer of browned cheese
and buttered bread crumbs on top. dang, that's making
me hungry.

onions from seed, gradually getting smothered as i
keep forgetting to trim back the trefoil i planted
next to them. still they are there and i should have
starts for next season from them. the seed source
was a clump of three leftover onion plants that grew
from a leftover a few seasons ago. i harvested seeds
from them last year. this year, from that same spot
three more plants and blooms have appeared. looks
like i will have a seed source again for next year's
plantings.

beets, hmm, the first planting i had trouble keeping
evenly moist and i suspect i had too old of seeds for
a few rows as almost nothing in those rows sprouted. i
have a few plants from that planting that are doing very
well (more worms/worm poo under those). the second
planting, i have more sprouts from and they are doing
ok. still behind on these for growing/harvest. the
plants themselves (especially the big ones) are looking
the best they ever have here. the soil they are going
in gets improved each season as i add more worms/worm
poo to it and any other organic material i can scrounge
up plus planting beans/pea pods in alternation with
the beets. we'll keep at it. it's been fun to watch
the transformation.

green, red, jalapeno peppers, all coming along,
plenty of blooms. i suspect the spacing is a bit too
much, but we'll see how they do. last year they
were all planted very tightly and did very well. i
think this season we have about the same number of
plants in three times the space.

cucumbers, alive, flowering, surrounded by wire cage
to keep the deer/etc. from eating them, with the wilt
going around i'm not sure we'll see much from them this
year, but so far they look mostly ok. once they have a
core of growth then they can grow out of the cages and
sprawl where they like. i may need to trim back some of
the surrounding cover crops (buckwheat and birdsfoot
trefoil).

new for us this year: cucumber, swiss chard, turnips,
dill, large leaf parsley, red onion, white onion, roma
tomatoes, okra, and many types of beans (fresh, shelling
and dry), peas/peapods and soybeans (edamame).

the green manure source is looking great with all the
bright yellow flowers. i'll be trimming it and the
alfalfa back eventually and harvesting garlic. the clay
makes the garlic harvest a challenge... if i miss some
i'll be there for next season.

well i hope this long and windy post has found all of
you keeping busy in the gardens and enjoying the harvest.
until next time...

peace,


songbird

"songbird" wrote in message
...
all organic gardens, some amended with leaves,
shredded bark, plant debris from last year, a
few (onions, beets, chard) had a layer of worms/
worm poo put underneath them. rotation planting.
some cover crops and green manure used.


Gigantic SNIP




peace,


songbird

I have waited till I had a slow morning to read through your post, I like to
know how others are faring, this may explain the binoculars trained on the
neighbours swimming pool . I have read and digested and am pleased things
are heading in the right direction for you. Down here, currently, all I
have growing are lettuce but plenty of variety and I can see most of them
turning in to a green mulch in the future.

The one thing that, in my mind, amused me was all weather forecasters must
go to the same school or at least read from the same scripts, we also get
the chance of a thunder storm as well as possible late showers and
considering all of our weather comes off the Indian ocean and there is
nothing but a few small islands between us and South Africa I would have
thought they could have got it closer than "chance" and "possible"

Thanks for the read.

Mike

Bloke Down The Pub wrote:
"songbird" wrote in message
...
all organic gardens, some amended with leaves,
shredded bark, plant debris from last year, a
few (onions, beets, chard) had a layer of worms/
worm poo put underneath them. rotation planting.
some cover crops and green manure used.


Gigantic SNIP




peace,


songbird

I have waited till I had a slow morning to read through your post, I
like to know how others are faring, this may explain the binoculars
trained on the neighbours swimming pool .

One ought to always have concern for the welfare of neighbours if they wear
bikinis. More if they don't.


I have read and digested
and am pleased things are heading in the right direction for you. Down
here, currently, all I have growing are lettuce but plenty of
variety and I can see most of them turning in to a green mulch in the
future.

Lettuce is annoying that way, it grows better in the season when you don't
want it so much.

The one thing that, in my mind, amused me was all weather forecasters
must go to the same school or at least read from the same scripts, we
also get the chance of a thunder storm as well as possible late
showers and considering all of our weather comes off the Indian ocean
and there is nothing but a few small islands between us and South
Africa I would have thought they could have got it closer than
"chance" and "possible"

Weather forecasts are subject to the same limitations everywhere (and
probably always will be) so it is no surprise that forecasters tend to sound
the same. Weather systems are chaotic and so they are inherently
unpredictable. With the increase in data from satellites and automatic data
recorders, and the increase in understanding and computing power weather
forecasting has got better over the last 30 years. Even if such resources
were increased tenfold the accuracy of forecasts would only increase
slightly. There are some aspects of the natural world that we can never
master even in principle. I think it is better to accept this reality and
act accordingly rather than blame the 'experts' for not being as expert as
we wish.

David

Bloke Down The Pub wrote:
....
I have waited till I had a slow morning to read through your post, I like to
know how others are faring, this may explain the binoculars trained on the
neighbours swimming pool .

the things we do for science. to make good
experiments and hypotheses we must observe
nature in all her glory.


I have read and digested and am pleased things
are heading in the right direction for you. Down here, currently, all I
have growing are lettuce but plenty of variety and I can see most of them
turning in to a green mulch in the future.

thanks. i'm always interested in what others do as
actual gardening practices and what they find to be
workable for their soil/site/setup and what doesn't
work.

like when planting onions from sets this season to
try things out we have planted onions from seeds and
also onions from sets (small bulbs). among those
sets were several bulbs that looked rather icky or
completely dried out. normally i would throw those
away or chop them up, dry them and then feed them to
the worms in the bins. this time i took those rejects
and planted them in a spot a hundred feet away from
the other onions (in case of disease possibilities)
and most of them have ended up growing -- even as bad
as they were they still had some germ of viable plant
in there and so now i will have plants to use as
possible source of seeds in the future... i love it
when something so simple works out like this.

today i was weeding and thinning a few beans, it's
very hot here, knowing i may not keep a transplant
alive i still took some of the thinned plants and stuck
them in a few bare spots and then watered them in.
gotta check them in the morning to see if they're
crisped or not and if not give them another shot of
water. if they look to be making it i'll probably
take some other thinnings and move them to a few
other bare spots. more than likely they'll end up
wilting and being worm food.


The one thing that, in my mind, amused me was all weather forecasters must
go to the same school or at least read from the same scripts, we also get
the chance of a thunder storm as well as possible late showers and
considering all of our weather comes off the Indian ocean and there is
nothing but a few small islands between us and South Africa I would have
thought they could have got it closer than "chance" and "possible"

Thanks for the read.

i watch the forecasts and the weather itself all
the time and notice directly because of our microclimate
that we are significantly dryer here than places just
a few miles in any direction.

we did get a bit of rain at last. the roof patching
might have worked. won't know until we get more rains
from different directions... two buckets of collected
rainwater to be used in the tomato patches.

no signs yet of muskrats coming back again.

tomorrow is an early day.


songbird

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
Bloke Down The Pub wrote:
"songbird" wrote in message
...
all organic gardens, some amended with leaves,
shredded bark, plant debris from last year, a
few (onions, beets, chard) had a layer of worms/
worm poo put underneath them. rotation planting.
some cover crops and green manure used.


Gigantic SNIP




peace,


songbird

I have waited till I had a slow morning to read through your post, I
like to know how others are faring, this may explain the binoculars
trained on the neighbours swimming pool .

One ought to always have concern for the welfare of neighbours if they
wear bikinis. More if they don't.


I have read and digested
and am pleased things are heading in the right direction for you. Down
here, currently, all I have growing are lettuce but plenty of
variety and I can see most of them turning in to a green mulch in the
future.

Lettuce is annoying that way, it grows better in the season when you don't
want it so much.

The one thing that, in my mind, amused me was all weather forecasters
must go to the same school or at least read from the same scripts, we
also get the chance of a thunder storm as well as possible late
showers and considering all of our weather comes off the Indian ocean
and there is nothing but a few small islands between us and South
Africa I would have thought they could have got it closer than
"chance" and "possible"

Weather forecasts are subject to the same limitations everywhere (and
probably always will be) so it is no surprise that forecasters tend to
sound the same. Weather systems are chaotic and so they are inherently
unpredictable. With the increase in data from satellites and automatic
data recorders, and the increase in understanding and computing power
weather forecasting has got better over the last 30 years. Even if such
resources were increased tenfold the accuracy of forecasts would only
increase slightly. There are some aspects of the natural world that we
can never master even in principle. I think it is better to accept this
reality and act accordingly rather than blame the 'experts' for not being
as expert as we wish.

David


Not really blaming the weather forecasters as I have always worked on the
principle that if I want to know what the weather is like I will look
outside and most of the time here its a matter of it being warm and dry or,
as now, cool and not so wet. I have been known to get out in the cold and
the rain so I can dig in to the sand an help the water penetrate a little
better a little earlier.

Mike

In article ,
"Bloke Down The Pub" wrote:

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
Bloke Down The Pub wrote:
"songbird" wrote in message
...
all organic gardens, some amended with leaves,
shredded bark, plant debris from last year, a
few (onions, beets, chard) had a layer of worms/
worm poo put underneath them. rotation planting.
some cover crops and green manure used.


Gigantic SNIP




peace,


songbird

I have waited till I had a slow morning to read through your post, I
like to know how others are faring, this may explain the binoculars
trained on the neighbours swimming pool .

One ought to always have concern for the welfare of neighbours if they
wear bikinis. More if they don't.


I have read and digested
and am pleased things are heading in the right direction for you. Down
here, currently, all I have growing are lettuce but plenty of
variety and I can see most of them turning in to a green mulch in the
future.

Lettuce is annoying that way, it grows better in the season when you don't
want it so much.

The one thing that, in my mind, amused me was all weather forecasters
must go to the same school or at least read from the same scripts, we
also get the chance of a thunder storm as well as possible late
showers and considering all of our weather comes off the Indian ocean
and there is nothing but a few small islands between us and South
Africa I would have thought they could have got it closer than
"chance" and "possible"

Weather forecasts are subject to the same limitations everywhere (and
probably always will be) so it is no surprise that forecasters tend to
sound the same. Weather systems are chaotic and so they are inherently
unpredictable. With the increase in data from satellites and automatic
data recorders, and the increase in understanding and computing power
weather forecasting has got better over the last 30 years. Even if such
resources were increased tenfold the accuracy of forecasts would only
increase slightly. There are some aspects of the natural world that we
can never master even in principle. I think it is better to accept this
reality and act accordingly rather than blame the 'experts' for not being
as expert as we wish.

David


Not really blaming the weather forecasters as I have always worked on the
principle that if I want to know what the weather is like I will look
outside and most of the time here its a matter of it being warm and dry or,
as now, cool and not so wet. I have been known to get out in the cold and
the rain so I can dig in to the sand an help the water penetrate a little
better a little earlier.

Mike

Your garden soil shouldn't be more than 10% (by volume), or less than 5%
(by weight) organic material.

Garden soil should be 30% - 40% sand, 30% - 40% silt, and 20% - 30%
clay. You can check your soil by scraping away the organic material on
top of the ground and then take a vertical sample of your soil to 12 in.
(30 cm) deep (rectangular or circular hole). Mix this with water in an
appropriately large glass (transparent) jar. The sand will settle out
quickly, the silt in a couple of hours, and the clay within a day. The
depth of the layer in relationship to the total (layer/total = % of
composition) is the percent that fraction has in the soil.

Garden soil needs a constant input of nutrients, i.e. carbon, e.g. brown
leaves, and nitrogen, e.g. manure in a ratio of C/N of 25. This is the
same ratio you will what in a compost pile.
-----

Let it Rot!: The Gardener's Guide to Composting (Third Edition)
(Storey's Down-to-Earth Guides)
by Stu Campbell

http://www.amazon.com/Let-Rot-Compos...580170234/ref=
sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294901182&sr=1-1

p.39

Compostable Material Average C/N

Alder or ash leaves ............................ 25

Grass clippings ................................ 25

Leguminous plants (peas,
beans,soybeans) ............................. 15

Manure with bedding ........................... 23

Manure ....................................... 15

Oak leaves .................................... 50

Pine needles .............................. 60-100

Sawdust................................. 150-500

Straw, cornstalks and cobs .................. 50-100

Vegetable trimmings ........................... 25
Aged Chicken Manure**........................* 7
Alfalfa ................................................ 12
Newspaper........................................ 175
-----

http://www.composting101.com/c-n-ratio.html

A Balancing Act (Carbon-to-Nitrogen Ratios)


All organic matter is made up of substantial amounts of carbon (C)
combined with lesser amounts of nitrogen (N). The balance of these two
elements in an organism is called the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio (C:N
ratio). For best performance, the compost pile, or more to the point the
composting microorganisms, require the correct proportion of carbon for
energy and nitrogen for protein production. Scientists (yes, there are
compost scientists) have determined that the fastest way to produce
fertile, sweet-smelling compost is to maintain a C:N ratio somewhere
around 25 to 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen, or 25-30:1. If the C:N
ratio is too high (excess carbon), decomposition slows down. If the C:N
ratio is too low (excess nitrogen) you will end up with a stinky pile.
(cont.)
------

No reason to till after the first preparation of the garden (no reason
to till the first/last time but it does speed up soil development).
Spread out your soil amendments:
€ N:
€ 18.37 lb. chicken manure/ 100 sq.ft. (2.88 oz/sq.ft.)
€
€ P:
€ 3 lb. / 100/sq.ft. (.48 oz/sq.ft.)
€
€ K:
€ How much wood ash should you use in your garden? The late Bernard
G. Wesenberg, a former Washington State University Extension
horticulturist, recommended using one gallon of ashes per square
yard on loam to clay-loam soil, and half as much on sandier soils.

http://www.plantea.com/manure.htm
€ Manure Chicken Diary cow Horse Steer Rabbit
€ N 1.1 .257 .70 .70
2.4
€ P .80 .15 .30 .30
1.4
€ K .50 .25 .60 .40
..60
€
Sheep Alfalfa Fish Emulsion
€ N .70 3 5
€ P .30 1 1
€ K .90 2 1

€ Sources: Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, An
Illustrated Guide to Organic Gardening, by Sunset Publishing, and the
Rodale Guide to Composting.

http://www.plantea.com/manure.htm
€ Manure Chicken Diary cow Horse Steer Rabbit
€ N 1.1 .257 .70 .70 2.4
€ P .80 .15 .30 .30 1.4
€ K .50 .25 .60 .40 .60

€
Sheep Alfalfa Fish Emulsion
€ N .70 3 5
€ P .30 1 1
€ K .90 2 1

€ Sources: Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, An
Illustrated Guide to Organic Gardening, by Sunset Publishing, and the
Rodale Guide to Composting.

Cover this with newspaper (to block light from weeds and provide a
barrier to sprouting weeds). Cover the newspaper with mulch (up to 6" in
depth). Spray the garden bed with water, and wait 6 weeks before
planting (if you can).

A dibble can help with planting. The dinky little ones from the nursery
may be of some help, but I prefer a sharpened, old, shovel handle for
making a hole through the mulch and paper for planting seedlings.

Adding drip lines takes a little time, but saves a lot of time during
the season.

With heavy soils, cover crops of buckwheat or rye are good for adding
more organic material and loosening the soil.

--
E Pluribus Unum

Know where your money is tonight?
It's making the lives of Wall Street Bankers more comfortable.

Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg

"Billy" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Bloke Down The Pub" wrote:

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
Bloke Down The Pub wrote:
"songbird" wrote in message
...
all organic gardens, some amended with leaves,
shredded bark, plant debris from last year, a
few (onions, beets, chard) had a layer of worms/
worm poo put underneath them. rotation planting.
some cover crops and green manure used.


Gigantic SNIP




peace,


songbird

I have waited till I had a slow morning to read through your post, I
like to know how others are faring, this may explain the binoculars
trained on the neighbours swimming pool .

One ought to always have concern for the welfare of neighbours if they
wear bikinis. More if they don't.


I have read and digested
and am pleased things are heading in the right direction for you. Down
here, currently, all I have growing are lettuce but plenty of
variety and I can see most of them turning in to a green mulch in the
future.

Lettuce is annoying that way, it grows better in the season when you
don't
want it so much.

The one thing that, in my mind, amused me was all weather forecasters
must go to the same school or at least read from the same scripts, we
also get the chance of a thunder storm as well as possible late
showers and considering all of our weather comes off the Indian ocean
and there is nothing but a few small islands between us and South
Africa I would have thought they could have got it closer than
"chance" and "possible"

Weather forecasts are subject to the same limitations everywhere (and
probably always will be) so it is no surprise that forecasters tend to
sound the same. Weather systems are chaotic and so they are inherently
unpredictable. With the increase in data from satellites and automatic
data recorders, and the increase in understanding and computing power
weather forecasting has got better over the last 30 years. Even if
such
resources were increased tenfold the accuracy of forecasts would only
increase slightly. There are some aspects of the natural world that we
can never master even in principle. I think it is better to accept
this
reality and act accordingly rather than blame the 'experts' for not
being
as expert as we wish.

David


Not really blaming the weather forecasters as I have always worked on the
principle that if I want to know what the weather is like I will look
outside and most of the time here its a matter of it being warm and dry
or,
as now, cool and not so wet. I have been known to get out in the cold
and
the rain so I can dig in to the sand an help the water penetrate a little
better a little earlier.

Mike

Your garden soil shouldn't be more than 10% (by volume), or less than 5%
(by weight) organic material.

Garden soil should be 30% - 40% sand, 30% - 40% silt, and 20% - 30%
clay. You can check your soil by scraping away the organic material on
top of the ground and then take a vertical sample of your soil to 12 in.
(30 cm) deep (rectangular or circular hole). Mix this with water in an
appropriately large glass (transparent) jar. The sand will settle out
quickly, the silt in a couple of hours, and the clay within a day. The
depth of the layer in relationship to the total (layer/total = % of
composition) is the percent that fraction has in the soil.

Garden soil needs a constant input of nutrients, i.e. carbon, e.g. brown
leaves, and nitrogen, e.g. manure in a ratio of C/N of 25. This is the
same ratio you will what in a compost pile.
-----

Let it Rot!: The Gardener's Guide to Composting (Third Edition)
(Storey's Down-to-Earth Guides)
by Stu Campbell

http://www.amazon.com/Let-Rot-Compos...580170234/ref=
sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294901182&sr=1-1

p.39

Compostable Material Average C/N

Alder or ash leaves ............................ 25

Grass clippings ................................ 25

Leguminous plants (peas,
beans,soybeans) ............................. 15

Manure with bedding ........................... 23

Manure ....................................... 15

Oak leaves .................................... 50

Pine needles .............................. 60-100

Sawdust................................. 150-500

Straw, cornstalks and cobs .................. 50-100

Vegetable trimmings ........................... 25
Aged Chicken Manure ........................ 7
Alfalfa ................................................ 12
Newspaper........................................ 175
-----

http://www.composting101.com/c-n-ratio.html

A Balancing Act (Carbon-to-Nitrogen Ratios)


All organic matter is made up of substantial amounts of carbon (C)
combined with lesser amounts of nitrogen (N). The balance of these two
elements in an organism is called the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio (C:N
ratio). For best performance, the compost pile, or more to the point the
composting microorganisms, require the correct proportion of carbon for
energy and nitrogen for protein production. Scientists (yes, there are
compost scientists) have determined that the fastest way to produce
fertile, sweet-smelling compost is to maintain a C:N ratio somewhere
around 25 to 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen, or 25-30:1. If the C:N
ratio is too high (excess carbon), decomposition slows down. If the C:N
ratio is too low (excess nitrogen) you will end up with a stinky pile.
(cont.)
------

No reason to till after the first preparation of the garden (no reason
to till the first/last time but it does speed up soil development).
Spread out your soil amendments:
? N:
? 18.37 lb. chicken manure/ 100 sq.ft. (2.88 oz/sq.ft.)
?
? P:
? 3 lb. / 100/sq.ft. (.48 oz/sq.ft.)
?
? K:
? How much wood ash should you use in your garden? The late Bernard
G. Wesenberg, a former Washington State University Extension
horticulturist, recommended using one gallon of ashes per square
yard on loam to clay-loam soil, and half as much on sandier soils.

http://www.plantea.com/manure.htm
? Manure Chicken Diary cow Horse Steer Rabbit
? N 1.1 .257 .70 .70
2.4
? P .80 .15 .30 .30
1.4
? K .50 .25 .60 .40
.60
?
Sheep Alfalfa Fish Emulsion
? N .70 3 5
? P .30 1 1
? K .90 2 1

? Sources: Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, An
Illustrated Guide to Organic Gardening, by Sunset Publishing, and the
Rodale Guide to Composting.

http://www.plantea.com/manure.htm
? Manure Chicken Diary cow Horse Steer Rabbit
? N 1.1 .257 .70 .70 2.4
? P .80 .15 .30 .30 1.4
? K .50 .25 .60 .40 .60

?
Sheep Alfalfa Fish Emulsion
? N .70 3 5
? P .30 1 1
? K .90 2 1

? Sources: Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, An
Illustrated Guide to Organic Gardening, by Sunset Publishing, and the
Rodale Guide to Composting.

Cover this with newspaper (to block light from weeds and provide a
barrier to sprouting weeds). Cover the newspaper with mulch (up to 6" in
depth). Spray the garden bed with water, and wait 6 weeks before
planting (if you can).

A dibble can help with planting. The dinky little ones from the nursery
may be of some help, but I prefer a sharpened, old, shovel handle for
making a hole through the mulch and paper for planting seedlings.

Adding drip lines takes a little time, but saves a lot of time during
the season.

With heavy soils, cover crops of buckwheat or rye are good for adding
more organic material and loosening the soil.

--
E Pluribus Unum

Know where your money is tonight?
It's making the lives of Wall Street Bankers more comfortable.

Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg

Thanks for the info Billy and little by little I am building my sand up to
something that resembles soil. The basic "soil" where I am is sand with
about a 2 inch layer of organic material mainly from burnt gum trees
(eucalyptus) and although it may appear nice and dark it is very water
repellent, the first few rain downpours of the year washing right off the
top.

Mike

Your garden soil shouldn't be more than 10% (by volume), or less than 5%
(by weight) organic material.

Garden soil should be 30% - 40% sand, 30% - 40% silt, and 20% - 30%
clay. You can check your soil by scraping away the organic material on
top of the ground and then take a vertical sample of your soil to 12 in.
(30 cm) deep (rectangular or circular hole). Mix this with water in an
appropriately large glass (transparent) jar. The sand will settle out
quickly, the silt in a couple of hours, and the clay within a day. The
depth of the layer in relationship to the total (layer/total = % of
composition) is the percent that fraction has in the soil.

Garden soil needs a constant input of nutrients, i.e. carbon, e.g. brown
leaves, and nitrogen, e.g. manure in a ratio of C/N of 25. This is the
same ratio you will what in a compost pile.
-----

Let it Rot!: The Gardener's Guide to Composting (Third Edition)
(Storey's Down-to-Earth Guides)
by Stu Campbell

http://www.amazon.com/Let-Rot-Compos...580170234/ref=
sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294901182&sr=1-1

p.39

Compostable Material Average C/N

Alder or ash leaves ............................ 25

Grass clippings ................................ 25

Leguminous plants (peas,
beans,soybeans) ............................. 15

Manure with bedding ........................... 23

Manure ....................................... 15

Oak leaves .................................... 50

Pine needles .............................. 60-100

Sawdust................................. 150-500

Straw, cornstalks and cobs .................. 50-100

Vegetable trimmings ........................... 25
Aged Chicken Manure ........................ 7
Alfalfa ................................................ 12
Newspaper........................................ 175
-----

http://www.composting101.com/c-n-ratio.html

A Balancing Act (Carbon-to-Nitrogen Ratios)


All organic matter is made up of substantial amounts of carbon (C)
combined with lesser amounts of nitrogen (N). The balance of these two
elements in an organism is called the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio (C:N
ratio). For best performance, the compost pile, or more to the point the
composting microorganisms, require the correct proportion of carbon for
energy and nitrogen for protein production. Scientists (yes, there are
compost scientists) have determined that the fastest way to produce
fertile, sweet-smelling compost is to maintain a C:N ratio somewhere
around 25 to 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen, or 25-30:1. If the C:N
ratio is too high (excess carbon), decomposition slows down. If the C:N
ratio is too low (excess nitrogen) you will end up with a stinky pile.
(cont.)
------

No reason to till after the first preparation of the garden (no reason
to till the first/last time but it does speed up soil development).
Spread out your soil amendments:
? N:
? 18.37 lb. chicken manure/ 100 sq.ft. (2.88 oz/sq.ft.)
?
? P:
? 3 lb. / 100/sq.ft. (.48 oz/sq.ft.)
?
? K:
? How much wood ash should you use in your garden? The late Bernard
G. Wesenberg, a former Washington State University Extension
horticulturist, recommended using one gallon of ashes per square
yard on loam to clay-loam soil, and half as much on sandier soils.

http://www.plantea.com/manure.htm
? Manure Chicken Diary cow Horse Steer Rabbit
? N 1.1 .257 .70 .70
2.4
? P .80 .15 .30 .30
1.4
? K .50 .25 .60 .40
.60
?
Sheep Alfalfa Fish Emulsion
? N .70 3 5
? P .30 1 1
? K .90 2 1

? Sources: Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, An
Illustrated Guide to Organic Gardening, by Sunset Publishing, and the
Rodale Guide to Composting.

http://www.plantea.com/manure.htm
? Manure Chicken Diary cow Horse Steer Rabbit
? N 1.1 .257 .70 .70 2.4
? P .80 .15 .30 .30 1.4
? K .50 .25 .60 .40 .60

?
Sheep Alfalfa Fish Emulsion
? N .70 3 5
? P .30 1 1
? K .90 2 1

? Sources: Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, An
Illustrated Guide to Organic Gardening, by Sunset Publishing, and the
Rodale Guide to Composting.

Cover this with newspaper (to block light from weeds and provide a
barrier to sprouting weeds). Cover the newspaper with mulch (up to 6" in
depth). Spray the garden bed with water, and wait 6 weeks before
planting (if you can).

A dibble can help with planting. The dinky little ones from the nursery
may be of some help, but I prefer a sharpened, old, shovel handle for
making a hole through the mulch and paper for planting seedlings.

Adding drip lines takes a little time, but saves a lot of time during
the season.

With heavy soils, cover crops of buckwheat or rye are good for adding
more organic material and loosening the soil.

--
E Pluribus Unum

Know where your money is tonight?
It's making the lives of Wall Street Bankers more comfortable.

Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg

Thanks for the info Billy and little by little I am building my sand up to
something that resembles soil. The basic "soil" where I am is sand with
about a 2 inch layer of organic material mainly from burnt gum trees
(eucalyptus) and although it may appear nice and dark it is very water
repellent, the first few rain downpours of the year washing right off the
top.

Mike

A good point.

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelatio...umbus/dp/14000
32059/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296839060&sr=1-1

p.344
GIFT FROM THE PAST
"Landscape," in this case, is meant exactly‹Amazonian Indians literally
created the ground beneath their feet. According to Susanna Hecht, a
geographer at the University of California at Los Angeles, researchers
into upland Amazonia took most of their soil samples along the region's
highways, which indeed passed through areas with awful soil‹some regions
were so saturated with toxic aluminum that they are now being mined for
bauxite. A few scientists, though, found patches of something better.
"In part because of the empty-Amazon model," Hecht told me, these were
"seen as anomalous and insignificant." But in the 1990s researchers
began studying these unusual regions of terra preta do Índio‹rich,
fertile "Indian dark earth" that anthropologists believe was made by
human beings.

Throughout Amazonia, farmers prize terra preta for its great
productivity; some have worked it for years with minimal fertilization.
Among them are the owners of the papaya orchard I visited, who have
happily grown crops on their terra, preta for two decades. More
surprising still, the ceramics in the farm's terra preta indicate that
the soil has retained its nutrients for as much as a millennium. On a
local level, terra preta is valuable enough for locals to dig it up and
sell as potting soil, an activity that, alas, has already destroyed
countless arti-facts. To the consternation of archaeologists, long
planters full of ancient terra preta, complete with pre-Columbian
potsherds, greet vistors to the Santarem airport. Because terra preta is
subject to the same punishing conditions as the surrounding bad soils,
"its existence is very surprising," according to Bruno Glaser, a chemist
at the Institute of Soil Science and Soil Geography at the University of
Bayreuth, Germany. "If you read the textbooks, it shouldn't be there."*


*Terra preta exists in two forms: terra preta itself, a black soil thick
with pottery, and terra mulata, a lighter dark brown soil with much less
pottery. A number of researchers believe that although Indians made
both, they deliberately created only the terra mulata. Terra preta was
the soil created directly around homes by charcoal kitchen fires and
organic refuse of various types. I use terra preta loosely to cover both.

Because careful surveys of Amazon soils have never been taken, nobody
knows the amount and distribution of terra preta. Woods has guessed that
terra preta might represent as much as 10 percent of the Amazon basin,
an area the size of France. A recent, much more conservative estimate is
that it covers .1 to .3 percent of the basin, a few thousand square
miles. The big difference between these numbers matters less than one
might expect: a few thousand square miles of farmland was enough to feed
the millions in the Maya heartland.

Most big terra preta sites are on low bluffs at the edge of the
flood-plain. Typically, they cover five to fifteen acres, but some
encompass seven hundred or more. The layer of black soil is generally
one to two feet deep but can reach more than six feet. According to a
recent study led by Dirse Kern, of the Museu Goeldi in Belem, terra
preta is "not associated with a particular parent soil type or
environmental condition," suggesting that it was not produced by natural
processes. Another clue to its human origin is the broken ceramics with
which it is usually mixed. "They practiced agriculture here for
centuries," Glaser told me. "But instead of destroying the soil, they
improved it, and that is something we don't know how to do today" in
tropical soils.

As a rule, terra preta has more "plant-available" phosphorus, calcium,
sulfur, and nitrogen than is common in the rain forest; it also has much
more organic matter, better retains moisture and nutrients, and is not
rapidly exhausted by agricultural use when managed well. The key to
terra preta's long-term fertility, Glaser says, is charcoal: terra preta
contains up to sixty-four times more of it than surrounding red earth.
Organic matter "sticks" to charcoal, rather than being washed away or
attaching to other, nonavailable compounds. "Over time, it

p.346

partly oxidizes, which keeps providing sites for nutrients to bind to."
But simply mixing charcoal into the ground is not enough to create terra
preta. Because charcoal contains few nutrients, Glaser argued,
"high-nutrient inputs‹excrement and waste such as turtle, fish, and
animal bones‹are necessary." Special soil microorganisms are also likely
to play a role in its persistent fertility, in the view of Janice Thies,
a soil ecologist who is part of a Cornell University team studying terra
preta. "There are indications that microbial biomass is higher in terra
preta than in other forest soils," she told me, which raises the
possibility that scientists might be able to create a "package" of
charcoal, nutrients, and microfauna that could be used to transform bad
tropical soil into terra preta.

Despite the charcoal, terra preta is not a by-product of slash-and-burn
agriculture. To begin with, slash-and-burn simply does not produce
enough charcoal to make terra preta‹the carbon mostly goes into the air
in the form of carbon dioxide. Instead, Indians apparently made terra
preta by a process that Christoph Steiner, a University of Bayreuth soil
scientist, has dubbed "slash-and-char." Instead of completely burning
organic matter to ash, ancient farmers burned it incompletely to make
charcoal, then stirred the charcoal into the soil. In addition to its
benefits to the soil, slash-and-char releases much less carbon into the
air than slash-and-burn, which has large potential implications for
climate change. Trees store vast amounts of carbon in their trunks,
branches, and leaves. When they die or people cut them down, the carbon
is usually released into the atmosphere, driving global warming.
Experiments by Makoto Ogawa of the Kansai Environmental Engineering
Center, near Kyoto, Japan, demonstrated that charcoal retains its carbon
in the soil for up to fifty thousand years. "Slash-and-char is very
clever," Ogawa told me. "Nobody in Europe or Asia that I know of ever
understood the properties of charcoal in soil."

Indians are still making terra preta in this way, according to Hecht,
the UCLA geographer. Hecht spent years with the Kayapo, in central
Amazonia, watching them create "low-biomass" fires "cool enough to walk
through" of pulled-up weeds, cooking waste, crop debris, palm fronds,
and termite mounds. Burning, she wrote, is constant:
"To live among the Kayapo is to live in a place where parts of the
landscape smolder." Hecht regards Indian fire as an essential part of
the Amazonian landscape, as it was in the forests of eastern North
America. "We've got to get over this whole Bambi syndrome," she told me,
referring to the movie's forest-fire scene, which has taught generations
of children that burning wildlands is evil. "Let the Kayapo burn the
rainforest‹they know what they're doing."

In a preliminary test run at creating terra preta, Steiner, Wenceslau
Teixeira of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Enterprise, and Wol-fang
Zech of the University of Bayreuth applied a variety of treatments
involving charcoal and fertilizers for three years to rice and sorghum
plots outside Manaus. In the first year, there was little difference
among the treatments (except for the control plots, in which almost
nothing grew). By the second year, Steiner said, "the charcoal was
really making a difference." Plots with charcoal alone grew little, but
those treated with a combination of charcoal and fertilizer yielded as
much as 880 percent more than plots with fertilizer alone. His "terra
preta" was this productive, Steiner told me, despite making no attempt
to re-create the ancient microbial balance.

Beginning a little more than two thousand years ago, the central and
lower Amazon were rocked by extreme cultural change. Arawak-speaking
groups migrated in from the south and west, sometimes apparently driving
Tupi-speaking groups north and east. Sedentary villages appeared. And so
did terra preta. No one yet knows if or how these events were related.
By about the time of Christ the central Amazon had at least some large,
settled villages‹Neves, Petersen, and Bartone excavated one on a high
bank about thirty miles up the Rio Negro. Judging by carbon dating and
the sequence of ceramics, they believe the site was inhabited in two
waves, from about 360 b.c., when terra preta formation began, to as late
as 1440 a.d. "We haven't finished working, but there seems to be a
central plaza and some defensive ditches there," Petersen told me. The
plaza was at least a quarter mile long; the ditch, more than three
hundred feet long and up to eighteen feet wide and six feet deep: "a
big, permanent settlement."

Terra preta showed up at the papaya plantation between 620 and 720 a.d.
By that time it seems to have been underneath villages throughout the
central Amazon. Several hundred years later it reached the upper Xingu,
a long Amazon tributary with its headwaters deep in southern Brazil.
People had lived around the Xingu for a long time, but around 1100 or
1200 a.d., Arawak-speaking people appear to have moved in, jostling
shoulders with people who spoke a Tupi-Guarani language. In 2003
Heckenberger, who had worked with

Petersen and Neves, announced in Science that in this area he and his
colleagues had turned up remains of nineteen large villages linked by a
network of wide roads "in a remarkably elaborate regional plan." Around
these settlements, which were in place between approximately 1250 and
1400 a.d., theXinguanos built "bridges, artificial river obstructions
and ponds, raised causeways, canals, and other structures ... a highly
elaborate built environment, rivaling that of many contemporary complex
societies of the Americas and elsewhere." The earlier inhabitants left
no trace of terra preta; the new villages quickly set down thick
deposits of black earth. "To me," Woods said, "it looks as if someone
invented it, and the technique spread to the neighbors."

One of the biggest patches of terra preta is on the high bluffs at the
mouth of the Tapajos, near Santarem. First mapped in the 1960s by the
late Wim Sombroek, director of the International Soil Reference and
Information Center in Wageningen, the Netherlands, the terra preta zone
is three miles long and half a mile wide, suggesting wide-spread human
habitation‹exactly what Orellana saw. The plateau has never been
carefully excavated, but observations by geographers Woods and Joseph
McCann of the New School in New York City indicate that it is thick with
ceramics. If the agriculture practiced in the lower Tapajos were as
intensive as in the most complex cultures in precontact North America,
Woods told me, "you'd be talking something capable of supporting about
200,000 to 400,000 people"‹making it at the time one of the most densely
populated places in the world.

Woods was part of an international consortium of scientists studying
terra preta. If its secrets could be unraveled, he said, it might
improve the expanses of bad soil that cripple agriculture in Africa‹a
final gift from the peoples who brought us tomatoes, maize, manioc, and
a thousand different ways of being human.

"Betty Meggers would just die if she heard me saying this," Woods told
me. "Deep down her fear is that this data will be misused." In 2001,
Meggers charged in an article in Latin American Antiquity that
archaeologists' claims that the Amazon could support intensive
agriculture were effectively telling "developers [that they] are
entitled to operate without restraint." These researchers had thus
become unwitting "accomplices in the accelerating pace of environmental
degradation." Centuries after the conquistadors, she lamented, "the myth
of El Dorado is being revived by archaeologists."

Doubtless her political anxieties are not without justification,
although‹as some of her sparring partners observed‹it is difficult to
imagine greedy plutocrats "perusing the pages of Latin American
Antiquity before deciding to rev up the chainsaws." But the new picture
doesn't automatically legitimate burning down the forest. Instead it
suggests that for a long time clever people who knew tricks that we have
yet to learn used big chunks of Amazonia nondestructively. Faced with an
ecological problem, the Indians fixed it. Rather than adapt to Nature,
they created it. They were in the midst of terra-forming the Amazon when
Columbus showed up and ruined everything.

--
E Pluribus Unum

Know where your money is tonight?
It's making the lives of Wall Street Bankers more comfortable.

Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg