Fall gardening

One thing that I always plan to do, and almost never do, or when I do get to it, is done poorly, is fall gardening.  Spring is considered the proper time to plant cool loving plants, like broccoli, cauliflower, peas, etc..  The problem is that if you don't get these crops in early enough, they don't mature until the middle of the summer when heat is hard on these crops.

Hence, the reason for fall gardening.  By planting cool crops in mid to late summer, these crops mature and bear during the ideal cool temps of early to late fall.

My hope had been to get these crops in at some point in July, but here it is a week in to August and I'm just getting to it.  This morning I planted more kohlrabi, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, and peas.  I thickly sowed them to ensure adequate germination, and will come back later to thin.

With the peas, I ran in to some troubles because I'm running out of available garden space, and because deer will eat them, I need to keep them inside the area protected by electric fence.

Another problem with peas is they have to have a trellis or fence to hold them up and, once again, I always seem to be behind the game on that.  So, I decided to use what I have.  We have a large patch of sweet corn, some of which is nearly ripe.  I planted peas along the sweet corn in two ways.  In a few rows I inter planted within the corn row itself, using every other row in case I decide to chop down the alternating rows to let in more sunlight.  In other parts, I planted along side the rows of corn that border an opening.  On one end of the patch we have a gap in the corn where we planted onions.  I planted peas along the corn on each end of the onion patch. 

The hope is that, assuming I'm not planting too late, that the corn will provide two benefits to the peas.  First, it will provide some shade to the peas through the remaining hot weeks of August, and second, the trellis support for the peas.  Stay tuned.

Peas are planted along each row that borders the onion patch.  Peas are also interplanted in some of the corn rows.

 

Life without water update

Earlier this year I posted a description of how we've learned to live without running water inside the house.  http://emmausgarden.blogspot.com/2013/05/life-without-plumbing.html  At the time I was still tinkering with how to run a washing machine without running water.  I attempted to operate it with pure gravity fed water, but that failed.  The washing machine has to have pressurized water to operate. 

Plan B.  While at Menards one day I found a shallow well jet pump with pressure tank on clearance.  I bought it and took it home, but it sat in my shed for awhile before a friend of mine came to visit and he decided we should try to make it work.  He's a priest now, but grew up on a farm in South Dakota and has lots of experience with pumps and plumbing from his days with the irrigation system on his family's farm.

To put it simply, we devised a system whereby we have a water tank in the utility room (I believe it's about 75 gallons), which we fill manually.  My understanding from talking to the local authorities is that "no plumbing" basically means no water lines running in to the house and no drain lines running out of the house.  We haul the water in and haul the water back out, so I'm going to take my chances with this system.  If I'm wrong, I'll be required to install a septic system, which I'm trying to avoid for now.

Connected to the water tank is the pressure tank and jet pump.  It plugs in to a local 110 outlet and pressurizes the water, which then runs to the washing machine.  Waste water from the washer runs in to a bucket, which has to be monitored and dumped throughout the wash cycle. 

We've found it takes about 12-15 gallons of water to run a normal load of clothes through our front loading washer.  I believe a top loader would take more, as they use more water. 

Needless to say, my wife is thrilled to now be able to do laundry on site, without having to haul laundry to town, even if it is still somewhat primitive in that we have to dump water in to the barrel and then dump the waste water out. 

The next project is to hook up some water barrels to our old well to see if we can utilize the water for household use, at least for laundry and bathing.  The well uses a pump jack, rather than a submersible well, so you have to have a separate tank or cistern to hold the water before using it.  Our water currently has a lot of sentiment in it, so I'm planning to create a system of two barrels.  Water will pump in to the one barrel (about 50 gallons) and will then be allowed to settle for a day or so.  A pipe about a foot off the bottom of that barrel will then connect to another barrel, separated by a valve, at which point I'll divert the now-settled water to the new barrel.  The water from the second barrel will probably then go through a sentiment filter I have to further remove sentiment, but my hope is that the water will then be clean enough to use for laundry, which is by far the biggest consumer of water.  I'll post the results of my experience later.

Gravity experiment failed

Washing machine with storage tank on right

Coleman jet pump and pressure tank
 

I hate weeding

Many a child has had his/her perspective on gardening forever warped by hours of forced labor pulling weeds in mom's or grandma's gardens.  I was no different, and as a kid, I hated the garden.

It wasn't until I became an adult, and realized the virtue and savings of a garden, that I came to love gardening, but I was determined to find a way that is better than how my parents and grandparents did it.

You'll see plenty of posts in my blog talking about the importance of mulch, but I can't reiterate it enough.  Use mulch!

We use two main mulching methods: black plastic and hay/straw.  It's important to understand the strengths and wit weaknesses if each.

Hay/straw helps protect the soil from the harsh sun and pounding effects of the rain.  It also keeps the soil cooler, so it does not work well for crops that like lots of heat, like melons, tomatoes, and strawberries.  You can use it for those crops, but it tends to slow the production more than having the ground left bare.  It inhibits the weeds, but doesn't always stop them entirely, so you have to go back and pull the weeds that make it through.

Black Plastic is almost a complete barrier to weeds, but they will make it up through any holes in the plastic.  We poke our plastic full of holes with a hay fork to allow rain to soak through.  Plastic heats the soil, so can help certain crops warm up quicker in the spring, such as strawberries, and is great for plants that like lots of heat, like melons and tomatoes.  We generally use plastic in such a sway that we leave it on the same bed for multiple years at a time, and simply rotate the crops within the plastic.

One thing I started this year was covering new beds for next year with hay.  We had attempted to work some new sod up this year for potatoes, but the weather absolutely did not cooperate and it did not try out enough to work.  So, I used the extra hay we had from the first cutting and put a think layer of hay over the areas that I'll work up next year.  The hope is that it will help kill the sod, begin to break things down, and provide an environment for the worms to stay near the surface and do their magic.

Here are some updated pictures of the gardens.

Butternut Squash

Cucumbers and cantaloupe

Pumpkins

Watermelons

Potatoes filling out and flowering
 



Next year's beds mulched

Second year raspberries--slowly filling out

Bed with lettuce, zucchini, green beans, carrots, and fall broccoli

Sweet Corn patch broken up with onions.  Fall peas are planted along side the corn rows on each end of onions

New strawberry bed transplanted this spring.  Note the lack of weeds and runners are periodically removed

Sweet corn and yellow squash

3rd year growth of grapes

Third year growth of semi-dwarf apple trees

Steer gets picketed on various parts of yard during day.  I tie him to utility trailer that can easily be moved.