tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51369965687350071972024-03-28T00:34:14.416-07:00Low Cost Vegetable GardenGardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-77962755097811844792015-01-31T14:09:00.001-08:002015-01-31T14:09:47.541-08:00Blog MovingHello to any readers here.<br />
I moved houses a few months ago and can't do a backyard garden blog anymore.<br />
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However, my church bought a farm and now I'm heavily involved with farming for a CSA.<br />
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We just started a blog about our farming experiences at:<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1458765633"><br /></a>
<a href="http://www.anandavalleyfarm.blogspot.com/">www.AnandaValleyFarm.blogspot.com</a><br />
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I'll be posting there about what we are learning and trying out, what has worked well on a small farm scale for us (and even more about what hasn't worked out well).<br />
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Stop by.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-5947706713608083462013-07-03T11:37:00.000-07:002013-07-03T11:46:48.459-07:00Rose Hugel Pot Update<br />
The roses in the hugel pots are doing great. Much better than last year before I changed them.<br />
The leaves all stay very green now and the plants don't wilt in between watering.<br />
The best change is that they didn't get the usual rust and black spot disease.<br />
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Here's the link to the original posting:<br />
http://lowcostvegetablegarden.blogspot.com/2013/02/rose-hugel-pot.html<br />
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These pictures were taken May 7th. The plants are bigger now.<br />
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Since I made a lot of changes, can't identify what was most beneficial, but I believe the most significant changes were putting wood chip mulch on top, fertilizing with kitty-urine soaked cornmeal, and automatic daily morning watering with a micro-sprayer, not a dripper. <br />
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In another potted plant I did only this and it too improved greatly.<br />
In the hot dry climate here one problem with pots is the soil will dry out at the top and still be wet at the bottom. The wood chips help keep the top moist and evens out the wetness level in the pot.<br />
Also having the top moist encourages small feeder roots critical to the plants growth.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-30919886298660795422013-04-06T00:11:00.000-07:002013-04-06T13:34:28.809-07:00Kitchen Scraps & RaccoonsAnyone who has tried sheet composting knows that it increases worm population greatly.<br />
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This spring I was digging and preparing the garden beds. In one bed that had fava beans growing in it over the winter, I counted about 2 worms per shovelful. In another bed I threw kitchen scraps on it over the winter (California winter, no snow). This bed had about 12 worms per shovelful.<br />
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It has always seemed to me that burying or sheet composting scraps is an efficient (i.e. easier) way to use them compared to normal composting. Especially after digging up roots and seeing worm holes lined with vermicompost over a foot and half deep. The only problem is racoons and rats always dig them up.<br />
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On a gardenweb board, david52 mentioned he used chicken wire over a bed to deter racoons.<br />
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Well inspired by that here's what I've been trying:<br />
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Take out a gallon of scraps to the garden bed at a time.<br />
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With garden glove on, brush away mulch and scoop a hole about 4-5 inches deep, dump scraps in. <br />
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Cover with the dirt and wood chip mulch. The put a 1' chicken wire square on top and secure. <br />
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Each side of the chicken wire square is cut to have sharp points (no smooth surfaces). This deters raccoons from trying to dig in from the side. To secure it, a pepper plant cage was cut up in 3 sections. Each section has one wire ring & 3 legs. <br />
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So far, this has worked great. Evidence of racoons prowling around but unable to get the scraps. Have 3 holes so far, no problems. Having 4 of the "wire" setups should allow enough time for the scraps to rot enough in the oldest hole so a raccoon wouldn't want them. Then I can rotate the wire setup to a new hole as more kitchen scraps are available. <br />
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Using this should improve my soil considerably and is easy to implement. Previously I never sheet composted during the summer b/c of rodent problems and normal composting took too much time and required more "browns" (leaves, grass, hay,...) than I had.<br />
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Having only a 1'x1' square wire mesh protection, will allow me to place scraps in between plants during the summer.<br />
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In the winter time I'd rather not go out to the garden every time we generate 1 gallon of scraps. So the plan is to fill up a 5 gallon bucket which is kept right outside the house. When full go dump it on the garden and rake wood chips over it. To keep racoons away a leftover piece of chain link fence (5'x5') is thrown over the bed. Tried this once and the raccoons could only paw a few small holes through the fence trying to get the food. They left it alone after the first night.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-12418373355181983252013-03-23T11:02:00.002-07:002013-03-23T11:18:47.701-07:00Vertical hugelkultur & wood chips vs horizontal hugel<br />
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Here's a quick comparison of fava beans growing in a hugelkultur bed. The beans were planted in November, about 4 months ago.</div>
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The bed pictured, just beyond the fence, is 12'x3'. The 4' of the bed on the right was my first attempt at hugelkultur. It has mostly horizontally buried logs with no wood chips dug in. The rest of the bed was dug with vertical stumps and wood chips.</div>
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See: <a href="http://lowcostvegetablegarden.blogspot.com/2012/10/garden-bed-construction.html">http://lowcostvegetablegarden.blogspot.com/2012/10/garden-bed-construction.html</a>. </div>
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No fertilizer was used.</div>
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Notice how the fava beans grew much better and thicker in the part of the bed with wood chips and vertical stumps.</div>
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Here's a closeup of the favas in the vertical stump & woodchip part of the bed. The stalks are much sturdier and thicker here. </div>
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Here's a closeup of the favas in the mostly horizontally buried log portion of the bed.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-73598738019950516882013-03-02T12:19:00.001-08:002013-03-13T09:17:16.114-07:00Burying Stumps in Sandy SoilHere's an idea for using hugelkultur in sandy soil.<br />
Ideally for sandy soil you'd want lots of rotten wood dug in for water retention.<br />
However, if you only have dry (not green) unrotted wood available, you could still get benefits from hugelkultur right away.<br />
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Bury stumps, branches, split firewood, vertically in the ground about 3-4" below the soil surface.<br />
Then plant right over the buried wood. The plant roots should grow down underneath the wood. The wood will retain a lot of water and slowly "drip" it out the bottom unto the roots, feeding them with a decomposed wood stream and any fertilizer you add (urea, urine, bloodmeal, fishmeal, ...). This is what I observed in "stump containers". See:<br />
http://lowcostvegetablegarden.blogspot.com/2012/09/eggplant-stump-branch-pot-comparison.html<br />
http://lowcostvegetablegarden.blogspot.com/2013/02/rose-hugel-pot.html<br />
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Overtime as the wood rots it should hold even more water and since it is large chunks of wood, they won't wash away deeper into the sand with rains.<br />
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My own soil is clay, so I've never tested this, but just thought about it after visiting my parents in sandy soil Florida. I would not do this in clay soil. In clay soil, I bury the stumps about 1' under the soil surface. The stumps wick away excess moisture without drying out the soil. Underneath stumps in clay soil, it gets very wet. In the 1-2 inches right underneath a stump in clay soil, I found, that roots will not grow, because it is so wet & mucky.GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-21912088351692083902013-02-24T14:26:00.000-08:002013-03-13T09:30:46.919-07:00Rose Hugel PotMy 3 container roses have never done very well in the 5+ years we've had them.<br />
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Watering has always been too much a responsibility for me, so they were put on an automatic drip system. However the problem is that the mix would get wet right underneath the drip emitters, 5 of them per pot, but just an inch away from the emitter the mix would be dry. And since it was a peat based mix (50% peat, 50% lava rocks or turface), most of the mix would become hydrophobic and stay that way all summer.<br />
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The roses would do ok, but clearly stressed.<br />
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This year I decided to make them into hugel pots after seeing how well my eggplants did in a stump pot (see post: http://lowcostvegetablegarden.blogspot.com/2012/09/eggplant-stump-branch-pot-comparison.html).<br />
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Here are the 3 dormant roses to be repotted. <br />
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After taking the roses out and throwing away all the peat based mix, I drilled many small holes in each pot bottom. This isn't for better drainage, it is for better bottom root aeration. This is a critical aspect for a hugel pot. <br />
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Next I put in about 3-4" of compost in the bottom of the pots. You want the roots to mat up right at the bottom of the pot over the aeration holes. Here the roots will be kept wet and well-ventilated. <br />
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Then I put in wood from a split stump. Must be vertical to be effective. Water will be absorbed into the top of the wood and then slowly released out the bottom. So roots that form at the bottom of the pot will receive a slow water drip that should also have nutrients in it from the wood and any fertilizer you add. <br />
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Compost is from a playground wood chips that has decayed over 10 years. No peat to avoid hydrophobic issues. Root-pruned rose goes on top. <br />
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Pots are placed in bricks, so air can flow underneath <br />
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The yellow clump is a corn meal-based kitty litter urine clump. I'm going to use these as the only fertilizer for a couple of the roses to see how it does. They will be watered in (broken up) after being added. This should deter rabbits also.<br />
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Looking forward to seeing how this does.<br />
Hopefully it will cut down on the frequency watering is needed and when I do forget to water and it dries out, it will be easy to water it again without hydrophobic issues.<br />
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Late June I'll post an update and at the end of the season I'll take the rose out of the pot for pictures on how the roots are doing.<br />
<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-26027361147466848722013-02-16T21:03:00.000-08:002013-03-13T09:33:33.788-07:00Hugel hole preperation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last year I prepared and planted cucumbers and tomatoes in 3 hugel holes with mediocre results.</div>
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Just improved/redid the holes this year using what I learned from last year's experience.</div>
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In one hole I had put in horizontally buried branches and also mixed in some leaves. It did poorly. Just adding logs into clay soil isn't enough to make a good growing bed. So I redug this hole out. 2' deep, 2' diameter.</div>
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These were the branches I dug out. <br />
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Put in vertical stump and branches about 10" to 1' in length. Made sure I left one shovelful depth between the soil surface and the stump. This is so I can easily do a "single dig" in future years, i.e. dig in more organic matter one shovelful deep. <br />
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Then I added wood chips and soil to fill in the hole. Alternated 3 shovelfuls of chips, then 3 shovelfuls of dirt. This seems like a lot of wood chips, but after just one summer this clay soil absorbs all but the largest chips.<br />
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In this hugel hole last year, I just threw in a stump vertically and mixed in a little bit of leaves. The cucumber plant did very well in this hole. The vertical stump seems to wick away excess moisture will keeping the dirt just the right amount of moistness for the plants. The stump in the ground was from last year. <br />
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Added some branches on top of the stump, just enough to keep the wood a shovel depth below the surface. <br />
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Then 3 shovelfuls wood chips, 3 shovelfuls dirt, ... After done the pile is 1 foot high. This will be ready to plant in 2 months, mid-April.<br />
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I'm really looking forward to seeing what the soil looks like at the end of the summer. This is the first time I've added so many wood chips at once.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-55277490476333574252012-10-30T20:26:00.001-07:002013-03-13T09:34:22.360-07:00Wood chip soil picturesThe garden beds, which had wood chips dug into the soil, did the best this year.<br />
So I decided to dig up soil in them and take a look at what was going on.<br />
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Most noticeably was that the plant roots all congregated where clumps of wood chips were buried.<br />
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Also very noticeable, there was lots of worms throughout all the soil, soil that had wood chips and soil that didn't. In previous years I had never seen so many worms. I believe having the wood chip mulch encouraged more worms than the leaf and pine needle mulch that I used in previous years. I had wondered if worms would feed on wood chips, it seems that they do.</div>
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Here are two clumps from the same bed. On the left no wood chips had been mixed in. On the right lots of wood chips had been buried. Notice the almost total lack of roots on the left, yet these clump were only about 4" away from each other in the ground.<br />
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Another soil & wood chip aggregate from another wood chip bed. Notice the darker parts of the soil in this picture. These are worm castings. The soil had lots of worm casting deposits wherever wood chip clumps were, even over a foot deep.</div>
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Here I dug up soil from a regular hugel bed (horizontally placed logs). In the spring I did dig in some pine needles & leaves, but they had totally disappeared. The cucumber growing in this bed did ok, but not great. Cucumbers growing in the wood chip bed did great. Cucumbers growing in just a clay bed (no wood chips, no hugel logs) did very poorly (didn't produce any harvest).<br />
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There were lots of worms and worm holes in the this soil, but it was still thick clay and no where close to being as good as the soil in the wood chip bed.<br />
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It seemed the roots did best in soil that was about one-half wood chips!</div>
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Quite a surprise.</div>
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As another experiment, I had planted a couple seedlings above some wood-chip-only clumps in the soil that were about 3" deep and 5" diameter. The plant roots did not like growing into only wood chips and these plants didn't do as well.</div>
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Seeing how well roots did in "wood chip soil", has given me confidence to really go all out when digging in chips. I had wondered what would be too much. But it seems even 1/2 chips, 1/2 dirt is great for the plants. If I had seen this before I prepared my 4 new hugel beds, I would have dug in even more wood chips. For the 2 existing wood chip beds, I'm digging in a lot more chips now, before planting fava beans.</div>
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GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-49834703661330979012012-10-22T10:15:00.000-07:002013-03-13T09:34:54.894-07:00Garden bed constructionThis last summer I experimented a lot with different growing methods in my garden and in containers.<br />
Based on the results, this fall I redid my garden beds using:<br />
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1. Vertical hugelkultur<br />
2. Large quantities of wood chips dug in the soil.<br />
In small test beds this year these 2 techniques did the best.<br />
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Just completed 4 beds, here are pictures of building one.<br />
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Dug down average of 2.5 feet. At that depth I hit a layer of pottery-like clay that would be unusable for garden soil.<br />
This bed is 3.5 feet wide and 12' long.<br />
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Added wood scraps, from splitting wood, at the bottom. <br />
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First layer of vertical stumps, packed closely together. <br />
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Added dirt mixed in with wood chips and then put a 2nd layer of vertical stumps. <br />
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More dirt and lots of wood chips. <br />
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Added a 3rd layer of branches, partially rotted and began building retaining walls from logs and 1/2" rebar. <br />
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No pictures, but did add a 4th layer of larger branches placed horizontally on top of here. <br />
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Here are 2 completed beds, built with retaining walls.</div>
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Also made 2 other beds without retaining walls. Those ones only had 2
layers of logs, one vertical, one horizontal. So they did not raise the
soil level as much. <br />
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The only cost for these beds was the rebar (~$30). All the logs, stumps, and chips were free. Lot of digging though. Didn't get a chance to go to the gym for the last 6 weeks :)<br />
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Roughly the top 6" or more of soil in each bed does not contain logs or branches, just dirt and wood chips. This is to make it easy in future years to dig in more wood chips with a normal shovel if this will be needed. The soil is very thick clay and I believe I'll need to dig in more chips in a couple years.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-2989900440558942602012-09-24T13:32:00.003-07:002013-03-13T09:35:51.913-07:00Corn cob seedling mix<br />
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Here I mixed some various amendments with compost to see which worked best for starting squash and cucumber seeds.<br />
Tried several amendments, leaves, wood chips, wood chunks, wood wafers, corn cob slices, b <br />
Mix <br />
The best was compost and corn cob slices.<br />
2nd best was compost and wood chunks or a wood wafer.<br />
These and others are shown in this video.<br />
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All these seedlings were planted in the ground. After 2 weeks, the
corn cob one is still doing the best with the wood chunk and wood wafer
ones still doing second best.<br />
None of the transplants wilted. It has not been hot, less than 80 degrees.<br />
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GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-67476972990591594462012-09-24T13:15:00.003-07:002013-03-13T09:36:09.190-07:00Tree roots in garden<br />
Large redwood trees send extensive root mats into my garden<br />
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Rather than fighting these roots, or trying to set up barriers blocking them, I'm trying to use them to add organic matter every year into the garden. I dig a trench between the tree and garden, cut the roots and refill the trench with dirt. Will add a drip line to then lead the roots back into the garden, so that I'll know where to cut them again next year. This could add a great deal of organic matter to the garden each year. Only unknown is how far down I'll need to dig a trench to be sure all the roots are cut.<br />
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If anyone knows an easy way to cut tree roots about 3' deep, please post.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-78775846164438719172012-09-04T23:08:00.000-07:002013-03-13T09:36:30.607-07:00Transplanting Wilt Free UpdateHere's an update on my trials to transplant large squash and cucumbers on hot sunny afternoons without shade, without wilt and without shock.<br />
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Plus some ideas on how to improve this for next year<br />
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This sheet shows an idea to try next hot season. It is discussed at the end of the video. <br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-19592963970606444552012-09-04T13:57:00.000-07:002013-03-13T09:36:53.693-07:00Worm hole rootsJust for fun here are some pictures of bean roots growing through worm-holes.<br />
They looked like miniatures of the roots growing in gopher tunnels. <br />
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I dug up two bean plants, one doing great, one dying, to see the difference.<br />
The dying bean plant had wet, saturated soil.<br />
The good bean plant, had very dry soil.<br />
Classic mistake, over-watering bean plants.<br />
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In the dry soil I was able to get good pictures since the dirt that didn't crumble or compress.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-77158019602761139522012-09-04T00:24:00.000-07:002013-03-13T09:37:21.757-07:00Eggplant stump & branch pot comparison<br />
Well I couldn't resist digging up my eggplant stumppot. It was doing so well, I just had to see what was going on in the roots.<br />
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Here is a slideshow showing what I found and also how it compared to the other eggplant in a branchpot.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com58tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-42763454266349336312012-09-03T18:31:00.001-07:002013-03-13T09:37:57.284-07:00Pepper Containers This year I planted 4 pepper-plant tubs with different soil mixes.<br />
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In this video they are compared and dug up to see what can be learned from the roots, to improve future container plantings.<br />
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Interestingly these trials have led to the conclusion to put rotted wood
at the top of the container (not in the bottom), just like nature does
it in the forest, with rotted logs on top of the ground.<br />
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Based on this and other root excavations, here are some ideas for future soil arrangements I plan to test next. Will try to test with lettuce over fall, but might have to wait until next spring.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-76399024192926688912012-08-13T13:11:00.000-07:002013-03-13T09:38:25.854-07:00Squash Root ExcavationAfter seeing one of the squash plants to so much better than all the rest in the garden, I had to see why.<br />
So I dug up the roots very carefully to find out what was going on.<br />
Some unexpected and surprising results came to light.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-34654481441499866322012-08-03T16:58:00.001-07:002013-03-13T09:38:45.589-07:00Zero Cost Organic Container Update Aug2012Been seeing some interesting results so far and learning a lot.<br />
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One big surprise is that the eggplants in the stumppot are doing the best.<br />
Another big surprise is the peppers growing in mostly leaves are doing very well.<br />
I didn't expected either of these to do well.<br />
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Here are the 6 vegetable containers (see previous post for explanation).<br />
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Here are peppers in the compost, leaf and branch mix.<br />
Doing very well with most fruit set on all the plants.<br />
This one is probably doing the best all around for the peppers.<br />
These plants did and do wilt, but not as much as the just compost & leaf tub. <br />
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Here's the peppers in the compost and leaf mix. This is what did well last year, so it was my "control" for comparison. It is doing well, but the plants are much shorter and fruit set is not quite as much.<br />
These peppers wilted a lot when first transplanted, and so took longer to get established.<br />
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This tub had 6" of compost on top with 1' of leaves underneath.<br />
It has done surprisingly and unexpectedly well. Planted 2 peppers and basil.<br />
These peppers wilted/wilts the least. It grew the fastest and is still the tallest. It does look a little "lanky".The far pepper has 4 large fruits, 2nd most of any of the pepper plants. The close one just started to fruit, later than any others. It may be that it didn't feel stressed, so it is fruiting later. Too early to tell how much fruit it will produce.<br />
The basil is doing well, more than we can use, but it is a little smaller than last year.<br />
I didn't really expect to be able to get a good fruit set with the peppers growing in mostly leaves. I thought the basil would do just as well as previously. Both assumptions where wrong; peppers are excellent, basil is smaller.<br />
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Here's an addition. I made an air-pot and tried it out with just a heavier forest mulch mix, no leaves.<br />
Even though the pepper transplants didn't wilt when in smaller containers, as soon as they were put in this large air-pot, they started to wilt. Oh well, it seems that all the extra soil around the roots cut off the air enough to make it wilt after transplanting. <br />
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Here are the eggplants. It is the best ever harvest so far for container eggplants that I have had. Already harvested over 20 eggplants. The stumppot on the left has done the best, no wilt (see vertical hugelkultur post). This is very exciting and unexpected result, for me. I definitely thought limiting so severely the amount of soil in the stumppot would have stunted the eggplant. Just the opposite, it is the biggest I've grown. And it has never wilted, not once. When I transplanted the eggplants into this tub, the transplants were placed directly on the stump and the transplants soil still stuck up about an inch above the tub's soil level. I believe this is one reason it didn't wilt when transplanting. Being higher than the soil line helped it get better aeration when it was getting established in the new container.<br />
This helped spark me into the whole transplanting & growing without wilt investigation. <br />
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Here are the pepper in the fast draining mix (1/2 bark, 1/2 turface).<br />
These plants wilt very fast in any heat & sun. For the first 2 months I watered them 2x per day on hot days to help them get established. After watering the plants would perk up very fast, faster than any of the other plants. However, 1.5 hours after watering they would start to wilt again. I believe that even though the mix felt wet, it was too porous and the roots were not making enough contact with the soil in order for it to wick up fast enough in the heat. For my "only-hot-sunlight-hours" location, I believe it would take a continuous drip to keep them going. The plants obviously felt stressed with the extra wilting and watering cycle. They started to set fruit the earliest and have the smallest fruit (and plant) size.<br />
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Seeing how fast these plants perk up when watered in the fast draining mix has produced a lot of ideas to try when attempting to transplant seedlings "wilt-free" in the regular garden.<br />
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Overall, not bad for only 4 hours of sunlight a day.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-12131256014580196992012-08-03T14:27:00.002-07:002013-03-13T09:39:08.433-07:00Zero Cost Organic Container Experiment 2012<span id="cleanprint_content"></span><br />
For the last 2 years I've been growing vegetables in containers with only materials from the yard for mix and fertilizer. I try different methods each year and see what happens.<br />
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My deck only gets 4.5 hours direct sunlight at the summer solstice, beginning of August it is getting 3 hours and 45 minutes. This adds extra problems as it is mostly afternoon sun (10:30am to 2:30pm) and the deck is hot, so the plants wilt easily. I've been forced to really figure out how to grow the plants with the minimum of wilt in full sun. If the plants wilt from say 11am on (which they could easily do without extra care) it would mean they'd only get 1/2 hour of direct sun photosynthesis hours!<br />
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Only getting direct sun when it is hot out is especially hard on transplants. The transplants don't get any chance to photosynthesize in direct sun, so it takes a long time for them to get established.<br />
In a normal garden a plant will get morning sun, when it is cooler out to photosynthesize.<br />
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Below is a post that was written in May 2012 explaining this years setup. Updates to follow.<br />
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Zero Cost Organic Experiment 2012
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Last year the forest floor mulch mixed with leaves did the best. The forest floor mulch is nice compost-like and scraped off the ground under some pine & oak trees. I'd use it in all my containers but in a dry climate I only have a limited supply on my property. So instead I used old container mix which is basically fine compost, and I add or do other things with it.<br />
A mix of half
dried leaves and half old mix (basically compost) also did quite well last year.<br />
Only fertilizer used is ashes and HLF (homemade/human liquid fertilizer).
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This year I'm continuing experimenting. Read about Hugelkultur
garden beds, basically burying logs under a raised bed. I put some of
these in my in-ground garden and thought, well why not try it in a
container also!
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Made one container with big stump in it:
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<a href="http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa59/emgardener/Zero%20cost%20organic%20containers%202012/?action=view%C3%82%C2%A4t=IMG_3197.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" height="640" src="http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa59/emgardener/Zero%20cost%20organic%20containers%202012/IMG_3197.jpg" width="480" /></a>
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Made 2 containers by layering up branches and mix.
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<a href="http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa59/emgardener/Zero%20cost%20organic%20containers%202012/?action=view%C3%82%C2%A4t=IMG_3202.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" height="300" src="http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa59/emgardener/Zero%20cost%20organic%20containers%202012/IMG_3202.jpg" width="400" /></a>
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<a href="http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa59/emgardener/Zero%20cost%20organic%20containers%202012/?action=view%C3%82%C2%A4t=IMG_3200.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" height="300" src="http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa59/emgardener/Zero%20cost%20organic%20containers%202012/IMG_3200.jpg" width="400" /></a>
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Here is this years container lineup.
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<a href="http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa59/emgardener/Zero%20cost%20organic%20containers%202012/?action=view%C3%82%C2%A4t=IMG_3233.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" height="480" src="http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa59/emgardener/Zero%20cost%20organic%20containers%202012/IMG_3233.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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Back row left to right:
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* Mix is: old mix + leaves + branches. Plants 3 peppers.
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* Mix is: old mix + leaves. Bottom 6" of container is only
compressed leaves. The idea here is that the bottom of the containers
accumulate fine mix over the season. With just leaves at the bottom it
might not develop into the usual heavy muck.
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* Mix is: Bottom 1 foot of container is only compressed leaves. Top
6" is only old mix (thick compost). It would be great if this works. It
is the easiest to set up. Just empty old mix from the tote. Then walk
around and fill the tote with leaves, compress them by standing on them.
Then just put a 6" layer of the old mix on top and it's done. Also
this is the lightest container.
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* Flower container, mix is leftover turface, bark, & peat.
I've put in a "clay pot reservoir" which will be filled with diluted
HLF. The idea is to see if I can cut down on fertilizing frequency and
make the container more maintenance free.
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Front row left to right:
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* Not organic. Mix is half turface, half bark. I've never had
good results with these mixes outdoors. In a hot dry climate you need to water several times a day to prevent wilting. I do use this fast draining mix for indoor plants and they do great, much better than the peat mixes I had used before.
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* One huge stump surrounded by old mix. This is the heaviest
container. A saturated stump is quite heavy. I don't have high
expectations from this one, (but do have high hopes!). The mix is heavy
and so is the stump, so probably will not have enough aeration. Only
planting eggplants in this one, as they like it wet.
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* Branches combined with old mix. This is also heavy. Planting eggplants in this one also.
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-82636883941906048212012-07-31T22:19:00.003-07:002013-03-13T09:40:00.127-07:00Gopher Aeration TunnelHere was a trial to see if a 6-pack cucumber can be transplanted wilt free.<br />
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Dug a small 6" diameter hole ~3" deep. Put the cuke in and carefully covered the peat transplant mix with a thin layer of compost. The compost layer will help keep the peat from drying out too fast. <br />
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After the compost layer, just added wood chip mulch to fill in the hole.<br />
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For a comparison/control, another cucumber from the 6-pack was planted traditionally, just dug a small hole and filled it back in with garden dirt.<br />
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Here are the 2 6-pack transplants side by side. The one on the left was "no-wilt" planted. Right one was planted normally. <br />
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To my surprise and frustration, at first neither of them wilted. Then after a few days, the "no-wilt" planted one wilted just a little. The normally transplanted one continued to be perky.<br />
At this point I questioned all my conclusions and thought maybe something else entirely is going on.<br />
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I carefully examined the soil around the "no-wilt" one. The peat mix was
slightly dry, but not completely dry. However, the clay soil beneath
was totally saturated. To much watering. Also I think there was too
much wood chip mulch, it was cutting off access to oxygen. So I removed
much of the mulch, leaving just a thin layer of wood chips.<br />
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Then I carefully looked at the soil around the "normal" transplant. The soil was saturated also. As I dug carefully around I found a small gopher tunnel next to the roots! A gopher has dug close to the cuke, but didn't go into the roots. Some of the roots dangled a little in the tunnel.<br />
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It's hard to see but there is a small tunnel under and off to the side of the roots.<br />
The tunnel had been providing the oxygen to keep the plant from wilting!<br />
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I filled in just half the tunnel and tried to leave a small hole next to the roots.<br />
Here are the plants after all this investigation and poking around, about 12:30pm. Both were doing well.<br />
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About 4 hours later, here are the 2 plants again. The "no-wilt" one isn't wilting. And now after the gopher tunnel had been mostly filled in, the plant started wilting as I had originally expected it to when transplanting it.<br />
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Well maybe gopher tunnels can be used to help aerate transplant roots?<br />
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<a name='more'></a>GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-54387732399670310162012-07-22T21:18:00.000-07:002013-03-13T09:40:23.798-07:00110.9 degrees F and no wilting!<br />
On a hot 110F day yesterday, the 3 cucumber "net pot" transplants were not wilting at all.<br />
Whereas most of the other garden plants were wilting.<br />
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The regular older cucumber is wilting in this heat, the "wilt-free" transplanted cuke is vibrant with no drooping at all.<br />
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The 2 "wilt-free-transplanted" cukes on the right did not droop at all this 110F day.<br />
The one on the left drooped a little.<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-22852736567266402712012-07-20T15:41:00.004-07:002013-03-13T09:41:42.280-07:00Shock & Wilt Free Transplanting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
After seeing how seedlings in soil blocks do not wilt, even in 100
degree F heat, I tried many ways to get this same result after
transplanting the seedlings in the ground.<br />
<br />
But it
seemed that every time I took a soil block seedling and transplanted it
in the ground, it wilted in heat. Each time I had covered the soil
block entirely with ground dirt.<br />
<br />
It seems the soil
block not only supplied enough water, but also air to the roots. When I
buried the soil block it cut off easy access to air. This happened even
when I transplanted a soil block plant into a 15 gallon air-pot.<br />
<br />
Finally I tried this transplanting setup in the diagram and it has worked great so far, no wilting even in hot weather for cucumber transplants.<br />
<br />
Basically grow your transplant in a net pot, or repot a 2-3" transplant into a 5" net pot.<br />
Then dig a 5" hole in the garden where you want the plant. Put the net pot in, only bury the bottom half of the net pot. Put woodchips in the remaining top up to and over the surface of the net pot. <br />
<br />
Now the roots can grow out into the soil, but also get a lot of air b/c of the unburied top half.<br />
I believe it is important not to use peat moss as your seedling mix, because the top half may dry out and become hydrophobic, causing severe plant wilt.<br />
<br />
I used soil/compost that I scrapped off the ground around a pine tree, very rich organic material.<br />
I had tried using this material in a soil block, but after compressing it, it was too dense and seeds wouldn't germinate or grow well. Put into a net pot though and seeds sprouted and grew well.<br />
<br />
Here's a cucumber seedling that was grown in a 3" peat moss soil block, then put in a 5" net pot with compost/forest mix surrounding the soil block. I transplanted it in the ground about a week ago.<br />
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<br />
Here is a close up of the pot & roots, with the wood chips temporarily moved away. Notice that the root have already started to grow out into the wood chips, providing more aeration.<br />
This plant hasn't wilted yet after one week and one hot day.<br />
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<br />
<br />
About a month ago, after seeing the results of vertical hugelkultur, I prepared another bed with 3 vertical stumps in them. To test out this method further. <br />
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<br />
<br />
I first planted a cucumber seedling from a peat moss 3" soil block. It was planted in the ground on top of the wood wicking wafer. This one wilted and needed shade for a couple weeks to get established in the ground. <br />
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<br />
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<br />
Next, the idea came for just covering half the transplant with soil. So then I took 2 cucumber seedlings in 3" peat soil blocks, put them in net pots. One with compost around it, one with just clay dirt around it. And planted them in the soil. I did not at this point cover the plantings with wood chips.<br />
Here's a picture of them several days after transplanting. I watered them every day, except this day.<br />
Neither had wilted before, but now the one on the right was wilting. It was the one with clay in the net pot.<br />
While the soil in the ground was wet, the clay in the net pot had dried out and formed a hard crust. I believe the main reason for the wilting was the roots could not get enough air. Right under the crust the soil was wet.<br />
The soil in the net pot on the left was still damp, it's plant did not wilt. <br />
<br />
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<br />
Close up of plant on left, non-wilting with forest compost in net pot.<br />
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Close up of plant on right, wilting with clay in net pot.<br />
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<br />
Next I top watered the plants and put some wood chips on top of the plant in clay.<br />
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After about 10-15 minutes it recovered.<br />
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<br />
Later, I covered both planting holes with wood chips. Initially, I though this would cut off to much air and might cause wilting, as had filling the hole with soil did in the first planting. But the wood chips proved to provide enough air exchange and the plants did not wilt, and it was easier to keep them watered enough, so they didn't wilt from dry soil. Here are the two plants today almost 3 weeks after transplanting. <br />
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<br />
Here on the left is the originally planted cuke that needed shading. It was transplanted almost 2 weeks before the other two. (The right plant is the same as the left plant in the picture above.) <br />
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I'm very excited to see how these 3 cucumber plants grow. Will the two net pot ones stay wilt free, even when they get bigger?? Hopefully the stumps underneath them will help with this. Will the net pots planted in the ground restrict the roots and stunt the plants somewhat. I don't believe so, but want to see.<br />
Also I want to see if the one planted first becomes completely wilt free once it roots grow bigger and reach the stump below it. It now still wilts some in heat. <br />
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Up to this time all the transplants have been first 3" peat soil blocks put into net pots. After seeing the problems with peat drying out when transplanting I started a squash and one more cuke in 5" net pots planted with just forest floor compost. I'll transplant them (when they are bigger) exactly as in the diagram to insure this method works. Next year I'm currently planning on doing all my own transplants this way for the entire garden, and putting stumps under everything. <br />
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5" net pot seedlings in forest floor mix, waiting to be transplanted.<br />
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GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-3105038149332923032012-07-18T21:02:00.001-07:002013-03-13T09:42:16.147-07:00Shock & wilt free transplanting -- The failuresThis summer I've been trying different methods to transplant squash and cucumber plants with absolutely no shock or wilting, no matter how hot it is.<br />
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Mostly now I plant these from seeds directly in the ground, since the transplants usually die or don't do as well as direct seeded ones. But with a garden with only afternoon sun, it takes a long time for them to mature and they usually need shading for awhile. I lose probably 3 weeks compared to gardens with morning sun in my area.<br />
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This post will be about the failures, the next post will have an<br />
initial successful method that I'm quite excited about.<br />
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First tried soil blocks as I read they transplant well. Also I observed that seedlings growing in soil blocks don't wilt. On this almost 100 degree day, these plants are not wilting! Whereas almost every other plant in my garden is wilting.<br />
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I figured it must be the great root system the soil block plants grow. And also using the wood wafer for wicking allowed enough water with enough aeration (just like the stumppot).<br />
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This squash was planted directly in the ground and it wilted. Needed shade for almost 2 weeks. But it did survive and is doing well.<br />
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Next I thought, maybe I should bury the wood wafer also when transplanting, then like the vertical hugelkultur, it will wick enough water to prevent wilting<br />
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This cucumber plant was planted in the ground on top of its wicking wafer. It did better, but it still wilted and needed shading.<br />
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Here is the cucumber about 2 weeks later still being shaded. It did survive nicely and doesn't need shade now.<br />
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Next tried planting an eggplant directly on top of a stump in the ground. Since this is what I did in the stumppot. And in the container stumppot the eggplant never has wilted.<br />
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Unfortunately, this eggplant wilted also and needed shade. I believe it wilted (whereas the stumppot one didn't) because it was planted right during a 90+degree heatwave. It didn't have enough time to develop a root mass over the stump before the heat hit. It is doing ok now without shade. It will be interesting to see how it grows the rest of the season.<br />
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Another failed trial was taking a soil block plant and planting it only half deep. The reasoning was that the upper part of the soil block would still get great aeration.<br />
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This picture shows it wilting also. It wilted because the top exposed peat moss part dried out completely, even though the ground is wet. This is a problem with peat. Even the peat soil block plants that were completely covered with dirt when transplanted in the ground, had the peat dry out some. I'd stick my finger in the ground to feel around. The clay soil all around the peat soil block would be wet, but the peat soil block would be dry. The clay would just suck all the water out of the peat block.<br />
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Summarizing the failures:<br />
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1. Peat soil blocks totally covered in soil when transplanted.<br />
2. Peat soil blocks partially covered in soil when transplanted.<br />
3. Peat soil block on top of wood wafer, totally covered with soil when transplanted.<br />
4. Store bought seedling transplanted directly on stump. Seedling root block totally covered with soil.<br />
5. Store bought seedlings transplanted in a 15-gallon air-pot container (pictures not shown). <br />
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Next post: The shock and wilt free transplanting success.<br />
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GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-38017735590660802722012-07-12T20:39:00.000-07:002013-03-13T09:42:54.132-07:00Wood chip bedAfter seeing how well the hugelkultur beds were doing, I decided to make another bed but with just digging in massive amounts of woodchips.<br />
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The idea is to see if you can get a good first year harvest from this and then in future years will there be enough organic matter in the soil so that it becomes a good no till bed.<br />
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I dug down about 1 to 1.5' deep, double dig style. Then I added wood chips to the dirt pile and raked it back in. The bed rose about 1'+ after doing all this. <br />
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This picture shows the bed after being prepared. The "density" of woodchips on the surface, is the same as the density of woodchips added to the entire 1' to 1.5' depth. <br />
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This seemed like a lot of wood chips to me at the time. However now when I dig into the bed to take a look at the soil, it does seem like much less wood chips than I remember. Next time I'll add a lot more.<br />
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The bed was planted in mid June with transplants and direct seeds of corn & pole beans. Here it is on July 10th. So far it looks quite well. The plants are not quite as green as they should be, but I'll be adding more liquid fertilizer shortly. I have been able to keep squash, cukes, & tomatoes in hugelbeds dark green, so keeping this woodchip bed green shouldn't be an issue.<br />
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No compost, no leaf mulch, and no store-bought fertilizer was added. The only additions were wood chips and HLF (homemade liquid organic fertilizer).<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-3814177987539565272012-07-12T19:53:00.000-07:002013-03-13T09:43:09.814-07:00Simple soil block wateringHere's a simple way to water soil blocks or plants in bottomless net pots. <br />
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I cut some dried pine branches, which were about 4-5" in diameter in "wafers" about 2" thick.<br />
Then just place the soil block on top in a seedling tray and keep a water reservoir in it.<br />
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In some of the wafers I drilled a small center hole that was then filled with dirt. This gave it more wicking capacity. It proved not necessary though. The wafers, w/o the hole, wick enough to keep the plants happy.<br />
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To automate the watering, I put a dripper into it that was connected to my irrigation system and set it to water every day for a few minutes. I cut a drainage slit in the side of the tray to just below the level of the wicking wafers, so the water level would never go up enough to directly wet the soil blocks or net pots. <br />
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Originally I was hoping to make the wafers 3" high so they would be higher than the seedling tray and then I wouldn't need to make a drainage slit. But the wafers would not wick up 3" very well. At 2" the wafers wick quite well.<br />
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It might be possible to use thicker wafers if you drill a wicking hole that is filled with the soil. I didn't try this, but might in the future.<br />
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One nice feature of this is that you can move individual soil blocks around at any time by just picking up the wafer block.<br />
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Happy gardening!<br />
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<br />GardenSeekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12232528043630162264noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5136996568735007197.post-53986741460532396152012-07-12T18:34:00.000-07:002013-03-13T09:43:49.848-07:00Hugelkultur works, a comparisonHere's a quick visual comparison of 2 cucumber plants, Palace Kings, that were planted at the same time. One in a hugelhole, a hole dug about 1.5' deep and wide and then layered up with horizontal branches. The other in just regular garden soil. Pictures taken today.<br />
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Palace King in a hugelhole. ~3.5' tall with baby cukes.<br />
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Palace King in regular garden, clay, soil. ~2' tall with blossoms only.</div>
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