Garden Notes

Garden Notes: To Do:

• dig blackberry trellis
• pull squash vines & throw away or put in fireplace
• clear & amend watermelon bed
• finish mulch pathway near chicken coop
• keep pulling corn - sow seeds in corn bed?
• finish back wall of shed
• paint furring strips for shed & install
• pull weeds and sow kale near peppers
• mow/weed whack

Over winter:

• mulch weedy garden beds
• make planting jigs
• lay new paths

Pesticides:

• oil & dried blood as a deer repellant
• grow pyrethrum, or chrysanthemum flowers for pyrethrum
• grow hot chilis for pesticide
• neem leaves?

4H county:

• state fair
• 410-222-6755 aa county Ruby Schwinn works w/ animals at fair, Tues.
• join clover program at age 5-8
• use my land to house goats?

ideas:

• - multi-pronged dibble
• - Paper rings around cole crops for cutworm
• - mustard greens amid cole crops for flea beetles
• - straw piled under growing pumpkins to keep them from rotting, out of range of insects
• - branches pushed into soil as support for peas, beans, cucumbers
• - beans and squash planted every 3-4 weeks.
• - soil warm enough for beans when you can walk barefoot comfortably.
• - greenhouse lean-to just outside sunporch, walk from porch to greenhouse?

1) Potatoes to grass & leeks & broadbeans/muck, 2) to leeks/legumes/lime, 3) Brassicas, 4) greedies to grass & shallots, 5) salad/onions/roots

• backfill hill & orchards (minus strawberry orchard)= wheat&clover

     * (200*3)+200(forest orchard) = 800 sf wheat/clover
     * (5*8) = 40oz wheat, (3*8)=24oz clover
     * unless they have forage radish: 200sf, 2oz

• strawberry orchard = 200 sf clover, (3*2)=6oz
• backfill hill slopes = 1000 sf alfalfa, 4oz
• lower bog = rye&clover

     * 3300 sf rye/clover
     * (6*33)=198oz rye
     * (3*33)=99oz clover

ZONING:

• - 410-222-6759 (8-1 m-f) cooperative extension agent
• http://www.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/Maryland/annearundelco_md/annearundelcountycode2005?f=templates$fn=default.htm$3.0$vid=amlegal:annearundelco_md
• dave meiers

CUTTING TREES IN SEVERN:

• county forestry office 410-222-7441
• talked to Jennifer: - over 4000sf cleared need "single-lot sheet"/need permit if removing stumps as well/no permit needed to remove one or two trees regardless of stumps
• unlimited tree svc. chuck, 443-790-5523

SUBMITTING A SOIL TEST: hgic.umd.edu scroll to bottom, information

• can rent Mantis from Home Depot

• - 800-342-2507 umd bug line
• - 410-222-1000 AAcounty directory

(410) 766-8400‎ AA COUNTY FEED STORE

• timbers
• fill dirt: $12/cy
• compost: $34.99 cy
• manure: $29.99/40 cy
• topsoil: $28 cy
• delivery: $30 flat. up to 3-5 cy.
• straw bale raised beds successful, till in every year. Pitfalls moles/voles. Put down hardware cloth on bottom to keep out. $6.75 bale, 18"tall x 2'wide x 3'long.

          - straw: $20 per 9' wall, vs. timber (3"x5") $24 for 6 per 18"x8' wall. 
          - straw: each bed = $67.5, versus timbers = $72. 
          - Though if I only did 12" timber walls, each bed = $48.

• CHICKENS arrive 3wk prior to easter (apr.4) so March 14th.
• for total garden, will need +/- 166 cy soil, 33 truckloads. (!)

PLANT NUTRITION:

'GREEN MANURE:'

• Rates:
• rye: 60lb/acre = 15lb/.25acre = 7lb, 4-6oz/100ft
• annual ryegrass: 20-30lb/acre, 1oz/100ft
• alfalfa: 12lb/acre = 3lb/.25acre = 4oz/1000sf
• sweet clover: 10-20lb/acre, 1.3-3oz/100ft
• kale, forage radish: 10-15lb/acre, 1oz/100ft
• turnip: 10-12lb/acre Plant in the fall after the daytime average temperature is below 80°

• WINTER WHEAT: started at beginning of October, overwinters. Is tradition flour: 100sf = 25 loaves of bread. Most beds already empty then, right? Could fill all beds with winter wheat? 90lb/acre in mid September (in Idaho) Must top dress with N for a grain crop. 3-6oz/100sf
• TREFOIL: not nearly as persistent as crownvetch. tolerates less well-drained and lower-pH soils than most other legumes. Birdsfoot trefoil is seeded with crownvetch to provide quick cover until the slower establishing crownvetch has a chance to fill in. Unsuppressed birdsfoot trefoil will be competitive with crops, so herbicides are needed to provide weed control and enough suppression that it doesn't bloom when used as a cover crop.
• RYEGRASS: easy, rapid growth, any soil. Annual or perennial. Tough stalks, hard to shred. 2-3lbs/1Ksf. Provides the most bulk - good for starting to build up muck? Can get two crops with Perennial ryegrass sown in Fall, killed, Spring.
• BUCKWHEAT: grows in poorest soils. Can be harvested for (non-gluten)wheat if sown around June, after peas gone. Good for bees. Rapid growth. Can be mown down and left to self-seed next year's crop. Grows so thick, suffocates weeds. 2-3lbs/1Ksf.
• CLOVER: good for bees. Legume. Alsike good for wet soil. Wiry - Difficult to destroy. 1lbs/1Ksf.
• EARLY PEAS/BEANS/SOYBEANS: Legumes. Harvest as well as green manure. (Dry beans maybe? Let go till dry on the vine?) Sow peas in combo with oats to support the vines. Like moisture and low fertility. 10lbs/1Ksf.
• ALFALFA: Legume. Good for livestock, they need less supplement. High protein breaks down into nitrate fertilizer. Long roots - 18-20': let grow 2 years to get benefit of roots "tilling." Grow perennially and harvest as mulch. "King of soil improvement".
• WEEDS: if tilled under before seeding.
• KALE: can be picked any time all winter, crowds out weeds, plant any time early spring-late fall. Good for low fertility. 0.25lbs/1Ksf.
• OATS: Widely adaptable soils. Winter oats possible. 2.5lbs/1Ksf.
• TREFOIL: cover crop for wet land.

• Perennial ryegrass and winter rye produce a massive amount of top growth in the spring and may be difficult to incorporate. However, perennial grasses are an advantage in wet areas, since the soil will dry more rapidly than a soil with winterkilled crops. If this is the case, before the leaves grow too tall in the spring they should be cut back once with a mower or scythe.
• cereal rye is the best choice for catching nutrients after a summer crop. Its cold tolerance is a big advantage that allows rye to continue to grow in late fall and put down roots to a depth of three feet or more.cereal rye took up more than 70 lb. N/A in fall when planted by October 1. Other grasses, including wheat, oats, barley and ryegrass, were only able to take up about half that amount in fall. Legumes were practically useless for this purpose in the Chesapeake Bay study (46). Legumes tend to establish slowly in fall and are mediocre N scavengers, as they can fix much of their own N.

• EARLY SPRING: peas
• SPRING: oats, beans, clover, sunflower
• LATE SPRING: alfalfa, buckwheat
• FALL: oats, winter rye, kale, winter wheat, clover
• POSSIBLE CYCLE: peas - buckwheat/oats - kale. With a permanent patch of alfalfa too.

Side dress with compost every 3-4 weeks.

NPK / Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium = normal fertilizer.

• nitrogen (blood meal 14%, manure 2%, fish emulsion 9-7-3): leaves

     - spinach, lettuce, cabbage, kale

• phosphorus (bone meal 30%): roots, flowers

      - potatoes, asparagus

• potassium (wood ashes 5%, banana peels, greensand 6%, seaweed emulsion 4-13%) : roots

      - turnips, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, asparagus

Trace elements:

• calcium (eggshells, wood ashes 23%)

      - tomatoes, eggplants

• magnesium (epsom salts, dolomite lime)

      - peppers, asparagus

• sulfur (matches)

      - peppers

COF: complete organic Fertilizer. 5-4-2. http://naturalhygienesociety.org/review/0501/garden.html Blend as uniformly as possible:

1. 4 parts any seedmeal except coprameal

OR

1. 3 parts any seedmeal except coprameal and 1 part meatmeal (tankage). This higher-nitrogen option is slightly better for leafy crops in spring

OR

1. 4.5 parts coprameal supplemented with 1.5 parts blood-and-bone meal to boost the nitrogen content.

WITH

1. ½ part ordinary agricultural lime, and
2. ½ part dolomite lime (even if by soil test its pH is quite acceptable, use lime(s) in the fertilizer mix because vegetables need calcium and magnesium as nutrients, and in the right balance, which is about 4-8 parts calcium to each part of magnesium. That is why I stress using a mixture of two sorts of limes (agricultural/dolomitic), so as to produce that 4-8 to 1 ratio.)

PLUS (for the very best results)

1. ½ part phosphate rock or guano
2. ½ to 1 part kelpmeal

• http://naturalhygienesociety.org/review/0501/garden.html

Someday-House Wishlist

• "Heritage" rose
• Abraham Darby rose
• giant rose arbor with Cecile Brunner or equiv.
• stock
• sweet peas
• peppermint & "attar of roses" geranium
• nicotiana
• moonflower
• gardenia
• lemon
• jasmine
• brugmansia, as an annual
• dianthus
• daphne

• grapes for winemaking and eating
• vegetable garden:

• orchard:

Garden wishlist:

WOODLAND FRUITS:

• elderberries
• gooseberries
• cranberries
• blackberries
• raspberries
• currants
• mushrooms
• quince
• honeyberies
• edible dogwoods (cornelian cherry)
• NUTS - hazelbert bush (8-10')

INDOOR PLANTS

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