No winter gardening this year. We finished the sheet mulched new garden bed too late to plant even garlic. We were eating kale and Swiss chard up until a few weeks ago, then an Arctic blast took them out. But next year...
Making a vegetable seed list and creating a seed starting schedule for plants to start planting in May. I am not as familiar with Connecticut growing seasons and only have three years of experience. We were gardening in a community garden and were not allowed in until about the third week of May. Cool weather crops can be started outside earlier. In Portland, OR I used to plant peas on Feb 1st. They would take their time poking their heads out and sometimes sit about 1" high for weeks. But we always had the earliest peas! I will plant peas around March 1st and just see what happens.
Our long term goal is a small forest garden (little or no grass to mow!). So we are in the planing stages of designing an edible garden including fruit trees, bushes and plants. This requires much more thought, research and dreaming than I ever imagined. Next time I will list some of the great resources we have been using.
Other projects include removing the cracked asphalt driveway, converting some of it to garden and creating a new double parking area near the front. Looking for low cost permeable solutions. I really want something we can grow a low, hardy ground cover in and still park on during all weather. Living where we get regular snow falls does add a shoveling issue to the plan. Currently our front walk is grass and shoveling snow is fun there as well. I am concerned about contaminants left in the soil under the pavement. Several crops of something like alfalfa, a dynamic accumulator, should help. Regular mowing and composting (for non food plants) I think will work. Then heavy mulching with fresh materials and then planting fruit trees and bushes.
Time to again pick up the gardening books, dream and plan...
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Permaculture Gardening in the City
(Near Hartford, CT) Finally, we own a home again. City lot, just under a quarter acre, just the right amount for two women who work full time! Our dream is a food based forest garden. The previous owner had created a beautiful yard, but mostly flowers. Her vegetable beds were small and too close to a maple tree...too much shade and too many happy roots popping up into the beds. Luckily she was 100% organic.
June 2007 - Moved in and our first garden project was to create a compost heap. I am always amazed at how much composting kitchen waste can cut down on what we place in the garbage can. I've been watching the sun patterns and planning the changes to the garden. We have a community garden spot already planted with tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, beans, okra, peas, tomatillas, kohlrabi, kale, swiss chard, spinach, carrots, lettuce, garlic, basil, parsley and more.
We lost the leafy things to weeds. It is hard t0 keep up on weeding when moving.
We did use cardboard, newspaper and straw to cover paths and mulch the larger plants. Everything is looking good.
July 2007 - Starting to harvest goodies from our garden. Herbs, peas, beans and some salad greens. Can't wait to have a garden in the back yard.
August 2007 - First of the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. Yum. We've started to prune the overgrown bushes in the front yard. Rhododendrons, azaleas and spirea. My plan is to get all bushes pruned by fall. It is very dry and warm.
Sept 2007 - Making tomato sauce, I love the rich smell as it cooks down. The weather is still very dry and clear. Everything is starting to show signs of stress. I've resorted to watering the rhodies in the back under the trees. They are fairly new plants (that's a guess) and are not looking very strong. Water, mulch and some trimming to let more light in should help.
October 2007 - Replacing all the windows in the house has taken precedence over sheet mulching the new garden space. In fact this project has taken over! We have received some rain and the grass is growing again.
November 2007 - Windows are in. Fall is late and all our leaves have not fallen. Two maples are bright red, one is yellow and if you stand in the front yard, you may think it is the middle of summer. This maple is still green. Starting to yellow around the edges. But it is time to build the new vegetable garden. I'm a little concerned because the weather has changed, we are freezing most nights and the breakdown of the mulch will be slowed down by the cold. Well, it will finish composting in the spring!
I saved all the cardboard from moving and used this to create a 750 sq. ft. garden, layering this directly over the grass and overlapping well. I choose to leave most the staples (there were lots) figuring that the rusting metal would add iron. After wetting the cardboard, we layered on the following:
About a yard of compost/leaves/grass mixture (all I had available). We also mowed and mulched up the leaves from our yard and our neighbor's yard. Just volunteer to mow your neighbors yard and dispose of all his leaves and then watch his face!
Clippings from dead flowers, the last of the bush trimmings, and leaves from a large patch of comfrey. Comfrey is a dynamic accumulator, it pulls up minerals and such and stores them in the leaves. I plan on using cuttings throughout the summer to enhance some other areas of the yard.
Dehydrated cow manure. I am looking for a source of manure locally as well as a pickup I can borrow.
Stone dust. I'll talk about how using rock or stone dust to re-mineralize is good for the garden in a later blog.
On top of this 1-2" layer we spread two loads of lightly chopped leaves. One load was mostly maple and the other mostly oak. I know where the leaves came from and they are free of fertilizer and pesticides. I considered gathering from the curb in our neighborhood, but you never know what is in the piles. We ended up with about 1-2 feet of leaves. We've been wetting this area as we go.
As a top dressing we are placing straw. Just peeling off 2-4" "books" and placing on top of the area.
We just got the leaves spread, it is to rain tonight, so by the weekend I should get the straw down.
I'll post pictures and report on how it settles and breaks down as we go.
June 2007 - Moved in and our first garden project was to create a compost heap. I am always amazed at how much composting kitchen waste can cut down on what we place in the garbage can. I've been watching the sun patterns and planning the changes to the garden. We have a community garden spot already planted with tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, beans, okra, peas, tomatillas, kohlrabi, kale, swiss chard, spinach, carrots, lettuce, garlic, basil, parsley and more.
We lost the leafy things to weeds. It is hard t0 keep up on weeding when moving.
We did use cardboard, newspaper and straw to cover paths and mulch the larger plants. Everything is looking good.
July 2007 - Starting to harvest goodies from our garden. Herbs, peas, beans and some salad greens. Can't wait to have a garden in the back yard.
August 2007 - First of the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. Yum. We've started to prune the overgrown bushes in the front yard. Rhododendrons, azaleas and spirea. My plan is to get all bushes pruned by fall. It is very dry and warm.
Sept 2007 - Making tomato sauce, I love the rich smell as it cooks down. The weather is still very dry and clear. Everything is starting to show signs of stress. I've resorted to watering the rhodies in the back under the trees. They are fairly new plants (that's a guess) and are not looking very strong. Water, mulch and some trimming to let more light in should help.
October 2007 - Replacing all the windows in the house has taken precedence over sheet mulching the new garden space. In fact this project has taken over! We have received some rain and the grass is growing again.
November 2007 - Windows are in. Fall is late and all our leaves have not fallen. Two maples are bright red, one is yellow and if you stand in the front yard, you may think it is the middle of summer. This maple is still green. Starting to yellow around the edges. But it is time to build the new vegetable garden. I'm a little concerned because the weather has changed, we are freezing most nights and the breakdown of the mulch will be slowed down by the cold. Well, it will finish composting in the spring!
I saved all the cardboard from moving and used this to create a 750 sq. ft. garden, layering this directly over the grass and overlapping well. I choose to leave most the staples (there were lots) figuring that the rusting metal would add iron. After wetting the cardboard, we layered on the following:
About a yard of compost/leaves/grass mixture (all I had available). We also mowed and mulched up the leaves from our yard and our neighbor's yard. Just volunteer to mow your neighbors yard and dispose of all his leaves and then watch his face!
Clippings from dead flowers, the last of the bush trimmings, and leaves from a large patch of comfrey. Comfrey is a dynamic accumulator, it pulls up minerals and such and stores them in the leaves. I plan on using cuttings throughout the summer to enhance some other areas of the yard.
Dehydrated cow manure. I am looking for a source of manure locally as well as a pickup I can borrow.
Stone dust. I'll talk about how using rock or stone dust to re-mineralize is good for the garden in a later blog.
On top of this 1-2" layer we spread two loads of lightly chopped leaves. One load was mostly maple and the other mostly oak. I know where the leaves came from and they are free of fertilizer and pesticides. I considered gathering from the curb in our neighborhood, but you never know what is in the piles. We ended up with about 1-2 feet of leaves. We've been wetting this area as we go.
As a top dressing we are placing straw. Just peeling off 2-4" "books" and placing on top of the area.
We just got the leaves spread, it is to rain tonight, so by the weekend I should get the straw down.
I'll post pictures and report on how it settles and breaks down as we go.
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