REMINDER: FALL INTO WINTER PREPARATIONS

FALL INTO WINTER PREPARATIONS

💧Pruning

Cleaning up the debris from the planting areas

Sowing any cover crops for the winter

Taking Up any bulbs that need to be wintered over inside

Rain Barrels - empty and clean with bleach water before storing

Taking up any temporary fencing 

Giving the closets a proper cleanup with bleach or other disinfectant 

Sorting the chaos from the storage closets

Drying any seed heads that you want to save for the next year 

Cleaning and disinfecting tools 
  (Make sure to use bleach water or disinfectant, and use silicon spray or wd40, or vegetable oil for metal tools to prevent rust).

Prepare the garden area by raking and cleaning the debris, then either sowing cover crops, mulching over, or covering with weed fabric. 

 

Open Air Composting - The Good and The Ugly

 OPEN AIR COMPOSTING - Why To and Why Not To Do It.

The answer to that really for me relies on where your location is.  If you are in the city or suburbs NO.  

If you are doing an allotment or you have quite a large acreage in which to grow and compost, then it is often easy to make large amounts of compost.

Let me start first by saying, I am not such a fan of open composting for a few reasons:

1) If you are composting kitchen scraps, you need to bury them at least 8" in the center of the pile with some soil each time to avoid having raccoons, and other wild animals coming to search for a meal.  The other thing that I do not like is if you have house snails or regular snails, they too are attracted to the pile.  

While this may seem like a good idea to keep them away from your plants, "think... food, house, shelter.. babies...  The future snails are the issue.  Here in the Netherlands there are 200 different varieties of "slakken" / snails, when you realize that for everyone you take away, they have probably already reproduced many more, and that can become a huge issue.  

It's easy to just toss things onto a pile without thinking through what is going to compost quickly and what will not.  In  a container system you are more limited to the amount of space you have, thus you will quickly learn to snip things into small pieces and to compost things that will quickly compost.  With a compost bin that is open, or just in a pile, people tend to just throw things on without thinking, brown and green and in between.  

Brown and green and in between means -- you need brown and green and a bit of good stuff to heat up the compost pile.  By good stuff I mean adding in a shovel of horse, cow, rabbit, chicken manure to the center of the pile every once in awhile.  People use to recommend adding lime (aka) kalk to a pile to help it to heat up, but that really defeats the purpose.  You are composing nitrogen rich components in your compost pile, adding lime would lower the PH level.  If you are composting primarily highly acidic elements such as evergreen tree limbs, leaves and pine needles, then indeed you could add lime to counteract the acidic nature of those elements however that is hardly ever the case, we normally compost more kitchen scraps, garden debris from overspent plants and weeds.  Thus lime is not needed in that environment.  

Thus, an open compost absolutely works, and can work very well when you mix... brown and green and in between.... along with turning the pile at least once a week, preferably more when possible.  The aeration of the pile improves the breakdown of materials and helps to alleviate alot of the smell from piles.  The piles need air to compost quickly and efficiently.  You will also find that with turning it you will get more worms working the pile which will greatly enhance the compost.  

So, while I may not be the greatest advocate for open composting, it can certainly make a large volume of compost in a short time if properly sorted into layers, brown, green and in between.  If you remember that little saying, you will always remember how to properly layer your compost.

I do think that a wire mesh covering around and over the pile is always better, it alleviates many of the snail issues, though as we all know small ones will find a way in, but at least the huge subway size snails won't make their way inside if it is properly covered and it helps to keep some of the wildlife from grazing there. 

Is there a better way than this method or an enclosed tumbler?  You should try filling clear see through trash bags with brown and green and in between, as well as black garbage bags (both only filled half full), place in the bright sun location.  You might be surprised at how quickly they decompose, and it's a great way for a quick liquid fertilizer, make sure you dilute the liquid 1 part composted stinky liquid to 10 parts water. 

TIP:  Add nutrient rich stinging nettles to your compost piles, they are full of vitamins and minerals, and you can find them in most every location where there are wooded areas.  Just make sure to wear gloves when handling, because they do sting when their hairs get trapped in your skin. 

DO ADD:
Egg shells (crushed only); kitchen vegetable scraps,  newspaper print (not colored ads); cardboard broken down into tiny bits; biodegradable peanut packers; saw dust, lint from the dryer and the normal compost articles.

DO NOT ADD:
Meat, bones, urine (I just shake my head at this one because if you are composting properly, you would simply not need to ever think you needed to add it, (PLUS IT'S DISGUSTING).  Do not add wood that has had chemicals to preserve it; do not add plastic (why would I even add that you are asking yourself), because some items that are prepared in biodegradable products are sometimes have an overlay of plastic over them, misleading the consumer into thinking it is a biologically friendly package, when essentially it is except the plastic isn't, another marketing trick...  There are many people that say it is ok to add potatoes and tomato plants to the pile, I don't recommend that due to the mosaic virus, and also do not add in diseased plants, don't ruin a perfect product when fully composted with virus and materials that can contaminate your soil and give your healthy plants a disease.  What would be the point of compost?  Lastly, sometimes it is better to send excess material to the city compost because there is obviously only so much we can compost at one time, and the room can be better utilized with actually growing crops.

Let me hear your success stories, do you get more compost from your open piles or closed container piles?  Do you have any secret tricks or tips to make better compost or to compost faster?  I've love to hear. 

 

Migrating Items From My Former Website To Blogger

 I am migrating blog posts from my former website to here, so many of these will not be "new" blog posts.  I will attempt in the future to mark the new items as such, so that you are not confused, but I don't know another way to separate them on blogger because it's date driven.  I hope it's not too much of an 
inconvenience, and since most all of you old timers have read the old posts most through email updates, this would be old topics for you, however because I am doing more work in apps answering questions these days, sometimes I just do not want to type out an entire instruction on something, and / or ask for email address etc., so I want to place these here where I can just put out an url for them.  It's much easier and less time consuming for me.  I do not have a great deal of time now to dedicate to blogging, and I would like what I do to be as productive as possible.

Thanks in advance for your understanding, I hope it doesn't create confusion.  If anyone has a better suggestion, email me.

So You Want to Take On a Second Hand Garden

How To Prepare a Plot For Gardening

Part 1 - Organizing before you begin.  Click Here
Part 2 - Prep Work
Part 2b - Clearing 
Part 3 - Actually adding some good things 
Part 4 - Snap, I forgot a step
Part 5 - 

 

The Fall - Garden Cleanup

 I can not say this year was a great success in my gardening efforts, thwarted by allergies to the vaccine for the virus and the overall painful joints and tiredness, I was certainly not in a place physically to do so much.  I was very upset because I had made plans to do so much in the garden this year but one can only do what our bodies allow.

My strawberries did great and I froze them until the Noah's Ark weather came and the snails decided to party day and night in the strawberries.  I really hate the snails, they make me physically sick when I see them, they are just nasty and gross.  One reason why we have so many in our gardens is open composting, (of which I am not a fan), it's a breakfast buffet for the snails and of course they reproduce and make more very quickly.  Here in the Netherlands there are over 200 different types of snails (slakken) -- with and without houses, huge sized snails that are too big for many of the birds to carry off, and I've seen brow, black and white, black, black with white underside, many mutated colors of shells on the house snails.  It seems the only real effective method is going at night with a blue light or flash light and picking them up and disposing of them.  I didn't have this issue in the States, and here it's really a job to attempt to keep them at bay.  I inherited one open compost and I am going to rethink that for the following year, perhaps wire mesh around and on top to keep them out, but I guess if they are eating in the compost they are leaving the rest alone for a bit.  

My fruit trees did not do well, too much rain and the late freeze//frost was not kind to them.  My raspberries and blackberries have done extremely well.  I have this past week cut many of them back to the ground to regain some order and to reinvent the wheel as to how to maintain them.  My herbs did really well, and I am extremely happy that I made the decision to put the most of them in pots and sink the pots into a bed with black weed block.  It gave me more control over their health because the water was not standing when we had downpours and drowning them, and I could maintain the soil easier.  I will be moving some to the greenhouse for the winter months in hopes that I can maintain them for next year.  My yacon plants did great, but I had to remove them too early due to a bizarre situation where they were planted.  

My favorite things I grew this year that did well were:  Comfrey, Catmint, Lemon Balm, Strawberry Balm, calendula, nasturiums, and snack paprikas (bell peppers).  I also grew aloe and a ginseng tea plant.  The borage went wild and I have harvested flowers for oils.  My other favorites were the strawberry plants that have white berries, very small but lovely taste, sage, mint, basil, chives, garlic, onions and of course all the berries.  

My prei, I had around 100 plus a few plants and I trashed I think 6 -8 that went to seed, the rest resulted in 45 liters in the freezer for the winter and some I stashed in sand to use fresh until it's colder.  

Unsuccessful -- bitter melon, (although courgette produced a few, not normal like the one or two everyday to harvest as in previous years), most of my bell peppers the snails ate, and my tomatoes were not their typical growing selves, less fruit and after I babied those plants inside for months GRRRRRR.

The beets,  the colored swiss chard, heirloom spinach, lettuce, cabbage, celery, all did great, but I did find that my celery in containers grew more than 3x the size of the rest of what I saw in the gardens around me, so I am going to stick with that next year.  

I've planted alot of mustard seeds this week and it came up in three days because we had the warmest days of all summer and it was dry until yesterday, so I should have plenty for the winter and I hope it will also help retain the good soil that I am finally managing to create here.  The soil in my gardens was not at all healthy, and I've continuously added compost compost and more compost but the best thing that I have found is still covering with leaves and letting that compost down, the microbial bacteria really helps in this wet country, and in the beds with the heavy amount of leaves the worms were huge and the soil was fluffy.  So I need to find a good place to get good leaves for all of the beds for next year.  

My rambling needs to stop now, I have to do a quick cleanup before my company arrives and bake some cookies that I can't eat. 

Oh snap, before I forget, I did mail out 30 or so packages of  the heirloom spinach seeds this week, and I'll hopefully get the rest done within a few days.  My helper has used up all the vacation days so I am back to doing solo again so I have to choose my priorities carefully and plan around when I can go away, and that's not always easy for me with the different time schedules around the work times.  

Successful Blueberry Plants (Tips From a Owner of a Garden Center)

 BLUEBERRY PLANTS - The How, When and Where and How to Care For Them

John Pendleton has owned a nursery as long as I have known him, and after messaging him asking for his best tips on growing blueberries, I found he has sold his nursery and vineyards.  He wants to enjoy his family and travel to some other parts of the world.  He was kind enough to send me his way of planting blueberries and best wishes to the Sweden growers that I asked this information for.

Blueberries like soil that is acidic, and the ph range for soil should be between 4.7 and 5.5 although if you have very alkaline soil it may take some time to achieve a lower ph level.  It is very important that you do not let it go under 4.7, the minerals and vitamins can not be easily taken up by the plants. In order to achieve this you will need to add some basic elements to your ground or soil mix.  You can purchase the brand that John uses for his garden center, Dr. Earth Acid Lovers, Azalea, Camellia, Rhododendron & Maple Fertilizer, it is a bio product and does not contain harmful ingredients.   If you do not want to purchase fertilizer to lower or maintain your ph levels, you can when planting the blueberry plants, put a kilo of coffee grounds in the bottom of the hole.  This will be readily available acidiity for the plants.  John uses in his orchards his own mix for maintaining his plants, he simply shreds branches, stems and green matter from pine or evergreen trees, and mulches with pineneedles and shredded pine cones.  

Choose a spot that is open and gets at least six hours of sun per day.  Blueberries like to have an open space around them, do not crowd them in small spaces if you are planting the larger varieties.  Compact plants you can put closer together but give them room to grow and have air circulating around them.  

Dig a hole at least 2x the size of the plant and to the depth where the soil is level with the plant in the container plus enough room to add a layer of acidic mulch on the top.   Add water.  

In the hole place at least 1 kilo of coffee grounds, make sure you mix in some leaf mold.  Leaf mould can be obtained from taking decayed leaves and other organic matter in the woods, or you can just use the composted mold from under some leaves or trees.  The leaf mould is very beneficial in achieving an environment that is healthy for the plant, it puts good bacteria into the soil and gives the plant a head start.  If you have pine trees take the mould from under the decaying pine needles, then you have a good acidifier and beneficial mold.  

Once you have planted your plants, simply cover the top with a layer of acidic mulch, (evergreen clippings chopped, pine needles, shredded pine cones, or place some of the acidic fertilizer at least one to two inches away from the base of the plant.  Do not place mulch against the stem.  

You will want to watch for pests and for any signs of mildew on the plants, when purchasing you can choose compact varieties that are bred to have a bit of resistance to mildew, but if you do get mildew, simply use organic milk in a spray bottle diluted 1 cup to 1/16 water and spray on the plants when the temperature is cool, (NOT in direct sun).

Types of plants to purchase.

If you are in North America you can grow most blueberry varieties as long as you maintain the acidity of the soil.  It is however a good idea to check with your County extension agency to see what varieties perform the best in your particular area.  They can give you a list and will even help you decide which sort is better in your garden based on size, sun, and other environmental factors.  

If you are in Europe and want to grow blueberries, first decide if you have room for 8-10 foot (2-3 meter) tall plants that can extend out to five feet (1.5 meter) fully grown.  If you do not, then your best choice is the midsize plants or compact plants.  

Below are some of the varieties that you could choose from depending on the amount of room you want to utilize.

Liberty - Excellent choice for Europe because it can withstand normal freezing temperatures and is hardy to -30 Fahrenheit.  The fruit is sweet and the color is a beautiful shade of blue.  The berries come easily off the bush and shelf life is higher than other varieties.. 
Size:  5 x 5 (1.5 meters by 1.5 meters) fully grown (can be less if grown in containers. 

Disease & Pests:  The reason I recommend Liberty is because it is not plagued with many of the issues that some varieties have.  I do recommend netting to keep birds away or flash tapes.  

Pruning:  You will not need to do major pruning, simply prune cross over branches and any that do not look healthy. 

You can prune harder if you want it more compact, but you will also lose fruit production.

Liberty is self-fertile when planted with other Liberty plants, but you should also choose at least one other variety to plant with the liberty plants to increase fruit production.  Blueberries like to have extended family nearby.   

My other choice for Europe would be  DUKE.  It is a late flowering variety with excellent taste and a normal shelf life.  Plant at least 2 Duke and 2 Liberty. 

Below are some other varieties that are also possible to grow in Europe with typically good results.  There are of course new cultivars every year that one can expand their
varieties with, but use caution when introducing new types into your orchard.  Make
sure the plants are healthy and do not have insects or discolored leaves.  A rule of 
thumb for most small orchard growers when introducing a new variety into their
blueberry fields, is to let it grow in a container pot for several weeks with the proper nutrients, if after a few weeks the plant is growing and appears to be in order, then 
you can plant it in the orchard with your other plants.  It is also better to get plants from a grower than from a big box store, shipping plants is not done under ideal conditions, and can result in plants becoming diseased or stressed.  My final advice is, if you don't love watching things grow and being part of the process, don't attempt blueberries., choose something that doesn't require soil acidity maintenance.  Do check the ph levels of your soil before planting and throughout the growing season.  You can add acidic mulch as it deteriorates, and to help retain moisture in the summer months, and to provide protection in the winter months.  Also bear in mind that blueberries do not want to stand in waterlogged areas, they need the soil to be well drained and aerated.   

Brigatta Blue
Calypso
Darrow
Chandler
Legacy

Elisabeth (Gread taste Medium Size, but does not have a long shelf life.
Osorno  (Pollination is sometimes a problem).

Final thoughts:  If you have room in a greenhouse you can experiment with some varieties that are less cold hardy, as long as you are prepared to maintain a somewhat
warmer environment for them.  

(There are wild blueberry plants in Sweden that produce exceptionally well in that environment, I spoke with a grower about a year ago in Sweden that was working on a new cultivar from the wild plant.  This would be something great to experiment with, perhaps creating your own hybrid cultivar, (especially if you have children, a great lesson to be learned from that project).  I searched for the grower, but unfortunately I could not locate his information, although I remember the conversation well.  As I prepare for my departure in cleaning up files and telephone records I will probably run across the name, I'll forward if I do).  

Critical Points Summary:
PH of Soil -- Acidic 
Mulch - Acidic 
Fertilizer - Acidic
Water - As needed or once per week depending on the weather and temperatures
Cold Hardy -- Pick varieties that are cold hardy to your area
Soil -- Acidic with acidic leaf mold added to the soil and good drainage for water 
Pruning - Most require normal pruning of cross over branches and branches not aligning with the rest of the plant.  
Pollination:  Plant at a minimum 2 plants of 2 different varieties for better pollination and increased fruit production. 

We wish John well in his new adventures, and I hope he makes a trip to visit us with his family.  Thanks for providing the great information, and for inspiring us to grow more of our own food.  

FALL - CLEANUP & RENEW .GARDEN & GREENHOUSE

FALL - CLEANUP AND RENEWING (GARDEN & GREENHOUSES (Hoophouse, Tunnels, Glass Enclosed Greenhouses)

Fall in the US comes at different times, here in Europe it is much earlier than in the States, September is usually the time to start putting beds in the garden in order and harvesting the last of the outdoor crops.  Normally by the end of September we are needing to wear coats and rain jackets (although here in the Netherlands rain jackets are an everyday necessity as we have an exorbitant amount of rain. 

My first step is to start cutting back canes from blackberry and raspberry bushes and to clean up the debris from those.  By doing those early you eliminate the need to deal with all the leaves that fall and here in the Netherlands the snail are so prolific you need to keep areas clean to avoid them overwintering under the debris.  I have done that this week, and it was quite the chore to cut the canes and then cut into smaller pieces for compost and to get rid of the bulk that didn't fit in my compost.  Canes from raspberries and blackberries dry very hard quickly so if you are composting them, the smaller the pieces the better and you have to keep the compost moist to avoid them not breaking down quickly.  I am going to wait until October to cut back my prune and apple trees because they really need to be cut when the temps are colder than now.  I am going to attempt to overwinter my purple basil and my swiss chard and a few other items in my smaller greenhouse.  My hoophouse is too large for me to efficiently insulate it, and I will instead put horse manure in the hoophouse on top of the soil and water it in for next year.  This year in an attempt to have less weeds in my gardens I planted my beans very close together, leaving no space in between the plants and it worked well.  The beans did as well as if they were spaced as per the package, and because we had a really wet summer with floods and rain for weeks, I think it actually was more productive than had I done the normal spacing.  The canopy did not allow in so much water, but enough to sustain them.  In a hot summer with no rain I would have had to water the plants and that would have been quite the task watering by hand and carrying water.  I do have a rain barrel but it is for the greenhouse, and I haven't made an area that can be used for collection anywhere else.    

I have added Kaulk (aka lime) to the beds I have cleared and made ready, and later I will add compost on top to absorb into the top layers.  Usually you would mix it in with the soil when making the beds ready, but because of the large amount of rain here I choose to put it on top so the nutrients sink into the top layers of the soil.  I have totally covered two beds that I had issues with weeds this year and I had an outcrop of raspberry canes that grew from my neighbors garden under the ground and kept sprouting in my beds, so having dug down and removed the roots from the existing shoots, I am attempting to kill off any that have managed to evade my digging.  I have raspberries in my fruit garden and this garden is only for growing vegetables.  I am in the process of making the fruit garden only dwarf fruit trees, raspberries, black and blue berries and different varieties of currants and strawberries.  I have apple, pear, peach, prune trees in that garden area and herbs.  This year I added comfrey plants that were given to me by a neighboring gardener and I want to establish more of them for medical use and for soil enrichment.  In that garden I have alot of parden bloem or horse tail plants.  I did not use lime in that garden last year and I noticed that they were in several places that I thought I had eradicated, so I am hoping that a good layering of lime and then later compost on top of the ground will alleviate those,.  It is very difficult to get rid of that plant when it has become established and the entire garden was plagued with it when I took it over.  The entire garden was just covered in grasses, weeds and the horse tail, and it has been very difficult to eradicate all of the weeds because they were allowed to seed many times over the few years before I took it.  An older man in his 80s had the garden before, and I understand he maintained it well for years until health issues caused him to be unable to care for it properly, thus I inherited a nice spot, but with alot of issues to overcome.  He grew mostly potatoes the last few years and a few other root vegetables, but most was a weed paradise.  Johnson grass had taken hold in alot of spots and without using a harsh chemical it is not easy to get rid off, even with digging out the trailers the seeds from previous years are still in the soil and viable for I am told up to 50 years.  Probably my biggest issue is the nuts from the trees from the owner in the back of this property, there are 80-100 foot trees that have a hundred million acorns that here where the weather is wet most of the year they sprout and quickly become 3 inches tall in a couple of weeks or less if the weather is hot.. I ended up with a layer that was 6" deep this past spring from the excess that fell after the fall cleanup and it was difficult to dig out all the saplings that had already sprouted and started growing.  This year I need to stay on top of that and get them away as quickly as possible to avoid that issue.  

 In the greenhouse I like to use hydrogen peroxide to clean my soil, a small bottle into a 5 liter watering can and sprinkle on the top of the soil until the ground is saturated down to about six to eight inches because I grow tomatoes in the greenhouse.  Tomatoes are susceptible to potato blight and other diseases and the soil can become contaminated and affect the plants the following years.  I add compost that is two years old to the soil after I do that and typically plant sweet peas to give a boost of nitrogen.  Some people disagree with my method, but it works for me, so others can choose to dig out all the soil and replace it, but in my case it is too expensive to do in a hoop house and I see no reason to do so if I can alleviate any issues with a natural product such as hydrogen peroxide.  

Whatever your fall clean up starting methods are, just remember that you shouldn't compost items that are diseased, and please do yourself a favor and do not compost potato, tomato leaves and plants.  You are just asking to have diseased plants from the start when you do that, dispose of those at your landfill or burn them if possible.  Don't contaminate your soil just because of being too lazy to get rid of them in a proper fashion.  You will have regrets for having done so.  I am on a few composting groups and I really want to scream at people that say I do it all the time, but these are the same people that are showing their wilted plants that are turning yellow and getting unrecognizable spots on their plants in the app.  So just don't do it, you might get lucky one time and the next not.  One diseased tomato plant or potato plant in the compost ruins the entire batch, so why take the chance?  

If anyone has any ideas on how to make a green house heat up without electricity, or a fire, or bubble wrap and cardboard, I'd love to hear from you.  I don't have electricity to my gardens, I pay for the garden space but no electricity, fires are not allowed, and I can not afford solar panels, so any ideas are welcome.  I do plan on placing horse manure in containers to provide a heat source but with temps going into the minus here that isn't going to help very much.  

Now I have had my coffee, I'm off to the garden to do some cleaning and soil renewal.  
Email me with your ideas or comment on this post.