36 Cubic Yards of Compost!

In order to get get our soil ready for growing vegetables at the farm, we had 36 cubic yards of compost delivered by a dump truck. In order to understand how much compost that is, 1 cubic yard of compost fills an entire pick up truck bed. Unfortunately, the day we had it delivered it was two wet for the dump truck to drop it by our plot of land, so we had two huge piles of compost dropped about 200-300 yards away.

Since we don't have a tractor or a bobcat, we were planning of shoveling 36 yards of compost BY HAND into Damian's truck and driving over 36 truck loads of compost to our plot of land when things dried up a little more. This was an insurmountable task!

Thankfully, we noticed a neighbor on his tractor and decided to ask if he could help. We drove up to his home and met with Bob and Anita.  After speaking with them for a little bit and showing them our farm project, he LOANED us his $30,000 tractor for 2 days in order to move our compost. Unbelievable! It took us 8 hours with the tractor, so I cannot imagine how long it would have taken by hand. We are so thankful for Bob and Anita's generosity.

After using the tractor to move all of the compost into piles on our plot of land, it was time to rake the compost into our 45 planting rows. It took us about 6 hours to move all of the compost into rows, but we got it done. Next, we plan to till in order to break up the soil and mix in the compost!

 

Bob & Anita's beautiful tractor



Picking up compost with a tractor is fun!

  

About 75 piles of compost

Damian raking compost

 

  

 

45 Rows of compost

Damian and I - tired but happy it is done.

 



The garden is exploding with growth.... Time for pest control!

Several days of rain followed by the heat and sunshine led to an explosion of growth in the garden. We harvested all of the radishes, spinach, and more lettuce. Then, we noticed several new bugs. Since we are growing without any pesticides, we want to identify these bugs as pests or beneficial bugs before we squash anything. After doing a little research, we found that we have a a nice balance of both pests and beneficials. It is like a little bug war out there between the good and the bad. Besides planting marigolds around the garden, we haven't done much to attract the beneficial bugs; however, we are thankful they arrived to feed off of the pests.

Here are the bugs we have found in our garden:

Ladybug larvae - ladybugs are beneficial insects because they eat aphids

Lacewing eggs - Lacewings are also beneficial bugs that feed on aphids

Yellow aphid eggs - aphids are the pests that eat holes in the leafy green. Grey aphid "mummies" next to the aphid eggs indicate that there are aphidius wasps in the garden. Aphidius wasps kill the aphids and mummify them.

 Cabbage worm - these are evil pests that eat huge holes in our cabbages. We noticed that our cabbages had dark green excrements on top of one of our cabbage and then we saw the worm.

Slugs - slugs are pests and voracious eaters that can destroy garden plants.

Breaking new ground

 It is official! We broke ground at Boone's Hollow Farm and it is beautiful soil. We hired a man to come in and plow, disc, and hill our 1/4 acre plot. Despite the looming storms and the waist high grass, he arrived in the afternoon and worked 4 hours to get the land how we wanted.

We still have a lot of work to do to get our 1/4 acre ready. Next, we will compost and till. Then, we will lay the black plastic to suppress the weeds. Finally, we hopefully will be able to get our cucurbits in by early June!

The awesome tractor arrives

Waist high grass = slow go

Progress

Discing

Hilling attachment


 

It's been hilled!






Proud picking

Today, we harvested more radishes, spinach, romaine lettuce, and one tiny baby carrot. I pulled out a beet but it didn't have the characteristic bulb on the end, so I guess the beets need a little longer. One thing we are finding out is that the days until harvest -as written on the back of the seed packets - are just approximations. The amount of days until harvest depends on weather, soil quality, and other stressors on the plants. It is all a truly fun learning process.

Damian is proudly displaying our harvest

Where's the beet? I think they need a little longer...



Tiny baby carrot



From the garden to the table - Spinach sausage pie

We harvested three bags of spinach from the garden on Friday. The spinach leaves were huge and the spinach plants had actually started to flower, so I think we may have let it grow a little too long before harvesting. Regardless, the taste was still good. Today, I decided to use the spinach to make a spinach sausage pie. It was delicious!

Here is a link to the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Italian-Spinach-Sausage-Pie/

Harvested spinach

Preparing the huge mound of spinach

Spinach sausage pie

YUM!

Growth spurt

In one week, our garden had a serious growth spurt. We are not sure if it was the combination of rain and warm sunny days or if it was the blood meal nitrogen boost that Damian added a few weeks ago. Check out the picture comparison.

May 13, 2011

May 8, 2011

Just add worms... Vermicomposting!

In organic farming, it is essential to "feed the soil." Organic farming focuses on adding rich organic matter to the soil to convert it into plant nutrients over time. Composting is one way to feed the soil with nutrients. There are numerous types and ways to compost. I have started experiments with one particular type of composting -vermicomposting. Vermicomposting is also known as worm compost. Worms can convert kitchen scraps, shredded paper, and leaves into an organic fertilizer, which is also called worm castings.

Benifits of vermicomposting:

·         Castings are odorless

·         Minimal cost and requires very little space

·         Contains rich, organic micronutrients that plants need

·         Castings are pH netural

·         Decreases the risk of plant diseases

·         Worm castings can be spread around plants or used to make vermicompost tea to spray on plants

I recently purchased a Worm Factory -complete with red wiggler worms -from a woman off of craigslist and started vermicomposting in our apartment. It is easy to set up and the best part is that the worms do all the work! The worm factory is made up of several bins stacked on top of each other. The bottom bin is where the nutrient rich worm castings collect. The upper bins are filled with the following: food scraps, leaves, shredded paper, dirt, and newspaper. It takes the worms anywhere from a few weeks to a month to move up the next bin. The worms will consume about 3lbs of scraps a week and leave plenty of worm castings behind.

We intend to mix the worm castings with potting soil to start our next batch of seedlings, add extra nutrients to our tomato transplants, and to make compost tea for our garden.  

Worm Factory



Step 1: Add food scraps pureed by blender






Step 2: Add dry leaves

 

Step 3: Add moist paper mixed with dirt

Step 4: Top with moist newspaper

Step 5: Add the Red Wigglers!

From the garden to the table - First salad of the season

We harvested our first radishes and spinach! The radishes might need another week to grow a little bigger, but our spinach is huge! I combined both to make my first salad of the season. It was delicious!

Cute little radishes



Our spinach is huge

My first home-grown salad of the season



Salad was delicious

Leasing farm land

This year, we are gardening in a 6' by 14' raised bed, but we are setting our sights for something BIGGER next year! We want to lease farm land and start growing on a larger scale. Specifically, we are looking for a half acre to an acre to get us started.

 After attending the Missouri Organic Association conference earlier this year, we were able to be connected with a man named David Price. He works for the Lincoln University Cooperative Extension as a
Farm Outreach Worker and has played an integral part in helping us build our vision and knowledge base as future organic farmers. Besides letting us know about the farming webinars and workshops, Dave Price also connected us with a man named Dr. Granger.

Yesterday, we went to visit Dr. Granger and tour his property with the hopes of leasing farm land from him. His property is set in a picturesque part of St. Charles county, less than 30 minutes from where we are living, and less than a mile away from a farmer's market. Dr. Granger graciously took an hour and a half out of his day to talk to us and give us a tour of his property. His property is beautiful and the space available to farm is perfect. We are going to need a little help tilling the land and getting the soil ready, but we already have ideas for how to make that happen. Damian and I are excited about moving forward with leasing farm land from Dr. Granger and about getting one step closer to being future organic farmers!



Beautiful sunny space for farming

We need to work the soil a little



Dr. Granger and Amber

Barn

Beautiful colors emerging





Red radishes



Red and white onions





Purple cabbage



So far, I have been in awe of the beautiful shades of green within our garden, but now there are a variety of beautiful colors emerging. There are red radishes, purple onions, and purple cabbage.



From science classes, I know that the green chlorophyll in the leaves helps capture the sun's energy and convert it to food for the plant. However, I don't remember learning what the purpose of plants having other color pigmentations.

After researching, I found that colors in flowers, fruits, and vegetables can help with pollination and reproduction. Colorful fruits and veggies can attract animals that spread the plant's seeds. The colors come from the various vitamins, minerals, and natural substances that make up each fruit or veggie. Due to the unique combination of vitamins and minerals, each color category of fruits and vegetables has unique health benefits for the consumer.

Red Fruits and Vegetables Contain nutrients such as lycopene, ellagic acid, Quercetin, and Hesperidin, to name a few. These nutrients reduce the risk of prostate cancer, lower blood pressure, reduce tumor growth and LDL cholesterol levels, scavenge harmful free-radicals, and support join tissue in arthritis cases.

 

Orange and Yellow fruits and vegetables Contain beta-carotene, zeaxanthin, flavonoids, lycopene, potassium, and vitamin C. These nutrients reduce age-related macula degeneration and the risk of prostate cancer, lower LDL cholesterol and blood pressure, promote collagen formation and healthy joints, fight harmful free radicals, encourage alkaline balance, and work with magnesium and calcium to build healthy bones.

 



Green vegetables and Fruit Green vegetables contain chlorophyll, fiber, lutein, zeaxanthin, calcium, folate, vitamin C, calcium, and Beta-carotene. The nutrients found in these vegetables reduce cancer risks, lower blood pressure and LDL cholesterol levels, normalize digestion time, support retinal health and vision, fight harmful free-radicals, and boost immune system activity.

 

Blue and purple fruits and vegetables Contain nutrients which include lutein, zeaxanthin, resveratrol, vitamin C, fiber, flavonoids, ellagic acid, and quercetin. Similar to the previous nutrients, these nutrients support retinal health, lower LDL cholesterol, boost immune system activity, support healthy digestion, improve calcium and other mineral absorption, fight inflammation, reduce tumor growth, act as an anticarcinogens in the digestive tract, and limit the activity of cancer cells.



White fruits and vegetables Contain nutrients such as beta-glucans, EGCG, SDG, and lignans that provide powerful immune boosting activity. These nutrients also activate natural killer B and T cells, reduce the risk of colon, breast, and prostate cancers, and balance hormone levels, reducing the risk of hormone-related cancers.

 

Read more about the health benefits of fruits and veggies at: http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/fruits-vegetables.shtml#ixzz1Lmgptv2l





Bugs beware. There is a stink in the air!

Armed with a garlic/chili powder soap spray & a fish emulsion spray, I went into the garden ready for some serious pest prevention. The plan of attack is to stink the bugs out of our garden. Due to windy conditions while spraying, I also smell like garlic fish now.
I have noticed small yellow egg sacks on the underside of my cabbage leaves and evidence of leaf miners and other mystery bugs on leaves in the garden. The yellow eggs could not be knocked off and almost seemed superglued to the leaves. I gave them a good  stinky soap spray and was unsure if I should just destroy the leaves. I did pick and destroy the leaves that looked like they had been affected by leaf miners.
I have been borrowing several books from the library to help with pests but I am still in search of the best bug book with great pictures. Let me know if you have any suggestions.



I am armed with stinky sprays

Evidence of leaf miners



Yellow egg sacs?

 


Mystery bug problem

My current pest books