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!