Hey, I have been feeling uninspired lately, but the recent
thread about the Million Calorie challenge has given me a lot to think about in my own farming adventure. Growing a million calories has always been a personal goal of mine, but with everything else going on in my life, it has never quite made it to the top of the priority list. Anyway, I have been planning on trying to increase my
gardening efforts next year, and now I feel a renewed motivation to take good notes, weigh my produce a little more exactly, and try and contribute a little data back to the community.
I have also been kicking around this idea in my head of a "Garden Showcase:" or "Project Showcase:" which is just a way to title posts so that they are easier to find in the search bar. Sometimes I read about a really interesting
project, but then I cant seem to find it again when I go searching. Also, sometimes a good idea is buried somewhere in a very long thread. My thought is for "Showcase:" threads to start out with a bit of a write-up, hopefully some pictures, and then people can add questions and comments below. Anyway, I am not sure if any of this will actually work, or help, but I would love to see some write-ups from other people's farms and projects!
I have 3 gardens going on my property right now; Here is our vegetable garden AKA the Upper garden. It was first established in 2017. It is around 1500 sq ft, but probably only about half is growing space. It is on a south facing slope with heavy fairly clayey silt loam soil and it gets almost too much sun in the summer. Keeping it watered through our long dry summer months is our main challenge. I use rain catchment and pumped spring
water to supply the roughly 10,000 gallons that I use over the summer.
The beds were made with 6" cinder blocks, which in hindsight I would probably not do again. I suspect they are wicking away water, they use up a lot of bed space, and they are of
course not very
sustainable. They offset those drawbacks a bit by being really fast and easy to install, being very durable, and making nice straight lines, if you are into that sort of thing.
The initial soil analysis showed very low phosphorous (13ppm), and elevated pH (5.7), so we added a couple hundred pounds of lime and 40lbs of fishbone meal from off farm. Mostly we just make
compost, add
wood ash,
biochar, and some composted manure from other peoples farms. I use diluted
urine during the spring and early summer, and that makes a big difference. We also use some 5-5-3 organic fertilizer for starts and such. The soil report from this fall showed our phosphorous was up to 151ppm, and the pH had gone up to 7.3. All the other nutrients measured had also improved. I am going to stop adding anything but compost and biochar at this point, and see how those numbers behave. Here is our little compost system. I would like to expand it to 3 bins... someday.
We also have a little
greenhouse that I will try and write up on another Showcase thread, but it is 8x10 and made from EMT and rigid roofing panels. The wine barrels work well for winter greens. I am not sure if the insulation around them works, but we can usually grow lettuce in them year round.
Our upper garden is now producing
enough vegetables for fresh eating and canning/freezing. I am experimenting with row-covers for winter
gardening, which in theory
should not be too hard to keep going most of the winter. I doubt it produces much in terms of calories, but it keeps us in vegetables basically all year.
Next is our "Lower garden" which is almost 100 feet lower, and down by the creek at the bottom of our property.
It consists of about 10,000 sq feet on two terraces. The lower one is still sort of a swamp. The soil here is very different - it has lots of clay, and really high magnesium to calcium, which Ive read can cause the soil to drain poorly. I added 3" perf pipe drain to the upper terrace, and have started making raised beds. My plan is to amend heavily with biochar, lime and
wood ash. Also, I am working on cover crop rotations to add plenty of organic matter to the soil. The west side is currently growing clover (and thistles. So many thistles).
This garden is still a work in progress. My plan is to eventually make raised beds on the entire upper terrace (~6000 sq ft), and plant some shallow-rooted fruit
trees on the lower one. I will probably also need to add more drainage down there. Here is a new bed I am working on to possibly plant some raspberries:
I currently have overwintering Triticale (animal food experiment) field peas (cover crop experiment) and fava beans (human food) growing on the east side.
The west side will all be tilled under in the spring and made into beds for summer crops. I really want to get away from tilling, but areas of this size are hard for me to keep after by hand. The soil being a sticky mess after any rain doesnt help - I can not even really hoe it during the winter - the tool just turns into a glob of wet soil.
I get water for the lower garden with gravity fed pipe from the
pond I am working on.
It leaks like a sieve down to about half of its depth, so I need to work on it next summer. Still, it holds on to enough water to irrigate my little quarter acre using drip tape. I just dug out a stump with my excavator for a new biochar pit down by the pond. I would like to work up to making a ton per year. I will probably do half of that this season.
Lastly, I am doing an experiment with growing winter wheat on a little unused patch of flat ground
The
deer love to nibble at it, so I put nylon netting over the top, and put up some electric fencing. It seems to be working... Once it takes off in the spring, they should not be able to cause too much damage. Living in the woods means that I have a lot of competition for my crops. Squirrels and chipmunks made off with basically all my buckwheat last year, so I am trying to find things that the
local animals do not favor. Dry beans so far seem to be the least desirable. Any grain with short stalks are quickly thinned out for me. They didnt seem to bother the triticale though, so I am doing some experiments with that.
Anyway, this is my little homestead at the moment. I have few fruit and nut trees, but they are not really producing yet. I think if I cultivated all the available
land, and did some clever things like double-cropping, I could probably approach a million calories on this area. The big challenge for me is having enough water, and keeping pests at bay.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the quick tour - feel free to post any follow-up questions, and of course, do a little summary of your place if you have the time! I would love to see what other people have going on.
.png)
9
