Steve Clausen

You have essentially what's called a "kitchen garden." My kitchen garden is 16 beds in a 40'x40' fenced in area (fenced to keep the varmints out.) The only really effective cover crops I can utilize in that space are winter rye, or winter rye with hairy vetch, and/or winter field peas. I can only use those on beds that will be planted in warm weather crops, such as: tomatoes, peppers, squash... Most of my other beds I want to be available for late March, early April crops, and winter rye needs to go until mid-May before I terminate it. I will sow buckwheat in between other crops however; buckwheat is a warm weather cover crop and improves soil tilth.  

You say you have clay/loom soil. That should be perfect for growing annual vegs. It seems like you're concerned with nitrogen mostly; is that right? What seems to be your particular issue? Do you see your plants suffering for a lack of N?

You say "Composting is great but is mostly about soil texture and soil biology than truly maintaining fertility. " I assume you mean that veg only compost has less nitrogen than animal manure compost; while that's true, veg compost is all I use, since I don't have animals and I don't bring any manure in from outside, and my plants do exceptionally well with it.

Nitrogen will be fixed by microbes, both on the leaves and stems of your plants, and in the soil. Use coffee grounds, and urine to boost N if needed.

I like your idea of making your own fish hydrolysate, assuming the carp comes from clean waters ( clean as in no excess harmful chemicals.)

Clay soil is full of nutrients, but it's usually locked up unless there is soil organic matter and microbes present. I would use compost, compost tea, tea and JADAM JWS to increase the soil biology, Soil biology feeds your plants directly, and also builds soil structure and fertility. When microbes have a flush in population, some will go dormant, and some will die; billions of dead microbes are necromass and that dead microbe load adds fertility to your soil in many ways--too much to talk about in one post.

How is your worm population in your garden beds?

In the beds that I am going to need to plant in early the next season, I usually prep them in late fall after a few frosts, assuming I don't have parsnips or carrots wintering over in them. I will cut dead veggis at the soil surface and keep the roots in the soil, and then add compost to the top and mulch with tree leaves, left over straw from my winter rye, or plant material from chop and drop. I will them add kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, et al right under the mulch in a compost in situ sort of manor. Come the next spring the beds are ready to plant into. I chop and drop weeds all season,

I see you have problems with slugs and mulch, I don't really have too many slugs so I can't offer too much; except I use in ground beds, not raised. I also keep small piles of sticks and rock piles around for ground beetles. Ground beetles and birds eat slugs.

Hopefully some of this rambling might help.

I think your approach is fine. A lot of "no till" folks do a one time tillage to get a garden up and running, and then of course from there on practice "no" or "low" till. The 20x20 area is rather large to lasagna style, and you need the sod either gone or incorporated into the soil so it can rot and become organic matter. I would organize it by rows because next season you may not be planting squash, and there's no stopping you from planting a 3 sisters planting group within a part of a garden row. A typical 3 sisters round is 3-4 feet in diameter. If your garden beds are 3 feet wide you can get a round in within a section of a row. Save the clover for living pathways between the rows, but you'll need to get in there with a mower and mow the paths; which might be a problem with squash vining all over the place. Maybe better to use woodchips for the paths. Grow something else in the actual garden bed rows between the 3 sisters; something that winter kills; maybe field peas as a cover crop. You could also densely broadcast lettuce, or arugula, or both, between the 3-sisters; knowing that you'll get some to eat and some the squash will cover over and or intermingle with. If the lettuce or arugula goes to seed, you, might get volunteers next season, which is not a bad thing--I love it when I have volunteer lettuce popping up here and there in my veg garden.

Just remember that in that stilt grass thatch is a ton of slit grass seeds.

As far a weeding tools go: I love my Japanese three pronged cultivator. I use it to weed and cultivate. Try to find a one with a long handle so you don't have to stoop; less tiring on you back.  This one at this link has a short handle, 15 inches, but that the tool. Any sharp hoe, like a Dutch hoe, is good too.
https://hardwickandsons.com/collections/cultivators-hoes-rakes/products/kusakichi-3-prong-ika-gata-hoe

Mow up your leaves with a bagging mower, or use a leaf shredder. This makes a great mulch and helps them break down quicker. Yes, you can just move the chopped up leaves aside and plant. If you leave the leaves whole the wind will blow them around easier when they dry out. Chopped up they stay moister and stay in place better. They can still get blown around your plants or seeds your starting, and birds and small animals may move them too, so just something to be aware of if you're seeding fine seeds, like carrots. A little bare soil just where you are trying to get seeds up is fine for a little while. You just generally don't want bare soil for any length of time. Annual veggies, or a kitchen garden, has to be delt with a little differently than permaculturing perennials--don't be afraid to break some rules.

If you have xtra leaves, but them aside in a protected pile to make leaf mold. Use the leaf mold like compost or a top dressing mulch. Leaf mold is awesome for building soil structure.

Woodchips can be used for some veggies--not good for carrots or some lettuces--good for transplanted seedlings of larger crops, like tomatoes and peppers. As you alluded to above, don't mix them with you soil and you'll be fine; they don't tie up nitrogen sitting on top of soil. Rake them off your bed if you need to work the soil a little after your crops are out, and then put them back on. It's better if the woodchips are small and broken down a bit. You mentioned you have access to a lot of woodchips; make a big pile and let some start to rot down for future use as top mulch for your veggie garden. Are you familiar with the Johnson-Su bioreactor? Turn some of those chips into awesome compost using one of those DIY bioreactors. Don't worry so much about whether the compost is fungal dominate or bacteria dominate; for a veggie garden it will all equal out. The plants will associate with the microbs they need to.  

I don't think those beds look too bad with weeds. Here are some observations from someone near your zone, climate and geography. Firstly, learn to embrace some weeds; dandelions for example are dynamic accumulators--meaning they bring up minerals from the deep subsoil--chop and drop them on your beds before they go to seed--this will feed your soil. I let a lot of small flowering weeds flower along the sides of my veggie beds to help bring in beneficial insects.

Don't use stilt grass for anything; kill it before it takes over. It is an invasive prolific seeder so, it is worse than a bare bed.

I use winter rye on only my beds that will have warm season crops the following year, like squash, tomatoes, etc. You need to let winter rye grow until it reaches the milk stage ( mid May here )  in order to terminate it via cutting or crimping; otherwise it will grow back, and you'll think it's a weed.

I prep the beds I will be using for cool season crops, such as arugula, kale, lettuce, etc... in the fall after everything is out. Since a cover crop, like winter rye or winter peas won't work, because it won't be out by April, I mulch the beds with straw, or leaves and pine needles--whatever I have. These beds are mostly entirely weed free come April. There may be an errant weed here and there, but they're easy to pull in good loose garden bed soil.

Sometimes I can't prep a bed in the fall or plant a winter cover crop, because I have crops that spend the winter in them; like parsnips, carrots, and rutabaga, for example. Then there may be a few weeds come spring, but they should be easy to hoe up. Any type of Grass is one you will need to nip in the bud as soon as you can.

My garden paths are a combo of woodchips, and living mulches. I've tried ajuga and mock strawberries in the paths; both of those didn't work well for me for various reasons, so I pulled them. I have now seeded some of my paths with Dutch white clover. That seems to work better. I just mow the paths with an electric bag mower and toss the clover clippings in the beds as mulch, or add them to the compost pile. The clover does want to spread into the beds some, but a quick pull/hoe and the drop it into the beds as mulch.

Finally: it get's easier as the beds mature, and the seed bank diminishes. Mulch helps. I use the winter rye I cut in mid May to mulch my veggies. Beware however, that bringing in compost, hay/straw from outside sources can bring in more weed seeds. Use the weeds as mulch--chop and drop before they go to seed. Weeds are just plants in the wrong ( for you ) place. There's a book titled: When Weeds Talk; I think it's available in pdf form on the internet. The book details what weeds are growing in your soil and what that means in terms of soil mineral imbalances.

Timothy Norton wrote:Brassicas produce a sulfur containing substance known as glucosinolates which help inhibit weed seed germination when the plant is chopped and tilled into the soil. I've been told that the mechanism of action is known as biofumigation. I'm told this compound is what gives brassicas like mustards their pungency. There are some studies that indicate that the use of glucosinolates to biofumigate soil may help with nematode and other plant parasite control.

I'm unsure if I'm going to utilize the biomass of my cover crop to make use of the glucosinolates as I would have to manually incorporate it into the soil and I'm usually busy in the spring. I'm more than likely going to chop and drop it leaving it as a surface mulch.

Brassicas also do a good job of reducing compaction.

Turnips can help the topmost region of the soil.
Radishes tend to have a deeper taproot than turnips.
Mustard, Kale and Rapeseed have really fibrous roots and do a good job getting even deeper into the soil.

Glucosinolates are also extremely healthy for us and primarily only found in Brassicas; like kale, cabbage, arugula, broccoli, etc...

Here's a good read on it:
https://nutrivore.com/nutrients/glucosinolates/

I do mostly hot composting. I build about 3-4 good piles a year, spring to fall, usually 4x4x3 feet. They get hot, sometimes 155f, that's too hot. I try to turn them every 3-5 days, but sometimes life gets in the way, and they don't get turned for a week or so. I utilize a couple of 3 ft 4 inch pvc drain pipes with more holes drilled into them, set vertically, to help get air into the center of the pile.  I also have some smaller diameter pvc pipes with lots of holes drilled in a circular pattern that I lay horizontal in the pile to bring in air.

I also do compost in place in my veg beds after the growing season is over, and if I don't have winter cover crops growing in those beds. I'll prep the beds in the fall and cover them with mulch, and then I'll sneak kitchen scraps under the mulch right up till the winter weather makes it not fun. By spring most of the scraps and coffee grounds have been consumed by microbes and worms.

I am going to try a new thing this coming spring's growing season. There's a concept called "core gardening", apparently done in Africa somewhere that get's a lot of rain in winter/spring, but droughts in summer. They burry reeds in their garden beds a foot or so down, and as the winter rains soak the beds the reed material absorbs the water and starts to rot and also becomes a sponge that hydrates the beds during drought. There's a guy in Michigan, I'll post the video below, that does this with hay or straw. I want to do this because of increasingly reoccurring 6-8 week long droughts in my area, usually in late May-June, or June-July. I hate watering my rather large veg garden, and don't like the idea of setting up irrigation. I would use the straw method, but I can't trust that the straw I would have to buy wasn't sprayed with some forever chemical, and while I grow winter rye for mulch, I can't grow enough to burry for a core. So I'm going to try my own version of this using 1 part my compost, 1 part biochar that I make and inoculate, and 1 part pumice stone that's about 1/8-1/4 inch stones. I mix these together and use that as the core of my beds. This should hold more moisture than the surrounding soil, so in the event of an extended drought the plants can access this moisture. Also I won't have any nitrogen tied up breaking down the straw, since I'll be using inoculated biochar and compost. The pumice is inert, so that acts as a sponge and a home for microbes to hold up, just like biochar.

Hugo Morvan wrote:@Steve Clausen I don't know if insects eat eleagnus species. The birds sure do, so somehow it will profit the local flora by droppings and soil building. There didn't grow much in these dunes traditionally but a grass that did so poorly the government had to come in and replant it every so often or wind erosion would blow away so many sand that the dunes disappeared, creating a weak spot. The high tide and storm combined used to create sea breakthroughs creating small brakkish lakes land inwards. Precious habitat that now is disappearing. Human activity and natural disturbance create real chances for niche creating. Conservatists try to keep a naturally dynamic system stable. I'm old enough to know that once endangered species can make a huge comeback, Storks and Cormorants and foxes come to mind. Many species find their way into cities now. They overcome some fear and profit of a once unobtainable rich habitat and thrive.

I agree pesticides do a lot of damage. I suspect it's killing of soil life and bacteria so there simply is no food for life up the foodchain which is them. I try to eat as little of them as possible and i am actively creating a habitat that is biodiverse and have observed how planting biodivese creates a stabalizing insect influx and i eat eat of that landscape. But the general insect decline there is not a lot i can do to influence that. People are poorer every day and want cheap food, they want to keep unaware that spray load is getting absolutely ridiculous.

I live on very poor granite soils and hope to find inside this diverse rewilded Eleagnus population some genetic diversity that would cost thousands of dollars/euro's to obtain. The crosses nature decided to drop in the dunes would take years to achieve.

I visited a website and know that government is fully aware of this infestation, they don't move a finger. Maybe they like the soil building qualities and are the anti-erosion qualities of this plague and are studying this situation. Maybe they're lacking the resources to do so, they're not open about the plan and if there even is a plan. I'm nothing but a passionate permaculturist who's interested in the forest building dynamic these infestations seem to bring along. I see Elder popping up where there was none, i see annuals that grow in winter, i see some oaks species appearing i see other local berry carrying shrubs appearing. I'm far from convinved that this evolution is a net negative for insect populations in general in the long run. And even less convinced that fighting it by removing them is an effective way to change the situation, which it has proven many times over they're not capable of effectively removing them once established. They've poisoned whole areas in a fight against the Rosa Rugosa and mechanically removed soil and sived through it for seeds, they've spend millions and still lose that fight that maybe shouldn't have been fought in the first place.

Nitrogen fixing qualities are mostly seen as a negative while it's proven to be forest forming which is nothing but a net carbon sink which we try to create artificially. It doesn't make sense to me at all. Why do conservationist feel we can't  create forestlike situations by making use of invasive shrubs?

There's no one answer Hugo. There's been cases where invasives that out competed natives in an environment were used as nurse plants for other natives. And when those other natives got large enough, they shaded out the invasive, so it's an evolving situation for sure. Oaks are good! At least here in the eastern United States, oaks are by far the most important host plant for caterpillars, hosting a whopping 534 different lepidoptera species. And these caterpillars feed more insects, birds and other animals. And, an oak's nut mast feed a lot of wildlife. So maybe in your situation, the oaks will win out in the end.

One of the problems with invasive plants, esp. those that really take over an ecosystem, is that our local insects can't eat them for food.
Insects are in decline world wide at an alarming rate, and they are at the foundation of our food web, just above soil microbes. We need insects, and not just for pollination. As insects go, so do we. Insects and the plants they eat evolved together, and local insects mostly can't eat invasives  
because of toxins the plant developed to keep predators from eating it. The insects that evolved with the plant species evolved the mechanisms to thwart the plants defenses. It's not just phytophagous insects that starve when invasives out compete the local flora, it's the insects that eat the phytophagous insects that suffer too, and the birds and small mammals that eat them, and on up the chain. It could take thousands of years of evolution for local insects to evolve to eat an invasive from Asia, let's say. We don't have that much time so save the local flora and fauna.
It's the out competing of out local flora that's the problem with invasives, not that every invasive is bad--some are not aggressive and can live side by side with the local plants. And, of course there are other things causing the insect decline; pesticides, loss of habitat, etc...

Susan Boyce wrote:Why do you like living or being in the woods?

I find it peaceful like coming home again.

It is literally coming home. Our ancestors evolved with the woods and savannas, and all the nature and soil within; it's part of our DNA. Spending time in nature increases one's health: it's been proven to increase serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine levels- the feel good, and mood stabilizing hormones. Most of what ails people in modern times is a disconnect from nature.

The Japanese have take to "Forest-bathing" to reconnect their people that live in cities with the natural world in which we came from. There is some evidence that forest bathing can increase our natural killer cell activity, and potentially provide an anti-cancer benefit, thanks to inhaling cedar mists.

 

I am in zone 5b, a little warmer than you at 5a, so this may not work for you. I mostly use winter rye, winter peas, and hairy vetch in beds that are targeted for warm season crops, like tomatoes, peppers, or squash. I plant the winter cover crop in October, the earlier the better in Oct. It doesn't do too much until late March and April, then it takes off like gang busters. I aim to terminate it by mid May. Some years, by mid-May the rye is not in the milk stage yet (that's the growth stage where crimping or cutting it will not regrow.) In those times I cut it, and then cut up the roots. I aim to plant my tomatoes/peppers by 3rd week in May. I use the cover crop I cut for mulch.

I also have some dedicated beds just for cover crops. I plant winter rye in those and then harvest the rye for mulch the following May. I then turn right around and plant a multi-species cover crop, with legumes added to the mix, to regenerate the soil before the rye get's planted again in the fall.