transition: soil, plants, people, all
The sages have recovered remarkably well. The soil was extremely compacted around the one closest to the pink pearl. I kept moving the hose amongst the four of them for the six hours of slow-watering; near the end of the day on Monday, the soil beneath the first one was loose enough to be worked. After forking it for a while - sadly, some of the hedge nettle had to go, as it was both hard to avoid and a competetor for resources - I mixed in some of the stuff from the Mines and lay down three rocks to harbor the newly turned soil. The next day (Tuesday), the plant was actually holding its leaves up instead of down. :-) Such a happy sight.
Dave Shaw left specific instructions for each tree. I didn't get on it soon enough after he came through with Gabe and did the summer pruning. He says that overall the trees are looking great. I would do it on Saturday, but that workday needs to be VERY organized. It will be the first workday of the year, with a lot of new faces, so we need to keep it simple, manageable, and enjoyable. So ...perhaps TWO tasks maximum for the day. Perhaps weeding and seeding would be a good first workparty. Next weekend we can prepare areas for covercropping (like the strip in front of B2 - that huge area that includes the three apple trees) and clean tools. And perhaps composting system, if that purchase order ever comes in.
The corn is nearly done in some patches - the stalks and leaves are no longer green, but golden brown. I need to figure out when is the best time to pull it out - I am thinking that it would be best to do it when the stalks are no longer standing straight. It's funny, we were worried about the corn falling over before it even reached maturity! But the only stalks that did fall over were in the bed for which we had prepared to accomodate falling - and we did accomodate it. I personally cannot imagine taking out the majority of the cornstalks before October. It seems overly zealous to me ...but I should ask Steve. He knows the most about corn-rearing, though I am thinking about checking it in the Jeavon's book so as not to bother him. Or maybe I'll just let the corn tell me when it's ready. Transitioning the milpa would need to happen in conjunction with a canning//storage party of some sort, or perhaps we could just eat it all for dinner that night. We'll see. Just so long as nothing goes to waste.
The kale beds are going strong, but it may be time to intensify the understory in case the kale does not make it halfway through the winter. There are going to be so many people in the Garden! Will there be enough to feed us all? I need to check on the starts up at Sinsheimer either tomorrow or Friday. I have a strong urge to (1) start a bunch of stuff in either my room or the Icehouse; or (2) go to San Lorenzo and purchase more seeds - or both! But buying more seeds when we have yet some to use would be a waste! So it seems like preparing the beds to grow the lettuce, chard, etc. would be the first order of business - figuring out what species to use when we intensify certain beds and what intercroppings should happen when we start newer beds.
That's it! I could introduce some lettuce into the beets bed. Now, needless to say, there will have to be enough distance that harvesting the beets (i.e. digging them out of the ground) will not damage or disturb the lettuce, or... hey, how about kohl rabi? It's one of those one-harvest above-ground crops anyway... yeah. Jim Velzy was telling me that beets - unlike radishes - can sit in the ground for a while without getting woody. They just get bigger and sweeter, is all - they bide their time. So maybe that would be a good intercropping... Velzy said it would be better to direct-seed the lettuce, rather than try to transplant starts. I feel like either way we should get the show on the road! Maybe tomorrow morning, before Yoga - ooooh! This is so exciting - we should do a little of both.
Dave Shaw left specific instructions for each tree. I didn't get on it soon enough after he came through with Gabe and did the summer pruning. He says that overall the trees are looking great. I would do it on Saturday, but that workday needs to be VERY organized. It will be the first workday of the year, with a lot of new faces, so we need to keep it simple, manageable, and enjoyable. So ...perhaps TWO tasks maximum for the day. Perhaps weeding and seeding would be a good first workparty. Next weekend we can prepare areas for covercropping (like the strip in front of B2 - that huge area that includes the three apple trees) and clean tools. And perhaps composting system, if that purchase order ever comes in.
The corn is nearly done in some patches - the stalks and leaves are no longer green, but golden brown. I need to figure out when is the best time to pull it out - I am thinking that it would be best to do it when the stalks are no longer standing straight. It's funny, we were worried about the corn falling over before it even reached maturity! But the only stalks that did fall over were in the bed for which we had prepared to accomodate falling - and we did accomodate it. I personally cannot imagine taking out the majority of the cornstalks before October. It seems overly zealous to me ...but I should ask Steve. He knows the most about corn-rearing, though I am thinking about checking it in the Jeavon's book so as not to bother him. Or maybe I'll just let the corn tell me when it's ready. Transitioning the milpa would need to happen in conjunction with a canning//storage party of some sort, or perhaps we could just eat it all for dinner that night. We'll see. Just so long as nothing goes to waste.
The kale beds are going strong, but it may be time to intensify the understory in case the kale does not make it halfway through the winter. There are going to be so many people in the Garden! Will there be enough to feed us all? I need to check on the starts up at Sinsheimer either tomorrow or Friday. I have a strong urge to (1) start a bunch of stuff in either my room or the Icehouse; or (2) go to San Lorenzo and purchase more seeds - or both! But buying more seeds when we have yet some to use would be a waste! So it seems like preparing the beds to grow the lettuce, chard, etc. would be the first order of business - figuring out what species to use when we intensify certain beds and what intercroppings should happen when we start newer beds.
That's it! I could introduce some lettuce into the beets bed. Now, needless to say, there will have to be enough distance that harvesting the beets (i.e. digging them out of the ground) will not damage or disturb the lettuce, or... hey, how about kohl rabi? It's one of those one-harvest above-ground crops anyway... yeah. Jim Velzy was telling me that beets - unlike radishes - can sit in the ground for a while without getting woody. They just get bigger and sweeter, is all - they bide their time. So maybe that would be a good intercropping... Velzy said it would be better to direct-seed the lettuce, rather than try to transplant starts. I feel like either way we should get the show on the road! Maybe tomorrow morning, before Yoga - ooooh! This is so exciting - we should do a little of both.
posted by Yvea at 12:00 PM
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