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Author Topic: Breaking ground for new garden  (Read 18721 times)

Offline Kev

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #40 on: February 03, 2007, 10:00:24 pm »
I meant after you begin this no till process when can you plant. How long does it take in other words.

Sorry I didn't follow up on this earlier.

The quick answer: you can plant the same season. The method doesn't work well for grain crops. But for gardens it's great.

Cover the area you want to plant early in the season with 6" or more of mulch hay, then you can plant when the time is right. Just figure out where you want plants, get a garden fork -- the digging type -- dig up a spot, clear the grass out and plant. Don't cover over your seeds with hay, just scoot the hay back, dig a hole and plant. You may need to add hay during the summer to keep it deep enough to discourage weeds. As the summer progresses, what grass was underneath will die; the earthworms will be very happy under the hay, and by the next season you'll have almost all bare earth underneath. That earth will be moist and you should be able to use a trowel to turn it over. Successive years will be much easier to plant because there won't be any grass left.

My wife and I successfully cleared several of our beds this way.

One warning -- if you have problems with slugs in your area be wary of the hay method. Slugs love to live in they hay and then sneak out at night to eat your veggies.

What's great about the hay is that it rots right into the garden. If you continue to add hay to the garden each year, you build the soil's fertility. (Have you ever seen a flatland garden that's been in the same place for 20 years. It's usually several inches below the grass nearby. This happens to farmland too because nutrients come out of the soil and wind and rain erode it and very little is going back in.)

The main reasons for tilling: to make the soil looser and to eliminate competition from weeds. Loose soil is important for young plants, but you can loosen the soil enough in a spot by hand for the seedling to get a good start and the hay will retain moisture and kill the weeds much better than a rototilled garden. Some researchers believe that tilling mixes the natural layers in the soil and harms beneficial microbes.

Folks might want to start small, though, just to see if it's the right method for them. The garden looks a little unruly, and when we first started I longed for the neat rows of freshly turned earth.

There are lots of No-Till methods. We've tried several. The deep mulch is commonly called the Ruth Stout Method. Her book is available at the library. I'm sure if you hunt through the gardening section in your local library you can find others.
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Offline Cindi

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #41 on: February 04, 2007, 10:41:53 am »
Kev, that was great information.  We are in an area where slugs, banana slugs, (big, yellow, most with black spots and about 6-8 inches long) and snails abode.  I don't think that the hay method would work.  Too bad though.  I find the littler slugs goes everywhere, the big old bananas live mostly around the perimeter of my ravine, where it is dark and really moist.  They sometimes venture into my yard, but mostly not, they stay in the bushy parts. 

I am going to try to use some newspaper methods though, covering it with soil, hopefully the slugs won't get under the earth, that would be unlikely.  We'll see.  Some good informations.  Great day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Kev

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #42 on: February 04, 2007, 05:23:31 pm »
We are in an area where slugs, banana slugs, (big, yellow, most with black spots and about 6-8 inches long) and snails abode. 

That's one big slug. We have little slugs here, but millions of them. (I am not exaggerating, my wife has killed well over 1,000 in a single day.)

Cindi, even if you use newspaper and sawdust, you can still plant the same year.

Some additional things I didn't mention about going no-till.

1) divide your garden into beds so you don't ever walk where you intend to plant.
2) the hay is just a form of mulch, you can use whatever mulch (paper, manure, sawdust, leaves) you please with the same outcome. We convinced the power company tree trimmers to dump their truck on our land and used that one year.
3) pay attention to the soil. If it's clay, consider adding some sand, if sandy, add clay etc.
4) keep adding mulch, organic material holds water and provides nutrients, if you add lots of mulch each year, you'll never need to fertilize.

Happy gardening
kev
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Offline Cindi

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #43 on: February 04, 2007, 09:06:26 pm »
Kev, excellent information.  Thank you.  About your slugs.  I am rather odd about things I like to know about, but I am curious about many many things in life.  I want to know how big your slugs are.  You must have quite a time if they are quite small and there can be 1,000 present during a day.  Now that is scary business.  I could not imagine that many, yikes, your poor wife.

Ours are the big banana, like I said, but the others we have are probably quite large too, they would be black ones, brown ones with a black stripe down their back and they are about 2-1/2 to 3 inches long.  It is insipid the damage that these little critters do.  I step on them when I see them, I do not gather them and I have no mercy.  If I am outside and I see one in the shade somewhere, I pick it up and throw it into the sun, with the intention of going over right away and squishing it, if I don't get to it, well it dries up within a few minutes.  I don't care, sounds mean, but I don't like the little buggers.

If you get slug slime on your hands or knees or anything, vinegar removes the slimy junk, quickly.

Anyways, I am going to create some new beds (and resurrect some) that I unintentionally let the grasses and weeds get control over.  The weeds grow so fast here sometimes you turn around and they are 2 feet tall within a week.  EEEKS!!!!

Once upon a time years and years and years ago I used Roundup to combat weeds.  Very successful stuff and evidently becomes inert once it touches soil (I find that hard to believe).  I don't use any herbicides or pesticides here.  Just not something that I want in my soils, and it is good, clean farm land, enchanced with animal and green manures.  Great day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Kev

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #44 on: February 09, 2007, 11:07:55 am »
The biggest ones are probably about 3 inches long. The infants can be 1/4 inch or less. We have quite a range of them here: tan ones with stripes, dark ones with leopard spots, some extremely light colored ones, too.

We have declared total war on slugs around here. (I have no compassion for the varmints. They have few natural predators here.) We have so many that during the growing season my wife does slug patrol in the early morning and the late evening when they come out to feed. (I help when I'm not at work.) She is sort of mathmatically compulsive and so keeps a running total of how many she kills.

Her method for controlling slugs is pretty simple. Around all of our raised beds we have 2x6 or 2x8 lumber scraps. These make great places for slugs to hide. Twice a day, we patrol the beds and lift up each board. If we find a slug we cut it in half with a pair of old scissors. Remarkable, they're cannibals, so the next day we'll find three eating the carcass of one.

We tried just about every method known except the super toxic Ortho slug poison. This includes: escar-go an organic iron-based poison, copper strips on board and collars around plants, beer traps, etc. At this point, only slicing every one we find in half has worked. I think we've reduced the overall slug population so that last year, we had fewer to kill.

Supposedly ducks will devour slugs, but ducks are pretty messy and we don't have a pond. (I know that you can keep them without a pond, but that doesn't seem very nice since they like to swim.)


good luck with clearing the beds. We have 4" of snow cover still and last night it was -4 with a windchill in the neighborhood of -15.

I am so ready for spring and bees. In april, I hope to be grabbing my first feral colony with a more experienced beekeeper friend.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Offline Cindi

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #45 on: February 10, 2007, 11:36:16 am »
Ha, your method of slug kill is similar to mine.  If I have my pruners in hand, which I do very often in the outside world, I cut them in half too.  I love to watch the guts ooze out with greatest of pleasure, knowing that I have saved many of my young tender plants from the slug invasion devastation.

Good for your wife.  Tell her to keep counting.  You will be surprised that one day you may get a very good control on the numbers of slugs prevalent at your place.  I know that I certainly have.

I still cannot bring myself to kill a banana slug.  I consider them the king of slugs and they are majestic.  I don't generally find them in my yard part where I find the smaller ones.  They are generally around the permimeter where the bush is, they don't seem to like to cross the gravel driveway that separates the deep, dark, busy ravine area from my "yard".  If I find one of them that should not be where it is supposed to be, I just pick it up and throw it as far as I can down into the ravine.  It can live there and enjoy the skunk cabbage that seems to me they should go hand in hand with.  OOOOh, that skunk cabbage, the smell will be coming in a couple of months.  They yellow flowers stink...well...like skunk.  The bees love the flowers, so the skunk cabbage can just simply grow on down the bottom near the creek.

I feel sorry for the kids when they go down there to play in the creek and muck and the stink.  One day I will post a picture of the amazing work they have done in the ravine, building little islands and diverting the stream in their tiny little ways, no harm done, I would not allow that, but they have the time of their life, digging, moving dirt, diverting the water way where they play.  The stream carries on further down in its one big and happy pathway.

Greatest of days.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline reinbeau

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #46 on: February 13, 2007, 09:14:23 am »
It is wicked of me, but I've taken particular glee in salting a slug - around here they turn a delightful orange as they melt away.  BWHAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously, I do have a slug problem, hopefully when the chickens are here they'll take care of them.  My mother has snails, they came in on a plant at some time, she pays the kids a bounty if they collect them for her.

Offline Cindi

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #47 on: February 13, 2007, 09:58:11 am »
OOOH, Ann, that is gross, the salt does do wonders though.  I am not sure that chickens eat slugs or not.  I do know for sure that ducks like them.

Our chickens are beginning to lay lots of eggs again.  I love our eggs.  I still can't bring myself to eating a duck egg though, and yikes!!!  When the geese start to lay, I really could not imagine that, but then,one never knows. 

I remember years and years ago I had chickens and the eggs were so strong tasting that I couldn't eat them.  It turned me off the home grown eggs for years.  When my sister got chickens last spring, I was still reluctant to eat them.  But she coerced me into trying them.  I have never looked back.  I honestly do not know why these eggs are go darn good, compared to mine.  The only difference I could possibly imagine would be that my sister pays a 50 cents a bag more and gets "organic" pellets.  I imagine this is the difference, cause I crave the eggs.  Oh, no, now I am getting hungry just thinking about them, but it is too early, not my breakfast time yet.

When I kept the chickens (say about 10 years ago), I allowed them out of their pen during the day.  I had a dozen or so.  My oldest grandson was just a toddler back then.  I remember one day the watching the chickens buzzing around the corn patch, chewing and gobbling up bugs and such.  Out of the bushy thicket came a damnable coyote.  Broad daylight, I saw it grab the chicken and off into the bush it went with a bunch of feathers floating everywhere and dust flyin'.  This freaked me right out, because my grandson was playing not that far away from this attack.  That was it.  I locked the chickens up and didn't let them free range again.  It terrified me, because all I could see in my mind's eye was my precious little baby grandson being grabbed by this bugger.  For a long time I would not let him play outside of our yard, unless he was right beside me.  I did not keep the chickens for much longer.  I did not like their eggs one little bit and now I was bringing the vermin into my life.  I sold the chickens to a neighbour and that was that.

My poor husband though.  He has made a beautiful chicken palace I shall call it.  It was very elaborate, and I am sure that it really bugged him that he spent so much time building this hut and then I didn't want it.  Oh well, he has built many things for me that eventually go by the wayside.  Poor guy.  He would move mountains for me, and has.  Especially if I ask hiim nicely and not expect him to be my builder.  It is amazing how far being nice can take ya.  I am a lucky woman.

And I thought this would be a short post.  Well, you should know me by now.  I cannot stop my fingers from flyin'.  Awesome day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Scadsobees

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #48 on: February 13, 2007, 02:10:09 pm »
Speaking of slugs...I had some of the big slugs(4-5inches) in my garden, and they would rear up and eat off beans halfway up.  Because I only had a little garden at the time, I didn't care whether they were kings of slugs, queens, princes or princesses, all I cared was that they were dead.

I tried salting a couple, but it took about a whole can of salt to take care of one, they would slime and slime and then crawl from under the slime, a bit dehydrated but otherwise ok.  Going out at night and cutting them up did better, although that kind of stuff makes me feel squeamish.

Not a problem any more since I moved.
Rick

Offline Kev

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #49 on: February 13, 2007, 10:00:34 pm »
It is wicked of me, but I've taken particular glee in salting a slug - around here they turn a delightful orange as they melt away.  BWHAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously, I do have a slug problem, hopefully when the chickens are here they'll take care of them.  My mother has snails, they came in on a plant at some time, she pays the kids a bounty if they collect them for her.

Can't salt in the garden bed, though. And, when you got 1,000 to kill, you go for efficiency.

BTW, you'll probably be disappointed in your chickens. Ours do not eat slugs at all, ever. (we were bummed). They are pretty vicious predators, though. This summer I saw one grab a small frog and bash it's peeping, squealing brains out before eating it. It was a pretty traumatic scene.

All the books say ducks will eat slugs and snails.

Kev
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Offline reinbeau

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #50 on: February 14, 2007, 10:18:15 am »
Kev, I love your sig line, Frost is one of my favorites, and Birches is one of his best!

I have several friends who have chickens, and they both said their birds ate the slugs we have around here.  They're not huge, they're fairly small brown things, nothing like what grows up in the PNW!  Banana slugs would be just too much around here!

Offline Cindi

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #51 on: February 14, 2007, 10:30:39 am »
Ann, right on!!!  Now you will be a happy gardener.  I hope your chickens eat every little slug that happens upon their vision.  I think the small ones are worse because they are not as visible.

I was cleaning up around our pool yesterday and moved a bunch of little rocks.  Holy crow!!   I couldn't believe how many little slugs were under these rocks, just waiting to come forth at dusk.  Wouldn't you think that the blinking freeze would have killed them?  Guess not.

Today I plan to plant the garlic that I should have planted last fall.  I am not planting as much as last year, I had thousands of bulbs left overand we still have lots left.  One can only give away so much and consume so much.  will not have any more deep freezing that would cause heavy frost heaves.  The garlic should have been planted last October, but something happened and I got too busy I guess.  Not sure doing what, but that is my excuse and I am sticking to it. 

I have plans to feed the excess garlic to the turkeys periodically.  There was a post defining the purpose of this feeding.  Apparently it wards off a parasite the turkeys can get from the chickens.  So, I will feed garlic.  Awesome day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Kirk-o

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #52 on: February 14, 2007, 06:24:05 pm »
If chickens eat slugs you get good eggs
kirk-o
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Offline reinbeau

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #53 on: February 14, 2007, 08:11:03 pm »
I've got five different types of garlic out there, only around twelve or so plants per, so I'm looking forward to comparing them.  I usually just grow german extra-hardy from Johnny's. 

We've had some snow to sleet to rain today, nothing as bad as they predicted.  Hopefully the trip to Georgia will be uneventful!  I can't wait for spring!

Offline Cindi

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #54 on: February 15, 2007, 01:17:00 am »
Ann, right on!!!  I love garlic so much.  I only grow three cultivars, red Russian, white Russian and one called Fish Lake #3.  So easy to grow and a carefree crop surely. 

I have even used garlic to clear up a cluster of plantars warts that were on my grandson's big toe.  I crushed a small amount, put a bandaid on the big toe with the garlic inside, put a sock on overnight, took off the bandaid and reapplied at night for 4 nights.  The plantars warts were gone.  Remember, garlic is antifungal and it honestly worked. Warts gone, never came back.  He had about 12 in a cluster on this daddy toe, it was hideous.

So, garlic for warts!!!!  Enjoy your trip to Georgia!!!  Awesome day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline empilolo

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #55 on: February 15, 2007, 09:58:56 am »
aaahhhh - garlic and escargot.

our local escargot

Offline Cindi

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #56 on: February 15, 2007, 10:37:57 am »
Empilolo.  You have gotta be kidding.  That snail is enormous!!!  Our snails that are indigenous to here are about 1/5 that size.  I am envious, I love to eat escargot.  As a matter of fact, my youngest daughter cooked us our anniversary dinner last night and she bought escargot, but they were about 1/3 size of yours.  I wish we could get ones that big.  Garlic, butter, escargot, lobster tails, and ribs, what a dinner.

I am not kidding.  I wonder if slugs would be similar to snails, they are in same family.  Our banana slugs would make a meal in itself.  That would be an interesting fact to discover.  Awesome day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline empilolo

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #57 on: February 15, 2007, 12:14:09 pm »
That snail is enormous!!!

Actually, there are bigger ones around here.

Quote
Achatina achatina, commonly referred to as the Giant Tiger Snail is the largest land snail species in the world, with an average shell length of at least 18cm, they can get to around 30cm shell length, though a snail growing to that size in captivity would be very unlikely.

They are edible and much priced locally. They are "chewier" than escargot, but that may be as a result of cooking methods. I have never cooked them myself. I prefer Jumping Chicken drumsticks here.

Offline Kev

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #58 on: February 15, 2007, 08:11:12 pm »
Kev, I love your sig line, Frost is one of my favorites, and Birches is one of his best!

I have several friends who have chickens, and they both said their birds ate the slugs we have around here.  They're not huge, they're fairly small brown things, nothing like what grows up in the PNW!  Banana slugs would be just too much around here!

Wow chickens that eat slugs. I see you are in Maine and Mass. Can you find out what breed those chooks are? We're planning to order a few more, so if there's a breed that likes em, we could turn dead slugs into eggs. We have RI reds. They don't seem to like escargot.

Glad you like the sig line. Birches is a great poem. I'm also partial to "Home Burial." He really captured the essence of what it means to be human like few other American poets.

I debated about putting another of my favorite Frostisms up but decided not to. It goes something like "half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't; the other half is composed of people who have nothing to say and keep on saying it."

That one was maybe a little ironic for an internet forum, though.

These slug comments have got me laughing out loud. Those Nigerian snails are huge. Probably have to use a shotgun to patrol your garden for snails with those out there. I wonder how he got the beer away from that one.  :)

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Offline reinbeau

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Re: Breaking ground for new garden
« Reply #59 on: February 25, 2007, 08:13:39 pm »
Kev, as far as I know they're mutts, Rhode Island Red crosses, nothing special.  I know of one person who has Buff Orpingtons and Golden Comets, they eat slugs, too.  Maybe it's the type of slug?  I dunno.  I'll find out this spring when we get ours.

 

anything