Some Updates on the Garden

The heat of summer is certainly upon us. The insects are taking over the garden with extreme force. Just walking around this morning I found two varieties of stink bugs.

 This is the brown maramarated stink bug. I don't remember seeing many of them last year, but a few years ago there were TONS of them.

Because of the massive invasion of these guys, all my tomatoes still coming off the vine were so damaged and just sticky and gross, I decided to clip down the plants and wait a month and replant for the fall. Since I'm trying to keep as much vegetation recycling directly back into the soil, I took a pair of manual hedge shears and chopped up the tomato plants into a fine salad and laid it on the existing mulch. I didn't think much of it initially, but I did leave about 2 inches of stump at the bottom, and the tomatoes may regrow...which would be awesome and perfect when they start fruiting in the fall. I'm interested to see what becomes of it. I've probably harvested 20 lbs of tomatoes. I'll be making and canning spaghetti sauce this weekend, my favorite way to store the tomatoes.

I left the Rutger tomato plant because it looked like it had a lot more to grow. If it gets too overrun, I'll take it down too. I should just take out the cucumbers too because they are a bust, I didn't get anything from them, but I thought it might be possible they would survive the summer and make a comeback in the fall. I'm still on the fence.

Along with the bad bugs, I did find some beneficials too. Early in the season there were lots of lady beetles, now I'm seeing Assasin bugs and black soldier flies.

Milkweek Assasin bug. He has a long pokey proboscis looking thing on the bottom side of his head. All the better to kill the bad soft bodied insects around the garden. He and his nymph friend were hanging out on the eggplant, which are finally starting to grow some fruit. Thanks for your help buddy, you're always welcome around here!

Then there are the soldier flies, which are mostly neutral, they don't even eat in their adult life, they just live to reproduce. As far as the garden goes, I don't mind them but they do buzz around like wasps and can be unnerving. They don't carry any diseases and such, so they're pretty inert.

The larvae are actually extremely efficient at breaking down rotting food. I think they're much faster than compost worms. I have a tendency to not put enough carbons in my worm towers (I had the same issue with my composters, which is why I gave them up) and so the environment has been perfect for soldier fly larvae and they make quick use of the scraps. I can't even keep my 8 towers filled anymore because they are so fast at reducing it all to mush, the burning heat helps too. When they are done eating, they just climb out the tube and become adults. If you have chickens, you can harvest them to feed your birds.

Concerning the worm towers, it's been 3 months since I installed them. I'm not yet sure how effective they have become for attracting native worms, but they've been ideal for composting in general. My kids love "feeding the worms" and they're just so easy to use. Once it got hot enough to kill off the fruit flies, I've been much happier with them. I'll try to put forth more effort to put in carbons as often as I do nitrogens so the worms have something to work on. The soldier fly larvae really prefer to eat on the nitrogens. I'll be digging around the towers and do an update in the fall after they've been in 6 months and see how much better or worse my dirt looks.

In other news, the sunflowers are blooming. I stopped fertilizing them so they got pretty lanky before they flowered and then we had a really windy day and they blew over. By that time the heads were too heavy for the plant to recover upright, but as long as they're still alive, I will let them be. When the heads start to die and yellow, I'll cut them off and hang in the garage to finish drying and maturing the seeds. Last year  I tried to hang a paper bag over the head like I had read, and that just doesn't work here in our humidity. All it did was mold and lost all the seeds. My husband is 5'7", before they started to bend, they were at about 9.5-10 ft.

The watermelons really love the shade that the sunflowers provide. They don't have a whole lot of leafy growth so the sunflower leaves keep the melons from sunburning. we have 6 melons growing. Lost one to DS, but he hasn't picked anymore since.

I planted some okra near the watermelons and they are doing ok, but not great. The ones shown here are planted near the peppers and are loving it there. Here's some of the peppers I picked from our plants. Not huge, but the best I've ever grown. The walls were thick and extremely juicy. I kept getting sprayed in the eye while cutting up the peppers. The plants are still really green and are getting along well. The peppers I planted in the herb bed aren't doing as well. I didn't prime their planting spots with rabbit manure though.

I probably won't have much update for a while, I can't bear to be outside for too long anymore, it's just so hot. The plants are mostly done anyway sans the eggplant and the upcoming okra. Oh well I guess potatoes will be ready soon, the plants flowered and they've started to wilt. I'm excited to see what some sprouted grocery store potatoes will yield me. I did toss some Buckwheat into the corn bed and I am hoping that sprouts up and generates some biomass to lay over the exposed stalks.

So far, I'm loving my new gardening techniques this year, no till, mulching/ back to eden, lasagna, organic fertilizing.

Corn!

I started getting a little ansty for the corn to be ready and took one ear off that looked the most ready and it was looking good. Once the kids saw me take one off they insisted they all needed to come off. I'd been seeing more bugs hanging out around the corn so I decided to go ahead and pull the majority of the ears. As it turns out, the development of the corn really wasn't much better than last year. I had a few that were really well filled, but most of them were still just small. Still tasty though. I think next year I'll plant the rows differently and stagger the plantings by a week or so, that way the pollen hangs around longer. One of these years I'll perfect it. Until then, I think this was a pretty good haul.

My shucking helpers

This guy was stowed away and I stuck my fingers in all the mush because I wasn't watching what I was doing. It totally grossed me out. I think this is a corn earworm and I think I've had them in the past, but they ate up several of my ears this year. You can just cut off the chewed part and eat the rest of the corn if that doesn't gross you out too much. Good news is there was no stink bug damage this year and overall I had much better pollination of the lower kernels, I think this is a result of my hand pollinating but all my pollen expired before the silks were done being fertilized which is why I ended up with mostly half ears.

Those kids looooove shucking corn

We got a very large bowl filled to the brim. It was so tender and sweet. I just wished the kernels were bigger and many were not quite ready due to the kids' enthusiasm but all still edible.

Once I harvested the corn, I usually pull out the stalks and bundle and put them out to the curb but this year I'm trying something new and I just broke the stalks at soil level and laid them down in the bed and covered them with a layer of mulch. Unless my plants are diseased or severely infested with critters I intend to do this with all my plants this year. In the process I mulched over my field peas as well. I pulled some out and did see plenty of nitrogen nodules so I'm hopefully they are adding some back to the soil as they die off. In probably two weeks once the corn has died and settled I'll try to broadcast some buckwheat in that bed as a cover crop.

A Lost Cause

Well, the squash vine borers finally annihilated my squash and zucchini plants. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would miss eggs. I wasn't exactly being diligent either since I was getting tired of zucchini. The fridge is still full of it. I was planning to rip the plants out anyway but when I saw the health of the plant rapidly decline and new leaves looking wilty I figured I already knew what happened. I tore the plants out this morning and there they are the little culprits.

There are two of them towards the top of the stalk with little brown heads and all their poop (called frass) towards the bottom where they've been. Now that I know what I'm seeing, I'm sure this is what has happened to my squash in the past. I don't think I will plant squash here again for a few years in case there are any bugs there that will come out later in the season.

I think I'll plant some more okra there. I already planted some along the edge of the watermelon bed and the pepper/potato/strawberry bed. Or maybe I'll just let the area rest, now that I'm sure my dirt is protected with the mulch I'm not so afraid to leave the area bare.

So Many Beans and Promising Corn

One of my most favorite crops is green beans. They're SO easy to grow and the particular variety I like (Greencrop) is extremely prolific, even after the kids maul the plants in their enthusiasm to pick beans. The plant just bounces back and produces more and more and more. Bush varieties may not typically produce as much as vine varieties but this one is a contender. We pick a big bowl of beans from 8 plants about every 2 to 3 days. More frequently if I can keep DS from grazing, but he eats a sizable handful on his own every day.

The corn is also doing exceptionally well this year. Although I know I planted closer together than I should have almost every stalk has developed an ear and in a few cases there are two ears! The plants are over 6' tall now which is the tallest I've ever had a crop of corn grow. In the past I have just gone out and shaken the plants a bit and let the wind do it's own pollinating. I do always end up with the tips of the corn never filled out. This year I've gone out nearly every morning since the silks started showing and hand pollinating with a bushy paint brush. I just want to see if it really makes a difference. In this way I can target the tassels and anthers (dangly bits on the tassel) that are still full of fresh pollen and spread it to the new silks on all the corn, many times on plants that have tassels that are already done. You can tell that a silk has been pollinated if it turns dark and begins to shrivel within a few days. It's about time to put up my squirrel fence around the corn because those little critters will shred it open right on the plant and eat it up!

The male flower of corn, called the tassel. The dangly bits are the anthers which are pockets that contain the pollen, they will be a dark pinkish red when they are ready to release pollen and will turn orangy when they are spent.

The female flower of corn is called the silks. Each silk has to be pollinated to form the kernel that it is attached to. Silks continue to emerge for days, up to a week after the first silks show, so it's important to make sure it gets pollen continually to ensure a full ear of corn.

My whole crop of corn, in an 8'x8' bed, there are approximately 70 plants. I'll probably end up with around 45 ears due to some not developing silks, loss to bugs/squirrels, and underpollentation.

This stalk has two female flowers (silks) the top one is mostly pollinated and just forming kernels now and the lower one has new silks ready to be pollinated. I've had double silks before but the second one never formed an edible ear. I'll be super thrilled if this one does.

One for The Good Guys

Just thought I should point out that despite the pests I've seen, I've also seen quite an abundance of good guys too, specifically Lady Beetles. I'm happy to see them take up residence in my garden because I know they like to eat the bad guys, they're particularly fond of eating aphids. I haven't seen any aphids though. I do worry a little that the fact there is enough bugs to feed such a population, but I haven't seen devastating evidence so I guess the balance must be just right.

One of my little buddies. I named this one George. You can see the corn is just about to tassle. Since I took this picture about a week ago, many of the stalks have opened their tassels and many of their silks are just starting to emerge. I will go out probably mid week and give the stalks a good shake to distribute the pollen to the silks. I may do a little hand pollinating just to be extra sure the inside corns are filled out as much as the exterior are.

Every year I see evidence such as this on a couple of corn plants. I'm not sure what does it, but due to the pattern of the holes I expect this chewing is done when the plant is pretty young and the leaves are still rolled up. It doesn't seem to have much effect so I just don't worry about it much.

Zucchini and squash are in full swing. Since I took this picture about 3 days ago, we've also picked two more zucchini and a yellow crookneck squash. I've never gotten yellow squash out of the garden before so that was pretty exciting. The zucchini and squash plants seem to be the most under siege this year. Just today I squished a cucumber beetle and a stink bug nymph and chased off a squash vine borer and destroyed several eggs. Yesterday i was pretty sad to see one of my pepper plants nearly demolished and a webby white cocoon inside a curled leaf. I meant to take a picture but I just smashed it in my rage. Not sure what kind of caterpillar it was, but those suckers are so damaging so fast.

And I keep wondering, like every year, when will those tomatoes turn red already?! It seems to take forever, and there are so many.

Windblown

This is seriously the weirdest Spring ever for our area. Last week we had a front come through that dropped us into the 40s at night. I think the plants are thoroughly confused, but yet they continue to grow, so that's great. With the front came 2 brutal days of high speed non stop winds. I wish I had decided to mulch my corn. I came out to find this:

Kind of reminds me of that yogurt/probiotic drink commercial where all the people are walking leaning because they're out of balance or something. Clearly you can see this was a strong west/northwest wind. After it finally calmed down some, I loaded up my wheelbarrow with compost I had left over and carefully righted the stalks and mounded them up and saturated the soil so it was a heavy muck to give them a little more strength against the remaining wind until they recovered. I worked in little more blood meal and bone meal in the process and fed with fish emulsion a few days later. I expect they should recover ok. I'm pretty sure I planted too close again this year so I've been feeding more than I usually would. I hope they pollinate and produce ok.

DD also helped me pick the first bunch of green beans on Sunday. She doesn't care much for green beans, but she loves picking anything out of the garden. We should be picking bowlfuls soon. I went out and planted a few more seeds to try and extend the season. I haven't tried that before so we'll see how it goes. In the process, I moved aside the wood mulch to the compost, which was damp and cool, just scraped aside a hole big enough for the seeds and I happened upon a worm! I'm totally thrilled, I guess the worm towers are helping, but I think the compost itself has had the biggest influence. Either way, I'm happy to find a worm so easily and I really do love composting via the worm towers, it's been much more convenient than the rotating bins.

More Pests!!

The warmer week we've had is really making the bugs come out of the woodwork. I've never been quite so attentive to the critters coming in and out of the garden, but this is definitely the year I'm more conscientious of everything surrounding the plants and not just the plants themselves.

My most recent discoveries:

This is a Squash Vine Borer (Melittia cucurbitae). I saw this guy flying around and thought it was a wasp of some kind until I took the picture and realized it was fuzzy and figured it was some kind of moth (though flying around during the day I thought was weird). I couldn't figure out what it was just Googling on my own so I asked mom, who knows EVERYTHING and she told me what it was, and then Googling confirmed that. It also helped me identify what the eggs look like.

Doesn't look like much, but it is a small flatish red brown spec, usually standing pretty alone. Thankfully my plants are pretty clean and healthy so they were easy to spot, sticking out like a sore thumb. There were a few stalks there were 4 or 5 in a row like the critter had just walked along pooping out eggs as it crawled along the stem, but it was mostly one here and one there, no clusters. They pop off pretty easy and smash easy too so if you see some on your plants, destroy immediately. If the worms hatch, they immediately dig into your plant and kill it from the inside by eating it. Very difficult to save the plant once the damage is done. I don't plan to let that happen now that I know what to look for.

In the process of photographing the eggs I also saw this nuisance:

Which Google easily told me is a Spotted Cucumber Beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata howardi), another pest. I don't know much about them yet other than they can easily be mistaken for a yellow lady beetle, which are good guys. This is NOT a good guy, notice the black head and longer thorax section between the head and main body, the lady beetles don't have that. They hatch little worms that consume foliage. The larvae are commonly known as corn rootworms and destroy crops from the roots. I've only seen two of these guys so far. I'll have to keep an eye out for them and their worms. This year was looking so promising, maybe I'm just being paranoid or just more aware, but the pests are out to get my garden this year!

Prevention is the best way to control most pests so keep your eyes peeled in the spring to avoid devastation later!

Green as She Grows

The garden is almost in full bloom and production mode. Some plants have already begun, I suspect within the week we will begin harvesting zucchini and green beans.

Potatoes sprouted from the pantry. If they make anything I will be thrilled. Learning about how the plant operates here is valuable for years to come. Bell pepper is at least green this year, though still not very tall or looking very vigorous. One of these years I will figure it out. I've been feeding with blood meal every other week and fish emulsion on the opposite weeks. I will be happy if the plant produces anything. I expect better results next year once the soil is happier.

Watermelon and Sunflower. The watermelon this year is already much happier than last year. I've been feeding both of these plants abundantly with blood meal, which is high in nitrogen, to encourage their leafy growth, when it is time for flower and fruit, I will apply bone meal, which is high in potassium. The mulch is proving to be an excellent addition to the garden, the soil is staying damp and the plants are really happy about it.

Same story for the cantaloupes. Much more vigorous than last year, though not growing aggressively fast.

I had some concerns that I didn't plant enough field peas around the corn, but they are finally ramping up and generating biomass. The peas really seem to appreciate the shade from the corn. The corn really seems to need to be mounded up again as they get taller they are leaning a bit. I may add some mulch in soon to help this if the peas don't go to flower soon. I am feeding the corn heavily on blood meal and fish emulsion. I can tell where I haven't fertilized as heavily, the stalks are light green instead of rich deep green.

Green beans have already started flowering, the tiny little fruits will start expanding soon. I have only fed these plants an occasional feeding of fish emulsion. They seem to do great on their own.

The first flowers of the zucchini opened just a day after our Relief Society gardening class. The two flowers at the bottom are females and the one just above is a male. Zucchini grows super fast. I expect to eat some on Friday. Last year i had issues with the fruit only developing on the plant end, the blossom end wouldn't expand and grow, but instead, shrunk and shriveled. I spread a little bone meal and cottonseed meal hoping this might help with more even fruit development.

The tomatoes are well on their way. I've made it a point to NOT point out where the green tomatoes are on the plant to DS as last year he kept picking them all before they had even started to blush. Pollination rate has been exceptional this year. I just spread some bone meal here to encourage good fruit development. Smashed two stink bugs today. I didn't see any nymphs so they must have flown in from the neighbors to lay their eggs. I hope I destroyed them before they laid, but only time will tell.

The cucumbers have been pretty unhappy about the cold snaps, but I think that is good because I usually have so many cucumbers ready well before the tomatoes and I love to eat them together. Some of the plants have just started flowering but I hope they will come on fully at about the same time as the tomatoes. One of my happiest memories is eating tomato and cucumber salad with Italian dressing at my grandparent's home as a kid. You just can't beat that fresh home grown, sun ripened taste.

Thanks to the Thyme flowering at just the right time, there have been tons of bees in the garden. In the fall I always let some broccoli go to flower because the bees love those bright yellow flowers. It seems they have quite the preference for the tiny abundant flowers. Bees always welcome here so I don't have to hand pollinate.

The Enemy has Arrived

I have been pretty pleasantly surprised at the lack of stink bugs in the garden this year so far. I attributed it that to the unusual cold weather we've had this spring and the rain. I decided to take my daily walk around the garden and check on the progress the plants have made. the squash, zucchini, and cucumbers are starting their first blooms. But then.....I looked and beheld the enemy!

For your benefit only did I take pictures first and smash later. The biggest pest I have encountered in my garden in the last 4 years are these critters, the stink bug. Actually the top one is called a Leaf Footed Bug (Leptoglossus phyllopus) the bottom one may be a not quite mature LFB or another species, still within the same family. They are both stink bugs (and yes they stink when you smash them). They have piercing mouth parts, which means they poke your fruits (I've had the most issue with tomatoes and corn) and suck out the juice and leave a pithy white hard spot where they've eaten. The damage is ugly and it reduces the palate-ability, juiciness, and flavor of the fruit, though it is harmless to consume where they have eaten, it just makes me sad :-(

The juveniles are red and black and can't fly yet, so smash them the moment you see them because they are much harder to control once they are adults and can fly!

Back to Eden Film Photo Contest

Back to Eden Film Photo Contest

Six weeks ago the soil was barren, and now it finds renewed fertility in a bed of compost and wood chips. My kids are particularly thrilled to see the plants grow so big this year.

Mulch to Do about Mulch

I ran across this film by mention from a friend and was totally inspired because I knew this is what I had been doing wrong for the last four years.

My first year gardening, I had mulched my beds with 2 inches wood mulch over a topsoil/mushroom compost mixture and I had OK results. The second year I turned by beds over and decided I wouldn't mulch again because the chips didn't turn into the soil well and it was chunky and I didn't like the appearance of the tilled in wood chips. I had a great year of produce! The next year all the mulch was gone and I noticed a decline in my garden results. I attributed it to the particularly hot summer and lots of stink bugs. Last year I only made minimal amendment to the soil and hoped for the best. The output was nothing short of a disappointment, by the time fall gardening came around, nothing grew save lots and lots of mustard greens, which would probably find a crack in cement and flourish. I examined the soil, found it hard and crusty, no earth worms, even the weeds refused to grow there. I had depleted the growing capacity of my soil and downgraded it to nothing more than dirt.

So I went looking for answers, I came to cover crops and worm towers. I've felt somewhat optimistic about my new prospects for this year until I came upon Back to Eden and knew it was the mulch that I had been missing. It was the constant feed that the soil yearned for to thrive and flourish. The protection from our incredibly intense summer sun and the pounding rains. I wasted no time and found a source of free wood chips and now I've gone "Back to Eden"

 A few days before adding the mulch. This is bare manure/humus compost about 4 inches on top of the depleted soil.

This is just a week later after adding the wood chips, about 3 or so inches. Despite the unusual cold we've been experiencing the plants are insulated and happy, especially the tomatoes are feeling the love.


The plants are no longer wilting in the afternoon. I no longer am cautiously optimistic about the results this year, but eager to harvest the abundance I'm sure will come

Mushroom Madness

It seems like every spring I get a plague of mushrooms pop up in my garden. Usually they are pretty evenly spaced around the garden and there's not too many. I see them for about a week and then they die off and I don't seem em again. I'm pretty sure they come from the compost that I buy and add to the garden. In previous years I've bought a garden mix which is mostly topsoil and some mushroom compost. Mushrooms coming from that makes sense. This year I bought manure compost and humus compost. I wasn't really surprised to see mushrooms, but for some reason they decided to inhabit only one bed.

It seems like it would make sense if ALL the beds had mushrooms in them, but nope, only this one sans a stray mushroom or two in the bed next to this one. There are so many coming up I'm a little concerned they are going to push some of the seeds that haven't sprouted out of the ground.

I used to be a pretty concerned about mushrooms being in my garden and I used to pick them, but I decided they grow and die so fast that it probably doesn't matter. They may even be beneficial due to the fact they are breaking down organic matter and that's a good sign there is organic matter there. Since I don't know if this particular variety is poisonous or not, I just caution my kids not to touch, pick, or eat them. They'll go away in a week or so and my garden bed will look normal again.

Mushrooms: no worries, just don't eat em.

First Attempts at Cover Crops

So this year is really about building up and enriching my soil. I'll be totally thrilled if my plants do well too. As part of my research, I've come across what are called cover crops and sometimes they are referred to as green manure. The terminology just refers to the ways you intend to use the crop. After reading lots and lots I decided on a couple of crops to try out this year:

• Field Peas
• Buckwheat
• Crimson Clover
• Hairy Vetch

The main purposes of a cover crop are:

1. Cover empty ground
2. Prevent erosion
3. Prevent washing away of nutrients
4. Break up compacted soils
5. Return nutrients and organic matter back to the soil.

Typically cover crops are used on large farms, but what works in large scale, usually works well in small scale too. I didn't find a ton of information about using cover crops specifically in a raised garden, suburban setting so I think I've got a lot of learning and figuring out to do this year.

Legumes such as Field Peas, Crimson Clover and Hairy Vetch are Nitrogen fixing plants. That means they convert nitrogen into the air into nodules on their root systems that can be used by roots of plants. The key to getting the benefits is to kill the plant before it uses the nitrogen it has stored into bearing the fruits...or seeds. While field peas are edible if left to seed, I lose the benefit of nitrogen fixation if I let them go that far. I intend to use all of these crops as green manures this year.

I chose buckwheat because it is VERY fast growing, loves the heat and produces an abundance of biomass. In our area of Texas we can get two warm seasons of productive growth: March-Juneish and August-Decemberish. When many of my plants are spent but before it is on the downswing of summer where I can start a fall crop, I tend to have barren soils for a month or two. During this time the sun just bakes and dries out the poor earth and it is hard and terribly deficient by the time fall plantings come around. This is where Buckwheat will come into play. I have just enough window of time to grow a season of buckwheat and cut down before fall planting adding lots of organic matter for the fall crops to consume. I hope it works out as well as I imagine it will.

Field Peas will be my companion crop for the corn this year. Something I didn't know about corn is that is is a nitrogen hog. That explains why my second crop of corn never did well or did anything, the first crop consumed all the nitrogen that was in the soil and the second crop got nothing. My corn so far has sprouted to about 4 inches. I still have it covered in bird netting because the birds and squirrels will still dig it up at this point. I removed the cover, mounded the rows of corn for extra stability as they continue to grow and then broadcast my field peas between the rows in all the rest of the available spaces. I raked it in lightly and then watered the whole bed very well and replaced the bird netting. Unfortunately, while I meant to inoculate my seeds, I didn't...so while they won't fix the maximum nitrogen, they still should do pretty well on their own. To inoculate the seeds means that you coat them with a specific strain of powdered bacteria. This particular bacteria helps the plant to fix the nitrogen from the air. It's some kind of symbiotic relationship. I don't know a whole lot about it other than you are supposed to do it. My other legume seeds I bought have already been inoculated.

I will let the field peas grow until they flower and about a week after flowering, I'll cut the plants down which should kill the plants and any nitrogen in their roots will be released into the soil and the worms and other organisms in the soil will feed on the plant matter which will also provide cover to the soil to help with erosion and compaction from the rain and sun. That's the plan anyway. All the directions I've found for killing cover crops speaks of "mowing" them down. Well that doesn't work so well with a raised bed, not to mention it would take me a week to dig out the mower from the shed since we pay someone to cut our grass. I plan to just use my manual hedge shears to hack away at the plants from top to bottom. I hope that'll work alright.

The Crimson Clover and Hairy Vetch will be my cover crop from Nov/Dec-Feb/March. I've read lots of good things about planting tomatoes into Hairy Vetch after it is cut down. Works great as mulch and fixes the nitrogen that the tomatoes need. The Clover is exceptionally good at creating biomass and is pretty to boot. I may not do a fall garden at all this year except maybe some collard greens, a few broccoli, and carrots, that's all I ever end up using anyway. 

I think keeping my beds covered and fed in this way over the downtime will really make a difference in my soil. I'm hoping it'll lower my physical labor requirements as well since I won't have to do so much breaking and turning of the dirt, the plants and worms should keep everything conditioned well enough all I'll need to do is plant right into the mass.

The Birth of a Garden

My favorite part of gardening is the week after the seeds are planted and the tiny new lives are pushing their way through the soil. I'm always amazed and so excited to see my little seedlings beginning their growth cycle. I see and imagine all their potential to become these beautiful plants bearing fruit for me and my family.

Sunflower (Kong Hybrid)

Cucumbers (Sweet Slice Hybrid)

Corn (Bodacious Hybrid) 

Notice the bird netting. It's the only way I can keep the squirrels and birds from digging up the seeds/seedlings. I'll remove it when the spouts are about 6-8 inches.

Asparagus - 1 year old plant. (Martha Washington I think)

Some plants are eager to please. Asparagus is harvested early in the spring. I just cut back all the old ferns that grew last year about a week ago and now you can see the new spouts are eager to begin. We'll harvest for 6-8 weeks and then let shoots grow into ferns at that point to nourish the crowns underground for the next season.

DS enjoys the first asparagus shoot of the season. After devouring raw he asked for more, unfortunately I had to tell him he would have to wait a day or two for the next one to be ready. You gotta catch these things fast because they grow very quickly, the difference in just 12 hours could be waiting too long.

Journey to the Worm Towers

If you live in this area, you know our dirt is already pretty sad. They call it Black Gumbo...but I don't get that because Gumbo is rich and delicious and the clay soil is more tannish gray with rusty lookin spots than black so I don't see how the name fits, but whatever. In any case, it's basically pure clay. Since my neighborhood, Eagle Springs, is fairly new, we have a layer of sand sitting on top of the clay. I think that's the builder's feeble attempt to get the sod to not just instantly die when they install it.

The point being, the dirt is pretty poor and worms don't like it much. The best chance for gardening is to build raised beds over the native atrocity called soil. The first 4 years, I have pretty much neglected the fact that soil is really important in the growing of vegetables. I just assumed, put it in dirt and it'll be fine. I was so wrong. I gradually saw my garden yields get worse and worse and the plants themselves just not thriving. I've turned my attention away from using chemical fertilizers to sustain my plants (the reality is I'm way too lazy to drag myself out in the intense heat of the summer to spray fertilizer as much as is required when relying on it as the sole nutrient source for the plants...it's way more often than you realize).

This year I'm taking a turn to more organic gardening. I started composting about a year ago with two barrel rotating bins. It's been working fine...ish. My lawn is way too manicured to have enough carbon addition. I tried using newspaper torn into strips as the carbon, but what this amounted to is big matted balls of newspaper. I'd have to use a fine shredder for it to work better. It was hard enough just getting myself out there to throw kitchen scraps in it because of the HUGE swarm of fruit flies that attacks me as soon as I open the lid. I know that can be remedied with adding enough carbon on top of the new additions, but that takes me back to I know the newspaper strips don't work that well and shredding is too much effort. Yes, I'm THAT lazy. So all my composting has actually turned into a very wet sludge like muck full of fruit flies, palmetto bugs, and soldier fly larvae. Don't get me started on actually rotating the bins. It's more difficult than I expected and the slime leaches out onto the bin and gets on your hands. gross. After a year, I'm pretty sure my ways aren't changing.

So I didn't want to give up composting because I am still in love with the idea of recycling kitchen scraps back into my garden and feeding it. In my searches to figure out how to improve soil naturally, attracting worms was a big deal. Worms like lots of organic matter. This year I trucked in 3 yards of manure compost and humus compost from New Earth Soils and Compost in Conroe. Just in case you are interested in ordering, it's $150 delivery charge! I guess since they have to drive an hour to get here I suppose that's reasonable. I couldn't find anywhere closer (just searching online) that sold the quality of compost that I wanted. They all seemed to have extra mineral fillers (like topsoil or sand) and I just wanted the pure organic matter. I was very happy with the actual quality of the compost when it got here. The pile was hot, dark, rich, and in the humus compost I found lots of fruit stickers...while they aren't biodegradable it's a good sign of excellent ingredients in the compost. So I think the $200 I spent was worth it.

In years past, I've trucked in dirt but I haven't given back to the soil in any way and that's why over time it depleted and became so poor. This year I am determined not to let that happen and to keep my investment healthy. So back to the worms. I needed more worms. To make room for all the compost I actually shoveled out several wheelbarrow loads from the boxes and spread the bad dirt in low spots in my yard, in the process I found 1 tiny worm and a handful of grubs. Not a good sign. I've read that healthy soil has at least 10 worms per cubic foot. While researching how to get more worms in my soil (now that I had plenty of compost to support them) I came across what is known as a Worm Tower. It's basically a pipe with holes in the bottom half buried enough to cover the holes, then you fill with organic matter for the worms and they come in to eat at your cafe and go out to poop (called castings in vermiculture) in your garden and feed your plants. Whaaaat?! All I have to do is chuck my kitchen scraps and the occasional handful of leaves into a hole and the rest of the work is done for me!? Sign me up!

I sent DH to the hardware store where he purchased two 10 foot 6" diameter PVC pipes and 8 garden pots.  This cost about $150. You can save a lot by going down to 4" diameter pipe, but I wanted bigger to fit more scraps. The next day he set to work cutting them into 2.5' lengths and drilling holes in the bottom 18-22" He started using a 1/2" spade bit, but according to him was taking FOR-EV-ER so he switched to a 3/4" spade bit and was much happier. I don't think the size of the hole matters that much, just enough for the worms to get in and out. Also FYI, do this on a calm day or somewhere the wind can be blocked because the resulting PVC shavings are a MESS and they get EVERYWHERE and there are a TON of them. I think the wind probably spread a pound of them around the neighborhood :-/ Not so environment friendly...

Size comparison to a small 3-year-old

A worm tower

So now you have to dig holes deep enough for this. Do not attempt to do this will a shovel, you will go mad, purchase or borrow a PHD...that's Post Hole Digger. The heavier the better because the tool will do most of the work for you. I'm 5'2" and 105 lbs and I dug all the holes myself through the thick clay. The worst part is having to scrape the clay off after every scoop. Make sure after you reach the clay to start dumping it in a wheelbarrow to "dispose" of elsewhere. I did what I always do with yard stuff I don't want to deal with..throw it behind the shed or electrical box...lots of branches, spent plants, and clay back there...haha.

The last step is to cover the pipe to keep critters and bugs out. The pots that DH bought would not be my first choice, but I figure I'll give them a try before searching for something a little more snug. In all the tutorials I read, people usually use a straight sided pot (like you get from buying a tree from a nursery) and a piece of mesh material or screen for dissuading bugs. I did without the screen because the pots don't fit well. If bugs become a problem I'll have to figure out a new cap.

So there you have it, a worm tower. Just fill with organic materials that worms like to eat. I "primed" my towers with a bed of leaves/pine needles and a shovel full or two of the almost done compost from my bins and then added fresh scraps on top. Almost every tutorial mentioned adding Red Wigglers (a composting worm) to keep the process fast. I read they are finicky about temperature and they will likely cook in the Texas heat. So I'm building these on the premise of "If You Build it, They Will Come" hoping to attract native worms...which are the burrowing type that will eat the material, poop in the garden, and till the earth. While they're slower at this process, worms multiply the more resources are available. I hope this will work out just great for me. I sunk 8 towers evenly spaced across my 256 sq foot garden so the worms shouldn't have to go far to find a feast.

Another plus is that the kids are totally excited to "feed the worms." So when I have a bowl of kitchen scraps I let them take the bowl out and they can feed the worms all by themselves. This is another reason I decided to put the towers at the edge of the garden beds instead of in the center, ease of access.

I'm excited to get these wriggly workhorses working for me!