March 10th, 2024 Thinking About Soil Science

 In the weeks coming up to early Spring, most of our plans are made and in place. We know pretty much what we are going to grow and where it will all go, before actually starting to put stuff into the ground. And, as we have in all previous years, we fail in enacting a large part of our plans for many reasons. Weather is the ecstatic part of our plan. Nature will do what it does and nothing we plan can change things. Planning is a static thing. We spend time learning new things, looking for pieces of a puzzle aimed at making the Farm produce stuff people will buy. Every year brings a new opportunity to do what we came to do when we bought this place and took up the work. The Farm has it's own schedule, if we fought this idea we'd lose. Despite all of this, every year I try to come up with ideas on how to get the job done. The New Year's Resolution habit has been something I've done for decades. I would pick one thing to learn, one thing to do, and learn to do it; the list of stuff I've learned is pretty overwhelming (you'd think one of them might have made money). Two years ago I spent my spare time looking at Compost stuff. Last year it was all about Pest Control. This year I'm hip deep in soil science. My focus is on improving the soil below the surface, without actually going down into the dirt to get there.

Last year's no-till effort was all about attracting the right sort of animals, worms, and discouraging the wrong sort, beetles. My brother remarked that he had left a straw bail on our soil for a week and when he opened it there were literally hundreds of Compost Worms trying to eat an entire Straw Bail,this  tells me the Compost Worms are abundant and happy. The questions of improving worms is the Earthworm population that actually lives in the soil, not Compost Worms  live in stuff above the soil surface, like piles of leaves and this prepares the compost for being made into Soil Organic Matter (SOM).  But Earthworms take in the clay, sand, and Soil Organic Matter and pass the mix through their digestive system. It comes out behind the worms in clumps which are covered over in digestive microbes.

These microbes release the nutrients they find pre-digested in these clumps. The microbes eat the clumps, they accumulate nutrients in their little bodies, and when they die the nutrition is released into the soil ready for plants to use. Clumping soil is also better because it has space for roots to grow where they will find water and ready nutrients ready for plants to use. But there's one more peice of the puzzle to think about and it takes a bit of learning.

Fungus is among us.  For our purposes I won't go into how fungi are everywhere, on everything, in the air we breath . . . The truth is Fungus is everywhere. But this is about garden soil fungus and there are a few basic types. The first are the Mushroomy sort of fungi that live on rotting wood. This sort of fungus s helpful to farming because it breaks down large wood that worms cannot eat. Permaculture farming is often based on putting logs under the dirt and eventually this leads into some really nutrient heavy soils which don't require much water. There are fungus that break down animal and vegetable matter and these are the things I am writing about today. Fungus processes dead things so once the microbes I wrote of earlier die off this makes room for fungus to come and break their little bodies into their useful parts. Once particular sort of fungi, the mycorrhizal  (literally "fungal root") type,  live on the surface of living root systems.  There are two basic types of mycorrhizal fungi I am spending time learning this year.  Both do basically the same job so I'll treat them the same.

Endo and Ecto Mycorrhizae live on plant roots and connect the roots to the soil in a broad web. The fungi finds loose bits of nutrition and water, carries it to the surface of plant root systems, and trades it for stuff the plants make, like sugars.  These fungi extend the effective size of a plant's roots, so less root is needed to support more plant, more fruiting. Endo Mycorrhizae does this best for annual plants, like Summer vegetables and flowers that live through the Winter in seeds. Ecto Mycorrhizae does this too, but with perennial plants that live through the Winter in the roots of plants.  Both of these types of fungi do much the same job, and just like other fungi they are literally everywhere, but the difference between a good garden and a really great garden is in making the conditions right for these two types of fungi to thrive in the soil all of the time. There's competition to think about.

There are a lot of fungal types, most do something of the same job, breaking down the dead into parts that life can use. These two types specialize in carrying this stuff down to plants in a symbiotic relationship, but the size of the fungal colony waxes and wains, depending on what is being grown. The right conditions are not always present to maintain a huge colony of Endo or Ecto types the whole year around, so colonies have to be re-established and those colonies have to re-grow into a useful size to support great plant growth. So the question becomes: If the soils is right, the worms are there, the microbes are dying in their millions . . .  How do we encourage the right sorts of fungi so that our plants can develop into living their best lives? So my experiment this year is to do a few things and see what happens. 

The first thing I will do has already started. The first things we did were to build a great soil mix so that the worms would come. part of this is to be really aware of soil compaction so that our worms weren't driving around harder soils, part of this was to establish a no-till system that didn't chew our worms up.  The worms brought the right sorts of microbes. Not mixing air into the soil encourages the right sorts of microbes and discourages the wrong sorts. Too much air encourages microbes that eat plant matter very quickly, so it isn't there to hold water or clump behind worms. Too little air ar the microbes we get work very slowly and give off methane gasses. The right sort carefully breaks down plant matter. These steps are already working today.

The second thing we need to do, the part of this year's plan where we make the change, is to put a bit of these Mycorrhizae type into the soil when we plant starts and seeds. Then maintain the soil with an eye toward encouraging the fungi to remain alive and healthy all the year around, so when we plant our veggies and flowers, there is already a thriving fungal community in place with stuff to offer the plants. This ought to encourage rapid plant development and make our short -bottom of a narrow valley- growing season to produce more and produce it more quickly. 

Our no-till system puts worm food on top, keeping our worms happy. Keeping our feet off the planting spaces and using soil watering systems keep our worm habitat happy. The worms spread the microbes, making the microbes happy. Feeding the worms and protecting the soil makes the microbial growth environment happy. If we put some of the Endo and Ecto Mycorrhizae directly on the roots of plants, or in places where seeds will sprout roots, our fungal colonies won't need to find roots to work with, making the fungi happy. And, finally, if the fungi become well entrenched in soils where things grow all of the time, the environment for plants will be completely happy.  Then we might be happy with the increase in produce that we can sell and spend the money on stuff that will make our farm happier.

February 10th, 2024 Farm Planning

2024 Farm Planting Plan
(Click for a larger image)

 January is a time for planning; the weather is horrid. It is cold, and mud is the normal condition of our soils, the days are short, and it is hard to get out of bed before eight in the morning. By the time we're ready to work it is ten A.M. and daylight ends at three-thirty. Not much gets done once you sneek an afternoon nap in.  The world doesn't lend itself to doing things, so we don't. If we were Daoist, this would be a Wu Wei thing. To bring about action without acting; an effect without a cause, without any reaction. 

Wu Wei means a great deal more.  Most people simple say "Wu" to mean the natural way, or in accordance with nature's mandate. Our farm uses completely natural processes to bring produce into the world wherever it can. No-till gardening, despite having large inputs of labor in the beginning phases, uses the least amount of labor over time so as to minimalize the negative effects of labor on the land. If we were to try working the land in the depths of Winter, we'd only make things worse. Mud would get deeper and soils more compact.

Despite all of this philosophy stuff, when there's a break in the weather we wind up doing something to clean up the apparent mess on the Farm, even if it is going in the wrong direction. We move carefully and try not to over-do.  We leave most of the plants in the dirt in late Fall as part of our organic no-till plan. We also leave whatever weeds springing up to grow as much root material as we can in the dirt. Things get to looking pretty bad by the end of January. It's hard to sit back and wait for Spring to come. It has rained nearly every day since early December. So a lot of naps . . .

Last year's Farm planning was the fourth year of planning to make a dollar on farming, but the first year of our no-till plan in action. We spent the Spring building new rows and laying things out. Our greenhouse plan, buying seeds and making planting soil, was not going to change much from the previous year. Our Greenhouse was already in place and the stuff we needed to do early planting already bought.  This year we will add ten feet to the Greenhouse and move it to better ground once we shrink the chicken run and move it to better ground.  We knew how to make soil and plant seeds going into last Spring and we got great responce, so all we need to do is scale it up a bit.  

Last year we made a map of our planting plan using what we knew from experience. But as we went along in building rows we found that our building plan was quite a bit more in size and diversity than we could maintain. The plants did well, but the produce wasn't as successful than in the previous year. We expected the change in method might take a bit to settle in, but we didn't get the results we expected and the weeding was awful. In 2024 we will concentrate on fewer varieties of plants.  The new image (above) shows more melons, less corn. and a change from bush beans to pole beans.  We're adding Russet potatoes to the spud line-up. We eat more potatoes than we sell and, despite  our wonderfully flavorful potato crop, standard bakers are a good thing. 

2023 Strawberries

The pest control plan we used last year worked very well and will largely stay in place. I am adding onions to our barrier plant plan. Though we don't really want to get into frowing onions we can use them and we're told that onions might keep the rabbits and squirrels away. Our crop rotation schedule will change only in locations used. Crop rotation is part of the pest control plan since no-till replaces soil nutrient faster than it can be used.

Last year we added some trellising when it became necessary and the one effective style we found last year will be used everywhere we need trellising this year.  We are removing a few of the rows to allow better access to some of the plants that need more constant care, more sunlight, or that need picking more often. There will be many more flowers in our rows this year, fewer varieties. We sold a lot of flowers last year and this was suprizing.

Getting ready to inprove our Produce Stand operations is part of the planning this Winter. I have a good trailer to build a new Produce Stand on and a place where it can go. The new stand won't be mobile, will have refridgeration, and a roof. There will be a parking area off road and a gate that can close, but this will take some time to put together. There's no rush, but we will try to get this stuff done by next Fall.  

649 baby berries

We've had a few days of partial sunshine this past week so some of our rows have been cleaned up. Our two fifty-six foot strawberry rows are cleaned up and the six hundred baby plants we took out are planted in flats in the Greenhouse will allow us to increase out strawberry planting by five rows. Eventually we might have enough to operate a Upick patch for five months of the year.  The Farm will be much easier to plant and pick this year. Soil, pest, and planting, plans are mostly made. All that is left to do is the doing. 

In other news:
Our chickens are producing enough eggs now. We did not heat their coop this year, opting to let them rest their egg makers a bit. We only had to buy eggs once this Winter, they were organic, from Costco, and fairly dissappointing. We're getting a half dozen a day now. 

Our kennel plans are made and we have quite a bit of it done. The Dog House still has a ways to go. . .  We're planning two or three litters in 2024 and have females in season today. Lilly is first up to breed. Then it will be Abba Zabba's turn. We are letting Taffee do her own thing and hope for one more litter from her which is not as well planned except that it will be Clarke's last turn as well. Breeding is a big part of our income, but boarding is becoming a helpful part of our farm business too. Dog coats are done for the year, but our dog coat plan is in place and did fairly well last year so we're hoping for better next Fall. 

All in all things are going along as they should. There are still a few issues needing resolved, but all things happen in their own time here at Creekside Farm. 

December 26th, 2023 Boxing Day and the Winter Plan

 Every year, about on this same day, and Christmas being done, our thoughts turn back to getting things done on our Farm.  There is a bigger plan in place which we are still working toward and we are not for sitting.  But there is a limit to our energy and daytime sunlight.

It rains nearly every day in Winter and four of seven years there was snow on December 26th. Not a whole lot of motivation for getting out there and getting things done. So we kid ourselves and begin planning for the coming year on this day, every year. Since we have little money, and less time every year, planning is usually a bit more aspirational than actual. A few years ago we might have looked at plans left un-finished as something of a loss.  But we've adopted a new philosophy. Good planning means making larger plans than will actually be done and then letting our actual time and money trim tthe list down. 

This iss the new layout for 2024
The newer areas are highlighted in white.
The rest of it is how we built it so far.

We need to do quite a bit of work on our Kennel spaces. This will happen in the first weeks of the year and be our first priority. We need to make the Doghouse walls tougher and put in some better flooring, and there's a few electrical and plumbing things to work through. The Doghouse had been our Bedroom and Laundry in its previous life, so making it a good Doghouse isn't too much work and more about parts than labor. The Kennel area needs a good fence and some ground cover to keep the mud down. All of this is a high priority since we need to grow our Kennel business.  We will eventually offer boarding and grooming, as well as the breeding and coat businesses we already do. Plenty of work to do.

We have been in our new home for a bit over two years. Some of the finishing work that we hadn't time or money for when we moved into the house is still not done. So we are making a "punch list" of stuff in the house, like moldings, and small  finish flaws, (stuff that can be done on rainy days) and prioritizing them for January and February. When we built the house we painted everything, but the paint was more of a primer color that we could get in recycled paint. So we will re-paint the Bedroom and Bath and this project includes some finish flaws in the drywall and texture. None of this is necessary, but would be nice to get it done. We also never got around to painting the door jambs, window sills, and didn't have the cash to do door and floor moldings, so these too will be a thing this Winter. Our Office has been a catch all for random stuff since we built the place. We have an office, but can barely walk into the room right now. So gathering furishings and putting up shelving will take a higher priority this Winter. We will concentrate most on the Bedroom end of the Farmhouse even though there are things needing done in the Great Room. If there's time we will attend to the Great Room stuff which includes paint and moldings, but these might not all get done.

It is our habit to make our gardening plans in January. These too are often quite large and there is never enough time or energy to get them all done. This year we are rebuilding our chicken coop since our initial build was for fifty hens and we gave up trying to supply the world with eggs last year. So we will scale down the coop and move the hens to a new place with less space and more out of the way. The space we open up moving the chickens will be used as farming space. We will move the Greenhouse once more, having moved it three years ago, to a place inside of the old chicken run. This will add quite a bit of planting space to the Market Garden. We will also add twelve more feet to the length of the Greenhouse to accomodate more planting tables. Adding the length won't cost much and the greenhouse plastic we have will cover the newer length. We will also change the orientation of the place to catch better light and use our heating system and grow lights better. Much of the remaining plans still need to be worked out, but we have experience and most of the equipment is already here. 

Our basic Garden Plan is going to be much the same as last year's planning, but a bit bigger, with less row building to do. Our pest control plan and half the irrigation system is ready to go, but we will need three times as much of everything and this will be our goal for 2024. At some point we neeed to make money of farming. Sprouting a few thousand plants and putting them into dirt is most of what Spring and Summer will look like. 

At some point we would like to get the permanent Farm Stand built. This larger trailer design will be settled inside the Farm's fenceline and we will have parking for customers. The new stand is going to have a large refrigerated walk-in and shelf spaces for canned and other farm made goods. The whole thing will need new fencing, water, and electrical power. We already have much of the stuff to do the work but this might become project for next year since we already have our Farm Stand trailer to work with.

There are a few dozen more items which will have to become part of our bigger list. But the number of items will be bigger than there will be time, money, and physical power necessary to do them. We have never shied away from lofty goals and always make grandiose plans. We'll have to count the successes up at the end of the year. But if the past tells us anything, we always get a lot of stuff done. 

December 09, 2023 Our Christmas Letter

December 1st, 2023 Pest Report

 

Last January I wrote a long(ish) article about our intended strategy for keeping bugs out of our gardens. (You can read about it here.)  And through the Spring and Summer we got the bulk of the tactical plans that came of these thoughts implemented. This article is merely a recap of what happened and can be skipped by most people as trivial.

Our Lettuce Row Covers
kept the rodents away.

Our rodent population this past year was small. Our main concern, after putting in rows of barrier plants and using those few idea we had laying around to keep them off the plants, became moles and voles. These didn't really do much damage to the crops, but appears in every row as a small hole near the end of each row and some few places where the wee beasties had to come up for air. Our no-till growing strategy meant there was deep enough soft ground that these two sorts of animals were able to keep their tunnels much deeper in the dirt. Moles eat worms, of which there were plenty of Compost Worms (Red Wrigglers) above the level of the soil, and Earth Worms (mostly black worms) under the compost layer in the soil. (I did see one fairly large furry little Moles in one of the Compost piles when I moved it with the tractor. Our tangle of Bassets caught it and there was some happy carnage for a little bit.) Voles eat vegetables, mostly root systems. We didn't have much plant predations, though there might have been a little, so Voles weren't really much of a problem. We didn't really see many Moles or Voles, but when we did find an open hole we dropped two or three Mole Bait Pellets into the open hole to keep the numbers down where we could without adding a lot of pesticides to the soil. I saw an open hole this morning, so they are still out there.

We had a bit of a Chipmunk problem in late Spring and I had to shoot them where I could with my 22lr rifle. I got good at it and the chipmunks were mostly under control through the Summer. We had few squirrels, but this Fall there were plenty coming onto the Farm to gather Walnuts and I let them be. The squirrels aren't living on the farm but they are put on notice. We also had a rabbit at the back of the Market Garden. He's a slippery little guy and avoids us. One day I was working in the garden and he walked out of the brambles to lay in the sun. I told him he ought not lay out where I could see him because I definetly would shoot him if I could, so he agreed to lay out somewhere else and we never really had any rabbit troubles this year. I carried my rifle around with me for two months in late Spring and this solved the problem of Chipmunks for the most part. 

We had no Japanese Beetles this year, which were a concern a few years ago, but toward the end of the Summer we did have a few common Cucumber Beetles in amongst the squash and bean plants. These were the only insects that our efforts did little about. We planted many barrier and attractive plants in long rows throughout the gardens and this seemed to do the trick. We had a few Flea Beetles in the Potatoes early on, but a fine kitchen sifter and some diatomaceous Earth took care of it. We applied nematodes to the rows in early Summer and I don't know what effect they might have had. Our only real problem was Flea Beetles. In the bottom half of Summer we had an explosion of Flea Beetle populations throughout the gardens. There were millions of these highly destructive bugs which might have done some real damage to the crop plants. But they were more attracted to the Nasturtiums than anything else and their millions were wiped out in one application of Diatomaceous Earth. Two days after they showed up and turned the Nasturtiums black, and ate nearly every leaf, the plants began to recover. By Summer's end the plants were looking robust and covered in flowers once more. 

There were few slugs in the gardens to worry about. We did find them around the house and in the wood piles. We also saw some Strawberry predation, though this might have been Field Rats or Chipmunks. There wasn't enough trouble to address, so we let it go. Our first year of the new Strawberries was great, next year we'll put in three times the number. 

Our little Farm Stand

Bottom line, the strategies we adopted last Winter worked pretty well. The only real trouble was the Flea Beetle explosion, which we saw immediately, got on top of, and solved easily since the combination of an attractive plant and an organic solution worked easily.  The rodent populations will continue to be a problems since clearing territory only gives outsiders an opportunity. I suppose that vigilance is the price of lettuce and hunting them out seems the only way to control the damage. We'll likely try adding barrier plants to the edges of the Farm next Spring. I'm thinking allium types will give us a crop plant that rodents don't seem to want to cross through might do the trick. 

Winter is setting in at Creekside Farm. Our Christmas lights are up and we can't wait to find a tree to dirty up the Farmhouse. Our Farm is looking pretty good and we're pretty sure of the future, so long as things continue as they are. Life here is good, if not easy.

I read a story a very long time ago about the Laziest Man on Earth. Born on a farm he thought it would be better for him to avoid all of that hard work by doing the easier work of thinking, so he went to school. That he became a mathematician isn't the moral of his story though. I learned from this that thinking things through, when you have the time to do it, was one very good way to avoid as much of the physical labor as one could while still being a farmer. Our pest controlling "dogmatic" thoughts of last Winter seemed to have not been a waste of time.