Fall Garden Pantry Prep

 

Fall Gardening Time is here! 

I know, we're not out of the triple digits yet, and only a  handful of folks have actually gotten any rain since forever. But we have to get started because we know at some point, the bottom is going to drop out of this heat bubble and bring us rain, cooler temps and the ability to grow again, right before we get a freeze. 

Welcome to gardening in the extremes. 

What products do I recommend?

Below, within my commentary, I will include my recommendations. Something new for me, and an easy way to help the farm make a little extra ching-a-ling, is for you to shop directly off the blog. 

If you buy through some of these links within 24 hours of clicking on them, Eden's will make a tiny little bit of commission from Amazon. And if enough of you do this, it'll help. Every little bit helps. You'll still be serviced through Amazon, no difference in the price, nothing changes there. products you might (hopefully) otherwise buy here if I was still able to stock the shelves like I used to. So, thanks in advance! 

There are hundreds or more products out there to choose from anymore. The ones I recommend, are my suggested items with which to stock your garden pantry, because I have some kind of history with them. Most are items I've stocked in the past. A few I still have on the shelf for special orders. If I can't find the specific brand of amendment, I'll simply link you to the right page of several choices for the amendment I'm suggesting. 

This is a way I can "sell" the products I've carried, and successfully used myself, without needing the deep pockets it takes to stock the store and the manpower and time it takes ship things out. All of which takes away from my farming time, which right now is my main priority as it has been for many years. 

I do hope to one day provide a full service brick and mortar shop again. I love helping folks! And with the new development plans rolling forward, maybe this old farm house will actually become the garden shop I intended for it to be in the first place!

But for right now, let's see how this works. You shop from home and have everything delivered and be ready to tackle that gardening project as soon as the weather breaks!  I can reach folks too far away to come to the shop. I'm always an email or phone call/text away for questions, too.

So let's get started!

Soil is the most important component to any healthy garden. Whether you're growing flowers or edibles, your soil needs to be alive!

That's not always easy to do with products you buy in bags or bottles. So I always suggest using home made compost from things like;

• table scraps
• chopped up leaves
• grass clippings and weeds (hopefully before they have gone to seed)
• manures of all creatures great or small (minus human - I don't use that, although I know some people who do)
• deceased critters - roadkill, culled or deceased fowl, etc. (I, again, know ranchers that compost entire cows!)

But, yes, anything that was once living will decompose, and when done properly with heat, can safely be used in your garden.

Now, the average home won't generate THAT much compost. So chances are you'll need to buy some additional organic material (OM) to add to your garden bed, especially after a hot summer where most of the prior season's OM has disintegrated - quite literally. 

Like POOF! I KNOW I put 2 inches of composted mulch in there, but it's all sand again! 

It happens. Gardening and farming are an on-going process, not a once and done.   So get used to that. Each season you're going to need to add OM. Do a little soil experiment. All you really need is a large jar, a little dish soap, a ruler and a sharpie. 

And whether you decide, (and are able to), simply add to the top of the bed, or need to turn the soil over to bury newly emerging unwanted growth (i.e. weeds), you need to add OM to the soil before you plant. Check with your local municipality for low cost fresh compost. If push comes to shove and you need to buy it bagged, add as much of the home made compost as you can. Otherwise, get something alive in there. Be it worm castings (which I highly recommend), which we'll discuss later, or some freshly made compost tea. (More on that elsewhere). But just remember, something that's been bagged or bottled and sitting on a shelf for weeks, months or longer, is probably not still alive.

On top of OM, if you've planted and harvested from that plot, you've removed nutrients that need to be replenished.

That's why we grow food, to eat it, and get the nutrients from the soil into our bodies. So if you're eating the harvest, you're going to need to replace the nutrients - for them to be there again. That's just common sense. There's not an infinite supply of all things in the soil, especially if you're harvesting. 

Yes, soil organisms help replenish, too. But we're gardening in N. Texas, not generally under ideal growing conditions, and we want results. This season. You need to feed your soil, or your plants won't feed you well. It's pretty simple.

So to best determine which nutrients you need, and which ones you may not, I recommend doing a simple soil test, at the very least. I pushed back on this for years, because I thought I didn't need a test so long as I added compost. My very seasoned farmer friend Beverly finally got it through my thick skull that in order to be a better farmer, a soil test was a no-brainer.

For one thing, sometimes your soil is missing key nutrients you just didn't think you needed. Other times you could be adding things you don't need to add. Too much of a good thing, isn't always good. It can throw things out of whack. Too much of one nutrient, can lock up the intake of another.

Additionally, you may be spending extra money on amendments you don't need. So why guess? Use that extra money on more seeds or plants, or on the amendments you do need so you have a better harvest. And sell or give away the bounty!

There are various sizes of soil test kits. Here is the one I used and was pleased with. You can get this kit to test 40x, 80x or even 200x. Whereas 200 might be overkill for the average home gardener, I do suggest a unique test for each different area of your garden, and here is why. 

My main planting area is about 2 acres, including the high tunnel. 

On paper, I have it separated into sections and I plant different crops in each section, each season. I wouldn't expect each section, each having grown different crops, to all need the same thing, each season. 

So, if you have 6 raised beds and a spot over by the driveway and another in the front yard, and you plant various things in each, that's multiple tests - each season. You'll go through the 40x test faster than you think. 

Now, if you only have a little area, a few pots, etc., then maybe you do only need a small kit, like this. Both have you adding reagents to the soil, which provides a more accurate test than just a simple soil probe.

With these tests, you are actually adding specific amounts of the various test solutions, or reagents, into tubes of some kind, mixed with soil. Then, you use the included color chart to compare the color the mixture comes out looking like to determine levels of N, P and K.

 If you have ever measured the chemistry in a swimming pool, you can do this, too. It's science, but it's not rocket science. I promise. (OK, so if you are color blind, it might be a bit of a challenge. Get a friend to read the results for you.)

On a side note, for a first time soil test on newly turned ground that's never been fertilzed, you might consider packing up and sending some soil off to your favorite university (in Texas, most folks use TX A&M), or a private lab, like Texas Plant and Soil Labs, both of which can give you a much more detailed breakdown of both macro and micro nutrients. They'll provide a detailed list of suggested additions. Commercial growers generally do this - at least once a year.

I'll go into how to do a soil test a bit more in another post. For now, just know to avoid sampling areas such as small gullies, slight field depressions, terrace waterways, or unusual areas like where your dog does its business on a regular basis. (Hey my mom had the BIGGEST tomatoes on the block from the area the dog poop went into over the winter)

 

From TX A&M's directions here is how to collect a soil sample;

• Using a trowel or similar tool, scrape away any non-decomposed plant tissue and materials.
• Next, cut a core or divot 6 inches deep into the soil and place soil in a clean plastic container. (Do not use your bare hands to break up soil)
  
• Repeat this step 8 to 10 times in the lawn or garden which is being considered for testing.
• Air-dry soil if sample feels wet to the touch.
• When sampling fertilized areas, avoid sampling directly in fertilized band.

Then you follow the directions of the soil test kit. Easy peasy.

WHAT's NEXT?

Now, once armed with your soil test results, you should have a better idea of which soil amendments you're going to need to focus on. 

If you need Nitrogen (N) you can add it from a lot of different sources including various types of manures, "meals", or blends of fertilizer already mixed, derived of those things. 

A few choices could be

Feather meal

Blood meal

Cottonseed meal

Fish Meal

Chicken Manure (Composted) (we use in-house aged/composted chicken manure from our flocks)

Cow Manure (Composted)

Rabbit manure (Composted)

Goat or Sheep manure (Composted)

or my personal favorite - Horse Manure - again, fully composted - from a local stable

We need to age/compost the manures for various reasons, none the least of which is to kill all of the weed seeds that are consumed in the daily diet of these these animals. Putting down fresh manure can be "hot" in some cases, burning the roots of the plants. And, in some cases, it can be unsanitary and potentially dangerous due to the potential for pathogens in some manures. 

The adding of fresh manures to soil should only be done well ahead of planting (90-120 days before harvest depending on the crop) so it can be broken down into the soil by the organisms.

 If you need Phosphorus (P), there are fewer sources and usually they are bone or rock based. 

Phosphorous soil amendments generally come in the form of a bone meal, or soft rock phosphate.  NOT super, or  triple super. Just regular rock phosphate.  Again, these are products I'm suggesting. Most are the exact brands, but if you choose a different brand, just make sure the ingredient is the same and/or it's OMRI approved if you're striving to grow using clean products.

Potassium (K), is also a macro-nutrient because plants can take up large quantities of K each season. Some freebie places you can find it is wood ash and compost that is heavy on the banana peels. More likely you'll add crushed products like sul-po-mag. 

 

Let's say your soil is low on everything. The tests came back pretty much devoid of nutrients.

Might it make more sense for you to just get a nicely blended multi-purpose fertilizer? Sure. I've used and sold Maestro Gro's Texas Tee fertilizer for over a decade! (And I still special order this for pick up here at the farm. It's a little expensive to ship a 40lb bag)

But I gotta tell you, it's going to be heavy on the N, because it's primarily sold as a lawn fertilizer. 

So for fall, lettuces, greens, cabbage - go for it. I'll put in an order for fall pretty soon, so let me know. It runs about $40 a bag or so. 

But for things you're trying to get to bloom, like broccoli, cauliflower, late crop of squash or fall tomatoes, I do not suggest it, unless you're really low on N. Too much N, and you're likely to get a lot of leafy foliage, and not a lot of fruit. It's a good start, but if you're soil needs P and K, too, there are better options. 

Another great product that helps add those micro-nutrients that the home tests don't cover, is Azomite.  You probably don't need to use it every season, but once a year won't hurt.

Once your plants are starting to come up, a little secret to help them grow and stay healthy is to spray liquid fertilzer onto the leaves. This is known as "foliar feeding".  The cells in the leaves of the plants can intake trace amounts of nutrients, plus, whatever runs off the plant into the soil is absorbed, too. But the use of foliar sprays has been a long used technique. Neptune's Harvest (buy direct) or via amazon - Fish emulsion, liquid seaweed, or some combination thereof, are what I suggest.  

Here is another brand I like. Medina Garrett Juice Foliar Spray or Soil Soak - Gallon  or  Quart 

That should get you started! Stock your pantry. 

Buy your seeds or starts (Texas Tested Seeds & Plants), or your local organic nursery - if you can find one.  

As soon as it rains a bit, you can turn your soil and add your amendments, top it off with mulch (which can be more compost that's just not quite finished yet, like decomposing mulch - but not so much it's going to rob the soil of N.)

And thanks for ordering your amazon stuff through the blog. If this seems to generate some revenue, I'll do more posts like this. I get frequent calls asking for suggestions - this way I can help you, and you can help me. :)

 Eat Your Food - Naturally!

Marie

It's All About the Dirt - part 2

The results of the recent soil test are in! In case you missed it, early last month, I sent out a sample of soil to Texas Plant and Soil Labs to get a baseline reading on my soil, which has been quite unproductive following the past 2 winters/springs excessive flooding rains. Read about it here.

I’m pleased to say that the work I did spreading all of those piles and piles of composted tree mulch was helpful. By adding composting mulch by the tractor bucketful, I was successful in raising the OM, organic matter. I think having a 2.2 OM reading is pretty dang good. And so did my advisor. A 2.2 reading on the organic matter chart – isn’t too bad considering my native soil here is sand. 

Officially.

On a scale of 1 – 6, with 3 being loam and 6 being heavy clay, my soil is a 1 – sand.

So, imagine growing your vegetable garden, if you will, in a quarry full of marbles. That’s about what it's like at my farm.

Zero water holding capacity to speak of. And the CEC, (Cat-ion Exchange Capacity, which is a measure of the soil’s ability to hold and release various elements and compounds, namely, nutrients imperative to healthy plant growth.), was pretty low as well. It was estimated at between 3 - 5; potentially estimated a smidgen better because of the better than normal, (for sand), OM reading.

But when 7 of the 12 tested nutrients rate at critically low already, it’s my understanding that, basically, the plants were starving.

If it weren’t for the foliar applications of liquid fish and seaweed, along with compost tea that I put out nearly every week, they may not have made it as long as they had. And no wonder why 2015 will certainly not go down in the books of most production/highest yields.The garden was essentially on life support. Alive, but not thriving by any means.

So, my goal was, and is, to salvage the winter crops, be able to plant some more for early spring, and rebuild the fallow beds for a great warm season crop. This work starts now!

Follow up
I had a few questions for the lab and my adviser, as you may well imagine if you’ve ever stared at one of these soil analysis reports for the first time.  I compiled a list of questions, with the clarifications my adviser wanted to get from the lab as well, and I called in for my courtesy 15 minute follow up session.

There were a few notes on the summary and in the analysis that seemed to contradict each other or increase the amounts of the summary page on the analysis chart, of certain suggested amendments, that I wanted to clear up.

But mainly, I wanted to know how in the world the ultra low PH reading I consistently got in the field with my hand held meter could be so different from the reading they had taken in the lab.

Besides the soil sample being a bit more mixed and inclusive of topsoil that contained bits of active composting mulch, which indeed could affect the PH reading of soil; the hand held meters, I’ve read, are not nearly as reliable as the instruments at a lab which are calibrated regularly and taken under more controlled situations.

I’m told, that a lot of variables can come into play when getting a PH reading and not to lay a lot of merit on it, in and of itself, for decisions I make. So now I am not sure if I can grow blueberries out here or not, like I thought I could. Guess I’ll still have to just do a test row and see what I get. But I'm doubly glad I didn't do what many were encouraging me to do and that is to dump a bunch of lime on my soil! What a mess I could have created!! 

I also wanted to know what the heck I was going to do to raise the Cu (Copper) reading that suggested a pretty serious deficit – spread out a bucket of pennies in the soil? No, he suggested a light application of a product called Azomite.

I’d heard of this product before from some of my colleagues, but thus far had not tried it. Here was my chance. If you follow the above link, you’ll find it contains all sorts of trace elements – some of which my soil was low on anyway. 

Being low on salts, another nutrient measured, was actually a relief to me because I knew using horse stall waste could potentially raise salts due to the urine in the bedding I would add to the compost for the benefit of N, plus the bacteria it would contain and help develop. Our horses here are only stalled at night though, so much of the soil and wood shavings are drier than perhaps from places where horses are not turned out for the majority of the day. Plus, our horses stand on soil, not cement covered with wood shavings, so I imagine some of the salts are broken down naturally in the soil of their stalls before it’s ever removed and added to compost piles.

Humate was another low reading and the suggested application was 150lb/acre. Also, I could use either dry molasses or a liquid form at 3-5lbs/acre or a qt/acre respectively to boost things in general.

Sulfur plays a couple of roles in our soils. Namely it aids in the uptake and availability of Phosphate, the P on our fertilizer bags, and something my soil showed an abundance of, but it also helps improve the tilth of the soil as well as activating the Ca and Mg by “solubilizing them to the available water soluble form”. I’m not exactly sure what that means it does literally – but it sounds pretty important! So, of course using a dry, dusting – water soluble – form of sulfur, means it can be laid out in the trenches with P or without, if there's enough already in the soil, whenever planting.

As I mentioned, my soil tested adequate for P, so no additional bone meal or soft rock phosphate was suggested at this time – especially for winter, non-blooming, crops like lettuces, kale, and turnips, etc.

Potash, the K of the big 3, was also critically low. And it’s said (on this report anyway), that at least as much K is needed to grow healthy plants as N. Deep rooted plants will “mine the subsoils” to find K, but it is not something easily replaced without, I assume, planting deeply rooted cover crops, mowing them down, and then turning them back into the soil. I do this each winter, however apparently not enough had been mined and returned, or retained, to get a healthy reading. Plus, many winter vegetable crops don’t really develop a very deep root system.

Last, but in organic farming certainly not the least on the list of suggested additions, was activators, in the way of soil inoculates. These are generally what we find in freshly brewed and properly made compost teas, or, Worm Wine™. Here’s what the founder and owner of Texas Worm Ranch, Heather, has to say on the subject.

“Fungal hyphae a necessary component of healthy soil, cannot survive well in wet/anaerobic conditions such as those described at your farm. The sandy profile also reduces opportunity for fungal hyphae--without humus and lignin in high quantities, (fungal hyphae) can't establish. Without aerobic soil microbes, fertilizer has a hard time converting to plant available nutrients. Anaerobic conditions (flooding) will reduce soil PH and result in ionic changes in soil mineral interactions that reduce plant available nutrients. ”

So Heather's approach would basically be to forgo adding nutrients and only add more organic matter and inoculates, be sure all of the soil is mulched, plant mixed rows of vegetables, instead of mono-culture beds, and put perennials in between my plantings for erosion control, and continue many of the measures I already have in place; over-seeding with legumes, using worm castings and minimal inputs (fertilizers). She also wanted me to use
"aerobically aerated finished compost or fungally dense worm casting tea" - such as the Worm Wine™ - giving Nature time to get in there, roll her sleeves up and restore things to balanced on her own.

The only problem being - I don't have the months this could take for that to happen if I am going to continue feeding myself and my CSA, as well as be ready for a warm season harvest. Some of the components are in place including compost that was made using decomposing leaves as well as horse stall waste and the mulched tree trimmings, so we will be testing these rows without amendments, other than those suggested by Heather, just to see how long it would take to restore the healthy yields of years' past.

But in order to take advantage of the predicted rains, which would help begin the breaking down process of the amendments recommended by the lab and my adviser, I knew I needed to get these suggested amendments out as soon as possible. I wasn't going to be able to produce 137lbs of N and K per acre for spring, simply by planting cover crops. And even though my organic matter rating was decent, the dismal fall harvest made it clear more that what I was doing was needed.

So, I spent the 23^rd running around, not last minute gift shopping like many, but garden soil amendment shopping. I found everything I needed through my normal wholesale supplier, except a sufficient amount of dry humate. I’d need to apply the balance of this when it came in to the warehouse. Even my favorite go-to garden section in town was all but out of it. I picked up 1 of the last 2 small garden sized bags that Gecko had and would stretch it as far as I could.

The Drawing Board
I drew out and labeled the beds of my 4 sections so I could take good notes as to how much of what I was putting out in each bed. I wanted to be able to compare a few rows of no amendments, or “control” as it’s officially called; 2 with no amendments but using the Texas Worm Ranch’s Worm Wine™; and the rest with the amendments as prescribed along with my normal routine of foliar feeding and bi-weekly N application as I saw necessary based on observation.  Except where I was unable to secure enough humate, all of the amendments would be applied as prescribed.

Then came the task that challenges so many of us; converting x number of pounds per acre of said amendments, into the amount needed on my beds. I wasn’t going to spread these nutrients on the soon to be permanent foot paths, or on entire acres. So I was about to spend the morning of the 24^th, calculating square footage and rates of nutrients per lb of this and that.....

I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but a math wizard was not ever one of them. I figured out each bed was roughly 300 sq. ft., give or take a few feet. And to make things faster, I found THIS cool fertilizer converter on a website from the University of Georgia. Woo hoo! It took me less time to figure out how to use this on-line calculator than it would have for me to figure out all of the conversions for each amendment on paper. 

So, after recharging my brain with some lunch, I loaded up the bucket on my tractor with my scale, a bucket, and a couple hundred of pounds of N, P, K, humate, dry molasses, sulfur and Azomite, strapped a wheel barrow to the back of the tractor and headed out to the field. I was a woman with a mission!! Where's my cape?

In the wheelbarrow, after weighing them out, I mixed up the prescribed quantity of each of the raw materials for single beds, again, noting the quantities I was adding on the diagram of my 4 sections where I also had noted what, if anything, was currently planted. And trying to grow. On life support of foliar liquid fish feedings into a still pretty well saturated soil.

I hand spread the materials over the hungry beds of awaiting soil biology, like chicken scratch being tossed to hungry hens. On the fallow rows, I went over beds very lightly on the tractor with the disk to make sure things didn’t simply wash away in the predicted rains that were on the way. Some moisture is helpful to begin the process of breaking down the crystallized K-mag and Azomite, as well as the other materials, but too much rain at once, and I was afraid they’d just float over the edge of the beds if I didn’t somewhat incorporate them into the soil. Whereas some organic soil amendments are not water soluble, like many synthetic chemical additives are, too much water can still wash away much of the benefit. Besides, the roots aren’t growing on the surface of the soil, and the microorganisms don’t live up there, either.

The next day I finished amending the rows where crops were planted and gently hand-raked the beds to mix the ingredients into the topsoil. Hoping they’d get a kick start from the soil treat, I decided to leave intact, several rows pre-planted with winter crops. The rest of the beds and any empty areas were hand-seeded with Austrian Winter Peas. These beds did not receive the N amendment either. As a legume, the peas should add some nitrogen to the soil via the miraculous ability to secure it from the atmosphere and store it on their roots.The rest of the prescribed amount would be added at planting time.

As we all know, the predicted rains did indeed come. With a fury of tornadoes that many would like to have never witnessed, I might add. All told, from the time I put out the soil amendments until the storms passed, about 5 inches of rain fell here at the farm.

That’s quite a bit of moisture to get all at once. After discussing the situation with a couple of other farmers, we’re in agreement that it’s not a bad idea to go ahead and reapply a couple of the raw materials like the dusting sulfur and molasses. As we sweet girls know, sugar does, after all, melt in the rain. ;)

The nitrogen source I used is supposed to be water insoluble, but the directions from the lab were to not apply all of it at the same time anyway, so each week or so, I plan to put out some of the recommended rate until the full amount is reached for the growing season. I’ll add some more of it this week when I do my regular foliar application and as I put a few more transplants out. Rain is predicted for Wednesday night into Thursday morning again, but presently, less than an inch is expected.

So, all in all, thus far, that’s where things are in the soil saga. Amendments are out, and if the sun would come out to play for more than a couple of hours a day each week, we might actually start to see some improvements.

Heather will be coming over later this week to access the needs for the 2 beds she’s going to be tending and we’ll keep everyone up to date on the progress as time passes.

In the meantime, I'm starting more seeds in trays/flats for later transplanting and ordering seeds for the warm season. I'm anxious to get things back on track!

Eat Your Food - Naturally!

Marie 

As a sign of hope to those who had tree damage - this beauty of a post oak was among the many here at Eden's that had parts of it twisted off by a 2008 spring tornado. They are resilient and I hope that hope is restored to those so terribly affected by the recent storms that ripped through so much of North Texas. 

It's All About the Dirt

Unless you are growing in hydroponic or aquaponic systems, it’s the heart and soul of your farm. Soil.

So in honor of World Soil Day - December 5th, 2015, the next few blog posts will chronicle the story of the soil here on the farm and its recent journey from leached out water logged to restored. 

In this 2015 International Year of Soil, the soil here at Eden’s has taken a bit of a beating. 

With over 50 inches of rain, nearly 30 of it in just a couple of months late winter and early spring, the constant, heavy, flooding downpours not only kept us from planting what we wanted, but leaching of the nutrients in the soil had apparently become an issue beyond what I estimated and yields were low - very low. 

Leaching is something I have dealt with somewhat before. I had simply added more organic fertilizers to the compost mix those years, beefed up the frequency of foliar feeding and things seemed to perform adequately. 

I know, my CSA and market customers know, my chef friends know – we’d all seen it with our eyes and tasted it with our mouths; this farm produces wonderful and bountiful yields! 

I was doing things pretty much the same. Organic matter was being added back in each year, slowly, as the mulch and leaves broke down and manure aged, at the very least in the troughs where the plants were growing. And, I still used pretty  much the same fertilizer schedule as in past years. What had changed?

Rain. And lots of it.

I thought I was going to be able to start moving organic matter onto the rows on a much thicker, faster and more efficient basis with the new loader over the winter. However, my tractor – can’t cross water – no, inflatable wings didn't come with the loader. I need a Bat-motractor from Gotham City.

Nor can it keep from getting stuck in what amounts to quicksand when things are really wet out there. The utility company gave me a complimentary 2' rut at my gate during one of their service calls last winter, making it nearly impossible to get out to the field with the tractor - to farm or to improve the rut - until the soil was much drier. And we just were not getting enough dry days in-between the deluges.

This meant a bit of a delay in moving compost out as fast as I wanted. Heck I couldn’t even prepare soil to plant potatoes, much less drive around with bucket loads full of mulch. Trust me – I tried. Ahem. Don’t ask.

Many of the summer crops had been planted, in-between monsoons, in rows I managed to get prepared by hand, but seemed to be failing miserably or yielding very low and not always good looking veggies.

Of the few rows prepped with the tractor, before the spring rains, things were noticeably better. I got a great melon crop out of just a few rows this year.

But the vast majority of crops performed poorly, with low yields. I knew something was wrong. 

The rest of the rows were composted with the tractor's loader, and fertilized during the "flash-drought" as it was dubbed by some. By late October, the soil was re-saturated and transplanting and direct seeding for late fall and early winter crops began. Finally!

But then in a few weeks I noticed that seeds that had been direct sown would germinate, and stop at their cotyledons leaves.

Plugs that I’d bumped up into larger pots for another farmer, were double the size of any transplants from the same batches out in the garden – the ones that had actually survived.

I took a PH meter to the soil to see if something had changed. It was registering much lower than the prior year. When I say low, I am talking LOW – like almost 5.0 and as low as 4.5 in unamended areas.

Last year after the rainy spring season we'd had, it was right at about 5.0 and a just a little higher in most test areas, and then I had been halfheartedly considering planting a field of pick your own blueberries and calling it a day. Now, with the PH even lower – I was nearly kicking myself for not having done it for real!

But I felt this was certainly indicative of something being wrong. Out of balance. With that drop of  PH, certainly other things were lacking, too.

I’d added extra nitrogen to compensate for any of the compost that might still be “active’. I’d added various basic soil amendments like I’d done the first several years – and each year for the first 4 or 5 years, the yields increased as the soil got healthier.

Then in year 6, and in year 7, 2014, I first noticed some things, like tomatoes, losing ground. I took a PH reading to find it had dropped to the 5.0 reading, down half a % from the time I had taken it a few years prior – when things were doing pretty darn well.

I started reading how excessive rain can cause a drop in the PH levels, causing the soil, specifically sandy soils, to become acidic and wreak havoc on the nutrients.

There are some “quick fixes” you can find at just about any East TX feed store; “fixes” that can end up making a total nutritional mess of the soil.

And then there were the long term fixes. I had opted for the latter. That is where the need for last year’s fund raiser for the loader came from. 

I knew if I added compost and got the biology back in the soil with the use of home brewed aerated compost teas and Texas Worm Ranch's Worm WineTM, it would build up the soil, and the micro-organisms, bacteria and fungi. In good time Nature would repair itself, as I continued this cycle towards the goal of a closed loop system.

I guess I was 2 years late to the fix. The compost hadn't been added until after the soils had been stripped of just about everything useful, leaving me with a lot of sand and a little red clay. I needed results - now.

Had the gardens been fully amended with the decomposed mulch before the first monsoon spring in 2014, much less enduring another record season of winter/spring rains in 2015, perhaps things wouldn’t have become quite as depleted as they are now.

Or was there something else going on?

I called our ag extension office here in Dallas County to see if they could offer some kind of guidance. Maybe there had been something really strange grown, or dumped, here over 100 years ago or something that had some mysterious affect on the soil. I didn’t know? I just knew that everything I’d been doing, following the advice of my mentors, was not working any more.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t really offered any help and in fact was told that “we don’t have anyone here that can help you on that scale.” No offer was made to take my name and number and have an extension agent who could help me, call me back at another time.

Frustrated, and standing out in my dying field, I just hung up and nearly cried. 

How could I have worked so hard all this time to have nothing but native "weeds" like henbit, purslane, lamb's quarter, pigweed and Bermuda, pencil and prickly pear cactus and mesquite trees – oh, and the asparagus – surviving? 

A colleague of mine who practices bio-dynamic farming, as well as organic and sustainable methods, was taking a break from growing, so he could, you know, actually make a living. But he agreed to take my case as a consultant and help me remotely from Houston.

He had experienced a very similar situation on another farm just a few years ago. In fact, the soil lab had sent a hand written note back with their soil test declaring it the worst soil they’d ever tested. It too, was very sandy and depleted. Little to almost no organic matter, too. I hoped that at least I had that advantage, with all of the compost I'd spent the last half of the summer spreading out there.  At least the top soil had some OM in it. I was beginning to feel a sense of hope again.

He knew it would need a big boost in the arm of various raw materials and amendments to help the current crops and act as a temporary bridge until Nature and the Worm Wine could do the rest. And this calculating of all of these test results and minerals, etc., is unchartered territory for me. I knew I'd need some help.

I've always gardened based on how the plants react and what the soil needed based on experience. Not soil tests. I’d been taught to “read weeds” by one of my first farm mentors, and a cool book by Charles Waters, in order to know what amendments to add – and so far, mostly it was N and OM that I needed - and it had worked for many years. But it seemed two seasons of excessive flooding rainwater had begun to undo everything I'd done thus far. 

 

So, I’ve taken soil samples from the aprox. 3 acres currently under production and

 mixed them together and

sent them off to Texas Plant and Soil Labs for testing. I hope I don’t get any sarcastic hand written notes back with my results. LOL

To be continued…..

PS - Heather has a few classes coming up soon at her Worm Ranch in Dallas. Check it out.

Marie


Eat Your Food - Naturally!