The yurt is turning out to be very handy. I've got my cot, my folding chair and table, a trash bucket with lid, some cooler clothes if I need to play in the sprinklers, thermometer, clock, lantern, and a sheet of plywood as a hard, clean floor. I write here, both for personal and work reasons. I take naps when necessary. I sort seeds and keep records. I change bandages on my injured rooster. I keep water bottles in the shade. I keep tools out of the rain. I even slept out here overnight last night. What I still want are some wall and ceiling cloths, because it's a little bright in here when on the computer in bright sunlight.
Beyond the success and comfort of the yurt, I guess there are three main things to talk about: Spading v. Mulching, Irrigation, and Planting Progress.
Spading v. Mulching:
I think I've said that I'm focusing my efforts on sections 11 to 14. Section 11 had corn in it last year, with the idea of doing Three Sisters. Then I hurt my back, so it turned out to be thin hills of corn and lots of weeds. The corn was planted at intervals along mounded ridges. This spring, the chickens have done their best to tear those ridges apart, doing a lot of weed control in the process. Something about that system discouraged the rhizome grass too, so that area is fairly clean. It's biggest shortcoming is the comparatively low level of soil carbon. It needs organic matter.
Section 14 is my most worked section. I've dug, cultivated, picked weeds and rocks, and planted. It's in good shape.
Top, beds 1 & 2.
Middle, beds 3 & 4.
Bottom, Beds 5 & 6.
All looking south from the central path.
Section 13 is in progress. I'm almost through digging it all up, shovel by shovel, and turning it over. I'll still have to do a lot of cultivation and rhizome picking, and then it could use more soil carbon.
Section 13, mostly dug.
Section 12 is in the worst shape. It's coming up heavy in rhizome grass. If I get it within the next week, I should be able to control it, putting it in the same boat with section 13.
Section 12, coming up grass, and the windmill needs fixing.
I was reading on line where an old guy was talking about how 70 years ago, his father would hire someone to come in and spade up the garden. Then they'd rake it out, form rows, and plant. He pondered how nobody spades their garden any more. This prompted a discussion of what's the right and wrong way to manage soil. Opinions ranged: Dig, double dig, dig only every couple years, never dig, turn weeds and cultivate, mulch with cardboard, mulch with old hay, rototill.... Clearly there are diverse opinions. One zealot devotee of Elaine Ingham even stated that digging your soil will damage the Soil Food Web for years.
My take is that your methods have to suit your resources. In my situation, double digging is hard and useless work. (I hear it was invented by a Calvinist.) Excessive digging will not help my heavy clay soil, and neither will (or has) mechanical cultivation. The biggest argument that organic methods won't work is that farms will never be able to get enough organic mater to maintain soil carbon, and it's true that this is an issue, but not an insurmountable one. I'm able to get carbon, just not quite as quickly as I'd like.
So what am I going to do? Well, I need to disturb the rhizomes. They're too thick in sections 12 and 13 to simply fork over like I did in section 14. They need to be cut up. Yes, every cut section will be capable of re-sprouting, but there's not much else that will let me make headway, so I spade the soil.
Section 11, with about 8 cart-loads of wood chips.
In section 11, I don't have to spade so badly. As a stopgap before I get to it, I've added the rest of my wood chip pile to it instead. That was about eight garden cart loads of half rotted chips. The chickens continue to work on it. I'm still trying to decide if I need space now (and section 11 would be easier to do next) or I need grass control now (in section 12). Maybe I need to be going to the co-op and getting cardboard. (Never come home with an empty truck.) I can soak it and lay it out as a semi-solid cover. That won't stop the rhizome grass indefinitely, but it will hold it in check. So, spade or mulch? Both!
Either way, I guess I think of these things as being for fallow time. Once I start growing things, I mostly want to be able to cultivate as they get going. If I'm short on mulch material, I'll use it where I can suppress weeds over a large area, rather than fiddle with it, making a tight collar around a plant. It doesn't look like a problem this year, but some years mulch is too much of a cover for slugs. The couple things I would like to keep mulched if I can are garlic and potatoes. Garlic needs it over the winter, and if I can get another layer over it in the spring it helps. I still have to pull weeds coming up through it, but it helps. And mulch is the only thing I've found that stops potato beetles, in addition to keeping the new potatoes from growing out of the ground.
Irrigation:
It's the middle of April, and we're down on precipitation, since the first of the year, over 40%. This has worked really well for me in some ways. I can go dig in dirt instead of mud. Weeds laid on the surface dry out and die. It's been really beautiful.
However, plants are going to need water. The grapes, rhubarb, and raspberries need water to get leafed out. As I've started planting things, I need to be watering seeds in. I have no electrical power on the garden side of the road, nor do I have pressurized water. So I need to have an irrigation system, and I need to water with a watering can when I'm doing a small area, which requires a handy place to dip out of.
This town has an unusually high population of plumbers, per capita. When I first got here, I thought used black plastic water line was a hard item to come by, but eventually I learned better. Plumbers don't like to re-use it. It's awkward to throw away too, because you have to cut it up into chunks before it can be hauled off, so the two biggest outfits in town both have piles of used poly pipe hidden in the bushes near their shops. I found that all I had to do was ask for it.
I've had a series of pumps to work with too. The first one was a bladder-piston trash pump, which pumped in spurts, about 20 per minute, and each one made the hose creep just a little. I used a briggs powered impeller pump, which used to be a fire pump on a passenger boat, but the motor gave more and more trouble. I used a belt drive pump, which had the advantage of letting me change motors fairly easily, and the disadvantage that it'd throw the belt and I'd have to hunt for it in the tall grass. What I use now is a 2" honda powered impeller pump. I think I had to give it about 8 pulls to get it started this spring. Not bad.
The pump draws from the long pond, which is actually a dammed section of a small brook. There's a swamp upstream that used to be a meadow. It used to be a meadow because of cycles of beavers that would dam it up, so the water is shallow and the vegetation makes the water slightly brown. At the downstream end is a dam, built by the former owner of this place. The pond and stream are the property line, and I don' think either my neighbor or I have any great interest in re-building the dam, even though it's on it's last legs. There'd be too much bureaucracy. But it's a wooden dam and one of these years it's going to go. This year there are beavers "improving" it. This raises the water level in the pond, and I'll have to watch out so that the pump doesn't end up under water. It did make the pump prime easily though. Generally I try to keep the pump 50' or so back from the water.
So the pump pushes into a 2" poly water line, which goes up the field, through the fence, and into the middle of the garden. From there it splits four ways, which is a bit of a plumbers nightmare. Four 1" lines lead away. I have a good collection of 1" hose, and I once got a big bag of 1" plastic barb elbow fittings for $2.00/pound at the notable surplus and salvage place. These work great because you can hammer them in and out, where a straight barb fitting has to be shoved and pulled on, and is much more work, especially when the water is running and you're getting sprayed in the face.
2" line from the pump. Its about 300' from the fence to the pond, and a 20' rise.
2" pipe feeds four 1" pipes.
1" barb elbows connect sections.
With the 1" line I can get to anywhere in the garden or nearby. For the final section of line, I use some that I've drilled 3/32" holes in every 1 1/2', so it acts as a long line sprinkler. Some have caps in the end and some have a factory sealed pinched and melted end. This has worked well, although I think I need to add some T-fittings so that I have multiple emitter ends on the hoses. The beds are 4' on center, and if I had an emitter hose ever three beds it should keep the ground wet. My topsoil is loose, but my subsoil should limit the water going down. I should be able to set up hoses and leave them in place most of the summer.
That reminds me of eight years ago, when we'd (meaning I'd, with direction) drag 1 1/4" poly water line around trying to water, dragging it over lots of things by accident.
Anyway, that takes care of the bulk watering, but I still need to be able to hand water rows of newly planted stuff. So I need a dip-tank that I can pull watering cans out of. Over the years I've managed to get my hands on several used above ground metal swimming pools. These are medium weight sheet metal, slightly ribbed, and are either three or four feet wide, and long enough to enclose a 12' or 16' pool. That seemed too big, so I cut one about in half, giving me enough for a 6'ish pool. I joined the ends with a wood 1x2 on either side and a galvanized deck screw every 2" up the seam, lined it with an old carpet and an old piece of greenhouse plastic from a previous cistern.
Cistern, as full as it will stay.
When I filled it up I found out there are some small (1/8"-ish) holes, so that in a few hours it drains down to 3/4 full. Maybe I'll patch those, but 3/4 full is good enough, so I'm happy with it. I did patch one larger hole with zip-tape, which is supposed to be for taping the joints on a type of pre-painted OSB sheathing. I've been using it to patch small holes in the yurt too. Handy stuff. For the pool, I just cleaned the area with rubbing alcohol and a paper towel first, then slapped it on. It's rubbery, 3" wide and about 1/32" thick.
Planting Progress:
The way it's going to work, mostly, is that I'll have six 4' beds per section. I go back and forth on bed spacing. I try to maximize growing area and minimize path size, but if I have 30" beds and 18" paths, that seems workable.
A couple years ago I built myself a weeding cart. I lay on it, face down, and it suspends me over the growing bed and a comfortable working height. It stretches my shoulders a little, but ergonomically, it's better than being bent over for the same amount of work. I just have to take breaks. The wheels are 36" on center, so if I'm careful, it'll work with the 32" wide beds.
Weeding cart, built mostly of old bikes.
So at this point, bed 1 (west edge of section 14) is garlic, and I planted some lettuces in three rows in the last 6' of it. Bed 2 is kale and chard, planted several weeks ago and coming up slowly. The chard is a little spotty, but the kale has good germination. Bed 3 is garlic. Bed 4 is a few dahlias (all the same dark red) and about 75 gladiolus, then three rows down the bed of spinach. Bed 5 is three rows down the bed, parsley (curly and flat leaf) peas, and beets. I'll be putting up trellis down the middle for the peas soon. Bed 6 is almost ready to plant. It might get carrots and endive, but I'm not sure yet. I'd like to get in another bed or two or garlic.
And then it's dig, dig, dig. Control the grass, make beds ready to plant, and watch it get warmer.
Daffodils for cutting, starting to open.
Daylilies sprouting.
Section 10: Thin grass.
Section 9: ridges of thick rhizome grass.
Section 7: Last year's leftovers.
Onion sprouting from last year's unharvested crop. I hope for seed.
