Garden Preps
Is your garden prepped? I don’t mean do you have one, but have you laid in essential supplies to keep it fertile, expand it, and make it useful as an ongoing source of needed raw materials?
Right at the outset, the problem comes up of chemical fertilizer vs. “organic”. If you are in a survival situation and commercial fertilizer is all you have, it is may be a necessary choice to use it. However, for the long term, more than a year or two, chemicals will burn out the soil organisms, which will keep soil fertility going for years. My solution is to get big bags of blood meal or fish meal, bone meal, and, in my highly acidic soil area, some lime to have on hand, and incorporate it into my beds and containers as I mulch, so they will tie in with plant materials to make a rich humus. Building soil is prep #1.
Stockpiling materials for mulch and soil building is important. I collect old newspapers (not the glossy inserts), lawn clippings, leaves, thatch, horse manure, and especially seaweed, sometimes composting them, sometimes simply storing them for mulch.
In addition to digging tools, I highly recommend a hand truck, or dolly. You can move containers to better spots, and haul all sorts of heavy things. A lot of my garden has to go on the driveway in summer, due to big trees shading some areas, but then must be moved in winter for snow removal. It has occurred to me that some of the really big pots would make a good barrier across the entrance to my driveway, also. A good wheelbarrow will save on carrying. Speaking of which, how about boxes or produce baskets for carrying everything from wood to mulch to tomatoes?
Many people throw out pots or six-pack containers for seedlings. These should be saved to start new plants, and to pot up herbs to bring inside in winter, plants give to friends, or for barter. Cemetery dumps are good places to find pots. I have also found many useful big containers like halibut tubs, big plastic toy buckets, and hanging pots at my local dump. Just go look! Tin cans can be saved, with top and bottom removed, to be cut into circular cuffs for around seedlings. Slugs get a shock from the metal if they try to cross the cuff.
Speaking of slugs, an essential prep is a big package of yeast, like the kind at Costco for making slug bait. (Why use perfectly good beer for that?) Just mix a couple of teaspoons in a pitcher of water, and fill several dishes around your garden. Slugs will crawl over to drink, fall in, and die happy.
A good pair of pruning shears (I like Felcos), and a variety of loppers, pruning saws, and perhaps a pole-pruner can really help out. Extra saw blades are helpful.
To keep your tools in good condition, a designated bucket filled with sand and a quart of old engine oil will nicely clean and lubricate metal shovels, hoes, ice choppers, etc.
Other materials to be stocked should include plastic, floating row covers, string, fencing, a pH monitor that you can just stick in the soil, etc. Materials for making cold frames, including old windows, boards, and boxes can often be found at the dump or curbside during the spring cleanup trash days.
Seeds of course should be purchased early, and many will last several years. However, perennial plants, in the ground, alive and growing, are an even surer source of food. Fruit and nut trees, perennial vegetables (like rhubarb, asparagus, chives, horseradish), bush fruits, and many others are interesting forms of insurance and variety. Plants are a real form of wealth, a type of foundation capital for living, no matter how bad or good the situation.
-- seraphima (seraphima@ak.net), February 14, 2002
For busy people, the keyword is Mulch. Let the soil warm up, plant
what you want, then mulch it when it is up. The more mulch, pretty
much the better.
An alternative is to plant perennial herbs like sage, rosemary,
thyme, chives, etc. and MULCH the plants, they will need almost no
water or care, and can extend your cooking variety amazingly. Bees
love herbs. Monarda, comfrey,lemon balm, borage- plant them near the
bees, mulch them, feed the bees and get flowers, tea,greens, mulch
biomass (comfrey)and very little work.
Consider planting some version of the Three Sisters- corn, beans &
squash for vegetables. Try different varieties in each hill, or
different mixes. Mulch......you get the picture.
-- seraphima (seraphima@ak.net), February 14, 2002.
I believe that as a good tenant of the land you build your soil up
rather than breaking it down. We are big on cover crops which add
nitrogen and organic matter to the soil. In the fall we plant winter
rye and till it in the spring. The garden spot is just sitting there
anyway over the winter, why not give it a blanket and make it work
for you in the spring! In the spring, we try to rotate garden spots
by planting one garden spot with the spring crops and the other with
buckwheat. Just before the buckwheat blooms we till it in. Your
good to go then for summer planting. Next year we reverse and the
spot that was spring planted gets the buckwheat cover, etc. Between
the covercrops and compost you will be amazed at the soil you get!
Buckwheat also chokes out weeds and arrates the ground.
We also recycle plant pots along with cutting up milk jugs, juice
containers, etc. Just be sure and steralize the used pots before you
plant to prevent plant diseases.
We would love to go completely organic, but I have to admit I will
pull out the big guns when it comes to either having to hand pick
critters or spray them! But in general between rotenone 1%, BT,
dipel and pepper sprays, we do pretty well.
Here a dusting tip: When using a dust, if you don't have dust
sprayer you can use a triple layer of cheesecloth cut into a large
square. Pour in your dust and gather up the ends to form a "bag".
Just shake the bag and instant duster!
-- Karen
(mountains_mama@hotmail.com), February 15, 2002.
(amulet@istar.ca), February 15, 2002.