Friday 29 July 2016

Methods « Greenshire Eco Farms

Methods « Greenshire Eco Farms

Rose Hugel Pot. Hugelkultur.

- Low Cost Vegetable Garden: Rose Hugel Pot Update

- Low Cost Vegetable Garden: Hugelkultur
One thing to remember is that hugelkultur's do best in their 3-4th year after wood has broken down, become sponge like and built a network of microbes, fungi and air pockets.


If you try it, here are a few tips from locals:

Be prepared to lose some produce to deer, foxes, groundhogs, or whatever critters populate your neighborhood.
The hugelkultur landscape's natural look is inviting to them.

Don't be alarmed if your garden seems to sink.
As the wood breaks down, air pockets form, and the mound will settle.
This doesn't harm anything, but if you're hoping the garden maintains a certain height for aesthetic reasons, you may want to initially build the garden a few inches above that height.

Remember you're working with the environment.
All materials should be natural, and you shouldn't have to spend a lot of money to create a garden like this.
In addition to the logs Earnest and Hunsiker got from their own felled trees, they used their compost and free mulch from Abington Township.

- Hugelkultur: A pile of patience - and fun - philly-archives

Wind & Willow.

Wind & Willow | Fedges | TOAST Travels

If you want to grow a willow fedge, it’s best to plant in early spring.
You’ll need a bundle of withies – these can be bought online.
Push the rods into the ground about 30cms apart.
They need to go in at least 15cms deep.
I alternated vertical rods with two planted at an angle and crossed over.
I then twisted the rods together at the top to make an upper edge.
Don’t be scared to tie the withies so they stay in the pattern you want – eventually they will grow into each other and stay there.

Gardens: Alys Fowler’s top 25 indestructible plants.

Gardens: Alys Fowler’s top 25 indestructible plants | Life and style | The Guardian

Alys Fowler: hot compost bin.

Alys Fowler: hot compost bin | Life and style | The Guardian

How to get rid of weeds forever.

How to get rid of weeds forever - Telegraph

The No-Dig Allotmenteer

The No-Dig Allotmenteer

The Hugelkultur.

The Hugelkultur Task | Green Corridor Charity


- Alys Fowler: the joys of hugelkultur (or rotting wood to you and me) | Life and style | The Guardian
When I moved on to my plot, I inherited a leylandii trunk that was far too big to cut up by hand. It was at best something to perch on, which is exactly what I did with it until I read Sepp Holzer's Permaculture (Permanent Publications, £18.95). Here I found my solution: a raised bed that looks after itself. Powered by rotting wood, it needs no feeding or watering for years. It's called hugelkultur, and it works remarkably well.

Hugelkultur, in simple terms, is a raised bed with very steep sides. Deep at the centre of the bed is rotting wood, brush or other bulky organic material, covered with upturned turf and topsoil. The wood at the centre acts like a sponge, absorbing water and releasing heat as it breaks down. It also feeds the bed, slowly releasing nutrients. It's best if the wood is a whole trunk, because this rots slowly and steadily, rather than all at once (which is what happens if you use bark chippings).

The wood has to be buried deep, though, or you get a huge amount of nitrogen lock-up. As wood breaks down, it robs nitrogen from the soil to aid decomposition; once broken down, it releases it again, but that is some time away and nearby plants may struggle, especially if they're trying to establish themselves.

My trunk was 10ft long, a foot or so across and just beginning to rot, so perfect for the job. It was buried to where the soil changed colour and became heavier, and on top went brambles, twigs, more brush and very rough compost and autumn leaves. I also put in some nettle and comfrey tops, to help with potential nitrogen lock-up issues. I had no turf to hand, so a layer of grass clippings and then topsoil went on top.

In the first year, you need to grow plants that can cope with the bulky nature of the rotting stuff. I chose a mixture of green manure to stabilise the sides and perennials and annual veg. The first year I grew tomatoes, pumpkins, chard and wild beetroot among the green manure, Phaecelia (sown later in the summer, so as not to compete with the other crops).

Now in year two, I've established cardoons, horseradish, mint, wild beet and flat-leaf parsley along the ridge, leaving the sides for annual veg (potatoes worked surprisingly well in all that rough organic matter).

I have not watered or fed anything, and yet I harvest well. It is also rich in wildlife, acting as a giant beetle hotel. And when you dig around, you can see find strands of mycorrhizal fungi going to work on the wood. In short, it is a damned happy habitat. As the motto goes, "Feed your soil and it feeds you."
- Alys Fowler.
- Alys Fowler's gardening column | Life and style | The Guardian

How to Build a Hugelkultur Bed
Gather woody waste materials such as dead logs, extra firewood, pruned or clipped branches etc.
The wood can be either rotting or fresh, although already rotting wood is preferable because it decomposes faster.
Lay the wood in a mound about 1-2 feet /60cm high and stamp on it to break it up.
Or dig a trench to lay the wood in.
Cover the wood with other compost materials such as autumn leaves, grass clippings, garden wastes, and manure.
This stage is optional if you aren't planning to plant the bed immediately, but bear in mind that wood is high in carbon and will consume nitrogen to do the composting.
This could lock up the nitrogen and take it away from your plants (nitrogen robbery).
But well-rotted wood doesn't do this so much.
If the wood is far enough gone, it may have already taken in so much nitrogen that it is now releasing it.
Adding a nitrogen-rich component is therefore a good plan if you want to start growing right away.
The waste from end of season peas and beans would be good for this – in fact anything you might grow for green manure could be used.
Rotted manure or your own compost made from household waste will also do the job.
Cover the wood and compostibles with a few more inches of soil and/or prepared compost, and you are ready to begin using the bed.

Among the plants known to do well in hugelkultur beds are potatoes, squash, and a number of different species of berries.
Some gardeners plant the bed with cover crops for the first year to improve fertility even more before adding vegetables or other plants.
These could be alfalfa, Hungarian grazing rye, red clover, buckwheat, field beans, white mustard etc, all of which are good nitrogen fixers.
The bed will initially be quite deep, but will settle out considerably. It will probably be about 1/3 the original depth a year from making.
Then you can place rocks or wooden edging around it and rework it a little into a slightly more elegant raised bed.
In the meantime it will work really well for a goodly crop of potatoes, which, if you are starting the process at the end of summer, could be a late variety suitable for harvesting in December.
Growing potatoes as a first salvo is a really good idea.
They seem to improve soil structure, and the earthing-up and harvesting processes add even more benefits.
Earthing-up can even be done with straw, which is a popular method of growing them in Scandinavia.
It makes it easy to harvest small early crops of mew potatoes without disturbing the plants too much, and the straw acts as an insulator, adding even more warmth, and also stops weeds getting a hold in the top layer of soil.
- Hugelkultur: Using Woody Waste in Composting

cons:
-When wood/carbon rich matter breaks down it steals a lot of the local Nitrogen. This Nitrogen is needed by your plants. To counter this you can plant leguminous plants that together with bacteria near their roots fix Nitrogen and make it available. A ton of chipped wood would rot down quicker but would also use up more Nitrogen initially. A large log weighing a ton would rot down more slowly and use up Nitrogen less initially.
-After a while it will settle down and lose some shape and lose growing space.
-Can provide a habitat for animals you dont want (mice/rats).

Now you will see I put "supposedly" a few times. This is because you dont really see any proper comparisons that show the benefits of hugelkulturs against a normal raised bed. I like the logic so I am willing to give it a go; plus I can get rid of all that wood without burning it or leaving it around for a habitat. Hopefully I can show some sort of comparison between similar plants grown in a non hugel-bed.
My allotment - updates and general projects (Hugelkultur, orchard, pond, munti etc)

Blogs!
- Low Cost Vegetable Garden: Hugelkultur
- Wood for Food ~ Gardening with the Slow Burn of Rotting Wood

Thursday 28 July 2016

Чесночный день.

Чесночный день - Садовое обозрение
Чеснок озимый – пора убирать. Чеснок яровой поспеет не раньше 15 августа, а то и позже, зависит от того, когда сажали.
Есть нехитрые правила, как угадать срок уборки чеснока, и как его правильно высушить и подготовить к хранению.
Со стрелкующимся озимым чесноком все очень просто. Появилась стрелка – выламываем, но на грядке обязательно оставляем два растения с самым поздним выходом стрелки. Это наши маяки. Как только стрелка выпрямилась и начали лопаться обертки, объединяющие бульбочки – пора убирать.
Важно: уборку подгадать, чтобы до нее было хотя бы 3-4 дня солнечной погоды. Выкапываем чеснок, связываем за листья в небольшие пучки по 6-10 головок и подвешиваем под навесом и проветриваемом, но недоступном для солнца и дождя месте. Через 5-6 дней обрезаем листья, оставляя пеньки высотой 6-8 см, удаляем корни и комочки прилипшей земли. Опять сушим чеснок как минимум неделю. Только после этого обрезаем пеньки на высоту 2-3 см, зачищаем корни и прижигаем их на слабом пламени. Осторожно снимаем верхнюю грязную обертку и складываем чеснок на хранение. Способов есть несколько, мой чаще всего хранится в картонных коробках с вентиляционными отверстиями. Место прохладное, сухое и хорошо проветриваемое.
Нестрелкующиеся сорта озимого чеснока сажаю на грядку вместе с хотя бы 2-3 зубками стрелкующегося чеснока. Именно они и дадут сигнал к началу уборки: стрелки у них не выламывают.
Мой чеснок озимый уже висит в сарае на просушке: помедли я еще 2-3 дня с уборкой и осталась бы без запасов чеснока.
С яровым сложнее. Большинство сортов ярового чеснока нестрелкующиеся. Поэтому важно следить за состоянием пера. Как только начнется массовое пожелтение, так надо раскопать луковицу контрольного экземпляра так, чтобы она хорошо освещалась солнцем, и было наглядно видно состояние головки. Первая же трещина на обертках – это сигнал, что через 3-4 дня надо приступать к выкопке урожая. А дальше, как с озимым: сушка, обрезка и очистка, укладка на хранение.
Все распадающиеся на зубки головки чеснока надо без промедления использовать в пищу и на заготовки, потому что долго храниться они не будут.

Чеснок озимый - Garlic winter:
IN OCTOBER and November the soil is still relatively warm and the bulbs will establish good root systems before the winter sets in, so the earlier you get garlic into the ground the better the results will be, although you can carry on planting garlic right up until February.

Чеснок яровой - Garlic spring
Garlic usually takes about 8 months to produce a bulb. Harvest when the tops begin to turn brown; don't wait until the tops have completely died back. Treat the bulbs gently as bruised bulbs do not store well.

The earliest and largest garlic is grown in the UK by planting it late autumn.
However some areas are simply too cold for this to be an effective method, in those cases it is far better to start off your garlic in trays or containers.
If your area of the UK is too cold for autumn planting it will tell you below.

Plant cloves outside in autumn / winter - the third week of November 2016 (UK average)

Plant cloves in pots / for spring planting - the last week of November 2016 (UK average)

Plant cloves outside in spring - the second week of March 2016 (UK average)

Transplant garlic outside - the first week of April 2016

Start to harvest garlic approximately - the first week of August 2016

For garlic this is a very short section because they need almost no care throughout the growing season. They withstand dry weather very well but will benefit from the occasional good watering in particularly dry periods, this will keep the bulbs growing evenly.
But from mid-July onwards don't water at all to prevent any rot setting in to the nearly completely grown bulbs. Regular weeding will keep them healthy.
Expert advice on growing Garlic - GardenFocused.co.uk

Tuesday 26 July 2016

PLANTING GARLIC

http://www.laundryetc.co.uk/2010/11/25/the-greatest-scapes-planting-garlic/