Today I was finally happy with the seedlings planted in the garden. The lettuces, for instance, have been in the ground for three weeks and in those weeks hardly put on any weight. The peas are pathetic. The cold and rain would be fine for those, but for being followed instantly by heat wave weather. …
Category Archives: garden
Biochar and KNF Side-by-Side Trial
Cross-post from the Transition Wayland website Today we started the carbon/biochar and Korean Natural Farming inputs trial at our plot in the Community Gardens. Andrea and Kaat divided two beds in half. All halves received biochar (“pre-loaded” with compost – never apply pure biochar by itself!) and straw. Two of those halves (one in each …
All Potted Up
Most of the tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos, sunbathing
Mushroom Cultivation Workshop
What a day. Pouring rain for the first part of the mushroom cultivation workshop at Allandale Farm with NOFA-Mass Dan Bensonoff. Good for the fungi, and because it was pretty balmy, not harmful too humans. I am ready to start growing some mushrooms other than Garden Giant. After that, potting up tomatoes, and sowing squash …
Holistic Spray
In between juggling three loads of laundry, baking four “pumpkin” pies with the last root-cellared butternut squashes, and watching the home yard hive for swarming (better go in tomorrow and have a look!), I finally got the Michael Philips Holistic Spray onto the garden today. A bit late: the sour cherry, currants and jostaberry are …
Korean Natural Farming for the 2017 season
I’m in good shape for this growing season with the KNF (Korean Natural Farming) applications. The FPJ (Fermented Plant Juice; explained here, along with OHN) is a beautifully thick and deep chocolate brown, sweet-smelling syrup. My only worry here is that I don’t have a lot, but I’ll be gathering a lot of the meristems …
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Break in the Heat
After over a week of temperatures in the 90s and scorching full sun, it is cooler overcast with some mild rain (still not enough, though). I get to catch my breath. Today I weeded, pruned and trellised tomatoes. Tomorrow I may really get to the wood chip piles: add them to Wood Chip Heaven and …
Drought
It’s been hard in our neck of the woods. We had 0.69 inches of rain this month. Not even one inch. The Department of Environmental Protection has issued a “Severe Drought Warning†for my county. Thunderstorm after thunderstorm has evaporated, glanced off or split around our area. The Wundermap shows their tragic course all too …
Fish Amino Acids (FAA) Update
I visited the two buckets of FAA today – they’re nicely tucked away in the cool, dark basement. Amazing how it doesn’t smell awful or even fishy at all, since it’s just fish and sugar, and some apples. The apple smell dominates, along with a sweet fermented smell. The top of one had a lot …
Korean Natural Farming: IMO 1 (i)
Another oft-used (and used in quantity) cohort of living allies in Korean Natural Farming is IMO: Indigenous Micro Organisms. The IMO “input” is made in several steps, from IMO 1 through 4. IMO 1 is the “catch” of said microorganisms, and in each subsequent step you get to culture these, growing their quantity until you …