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|  Dear Reader, The 4-Mile Canyon fire near Boulder, Colorado destroyed 169 houses. Our home was one of the last to burn. Surprisingly, while the house is ash the greenhouses and some beds survived with a little singeing; we were able to harvest tomatoes, peppers,  leeks, onions, carrots, turnips, kohlrabi, potatoes and rutabagas. Within a week we moved into a comfortable rental house in Boulder. It has a small garden and I am renovating a couple of beds, ready for greens and spring crops. I now sympathize with those who struggle with heavy clay soils – my mountain soils were mostly grit but easy to cultivate.?This month’s short article is about how I turn a flower bed into a vegetable patch. It is many years since I began my last garden so it is almost as foreign for me as it is to a complete beginner.
People ask what life is like after losing everything. I will describe my experiences in the Bountea Blog — when I have the time. Suddenly, there are more things to do each day than can be imagined: dealing with insurance, making an inventory of everything you owned, finding furniture, applying for loans, going to fire meetings, getting the fire debris removed, talking to architects and contractors – the list goes on. What you learn most intensely is that people matter much more than stuff. You get to experience the open-heartedness and generosity of friends and strangers alike. For all the negative things you hear from the media, there is infinitely more goodness in the world than we ever know. The fall is a great time to re-pot house plants and to buy discounted shrubs and trees. SuperStart for Plants is on sale, so take advantage of its life-enhancing power whenever you transplant. Best Regards,
Roland Evans |
| Fall Garden TasksÂ
Mulch and more mulch: that is the theme for the next month. Take a tip from the falling leaves and smother everything with as much organic mulch as you can gather. Grass, leaves, compost, pine mulch, even paper – as long as it is organic use whatever you can. Cover all root vegetables – carrots, parsnips, turnips, kohlrabi, even potatoes – with 6″-10″ of leaves and a clear plastic sheet just before the snows come. Plant hardy cover crop of annual rye, white clover and/or alfalfa in the veggie bed to prevent erosion and add nitrogen for spring. Many online seed merchants are closed for the season but you can try local garden stores. Fill a 15″ wide pot with soil and plant sugar snap peas with winter lettuce, arugula and cress. Put it in a sunny place indoors or in a green house and harvest fresh salads in November. ________________________________________________
Bountea Compost Tea: Prepare the soil for fall planting or even a fallow winter with a good dose of Bountea and Root Web. If you have seedlings or winter plants, add M3. Only add Root Web right at the end of the brewing and just before application – and water very well.
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| Starting a Garden Again After years of home-ownership, I am a renter; the land does not belong to me. I contact the owner and she is happy to have me garden the existing beds. However, she plans to sell in the future and wants to, “keep it looking nice.” I can take out the annuals and plant veggies but I am not allowed to make raised beds or change the rock surrounds. That limits my options.There are two beds filled with straggling nasturtiums dampened by a randomly spraying irrigation system. Oh for some silent T-tape dripping moisture deep into the root zone! I dislike inefficient spray systems but it is better than nothing.I spend some time watching how the sun moves across the garden during the day. If I want good fall or spring crops, I need as much direct sun as possible – 6 hours is enough. The West bed looks as if it would be shaded by a fence but actually gets the most sun. The North bed is closer to the path so should do well for herbs. Luckily, my ladies fork, worn down to 5″ tines, survived the fire. I start to dig. The stuff looks like soil but it doesn’t feel like soil. Digging is more like moving a dead-weight corpse than a living soil body. The texture is tightly bound with no worms. That tells me immediately that the microbial life is practically dead. After lifting the clumps of soil, I break them up with an English harrow hoe. This looks like a down-curved 3-prong trident with spearheads on the ends. It and my ladies fork are my mainstay cultivators. The soil crumb is very coarse and hard. There is very little humus – the organic carbon formed from decomposed plant and animal matter. Nutrients will not be easily available to plants. Fertile soil nurtures each root within a soft moist blanket of humus, minerals and microbes. A gardener’s main job is to recreate that perfect root environment. First, I let the hose run into the bed until it is saturated. Actually, it drains quite well so I know there is no impervious hardpan beneath the top soil. Already the soil looks happier as the crumbs loosen and breathe. Now out with the Bountea to provide the needed microbes and minerals. I brew it overnight, add M3 and Root Web at the end and dose the beds heavily. The Root Web is not really needed for the Brassica seedlings (cabbage, kale and collards) that a gardening friend has given me. However, it is very helpful to have beneficial fungi in the soil ready for those other vegetables planted in the spring. _________________________________________________ |
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Care for your Plants — Care for your Soil — Care for our Earth
the Bountea way. |
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