November 2011 – Nu Trac

new growing area and contour ditch

In a previous post I mentioned the repercussions experienced from locating my muscadine grape plantings too close to my vegetable beds. Just as the vines of the muscadine grow interminably so do their roots and the raised beds, tomato planting sites and other vegetable sites were mined by muscadine roots. I relocated half (6) of the muscadines earlier in November and have now prepared a site for relocating the remainder.

The site is on the slope of a small hill which has blueberries at the top and a fruit tree orchard lower down. I decided to carve out a terrace between the two, approximately 8 ft wide and 100 ft long, with my bobcat. Terracing the first 50 ft was uneventful and then I hit the rocks. It seemed the slope was made from rocks. With the teeth of the loader I jiggled the rocks loose and then manually lifted the rocks and stacked them above the terrace. Seemed interminable. Eventually a terrace appeared. But it sloped from the north end to the south end, which meant the intended contour ditch would be more drain than a container of rainwater.

I hammered in 6 – 4ft metal rods equidistant along the terrace and then with my transit level and surveyors tape tied to the rods, I identified the grade (you can see some of them in the above ‘photo). With my bobcat I then pretty much leveled the terrace, though there is still some dip from the north end to the south end.

Next step was to dig a trench/ditch down the middle. I replaced the loader on the bobcat with a trencher/stump remover attachment and after pulling out more rocks had a rough ditch. A lot more work with a shovel was required to make it presentable.

Now I had bare clay earth and the prospect of oncoming wintry rains and erosion. I discussed with the owner of the local farm supply store whether I could still seed with clover. He suggested winter rye grain was a better bet for a cover crop. So I sowed the rye and hope it will germinate.

With the terrace now done, next tasks will be chain sawing some anchor posts for the cables for the muscadine grapes. There is a toppled maple tree which I may use – though toppled, it is off the ground and its wood hasn’t rotted. Also a poplar which needs to come out since it blocks my tractor when I go chipping in the woods. Oak would be a better bet for longevity but I cannot justify (yet) cutting down a good oak for fence posts.

preparing for winter

Yesterday morning I did not need a weather forecast to know cold was incoming and that it was time to protect some of the plantings. Of the 12 fruit trees installed earlier this year, the Gold Nugget loquat was the most vulnerable. The loquat is suited for sub-tropical to mild temperate zones and freezing temperatures will kill the buds if not the tree. My loquat did not do very well this summer, probably too hot for it, but I will do what I can to help it and first steps was to winterwrap it. Since it is only a few feet tall, it fitted easily into one of my tomato cages, which I had made from welded steel wire re-mesh. I then wrapped the cage and the space above the tree with agripon AG-30 row cover, as shown below.

1118b loquat — loquat in tomato cage wrapped with row cover

Next to the vegetables. I have two raised beds where I am growing several varieties of lettuce as well as spinach, kale etc. Rather than using a hoop system my thought is to drape row covers over the beds just above the vegetables. This should be less vulnerable to strong winds and may offer better protection. For my first bed I bridged the long sides of the bed with two cedar posts and then strapped a 4″ pvc drain pipe to the posts and draped the row crop over this. Below is the finished product as it appeared this morning (you can see the frost on the adjacent strawberries):

1118c veg bed — raised vegetable bed covered with row cover

If the description was difficult to follow, here is a shot with the row cover removed:

1118d veg bed — raised vegetable bed with fixtures for row cover

Only half of this bed is being used for vegetables. I have extensively planted the other half and also the spaces between the vegetables with garlic. For my second bed I simply placed the row cover over the vegetables and secured with 3 2×4 untreated planks, as shown below:

1118e veg bed — vegetable bed covered against frost

The temperature fell to 22 degrees and the vegetables did fine, though it was not a heavy frost. Since temperatures are predicted to stay above freezing for the next five days, I removed the covers this morning, a simple task which took just a few minutes.

1118f veg bed — long raised vegetable bed with lettuce interplanted with garlic

My new chicken coop is working out great. Air can flow freely out the rafters at the top and I leave two of the windows slightly ajar. I was curious to learn how cold it really gets. I transplanted my two min max thermometers from my greenhouse to the coop and sited one outside at the door and the other on the partition which divides the coop into the old flock and new flock areas. This morning the outside temperature was 22 degrees and the inside temperature was 36 degrees, higher mostly I would think because of the heat of the birds. My greenhouse, which is fully enclosed, only provides a differential of about 10 degrees between outside cold and inside temperatures.

1118g thermo — thermometer reading 22 degrees

1118h thermo — min max thermometer on coop door

Since power outages may be expected, I checked my flashlights and found that my large 4 cell mag-lite was not functioning. Two of the 4 batteries had leaked and corroded the inside. Removing the batteries proved near impossible. I decided to drill a hole into the bottom of the battery and screw a large lag eye bolt into the battery and, with the assistance of a helper, pull them apart. After much tugging the bolt separated from the battery and the battery remained, unmoved, in the flashlight body. I then located a larger diameter hanger bolt and screwed this into the battery.

1118h flashlight repair — hanger bolt on left shown inserted in a battery, and lag eye bolt on right

I no longer had my helper but additional help was unnecessary since, with a assortment of 2×4’s I established a platform for the nut on the hanger bolt to leverage against. It was then a simple matter to tighten the hanger bolt nut with a wrench and slowly extricate the two damaged batteries. After rinsing out and scrubbing the flashlight interior with a liquid mix of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and installing new, and a better brand of, batteries, the flashlight is good to go.

1118i flashlight repair — tighten the nut and the bad battery comes out (slowly)

November tasks

No pics for this post since my camera informed me the battery pack had to be replaced and refused further negotiation.

A pleasurable task, this time of year, is collecting the flower seeds. I did my first Cosmos seeding early 2010 and, from the seeds gathered last November and spread this past spring, I enjoyed a whole new expanse of Cosmos. By November 8, as was the case last year, most of the seeds have dried and spread and are easy to grasp in one’s hand and release into a shopping bag. Lots of Cosmos and every few days I gather more. Also collecting Marigold and Zinnia seeds for new plantings next year.

I am heavily studying permaculture and a recommended plant is the Gumi/Goumi (Elaeagnus multiflora), native to China, Korea and Japan, which provides edible fruit, fixes nitrogen and apparently has medicinal uses. Rather than buy a plant, I bought 12 seeds which arrived after a 2 week trip from NS, Canada accompanied with a note “Has a long germination requirement, often taking 2 full winters before germination.” This will surely test my propagating abilities. For starters, I moistened some seed starting mix and placed, with 6 seeds, in a zip loc bag in the refrigerator. To mimic two years I may remove from the refrigerator in a month’s time and allow to warm for a while and then back into the refrigerator to trick the seeds into thinking this is their second winter. I suspect I will find these seeds are not easily tricked – that’s why I kept 6 seeds in storage for a second go round.

I am also trying, for the first time, to propagate cuttings. I have had success with layering where you pin a low branch of a shrub on the ground, maybe roughen the underside, cover with compost and soil and leave for a few months and, when you return the pinned branch has developed roots and can now be cut from the mother plant and transplanted. Works very well with azaleas and forsythias. But cuttings is something new and, when I have definitive progress, I shall include some pics. I am aware that the best time to be doing this is in spring when the plant is in growth mode, not at the end of fall when systems are shutting down. And spring next year I shall also be trying grafting on my fruit trees.

Next week I should receive some root cuttings of Comfrey, Goldenseal and Jerusalem Artichoke, and also two varieties of mulberry, black bamboo and everbearing strawberries. Just in time to plant before the real cold settles the ground. I have been growing early season strawberries for several years and they were very sweet and spread prolifically. However, their fruiting season is too short, and so I hope to be similarly lucky with the everbearing variety.

With the cooling temperatures I have been progressively winterizing the bee hive. A couple months ago I removed the big sun umbrella which protected them from overhead sun, then I removed the board fence on the west side which protected them from afternoon sun, now I have stapled the plastic sheeting to the frame which encompasses the hive, and I slid in the bottom board, so only the entrance side and the top are open to the elements. I also have left them with a lot of their honey (my last harvesting was August 5) so I hope they will have enough to get through the winter without my having to give them sugared water. Since I do not use any chemicals, I want them as healthy and strong as possible to survive the challenges of winter and their own honey will be infinitely better than a sugared substitute.

And the chicken? The 6 older hens are delivering 3 eggs a day which is ok for now, given the shortening daylight hours. The flock of eight (7 hens and 1 rooster) are now about 6 months old and only one of them (one of the Golden Comets) is egg producing. They love their new coop and seem to be having a great time so I have had a few chats with them about the importance of delivering more eggs – “eggs or the pot” I say to them. In December, if egg production is down, I may use artificial lighting on a timer to get them 14 hours of light and more into an egg laying frame of mind.

compost making time, again

The leaves have been tumbling down and my Atlanta neighbors, or more accurately, their gardening services have begun bagging the leaves and curbsiding them, an open invitation to initiate compost making. Today, Saturday, was my first early morning sweep and, with 12 full bags secured and tarp covered in the bed of my pickup, I headed north to my farm. After uncooping the chickens, I made my first compost heap of the season.

It is really a quick, relatively painless process (you can find detailed instructions under the tab “Growing organic”). Under the oak tree, where many compost heaps were previously made, I cleared a 6ft square area; opened and spread the contents of two leaf bags; then added a layer of weeds, bramble and vines from areas cleared during the week; then a fork load of finished compost; and then repeated the process several times. In fact, since I started with 12 leaf bags and there were two bags per layer, I had 6 layers of leaves separated by 6 layers of vegetation, intermingled with helpings of finished and semi-finished compost. Because the leaves were dry, I watered continuously with a hose connected to my rainwater storage tank. Earthworms are included in the compost supplements and will migrate from the soil to the heap.

The end product is a dishevelled looking compost pile. As I collect more bags in the coming days I shall continue to build the heap. I shall also revisit the horse stables for manure and add a generous helping of manure to the brew. I also recycle kitchen leftovers such as egg shells, vegetable scraps and coffee grounds, and contributions (poop) from the chicken coop.

In cold conditions I usually cover the top with a tarmac weighted down with stones or lumber, to retain the heat and accelerate the process. For now I shall leave it open since we still have warm days and I want it to receive the benefit of rains. After the heap is fully built up I shall turn it a couple of times with my bobcat and by next April, I should have compost ready to go.

transplanting muscadine and fixing a mistake

Muscadine grapes (vitis rotundifolia) grow in the wild throughout the Southeastern United States. There are well known varieties and my favorite is the Scuppernong. When I established my vegetable garden 3 years ago I had a small growing area and, in my wisdom, ignored the instructions to “set the plants 20 feet apart in 10 foot rows”. Instead, I set up 3 horizontal wires, 5 ft high, 1 ft apart, and ran this down the middle of my vegetable garden. I figured the horizontal wires would give the plants adequate sun exposure, the 1 ft spacing would allow air circulation and my heavily composted soil would support a larger number of closely planted muscadines. Sounds good in theory. What I did not know is that muscadine roots can travel long distances (I heard one grower say up to 70 ft). I suppose the roots are a bit like the vines, which also grow interminably. Result was the muscadine roots began invading my raised beds, my tomato plantings, in fact all my plantings.

So I waited until first frost (a few days ago) and am now replanting 6 of the vines. Not a simple task. It is easy enough to trim the vines to 10 ft lengths, but extricating 10 ft lengths of root without damaging them is more difficult. Where the root forks you have to be careful not to tear off and strip of the root.

I previously had run a 5 ft high cable between my fruit trees to support tomato cages for my tomato plants. Also not a good idea. While the vegetable garden is circled by a 5 ft fence which keeps out squirrels, deer etc. my fruit orchard is not protected and a lot of wildlife visitors enjoyed my tomatoes this year. So I removed the tomato cages, dug a ditch below the cable and aligned the roots of the muscadine down the trench, covered with compost and soil, and watered. And I hope the muscadines will survive and grow. This took care of 3 of the 6 muscadines, but I had to develop a location for the other 3 muscadines.

I decided to extend the cable further down the orchard which meant inserting another post to carry the cable. I attached the augur to my tractor and used a large drill to dig a 3 ft hole. Then with a chain attached to my tractor bucket I hoisted my post (an 8 ft cherry tree trunk) into the air and lowered the trunk into the hole. Remaining steps are to extend the cable and transplant the remaining muscadines. A lot of work to correct a mistake made 3 years ago.