Planting time in Abundance...

The first double dug bed of 2009 is now planted - much earlier than last year. It contains red and white organic potato seed. Mars onion sets, red and green romaine lettuce seed, Daikon radishes, garlic transplants, and the flags are reserving spots for snap beans - later in the season.

The basic companion planting spacing tool was the 18" equilateral triangle used by Jeavon's - with modifications for the bed arc.

Bed preparation was a bit unique - 12" of soil (A horizon) was removed, a 10" fork was used to aereate the B horizon, belly rubbed thatch layer was place (upside down) on top of the aereated B horizon and watered thoroughly. This was covered with the next few inches from the top of the A horizon (most rooted zone) and the final layer made up of the well mixed remaining excavated soil.

One remarkable difference in soil temperatures was observed - soil in an undug bed was measured at a temperature of 52.9 F - the double-dug bed was 64.8 F at the same depth - about 5". After planting and a thorough watering with well water about 6PM, the soil temperature was measured to be 59 F at about 5".

A double digging we will go...

On April 24th I began double digging the first arced bed of our circular garden. The soil is covered with a thick thatch of grasses which are just starting to green up (see photo to right) . The soil temperature at 5" depth was 52 F. I observed a few earthworms at work and the soil moisture was just about perfect for working the soil.

This year I allowed the "thatch/sod" layer to dry out in the sun for a short period and then gave it a "belly rub" to remove the loose or loosely adhering soil and micro flora and fauna. As this was rubbed or drummed off it became obvious that it had the texteur of vermicomposted materials - beautiful from a gardener's point of view.

The photo on the left will give you an idea of the thickness of the organic material left after the adherents had been rubbed off. The soil temperature at a 16" depth was 47 F.

And this organic layer was placed on top of the areated B horizon and then thoroughly watered to aid in the composting/breakdown process.

And this is what the first arc looked like with the first two flat shovel widths double dug, composted and turned over.

Soil sample & more...

On Wenesday April 15th the weather was perfect for pulling a soil sample. I sampled in four different spots from last years plots - using the augur from AMS. It worked great and the structure (crumb) of the samples was visibly better than last year. It will be interesting to see this year's results for organic matter - two of the four samples had residual clumps of the sod that I buried afull 12" deep last year (see photo). It was a dry year...

On Friday April 17th planted seeds of Blue Wind Brooccoli, Caraflex cabbage, Orient Express eggplant, Juliet grape tomato, New Girl slicing tomato, and Sam Marzano plum tomato. Today is the last quarter moon.

Celeriac, Sacred tobacco, and tobacco alata were transplanted this week. Peppers are nearly ready to transplant...

Pepper power...

The three pepper varieties that I planted on April Fool's Day are beginning to emerge.

I've transplanted to "growing bags" the white sage, garlic, cilantro, and fennel - all four responded well to the new growing media - a 2 to 1 mix of a Ball commercial germination mix and the sandy undersoil from our newly dug well.

I've agreed to give a talk for Earth Day on composting in the biointensive growing system - with very little effort - Mr. Google - I found a very good introductory web site with a lot of useful information about composting - http://www.composting101.com/ - enjoy.

The ground is still somewhat frozen here but we have placed the fence posts for 1885 sq. ft. area that will contain our plots and food plants. It is a circle 49' in diameter.

Kicking it up a notch...

Set germination bed heater up a notch and planted pepper seed. Johnny's recommends between 80 and 90 F for peppers - mine has been maintaining about 75 F.

April Fool's Day

Schedule calls for sowing seed of the pepper varieties - Ace, Lipstick, and Serrano del Sol - in spite of the fact that outside the weather is frightful.

Celeriac has begun emerging, cilantro is up, as well as fennel.

Have done considerably more mowing with scythe and have a reasonable stack of straw for garden use. Also ordered a soil auger to try a modification of the double digging technique in our particular soil type. Ground is still frozen for the most part...