Since late October I’ve been working on putting the garden to bed for winter. As I started to explain in this post, in year’s past I just ripped out the frost-blackened vegetation and made sure there was a thick layer of straw on the ground before abandoning the garden over winter. That worked well, but with this new garden I wanted to try harder. I also sensed that my soil fertility might be low. I know that soil is something that’s built over time, but I believe that some of the trouble I had with insects could be resolved by improving soil fertility, which leads to more resilient plants that are better able to defend themselves. Enter sheet mulching.
I’d read about sheet mulching in Gaia’s Garden, what some consider to be the Bible of permaculture, and which I found to be one of the best books I’ve read on gardening. I came to the conclusion that sheet mulching is basically creating the optimal home for worms to set up housekeeping, and as a big fan of the power of worms for improving soil, I was sold.
First I pulled out the really big, tough dead plants—the tomatoes and the toughest parts of the dead dahlias. I cut the rest of the lightweight vegetation to the ground and left it lying in the beds for a layer of nice, nitrogen-rich greens. I still had three beds producing winter greens and salad lettuce under row covers and plastic, so I left those standing.
Next came even more high-nitrogen material—first a nice scattering of blood meal, much to the delight of the dog who was helping me assemble my sheet mulch, and then I added a thin layer of grass clippings I raked out of the field.
Then I shoveled on a thick layer of well-rotten horse manure compost, delivered by my dad from his private stash.
Finally it was time for the fun part: adding the cardboard boxes. If one were sheet mulching over existing turf, the boxes would form a light-impenetrable barrier that would smother all existing vegetation. I was working with already-prepared beds so I wondered if this was necessary. But then I remembered how much the worms I kept in worm bins loved cardboard—and my herbalism teacher mentioned that worms are attracted to tasty sugars in the cardboard and work their way through all the layers of sheet much to get to the banquet—and by doing so create rich soil.
So down went the boxes, some of which I’d had for almost ten years and that had seen me through cross-country moves. In the small apartments I lived in before moving here I’d kept these boxes stashed under my bed, always ready for the next move that undoubtedly was just a couple of years away. There was something so sweet about finally retiring these boxes and using them to build the future of the food for this home.
Another important tip for sheet mulching—lots of water. Each layer needs to be soaked with water so that the worms are well-plumped and everything gets nice and rottey and just right for decomposition.
Stay tuned for the finished project later this week…
The recent hard freezes signaled to me that it was time to put the garden to bed for the winter. In gardens past, specifically the community garden plot I tended in Arlington, Va., I have simply ripped the blackened stalks from the earth and retreated to the comfort of central heating and daydreaming with seed catalogs. However, even when I was doing that I left a thick mulch of straw over the entire garden. After a few years—right around the time I decided to leave the city for the country—I noticed that without hardly trying I’d built an incredibly rich soil thickly inhabited by beneficial earthworms.
Though I acted out of instinct while I was tending that garden, I have since come to know that others, such as the incredible Ruth Stout, tout the benefits of a thick mulch. Watch this video and you’ll see the woman who’s influenced my approach to my garden, both physically and philosophically, as well as the woman I hope to be in 50 years. Actually, I pretty much aspire to be her right now. Particularly when it comes to the Roman couch breakfast.
If you’re really in to it, she continues:
This post started out as my explanation of the sheet mulching I undertook last weekend, but while writing I grew too re-enamored of Ruth to even go there. So I will stop and pay attention to this inspiration. I hope that you will enjoy these videos, for this woman has much to say.
And some day, while working in my garden, I may make the cars stop on Free Union Road.
The first freeze of this winter arrived last night, capping off a day that started with snow (!) This morning the garden is black and wilted and the only thing left to do is rip out the plants, dump compost and straw on the beds to enrich the soil during winter, and retire to the house. For a long, long time.
This summer passed the fastest of any in my life, and in many ways I feel I missed my favorite season this year. Although a part of me is ready for a break from the work of the garden, I am sad to see it go. Summer is my best time because I feel healthiest when I am outside a lot, working in the dirt and sun, sweating and nurturing young plants and taking my food right from my land to my kitchen.
I view the approaching winter with trepidation. I hate waking up in the dark. I hate driving home from work in the dark. I work in a windowless office so in the winter I only see the sun for a few minutes each day. Which, for someone who needs light, is a form of torture.
I am trying to get excited about a winter of resting and reading by the wood stove—bribing myself with new books and lofty self-enriching goal setting—but I know the next several months will be a challenge that’s even greater than the physical one I put myself through during the growing season.
How lucky to be able to eat a painting for dinner in late October!
These greens are the product of my experiment with row covers, fall planting and benign neglect. As you know, I scratched these seeds into the soil after ripping out summer plants. I watered them maybe once and then left them alone other than to occasionally snip in half a renegade caterpillar.
The salad greens, bok choy, and Red Russian kale (which wins my esteem for its beautiful color and shape) are doing the best. There’s also a very bitter green that’s satisfying my fall craving for bitterness…and probably more healthfully than the imperials I.P.As I have been drinking to scratch the same itch.
I have to report mixed success with the Agribon 15 row cover. I am sure it is better than the wedding netting at keeping out bugs, except that in even the short time that it’s been up it’s started disintegrating.
And the wedding netting is still looking like the day I put it up. Something to keep in mind when I use the Agribon for next year’s garden–I will more than likely have to replace each cover a few times during the growing season.
My little Fuyu persimmon has put all its summer’s effort into these three beauties.
There was more fruit on the tree, but as the season progressed it fell. These three hung on and I’ve been watching them get oranger. Each morning I expect them to be gone, but if my luck holds I’ll get to enjoy this “fruit of the gods” very soon.
All summer I tortured this shade-loving perennial by forcing it to live in clay soil on a south slope with full-sun exposure. It’s foliage was bedraggled and weed-like, and I often considered ripping it right out of the ground. And then this happened.
The thing is covered in blooms! It’s particularly gorgeous when the light shines through the small hairs that cover each flower. The entire plant shimmers and it has a mythological, magical feel about it.
As soon as it’s finished blooming, I am digging it up and relocating it to the shady side of the house. If it bloomed this well under duress, who knows what it will do when it gets into a happier spot?
The first weekend of October was devoted to installing the new forest. The purpose of this mass planting is to create screening between my neighbor’s house and mine and to also block the view of the back of my house from people coming down the road. To give you a sense of scale, the installation is about 200 feet long and 30 feet deep.
I had bought 44 trees and shrubs, and it took two long weekend days of nonstop work to install 27 of them. I am grateful for my tree planting partner father, as well as his backhoe and tractor and skid steer that made it possible to pick these trees up. Some were quite large and must have weighed several hundred pounds. And even with the heavy equipment we both did a lot of shoveling. And we’re still not done…
My vision for this part of the landscape is of a multilayered hedge with mixed tall evergreens forming an all-seasons background screen and shorter deciduous trees in front to provide seasonal interest with their flowers and fall color. It looks a little sparse now as I positioned the trees with a mind to their mature sizes but already it’s having the effect of drawing attention away from undesirable views and toward the trees. It is a major change for what used to be perfectly pretty pasture, and I hope it works out! Below is the view from my neighbor’s fence line back toward my compound.
I spent all last Sunday watering the trees and staking them. I am torn about staking: all the recent research suggests that it can do more harm than good to young trees. Stress and movement of the tree in the wind actually encourage the tree to develop a stronger root system and stockier trunk. However, I also know that this field is incredibly windy in the winter, and I fear that without some support these top-heavy evergreens will be lifted right out of the ground. So each tree got one stake, to be removed as soon as the roots show signs of having knit themselves to the earth. I found this publication by the University of Minnesota to be incredibly helpful.
I also loosely wrapped the trunks of the deciduous trees in balled up deer netting and tied it on. The theory is that deer don’t like the feeling of the netting and refrain from scratching their antlers against the trunks—a rather rude act that can kill a young tree.
Now I just need to order a couple of truckloads of mulch from my mulch guy and tuck these babies in for the winter!
This weekend I have plans to plant 44 trees and shrubs.
Last weekend I went looking for trees to create the living screen I wanted between my house and my neighbor’s. I hit pay dirt at a nursery over the mountain. All their material was 50 percent off, and they were willing to deliver. So I bought trees. Lots of trees. And some shrubs too.
The plants arrived early this week, and I spent some time yesterday moving the smaller material into the field. Tomorrow reinforcements—and heavy machinery—are arriving for the Big Dig.
