Time for me to get busy preparing for the coming Summer. Yes, I do know that it's still the middle of Winter.
I have some contract (software) architecture & design work over the next few months which will see me spending quite a bit of time in Cape Town, starting in mid-August, so if I don't get off my duff and start preparing veggie beds now, I'm going to be hopelessly behind schedule by the time October comes around. The only real problem I face is a huge shortage of compost! There simply hasn't been the water for making compost from the stable-sweepings I usually use.
As it is I'm going to run a week or so late with seed-sowing, but it shouldn't do any real harm. As ever we'll be optimistic over rain this coming Summer, but I really must try and concentrate my efforts on fewer varieties of Chillis and Tomatoes, and on increasing the sheer volumes. Still, it's so great to be getting my hands back into the ground! I can't believe how much I've been missing the dirt under my nails.
Need I say that the veggie garden has been badly neglected, so it is a jungle of weeds. I wish the rotovator was working, then I'd make short work of clearing the beds. Perhaps we'll be able to spare enough money for a new rotovator motor if things go well. The old one bent something vital in the engine, and, given that the motor is a foreign make with no local agents, the cost of repair is up there in the same region as an entirely new motor. When we visited the Barley Breeding Institute, I noticed that they use the same make of rotovator as I have (BCS), and asked them where they source parts. The chap there laughed and said, "Oh no! We replace the motors as soon as we get the machine. The motors they come with are useless. Fine machines otherwise, though!" I can't help but agree.
We're also planning on acquiring a couple of Piggies. Brother-in-law has a mild-tempered boar who has been quite (cough) busy... and they receive a piglet from each litter he's responsible for. They've offered to let us have some, and I am very keen. I just don't know that keeping only two sows justifies the keeping of a boar of our own...
Busy times!
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
30 July 2010
17 July 2007
Next Summer's Crops
So here's what I'm planning for the Summer. As usual I don't have enough bed-space for them all, so I'd best get digging! I'm also getting the rotovator fixed so that I can clear some "field" space for the more broadscale stuff. My focus is threefold:
Throw in an assortment of herbs, and that's about it!
- First, and most important, is our food supply -- the self-sufficiency thing. Dried beans, sunflower-seed, grains, winter squashes for storage.
- Second, I am strongly leaning towards selling some produce, hence an eye towards visually appealing varieties, unusual and unique stuff, and things that will appeal to gourmet chefs. My thinking is to sell and exclusive range to just a few upmarket restaurants.
- Third, seed-saving; keeping all the varieties going, plus enough to sell seed.
The List
Salad mix -- more-or-less a year-round thing; the only time it slows down is in Dec/Jan, when high temperatures inhibit germination of the Lettuces. Easily solved with a bit of shadecloth, or by putting the seed-trays in a cool, damp place.
| Squashes & Pumpkin:
Chillis:
Tamarillo Snap Peas - Golden Sweet, Sugar Snap Sweet Potato Potato Sorghum* (for chook feed) Wheat* (maybe, depending on space, energy) Artichokes -- Purple of Romagna Cabbage (a bit neglected in Summer, but coleslaw is always nice on hot evenings) Kohlrabi - Early Purple Vienna (or maybe not) Watermelon - Moon & Stars* Leeks (just a few) Sweet Pepper - Cosmic Purple*, California Wonder* (maybe) Carrots Swiss Chard - Luculus Parsley (plain, flat-leaf kind -- much more flavoursome!) Coriander/dhanya (we eat a lot of curries and Indian dishes) |
08 July 2007
Planning Summer Crops
Planning for Summer
For once I feel like I'm getting ahead of the curve. My usual Summer planting: a haphazard sowing of tried-and-trusted favourites, interspersed with a motley assortment of new varieties I just couldn't resist. Result: Not enough beds, seed-trays of plants unused, packets of seed growing old, unopened, in the seed cupboard.
Not this year! Took advantage of some crappy weather yesterday (and back muscles complaining about the previous day's exertions) to draw up plant-lists... all the things I'd like to grow in the coming Summer season. A primary goal is to identify "gaps" -- the things I always see halfway through the growing season, and say, "I wish I had planted..."
I'm also having to triage my New Variety Lust pretty ruthlessly...
Missing Links
I'll write up my planting-list soon, for anyone who is interested. I would really like some advice on good varieties. Bear in mind that, come Spring and Summer, I'm dealing with a warm, humid climate, and a heavy clay-loam soil. Water supply can be a problem, depending on our luck with the weather. Meanwhile, here's what I am looking for:
Tomatoes: I have about 8 or 10 varieties planned, but could well do with another couple of smaller and medium-sized varieties -- salad, paste and drying tomatoes. (I'm planning to build a solar dehydrator, since our climate really puts a crimp in sun-drying.)
Beans and Peas: I have a couple of good varieties of field-beans for drying, but would like to add Pinto beans. I am looking for one or two (or three) kinds of Snap or Snow Peas, preferably in interesting colours, should I get into supplying gourmet salad stuff (which is a possibility I'm contemplating.) Chickpeas I'll probably source from the Health Food section of the supermarket. I'm also looking for some sort of Pea suited to drying and making Pea Flour (Channa Flour.)
Squash/Pumpkin: Looking for an "edible seed" variety so we can harvest Pumpkin seed for breads and snacks. In general Squashes and Pumpkin are difficult subjects, here, since they get nailed by Pumpkin Fly, so all Squashie crops have to be netted, and the netting is damn expensive, limiting how many of these plants I can realistically grow.
Carrots: I would just love more varieties. We have so few Carrot varieties available locally, all orange, and I'd really love to get some of the more colourful ones.
Peppers, Sweet and Hot: I already plant too many Chilli varieties. (Nonsense! There's no such thing as too many Chillis!) I still need a hot, thin-walled variety suitable for drying and crushing. Flavour is, of course, the key. I can easily get seed for Long Red Cayenne, but the flavour is so boring that they're not worth the bother. I'd also like to get New Mex "Big Jim" back again! Then, too, I want to make an effort to branch out into Sweet Peppers a bit this year; something I've never much bothered with before. I did have a very lovely tasting variety called Sweet Banana -- beautiful colour changes, too -- but managed to lose them in The Great Crossing of 2002. I'd love to get them again. I'm not much interested in the ordinary California Wonder type of blocky Peppers you get in the supermarkets, mass-grown in tunnels and sold in Red-Yellow-Green packs -- they don't taste like much at all.
Watermelon: Smaller ones. I've not grown watermelon before, but only because I've not had a way to keep them from the insect pests before now.
Onions: Locally available Onion varieties are very limited and boring, being completely oriented to the large commercial growers. I am particularly looking for a large/sweet/mild variety good for salads.
Whew!
There's loads more I want, but I'm not going to get. As it is, I'm already preparing new beds, and clearing new ground for field-scale crops, and we still have most of Winter to get through.
Please help with advice and suggestions! Open-pollinated only, please. Heirlooms greatly preferred.
If, for any reason, comments are not working properly, or you just prefer to let me know privately what you think, please drop me a line at mikro2nd [at] gmail [dot] com.
For once I feel like I'm getting ahead of the curve. My usual Summer planting: a haphazard sowing of tried-and-trusted favourites, interspersed with a motley assortment of new varieties I just couldn't resist. Result: Not enough beds, seed-trays of plants unused, packets of seed growing old, unopened, in the seed cupboard.
Not this year! Took advantage of some crappy weather yesterday (and back muscles complaining about the previous day's exertions) to draw up plant-lists... all the things I'd like to grow in the coming Summer season. A primary goal is to identify "gaps" -- the things I always see halfway through the growing season, and say, "I wish I had planted..."
I'm also having to triage my New Variety Lust pretty ruthlessly...
Missing Links
I'll write up my planting-list soon, for anyone who is interested. I would really like some advice on good varieties. Bear in mind that, come Spring and Summer, I'm dealing with a warm, humid climate, and a heavy clay-loam soil. Water supply can be a problem, depending on our luck with the weather. Meanwhile, here's what I am looking for:
Tomatoes: I have about 8 or 10 varieties planned, but could well do with another couple of smaller and medium-sized varieties -- salad, paste and drying tomatoes. (I'm planning to build a solar dehydrator, since our climate really puts a crimp in sun-drying.)
Beans and Peas: I have a couple of good varieties of field-beans for drying, but would like to add Pinto beans. I am looking for one or two (or three) kinds of Snap or Snow Peas, preferably in interesting colours, should I get into supplying gourmet salad stuff (which is a possibility I'm contemplating.) Chickpeas I'll probably source from the Health Food section of the supermarket. I'm also looking for some sort of Pea suited to drying and making Pea Flour (Channa Flour.)
Squash/Pumpkin: Looking for an "edible seed" variety so we can harvest Pumpkin seed for breads and snacks. In general Squashes and Pumpkin are difficult subjects, here, since they get nailed by Pumpkin Fly, so all Squashie crops have to be netted, and the netting is damn expensive, limiting how many of these plants I can realistically grow.
Carrots: I would just love more varieties. We have so few Carrot varieties available locally, all orange, and I'd really love to get some of the more colourful ones.
Peppers, Sweet and Hot: I already plant too many Chilli varieties. (Nonsense! There's no such thing as too many Chillis!) I still need a hot, thin-walled variety suitable for drying and crushing. Flavour is, of course, the key. I can easily get seed for Long Red Cayenne, but the flavour is so boring that they're not worth the bother. I'd also like to get New Mex "Big Jim" back again! Then, too, I want to make an effort to branch out into Sweet Peppers a bit this year; something I've never much bothered with before. I did have a very lovely tasting variety called Sweet Banana -- beautiful colour changes, too -- but managed to lose them in The Great Crossing of 2002. I'd love to get them again. I'm not much interested in the ordinary California Wonder type of blocky Peppers you get in the supermarkets, mass-grown in tunnels and sold in Red-Yellow-Green packs -- they don't taste like much at all.
Watermelon: Smaller ones. I've not grown watermelon before, but only because I've not had a way to keep them from the insect pests before now.
Onions: Locally available Onion varieties are very limited and boring, being completely oriented to the large commercial growers. I am particularly looking for a large/sweet/mild variety good for salads.
Whew!
There's loads more I want, but I'm not going to get. As it is, I'm already preparing new beds, and clearing new ground for field-scale crops, and we still have most of Winter to get through.
Please help with advice and suggestions! Open-pollinated only, please. Heirlooms greatly preferred.
If, for any reason, comments are not working properly, or you just prefer to let me know privately what you think, please drop me a line at mikro2nd [at] gmail [dot] com.
02 July 2007
The Clock of the World
Keeping Track
Tactics is extension in space. Strategy is extension in time.
Gardening teaches both Tactics and Strategy to the attentive student, though the emphasis tend to be on Strategy.
Tactics: Laying out garden beds. Which hoe to use for a given weed-challenge. The pointy shovel or the straight-edged shovel for lifting that particular pile of manure? Spade or fork for digging that bed?
Strategy: Right now, in the middle of Winter, I have no more than another month before all considerations of next Summer's crops will be before me. Already I weigh up whether I have enough seed of the varieties I would like to grow, and seed orders take form. Time to buy the crop netting I will need to keep Pumpkin Fly from the Cucurbits, come mid-January. Compost heaps are a-cooking in anticipation of the Spring Rush. It's already late to be digging new beds to increase the area under cultivation.
I usually end-up getting it wrong somewhere along the line. Don't we all?
I guess that everyone has their own strange and unique ways to keep track of what-to-do-when. Of course you have to remember to actually look at the damn wall-chart/spreadsheet/book/diary.
Hedgewizard describes, in a hilarious post, the soggy and disastrous end to one such system.
Detour
I have quite a few friends who subscribe to Rudolf Steiner's ideas on cultivation, summed up, codified and dogmatised as Biodynamic Growing. Most are not Deeply Committed Members Of The Movement, merely dabblers who apply an eclectic handful of biodynamic potions and techniques -- a pinch of some or other weird concoction kept in a cow's horn added to the compost heap while dancing clockwise at full moon; Yarrow stored in a deer-bladder pouch. A bit challenging, that last one, since the Red Deer fail utterly to be found in South Africa.
No! I sound like I'm dissing the biodynamic ideas, and really, I'm not! I just have trouble believing that these homoeopathic treatments of seed, soil, water and compost can have any significant effect on the growth of plants when its simply a case of not getting enough water, nitrogen or calcium, or when the soil pH is way out of whack. In other words, the effects of macro-nutrient deficiency or imbalance vastly overshadows whether the moon was in Scorpio or Leo when you planted the seed. Personally I don't believe I am that good a gardener that I have those large-effect inputs well enough under control for the subtle effects of biodynamic preparations to manifest.
One of the key ideas of biodynamic gardening is Sowing By The Moon. In broad outline, we should sow leaf crops in the First Quarter of the moon -- that period from New Moon to Half Moon during the waxing phase -- fruit crops (Tomatoes, Chillis, Squashes and so on) from the Waxing Half to just before Full Moon, and root crops from Full Moon until the Waning Half. The last quarter of the moon is no good for planting anything, and should be kept for digging beds, weeding and mulching. Of course this is only the very crude outline; there is much, much more subtle detail; attention to astrological effects and their interaction with the nature of various plant varieties.
Whether you buy into this stuff or not (and I make no comment or commitment either way, myself) there is one very useful idea.
The Moon
The Moon gives us the perfect clock we need. Every Moonth, sometime in the First Quarter, I know I need to plant Lettuce. Every Half Moon its time to sow Radishes.
No need for fancy systems. Just going outside of an evening to take a look at the sky.
The Sky
Number One Son bought an imposing reflector telescope, so we've been having lots of fun learning to use it. Our triumph was getting good views of Jupiter, Saturn (it's awsome!) and Venus (blindingly bright) all on one evening's perfect viewing a couple of weeks ago. Consequently we're learning a whole lot about the constellations -- the patterns of the heavens. The Clock Of The Year.
Then, too, I would dearly love to learn more about how to read Nature's clocks. Bits of folklore like, "Plant your Potatoes when the Apple trees blossom." Anybody have some pointer to that sort of knowledge? I imagine that huge swathes of that sort of lore has already been lost; how do we relearn it? Reinvent it?
Yet more ways to reconnect ourselves with the Universe. Actually, we've never really been disconnected; only in the tiny space inside our own heads have we thought so.
Tactics is extension in space. Strategy is extension in time.
Gardening teaches both Tactics and Strategy to the attentive student, though the emphasis tend to be on Strategy.
Tactics: Laying out garden beds. Which hoe to use for a given weed-challenge. The pointy shovel or the straight-edged shovel for lifting that particular pile of manure? Spade or fork for digging that bed?
Strategy: Right now, in the middle of Winter, I have no more than another month before all considerations of next Summer's crops will be before me. Already I weigh up whether I have enough seed of the varieties I would like to grow, and seed orders take form. Time to buy the crop netting I will need to keep Pumpkin Fly from the Cucurbits, come mid-January. Compost heaps are a-cooking in anticipation of the Spring Rush. It's already late to be digging new beds to increase the area under cultivation.
I usually end-up getting it wrong somewhere along the line. Don't we all?
I guess that everyone has their own strange and unique ways to keep track of what-to-do-when. Of course you have to remember to actually look at the damn wall-chart/spreadsheet/book/diary.
Hedgewizard describes, in a hilarious post, the soggy and disastrous end to one such system.
Detour
I have quite a few friends who subscribe to Rudolf Steiner's ideas on cultivation, summed up, codified and dogmatised as Biodynamic Growing. Most are not Deeply Committed Members Of The Movement, merely dabblers who apply an eclectic handful of biodynamic potions and techniques -- a pinch of some or other weird concoction kept in a cow's horn added to the compost heap while dancing clockwise at full moon; Yarrow stored in a deer-bladder pouch. A bit challenging, that last one, since the Red Deer fail utterly to be found in South Africa.
No! I sound like I'm dissing the biodynamic ideas, and really, I'm not! I just have trouble believing that these homoeopathic treatments of seed, soil, water and compost can have any significant effect on the growth of plants when its simply a case of not getting enough water, nitrogen or calcium, or when the soil pH is way out of whack. In other words, the effects of macro-nutrient deficiency or imbalance vastly overshadows whether the moon was in Scorpio or Leo when you planted the seed. Personally I don't believe I am that good a gardener that I have those large-effect inputs well enough under control for the subtle effects of biodynamic preparations to manifest.
One of the key ideas of biodynamic gardening is Sowing By The Moon. In broad outline, we should sow leaf crops in the First Quarter of the moon -- that period from New Moon to Half Moon during the waxing phase -- fruit crops (Tomatoes, Chillis, Squashes and so on) from the Waxing Half to just before Full Moon, and root crops from Full Moon until the Waning Half. The last quarter of the moon is no good for planting anything, and should be kept for digging beds, weeding and mulching. Of course this is only the very crude outline; there is much, much more subtle detail; attention to astrological effects and their interaction with the nature of various plant varieties.
Whether you buy into this stuff or not (and I make no comment or commitment either way, myself) there is one very useful idea.
The Moon
The Moon gives us the perfect clock we need. Every Moonth, sometime in the First Quarter, I know I need to plant Lettuce. Every Half Moon its time to sow Radishes.
No need for fancy systems. Just going outside of an evening to take a look at the sky.
The Sky
Number One Son bought an imposing reflector telescope, so we've been having lots of fun learning to use it. Our triumph was getting good views of Jupiter, Saturn (it's awsome!) and Venus (blindingly bright) all on one evening's perfect viewing a couple of weeks ago. Consequently we're learning a whole lot about the constellations -- the patterns of the heavens. The Clock Of The Year.
Then, too, I would dearly love to learn more about how to read Nature's clocks. Bits of folklore like, "Plant your Potatoes when the Apple trees blossom." Anybody have some pointer to that sort of knowledge? I imagine that huge swathes of that sort of lore has already been lost; how do we relearn it? Reinvent it?
Yet more ways to reconnect ourselves with the Universe. Actually, we've never really been disconnected; only in the tiny space inside our own heads have we thought so.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
You might also like
