Back to Eden Gardening

[Beekissed]

Still haven't cleaned up the garden...things are still growing here and there. Got baby squash still, cherry tomatoes, green beans and pumpkin. Not to mention all the flowers.

Was piddling around in there today and pulling little spots of weeds here and there, mostly joint grass and such, where the wood chips were very thin. Was AMAZED at how easily these weeds pulled up, even huge clumps. Like pulling them out of butter...makes a satisfying "SUCK!!" and quiet "riiippppp!" sound when they detach. Underneath is dark, composting wood chips...hopefully by spring I'll have a rich layer of compost there and I'll be able to plant most anything. I also noticed the bottom layer and the soil underneath is very wet, when we haven't had rain in some time now...it's very dry here.

I noticed my potatoes are growing anew...nice, green tops about 6-8 in. tall. I didn't dig up our taters because there were so few~though large~in the hills, was just going to leave them to come up in the spring. Well...they arrived early.

Next week I plan to start cutting the vines loose from supports, removing small clumps of weeds here and there, then laying down more chips. I have a pile in the garden that needs spread and two outside the garden that needs applied.

I hope to put leaves on the garden all fall as well, after storing as much as I need for coop bedding.

This still growing along...

This is the weediest corner, where the chips were the most thin and I really neglected the whole patch. I don't worry, though, as those weeds should pull up as easily as all the rest. Next year I'll do much better in that area, as there should be no areas of the garden lying fallow all season.

 

[canesisters]

 

[journey11]

So pretty. I love cosmos. I always get a lot of goldfinches who come to eat the seed heads.

Yes, lots more fun to pull weeds in that soft loamy stuff, rather than hard packed red clay!

I told my mom about BTE the other day. She has already been mulching her small garden with wood chips that her neighbor gave her after they had a big tree cut down. She mentioned getting my brother to come till it for her, but I reminded her that turning under all those wood chips would be a bad thing for the nitrogen. I suggested she look into BTE since she's halfway there already!

 

[Beekissed]

Good save! If she just continues on that path, she may never want/need to till again.

I've also been amazed at the pumpkin and squash vines and how they are still producing...when each and every one of them had squash borer damage at the base of the vine. When I found the damage to the vines, I remembered something I had read about covering that damage and also another point along the vine with soil so that the plant could put down new leaders for mining moisture and nutrition and that this may help the plant survive the damage.

Well...that worked, though I didn't have any soil to use, I just used the wood chips. Not only did they survive but they are still putting out bloom and fruit, even though the leaves also show mold growth. Here recently the pumpkin vine grew an additional 4 ft and has blooms at the end of the vine.

I think another factor may be in play...maybe even a couple of factors. Even though we are very dry here, the chips have held moisture to the plants and, by now, the bottom layer of the chips have composted down somewhat, providing more nutrition to the plants than they had even earlier in the year.

I'll remember that little trick for next year's garden...and I'll also know that planting radishes around your vines don't help protect them from the moth that lays the squash borer worms. That was something read from my companion planting book, but it just doesn't work at all.

Every year I learn many new things...I think that's why this gardening and also keeping food animals is so very interesting to me. One is always learning, always engaged.

 

[journey11]

I planted radishes thickly around my cukes last year and I thought it seemed to help. I didn't see cuke beetles around them either and the vines went forever until any mildew appeared (which can be carried in by the beetles). Not sure about vine borers. I don't usually have trouble with them on cukes anyway. I've noticed that too, where squash can rebound if they get to lay down roots further down the vine. Your garden looks really good for this late in the year.

 

[Beekissed]

I'll try them next year around the cukes and see what happens....my cukes were simply covered in beetles this year of various different kinds. If it helped yours it may very well help mine. It's just a matter of planting a few seeds and not pulling them, so it's no chore.

Fall gardens always look a little sad to me...but also a little beautiful. Some things take off and flower for all they are worth, midst the brown of all the other dead and dying things and it all paints a picture of fall.

I must say, though, that this fall garden is pleasing to me due to the fact that I don't have to take down the fencing, nor till up the rows and reseed to clover to cover bare soil. The fence stays, the soil is already covered and all I have to do is clear out a few grass clumps here and there and cover the rest of the dead vines and such with wood chips. I'm liking this aspect of it.

 

[Beekissed]

Finally cleaned up the garden and it was really enjoyable, for the first time I could ever remember...usually it's an anticlimactic time of year and full of the labor of removing dead and dying things, taking down a huge fence and tilling the rows to reseed to clover.

I had a lot of weeds to remove, as I had pretty much neglected one huge corner of the garden where the wood chips were very thin and the weeds took over and where the crops had done very poorly, so it was easy to ignore all season.

But was overjoyed to see, even in the areas that had thin wood chips and exposed soil in some places, rich black soil starting to form...and all the soil was loose and moist. I was just thanking God all the time I was pulling weeds~unusual, I know~because they came up like a knife out of butter, even the joint grass, crab grass, Johnson grass or whatever the various forms of that close, clinging, runners under the soil kind of grasses are called....and underneath? That loose, dark soil, moist and loamy!

When before it was hard pan clay that compacted down after one rainfall, after being tilled 5 times in a row....

Now, I have this...after a spring and summer under wood chips...

The weeds pull up easily and attached to their roots I find this...

Here's that corner before I started....a mass of joint grass, crab grass and any other kind of grass you can imagine, along with burdock, and many unknown weeds.....

and weeds galore....just look at how tightly matted these grasses were!

After completing that corner and the rest of the areas where the chips were too thin, I took three of these out of the garden before it was all over with....

That corner is now covered well with wood chips....

The rest of the garden plants were either removed to the coop with the rest of the weeds to be composted there, or were left to finish ripening of fruits...like the tiny squash above and the cherry tomatoes below...

I left all the flowers for now, but I expect the hard frost we are expecting this weekend might end them anyway.

I deposited the three barrows full of weeds and garden waste in the coop...

And removed two barrows full of composted litter to return to the garden....and that's the beauty of this system!

These chickens are invaluable to me in all aspects when it comes to gardening...bug and grub removal, recycling of food and garden wastes, composted litter to return to the garden.

Right now I couldn't be more thrilled about what I'm seeing below these chips and am wildly excited for spring, when they are finally composted enough for me to actually plant and receive the full benefits of this method.

I'll be spreading the pile of chips already in the garden and adding two more piles I have outside the garden there(already partially composted), until I have the desired depth in all areas of the garden. I'll also be adding leaves to the garden, all that I can glean this fall after storing some for winter bedding in the coop and also placing a good many in the coop right now.

I now have a source of free chips that I can access and a utility trailer to use to do so, so I will be hauling as many as I will be needing to get to the depth I'll need to keep good composting going.

Come spring I'll not have to wait for the soil to dry out in order to till...won't be tilling...ever.

That means I can get things in the ground earlier than I ever have before. I can also place a plastic tunnel this fall over my tomato trellises in order to plant some winter greens and also to be able to get my tomato seedlings out earlier than I ever have before.

If the good Lord wills it and I'm still here in the spring, this might be the best garden I've ever planted....it will definitely be the best soil I've had for many a long, long year. Next year I'll have enough chip covering to prevent that excess weed growth and I'll be more vigilant about that, as I will have more actual vegetable plants growing in that space.

I thank God for the day He led me to the Back to Eden film and follow up information!

 

[baymule]

Bee, we are doing basically the same thing. Our soil is sugar sand. The color of sugar, fine, dusty and SAND. Water drains right through it. Weeds do exceptionally well, the 1st year garden was a total failure. We are getting horse manure from a horse event center only 8 miles from our house. It is a lot of pine shavings, so there's my wood ships! We were able to borrow a dump trailer from a friend and have put 9 loads in the garden alone. The hugelculture bed took 2 dump loads. We are going to spread as much as we can wherever we can to improve the soil here.

Not only that, but another friend of ours has a mountain of decomposing wood chips behind hi place of business and he said we could have them. We feel so wealthy!

 

[Beekissed]

Bee, we are doing basically the same thing. Our soil is sugar sand. The color of sugar, fine, dusty and SAND. Water drains right through it. Weeds do exceptionally well, the 1st year garden was a total failure. We are getting horse manure from a horse event center only 8 miles from our house. It is a lot of pine shavings, so there's my wood ships! We were able to borrow a dump trailer from a friend and have put 9 loads in the garden alone. The hugelculture bed took 2 dump loads. We are going to spread as much as we can wherever we can to improve the soil here.

Not only that, but another friend of ours has a mountain of decomposing wood chips behind hi place of business and he said we could have them. We feel so wealthy!

You are truly rich and blessed indeed!!! Manure AND wood chips, free for the hauling? Can't get any better than that!

I'm thinking you are going to LOVE the results! I'm so tickled I'm walking on air and have done so all day...couldn't wipe the smile off my face. After pulling those weeds yesterday and seeing what lies beneath, it was the first time in my life I've enjoyed pulling weeds.

Next year there won't be such a thing in my garden...this year I didn't mind much because these wood chips weren't mulched down enough to grow anything in and the garden was a bust anyway, but next year I hope to maximize all growing space and plant everything I can get my hands on...no space for weeds.

 

[Smart Red]

Loved your photos, Bee. There is little that lifts a gardener's heart than reaching into rich soil. I'm glad you can see such improvements in only one growing season.