Back to Eden Gardening

[Finding God in the garden]

Praise the Lord! I finally, after a year and a half or so of looking for wood chips got a whole load from a tree cutting service which is at least 4-5 times as large as what I can fit in a trip in my hatchback. Now, I just got the hard part to do of spreading them. My soil is so soft the truck wasn't able to pull up next to my garden so I have to wheelbarrow them about 300 ft. or so. I'm so thankful for them though.

 

[flowerbug]

Praise the Lord! I finally, after a year and a half or so of looking for wood chips got a whole load from a tree cutting service which is at least 4-5 times as large as what I can fit in a trip in my hatchback. Now, I just got the hard part to do of spreading them. My soil is so soft the truck wasn't able to pull up next to my garden so I have to wheelbarrow them about 300 ft. or so. I'm so thankful for them though.

free wood chips are great!

 

[Beekissed]

This winter I hope to expand the garden area a bit to include two young apple trees, one of which is really healthy and the other not so much. I'll also be redoing the fencing around the garden....right now it's deer netting and rabbit fence combination, but I got some really cool 10 ft. pallets this year for free(STACKS of them....I have about 60 of these on the land right now) and hope to use them for making a stronger fence there.

Hope to establish some perennial herbs and flowers on the end where the apple trees are, as well as a sitting area. Hope to also build a large raised bed in the center of the garden for growing rhubarb and then stacking crops on top of that with the use of a CP trellis. Got some rotten wood to put in the bottom of that RB to help absorb water and then hold it for dryer times.

Will try to frost seed a cover crop in the whole garden this winter and am going to use seeds I have on hand~all my old and newer seeds from greens, lettuces, brassicas, beans, peas, corn, sunflowers, wildflowers, as well as even some store bought bean mixes and some clover seed.

Before planting time in May, I'll run the sheep through there for a couple of days and let them eat all they will eat of it and trample the rest.

Don't intend to plant much in the garden this next season...just spuds, beans, rhubarb, asparagus, pumpkins, squash and maybe two tomato plants. And flowers. Lots of flowers.

In the front flower beds I'm keeping it pretty simple....some rhubarb plants and some low growing wildflowers mixed with dwarf zinnias.

 

[flowerbug]

This winter I hope to expand the garden area a bit to include two young apple trees, one of which is really healthy and the other not so much. I'll also be redoing the fencing around the garden....right now it's deer netting and rabbit fence combination, but I got some really cool 10 ft. pallets this year for free(STACKS of them....I have about 60 of these on the land right now) and hope to use them for making a stronger fence there.

Hope to establish some perennial herbs and flowers on the end where the apple trees are, as well as a sitting area. Hope to also build a large raised bed in the center of the garden for growing rhubarb and then stacking crops on top of that with the use of a CP trellis. Got some rotten wood to put in the bottom of that RB to help absorb water and then hold it for dryer times.

Will try to frost seed a cover crop in the whole garden this winter and am going to use seeds I have on hand~all my old and newer seeds from greens, lettuces, brassicas, beans, peas, corn, sunflowers, wildflowers, as well as even some store bought bean mixes and some clover seed.

Before planting time in May, I'll run the sheep through there for a couple of days and let them eat all they will eat of it and trample the rest.

Don't intend to plant much in the garden this next season...just spuds, beans, rhubarb, asparagus, pumpkins, squash and maybe two tomato plants. And flowers. Lots of flowers.

In the front flower beds I'm keeping it pretty simple....some rhubarb plants and some low growing wildflowers mixed with dwarf zinnias.

don't be too surprised if other things don't do too well around rhubarb. those big and tall leaves will block a lot of light. also if you have other plants shading the rhubarb that may limit its growth.

 

[Beekissed]

don't be too surprised if other things don't do too well around rhubarb. those big and tall leaves will block a lot of light. also if you have other plants shading the rhubarb that may limit its growth.

Everything I'll be planting will be taller than the rhubarb but not over shadowing it, as the trellis will be at the back of the bed. The rhubarb will be spaced far enough apart to allow for sunlight to the seedlings until they grow past the height of the rhubarb.

All the strawberries and asparagus, as well as the squash, I planted in the rhubarb bed this past season did very well along with the rhubarb, due to the spacing.

 

[Prairie Rose]

Your garden plan sounds wonderful, Bee! I love flowers interplanted with all my vegetables, and have been debating planting strawberries around my asparagus for years.

I tried the back to eden gardening in my front yard vegetable garden and managed to poison my soil when I brought in a load of composted manure from animals that had been fed hay sprayed with a herbicide that doesn't degrade after being put through the animals and composted. It was new around here and nobody realized the effects at the time, but yeah, it did damage. To make matters worse, instead of scraping the layer of compost and straw off and tossing it in the burn pile, my parents tilled it all in one day while I was at work because that's how they had always built up their garden soil, and that was a good 8+ years ago. To this day, the spots where the manure was heaviest in the garden still grow an entirely different set of weeds than elsewhere in the yard.

Now I do back to eden in the flowerbeds and my raised vegetable bed. Not a big enough scale to see any huge rewards, but I keep trying!

 

[Beekissed]

Your garden plan sounds wonderful, Bee! I love flowers interplanted with all my vegetables, and have been debating planting strawberries around my asparagus for years.

I tried the back to eden gardening in my front yard vegetable garden and managed to poison my soil when I brought in a load of composted manure from animals that had been fed hay sprayed with a herbicide that doesn't degrade after being put through the animals and composted. It was new around here and nobody realized the effects at the time, but yeah, it did damage. To make matters worse, instead of scraping the layer of compost and straw off and tossing it in the burn pile, my parents tilled it all in one day while I was at work because that's how they had always built up their garden soil, and that was a good 8+ years ago. To this day, the spots where the manure was heaviest in the garden still grow an entirely different set of weeds than elsewhere in the yard.

Now I do back to eden in the flowerbeds and my raised vegetable bed. Not a big enough scale to see any huge rewards, but I keep trying!

That could have happened to ANY of us. I've taken so many chances on what I've hauled in here and put on my soils!!! The manure, the wood chips, the hay....all had that same potential to poison. Just the grace of God has prevented me from messing things up!

Now I'm doing hay instead of chips, as I have great trouble sourcing chips...since I switched over the increase in top soil has been amazing!!! Three years of chips didn't equal one year of hay...the hay beat it hands down for weed control, moisture retention and soil building!

It's still a mulch layer garden, but I doubt I'd ever go back to chips on the garden, even if someone brought me dump loads of free chips. The chips are nice for the smaller flower beds, though, as it looks nicer there by the house, than the hay does.

PR, I hope you have much success in building soil on top of the poisoned soil so you might be able to grow more things there.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Several years ago they ran into that problem in the northwest, I think Washington State University but my memory on that could be wrong. They were experimenting with an herbicide to get wheat to ripen at the same time to make harvesting more efficient when the weather stayed cool and wet. (That's pretty well restricted to Canada and parts of Europe but the Pacific Northwest can also be wet and cool. Most places they grow wheat the weather is warm and dry enough they don't do that) They sold the wheat straw as mulch and it killed a lot of plants. It was a mess. When I was in Arkansas the lady that ran the Mom 'n Pop garden center where I got my wheat straw had heard of it and made sure her straw was safe.

I did not think it hung around that long though. I wonder if those weeds are growing there because they are set up. You might be able to reclaim that spot by turning it and reseeding it.. The herbicide residual effects should be gone by now.

If the experts at a university studying that stuff can mess up we sure can. I introduced some weeds I wish I hadn't by using composted cow manure a neighbor not only let me have but he delivered it. You couldn't ask for a better neighbor, he's do anything to help. And I gave his mother green beans and cucumbers when I had extra. He really liked the pickles she made from those cukes.

 

[ninnymary]

I too am taking chances using hay but like you say Bee it decomposes so much faster! So I am using it more than chips. My two small flower beds don't even get chips anymore. I just top dress them with compost and horse manure and they are doing well.

Mary

 

[Beekissed]

I find it's more palatable to the earthworms and it doesn't seem to bind up nitrogen from the soil either....with the chips I had to add a great deal of high nitrogen litter the first year or so to get even growth.