Monday, November 9, 2015

2015 Winter Garden

About this time of year, I used to say goodbye to gardening until spring. My activities in the garden have slowed down, but things continue to 'appen.

This photo focuses on one of the most active spots. In the foreground, you'll find beets, kale, and carrots. If they don't mature before the first hard frosts, I'll probably cover them with straw.

Looking beside and beyond the closest pile of manure, you'll find rows of lighter green, to the left and right of some carrots. These light green rows are hard red winter wheat (future bread). The garden bed beyond them also contains winter wheat. In the first garden bed, the thicker, taller grass is winter rye (more future bread). That garden bed also has leeks, spinach, and lettuce.
Below, a picture taken from the east side, shows the winter rye in the first garden and a few leeks on the far left.

"What are those brown leaves in the foreground?" says Virginia.

Some of our lemongrass plants, all of which, as usual, I forgot to transplant indoors before the first frost. Oh well, I have some more seeds to start in the spring.
New this year, I planted a small amount of farro wheat (emmer winter wheat), along the south side of the greenhouse. It sprouted a few days ago. See the wisps of green? 
Going inside the greenhouse, nearly full at the moment, here's a green pepper that's getting close to pickin.'
This fall, I planted many things in pots in the greenhouse, including lettuces, kale, Swiss chard, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and bok choy.

I've also loaded up the compost bin in the greenhouse, hoping if I pack it right it'll provide some heat.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Fruit Season Begins, and More

"What's with the red fingers?" says Virginia. "Too much piano playing?"

Yeah, right. No, berry season has begun. Wild black raspberries, one of my favorites. Just in time, too, because the strawberry patch yielded its last quart for the season a couple days ago.
We have a large patch right behind our house. Here's what I picked early this morning.
The next month will bring buckets of wild black raspberries, wineberries, wild blackberries, and our domesticated Doyle's thornless blackberries and red raspberries. I think the wild blacks are the tastiest.

Later on, I hope, these grapes will ripen.
I nibbled my first tasty fallen peach this morning. Will I get the rest before the varmints?

Now nasturtiums may grace Karen's gourmet dinners.
We'll end with a "before and after."
Clematis--before.
Clematis--after.

Saturday, May 23, 2015

The Master-less Garden

Virginia thinks someone's neglecting this blog, "What's up in the garden?"

The beds are "full up," as some folks say, waiting for the hard red winter wheat to ripen in three remaining beds so we can harvest it for glutenous baking and plant some more summer crops. Last October, after learning about the importance of maintaining a strong connection between the underground soil structure and the air, I planted organic wheat everywhere other crops weren't growing. As the wheat grew, I began to wonder if I'd made a big mistake. How would I remove the ground cover to make way for early spring plantings?

Somewhere I read that if I mowed it down when it reached the soft dough stage (when seeds have begun to form), it wouldn't continue to grow (like grass does). So when I noticed seed heads, I began using the new scythe I bought last year.
After putting the hay in windrows, shifting it around a few days, tying it up, and sticking it in a barn, I began to plant between the rows of stubble, adding mulch here and there.
That worked okay until I realized sweet potato slips would soon arrive. How was I going to prepare the hills? I didn't want to dig up the soil and mess up the structure I'd planted the wheat to protect.

Light bulb! I'd bring topsoil from our field, down by the riverbank. Maybe that would work.
A week after the slips arrived, here's the sweet potato garden.
"What are the stakes for?" says Virginia. "And what's with the little windmill?" Oh my. Talk about frustration. Each morning after planting 175 sweet potato slips, 25 of 7 different varieties, I'd discover some were being stolen, by crows or voles I wasn't sure. Probably both. I'd replace them and the next morning, ditto. If you look closely, you might see several things: (1) sparkling CDs to scare away the birds, something that's worked well with my corn plantings; (2) mousetraps (zero caught to date, so don't fret too much, my PETA friends); (3) a fine mesh fence; and (4) a "mole-chaser" windmill I moved from another bed (supposed to make a noise when the wind blows and send vibrations that discourage certain varmints). Things have been going nicely since I installed the fence, knock on wood.

About that soft dough stage idea. Either it's not true, or I didn't wait quite long enough.
See the little grass-like stuff growing between rows? I guess I'll keep it trimmed as living mulch and see how that works.

I recently read Teaming with Microbes by Lowenfels and Lewis, and The Market Gardener by Fortier. Good reads for gardeners, but after setting them aside I decided I know nothing about gardening. All I am is an experimenter, and a not very scientific one at that.

Oh well. Here's a new raised bed in a corner of the gardens.
I hope to train three tomato plants (one at each end and one in the corner) to crawl along the fence. At the far end you might be able to see three Victoria rhubarb plants (started from seed this spring), a couple four o'clocks, and some celeriac. Along the right are 9 artichokes (might be a bust, but fun to try; ho-ho -- thanks to Mike and Laura though she probably won't last long in the elements), some lemongrass, Irish poets, and more four o'clocks.
"That looks a mess," says Virginia. Not to me. I prefer crammed diversity. On the left, you'll see this bed is still half-planted in wheat, with some horseradish. Moving right, you'll find three rows of lettuce (flame, oak leaf, and tennis ball), some potatoes (volunteers), carrots, sunflowers, beets, nasturtiums, cleomes, four o'clocks, chives, and Wando peas (the kind you shell, lots of work, but a favorite of mine).

By the way, I usually let volunteers grow. I figure they deserve a chance, since they offered. But those volunteer potatoes tend to entertain a lot more Colorado beetles than planted (rotated) potatoes, so I watch them closely and do the squish remedy (not that my fingers aren't yellow when it comes to planted spuds).
I'm really bad at grapes, but this year, so far, so good, loaded with little grapes. Partly as an attempt to cut my losses, I've kept them weeded this spring, except instead of weeds I planted greens (collards, kale), rutabaga, beets, and a couple cucumbers underneath. We'll see how that goes.

"Time to quit," says Virginia, "don't overdose after such long neglect."
All right. The last picture shows a raised bed on the south side of the greenhouse, with a chasteberry tree, spinach, romaine lettuces, basil, and lemon balm. Inside the greenhouse, in ground beds, we have carrots, lettuces, kale, parsley, cilantro, tomatoes, cucumbers, and several winter squashes. On its shelves sit flowers and eggplants (need to get bigger to withstand the inevitable flea beetles), both waiting to be transplanted, orange trees, and pomegranates (to replace bushes in the outdoor grove if problems arise; they made it through last winter's one degree fahrenheit evening but lost most of their past above-ground growth).

Friday, May 8, 2015

Citizen Abuse

I should be focused on planting my summer garden. Instead, the Dodd-Frank Act, now nearly five years old, continues to pester me. 

I used to be a fan of the statute, but the complexities of implementation--matters like why an agency thinks it must take 200 words or more to put 5 words of Congress into action--have alienated me. 

Time and time again, though, what gets my goat is the misleading, incomplete information trade groups publish in their attempts to discredit this and other bills. The latest instance occurred yesterday, when the American Bankers Association touted an "analysis" released by the American Action Forum, a 501(c)(4) (tax-advantaged) organization that reportedly gives millions of dollars to conservative political candidates. The author projected that the Dodd-Frank Act would decrease U.S. Gross Domestic Product by $895 billion over the 2016 to 2025 period.

So I drafted this:

Garbage-In-Garbage-Out: Dodd-Frank DisAnalysis

The American Regeneration Institute (ARI) has released a report that seriously challenges the conclusions of recently announced analyses of the effects of the Dodd-Frank Act. According to the ARI, studies typically fail to consider benefits as well as costs, in the longstanding tradition of critics of environmental legislation, who generally ignore externalities and improvements to general welfare.

The ARI predicts that over the 2016-2025 period, Dodd-Frank changes will increase Gross Domestic Product by $895 billion, or $3,346 per person, not counting the moral and cultural benefits of increased economic stability. Curiously, this conclusion mirrors the conclusion of the American Action Forum (AAF), which predicted a decrease of $895 billion. Like the AAF, the ARI admitted its computations were subject to large uncertainties, but that the order of magnitude is instructive.

The ARI points out that estimates of the costs of the 2008 financial crisis range from $12.8 trillion (Better Markets) to more than $22 trillion (Government Accountability Office).  Using the more conservative figure, the ARI posits that the heightened regulatory standards and increased capitalization requirements imposed by Dodd-Frank have decreased the likelihood of a similar crisis during the 2016-2025 period from 25 percent to 12.5 percent, carrying an economic value of $1.6 trillion (.5 x .25 x 12.8 trillion).

Taking the AAF costs at face value, this results in net benefits of $705 billion.  The ARI added $100 billion in benefits anticipated from reduced policing expenses, litigation costs, and court administration expenses. It also included benefits of $95 billion attributable to the increase in financial institution services prompted by an improvement in consumer satisfaction with bank performance from 76 to 80 (American Customer Satisfaction Index).

Unlike many other research organizations, the ARI, based in Natural Bridge Station, Virginia, does not maintain 501(c)(4) status under the Internal Revenue Code, does not accept government subsidies and tax incentives, and does not contribute to political campaigns.

"Sounds serious," says Virginia.

Actually, it's all smoke and mirrors. The not-so-funny thing is people read this stuff and believe it. 



Thursday, February 12, 2015

Future Desk

"What on earth is that?" says Virginia.

"My future desk/table for my office."