Category Archives: Gardening

Planting, Growing, Care

by | May 29, 2013 · 1:52 pm

Summertime & Boysenberries!

Boysenberries bring me back to summer time cookouts with that beautiful dark purple color thick syrup oozing out of the perfectly browned flaky pie crust my mother used to always bake!

When I was a kid I remember a patch of boysenberries out in the back yard, loaded with big boysenberries.  I’m sure they never got  the ripeness that makes them sweet, because I remember puckering up several times, but who could wait!  If only I could have waited until they had a slight softness and came off with the slightest pull.  KIDS!

Once I had established a home and a spot (ha ha, temporarily) to grow berries, boysenberries were the first to go in.  I put them on the north side of my garden in full sun.  This was my first raised bed!  With a lot of compost, a little fertilizer and love they flourished.  The first year we got a bumper crop!  ONE BIG handful.  Granted, I did plant in early summer, so they didn’t have much time to produce flowers, but the root system was hard at work.  The second year a far cry from the first.  We ended up with three harvests the first gave us over 2 gallons.  This was off of four bushes crammed together in a space of 2×8.  After several years of growing my boysenberries in the garden, I decided to move them to their new home.  I started to get runners popping up in the neighboring veggie spots and…..I needed more space for growing garlic!  Late full I amended a new spot in full sun in the back of the orchard.  Lots of compost, a little peat and plenty of water to get them off to a running start.

Boysenberries love warm weather, and don’t seem to mind the bright sun here in sunny Southern Utah.  There are thornless varieties, which I have tried both, but the production has been less for me.  Pruning can be a little prickly, but a good pair of gloves will take the bite.  Most brambles produce higher yields when staked.  I use a simple method of two t-posts on each side of the boysenberry row with three wires pulled between.  I keep the flowering vines (last years canes) tied up and let the new canes, which will produce next year, bramble on the ground.  You can tie these guys up, but I don’t mind and it makes pruning the right canes later down the road much easier.  Once you have harvested your berries and there are no more flowers on their way, cut back the canes that produced.  These are two year canes.  Tie up the canes that grow this year, 1 year  canes.  Fan out to make room and if the canes are very long, 8 foot or more, cut them back to six foot to produce side shoots.  These side shoots are big producers, so encourage it!

In early spring, just when the leaves start to grow, give them some food.  I use an Acid Mix fertilizer because berries do better when the soil pH is on the acidic side.  Sprinkle 5 pounds per 50 ft row.  Toss three to four inches of compost on.  Our soil pH here is high, so I also give my berries a sprinkling of coffee grounds every so often.  Once flowers start forming, water more often and deep.  Berries should have a nice shiny deep purple color and they should pull off very easy with the slightest tug for the best flavor.

Make a pie, freeze some for winter,  sprinkle over the top of whole wheat pancakes for Sunday breakfast!  Enjoy the berry season and remember to share with your husband!

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by | April 30, 2013 · 5:03 pm

Making Compost Tea

Making compost tea

Compost Tea, Day One

Over the years I have toyed with making many concoctions for the garden.  One of my favorite things I do is make compost tea…among many other teas!

It’s truly astonishing how many diverse beneficial, active, aerobic microbes there are in compost tea!  Really good compost tea can contain as many as 100 trillion bacteria per 1 ml.  WOW! Do I sound excited about compost tea?  Well I am!  Compost tea has many benefits for the garden.  Insect and disease control and plant health are the most important reasons for creating tea for your garden beauties.  It inoculates your soil with microbes. You can create it with a very small amount of compost if you don’t have much available to you.  It can also inoculate the leaves of your plants, which is something you can’t do with dry compost.  Compost teas helps to combat powdery mildew and controls insects such as spider mites.  We have seen decreased numbers of aphids on plum trees when using a spray of compost tea.  That’s something to toot about!

There are two methods of creating tea.   Non-aerated compost tea and aerated.  I prefer aerating my compost tea.  When it has air moving around, the microbes are more active and when you spray it on the leaves they ‘stick’ better to the surfaces.  So that’s the one we will talk about!!

To make a good tea, you need a few things to get started.

Air pump.  Like the ones used for fish tanks will do.

Air hose and a bubbler (preferable 2-3 bubblers)

5 gallon bucket

Whoo Hoo…There’s your kit!  Now for the ingredients!

Always use mature compost.  If compost has not decomposed fully, it can be harmful to your plants when making compost tea.  It should smell like good clean earth!  This if VERY important!

If you don’t make your own compost, then bagged will do, but your own compost is best.   Always look for compost that hasn’t sat out in the hot sun baking in bags for centuries!!  You know…Walmart parking lots!

8 cups of compost

16×16” of cheese cloth or other similar material

Tie for making a tea bag, I use natural jute

2 Tablespoons unsulfured blackstrap molasses

1 handful of kelp meal

5 gallons of non-chlorinated water (letting water sit out for 24 hours will work)

Place your bubblers in the bucket of non-chlorine water and place a rock on them to hold them at the bottom of the bucket.  You need the air to circulate the brew from the bottom up!  Add your molasses.  Place compost and kelp in cloth and tie to the top.  Toss your ‘tea bag’ into the percolating water, lightly set a lid, allowing air flow and let it brew for 3-5 days.  Brew should be kept out of the sun.  Once the brew is finished; it should be used within 8 hours.  Strain if you are using a sprayer.  I like to just pour it into a watering can and pour right over the top of plants when I am in a hurry, but it will go a lot further if you use a sprayer.  You won’t need to dilute your tea, but if you choose to make sure you never use chlorinated water.  You went to all that work, no sense in killing those microbes!  I only feed every three weeks to once a month, but there is no reason you can’t spray every week for plants that need a little extra love!

You can add other ingredients to your compost tea if you like.  Molasses, fruit juices and kelp promote more bacteria growth, while fish fertilizers, seed meals, humic acids and rock dusts promote more fungal growth.  Fungal teas are great for orchards and strawberries!  At the end of the brewing process you can add mycorrhizal fungi if you are doing a soil application.   Just remember that when using a mycorrhizae, it is only for soil and it will die if applied to leaf surfaces. Try a few different ingredients every time you concoct a brew and record what worked the best for you, but you should always use molasses and of course, compost!!

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by | April 18, 2013 · 11:22 am

Unexpected Frosts!

Wow! Time has gotten away from me this spring! Between transplanting starts for our nursery, planting our own garden, and just keeping up this spring with the general spring chores and just life itself, I realized I haven’t written a blog in a while.
With this years unusual weather we have had, I am thankful I always have frost blankets ready to go at a moments notice to protect my crops. Our valley’s typical last frost date is April 15th. Well, this year has proven to us that Mother Nature can change her mind when she wants with a late light frost just morning April 18th. We have had a very mild March which tempted many of us to plant tomatoes, peppers and other ‘warm’ season crops….I do it every year, but I am ready to drop the cloth! There are several types of cloth, or also known as row cover. Look for ‘frost’ protection, like 50%. This will give you protection up to 8 degrees, which is good enough for a frost. You can double up your cover if you are expected temperatures to drop below 28 degrees. I cover even if the temperatures are in going to be in the low 40’s the cover goes on. Warm season crops are just that…Warm Weather lovers. When these vegetables are exposed to cold night temperatures tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash and especially cucumbers,they will stress, sometimes drop flowers, growth is halted, and they can become weak, which can make them more susceptible to diseases. This can be a little work at times, but well worth it in the long run. The cover should be removed during the day so the plants can absorb the sunshine unless the days are very chilly and windy. Keeping them covered is fine if for only a day or two. Most frost blankets will last for years and is a well worth while investment to protect your tender little crops! Today, the covers are being folded and put away (again) in hopes to not have to bring them out again this year, but if needed, I am ready! Watch your weather reports and expect lower temperatures then what is predicted and your early planted crops will pay off!

Frost Blanket/Row Cover

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by | March 19, 2013 · 4:28 pm

Composting Chicken Manure

Chicken Compost

Chicken Manure Compost

Well how hard can it be?  Just toss it in a pile and let it sit right?  Sure you can, but if you want to use it without the burn, or wait a year or more, you might want to take a few more steps to get it right!  Chicken manure is high in nitrogen and is dangerous to plants if the manure is not composted properly.  The composting process allows time to break down the more powerful nutrients so that they are more useable by the plants. Depending on how diligent you are, composted chicken manure can be ready in as little as two months or if not so diligent, up to nine months.

When chicken manure is just piled up dry and left to sit, it will do just that, sit!  While the outside may get wet from sprinklers or rain, the inside of the pile will remain very dry.  The outer layer will form a crust and not let water penetrate.  You must have all the manure moist in order to begin the break down process.  You can use straight chicken manure, but I prefer to add other composting matter to the pile, this way it won’t smell like it would if you just used chicken manure.  Things like leaves, grass clippings, garden or kitchen scrapes.  You know, organic matter! Simply start to pile your manure in layers and sprinkle every layer.  Chicken poop, leaves, water, chicken poop, etc.  Add a couple of cups of blood meal or cottonseed meal to the mix (for a 3x3x3′ pile).  I know…it would seem that it wasn’t necessary, but it really does speed up the process!  Turn the pile to get everything mixed up.  If you want finished compost sooner, turn the pile every few days.  If time seems to be few and far between, try every week or even every other week.  Just remember the less you turn the longer the process will take.   If the pile seems rather dry, sprinkle it with water while turning.   If the pile gets to wet and becomes stinky, you can spread it out and allow it to dry for a few days.  You can use a compost thermometer to gauge how hot your pile is getting.  A temperature between 140 and 160 degrees is the optimum temperature range to break down pathogens, weed seed and get the decomposition really moving!  When the pile no longer heats up after turning, you know your compost is getting close to a finished product.   It should be dark and smell like earth.  Clean earth!  It’s time to add that black gold to the garden.  Till or spade the compost into the garden beds or use as a side dress for plants.  Chicken manure compost is full of nitrogen, it contains a good amount of phosphorus and potassium making it excellent for your veggies to grow in.

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