Formerly Known As the Plastic Cloche Emporium and House of Miscellaneous Pots

Everybody has probably experienced the feeling of seeing something that looks useful, or actually may be useful but not at that moment, then struggling with whether to get rid of it or not. Those of you with garages, attics, or barns each have the experience to a different degree. And those who have hobbies requiring large numbers of objects bigger than a stamp understand that stuff gets collected. Every once in a while, say during the cold and rainy winter months, you get a chance to step back and look at the past 20 years' accumulation of these objects. You have the opportunity to look at them with some sense of perspective. Especially if someone else put them there.

Let's get to the point now. You may or may not be familiar with the idea of season extension. Most often it involves greenhouses, floating row covers, cold frames and such. Back in the 1800's the French Intensive gardening method started using glass bells, each of which would cover one plant, to be able to grow earlier and later in the season. Here is a close view of one I found on a forum about how to start eggplants in Ireland.
One of these cloches for each plant in your garden. Are you starting to see how this could lead to the "large numbers of objects" I referred to earlier? For an even better visual, check out this blog post by Alexis Madrigal on the subject of British food raising in 1918. The photo shows women working with over 200,000 cloches, each covering a single lettuce plant. Wow, huh? You might ask why one would go to the trouble working with multiple tons of glass pieces that are somewhat expensive (especially now) and very breakable, not to mention need to be cleaned occasionally to remain transparent and have to be stored somewhere when not in use. And the answer, of course, would be because they work very well for the purpose, which is to get plants going weeks or months before they would ordinarily be planted. A gold mine for the savvy market gardener or the farmer trying to produce as much as possible.
Ah, but the times have changed, and plastic has altered the season-extension landscape. We have greenhouses covered with flexible and cheap alternatives to glass, and we have plastic milk jugs that are durable and cheap alternatives to the traditional glass cloche. A brief moment for the downsides of this revolution: when carefully attended, glass will last a long, long time, but plastic will turn brittle and opaque with but a few years' exposure to the sun. Then what? It is unusable and becomes junk, or gets recycled into an even less stable form of plastic.
Back to the theme: cloches are helpful, and empty milk jugs are plentiful. So why not collect as many as you can, just in case you might use them later for something? I have one good reason, which is that someone else will eventually come along and have to clean up after you. In this situation we had about 500 cubic feet of milk jugs, some already converted to cloches by having the bottom cut off, some not yet converted, and many so brittle that they broke into a disagreeable number of shards that then had to be swept up.
I'd like you to know that I am not bitter about this. I am writing from a perspective of wisdom, which I would like to share. That is this: don't stockpile useless plastic things for some hypothetical future scenario, no matter how well-intentioned. If you find you want, say, 1,000 plastic milk jugs, call up your local elementary school. Present your idea to a bunch of the classes, and let them know what you hope to achieve. Your cup of milk jugs will runneth over, probably in a matter of days, and you will have captured the imagination of a whole school of children that will be excited for at least a few days about your garden.
Next up are the miscellaneous pots. Anytime you go to the nursery to get a plant, whether it be tomato, spice bush, or maple, it will come in a pot. A plastic one. Somewhere between 2-24” wide and deep. It might be black, it might be red, white, or green. It may be made out of tough plastic, or possible the really weak kind. It may be smooth, or have ridges. In fact, it may have vertical or horizontal ridges. Maybe 8 ridges, or maybe 20 or them. Maybe it will have holes by which to hang it, or maybe flanges by which you can clip a tray on the bottom. It might have indentations set so perfectly that, when stacked with others of its kind, it nests without sticking. But this measure is useless, because whatever it looks like, whatever its attributes, you can be guaranteed that it will be at least subtly different from any other pot you have. As you can see from the picture, this makes for beautiful variety. For effect, I put them all in stacks according to their basic dimensions. And, for the record, there were as many as 8 pots that were actually identical in design. But for each of those matching pots there were three that absolutely refused to nest with another.
All this is great if you are displaying your diversity of potted plants, but if you want to store pots for some other day such variety of design is a waste of space. So we are getting rid of them, giving them to a local nursery that fosters out such pots to more willing owners.
We are finally clearing out all the unwanted and space-stealing plastic from our storage space!

ps.
I kept some of the potential plastic cloche jugs. Just the ones that are in better shape. You know, because somebody might want to try using them sometime in the next couple of years...

Financial Advice from Those Who Know

I guess I should start by saying that I am not offering any certified advice from this blog, so be forewarned. Margo and I went to breakfast to spend some quality time with EA's Garden Manager, and the three of us fell into conversation with a man in the restaurant. He is, among other things, a fiduciary something, and is getting into the realm of gardening. Now anyone familiar with Willits, or possibly even coastal CA north of the Bay Area, will know there are commonly held beliefs here that 1) the government is incompetent, 2) the government can't be trusted, or 3) the government is actively out to get our _______ (fill in the blank). I'm not passing judgment, just observing.

So I wasn't surprised when this person began telling us that he was getting into gardening, growing greens and things, because of the the economy. The economy? "Well you know," he said, "the government just gave out almost $1 trillion to the banks last year, and a little less than $1 trillion just now. They say it was for a a lot of other stuff, but it was really for the banks. And they don't tell you that the Treasury Department has given or is currently in the process of giving out around $10 trillion for..." (then he listed a bunch of banking things that I don't remember). The point was that you can't just go creating a lot of money without some repercussions. So he was telling us that when people ask for his financial advice he tells them "Hug everyone you care about as often as you can and tell them you love them. And tear up your lawn to start growing food."

What's funny about that? Well, folks in local agriculture have been telling people to do that for upwards of 35 years. Maybe when financial experts start saying it people will listen...

He went on to say that awhile ago he went into the grocery and saw that bread was $5 a loaf, which freaked him out. He went home, learned how to bake bread, and within a day had his own freshly made. Similarly, he recently found swiss chard in the grocery for 4$ a bundle, and decided it was time to get seriously into gardening. My first thought was "$4 a bundle? We must have about $250 worth of chard in the greenhouse right now! Sell! Sell!" My second thought, the one I acted on, was that I should suggest that he grow grains, too, so that when wheat goes up to $10 a pound he'll be a step ahead.

So there you go! Don't wait for some economic meltdown: tear up your lawn and tell your loved ones you care. Everyone involved will be happier :)

Grain Propagation 101

If you can start anything from seed, grains are easy. If you have never started anything from seed, grains are a great place to break in! We start ours in 3" deep flats with a flat soil mix (I'll get to that in the next post). We broadcast them into the flat and keep it moist, well-ventilated, and protected until they are of a size to transplant. How do you determine what that size is? Well here is Goldilocks' assortment for us: much too small, much too big, and juuuuust right. You want to make sure everything that is going to germinate has, but you also don't want to worry about how big the roots are or how developed the plant. The plants in the flat on the right have germinated as fully as they will, and the roots have hopefully not hit the bottom of the flat yet. These look about 2 inches tall, and it takes them somewhere between 7-10 days to get there. By the way, if you are into wheat grass juice it is as simple as this. Get your flat, fill it with mix, broadcast the wheat berries that you got at the co-op or wherever on top, water and wait. When it looks like you want it to look, cut it!

But if you are trying to grow more grains, transplant them into a well-prepared bed. Maybe this means single dug, maybe double dug, maybe just weeded with some compost on top...
Here are our tools of the transplanting trade: a digging board, which distributes your weight on the bed; a trowel to open a hole; a hand fork to help you remove seedlings from the flat and to loosen the soil when the digging board is moved; a spacing stick, to help you put the plants on proper spacing (5" in the case of cold-weather grains); and your flat of grains. What I have here is Schrene Barley, which we all love.
Now we dive in! We lay our digging board a reachable distance from the end of the bed, and start transplanting. Each grain plant goes five inches from every other grain plant. Why? We have determined, in Willits' climate, that the best yields are achieved from that distance.
Most important is that each seedling receives its own space. As to the grains in question, they work best with 2.5" on every side, or a circle with a 5" diameter. Two plants put side-by-side must each get their 2.5" distance, so they turn out to be 5" apart. A seedling on the edge of the bed still only needs its 2.5" to grow happily, so it will be 2.5" from the edge.
A look at the picture will explain two of the terms we use to describe the spacing in Grow Biointensive: offset spacing, and hexagonal spacing. Offset, because rows are staggered, and hexagonal because each plant is surrounded by six others. We also refer to it simply as "close plant spacing", because they are closer together than those planted rows apart. I'll go into the intimate details of why in another post sometime.
This was all to say that, when we start at the end of the bed, the first plant will go half the prescribed distance from the edges of the bed. The whole first row of grains will be 2.5" from the end of the bed. Once you're moving, though, it will all be 5" except for the edges. I think we have all earned another picture. I usually only use one spacing stick at a time, but for the sake of an image I pulled all the stops.
The act of transplanting is simple and repetitive. Make certain of your distance, make a hole with the trowel, pull back and insert seedling (roots down, please), and fill the hole. Leave the grain upright and the seed buried. Water what you have planted every once in a while, especially when it is sunny, warm, breezy, dry, etc. Cover and defend as much as necessary.
I've been talking grains in this post, but the pattern holds for almost everything else we cultivate. The main difference is in the centers. For example, flour corn is planted on 15" centers, lettuce on 8" centers, cardoon on 36" centers, all depending on the space the mature plant will need. Exceptions to this process are the two crops we direct sow or broadcast (radish and buckwheat) and those root cuttings (like potatoes) that get buried entirely.
So happy gardening - It's that time of year!

One Big Week, part II

All the while during the week we had three classes looming for further preparation. Two of them involved the Common Ground Garden Supply and Education Center in Palo Alto, CA. A project of Ecology Action, Common Ground sells garden supplies and also has a series of Saturday classes on everything from composting to beekeeping. John Jeavons, Carol the EA Garden Manager, Margo and I all take turns teaching the Grow Biointensive classes. For two years or so Margo and I have been teaching the Intro to Grow Biointensive, composting, seed propagation, and bed preparation classes. There is nothing like teaching to get a better grasp of what you think you know. Anyway, this past weekend I taught a new class of my own design: "Amaranth to Wheat, and All Points Between" about small-scale grain cultivation. It went very well, and many comments alluded to a desire for a longer class including more information. Now Margo and I are plotting one that will include processing and cooking.

Margo's class was on composting, and was also successful. Here she is at Common Ground's demo garden, preaching to the masses about layering and mature material (in the plant sense).

The third class of the weekend was also a new experience. A friend of ours who has attended Ecology Action's 3-Day Workshop, 5-Day Teachers Workshop and 6-month internship (hmmm... can we talk her into the 3-Year Apprenticeship next?) worked with some other very motivated individuals to create the Pacifica Gardens project in Pacifica, CA. The work they've done since breaking ground in April is astounding, and speaks volumes about the drive their volunteers bring. One of these volunteers got the inspiration to ask for a class on seed saving, which our friend then came to ask us about. So here I am presenting part of a two-hour lecture and hands-on class based on the principles of saving seed on a small scale. Pacifica blessed us with warm sun for the first time in three or four visits, turnout was great, and we all had a good time. It is inspiring to us to see the projects that so many communities have going on, and the constructive energy those projects involve.

One Big Week, part I

Last week was a doozy, a confluence of events that would slide right off our backs in the middle of summer, but which, coming out of the winter season of sluggishness, caught us off guard. Of course, being as well organized as we are, we saw it coming. We just didn't realize it was actually 2009 already, that the Super Bowl was almost here, and that it was simultaneously time for planting Spring Grains, the week my sister would be visiting, and the weekend we would be teaching two days of classes.

First things first: having my sister here was great. Good conversation about lifestyle and lots of game-playing, plus she brought work with her to do. This meant that, since Margo and I really needed to work on our classes coming up, we could all procrastinate happily together in solidarity.
Next comes the planting of Spring Grains, justifiably capitalized because they are an annual point of reference. It marks the first time of the year that beds are cultivated and planted, and also, since these grains all go 5" apart, becomes a somewhat tedious two weeks. Almost all of the crops we grow are first planted in flats, then transplanted into the ground. This may sound ridiculous to a seasoned tractor farmer, but with the scale on which we work the time and care taken pays off big in yields.
First of all we have the bed: in this case 40-Bed Unit 3 North, or 40BU3N. There's a great gardening song I could quote from the Beetless' Gardening Book (filled with gardening-based parodies of Beatles songs - I recommend it). Called "One After West Twenty-Nine" it mocks the best efforts of gardeners everywhere who try to organize their beds by logical means. I understand it completely now.
Anyway, we started by clearing it. Here Margo is removing the cover crop we planted in late fall to 1) keep the soil covered and 2) grow some compost material. We don't leave any beds fallow. The beds in the 40BU are all four feet wide, which works well for me.
Next I double-dug it. This involves digging one trench about 12" deep and wide across the end of the bed (you stand on a board so the bed doesn't get as compacted from your weight). Next you use a digging fork to loosen the soil in the lower 12". This way you end up creating pore space about 24" down. Pull your board back about 12", dig another trench next to the first by moving that soil into the first trench, and fork that one. Repeat until you have the bed done!
This next photo shows how strong my chi is: having pulled up the fork after one go, there was something stuck on it. Potato, maybe? No - I speared this rock! I'm definitely keeping that one for posterity...
At this point it is important to mention that the soil structure is so good in the Golden Rule garden that double-digging is rarely necessary. The lower trench is usually very loose. Grains are the one exception to our non-double-digging, because they respond so well. To prove this to ourselves, 110 square feet of this bed will be an experiment. We'll plant 55 square feet of Red Fife wheat in d-dug soil and 55 sq ft in single-dug soil (only loosening the top 12" with the digging fork) . The rest of the bed will be Jet barley and the already-present alfalfa.
No photos of the planting for now, 'cause I left the camera inside. When we finished planting we covered the bed. This part always makes me grumpy. Up at the EA garden birds and rodents are a problem, but nothing like here. Up there a shade net on short sticks, drooping to the ground, is usually enough. Not here. Here we have fencing cut in small sections so that it bows over the bed, and then bird-netting is draped over that, tucked under the little wire prongs on the edge of the fence, and weighed down with rocks, sticks, rebar, or whatever else can be found. The bird netting sticks to everything, including your knuckles, so it is a big pain. The bows of fencing like to pull in towards each other, dragging tiny seedlings with them... It is not a smiley activity.
And now I can tell you that it gets worse. If I thought it was bad putting it down I didn't imagine what would happen if we left a little corner unsecured. Yesterday a brief glance showed that something had gotten in. A closer look showed that a mouse, bird, or maybe both had gotten in and eaten too many plants to simply write off. We ended up removing the whole contraption, replacing the plants, then putting the thing back on. This time we both walked around the assembly adding rocks and other objects, making very sure it was secure. Whew.
Poor Ellen's section was a little worse off. A heap of feathers showed that a bird had gotten in, eaten a bunch of grains, and then gotten attacked by one of the cats. Did the cat also get in, or kill the bird through the netting? Hard to tell, but it was a mess, and the head of the bird remained to look at us accusingly, as if it were our fault. I'm leaving that picture out, too.