Fall 2011 Update (Part2)

After a rather extended period of dormancy, The Golden Rule Garden Blog is once again in production. Our Garden Manager, Ellen, has written an update of this year's activities in the garden, which will be presented in two parts. The first is a brief overview of our work, philosophy and challenges in the garden. The second part details a few specific crop production statistics.

Within our garden we have a section called the 40 Bed Unit. This is our experimental area that represents all the food, compost crops, etc. grown to sustain one person. This is the area where Randy and most of the interns have grown their experimental beds. Within these beds we have grown 740 square feet of potatoes. All of our potatoes have exceeded or almost equaled the national average. Our average Yukon Gold yield was 83 lbs/ 100 sq. ft.; Yellow Finn was 92 lbs/100 sq. ft; Rio Grande russets was 95 lbs/100 sq. ft; and Colorado Rose was 112 lbs/100 sq. ft. Our seed potatoes came from Sanhedrin Nursery in Willits and they’re a wonderful organic seed potato from White Mountain Farms in southern Colorado.

The other crop that we have some data on at this time is our quinoa. We have 200 square feet (out of more than 500 sq. ft.) threshed and winnowed. The variety we have grown this year is Colorado 407D. This is the third year we have grown this variety in our garden. It is extremely beautiful and grows quickly and quite well in our shorter growing season. Quinoa, in general, likes cooler drier weather. Some of the quinoa that was planted at the end of April and the first part of May was smaller and more affected by fungus because of the wet weather. While it still grew, the yields were decreased somewhat from what we were used to producing. We have an average, at this point, of 8.3 lbs/100 sq. ft. with a biomass yield of 7-8 lbs/100 sq. ft. In past years, with this variety, we have achieved 10-11 lbs/100 sq. ft with a biomass yield of 8-9 lbs/100 sq. ft. We expect that the quinoa that is not yet threshed will exceed our existing average. Those that were planted at a later, warmer and drier time didn’t develop the fungus that seemed to affect the growth of the earlier quinoa.

We have had great success in past years growing this particular variety of quinoa as a catch crop. Catch crops are crops that you plant after over-wintering or early spring planted crops come out of the garden beds in late June or July, like cereal grains or garlic. Catch crops are quick growing plants that will produce food or biomass for compost before it is time to plant the cover crops for over winter. We were able to grow a crop of quinoa that produced well from early July to early October.

We are growing a beautiful variety of purple amaranth that we found last year from Canada. It is a combination of many colors and shapes that are quite vibrant and white-seeded. We have been able to grow seed from the amaranth as a catch crop this year, and the biomass from the amaranth is quite a bit larger and fuller than the amaranth that we transplanted in the cooler, wetter months. Amaranth is a heat-loving crop and is quite beautiful in your garden.

Two other catch crops that have produced well this year are pearl millet and Dale sorghum. These crops were planted after cereal grains were harvested and are now producing. The pearl millet has tall stalks and is now producing seed and the Dale sorghum is getting tall enough to press for sorghum syrup.

Fall 2011 Update (Part 1)

After a rather extended period of dormancy, The Golden Rule Garden Blog is once again in production. Our Garden Manager, Ellen, has written an update of this year's activities in the garden, which will be presented in two parts. The first is a brief overview of our work, philosophy and challenges in the garden. The second part details a few specific crop production statistics.

This time of year at Golden Rule Garden is very beautiful and busy. As a matter of fact, we are almost as busy as the spring and summer planting time. It is an ending to one growing season and a preparation for the new year. For the gardener, it might represent a chance to maybe take a little time off or start the new garden plan for the next growing season. At Golden Rule Garden this year, we have been facing the same challenges as most agriculturalists everywhere. We have had to adapt to the changing climate and plant many of our vegetable and summer grain crops later, after an extra 4 weeks of cool wet June weather and then adapt to a cooler summer. With those challenges, we have still managed to produce abundant food for our community here at Golden Rule as well as for the local senior center, food banks and soup kitchens thanks to the help of Golden Rule Garden’s new field coordinator, Randy Fish, and our interns Binod, Fernanda, Rachid and Lucas.

We have tried to adapt the varieties we grow to the possible permanent climate changes in our area. With some of the experimentation we have been doing, we are able to offer the varietal seeds we have grown to our local seed company, Bountiful Gardens. Growing tomatoes, for instance, can be challenging with the type of weather we have been dealing with in the last few years, so we have found tomatoes used to cooler nights. We are still experimenting with them and hope to have data on their successes or failures in the future.

It is often fun to grow seeds and preserve them in your own garden. It is truly sustainable to grow out seeds that work well in your garden and are available to you and others. This is a very important aspect to our garden and should be something that we all think about. The world is losing the amazing diversity of heirloom vegetable and grain seeds. At our garden, we are trying very hard to preserve the quality of open-pollinated heirloom seeds for both the vegetables and grains that we grow.

As the growing season ends and we’re preparing for the winter, we are busy composting, harvesting, threshing, winnowing, seed saving, cover-cropping and weeding. Many of these activities continue into the winter...when we start pruning our 84 fruit trees and rebuilding flats. A farmer’s life is full of diversity. However, we are still excited about planning for the growing season next year and what the weather will be. Whatever it is, we will adapt.