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.

Pathetic Offspring

We love our grains dearly, and so when one (or all) of them goes astray it pains us all the more. Especially when the fault can so clearly be traced back to us.

This is what a bad grain year looks like for the Golden Rule (speaking specifically in terms of fall and spring grains, like wheat and rye). Here is the entire grain harvest for the 2008 season. In the photo you have two points of reference, a CD in front and a gallon jar in back. A third point of reference that may be helpful is the area we grew in grains last year (1,318 square feet) together with the total weight of the grains (54.56 lb) and the fact that, subjectively speaking, we usually do much better than that...

Objectively speaking we have three categories of goals for yields in anything we grow: beginning, intermediate, and high. "Beginning" is for if the grower is facing impediments, like lack of experience, poor soils, uncooperative weather, things of that nature. "Intermediate" is what we aim for. We aim for "High" yields, too, but more in the way a child of a past generation might hope for a Red Ryder BB gun. Beginning, intermediate and high yields for these fall and spring planted grains are, respectively, 4, 10, and 20+ lb. per 100 square feet. So in a bed of 5X20' we might expect to get 10 pounds of grain and hope for more.

When you do the math, you see that we got an average of 4.13 lb/100 square feet. Now you would notice if you could see my spreadsheet that our 160 sq ft of cereal rye this year did produce 11.09 lb/100sq ft (of which we are all proud), but it was the clear exception. On the whole, for our fertile soil and doting love, we got abysmal yields.

At which point were our babies led astray? Well, one could point to the wildfires that plagued Mendocino County, despite the firefighters' best efforts, clouding the air with smoke and drastically cutting down photosynthesis for at least a month and a half. We're sure this was to blame for many of the other low yields we saw this year. But the sad truth is that the grains were at their last stages of maturity then, their chlorophyll having departed for greener pastures (ha ha ha).

No, we had no one but ourselves to blame, and let this be a lesson to all of you out there. Reap the wisdom from our thickly sown sloth: weed your grains virtuously! Also your garlic, onions, flax and things. But if you would not be thrown into strings of foolish excuses when your visitors say "Huh, I never realized wheat was so short," weed them when they need it! Grains just can't compete.

I guess I'll follow that up with a nice photo, cause even though they were really sad looking, they were our grains and we love them. Here you see some of them at the end of their lives. That green tint in the closer bed of yellowed wheat is volunteer chamomile, happily prospering. A little information: we plant nearly everything on offset spacing rather that rows. Fall and spring grains are planted on 5" centers. We put stakes and string up around the beds to give them support. The closer you plant grains the better they produce (to a point), but as they cram together they are also prone to "lodging," which is when they meet rain or wind and lose (fall over). Hence the stakes and string.

The winter season calls us to organize ourselves, and I attacked our seed shelves recently, trying to figure out how many species, varieties, and years of grains we had stored for use. There were many jars, bags, or packets from previous years, but since most of the grains were grown last year we can choose to store the freshest seeds. Then I consolidated them, made a list, and stored as much as we might want for seed in the coming years. (I plan to cycle those out when we have harvested and threshed this year). The picture shows the grains all packed in plastic bags inside jars. I just learned this morning from EA's Garden Manager that this is a big no-no. Any moisture in there will wreak havoc on the seeds, rendering them non-viable. So we'll go get some silica gel, which absorbs moisture, and put it in each of the baggies. The rest of the seed goes on the table by the flour grinder, ready to be turned into something tasty and healthy.

Grains are a joy to all of us here, but, lest you think we are more impressive agriculturalists that we really are, I must say we don't come anywhere close to growing all the grain that even Margo and I consume in a year, let alone the community. Grain, even intensively grown as we do it, demands a lot of space. We do it here a little for fun but mainly for experience, biomass for compost (more about these practices soon) and to acclimatize varieties to this region.

I will end this post by parading past you the names and varieties of grains we have in stock, like the abused but victorious personalities they are, proudly marching to the grinder...

• Wheat: Pacific Blue Stem, Red Fife, Kamut, Huron, Lavras, Hard Red Spring, Hard Red Winter, Emmer, Black Emmer, Maris Wigeon, SS791, Square Head Masters, Chidham Red Chaff, Colona Lunga, Turkish Red Winter, Perfectly Awnless, Alaska Spelt, Early Stone Age, and Farro
• Rye: Cereal and Akusti
• Triticale: Pika, Musky and Juan
• Oats: Paul and Shelly
• Barley: Karan 16, Schrene, Tibetan, Sangatsuga, Naked, Ethiopian, Faust, and Jet