Thanks Odif. I am going to print out your list for the spring planting time (a memory is a terrible thing to lose!). Sjoerd do you recommend EM? I might have seen it in the store the other day.
Sjoerd, I echo the other "bravos!" that you have received from members--you are the king of winterizing! We fertilize our gardens directly with chicken manure, and let it set and compost over the winter. It works because our winters are fairly mild and the soil/manure temperatures are not low. We plant in October and November for fall crops (broccoli, leaf lettuces, carrots, spinach, and green beans which may or may not make a small crop). We have two gardens for fall planting, with no fresh manure but lots of compost in them. I must take a page from your gardening book and try to optimize the use of our gardens. Wish I had your knowledge and energy--our gardens would be more productive!
Well done with the lace curtain and the good apple yield free from wasps damage,..you are lucky to manage a supply of Donkey Manure,..have you used it before?,..just curious as i once used Horse Manure when i was growing Veg,..yikes did i regret it,..even though i broke it down,..i got oats growing up through my potato crop . Nice lot of Apple Sauce you have,..love the stuff on roast pork,..homemade would be better,..yep a dollop of whipped cream appeals to me with your bowl of apple
CAYUGA--I used EM two seasons and I thought that I noticed some benefit...especially in root development. The benefit was great enough to use the EM every season, so I stopped. I would urge you to try it to see if you notice a difference. Obviously, I would suggest only using it on selected plants or selected rows to compare with the same plants of that species on which you did not use the EM. I used it from off the germination process, right through to the end of the plant's life. In fact, somewhere on this website there is an old thread showing some plants on which I used the EM. Runner beans and brassica's, as I remember. Thank you JANE--Oh, you lucky soul--chook manure. That is great. Thank you so much for your very nice words. Good luck with that "book page". I have never used donkey manure before, PHILIP--it was a bit of a chance, but if there are some oat seeds or the like, they will be schoffeled down next spring. I placed some fresh donkey manure in my compost as well to see if I could get something going before the winter. Glad that you liked the looks of that apple sauce. It did turn out good. We eat it with a meal every so often. I shall keep an extra eye open for unwanted seed germination in my patches, thanks for the warning.
Hey Cayuga-- Have you read this? http://www.volkstuindersvereniginghoornenomstreken.nl/Page31.html It has a piece on calabrese that I grew and used EM.
WOW, lots of exciting pics, information, and encouragement. Sjoerd, your applesauce would sell easily here, but eating it in cold of winter sounds better. I have Borage drying in the convection oven now. I partially dried enough yesterday for a cup of tea and noted this morning a definite lack of sinus annoyance . There was plenty of Borage left in the garden for green manure. Sjoerd, was the Donkey manure (aged ?) Oh, what is the word I'm searching for ? We once used horse manure which wasn't aged and whatever the horse had eaten came up in the garden. Oats ? Corn ?
The donkey manure was not aged...that will happen in the ground over the winter. At least I am counting on that. I shall be alert for seed growth. Germinating seeds is a problem with straw foe my strawberries though...every year. I just gently hand-pull those out as they come up. No, but you are right--there can be seeds that will germinate in the spring.
Matured manure? Composted manure? There is still another term in the back of my mind...I just cannot think of it at the moment, and this is perhaps the one you are thinking of. If it comes to me, I'll PM you.
S, while your lottie looks fabulous and I do mean FABULOUS with all the top dressing do you find the rodents just love and I do mean LOVE the comfort of a roof over their heads with your cover? I had the cat in the high tunnel with me yesterday and he was sitting intently looking at the corn stalk mulch... so I started raking it away and carting it out of the high tunnel... he caught two mice while I was standing there... I wonder how many more we have been supporting out there.
Well C--I have not noticed any rodent under the mulch, but I have found some slugs which I pick up as I roll the mulch back. Man, your cat really is earning his keep. What a good show of working together, you and he. Thanks for the compliments for the mulching.
yah, I will keep the cat. he kept me company while I was working in the garden too... I found a mouse nest with two babies in it....but I didn't leave them to grow up. Chubby sat and watched over the nest area the entire time I was out there... hoping for his own reward. I hope he stayed there long enough to get it, I finally got done and came in. I caught 3 more mice in the shed without any bait on the traps. 2 in the new shop with bait and I need to go check the 4 in the shed again since I actually baited the traps yesterday. well anyway your lottie is picture perfect. I know how much work goes into keeping it neat... yours is amazing. I finally did get a pot of comfrey started. well away from any garden area.
Thanks Carolyn. Cool that you started a pot of Comfrey. Is that Bocking 14...or is it the "wild" sort? I hope that it will work for you, BTW how do you plan on using it? You are having some luck with those mice there with traps and puss. I caught a huge brown rat today...and four more mice. I am a little worried about the seemingly endless mouse population here.
Yes Sjoerd, if you think of the term, let me know. Thank you. Carolyn, what do you do with the Comfrey ? I had a huge plant years ago, removed it the creek bank and it still survives. I must refresh my mind as to why I wanted it.
