A Pea Here, A Potato There

So now I approach the whole book of my plans differently ... "Wait, what book?" you ask. I have a very large binder that houses all my notes on everything I thought I might find useful in off-grid, green manure, power production, water storage, food production, pest control, specific plant type notes, seed saving...you get the idea.
So now I need to approach the big book of knowledge as not just a repository of knowledge, but as a tool within the plan. The plan is to feed us with as much homegrown, natural food as possible. Realistically, there will still be things we'll need to acquire from town, but it's my hope that the list of those things shrink as the land and I grow together.
Soil is the first priority, I think. Without good soil, nothing will grow to it's full potential.

“Be it deep or shallow, red or black, sand or clay, the soil is the link between the rock core of the earth and the living things on its surface. It is the foothold for the plants we grow. Therein lies the main reason for our interest in soils.” --- Roy W. Simonson, USDA Yearbook of Agriculture, 1957

I will need to decide where the raised beds are going, replace edge boards to the old raised beds that are sagging, and compost to those as well. I'll also need to decide where new raised beds are going, lay the boards for those, dig a little to improve drainage and plant clover as a green manure. These will be the pea patches. It's my hope that with rotational green manure crops, I can improve the soil enough that I can get a reasonably good crop next spring.

Despite our limited number of days we will have remaining to us once we move, we'll still be growing a variety of things, most of which will be started and planted by then. Many are, indeed, started even as I type. No, not by me. By the Mom-Gardener. We'll already have under way pumpkins, squash, lettuce, tomatoes, beets, carrots and dill. Not much at a cursory glance, that's true. But we'll be growing what we can between the end of July and that dreaded first frost. But no matter how much it turns out to be, it will be more than she could have last year, and more than I have been able to grow in 12 years. We will be thankful for each and every morsel.

I have to give a shout out to an unlikely gardeners-left-hand, my Dad. I was unexpectedly thrilled to learn he got approximately five gallons of compost the other day. Way to go, Dad! (insert high five here) I was so encouraged by the news, I grinned like a dork for an hour.

There will need to be the right place found for a patch of oats that I'd like to grow next year. We're a big oatmeal family, all of us, and I'd like to be able to augment our store bought oats as much as I can. The only way I see the quality of our food improving is by eating more of our own, and realistically it's going to be a slow conversion. (For the picky eater in the family, that might be a good thing) The same goes for potatoes and corn. The "feeding" requirements for each will be a little different, but I'm already planning a three year crop rotation.

Next time, I'll talk more about crop rotation and why monoculture farming may have contributed to the big dust bowl of history.

SPRING! IT HAS SPRUNG!!!

I love spring. It holds so much promise, so much potential. We can shed winter layers, dig out our running shoes and light weight jackets and finally get out into the warm sun again. Having said all that, I acknowledge, we've not had a "normal" winter round these parts. There's not been the 8 feet of snow I got to play in as a child. No day after day of bone numbing blizzards that hid your hand at the end of your arm. We even got lucky with no major round of flu or colds. (Knock on wood)

Yay for spring! I've been trying to grow little things all winter. Some have grown, some not.  A couple of green things surprised me this week, but more on that in a little bit. Last night I was following agricultural links and I found myself at a new-to-me site, the National Agriculture Library.  Following link after link, I eventually found a large collection of images that the American government used during World Wars 1 and 2 to inspire it's citizenry to grow gardens and preserve their bounty. I also found a collection of seed catalogue covers  dating from the early 1800's to  the Great Depression. I was pretty excited about this, and I'll be showing some of those posters and seed catalogue covers off here  over the next little bit. The one I shared today is from the Farmer Seed Co.  in 1907. Some of these seed companies featured some amazing artwork! Of farming importance in 1907, from The History of Canada Online,
"In the early 1900s, Charles Saunders, a plant breeder apppointed "Dominion Cerealist", worked rigorously to strain crosses of rust resistant Red Fife and Hard Red Calcutta wheat. In 1907 he tested a new frost-resistant strain he called Marquis at Indian Head, Saskatchewan. It matured much faster than Red Fife, and the shorter growing season meant farmers could grow the more valuable grain farther north. By 1910, over 2000 local farmers in were growing wheat where it not had been grown before. Marquis proved to be a sensation, and the Canadian wheat harvest soon tripled. By 1920, 90% of the entire Prairie wheat crop was Marquis. Farmers opened up thousands more hectares of land, and new mechanical tractors and threshers boosted production further."

The Cyclopedia of American Agriculture in 1907 lists pumpkins as stock feed, and advises,
"The best farmer is not the one who knows the most "science," but the one who is best able to organize the facts and the business into a harmonious system or plan.  The principles that underlie such organization are now beginning to be apprehended, and we think we see the possibilities of a sound farm philosophy, with wise generalizations from the mass of rapidly accumulating facts and practices.  Farm management will be a fertile subject for writers in the years to come. The basis of farm organization is the cropping plan or the crop management.  On this project or scheme rests the maintenance of fertility and consequently of productiveness, the subsistence of livestock, the economy of labor, the type of business."

They knew even then that the farm was a collection of systems. Smart.

The Cyclopedia continues on about crop rotation,
"A rotation of crops can be so planned as to maintain the supply of humus in the soil.  This humus, coming from the decay of organic matter, adds to the plant-food content of the soil and, what is usually more important, exerts a great influence in securing a proper physical texture of the land.  The Bureau of Soils recently asserts that the chief value of humus is to cleanse the soil of toxic excreta.  The humus is chiefly supplied by the grass crops and clover crops in rotation.  The practice of "green-manuring" rests chiefly on the need of supplying humus.  Green-manure crops are those that are grown for the special purpose of being turned under, root and top, and are not usually a difinite part of the rotation; but, so far as it goes, the root-and-stubble part of similar crops employed in the rotation answers the same purpose." (Spelling mistakes theirs, not mine)

There's a lot to learn about agriculture from the old manuals.

This week, I germinated sunflower seeds, and they're actually growing! Yipee! Of the six peas I started, I thought I was going to lose them all, but three of them decided not to give up the ghost. On The Apartment Prepper, Bernie talked about re-growing celery, so I'll be trying that in the coming week.
Are you starting anything green in the upcoming week?