Barakah Heritage Farm USA

Tag: Nutrient

Using Weeds to Read the Soil: Some Basic Concepts to Get Started

Using Weeds to Read the Soil: Some Basic Concepts to Get Started

April 14, 2017by Jonathon Engels

Weeds are becoming a more and more appreciated component of gardening. We have been reintroduced to eating the weeds, with things like dandelion leaves becoming a niche crop. Also, we are encouraging plants that, up until recently, were viewed as weeds (dynamic accumulators like comfrey and pioneering legumes) to revitalize our soils. And, many gardeners are once again celebrating weeds as a means of reading the soil.

Geoff Lawton says weeds are not the problem but rather symptoms of glitches within the soil. In other words, weeds have arrived because the soil has some sort of deficiency or condition that both allows them to thrive and prompts nature to repair systemic damage. Nature will move towards a permanent, stable system, and weeds are part of that process, especially in troubled landscapes.

With each problem, there are particular weeds that characteristically appear, and if we learn to read these weeds, we can assess unfamiliar landscapes and recognize the sources of troubles within our own systems. Then, we can begin to speed the soil’s recovery into something more stable, and in the meantime, we can cultivate appropriate plants to aid this process and provide production, as well as utilize weeds that are already present.

While each landscape, soil type, and climate has its own particular set of pioneering plants, there are some basic ideas that can help us begin to understand more how to use the weeds to read the soil. From there, we can research and make more practical and informed decisions as to how we might move our projects in positive directions.

The Root Systems

The root systems of weeds can tell us a great deal about soil conditions. For example, weeds that have deep taproots, such as dandelions and burdock, generally indicate soils that are compacted, preventing plants with lesser roots from taking hold. These taproots break up the soils and eventually, as they decompose, create pathways for water, nutrients, and weaker roots systems. On the other hand, weeds that have spreading, hairnet root systems or clumping grasses are likely there because soils are loose and erosive.

So, when there is an abundance of weeds, we can start by noticing their root systems as these might indicate soil conditions that we can either address with rehabilitative gardening techniques or by choosing appropriate plants to grow in the conditions. This can also lead us into identifying the weeds that are present and learning what other things they might be telling us.

The pH Balance

Just like crops, some weeds thrive in different levels of acidity and alkalinity. We wouldn’t plant blueberries in a soil that we know is alkaline because we recognize that blueberries are particular to acidic soils. Well, certain weeds—plantain, hawkweeds, sheep sorrel—could help to indicate more acidic areas, whereas others—goosefoot, true chamomile—signal the likelihood of alkaline soils.

A shrewd gardener would use these signals to help with choosing what crops he or she might try to cultivate in an area. If the soil is acidic, berries might be a great choice, but if the soil is alkaline, different cruciferous vegetables are likely a better option. Similarly, noting these bits of information can be guidance for what not to plant in an area, something that might prevent wasting time and resources.

The Soil Types/Conditions

The ability to recognize the weeds we are looking at can also give us an assessment of the type of soil it is growing in and the conditions of that soil. If it’s sandy, we might see sandbur, cornflower, or dog fennel, but a heavy clay soil is more likely to yield wild garlic, plantain, and creeping buttercup. Wet soils—cattails, sedge, marsh mallow—will have different weeds than dry soils—potato vine, Virginia pepperweed.

Again, this can aid cultivators greatly by knowing whether to plant crops that thrive in sandy soils over clays or wet soils over dry. Recognizing these needs before investing the time and money needed for a garden can mean the difference between low-maintenance success and hard-working struggle. Taking a moment to familiarize with the weeds common to a place is just a good idea.

The Nutrient Profile

When we stop looking at weeds as only pests and recognize they are plants, we realize that, like all plants, they have certain nutritional needs and outputs. The existence of certain weeds can provide clues to what the soil nutrients is like. Chicory, purslane, and lamb’s quarter (all edible) indicate rich soils, but sheep’s sorrel and broom sedge might mean the opposite. Thistle could mean deficiencies in iron and copper, or the growth of ferns and blade grasses will show up in places that have been burned, indicating a lack of available phosphorus.

Learning certain sure indicators of nutrient abundance or absence can lead growers as to which soil amendments they might need to make, as well as which crops—one’s that like similar nutrient profiles—they might want to plant. This could help in moving the soil slowly and deliberately back into a more balanced system with more biodiversity.

The Weed Community

In the end, it’s important to remember that no one weed necessarily provides all the information we need to assess soil, but using the community of weeds growing in an area will provide a more complete view of what the soil type and conditions are, as well as what sort of issues need to be addressed or considered in developing the land. Identifying the prominent plants in a space and where the meaning behind each weed overlaps could provide reasonably accurate results.

The unfortunate thing is that different climates and locations have different weeds and often different names for the same weeds, so this might mean buckling down for some research before being able to read the weeds well. Luckily, there are plenty of books to reference, as well as local experts and online sources. The point is that learning what weeds we are looking at and what they are saying is an effort most certainly worthwhile.

5 Books to Help Getting Started with Reading the Weeds:

•Weeds and Why They Grow by Jay L. McCaman

•Weeds and What They Tell Us by Ehrenfried E. Pfeiffer

•Weeds: Guardians of the Soil by Joseph A. Cocannouer

•Weeds: An Earth-Friendly Guide to Their Identification, Use and Control by John Walker

•Insect, Disease & Weed I.D. Guide: Find-It-Fast Organic Solution for Your Garden by Deborah L. Martin

Feature Header Image: Dandelions (Chris Alban Hansen)

https://permaculturenews.org/2017/04/14/using-weeds-read-soil-basic-concepts-get-started/

On – 14 Apr, 2017 By Jonathon Engels

December 24, 2017
How Soil Type Affects Land Values

A farm’s greatest asset is its land. If you’re considering buying land with an ag land loan, looking into the land’s soil type is an important step in determining the worth of the property. It’s also an indicator of how much work the soil will need in order to provide a nutrient-rich environment for crops.

Soil classification is based on the texture and size of the particles in the soil, as well as on the mineral and nutrient content. The six most common soil types are loamy, sandy, peaty, silty, chalky, and clay. Each of these base soil types become naturally combined in varying ratios to produce entirely new and unique soils in each state.

Every part of the country has one, or a mixture, of the six main soil types. And just like each state has an official flower or bird, they also designate a state soil. Florida’s official soil is called “Myakka.” It originates from marine deposits and is a key component of Floridian flatwoods.

There are a variety of tools for assessing a farmland’s soil type. Chuck Cruse, AgAmerica’s Regional Account Manager for Florida, highly recommends heading to the USDA’s Natural Resources and Conservation Services (NRCS) web page. This tool allows users to create a map of their land or land that they are considering for purchase. The process takes the user through four basic steps: (1. Define your land area of interest; (2. Gain detailed descriptions of the soils in that area; (3. Access and save soil data and crop suitability data with the Soil Data Explorer; and (4. Order a free instant printable report, which creates a complete picture of the quality of a specified piece of land, including yield potential. The NCRS database currently contains data for 95% of the nation’s counties and anticipates having 100% in the near future.

Different crops prefer different soils, so determining the soil’s compatibility with certain crops is a key concern for the region’s ag Extension office. Extension agents are familiar with the area while possessing access to an array of useful data when it comes to soil quality and which land offers the best yield, and for which crops.

The USDA also collects data on what’s known as “prime farmland designations,” which are based on physical and morphological (organic) characteristics such as the depth of the water table in relation to the root zone, potential moisture holding capacity, the degree of salinity, permeability, frequency of flooding, soil temperature, erosion potential, and soil acidity.

Data about a farm’s soil type is used to help create the land appraisal. Appraisals are a common part of securing a land loan and are a complex equation involving a variety of factors with soil quality being only one of them.

Land appraisers develop economic assessments of agricultural acreage using soil samples. To determine the property’s value, they’ll review past yield records, look at existing irrigation and/or potential for new irrigation, and examine border features to assess how these might impact soil productivity.

While the southeastern region of the U.S. has a wide array of soil types, there is a very unique and valuable soil type found prominently in Florida — muck soil. Otherwise known as “black gold,” muck is a highly fertile soil that has amendments and nutritional value present without having to fertilize or irrigate heavily. The value of a parcel that contains muck soil fluctuates based on the depth of the muck, which can range from 12 inches to 30 feet deep in some areas. The deeper the muck, the more valuable the property is. However, there are only small areas of muck located in the state of Florida, the largest mass of it bedding in Palm Beach County around the bank of Lake Okeechobee.

“Muck is where sugarcane is primarily grown,” Cruse says, “because it takes very a minimal amount of work to grow it. You can get three to four cuttings off one planting of sugarcane, depending on the variety. When the farmer rotates the cane with sweet corn or other vegetables, it helps recycle those amendments back into the soil naturally. Once they’re done growing the cover crop, they’ll go in and till that crop, putting the nutrients and supplements back into the soil that’s then used to grow another crop of cane that will last another three to four years.”

Many farmers are finding innovative techniques to duplicate this scarce “black gold.” For instance, there are some sugarcane growers that are farming the cane on what is considered sand land. While the soil is entirely different than the muck, they’re bringing in mud and peat substitutes from the mills to replicate the nutrient-rich muck soil.

“These folks have the opportunity to bring some, what they call, ‘mill mud’ back to their properties to put the amendments back into the sand soil,” Cruse explains. “This gives them the properties and nutritional products that mimic the muck soil and grow better crops, even though they don’t have any depth of muck on the sand land. These farmers are putting anywhere from 12 to 24 inches of mill mud on top of the sand to help get the crop’s roots to be hardier, stronger, and to produce a better crop.”

http://www.growingproduce.com/vegetables/how-soil-type-affects-land-values/

On – 17 Nov, 2016 By Phoebe Moll

May 12, 2017
How Soil Type Affects Land Values

A farm’s greatest asset is its land. If you’re considering buying land with an ag land loan, looking into the land’s soil type is an important step in determining the worth of the property. It’s also an indicator of how much work the soil will need in order to provide a nutrient-rich environment for crops.

Soil classification is based on the texture and size of the particles in the soil, as well as on the mineral and nutrient content. The six most common soil types are loamy, sandy, peaty, silty, chalky, and clay. Each of these base soil types become naturally combined in varying ratios to produce entirely new and unique soils in each state.

Every part of the country has one, or a mixture, of the six main soil types. And just like each state has an official flower or bird, they also designate a state soil. Florida’s official soil is called “Myakka.” It originates from marine deposits and is a key component of Floridian flatwoods.

There are a variety of tools for assessing a farmland’s soil type. Chuck Cruse, AgAmerica’s Regional Account Manager for Florida, highly recommends heading to the USDA’s Natural Resources and Conservation Services (NRCS) web page. This tool allows users to create a map of their land or land that they are considering for purchase. The process takes the user through four basic steps: (1. Define your land area of interest; (2. Gain detailed descriptions of the soils in that area; (3. Access and save soil data and crop suitability data with the Soil Data Explorer; and (4. Order a free instant printable report, which creates a complete picture of the quality of a specified piece of land, including yield potential. The NCRS database currently contains data for 95% of the nation’s counties and anticipates having 100% in the near future.

Different crops prefer different soils, so determining the soil’s compatibility with certain crops is a key concern for the region’s ag Extension office. Extension agents are familiar with the area while possessing access to an array of useful data when it comes to soil quality and which land offers the best yield, and for which crops.

The USDA also collects data on what’s known as “prime farmland designations,” which are based on physical and morphological (organic) characteristics such as the depth of the water table in relation to the root zone, potential moisture holding capacity, the degree of salinity, permeability, frequency of flooding, soil temperature, erosion potential, and soil acidity.

Data about a farm’s soil type is used to help create the land appraisal. Appraisals are a common part of securing a land loan and are a complex equation involving a variety of factors with soil quality being only one of them.

Land appraisers develop economic assessments of agricultural acreage using soil samples. To determine the property’s value, they’ll review past yield records, look at existing irrigation and/or potential for new irrigation, and examine border features to assess how these might impact soil productivity.

While the southeastern region of the U.S. has a wide array of soil types, there is a very unique and valuable soil type found prominently in Florida — muck soil. Otherwise known as “black gold,” muck is a highly fertile soil that has amendments and nutritional value present without having to fertilize or irrigate heavily. The value of a parcel that contains muck soil fluctuates based on the depth of the muck, which can range from 12 inches to 30 feet deep in some areas. The deeper the muck, the more valuable the property is. However, there are only small areas of muck located in the state of Florida, the largest mass of it bedding in Palm Beach County around the bank of Lake Okeechobee.

“Muck is where sugarcane is primarily grown,” Cruse says, “because it takes very a minimal amount of work to grow it. You can get three to four cuttings off one planting of sugarcane, depending on the variety. When the farmer rotates the cane with sweet corn or other vegetables, it helps recycle those amendments back into the soil naturally. Once they’re done growing the cover crop, they’ll go in and till that crop, putting the nutrients and supplements back into the soil that’s then used to grow another crop of cane that will last another three to four years.”

Many farmers are finding innovative techniques to duplicate this scarce “black gold.” For instance, there are some sugarcane growers that are farming the cane on what is considered sand land. While the soil is entirely different than the muck, they’re bringing in mud and peat substitutes from the mills to replicate the nutrient-rich muck soil.

“These folks have the opportunity to bring some, what they call, ‘mill mud’ back to their properties to put the amendments back into the sand soil,” Cruse explains. “This gives them the properties and nutritional products that mimic the muck soil and grow better crops, even though they don’t have any depth of muck on the sand land. These farmers are putting anywhere from 12 to 24 inches of mill mud on top of the sand to help get the crop’s roots to be hardier, stronger, and to produce a better crop.”

http://www.growingproduce.com/vegetables/how-soil-type-affects-land-values/

On – 17 Nov, 2016 By Phoebe Moll

May 12, 2017
Permaculture Puts Organic Gardening on Autopilot

BY: TIM O’NEAL

Organic food and farming have seen a huge increase over the past ten years, and for good reason. Farming and gardening techniques that use fewer harmful, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are better for the environment and better for human health. Permaculture methods of growing food reach far beyond these benefits. Growing food organically is just the starting point.

According to a report from 2014 by Stephen Daniells titled US organic food market to grow 14% from 2013-18, 81% of American families reported buying organic food at least sometimes. For many people, the barriers to buying organic food are accessibility and cost. Growing organic produce at home overcomes both of those issues. Permaculture practices are a great way to achieve the best results.

What is Permaculture

Permaculture (permanent + agriculture) was developed in the late 1970s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. It’s a set of principles and techniques for food production at any scale that focuses on mimicking natural systems, instead of competing against them. It puts humans into the system as engaged participants, departing from the conventional agricultural approach of conquering nature. The principles can be applied to container gardens on apartment balconies, large scale agricultural operations, and anything in between.

Practitioners of permaculture believe that it is more than a set of gardening techniques. It is the simplest and most direct way we can repair many of the global problems we face today – environmental destruction, poverty and food scarcity, water shortages, among others.

Co-founder, Bill Mollison, says, ““The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.”

From Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, there are three core tenets:

Care for the earth: Provision for all life systems to continue and multiply. This is the first principle, because without a healthy earth, humans cannot flourish.
Care for the people: Provision for people to access those resources necessary for their existence.
Return of surplus: Reinvesting surpluses back into the system to provide for the first two ethics. This includes returning waste back into the system to recycle into usefulness. The third ethic is sometimes referred to as Fair Share to reflect that each of us should take no more than what we need before we reinvest the surplus.

As stated in the third tenet, one central element of permaculture is to return waste back into the system as a benefit. The most direct way to do this is to compost garden and food waste onsite to add nutrients and organic material to the soil. If done well, this can eliminate the need for fertilizers.

There is also a strong emphasis on providing habitat for pollinators, other beneficial insects, and birds. The idea is to mimic a forest setting, or some other mature ecosystem, where pests and diseases are kept in balance by a harmonious relationship among organisms up and down the food chain. With this approach, there’s no need for chemical pest control.

Permaculture concepts can be applied beyond a single garden or farm to include a neighborhood, village, or an entire city. A permaculture system is designed for resiliency. This means that if one element fails the rest of the parts can fill in to keep the overall system intact. A society designed around permaculture principles is built to withstand destructive forces.

While it is a relatively new approach to food production, permaculture relies on concepts from traditional approaches to agriculture. There are methods from all over the world that have been highly productive and sustainable over long periods of time. The revolution of industrial agriculture has worked to eliminate many of these techniques. Permaculture incorporates them back into the modern system to ensure resiliency.

Achieving a productive garden using organic practices is an important goal, for the health of both humans and the environment. Permaculture provides a tested, ethical method for achieving that goal. It also assures us that the benefits of growing healthy food for ourselves isn’t limited to the space of our gardens.

As Bill Mollison says, “If we do not get our cities, homes, and gardens in order, so that they feed and shelter us, we must lay waste to all other natural systems. Thus, truly responsible conservationists have gardens.”

For a great introduction to some permaculture ideas, check out this video by Toby Hemenway.

https://thehomestead.guru/permaculture/

On – 21 Mar, 2017 By The Plaid Zebra

May 7, 2017
Fertilizing Corn In The Home Garden: An Organic Approach
As garden crops go, corn is among the heaviest feeders. To support tall growth and good ear formation, corn crops often need supplemental additions of nitrogen; there’s typically not enough of this nutrient available in garden soils to support such a large-statured crop. Fertilizing corn in the home garden is an essential summer chore, if you want a hearty crop of plump ears.

When To Fertilize Corn In The Summer

Test your garden soil every few years to ensure its pH is at the correct level to support the growth of most common garden crops, including corn. The best pH for most vegetables is between 6.0 and 6.5, and ensuring your soil’s pH fits in this range improves the availability of most nutrients to your corn plants.

That said, even when the soil’s pH is in the suitable range, supplemental nitrogen fertilizer is often necessary when growing corn. Adding yearly additions of well-composted manures and using legume cover crops will add a good bit of nitrogen to the soil, but when your corn plants reach two feet tall, it’s time for fertilizing corn in the home garden.

Organic Products For Fertilizing Corn

If you want to avoid using chemical-based fertilizers in your veggie patch, you’ll need to turn to organic nitrogen fertilizers to give your corn plants a boost. The following sources of nitrogen are plant- or animal-based and require soil microbes to break them down into a form of nitrogen the plants can use. Thankfully, upon adding one of these fertilizers to the corn patch, all the necessary soil microbes work very quickly to break down these products and release the nitrogen to your growing corn plants.
- Alfalfa meal: Made from dried alfalfa plants, this plant-based fertilizer is about 4 percent nitrogen. It’s often used as an animal feed supplement, too, and it promotes a balance of healthy soil microbes.
- Cottonseed meal: A coarsely granulated product made from the hulls of cottonseeds, cottonseed meal is about 6 percent nitrogen. Once in the soil, it rapidly breaks down and provides a burst of nitrogen to plants within a few days of application.
- Blood meal: Derived from dried blood from slaughterhouses, blood meal contains about 12 percent nitrogen. It acts quickly in the soil and begins to provide nitrogen to plants almost immediately.
- Feather meal: Another animal byproduct from slaughterhouses, feather meal contains approximately 14 percent nitrogen. It’s inexpensive, though it takes a bit longer for the microbes to mineralize than some of the other organic nitrogen sources discussed here.
- Soybean meal: With a nitrogen content of about 7 percent, soybean meal is another option for fertilizing corn in the home garden.
- Fish fertilizers: Liquid fish fertilizers as well as granular fish-based fertilizers are good nitrogen sources for the corn patch. Though they can smell bad, fish-based fertilizers are mineralized by soil microbes very rapidly. Depending on the formulation, they can contain between 5 percent and 10 percent nitrogen.
How To Fertilize Corn

Adding nitrogen to your corn plants is as simple as side-dressing the rows at the recommended application rate shown on the product’s label when the plants are approximately two feet tall. Lightly scratch it into the soil’s surface so the soil microbes can quickly access it, and then water it in.

A word of caution: it is possible, of course, to overfertilize corn plants. Do not add any more fertilizer than recommended on the label. A single application is all that’s necessary, except in the case of extreme nitrogen deficiencies. Conduct a soil test every few years to ensure all essential plant nutrients are in the proper balance.
http://www.hobbyfarms.com/fertilizing-corn-home-garden-organic/

On – 22 Jun, 2017 By Jessica Walliser
April 11, 2017
5 Keys To Growing Cucumbers – Grow A Banner Crop This Year For Pickles And More!

Growing Cucumbers! When it comes to backyard gardens, cucumbers are right up there with tomatoes as one of the most popular home-grown vegetables.

It’s not hard to figure out why. Is there anything better than a fresh cucumber sprinkled with a little bit of salt? And beyond that delicious fresh taste, they are, of course, prized for making pickles. In our house, pickles rule! (See our Pickle Recipe Page)

Whether its making a quick batch of our overnight garlic pickles, or canning bread and butter, dill or hot pepper-garlic pickles, we simply love them!

But to make a lot of pickles, you have to grow a big crop of cucumbers. I have to say, it took us several years to really perfect the art of growing a banner crop. We thought we would share 5 of our biggest tips we’ve found to help grow that perfect crop.

5 Keys To Successfully Growing Cucumbers

#1 Plant In A Sunny Location

At the top of the list, sunshine. Cucumbers need the sun, and a lot of it! Locate your crop in an area that receives at least 8 hours of sunlight a day. Much like pumpkins, gourds and zucchini – cucumbers rely heavily on the photosynthesis process to grow the strong vines needed to producing heavy fruiting. No sun, no photosynthesis.

Locating your crop in the sun also allows leaves and vines to dry off from early morning dew. This is a huge help in controlling mildew and blight. Avoiding both of those issues are big to keeping your crop healthy.

#2 Provide Rich, Fertile, Well Drained Soil

Cucumbers love rich, fertile, well-drained soil. The more you nutrition you can provide at planting time, the better. We add a few shovelfuls of compost, and a quarter cup of worm castings to each planting hill or container. It creates a rich soil for the young seeds or transplants to get off to a great start. The worm castings / compost combo has made a huge difference in the health and productivity of our plants!

When planting directly into the soil, we plant in slightly tapered hills about 18″ in diameter, 3″ to 4″ high. This helps keep the plant stems out of sitting water during heavy rains or watering.

We prefer planting transplants over seeds. The added growth and strength help give them a better chance to avoid dreaded cucumber beetle attacks. If you are planting transplants, use two plants per hill. If you seed, plant 3 and thin to 2.

Cucumbers, especially bush-style varieties, can be planted in containers as well. Again, be sure start off with a rich, well-drained soil mix to give plants the nutrition they need. Use only one plant per container to avoid draining the soil too quickly of nutrients. Product Link: Worm Castings

#3 Be Careful What You Plant Nearby

What you plant around your cucumbers can play an important role in their productivity. One thing to avoid for sure is planting cucumber crops near potatoes.

Potatoes release a substance in the soil that greatly hinders the growth of cucumbers. Radishes, on the other hand are great, as they help to repel harmful insects like cucumber beetles and aphids that attack tender cucumber plants. It is also easy to sow a few inexpensive radish seeds around plants. They germinate fast and really do help stave away the beetles.

Nasturtiums and Alyssum are also excellent to plant right alongside your growing cucumbers.

The nasturtiums will help repel and deter a whole host of nuisance insects, while the alyssum acts as a sacrificial plant to beetles, keeping them away off of your cucumbers.

One final note on where you plant. Be sure to practice crop rotation. You can keep soil-borne disease at bay by rotating your crops each year to a new location. Wait at least three years before planting them back in the same location. This allows the soil to recover, minimizes disease, and reduces the possibility for infestation.

#4 Provide Support

If you are planting a vining variety of cucumber, be sure to provide support in the way of a trellis, fence, or rope or wire. A folded piece of metal fencing will work great in open garden settings. By providing a place for the vines and cucumbers to grow, it keeps the plants and fruit off the ground and less susceptible to mold, blight and disease. It also helps support them during winds and heavy storms.

Compact, bush varieties can usually be grown without support, but even with these varieties, a little help in holding them up goes a long way. Seed Links : For canning we grow Boston Pickling and National Pickling. For fresh eating : Straight 8,.

#5 Harvest Regularly

Once cucumber plants begin to produce, you need to pick regularly to keep them producing well. If left on the vine too long, cukes get woody, full of seeds, and bitter. In addition, the plants will put their energy towards making the existing fruit larger, and not producing new blooms. Check plants daily, cukes can go from 2″ inches to 12″ in a day or two!

There you have it! Five of our favorite tips for growing cucumbers successfully. We hope you enjoyed this week’s gardening article. If you would like to receive our DIY, Gardening and Recipe articles each week, you can sign up to follow the blog via email in the right hand column above, “Like” us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter. This article may contain affiliate links.

https://oldworldgardenfarms.com/2017/04/06/growing-cucumbers/

On – 06 Apr, 2017 By oldworldgardenfarms

December 13, 2016
6 Ways to Increase Food Production in Your Organic Vegetable Garden
Please note that affiliate links are present in this post, which means if you click on a link a buy something, I’ll get like 4 cents for it at no extra cost to you. All recommendations are humbly my own.
- 1. Prepare Your Soil Using a No-Till Method
- No-Till gardening requires nothing more than reliable tools and good old-fashioned hard labor. Good for you and your garden.
- It’s a harsh fact that machines are destroying our soil! When we mechanically till our gardens, our soil’s complex structure gets broken up into tiny particles. Air pockets created by earthworms and arthropods diminish. Colonies of beneficial bacteria and strands of fungal hyphae break apart. When these tiny pieces all settle, they become extremely compacted, leading to poor drainage – the totally opposite effect we hoped tilling would have!
- There’s a common misconception that we must till our soil every spring to aerate, so “roots can breathe” and “water can drain more efficiently,” but the fact is: Tilling does NOT accomplish this. There many other ways we can prepare our gardens that are not only healthier for our soil, but also require much less money and equipment – my preferred method is Double Digging.
Related Enough: Epic Spring Planting Series: My Best Tips for Planting with Seeds

I first learned about double digging from John Jeavons, founder of Ecology Action and the Grow Biointensive farming method, and author of How to Grow More Vegetables, when he presented at the MOSES Organic Farming Conference in 2015. The Double Dig Method entails digging two layers of soil with a shovel using nothing but old-fashioned manual labor. Using the least amount of effort possible, the digger is to “twist” the soil in patches while amending it using organic fertilizers and compost. Watch this instructional YouTube video on double digging (note that there is a second part you’ll need to watch).

Side note, I have a 2-part Soil Building Series: Increasing the Biodiversity of Your Soil Food Web, Part 1 and Part 2. To really get to know your soils on a deeper level, and to learn how to care for them compassionately, I invite you to read those posts!

The benefits of double digging are endless. There’s no intense breaking up of the soil structure. There’s no mass killing of valuable microorganisms, so plants are naturally healthier. All of your earthworms, spiders, centipedes and other beneficial bugs will be left in tact. Your plants’ root systems will grow deeper and stronger. And what’s fascinating is, once you build your soil fertility with organic matter your soil will hold more water, reducing the need to water as often. All of this means MORE FOOD!

Worms are so incredibly important for our gardens and when we are gentle with our soils, we preserve them and their delicate work.

Totally Related: 7 Best Organic Soil Amendments for Your Garden

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1. 2. Improve Your Soil Biodiversity with Homemade Compost
2. If you know anything about compost, let it be this: Not all compost is created equal! The nutrient content of the compost you are using depends on what it is made out of. Did you acquire it from your municipality, in which case it could be mostly decomposed grass and tree trimmings, potentially laden with herbicides? Or did you make it yourself, in which case it is probably a richer concoction of grass and leaves from your yard, kitchen scraps of fruits, herbs, veggies and egg shells, and all kinds of organic matter from your own garden?
You see where I’m going with this. Compost is a great way to feed your garden and introduce more biodiversity into the soil, ideally at the end of the season or during soil preparation.

Homemade compost is the BEST compost – and it doesn’t have to be hard!

The best compost to use is your own because you control what goes in it. All of the different types of organic matter we throw into our compost support different types of microbes, and this vastly increases the biodiversity and the nutrient content of our end product. A more biodiverse compost pile means a more biodiverse garden.

Some of us don’t have room to make compost. If you’re one of these people, getting compost from your municipality is fine – usually it’s free, and everyone loves free!
1. 3. Stop Stepping on Your Soil
2. This might sound obvious, but I’m adding it in here and for good reason: I’ve worked with a ton of people who stepped all over their garden beds until they worked with me. Soil compaction is one reason, while the breakage of tender plant roots is another, but the main reason why you should never, ever step on your soil is because your weight crushes and suffocates your microbes. Healthy soil food web = More nutrients in your veggies!
By now you’re going, Really? For the third time? Microorganisms, microbes or whatever the heck those things are she’s talking about?

The books below changed my life as a gardener and will also help you understand microbes, and your garden, like you never have before:

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I use “microorganisms,” “microbes,” “soil biodiversity,” “microbial life,” and “Soil Food Web” interchangeably throughout my posts, but I mean generally the same thing when I talk about how important they are – “they” being a collection of bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, algae and fungi, billions of which can be found in one tablespoon of your soil. Caring for these living creatures is the most important aspect of growing food.

So, a solution to stop stepping on your soil. You need clearly marked, delineated pathways throughout your garden. And once you’ve developed this pathway system, it needs to always stay that way. My favorite and easiest to use path materials are straw, wood chips and stepping stones.

Pathways are the best way to keep yourself, and everyone else, from stepping on your soil.

4. Mulch, Mulch, Mulch

It is so, absolutely important for you to mulch your vegetable garden. Not only does mulch keep weeds down and prevent moisture from evaporating quicker, mulch materials also break down over time and add valuable organic matter to your soil, and provide food sources for your soil food web. Most importantly though, mulch provides a thick, protective layer for your microbes against the harsh outdoor elements.

Spring bulbs loving life in a bed of nitrogen-rich leaf mulch.

Though a full-sun space is a blessing and ever-desirable in organic gardening, it can have a detrimental effect on the top few inches of soil by completely drying it out. The top four inches of soil is where most of our microbial life is contained, and the hot sun will crisp and evaporate the little guys right up without a protective layer! Rain can also have undesirable effects – microbes are so tiny that raindrops falling on them has a similar effect not unlike our stepping all over them. The way we can protect our microbes from the natural elements is by using mulch.

Related Enough: Gardening Myths We’re Officially Breaking, or Why You DON’T Need Raised Beds and Fertilizers

The sun is incredibly powerful and will dry your garden right up if you don’t cover it with mulch.

There are lots of different options for mulch, but here, I will highlight the simplest mulching solutions…
1. – Straw is an economical option because not only is it initially cheap to buy, but you can also use it for your pathways. It is good to use around baby seedlings because it will help prevent birds from nibbling at them, and it will partially break down over winter so it may be incorporated into your soil during preparation in spring. Be sure to get “straw” and not “hay,” where seed heads are present.
4. – Decomposed leaves, or leaf mulch, is an attractive mulching option and adds a good amount of nitrogen to the soil as it breaks down and becomes incorporated into the garden bed. Earthworms love it. If you have a lot of trees on your property, you could create a compost pile of leaves and make your own leaf mulch, otherwise it comes bagged at most landscape suppliers. Be aware that if you do not buy certified organic leaf mulch, the mulch you do buy could have residual pesticides – not great for us or our microbial friends.
7. – Living mulch is a way of mulching by growing groundcover plants with shallow root systems in between vegetable plants, not unlike cover cropping. Growing living mulches takes a little more maintenance and technique (you must know what plants are acceptable to grow for living mulch and when to plant them), but anyone can do it! Living mulch is so great because it’s very cheap and easy to do (all you need are seeds), it adds lots of color and texture to your garden, and the added root system provides tons of extra food for microbes. Great options for living mulch are sweet alyssum, creeping thyme, creeping jenny, and arugula.
Totally Related: How to Cover Crop Your Vegetable Garden in 4 Steps

5. Get Your Fencing Right

Ok so this is kind of a joke… but not really. I’ve worked with people who put so much time and money into their fence but it wasn’t done properly so they might as well just had an adorable blue gate instead!

My adoration for bunnies, squirrels, deer, and especially groundhogs, has waned since I became a vegetable gardener. When you grow food, animal families seem to multiply out of nowhere, and they all have this perfectly-timed instinct that tells them exactly when to nosh your harvest just hours before you can get to it. PESTS!

Totally Related: Battling Garden Pests: The Organic Pest Control of Mindfulness and Compassion

The only way for us to keep pests out of our garden is by building a strong fencing system. I will always say that with fencing materials and construction techniques, the higher quality your materials are, the better results you will have in creating an animal barrier. There will also be less upkeep with damage from storms and weight on it from heavy snow and ice.

There are some basic dimensional fencing details to know, based on what type of animal you need to keep out…
1. – Bunnies – The openings in your fencing material should be no larger than 1”x2”, and I think this is a good rule for all garden fencing no matter the pest. Baby bunnies have the ability to get through 2”x2”, and they are everywhere. If you have a gate within your garden fence, be aware of the threshold gap at the bottom of it – the gap should be no more than ½” – a commonly overlooked detail! If you don’t have deer, a 3-foot tall fence is good enough to keep bunnies out. Keep in mind though that you can’t grow tall crops on such a short fence, so sometimes its nice to go vertical anyway.
4. – Deer – Your deer fencing should be at least 6 feet tall, preferably 8 feet. It sounds hulking and fortress-like, but it’s actually nice to have fencing this tall because then you can grow pole beans, peas, cucumbers, squash and vining flowers on it. Deer have a tendency to eat plants through the mesh fencing, so you may need to attach a screen or a similar very fine mesh to keep their snouts out. Trick is to avoid attaching this screen too high, otherwise it will block sunlight.
7. – Groundhogs/Gophers – These are burrowing animals, living up to 18” underground in large nests connected by a network of underground pathways. They’re incredibly smart. You’ll need to dig a deep trench (ideally 18”) and extend your METAL mesh fencing down that far to keep them out. Groundhogs are not typical in suburban backyards or city yards, but if you’re out in the country, or live near open fields of any kind, you absolutely need to protect your garden from groundhogs or all will be lost. I’ve learned this the hard way.
8. – Chipmunks & Squirrels – Just forget it! No matter of fencing, unless you completely cover the top of your garden, will keep them out. If squirrels are taking bites out of your tomatoes, chances are they are sucking the juice out because they’re thirsty. Try leaving shallow dishes of water out for them to drink. I swear it works!
Ever see a squirrel drink? Now you have. They get thirsty, too!

6. Assess Your Tree Canopy

Trees grow fast. Sometimes just a few years after setting up your garden your trees can grow so much that new branches block primetime sunlight.

Trees cast much more shade than you would think, causing leggy, unproductive growth in your garden.

If you notice your plants are stunted but you think you’re doing everything else right, I encourage you to spend some time in your yard one day and assess the sunlight in your garden. The Solar Pathfinder is an amazing tool I’ve used in countless gardens to determine sun exposure – it might be worth the price if your garden is large enough, creates revenue, or if you could split the cost of it with other gardeners.

Look up and see if any trees might be blocking the sun pattern. If they are your own trees, and are small enough, go ahead and trim them back with tall tree loppers. If the branches are larger and too high, consider calling a local landscaper or arborist for their tree trimming rates – it is probably worth the cost. You’d be surprised at just how one really tall branch can make hours of a difference in your garden! Visit this post for a blurb on how to determine the hours of sun exposure in your garden.
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On – 09 Apr, 2017 By Fran
December 4, 2016

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