For the first time in many years, maybe a decade, we put a garden in.
We put it in late, I'm afraid, but we put it in.
Some of us here in the household have wanted to do this for some time, but one thing or another prevented it. This year, however, all the denizens of the household save for one wanted to do it, and in addition that section of the household demographic recently graduated into full adulthood, together with a colleague in a similar situation, expressed a desire to do it and to contribute labor to the same, as part of an effort to reduce their anticipated costs this fall.
And hence it was planted.
The return of row crop agriculture to our familial efforts.
3 comments:
I started down my personal gardening path in my early college years, and I think I've always had some sort of garden ever since. Starting out at that age might be the key to making it a lifelong activity.
Given the opportunity, I could talk your ear off about what I think about starting a garden, compost and fertilizer, crops, cover crops (or green manure crops), books I've used, and how great I think biochar is.
I'd love to give you that opportunity.
I'll be posting more photos of the garden as we move along this year. I'm disappointed to report that I've forgotten a fair amount since I last planted one, while some other information came right back as if never gone. The big thing I'd forgotten had to do with how much to plant of some things. I bought way too many seed potatoes.
My father always planted a huge garden. That is, he planted this one (which was larger at the time). I always liked doing it, but when the kids were small work and life just took up too much time and I gave it up for awhile. I've always missed it.
I don't know what biochar is.
When I first started gardening on my own, I used Dick Raymond's Joy of Gardening book as a reference. It's a basic and practical book that I would recommend to anyone that's gardening.
He's based in New England, but most of the techniques also applied to Oklahoma. The book has a planting guide for all the different crops typically planted that will give you a rough idea about how much to plant, how far apart, etc. It also has some basic garden layouts, details about growing specific crops, an insect guide with both organic and conventional herbicide options, and a disease guide to help diagnose any problems you might have.
In addition to all that, there's part of the book that talks about planting "green manures" to build fertility which is one technique I really use a lot. About half of my gardening is planting large blocks of cover crops like blackeyed peas, pinto beans, sunflowers, wheat, corn, and sorghum.
You should be able to find a good used copy at:
http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Ways-Gardening-Dick-Raymond/dp/0882663194/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Biochar is the main component of my terra preta experiments, and it might be more than some people would want to try doing in their garden. But it's always interested me, it doesn't really take that much extra work, and to my eye it's really improved my gardens in combination with my cover cropping and compost efforts.
I have some blog posts about it starting with this first post:
https://watchoutforthebull.blogspot.com/2014/03/terra-preta.html
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