Uncle Jack's Garden

We took a trip for the 4th of July to Kingston, TN to visit my Mamaw and stay with my Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack had a wonderful bounty of a garden going on out back... I'm not sure he is aware that he is officially a rockstar in my book.

The picture does not even capture the entire thing, so we'll get more detailed.

I asked him if he sprayed it with anything and he said no. He started off the soil with Turkey 'doo. That stuff must be pretty awesome and I think I may hunt some down myself. He also adds hair from a local salon and coffee grounds. (Both very great Nitrogen sources.) It's a bit of a raised bed and the soil was great and lush and obviously very fertile...

The second thing that he has done to really promote a healthy garden is a stretch of Dahlia's across the front. These were attracting bees like crazy! So all of his plants are getting polinated by all of these bees, meaning more flowers leading to more fruit. (You cannot have a successful garden without bees. They are a MAJOR player in the reproduction cycle of plants, in case you didn't know. ;-)

So, on to the Dahlias:

Basically there was a solid row of Dahliah's and behind them there were tomato plants, lettuce and peppers.

Lettuce? I'm not sure...

Next group was the squashes and also a row of okra seedlings were spotted in the back. The squash was growing along the latticework you see in the very back. (I can't remember if I saw cucumbers, but I'm sure they were there...

(Beans, I think) (Squashes)

(Someone is going to have an awfule lot of zucchini on their hands! See all those little buds?)

Along the side were the three HUGE blueberry bushes (trees, really) and in the front a bed of strawberries.

(Strawberry bed)

(Everbearing, I think he said the Etan variety. Had some of their home made jam and it was awesome.. note to self...)

(With all these tasty blueberries, I guess critter control is an issue. Uncle Jack is resourceful with tin pie pans to rattle in the wind and an inflatable snake a the bottom of this blueberry bush. He also has a Mocking Bird who hangs around and keeps ALL other birds out of the blueberries. He doesn't eat very many of them. Aunt Sarah says that the Lord sent them that Mocking Bird. I was thankful when I tasted her blueberry pancakes and when the girls and I stuffed our tummies with fresh blueberries warmed in the sun.)

Also there were some apple trees and ornamental peach trees (one of which I am now the proud owner. I just have to decide where to put it in my mess of a yard.)

What is this mystery plant? GARLIC! It was tall and beautiful and I never would have known that this giant plant with tall strong spiky leaves and a long neck with this head on it would have been garlic. I'm going to grow some!

(NOT Uncle Jack!)

(Cinnamon Basil: I tried a piece and it was yummy.)

I hope you have enjoyed the sites that we captured while there. This doesn't even begin to scrape the surface of my late Papaw's garden. I intend to go back in the fall to get some rootings and such from some of his plants. He passed away when Arwen was 6 weeks old.

Waterlogged?

I am reading Rodale's Chemical Free Lawn & Garden. (Highly recommend it.)

They have a little test they recommend to see if your soil is waterlogged/compacted.

You dig a hole, about 12-18 inches wide and at least 12 inches deep. Wait for a good rain. If it takes longer than 4 hours for the water to go down, you've got a soil problem.

Here is mine after a FEW DAYS:


What do you think? Do I have a major soil problem or what?

Compost Update

My compost has shrunk considerably. This is a good sign that the waste is being turned into "organic matter". I decided it was time to turn it a bit. (This is where I use my kid's garden rake to jumble things up in there...)

While gently moving things topsy turvey (so as not to disturb the compost wild life) I found these little guys:

Yummy! They look gross, but do you see all that super dark sludge around them? This will be the life blood of next year's garden. I don't have much of a chance without these little guys hanging out in my compost, ingesting my waste in return for a little "black magic."

Sweet Potato Update

Okay. So, I had no idea how many sweet potato plants to put into my trash can, but I went with five. I completely covered three of them and the other two had just one or two leaves poking through the dirt. The two with the leaves poking through grew like weeds, while the other three turned into white roots, having all the leaves rotted off. Eventually they poked through the soil. This is what I was waiting for so that I could cover with more dirt. (I'm just using potting soil and gardening soil from my failed attempts in other places. It really isn't anything special...)

Here is my growth so far:

Obviously the two big ones in the back are the two that had the leaves left exposed.

Now, I have covered them with more dirt, totally covering the two big ones and leaving a leaf exposed on the three smaller ones. I am hoping they will catch up...

Glory Days

And just in case you think my hopes are too high. I present to you that you CAN have a large garden on a little bit of land.

My garden last year:

(Not pictured: zucchini, carrots, squash, okra- these are behind the tomato jungle, and blueberries and grapes- there when we moved in.)

Homemade Compost

Drumroll, please! I now present you with the Burgess Family Method of Composting 101

If you can't tell by the picture, here is what I have done:

I had a broken changing table, and saved the sides to use as a trellis for later. I decided it would better make walls around my compost pile. (Note my earlier comments about disdain for feral dogs.) If you have thoughtful neighbors that keep their animals pinned up (unlikely in the state of AL) and also don't live near a forested area you could probably just have a pile without protecting it.

SO, on the sides are the changing table pieces and on the other two sides I used plastic fencing. I like this stuff because you can stake it to the ground with garden staples. (I haven't done that yet and there is probably a very sick chiuahua in the neighborhood at the moment... hehe)

I used stakes to hold it all up and in place and extended the front section at an angle to give me more room.

What do you do with compost? As my neighbor questioned me when she saw me dumping a big bowl of table scraps out there. For my purposes, it will be used to build up the dirt so that I have something other than clay to plant in. You can side dress your existing plants with it or even pile it up around the base of them. It can also be used for 15% of your potting medium. It is just very rich soil, when done the right way.

WHAT is compost? When materials such as leaves and grass clippings are composted, a microbial process converts plant wastes to a more usable organic amendment. You basically need table scraps and yard waste for good compost. AVOID MEAT. It is really beneficial to do layers. Start with a layer of yard waste- I used grass clippings from thigh high straw like grass that had been mowed down in the easement behind our house. (AGAIN- be resourceful!) Then I put some coffee grinds from Starbucks (did you know you can get huge bags of them for free???Ask!) Then some vegetation waste (old veggies from the fridge) then another layer of the straw and grass (leaves are better I think) and more kitchen scraps. Then at some point some dirt (I'll be using mushroom compost) needs to be introduced. Leave it alone and it will begin to bake and get pretty hot. The heat will kill any bad stuff ("organisms") and start to bake the trash. You can add many things to compost piles (did you know HAIR is high in nitrogen?) "The chemical constituents of human hair are nitrogen,hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and sulphur, approximately the same as bonemeal which is a popular rose food."("The Complete Book of Composting" by J.I. Rodale ) Animal droppings from GRAIN FED ANIMALS is acceptable but you need to really really make sure it has fully broken down before you put this compost on your garden. I don't have any experience with this, so you'll have to do a google search or something to figure that one out. (Sorry)

DOING IT RIGHT:

As I mentioned before, you need to start with a base of leaves or grass clippings so that air can get to the stuff.

You also need moisture. Dry conditions is going to slow down the microbial activity. Just regular watering. I positioned mine at the edge of my garden so that when I use the sprinkler it will get just a little spray from it. You don't want it soaking sopping dripping wet, just moist.

It also helps to try to keep the size of your stuff small so that it will break down faster. (I'm bad about this one. I have a head of green leaf lettuce out there as we speak)

I have found that if you throw something stinky out there (like the bags of veggies I unearthed from the fridge yesterday) you can cover it with a layer of grass clippings or leaves and that keeps the odor down until it starts to bake. (For neighbor's sake!) You should not have a continual bad odor from your compost pile. If you do, it may be too wet or not mixed with enough layering to let oxygen get to it.

The pile will need to be turned a couple times a month. I plan on doing this with my kid's little garden rake. (What?!)

A small pile like I've got going is going to take longer to break down than a larger pile because larger piles get hotter faster. I just don't have any leaves and neither do any of my neighbors! (NO trees in our new subdivision yet.)

However, come fall I'll be driving to other peoples neighborhoods and snatching bags of leaves from the street side! =)

Plan B

It is probably too late at this point to try to lighten up the soil, since there are already plants growing there AND it's beyond planting time for most things. (Although soon it will be time to plant fall gardens. I haven't decided if I'm going to attempt a fall garden this year.)


Plan B is to try to salvage whatever plants I can and put them in containers with soil that will drain well. I'm going to transfer them and try to let them dry out a little. The picture above is of my three eggplants that were DROWNING in the ground. I'd pulled off tons of yellow leaves and hopefully now that they are in some good organic soil they will grow a little and green up.


Here is a picture of my little (yellowing) pole bean plants that have yet to bear any beans. My experience with pole beans has been that they don't need much water. Continual flooding hasn't done them any good obviously. I'm leaving these in the ground. If they get any bigger I'll be building a trellis out of bamboo and twine. ( I have a lot of both on hand...)






Below in the back of the next picture is a little sunflower seedling (also, another plant that really doesn't benefit from sopping wet ground) in the middle is the only little cucumber seedling that looked worth saving, and then the pot has some herbs that I just planted in it. (I can't remember which ones! That will be fun to figure out when they come up!)



These are some of the heirloom tomatoes I had picked up. They were this size when I planted them weeks ago, so I'm transfering a couple to pots to see if that speeds it up or if I'm just being impatient. Some of the plants do not look like they are doing well.

Just for fun, here is a pic of Arwen pretending to be a "Veggie Turtle". (She MEANS Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle!)

Next you'll see my yellow squash, which I suspect will do fine once the rains slow down. If these start to look bad, I'll move them out into containers too.



On the up side I have some sweet bell peppers that are starting to grow in pots. (About 5) They are really doing well. =) The new little peppers are really cute!

And my sweet potatoes in the trash can have been covered with dirt once and four of the plants have sprouted up through the dirt. I'm waiting on the other one to come through and then I'll cover them with another bag. (I'm not sure if waiting is necessary, just playing it safe.)All I did was buy some of the Beuregard sweet potato plants at the store and put one bag of potting soil in the bottom of a trash can. I drilled holes all up and down the sides (you can see them in the pic) and also in the bottom for water to drain. (This may seem obvious, but you should drill the holes BEFORE you fill it with dirt.) Then I planted the little plants in the dirt and a few days later covered with another bag of dirt. They were completely covered at that point and the vines slowly worked their way about ground. I'll keep covering them as they pop up through the dirt and I should have about 25 pounds of sweet potatoes that will be harvested before the first frost. (that's the plan anyway!) (Sweet potatoes grow underground FYI)

I'm also excited to announce that my new rose bush is blooming! (The other is still struggling, but we'll see.) And my miniature rose bush out front had a little blossom come out.

And finally, the hydrangea. A special friend in GA had rooted this and given it to me. It did well for a while, but then then leaves started to get black and slimey. I planted it on the back side of the house (on the south end) because she recommended it needed just morning sunlight. The way the house is situated, it gets sunlight up until about noon. I have a gardenia out in the same area that is doing well with this amount of light.

Well, back to the hydrangea. We had a small (har) mud problem in the back yard which further COMPACTED our compacted soil problem: our in-line to the kitchen sink had been pierced with a finishing nail on the siding and was spraying water constantly for the last several months! The water was going through the wall and dripping out under the siding. We got this cleared up and the black slimey leaves disappeard and this new growth showed up! YAY! We also can go outside without ruining our shoes and clothing now!

Also have some okra that is growing and interplanted basil with it. I hear that okra is a neutral plant and is okay with having just about anything growing with it. If you have never seen an okra plant before you are really missing it. They are fascinating tall stalks with beautiful hybiscus like flowers on them. The okra is ready to be picked when it can be bent gently and itsn't too "woody." We like to eat it raw, right off the plant so I planted 25 to make sure that some make it inside to be cooked up!

AND if anyone remembers BIG BOI from last year? I have TWO zucchini plants this year, thanks to Tracy! They are doing well and there will be lots of zucchini bread and zucchini cake and FARMER'S SOUP for everyone!