A peek at the gardens and the weeds
Happy Birthday Trace!
Can’t believe my baby dog is two!! He is turning into a good dog, and settling down fast for an Aussie.
I know enough about myself, to know when I have lost interest in a project. This year it is gardening. The last few years I have been spending a lot of time and mental energy in the gardens, and not in my pastures. This year is the year of pastures not gardening. Don’t get me wrong, I am still gardening with vengeance, but I am checked out mentally – my mind is on high density stock grazing and moving my cows every 12 hours. AND I am loving the extra contact with the cattle. It’s kind of a food chain type of thing – around here the livestock get taken care of first, and plants next.
Visible in the picture: 2 rows Uncle John dry beans, Veda’s purple pole beans, Joan rutabagas, Red Cored Chantenay carrots, Turga and Andover parsnips, Lutz beets.
Not visible: Raven and Cocozelle zucchini, Diamant celeriac, Ventura celery, Packman broccoli, Cheddar and Graffiti cauliflower, Azure Star and Kolibri kohlrabi, Nelson and Napoli carrots, Early Bird, Danish Ballhead, Charmant, Ruby Ball, and Melissa cabbage, Oliver and Red Rubine brussels sprouts, Mishayage and Nero Di Tondo radishes, National Pickling, Marketmore 76, and Lemon cucumbers and too many lettuces to list.
Visible from this view: Viking Purple potatoes, Music and Oregon Blue garlic, Sweet Meat winter squash and Styrian Naked Seed pumpkins.
This garden is giving me a major headache this year. The fertility is not as high as it should be, and the weed pressure is too high. Couple this with lack of fortitude and I have some big failures. I have given up on my onions, but the garlic is doing good. 20-20 hindsight is always so clear. I planted in weedy ground and now I am paying for it.
My plans now are to take half this garden out of production next year and work on the weed problem. Famous last words.
This is the same garden looking back towards the potatoes. In the forefront Abenaki Calais Flint corn, Welcome TSW sweet corn, Buckwheat cover crop, Green Arrow and Sugar Snap peas.
Not too visible in this light: Lutz beet, Joan rutabaga, and Harris Model parsnip seed plants. Under the row cover are a few daikon radishes and Hakurei turnips. Also hard to discern are some miscellaneous cabbages, Detroit Dark Red beets, Nelson carrots and Kolibri kohlrabi.
I guess there is always next year… .
Sugar Snap sunset
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Food Renegade
Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op
Sorry to hear that your gardens are causing stress. Growing so much of your food supply, the weed and fertility must be even more of an issue than those of us who grow on a much smaller scale. But from your pictures, it looks like you have a lot of diversity, so maybe there will be some that will produce strongly? I planted only a few varities of veg, but a lot more of each kind, since I chose the kinds I like best, and am now worried as they are not particularly good in all the rain.
Can I ask, I’ll be getting more kohlrabi from my CSA but don;t have experience using it. Thoughts on good preparations?
Mangochild, I stress myself out, I had a choice of where to plant my onions (a staple here) but chose the wrong place. Everything else we have growing is doing well and should produce predictably. Being type A is a trait of gardeners I think, I just need to work on relaxing and think the dilemma through.
I like the kohlrabi raw the best, just sliced and eaten, or in a coleslaw type salad. But I have also had it in stir fry, or lightly steamed and served with a dollop of butter. It’s good cooked, but so much better raw.
Probably worse than the pain of my physical disability is the unrequited desire to garden in earnest. Somewhere in my heart is a seed of a dream: five acres and some chickens. Thanks for the advice about weeds, I’m putting it in my “dream book.” And the photos, I could gaze at the sunshine and shadows on neatly planted rows all day.
localnourishment, gardening is a wonderful pastime, hopefully your dream will come true!
I agree about the sunset on the garden, a late summer night in the garden is wonderful – even if I am on my hands and knees and rolling in the dirt
Weeds had taken over my veggie garden, as the rainy days, my full-time graduate class, and time with my family has taken away from weeding this summer. Last weekend, my husband and I spent half the day weeding, and I’ve sworn I won’t let it get so bad again. (Our garden is a lot smaller than yours!) I’ve been attempting to stay on top of it, but like you, my mind has been elsewhere this summer.
Abbie, someone told me if I quit messing with my cows so much I would have more time to weed. I know in my mind, that I wouldn’t take that time to do any weeding, so weeds I will have. It isn’t the end of the world. My biggest problem area will be fixed as soon as I harvest the garlic. Sigh.
My DH likes to weed, but not on a regular basis, but he did weed one side of a 100′ row of beans the other night, and I had a huge breakthrough, I didn’t complain (too much) when he pulled my flowers out too! Small price to play for a fun evening in the garden
It is pretty easy to let my mind wander off of weeds in the garden, since I have been scrutinizing the weeds in the pastures so much!
Haha! I always have to monitor what my husband pulls out! I don’t trust him after losing some seedlings.
I shouldn’t fuss too much – I carefully avoided some flowers with the tractor, and then I promptly got out my hoe and proceeded to hoe them out. Like locking your keys in the car and realizing it just as the door latches – oops there they went!!
We have resorted to drawing pictures – especially when there are trees and chainsaws involved – but you are still newlyweds so you have a ways until you have to resort to that!!
For some reason – WordPress keeps putting you in spam today, kinda strange since you have a WP blog too…
I can’t get over those raspberries!!!!! I want some.
They need picking again – what time will you be here??
I know what you mean about losing interest in a project. My garden is THAT project for me this year too. I planted it, it rained, it grows, but I am not spending the time I should out with it.
The biting bugs that eat me alive every time I go out there probably has something to do with my attitude! LOL
LisaAlso, those bugs are terrible, too hot for long sleeves and without you get eaten alive!! I would think you are right – biting bugs are terrible for the attitude!
So when you graze your cows that way it should actually promote new grass growth rather then deplete it right? How large an area are they allowed to graze in any given 12 hour period? Do you you use some sort of easily movable solar electric fence?
Sorry for all the questions but one never knows what the future will hold, I might have a few cows on the bottom field someday. Maybe sooner then someday. We are mostly vegetarians now but only because we don’t raise our own meat and refuse to support factory or phoney organic farms for not only health but moral reasons. Your gardens look fantastic!
Mike, yes it does promote the new growth. But it is high management. Rest is the key. Picture the grass having as much below ground as above, when the grass is grazed, the roots slough and add organic matter, plus the ruminants add their urine and manure to fertilize the area. High impact short duration. My favorite analogy is the burro on the trail at the Grand Canyon. Picture that fragile enviroment and imagine 365 burros going down the trail once and not coming back until the area recovered and rested, say in a year in that brittle environment. Then picture one burro going down that trail every day for 365 days. The area never recovers or rests and plants cannot survive or at least very high successional plants anyway.
What doesn’t work is leaving the animals (any type) in one place for very long. The grass plants get continually grazed and weakened, if they don’t get tall, there are no roots to slough, parasites flourish, animals become unthrifty. That is the common way most animals on farms are kept these days. It is convenient to just put them out there, and worm on a regular basis – as for the missing nutrition equation, enter the feed store…
Yes, I do use electric fence, and I am working on a post about fencing and grazing and how to do it simply. There are all kinds of products out there to buy, but most aren’t necessary unless you are trying to impress someone. Mine is simple, cheap, and easy and the cows could care less what it looks like, and I don’t care how it looks as long as it acts as the predator to keep the cows mobbed up in a group. Normally I move the cows every 24 hours, but in the part of the rotation I am in now, 12 hours is teaching me some new thing about cattle behavior. Paddock size varies depending on the grass, and how much they eat in 12 hours. Art and science – very thought provoking!
Here is a link you will like:
http://www.holisticmanagement.org/
Judging by how amazing your garden looks despite your lack of interest, I strongly suspect that your worst day gardening is better than my best day! (I had a dream the other day that someone decided to “help” me and put insecticide on my plants when I wasn’t home. Talk about a nightmare! Gee … uh, is it a bad thing that I dream about my garden?) Are you really planning to take out 1/2 of your garden growing space? Wow! How will that impact your canning? I know you love those jars.
Anyway … I strongly feel that our intuition guides us to put our energy into what we are supposed to, so best wishes to you working with your grazing rotation plan for your four legged ones. By the way, has the youngest member of that bovine group made any more attempts to graze on the wrong side of the fence lately? She’s a cheeky one! 
Paula, you’re so sweet, if I squint I don’t see the weeds beckoning to me, hehe.
I had a dream like that the other night, my MIL was here washing all my old Fiesta – I was not liking it all. I think your dream is significant, you will never quit gardening and someday your hubby will wake up from a dream that he hears hens clucking and GUESS WHAT? It’ll be true!!!
Taking half of that new garden out of production to work on weed control will be a good thing, I should have done it this year – I did a 1/4 this year and it wasn’t enough. I should have not planted any corn – we still have corn in the freezer from last year – we hardly ate any at all. So I think 1/2 will be fine.
As for little miss you- know-who, she and her cohorts are always “out.” And that is fine, I build the fence high so they go where they want and eat as much as they like. Lana is kind of the ring leader though, and just this week she has started “talking” to me. I have no idea what she is saying, but her older brother is very talkative too. He would make a great lead steer, he watches my every move when I am building new fence.
Nice looking gardens! I see no weeds
We have one garden here that is not doing that good either. I look forward to your post about fencing because I am interested in doing this in the future. Not too into the goats would much rather have cattle grazing in the back field.
Do you plant a cover crop? I’m curious because I’m thinking about doing it for the first time. The weeds are outta control in my garden, but this is the first year for a garden in our new home and I knew it would be most likely. I’ve been reading about cover crops and wanted to pick your brain… Course my gardening zone is much different than yours, but still I’m curious.
Hi Nita,
Just wanted to say thank you for all the wonderful posts, always so full of great information, entertaining and we get to see your great pictures to boot!
Once again, even though I live in the suburbs of Los Angeles, things you post helped me in my modest little backyard garden. This year my tomatoes are infested with tomato worms – and I was getting very discouraged. Then something you said about flea beatles in someone’s potato patch struck home. You said keep improving the soil and the plants will tolerate a bite or two easily. That reminded me that my tomatoes are growing this year in a spot that has been a “parking lot” for at least 80 years. No oil or other residue there, but the soil is very depleted. I just wanted to keep my “crops” rotating, and reclaimed a barren area to expand my garden.
We added a lot of compost, and I planted certain flowers and such to attract parasitic wasps, but of course the plants aren’t as strong as they would be in good soil. I’ve been too sick with asthma to go out and consistently pick the boogers off by hand. I just have to remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day – it will take time and effort to bring that soil back up to par so my plants will be healthier and more resistant.
Thank goodness my hubby has embraced composting with great enthusiasm. He is up to 5 bins and going to do some lasagna layering on another neglected area. We’ll just keep at it – we learn so much all the time – and a great deal of it from bloggers like you who share so much!
Thanks again! I know it is a lot of time and work to post all you do. It is greatly appreciated!
For both garden compost and farm scale composting, and just good land management, check out the republication by Acres USA of Newman Turner’s four books. Fertility Farming,
Fertility Pastures, Herdsmanship, and Cure Your Own Cattle.
These are classics that have been passed around friends since the fifties. Now reprinted with forwards by Jerry Brunetti and Joel Salatin.
Good reading and MOST inspirational. You CAN do it!!
Mike
Wow, what a garden!! I crave more time at home to devote to ours…too much time away and of course the jungle has taken over. Thank goodness for the survivors that put our neglect to shame anyway, but man cannot live forever on okra alone. Here’s hoping we get better dealing with the flip side improved fertility has brought…ha! The one thing so far gardening in Florida has got me stumped about is the fire ants. They are so infested everywhere on our property we simply can’t linger in any one spot…ever. It’s downright silly having to step into plastic bins for foot protection, but it’s really at that point, and we refuse to spray the property. I love you’re spending time with your cattle, and passing on what you know to us! I kind of wonder if livestock is what’s missing in our equation, and if a flock of guineas might be just what’s needed to eradicate the fire ant dominance..hmm
As always, I love checking in here …and learning!
Robbyn
Thanks so much for the information and site link. If you have not already and get a chance sometime you might look into Peter Andrews. There is a short documentary on YouTube about this former horse breeder using land regeneration techniques to rehabilitate his salt affected and degraded land.
His son now raises cattle on the property and while neighbering properties are dry and barren his is still green and able to support the herd. Part two of the video really gets into the amazing changes he was able to make while all around people scoffed at his ideas.
Mike, thanks for the link – the aerial photos show it all. It certainly is amazing when management and animal action is applied. The one thing I didn’t like was the guy on the motorcycle running the cows. They need some Bud Williams stockmanship. Their land would improve even more if they weren’t so adversarial with the cattle.
Watching those videos showed me how fortunate we are with clean land that hasn’t been ravaged or severely mistreated. They have done a great job! Thanks again for the heads up.
Boy,that sounds like Turner all over. He was scoffed at a bit and had the finest farm and herds in the country. Sir Albert Howard’s work on bringing up minerals with ‘weeds’ is what really strikes home. Use the deep rooters, like chicory, dandelion, vetch, plantain (both narrow ‘rib grass’ and broadleaved) and a host of grasses to bring up nutrition to the surface. And DO NOT PLOW. Rotovate or disc so the humus and mycelia stay in the aerobic surface zone!!! So important.. The nutrition at the surface gives (healthy humus) gives us healthy plants, which gives us healthy US~~ and animals.
Use your WEEDS to your advantage. Never leave bare soil, nature doesn’t. And look at roadsides. They green up sooner than croplands. Humus and warmth from aerobic decomposition and a never ending supply of organic ’stuff’ falling and dieing all the time.
Thank YOU for the link. Cool!!
Mike
Love you site and your love of life!!
I’m sorta in the same pickle, except I’m not getting the rotational grazing accomplished. We just got our 2 Jersey heifers 2 months ago. So there’s been training and building and more building. My ideals have not been achieved yet, but I’m not giving up. And yes, my garden gets a second glance as I go by to tend to the heifers. With a calf coming in 3 weeks I just can’t do it all! So, something gives and right now it’s my garden. There’s always next year. I just hope I can get the chickens out with the Jersey’s soon to eat the fly larvae.
I guess I need to get crackin on my Newman Turner book. Looks like Mike seems to think it’s a pretty good read. All Flesh Is Grass by Gene Logsdon was excellent!!
Love your blog!
Diane
Diane, I know what you mean – the cows are always on my mind. The garden isn’t quite as demanding of my attention! Can’t wait to see your calf!!
You know, my garden is stressing my out this year too! For one thing, like you, I’d rather be with my goats (not to mention my much neglected horse). In addition, we’ve had a lousy spring and thus more weeds than seeds have grown and I’ve found it quite overwhelming. Odd things are happening here. I planted beans three times and still the rows are scanty (talking to others and they are having the same problem which makes me feel slightly better in some ways, but also paranoid in others–could Monsanto’s terminator technology have released itself where it shouldn’t???). Ugh. I think I’m also a bit burned out from last year still!
HDR, the problem with your beans may be bean weevils, they love cool wet soil, and cause poor to spotty germination. If later plantings when the soil warmed up have done well, that is probably the case.
Hope you find some time for some rest and me time!!
Happy birthday to Trace!!!
Kristen, Trace says Hi via his nose beeping. He pushes on everything with his muzzle and then leans. I can’t believe he is 2!!
Your gardens, work & writing are always an inspiration due to your insights!
EJ, thanks!
I have found myself losing interest (not focus or attention) on flowers and the beauty they can present us. I am very interested in food products (again, I have always had a food garden) but with more of attention on beans. They are non-gluten and can be ground into flour. I have also developemnt more of urgency to cooking with these non-glueten items. So I so understand you.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
I didn’t even want to plant my garden this year but I’m sure by August when we are eating tomatoes, corn, etc. we’ll be glad we did. Having been to Oregon several times, I know it is quite different gardening there than here is Wyoming. Thanks for the glance into your garden.
http://easylivingthehardway.blogspot.com
Holly, Hi – I was excited at first about the garden but now not so much. But despite the neglect and apathy it is doing pretty good.
Hiya from Pleasant Hill. Love the sugar snap sunset.
Hi Risa, thanks – it’s some dry summer we’re having isn’t it??
Yah!
I’ve increased my use of polyculture, some parts of the garden are three “stories” tall, with beets hiding under tomatoes hiding under runner beans. It’s moist underneath. The snakes and frogs have moved in and there’s not really anywhere else they can go; the paths and the more exposed parts of the poultry pasture are one vast expanse of bottomless cracks and clay hexagons, where even the grasshoppers languish, looking dehydrated as all get-out.
reebles
hi!
so glad to see people growing the Calais Flint corn… and moving cows twice a day… both things near and dear to my heart having spent many years working for the Lazors at Butterworks Farm. Hope you have a successful harvest of the Flint Corn. Mine here in SW WI just got eaten by wild pigs… thank goodness I had saved some from that seed stock, which was my hard work over 4 years of seed selection… where did you get you seed?
keep rockin lady! it’s always a treat to see what you are up to!
Elizabeth Jeanne, LOL the deer are eating my flint corn and leaving the hybrid sweet corn. I got my original seed from Fedco before they started selecting for more than 8 rows. I have also planted mostly the red and orange as it seems to have better tolerance to cold, wet conditions. This was another seed saving year for me – I hope enough survives the deer to restore my seed stock!!
Thanks for the link to ‘The Ideal Soil Book: A handbook for the New Agriculture’. He put in writing what many of us know from broad reading of all the past texts. He combines the best of the best research and experiences of our heros and presents it succinctly. We ordered the book!!
Also planted 20# of Calais corn (yes, $280 ) and it is coming well but for a wet low spot. It is planted on last years horse pasture( four draft and two saddle), and on our last years’ American Mulefoot pig pasture. I really expected a greater fertilizer response to the accumulated droppings of 30 pigs.
The horse pasture is doing great, dark color and lots of growth.
Mike
Oh dear…… I just looked at Elizabeth Jeanne’s email.
Where in SW Swissconsin are you? We are just north of Argyle.
Mike