Biointensive Principles: Seed Propagation

All seeds are started in flats, so that you can choose the strongest seedlings to transplant and so that the crops that are already growing in the beds have a few more weeks to mature before the new seedlings are put in. These are half flats, which are easier to carry that the full flats.

The little tool in Ed's right hand is called a widger: you use it to lever the seedling out of the first flat...

...and then you use it again in the new flat to open up a space in the soil for the seedling. It's not difficult but it does take some practice.

A full flat. These can weigh quite a bit when they're full of wet dirt!

Biointensive Principles: Composting

More Ecology Action workshop photos from the composting class.

Start with about 4 ft. x 4 ft. of soil that has been loosened a bit, down to 12 inches if possible. They also recommend a layer of thicker sticks/branches on the bottom of the pile to help with drainage and air circulation.

A layer of dried, mature (i.e., carbon-rich) material.

Each layer gets watered after it's put down.

A layer of green, immature material.

More water.

And, a layer of soil. Repeat until the pile is about 3 or 4 ft. high, stick a compost thermometer in it, keep it moist but not soggy, and turn it in a few weeks. Then it sits around until it's ready for use. It's a slower, colder method, as opposed to the black plastic compost tumblers that heat everything up quickly and make compost in a month or so, but this way keeps the beneficial soil microbes that thrive at lower temperatures happy and healthy.

Biointensive Principles: Double-digging

A few photos from the double-digging demonstration at the 3-day workshop last month. Sometime during the weekend, someone said something like, "People hear 'Biointensive' and say, oh, that's the method where you double-dig. You all need to remember that there's more to it than that". True, but this is where it all starts...after the planning and calculating and calendars, that is...

John Jeavons beginning the demonstration. He's standing on a digging board to distribute his weight over a larger area so the soil doesn't get compacted.

We should be able to balance easily and understand where our center of gravity is, in order to use the least amount of energy to the greatest effect. Acrobatics encouraged, but not required.

The spade takes a bite out of the soil, about 12 inches down...

...and the soil is moved to the other side of the trench.

Then you position the spading fork on the lower level of the trench...

...sink it another 12 inches (or as far as it goes)...

...and wiggle it around to loosen the soil.

Repeat for the length of the bed, 20 or 25 ft. Take breaks. Breathe deeply. Think happy growing thoughts, and say hello to all the earthworms you turn up as you go along.

Post-workshop musings

Yes, I'm updating after over a year. Try to contain your excitement...both of you who actually know this blog exists...

I just completed the 3-day workshop at Ecology Action in Willits, CA. I plan to write down all the facts and figures at some point, including what the future garden plan will look like and what my goals for the next few years are, but I wanted to get down my thoughts and feelings while they're still fresh. It was amazing, overwhelming, thought-provoking, tedious, and transformative all at once.

The room was full of people who are looking for change and new ideas. Most were probably in their 20s, some just out of college and figuring out what to do with their lives and some who were already garden veterans who needed new input. There were a few 30- or 40-somethings, established in their careers and looking for better solutions for their lives. Many in this group were gardening for a living or partial living in one way or another. The remainder were retired or close to it and wanting to help specific populations: one man had plans to work in Afghanistan, another man is running an urban garden program in San Francisco, one woman is a nutrition expert, one couple is thinking of moving to the Willits area to garden seriously without having to deal with the high mortgage payments of Marin County.

I haven't ever been around this many people who were already convinced that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. No one seemed to need the introductory lecture on disappearing resources: water, farmable land, oil, knowledge of sustainable practices. We were all there to learn and that's exactly what we got - my head is spinning right now with random facts about Jerusalem artichokes (biomass + calories!) and the best way to transplant seedlings (don't touch the roots, unless they're onions!). A room full of people ready for change has a real buzz about it, and this is real, personal, sweaty, complicated change that you can't pawn off on a politician or a do-gooder. This is revolution...one clump of dirt at a time.

I'm inspired, and terrified. I really don't want to sit down with a calculator and figure out calories per square foot, or compost by (air-dried) weight, or the number of seedlings in a flat. But that's what we did today and what I have the tools to do in the future. Will William and I, realistically, ever grow every single thing we eat and forgo coffee and chocolate forever? Probably not...unless we have to. If we do, I have the (VERY) basic blueprints for a diet that will feed both us and the soil. Unlike the rest of the workshop participants, however, I can't go home and dig up the back yard to put all of this into practice. We won't have land of our own until early January at best, and maybe not even until next spring. I can plan endlessly but until I see the land there's not much I can be certain of. But...it's like a exile longing for home. I can already feel the soil on my fingers and smell the freshness of it, and all of my dreams are green around the edges.

Still here...

A quick post, mostly to notate the schedule of things so far this year so I can remember what happened when. The onion seedlings got hit by fungus gnats and so they all had to be tossed out, I think I did that in the last week of February. The weekend of March 22-23 I started working on the raised beds and got the chard transplanted and the spinach and lettuce seeds into the 3x3 bed. The following week, (Spring Break, more or less) I got my seed potatoes in the mail and set them to sprout in a box, and also placed the two 3x6 beds where I wanted them in the backyard. I loosened the soil under the beds so the drainage would be better (the soil here is very thick clay) and planned out what would go where. I also started tomatoes, bell peppers, and more onions (regular and green) in pots on the porch.

The weekend of April 5-6 I filled one of the 3x6 beds with SummerWinds planting mix and put in leek seeds, zucchini seeds, and delicata squash seeds, along with nasturtiums, zinnias, and cosmos, all started as seeds. I also marked out and started double-digging the 100 sq. ft. Biointensive bed. The digging was tough at first but it was better once I established a rhythm. If I had been thinking ahead I would have done the double-digging last fall and planted buckwheat or vetch to get the soil going, but...oh well. I got about 3/4 of the bed dug that weekend and kept it watered so the soil wouldn't turn into brick. I also planted oregano, basil, marjoram, dill, tarragon, sage, and cilantro in the herb bed, to go along with the parsley, mint, oregano, sage, and thyme that survived from last year. Borage and marigold seeds, too, and there are Shasta daisies and white alyssum left over from last year that are flourishing as well. Somewhere around this time I planted some arugula in the 3x3 bed but I can't remember exactly when that was.

The weekend of April 26-27 I filled up the last 3x6 bed with planting mix and put in sweet and Thai basil (from the nursery) and the tomato plants that I started from seeds: Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, two Romas, and a Green Zebra (I bought that at the Farmer's Market in Mountain View, my Green Zebra seedling inexplicably died one day). I also put in seeds: Genovese basil, marigolds, and cosmos, and transplanted some of the basil and the dill from the herb bed since they weren't looking too good. Biointensive bed: I sifted in some compost over about 1/2 of the bed and loosened the top 2 inches or so of the soil to get the compost mixed in.

Yesterday I finished double-digging the Biointensive bed and planted the potatoes as I was digging. There are 5 rows of Yukon Gold potatoes. I also finished sifting compost over the rest of the bed. Today I planted seeds in that bed: corn, summer squash, canteloupe, carrots, cucumber, and beans. I put in 3 tomato plants from my seedlings - 2 Rutgers and a Brandywine - and put in some Roma seeds since the 4th tomato plant didn't survive the transplanting process. There are also some basil, marigold, and Sweet William (dianthus) seeds in there and I plan to put in more flowers. I transplanted the bell pepper seedlings into the bed with the leeks, winter squash, and zucchini and also moved a couple of other things around since I got several seedling that had come up right next to each other. The onions are still in their pots: I'll transplant them soon.

Our garage has so much stuff left by previous tenants in it that we can nearly always find something we're looking for out there. We've found nails, plywood, and plastic netting for fencing so far...today I read that the carrots should have burlap or shade netting over them (on the ground) until the seedlings come up so I went looking around and there was some burlap! I love this house.

Onions...how prosaic

It would be easier to make sense of all the seed charts and growing information and helpful hints if they would all just agree with each other! I was under the impression that the tomato seeds needed to be started in January to be planted in March/April, but it seems they can wait another month or so. Everyone agrees, however, that the onions should be started now, or maybe last week. I bought 2 packets of onion seeds (Seeds of Change, Valencia onions) from Common Ground yesterday and put 78 seeds into pots today, hopefully I'll end up with 30-something plants from these. The Sustainable Vegetable Garden says 67 onions for 2 sq. ft.!!!!!! I guess I have to believe them...I'll start these and then put some more directly into the ground later and it'll just be nonstop onions for a while. I hope.

I loosened the soil for the 100 sq. ft. bed yesterday and today. The spading fork goes down 8 inches in some places and 12 in others. I'm hoping that the next round of single digging will be easier since the rain will get down further into the ground and loosen things up a bit more. LOTS of earthworms in the soil already, thank goodness.

Trying to find ways to get compost and topsoil for free or cheap, instead of buying many bags of potting soil for the raised beds. I suppose it would be nice to just be able to throw money at the garden, and I probably could do that if I really wanted to, but I'd rather be creative and frugal. As usual.

Seedy musings

I spent a lot of time this week with the charts in both The Sustainable Vegetable Garden and How to Grow More Vegetables... and the conclusion is that I don't HAVE to start all the seeds myself. Which is good, because I don't have room for this, and I'm not willing to build a mini-greenhouse with a heating pad on the porch. Compromise: I will start tomato seeds, if they don't work out I can always buy the seedlings. I have Green Zebra, Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, and Roma. They are going to live in re-used 4-inch plastic pots...I knew I was saving them for a reason. I am trying to do this with as little actual expenditure as possible, so instead of spending $16 on the nifty redwood flats from Ecology Action, I have recycled nursery pots and 2 plastic trays from Goodwill. They will all live on the washing machine as that's the only window that gets decent south light. Stay tuned.

Yesterday I cut back all the herbs from last year and took out most of the plants that were left, for the new compost pile. The old one is a soggy mess but it's supposed to be sunny all week so I'll turn it a couple times and hope it dries out a bit. I think it's actually compost, though. I also stuck the spading fork in the ground and it went in 6 inches. Arrrggghhh....One step at a time.

I have visions of wildflowers in the front yard, the entire back yard full of happy growing herbs and vegetables, pots placed here and there, the entire back porch filled with houseplants, as much of it as possible gotten from Craigslist or friends or stuff we found in the garage when we moved in. I also have visions of the landlords deciding to knock down the house in June, just as everything's getting going. If nothing else, all the planning has been good for me.

Happy new year!

I went to my second round of Grow Biointensive classes today in Palo Alto: Introduction to GB and Composting. The Introduction class was very well done and presented a large amount of information well within the class time, along with gorgeous pictures in the Powerpoint slides. It made everything sound very easy and logical. The Composting class was mostly people who didn't seem to know about GB methods so there were a lot of tangential questions to be dealt with, but answers were provided (or at least local resources to find the answers) and things moved on. Again, very straightforward, except I don't have giant piles of compost material ready-to-go...

So I picked up a copy of The Sustainable Vegetable Garden and headed home (after the thunderstorm, thankfully). And I read my new book. And I got VERY nervous...I was planning to prepare the 100 sq. ft. bed (recommended for beginners) this month and let it sit for a while, and then plant in March when I have a week off from my morning job. However, I need to start seeds (I want to do this RIGHT!) in January and February and prepare the bed right before the actual planting. Ack! I think if I get the flats and get them ready, it'll be easy to put the seeds in at the right times and then I can do all the serious work over that last week in March. So, flats and seeds on Jan 12, start sowing Jan. 19/20, continue through Feb., and so on. Hope the compost pile actually did its thing...once it stops dumping rain on us, I'll see what's at the bottom and if I can use it. Flat soil is just going to be regular potting soil, I can do it properly next year.

Also, there will be 3 raised beds with potting soil and plants from the nursery. I feel like I need a control group :)

Reinterpreting the title of this blog

So...I've decided that this blog title could just as easily apply to gardening as it could to the process of eating. Seeds go down, food comes up. Usually. I haven't had much success this year...herbs were good, but the grand total of the other produce is 1 squash, 10 tiny tomatoes, and 4 bell peppers that are still ripening, so anything could happen. Not really something you can live on for very long. I took a class at Common Ground Garden Center in Palo Alto on Saturday (we rode our bikes! yay!) on double-digging. Double-digging involves preparing the soil down to 24 inches if possible and is the first step in the Grow Biointensive method of farming. The end goal is to improve the health of the soil by putting in more nourishment than you take out of it: no chemical fertilizers, of course, and a good steady diet of compost geared to the pH needs of your particular patch of land. Sustainability, plus a little bit more...It's complicated and somewhat time-consuming but I think this is the way I want to go as far as gardening.