To The Elbows In Dirt
Jun. 29th, 2008 01:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormI got in the actual ground today -- Juggler's front yard, where we planted it all up in tomatoes, cukes, melons, and pumpkins. Sure, it's late, but it's only really starting to warm up now. It's also been an excruciatingly dry year-- the soil looks like it's August already, we've had maybe one or two soaking rains in the last two months. Now, around here we generally get a hot dry summer where things essentially go dormant through the drought and non-natives are watered or die, but we have the less tough natives already curling up and dying cause they never got their warm spring. Last summer was dry too -- a lot of redcedars are going down out there. It's another reminder that climate change causes change in vegetation cover, and things like the pine beetle are only opportunistically jumping into an already changing situation.
So anyhow, there's me, weeding and planting tomatoes. Juggler's mellowed-- we're sticking the weeds on the sidewalk to dry, then tossing them onto the bed as a mulch. It's a great permacultural technique, low-work, low-waste (compost involves a lot of runoff where you lose nutrients, hauling things around and turning them, etc. Better to use the things right where they are) but looks a little messy. I may have convinced him to let the tomatoes sprawl-- much better if there's gonna be drought, because they mulch themselves and retain a ton of moisture (just notice the difference between bare earth and the dirt inside a lush clump of plants, you'll see). The difficulties associated with sprawling are less of an issue in the case of drought-- diseases enter when the foliage stays wet and touches the earth, but if it's not staying wet, there's no problem. Fruit rots when it touches wet earth, but as abovew, no issue when it's dry. And Often you miss fruit when the tomatoes sprawl, so you get less efficiency of harvest per plant-- but maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the lot is devoted to tomatoes, so wasting a couple is preferable to having to water all the time. So anyhow, there's my 'this year's a sprawl year' argument.
Apparently I've mellowed too, but I think it's only learning to work to make a garden suit the clients' desires rather than my own taste.
Deck garden is coming along. Nothing in the world calms me more than working out there, that's for sure. I would list all my plants but I'm too tired. Sleep for me. Goodnight, be well, and just think: Abe Darby is blooming out there.
So anyhow, there's me, weeding and planting tomatoes. Juggler's mellowed-- we're sticking the weeds on the sidewalk to dry, then tossing them onto the bed as a mulch. It's a great permacultural technique, low-work, low-waste (compost involves a lot of runoff where you lose nutrients, hauling things around and turning them, etc. Better to use the things right where they are) but looks a little messy. I may have convinced him to let the tomatoes sprawl-- much better if there's gonna be drought, because they mulch themselves and retain a ton of moisture (just notice the difference between bare earth and the dirt inside a lush clump of plants, you'll see). The difficulties associated with sprawling are less of an issue in the case of drought-- diseases enter when the foliage stays wet and touches the earth, but if it's not staying wet, there's no problem. Fruit rots when it touches wet earth, but as abovew, no issue when it's dry. And Often you miss fruit when the tomatoes sprawl, so you get less efficiency of harvest per plant-- but maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the lot is devoted to tomatoes, so wasting a couple is preferable to having to water all the time. So anyhow, there's my 'this year's a sprawl year' argument.
Apparently I've mellowed too, but I think it's only learning to work to make a garden suit the clients' desires rather than my own taste.
Deck garden is coming along. Nothing in the world calms me more than working out there, that's for sure. I would list all my plants but I'm too tired. Sleep for me. Goodnight, be well, and just think: Abe Darby is blooming out there.
