Organic Fertilizer Formula Ready to Spread

To bring you up to date, last I mentioned the batch of organic fertilizer it was mixed and wet and in a tray. 



It consisted of three components. The first two components were equal parts dry blood and bone meals. The third was to be dry wood ashes. However, I received the wood ashes from my neighbor in a plastic bag and they were wet. Impatient, I was, I mixed the wet ashes with the blood and bone meals. I didn't think it would take much to dry out the mix. The result was a brownie batter kind of mess spread out in the bottom of a baking pan.

Remember, I was in an impatient mood. So, the pan was placed into the oven at about 300ºF/149ºC. It was in the oven for awhile. I took it out of oven only after the people with whom I live couldn't take the odor any longer. Out of the oven, the pan was placed atop the range. The batter looked more liquid than when initially placed into the oven. It was a hot gooey brown mess in the bottom of the baking pan. When cooled to room temperature, the batter still quivered a bit when the pan was shaken.

Outside there was rain everyday or at least it seemed so. Once the sun was strong and the sky clear, the pan and batter were placed on the patio to get as much bright sunlight as possible. Within a few days the batter had transformed into a solid sheet of brown brittle. What needed to be done was to pulverize the stone-like food into a powder.

To start the pulverizing, the pan was carried into the garage where the floor was concrete. That would give a solid foundation for the next step and get us both out of the seemingly never-ending rain. I grabbed a 2lb/.9kg engineers maul and began to bet the brown brittle into small brown chips no larger than 1/2"/13mm. Chips ready to go into a kitchen blender.

After hours of perspiration while pummeling and precipitous tinnitus caused by the whirling of the blender blades, all the brown brittle was broken into powder. Blood rich organic brown powder ready to be spread upon the soil in the raised beds of the square foot garden. A powder to feed the stems and roots, fortify the flowers and increase the size and taste of the vegetables.

No one said it would be easy. Nor perspiration or pain free. But, it was worth it.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Lazy Bed Potato Planting Method

Last year I grew potatoes in towers. The towers were constructed of wire fencing material rolled into columns. Each tower was lined with fabric and rebar was driven into the ground close to each tower for support.

6"/15cm of shredded leaves from the previous autumn were alternately layered in each tower with a layer of seed potatoes.

A 12"/30cm layer of growing medium was placed atop each tower into which was planted a grape/patio tomato. This proved to be a mistake. I was unable to harvest the potatoes when they were ready for harvest because the tomatoes were still producing.

Although, for the season, the grape tomatoes were productive(13.2 lbs/6.448k), I was disappointed with the potato production (2.11 lbs/1.031k).

This year I planted a few potatoes from the towers harvest of last year, combined with some sprouting potatoes from a bag of commercially grown potatoes found in my pantry. However, I used a different planting method.

I had a supply of sod I cut during the process of preparing the second raised bed site. This reminded me of a method of potato planting told to me by an Irishman who was raised in the Wicklow mountains outside Dublin, the Lazy Bed.

Basically, to make the lazy bed, potatoes are placed on the ground atop the grass. The sod next to the potatoes is dug up and flipped over onto the potatoes. Easy right? Sounded easy to me. Plus, I already had sod cut.

I chose a site close to my second raised bed. I decided to use the same footprint of my raised bed, 4'/1.21m square, for the lazy bed.

I placed four potatoes in a row, each 12"/30cm from each other. I also placed a drip irrigation tube in each row. The drippers are conveniently spaced 12"/30cm apart which made the potato spacing easy.

The previously cut sod was then placed atop the rows of potatoes.

The overturned sod was then covered with 4"/ 10cm of shredded leaves. The mulch of shredded leaves will retain moisture, provide food and allow ease of weeding. Plus I had to move the pile of leaves off my patio.

I hope the production of potatoes will increase with this method. Time will tell.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Raised Bed Growing Medium Recipe

Traditionally the growing medium for plants has been soil, dirt, earth, ground, loam or what ever you to call it in your neck of the woods. The composition and structure of soil can vary widely from place to place. To take the guess work out of the composition and structure of your local soil it may be better to create your own growing medium. Start from scratch. Play God a little bit.

According to the original Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew, the growing medium consists of: 

1. Sphagnum Peat Moss
2. Mushroom Compost
3. Vermiculite

Also recommended are organic sources of nutrients. Above you see:

1. Blood Meal
2. Bone Meal
3. Wood Ash for which I substituted Green Sand

In the photograph is enough peat, compost and vermiculite to fill two 4' x 4' x 1' / 1.2m x 1.2m x .3 m raised bed. That is 32cu ft/ .9cu m of material.

To start mixing the medium I dumped two bails of sphagnum peat moss onto the patio. The peat is very dry and light in weight. I then added three bags of mushroom compost to the pile. This bagged mushroom compost is almost wet and very heavy. Then it was time to mix the two together.

Using a square mouth shovel, slide the shovel under the close edge of the pile and place the shovelful atop the pile. Continue that action moving the pile away from you. The clumps of compost and peat will fall from the top of the pile and settle at the edge. Smash those clumps with the flat of the shovel to make small pieces of the large.

Be sure to move all the mixture in the pile and not leave any concentrations of components.

Once the medium is homogeneous add one bag of vermiculite. 

Using the same shoveling technique, mix the vermiculite until the medium is again homogeneous.

Add 1gal/ 3.78L of green sand and mix again.

The next step will take some time. Add water to the medium. Shower the pile with water. 

Both the peat and vermiculite will absorb a great amount of water. Use the same shoveling method as before to mix the water into the medium.

The medium will have enough water when squeezed 

it holds together in a clump. The mixing is finished.

It feels good to create.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Preparing Second Raised Bed Site

The second raised bed was to go on a new area of lawn. That meant much more labor than the first site. My back already hurt, and my right shoulder and both knees. I don't want to complain but, from what I remember of my youth, that is what old people do. I will, however, spare showing you my surgical scars.

I wanted the second raised bed very close to the first. I also wanted a reasonable amount of space between them because, I am big boned. If you know what I mean. So I chose an area just NE of the first bed with 30"/76cm between for the path. This placement will facilitate extending the drip irrigation system, if it ever arrives in the mail.

I started the prep by measuring 5'/1.5m from the concrete patio. As I did with the prep of the first bed. That measurement would include the 4'/ 1.2m bed plus 1'/30cm for a buffer zone between the raised bed and the lawn. That buffer zone would be covered with wood chips or some other material that would make weeding easy.

I measured along the concrete patio 7'/2.1m. That measurement included 30"/76cm for the path, 4'6"/1.3m for the bed and 1'/30cm for the buffer zone of wood chips along side the raised bed.

The next step was to remove the grass/turf from the soil. To do this I used a border shovel. That shovel is flat and cuts a straight line. It also gets under the grass to cut the roots. So I tried to keep square to the patio and I cut into the turf a straight line 5'/1.5m out from the patio. Next I cut a straight line parallel with the patio to meet the cut-out buffer area at the first bed. Then I cut lines the shape of a grid approximately 1'/30cm apart in both directions.

Lastly, I cut the roots under each square of turf and piled the squares around the dug out area.

Reminded me of the turf houses built on the prairie in the mid-nineteenth century when there wasn't much else with which to build.

Last was to level the frame. Above you can see its proximity to the first bed.

I could hardly wait to mix the 16cu ft/.45cu m of soil to get the second bed filled. But first, I had to go inside and sit down. My back was hurting. I fell asleep in the recliner until after dark. Too dark to continue. As my mom always said, "There is always tomorrow." I didn't like it when I was eating cookies but, it works for me here.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Preparing My First Raised Bed Site

There are many choices to make when deciding where to place the raised bed vegetable gardens - Sunlight, physical access, access to water, visual appeal, amount of labor needed. 

The first step in preparing the sites was choosing the locations. One site was the double dug location I prepared a few years ago. There are a few reasons I chose that site. The first reason was sunlight. This location gets at least 6 hours of full sunlight each day. The second reason was access. It is just off the concrete pad behind and in full view from the family room. Second reason was it was close enough to the house and has easy access to a water supply.  Third reason was that a great deal of labor has already been expended to create it. If I chose a different spot I would need to do a that work again.

The next step was to level the site. First I removed the weeds and any excess soil. 

The area needed for the raised bed was 4' x 4' /1.2m x 1.2m. Above you see a board 4'/1.2m in length placed at the edge of the concrete patio. I extended the leveled area to include a 1'/30cm wood chip or mulch border around the plot to suppress weed growth.

The next step was to cover the leveled plot with landscape cloth to resist weed growth under the raised bed. I laid out the cloth allowing it to cover the border and cut it to length.

I then folded the length in half and creased the fold. This crease gave me a straight line on which to cut.

The roll of landscape cloth is 4' wide. Cutting in half length-wise produced two 2'/60cm wide pieces.

Those two pieces covered the border areas, overlapping in the corner.

I rolled out some more cloth, covering the cloth on the end border and part of the side cloth. I didn't cut the cloth off the roll because I will be continuing the cloth under a path and under the second raised bed. The fewer breaks in the cloth the less likely something will grow from under the cloth.

I made a few staples to hold down the cloth before I put the beds over them. The wind might have blown them around if I didn't. (You can see my instructions for making the staples in an earlier post.)

Then it was time to place the frame over the cloth.

With the frame in place, the next step was to level the frame. Why? Because water seeks its own level. I didn't want any puddles or low, wet spots.

Here you can see the frame is way out of level with the bubble on the right side of the vial. When the frame is level the bubble will be within the two black lines. Perfectly level the bubble will be evenly spaced within the black lines.

The air in the vial is lighter than the liquid. So if the bubble is on the right side of the vial that is the high side. To get an idea of how much the left side must be raised to level the frame I raised the left side of the level. When the bubble moved to a position within the black lines on the vial, the left side of the level was a good 1/2"/12mm higher than the frame. That meant I had to raise the left side by at least 1/2"/12mm or lower the right side by as much.

I opted to lower the right side. I initially tried to do that by whacking it with an engineer's maul. I placed a board between the maul and the bed frame to minimize damaging the frame and started to pounding.

You can see the damage to the sacrificial board from the maul. The frame just wasn't going down and I was hitting it hard. Maybe, I needed to remove some soil from under the frame?

I moved the frame and saw there was some older landscape cloth under the frame. That old cloth was spreading out the force of the maul blows and not allowing the bed frame from compressing the soil. So I pulled up the old cloth, removed some soil, replaced the bed frame and went back to whaling on the board.

The frame still wasn't going down, so I sat on the frame to keep it from bouncing as I beat the board. After a few minutes of continued bludgeoning I had it to where the bubble was almost within the lines. I settled for that.

With the bed frame back in place and almost level, I noticed some light coming in under the far side of the frame. Not good. This might allow weeds to grow under or soil to escape.

I decided to tamp some excess soil under the frame to keep both of those events from happening in the future. Using one of the 3'/.9m lengths of 2x12/50mm x 30cm, I pushed the soil under the landscape cloth that was under the frame. 

All ready for the soil.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved