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Post by swamper on May 31, 2015 7:42:56 GMT -5
Hi:
I'm Chris. I've been here for a few years now but have only shared a few posts. I live alone in Litchfield, Connecticut and am interested in connecting with other gardeners especially those who might be within a few hours drive.
I want to learn more about permaculture and season extension. I got a 20 x 10' greenhouse kit this spring, up until now, it's just been row covers and low tunnels. I like agrofabric, and do direct seeding wherever possible.
I'm a geologist and registered soil scientist and work with water quality planning full time.
The great majority of my seed saving and plant breeding experience is with tomatoes and peppers and have in the neighborhood of 50 varieties of each in various stages of stability. Most of my tomato work has been crossing sweet hybrid cherries with larger types with the goal of integrating flavor and vigor from the interspecific cherries. Last year I started working with sauce tomatoes. I have tomatoes in mind that will be both meaty and flavorful when chopped fresh. It's only natural that someone who grows garlic tomatoes and chiles should want to put away some salsa for winter. I also like making simple hot pepper sauces with peppers and vinegar. This year I have a trial of cold tolerant tomatoes as well.
I grow lots of garlic as well and am trying to focus on what grows best here. I tried saving seed from some Ivans New garlic i got in 2013. I didnt get far with that. I also have growing this year:
onions, potato onions, and shallots. Ailsa Craig is my favorite.
Berries: day neutral strawberries, numerous rubus, blueberries, bush cherries, hardy kiwi
cukes i like the long japanese varieties
red ace beets,
black seeded italian pole beans,
greens: lettuces, endives, and escaroles I tend to grow a lot of greens in the fall when the garlic comes out and space opens up. I like the extended harvest time of fall greens though confess it's not always easy to keep up with all the weeding.
brassicas: this year kale, collards, broccoli, daikon and cherry radishes, komatsuna, arugula, misome, mizuna, so far
basil: lemon, thai, genova , marseillais
salvia species, clevelandi, deserta, desoleana, etc
other culinary herbs, companions plants and enough flowers to make it interesting. I like deep red and black trending flowers.
lebanese summer squash
and the list goes on...
I wish I had room for melons and winter squash, but my tomato and chile obsession gets in the way.
I hope to get some feedback and make a few new friends.
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Post by philagardener on May 31, 2015 8:22:41 GMT -5
Hi Chris! Welcome! You are in a great location for gardening although your season is a bit shorter than ours (Eastern PA) and it sounds like you have some interesting projects underway!
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Post by flowerweaver on Jun 1, 2015 16:23:51 GMT -5
Welcome Chris! I'm at the opposite end of the nation, working on vegetables that can survive my extremes, which are getting more extreme each passing year!
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Post by swamper on Jun 2, 2015 21:14:51 GMT -5
Thanks for the kind greetings Philagardener and flowerweaver. I am at 1000 feet elevation on the west slope of a large hill. The slope means I'm not in a frost pocket anyhow. I am in a forest with mature hemlock oak ash basswood and black birch ringing the garden. I've been cutting trees to let more light in and also adding lots of organic supplements to the soil which is stony and not all that fertile.
We've had a dramatic drop in temperature this week with over 4" of rain. We had a very late thaw followed by a dry cool early spring then summery for a few weeks. That makes this weeks cool weather feel cold. Today's observation, the garlic is forming scapes.
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Post by jondear on Jun 2, 2015 22:01:28 GMT -5
Welcome Chris.
I love some homemade salsa. I for one am interested in what you're doing with tomatoes and chiles. I've been having fun growing out hybrid poblanos, saving seed from the more interesting ones. One of these days, I might get around to crossing them.
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Post by templeton on Jun 3, 2015 2:18:50 GMT -5
Greetings from Down Under.
Like the sound of some of those tomato projects. Hope you share some details.
T
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Post by mskrieger on Jun 16, 2015 10:32:16 GMT -5
Hi Chris, Nice to hear from another Nutmegger! I live in Norwalk, just an hour south of you along the I-95 corridor. Similar climate, just moderated by Long Island Sound. I'm a huge soil nerd, tho' untrained (does a BS in Geophysics count? No, it really doesn't  and would love to chat with you about soil science and remineralization of garden soils in our corner of the biosphere. I'm also interested in season extension, particularly with brassicas...have you done any work with broccoli rabe? Kim |
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Post by swamper on Jun 16, 2015 21:39:34 GMT -5
I haven't done any breeding or selection with brassicas, though I am a fan of rabe. My quick reaction to the remineralization question is curiosity. My hunch is that our soils are young. that parent materials and glacial stratigraphy vary widely by location so agronomic needs vary, Soil biota and soil physics might be as important as soil chemistry/minerology. Do you know much about Haney soil testing? www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs144p2_043902.pdf |
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Post by steev on Jun 16, 2015 22:00:23 GMT -5
That was certainly a detailed introduction; lots to digest, there; always interested in what's happening elsewhere; one never knows what may serve in my own (currently) droughty western location. While I recognize the potential value of re-mineralization, I tend to concentrate on organic matter, since I think it will tend to take care of re-mineralization while greatly improving soil structure, water permeability/retention, and soil-biome variety/sustainability; I really love deciduous leaves, such a rich source of deep-soil nutrients; so often free for the taking.
mskrieger: BS in Geophysics? Really? I think the educated eventually all turn to gardening to heal their so-often crushing inability to "change the world" for the better, in the face of its stunning lack of interest in betterment. Oh, well, what else have we got to do? Guess I could play golf, like my brother. Oh, hell no; I'd rather fall on my scythe.
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Post by mskrieger on Jun 17, 2015 9:30:24 GMT -5
Chris: Let's talk more about remineralization. My (mis)education definitely pushed me toward a reductionist view of things, and so I lean toward the view that if the mineral isn't there in enough quantity, no amount of soil biology is going to make it available to my crops and so to my family. You see this in livestock all the time, and so farmers supplement their animals with selenium or copper or whatever is lacking in their location. I'd rather supplement my soil (it makes the veggies taste better!)
I haven't heard of Haney's soil testing before, but looking through that presentation makes me think he's got good ideas. Why do you like him in particular? I get my soil tested by a lab in Ohio that lists all the micro and macronutrients I'm interested in. I do my own analysis of the results. In my experience, our area gets leached by rain several times a year. So soluble elements such as sulfur and boron move through the topsoil quickly (sulfur as sulfates connected to stuff like calcium etc.) My particular area lacks copper too, I'm not sure why.
It's possible that having a fantastic, untilled soil biology would trap and keep more of the limited nutrients in the top soil (that's what permaculturists and no-till enthusiasts always say is true.) I'm experimenting with that in my orchard, and would love to actually do some controlled experiments to contrast nutrient retention in till v. no till in our area, but I don't have a lot of trees--right now it's two tart cherries and two peaches. Wanna help?
Steev: Yes, really. From McGill. All my classmates work in the tar sands now and have loads of fun with seismographs, thumpers and really disgustingly high salaries while they cheerfully ignore the damage their vocation does to the biosphere by telling themselves 'but we NEED the oil'. (I was a part of the energy industry for a while, too, I understand. I love coal. And I hate it. But that's a whole 'nother discussion.) I turned to gardening because it seems necessary and beneficial. I have this piece of land; why not do something productive with it? And I can grow ANYTHING I want, with a little ingenuity. Just like cooking, the mastery of which means I can have almost anything I want for dinner, I just gotta get the ingredients and make it.
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Post by mskrieger on Jun 17, 2015 9:40:04 GMT -5
and whoa, just saw you mentioned bush cherries. Do you mean those dwarf kinds of cherries crossed with Siberian genetic stock or whatever that produce tart cherries on low bushes? Tell me about this. Especially their disease resistance. (I'm a cherry fanatic. Just made my first sour cherry pound cake of the year. This weekend I am looking forward to cherry pie, and cherry borscht, and...mmm...yum...)
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Post by swamper on Jun 19, 2015 7:28:21 GMT -5
Kim:
I'd guess that your pH might be a little over 7 if you are seeing deficiencies in copper and boron, at least I have seen boron deficiency in sandy soils where lots of lime has been applied, especially if the soil is sandy. pH between 6 and 7 seems to be better than between 7 and 8 for many crops, as some cations are less soluble in the higher ranges. I have seen lettuce mustards and beets do poorly in those types of soils. My parent material here has higher Fe Mg Ca and overall base status than average for this area. As far as micronutrients go most plants need only trace quantities. Container growing might a different story.
The Haney test does a better job of assessing nutrients that are plant available than standard lab analyses. Certainly the more data the better, but those microbial processes make a big difference in soil health. One piece of information that's new to me is that if total phosphorus exceeds a certain threshold, the link between roots and mycorrhiza is lost, so there's one example of optimum nutrient being not exactly what you'd expect. i see so many people being sold on the notion that mycorrhiza is something you order and have delivered by mail and and apply to you soil. I literally and figuratively dont buy that. The answer is almost always more compost, but not necessarily composts made from manures.
I'm new to bush cherries, but cherries are a favorite fruit. I have 2 each of nanking that seem very resilient and will ripen their first fruit this year. 2 Hansens are slower.
The newer U. of Sask. varieties: Carmine Jewel: I got two years ago is still pretty small (Gurneys). I got a new Crimson Passion this spring that is twice it's size and have Romeo and Juliet on order. (Honeyberry)
There is an older dwarf pie cherry in the yard that has been ravaged by bears and heavy snow storms and always loses leaves in early fall prematurely. What's left of it has set a nice crop this year, but lots of fruit are dropping before ripening. I dont know much about diseases that affect cherry trees.
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Post by mskrieger on Jun 22, 2015 16:47:08 GMT -5
Chris: Really interesting comment about the pH and boron. I'll pay attention to that in the future. My garden soil's pH varies from year to year--lowest was about 6.3, highest 6.9--and the boron stays around 1ppm. I'd like it to be 2 or 3ppm. Sulfur is around 10-12ppm.
That point about phosphorous is good to know. And yeah, I agree with you that mycorrhiza, like a lot of microorganisms, tend to appear and grow when conditions are right. Their spores and whatnot are always around. I think of it like sour dough starters. If you want one that's sour with a lot of lactic acid character, you keep it cold and thick; if you want it yeasty and not a lot of acidity from bacteria, you keep it warmer and looser. So what I want to know about beneficial mycorrhiza is: what conditions make them happy? In the garden, compost? In the orchard, ramial woodchips? These are the mysteries....
Those bush cherries sound exciting! And I was thinking of getting Carmine Jewel, from Fedco. Do you happen to know what rootstock you have it on? I'm starting a thread in the orchard section for folks to report back on their yields. Post there about the bush cherries when you get 'em. I'm especially curious as to how they compare to other cherries, size-wise. As for your dwarf pie cherry--losing its leaves prematurely probably means it's got leaf spot. (Just like it sounds.) It doesn't kill the trees outright, but it weakens them and reduces the following year's yield. The one time I saw it on my trees, it was a hellish year for fungal tree afflictions generally and I broke down and sprayed with a nasty synthetic fungicide the following March. Cleaned everything right up. And probably did a number on the beneficial fungi, too. Wouldn't do that again, but it did work.
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Post by swamper on Jun 24, 2015 19:31:48 GMT -5
Carmine jewel does not require a rootstock. I've heard they are not easy to root from cuttings, but we can try, unless you are proficient at tissue culture. Maybe next year the crimson passion will make fruit. That pie cherry has sustained so much physical damage that it makes more sense for me to start with some new trees. The fruits on the nanking bush cherries appear quite small but they are not ripe yet either.
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and would love to chat with you about soil science and remineralization of garden soils in our corner of the biosphere. I'm also interested in season extension, particularly with brassicas...have you done any work with broccoli rabe?