Fall planting and preparation of Swales, Beds

Zone 1 Garden

Starting with zone 1 garden: Cleaned up three beds by pulling grass. I used a fork to loosen the soil first. I was able to pull clumping grass, but the rhizominous Bermuda was breaking off sub soil. That usually means that a rhizome is ready to start growing a new plant sub soil. I prepped the two beds below the white mulberry tree thoroughly.

Then, I planted in the northern-most bed garlic and onion down the center. These will be harvested next spring. On the outside of the bed I planted mostly Kale, several varieties from Sow True Seed.

The same drill for the second mulberry bed. Also planted some lettuce in it, and more kale. Plan is to get some Kale and lettuce this fall.

I covered the entire bed with mulch obtained from cleaning out the goat pen house and paddock.  Used an entire golf cart load in the garden.

I weeded and mulched the U bed, and tossed some of the mulch onto the herb spiral. I only pulled grass from the northern part of the U bed. Probably need to get into the southern section. Still need work on the tomato beds. They look to be played out for the year.

Swales

Planted 2 lbs of buckwheat into the orchard swale.  No mulch yet. Need to spread some more straw though.

Planted the remaining 1 lb into the western pasture swale.  Got the eastern side done, but ran out of seed after about 1/2 way down the northwestern side. Still need to plant buckwheat into the southwestern section.

Orchard Perennials

I bought two $1 plants at Lowes. I planted an Aster bush and blue sage plants just below the goat pen. Hopefully they will grow. The Aster was root bound.

We received a nice rain last night so hopefully the seeds will germinate.

Coe's Comfrey

Over the past two weekends, I planted 100 root cuttings of Coe's Comfrey, Bocking #4 strain of Russian comfrey, Symphytum Peregrinum, "which is best for hardiness, highest yield, and the highest protein with high allantoin content; for fodder, compost, and all around general use."

The cuttings were planted in various locations around our homestead.

Upper Hillside Swale

About 50 went into the upper western hillside swale. Half of those were planted into the ditch at the lower edge of the mound. Another 25 (approximately) were planted on the downhill side of the mound.

The planting style I used was a combo weeding planting style. I dug up clumps of grass that had started growing along the swale. In the hole, I planted the comfrey cutting.

Keyline Pocket Pond

A few went into the downhill side of the pocket pond dam wall and a few more at the upper end of the pocket pond where the flooding probability is lower.

Lower Swale Western Pasture

I planted the rest into the swale berm of the western pasture.  Half went into the downhill side of the mound.  Half again went into the ditch at the edge of the mound, or a few feet up the mound. I alternated.

The western pasture swale filled up with water in our last heavy rain to about two feet and it didn't soak into the mound for a few days. I was concerned about whether comfrey can take that much of a flood state.

We have had about three or four inches of rain over the past two weeks. The ground is nice and moist now.  It rained last night, and the night before all of my planting efforts. It is supposed to rain again today.

Thinned out Tomatoes and Rigged Expanded Trellis System

Thinned out the tomato plants today. Also added a couple T-posts and hung some wire between posts. Shored up a middle post that was sagging pretty bad. The tomatoes now have more air and light. Hopefully, we will get a good harvest this summer.

Pumpkin and Watermelon

Planted watermelon and pumpkin seed east of and into the zone 2 swale.  This area is where we dump our goat manure and litter. It was covered in the spring with wood chip mulch. This is an area where we are growing fruit trees, and berry bushes, along with herbaceous plants. But there is still a lot of open area for space-loving plants like watermelon and pumpkin.

Watermelon take 80 days from seed to harvest.  The 20 percent probable frost date for our climate is around the middle of October.  Between now and then, that gives us 103 days until harvest, assuming we are not hit with an unusually early frost this year.

The pumpkin seeds, however, are another story. We planted Connecticut Field and Small Sugar heirloom pumpkin seeds. The former takes 110 days to harvest.  The latter 100.  This is cutting it pretty dang close.

red mulberry tree

More Spring Planting Update

I bought and planted Comfrey Blocking 4 roots on Friday.  These roots came from Nantahala Farm.  A note said that they sell Blocking 4 instead of Blocking 14 because the plant tastes better to their animals (not bitter).  I planted about 15 roots around the property as indicated on the list.

The comfrey we planted last fall still has not emerged.  It has been consistently cold, but maybe the next few nights will stay above freezing which will help the plants start their journey into spring.

We also planted two pears and two apple trees I bought at Stone Avenue Nursery.  The Pear trees were $20 each.  They came in ten gallon buckets.  One of them already has a few flowers.  One pear was an asian pear, and the other was a Barlette pear.

The apple trees ($15 each) were a Jonagold and another Winesap.  They were in 7 gallon buckets.

The images of the planting locations are shown below.

For the comfrey, I planted them about four to six inches deep.  I dug out a hole in the grass and tossed in some one year old horse manure compost.

For the fruit trees, I dug out a deep wide hole and mixed in compost, top soil, and a soil amendment we bought at 5th Season, I think greensand.

Planting Around Zone 1 on Sunday

Here is an update on my planting since the last post.  I bought blue berry bushes and fig trees from Big Frog nursery, and planted fig trees where indicated on the eastern side of the picture below. 

On Friday, we bought three more young apple trees from the Stone Avenue Nursery: two Pink Lady trees and one Wine Sap ($15 each).  Also bought two bushes from Michael (SAN), a Witch Hazel and a St. John's Wort bush.  Interspersed those bushes in the orchard area we are developing.

Finally, we received Paw Paw seedlings and Hazel Nut seedlings from the Kentucky Forestry Department.  The location of these is shown in both the top and bottom photographs.  The paw paw seedlings looked poor, but the Hazel Nut bushes looked pretty decent.