Changes

Just realized it has been over two months since my last post. The warmest March on record has been followed by a more normal April, with cooler temperatures and much needed rain. As of today we have seen over 4 inches of rain, which is the most since last August.

After having read "Teaming with Microbes", I'm looking at the soil in a different way and making some changes to the garden. The biggest change is the tillage, or actually non-tillage of the soil. It is recommended by almost all gardening books and articles that in the spring you till the soil, which supposedly loosens it and incorporates air. But this tillage also disturbs the vast network of microorganisms which inhabit the soil.

So instead of broadforking the beds and in some cases, double-digging to a depth of 24", I basically did nothing other than lightly raking in some compost and a couple of amendments. The compost is one of the three major components recommended by the authors of "Teaming with Microbes". The compost acts as an inoculant to introduce more microorganisms into the soil, as well as improve its fertility.

The second component of this method is mulch, which aids microbial activity as well. As a general rule, annuals and vegetables prefer bacterial mulches, such as fresh grass clippings, and perennials, shrubs and trees prefer fungal mulches, such as wood chips or brown leaves.

The third component is the use of compost tea, either as a soil drench or foliar spray. Again, this serves the purpose of adding microorganisms to the soil. The end result will hopefully be plants that are more vigorous, disease-resistant and nutritious.  My next project will be to build my own compost tea brewer, so that I can start brewing my own compost tea.

One of our blueberry plants loaded with blossoms already. Should be a nice harvest come July.

Sugar snap peas are starting to grow. Once the weather warms they seem to grow a few inches every day.

Non-winter

This has been one of the mildest winters in several years. Very little snow and mild temperatures. Today it was sunny and 42 degrees, and I had a strong urge to pick up a spading fork and start working the soil, but common sense prevailed. I did start several seedlings today, including leeks, onions, and peppers.

Recently I was given a book called "Teaming with Microbes", which is a fascinating read about the soil food web, and how the interactions between the millions of organisms that live in the soil affect how healthy and productive your plants will be. I've only finished half the book, but I can tell that it may have a profound influence on how I go about managing the garden this year. More to come....

Brew Day

We started our second beer of the brewing season last week, one called Old Luddite English Strong Ale. We practice what is called extract brewing, which means we purchase a box which contains all of the ingredients needed to brew a batch of a particular style of beer. Most beginning home brewers start with extract brewing, and if they want to exert more control over the beer, move to all-grain brewing, which requires a little more equipment and know-how. We've considered moving to all-grain brewing, but since the beers you can brew with extract kits are quite good, we will continue doing it this way for now.



The brewing process is quite simple, and the actual time spent actively doing some task is not long. On the first day, you start by bring about 2 1/2 gallons of water to a boil in your brew kettle.

While the water is heating up you usually will steep a mesh bag filled with specialty grains, which will give the beer some color and certain flavor characteristics.

After the water comes to a boil, you add a liquid malt extract and dry malt extract, as well as hops.


After the water has boiled for about an hour, it is removed from the heat and cooled as rapidly as possible. Some people use a wort chiller for this, which is basically coiled copper tubing through which cold water circulates, cooling off the water. Since we do our brewing in the winter months, it is easy enough to cool the water outside when it is 20 degrees with a supply of snow and ice.

After the water in the kettle has cooled to below 100 degrees, it is brought back inside and poured into a 6 gallon glass carboy, which has been filled with 2 gallons of cold water. After adding more water to bring the volume up to 5 gallons, the liquid in the carboy is aerated by shaking it back and forth.

After aerating for a few minutes, a sample is then taken of the liquid, which is called wort, to determine the specific gravity. This reading can be used to determine the eventual alcohol content of the beer.

At that point, a packet of yeast is poured, or pitched, into the carboy.
After the yeast has been pitched, it is time to let the wort ferment for a couple of weeks.












The latest carboy sits next to our first batch of the winter, a porter which has been fermenting since Thanksgiving weekend.

In a couple of weeks, we will proceed with the second phase of brewing, transferring the wort to another carboy to begin the secondary fermentation.

December salads

We're enjoying winter salads again this year, thanks to a cold frame covered by a hoop house. We planted some cold-hardy greens in September and October in the cold frame, and covered the cold frame with a hoop house in November. The hoop house moderates the temperature inside the cold frame, so even if the temperature outside may be in the single digits, on a sunny day the inside of the cold frame can hit 50 degrees or higher.

This may be the last year for this style hoop house, though, because the winter winds and snow take their toll on the 6 mil polyethylene sheeting which comprises the hoop house. The sub-zero temperatures also tend to crack the joints that connect the PVC tubing of the hoop house, resulting in the ribs breaking loose and punching holes in the polyethylene. I'm using some galvanized steel fittings this winter on a couple of the joints, which seem to be working better, but still aren't ideal.

Next summer may require some brainstorming to come up with a different method, since it is nice having fresh greens all winter. They make the store-bought greens, even the organic variety, seem bland in comparison.

Looking back

At the end of every garden season I like to look back and figure out what went right and what went wrong. Here are some areas that stood out last season.

Pests. Or rather lack of them. There was considerably less damage to our crops than in previous years. Even with all the rain, the slugs were few and far between. Here are some of the things that may have helped keep down the insect damage:

• Using row covers on new seedlings. I used Agribon row covers on most of the transplanted seedlings. This protected the seedlings until they were big enough to withstand any insect attacks. It worked especially well protecting the cabbage seedlings as well as the arugula and spinach, which flea beetles used to feed on, filling the leaves with tiny pinholes.

• Using insect repellent plants. I raised marigolds from seed and planted them all around the garden. Marigolds are known as one of the best all-around insect repellents. Peppermint is another good repellent, and I used it in a couple of beds. Peppermint tends to spread prolifically, so you need to keep an eye on it. Garlic is another plant that insects dislike, so instead of having one bed of garlic, I split the planting into two separate beds. This fall I divided it even more, so I will have garlic in three different areas of the garden next spring.

We've also had problems in the past with voles eating the potatoes, but the last couple of years the damage has been almost nil. I used to mulch the potatoes with marsh hay, but the voles would nest in the hay and make it hard for our cat Kazel to find them. Now I don't use the hay and instead use a hoe to draw the soil up around the potato plants in hills. So this was the last sight several voles saw last summer:

Another strong area last season was the prolific yield of some of the vegetables. Our one cucumber plant produced over 60 fruit, and below was the yield from one winter squash plant.

My theory about this the fact that we planted borage flowers around the garden, which are known to attract honeybees. Along with the large amount of flowers in the front yard, the bees may have been drawn to the garden where they pollinated a large number of the blossoms on the vegetables. In any case, there will be plenty of borage in the garden again next year.

There weren't any big failures this year, the main problem was my delay in starting some seedlings, like bell pepper, kale and fall cabbage, which resulted in few red peppers, and scrawny kale and fall cabbage. I'm also trying to find a better system of supporting the tomatoes, so that the yield is high without having so many rot on the ground under the dense foliage.

Grand Marais

Katherine and I spent a few days last week in Grand Marais, where we took classes at the North House Folk School. I took a class called "Rustic Breads for the Brick Oven", taught by Derek Lucchese, in which we made several styles of bread and baked them in North House's brick oven. Most of the breads were made using only a sourdough starter and no yeast.

I learned quite a bit in the day and a half and it was very helpful to see a baker kneading, shaping and scoring loaves.  One of the most important things I took away from the class was the importance of maintaining a temperature range of 70-75 degrees when refreshing your starter and fermenting your dough. I believe that many of my sub-standard loaves at home have been caused by fermenting at too low a temperature or using a less than fully active starter.

 My loaves proofing in the classroom.

 Everyone brought their loaves out to the oven.

 Derek loading loaves into the oven.

 Derek testing loaves for doneness.

 The beautiful rustic loaves.

Fall harvest

Although we haven't had a killing frost yet, most of the root crops are ready to harvest. We've been pulling carrots, potatoes and sweet potatoes in the last two weeks. Most of the carrots and sweet potatoes are still in the ground, but I harvested all of the potatoes last week.

They are curing on the basement floor to harden the skins before I put them in the root cellar. With the extremely warm October we've been having (80+ degrees for several days in a row), the temperature in the root cellar is still in the 60's, which is too warm for storage. We need some extended sub-freezing nights and cool days to lower the temperature in the cellar.

Now harvesting: Carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, Jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, winter squash, spinach, Swiss chard, collards, beets, celery, green beans.