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.