Taking a Break

After five years of working on borrowed land, we’ve decided that it is time to find a place of our own, where we can establish long term projects. We will also be trying to start some small agricultural businesses to fund our projects. If you have ideas or are interested in joining us, please contact us.

Despite some terrible weather this past year, we had a fairly good harvest of tomatoes, summer squash, and other produce. Our melons, butternut squash, and some other heat loving crops were a failure. And we continued to learn a lot and have a good time!

We are currently building a new hoop tunnel in a member’s back yard that we hope will overcome the disadvantages of the temporary structures we had been using on our farm sites.

Update week of June 12th

We are finally done with spring planting! We have got potatoes, eggplant, peppers, summer and winter squash, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, peas, and a dozen or so tomato varieties in the ground. Our cherry tree escaped the late snow and has cherries on it!

Update 1st week of May

As usual, spring has been very busy. We got one heavy snow storm at the end of April, but otherwise the weather has been fairly mild. We’ve got a lot more planted: squash under wall of water protectors, potatoes, grape vines and gooseberry bushes.

We held a Rogation day procession on April 25th, and installed a new shrine with a picture of our patron, St. Isidore.

I’ll update with some pictures when I get time.

Update week of March 20th; St. Joseph’s day, Greenhouse, Mary garden, rain

We had a tool blessing ceremony and potluck in honor of St. Joseph on March 19th; thanks so much to all who helped to make it a success!

The weather continued warm and dry, so we have got a lot of work done on the farm. Most of the beds are dug and amended, and we have planted cover crops on some of them. Our peas, kale, and broccoli are growing well under their row covers. We pulled down the hoop house and plan to rebuild it with removable end walls, more ventilation, a higher ridgepole, and the ability to be easily uncovered. Our old house started to build up pests after a few years under cover, was too hot on sunny days even in the winter, and was hard to work in due to the low clearance. We are completely rebuilding our Mary garden, and I hope to have some pictures soon. We upgraded the fence to keep rabbits from squeezing through.

However, the weather has now shifted. The spring rains have started; we got an inch yesterday, and there are several more inches in the forecast, accompanied by lower temperatures. I hope all the flowering trees will not be damaged; they are well ahead of schedule this year.

Farm update week of February 20th; Caring for the soil, part 2

Winter came back a bit since our last update, and limited the amount of work we could do. But things are supposed to warm up again by the end of the week.

We planted out first batch of peas, under a row cover and a plastic covered tunnel. The peas were pre-sprouted in a can of warm water. Pre-sprouting helps seeds to germinate if the soil temperature is too cool or warm. Once the seeds start growing, they will continue to do so even if the soil temperature is not optimal. We used lots of bent rebar pins hammered into the soil to hold down the tunnel, in the hope that it won’t blow away. But since our farm is in a particularly windy spot, we will have to wait and see. I still don’t have pictures of this, but I’ll get them up soon, if it works!

In my last post on caring for the soil, I mentioned that there is an excess of potassium in the soil. Organic matter typically contains a large amount of potassium in it relative to other elements; potassium is used to build the structure of plants, and thus materials such as wood chips, straw, and leaves contain a lot of potassium, while the other more mobile elements have been leached out or moved by the plant into roots and seeds. So adding organic matter to our soil will increase the relative imbalance of potassium. This is a problem, because organic matter is very important to soil health. It helps the soil form a good crumb structure, hold water and nutrients from leaching away, and most importantly, feeds the microorganisms, which protect and feed the plants. The more life there is in the soil, the better, and organic matter is the fuel for this life.

To add organic matter without unbalancing the soil, we will be growing lots of cover crops, particularly rye, sorghum, oats, and clover. These plants will loosen the soil, protect it from the sun and wind, and add organic matter to the soil when they decompose, all without adding any more potassium. This is also more sustainable then importing organic matter from other soils to their detriment. Legume cover crops, such as clover, vetch, and field peas, also fix nitrogen from the air with the help of symbiotic bacteria. Eventually, we hope to grow all our own nitrogen in this manner and avoid purchasing nitrogen fertilizer.

Avoiding the importation of organic matter will also help us avoid any potential contaminants. Recently, new herbicides have been developed that do not break down in the composting process; they can contaminate straw, manure, hay, and grass clippings, and when applied to a farm or garden, can inhibit the growth of broadleaf plants for as many as seven years.

We recently borrowed a broadfork to assess its performance on our farm. A broadfork is a larger version of the standard garden digging fork, with specially shaped long tines, a wide crossbar, and two handles. For pictures and video of a broadfork in action, here is a link to the version made by Valley Oak. I’m very happy with it; using it allowed us to loosen our hard soil a foot down, without the smearing and destruction of soil life and structure associated with tilling or plowing. Using it is also more enjoyable then using a tiller. Over time, the roots of the cover crops mentioned above will fill the soil voids produced by the broadfork, making the improvement permanent and creating a deep, rich topsoil.

Farm Update, Week of February 6th

The weather has been warm and springlike here in Littleton, and so we’ve been having fun digging in the dirt, spading up beds and mixing fertilizer.

Our biggest project this week was building low tunnels to protect some early plantings. In previous years, we’ve had two problems with these structures. They tend to get wind damaged; and, since we used long rebar stakes to hold up the PVC hoops, they were hard to move once the rebar had rusted into the ground. But we are working on a new design which should solve both problems. I’ll try to have a full post on this, and pictures of our tunnels, up next week.

We pruned the orchard; all the trees are still alive! And we hope to put in more perennial plantings this spring, particularly a hedge to block the North wind.

At the end of the week we held our annual planning meeting. We spent a lot of time discussing our new membership structure. Alongside the main gardens we will be providing members with individual plots where they can plant whatever they are interested in. Soil preparation and watering for the plots, and the care of the orchard and infrastructure, will be done by the group as a whole. We hope this arrangement will combine the best of the community planting and the individual plot models.  We also discussed: upcoming events, particularly our tool blessing on March 19th; garage sales as fundraisers; planting more trees and shrubs on the farm; taking field trips to agricultural sites in the area; and beautifying the Mary garden.

Middle of July update

It has been a busy few months! We got our spring crops in, and our tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and zucchini are doing great! We are just now starting our fall crops. And we are still working on our infrastructure build, improving our greenhouse, fencing, and irrigation.

April and May Update

The weather stayed fairly nice through April and May, and we got a lot done. We did a lot of work on the greenhouse interior, adding thermal mass, interior row covers, and capillary wicking beds of wood chips. The last were built by spreading out building plastic in the form of shallow troughs, poking a few small drainage holes, and filling them with wood chip mulch, which was then saturated. They showed promise but were not perfect; we may replace the wood chips with perlite. We moved most of our 500+ tomatoes to the greenhouse to wait out the last few weeks till planting. Our peas and broccoli are growing in the open beds, and we will soon be planting the warm weather main crops; squash, cucumbers, beans, etc. Salvaged raspberry plants were moved into the hugelkulture we build last year. All of our year old trees survived the winter and are now in full leaf. We also rebuilt our compost piles and a shade structure for growing salad crops over the winter.

 

On the 25th of April we held a Rogation day land blessing procession, and toward the end of May we held a May crowing of our statue of Our Lady. Our shrine was built from a hollow tree trunk cut on the property, and we will be building a traditional Mary garden around it during the year. Thanks so much to all those who participated in these events!

March Update

Denver had a wild March, weather-wise. The first half of the month was warm and dry, followed by cold and more then a foot of snow around Easter. Despite that, we got a lot done. Tomato seedlings are sprouting in heated frames, many of them from seeds saved the year before. The gardens on both farms are being prepped and fertilized; we are using the fertilizing schemes advised by Steve Solomon, author of The Intelligent Gardener. Peas and cabbage family plants are up. Our herbs have mostly made it through the winter, and our trees are showing signs of life. There is an ongoing project underway to upgrade the greenhouse; we reinforced and repaired the frame and windows, and are working to incorporate thermal mass, more insulation, a worm bin, and better planting beds. We are experimenting with container growing in the greenhouse, hoping to gain greater mobility which will increase our utilization of the space, since cool weather crops can be moved out once warm weather things need to go in. We are also experimenting with pre-sprouting seed before planting; this eliminates the often detrimental effects of soil temperature and fluctuating moisture. Both Farms survived the snowstorms with minimal damage.

Using Water Efficiently; from Ollas to Huglekultures to Lithic Mulch

We live in a high plains desert, where water is a problem. Denver only gets fifteen inches of precipitation in an average year, and much of this evaporates without infiltrating deeply, or comes as snow in the winter. On the other hand, in many years there is too much rain in the early spring, and summer thunderstorms can drop an inch of rain in a few hours, causing disastrous flash floods. In this post I will focus on how to cope with too little water; many of these strategies work both ways. I’m not going to discuss rainwater harvesting or greywater; both are very interesting and promising techniques, but are outside the scope of this post. There are lots of complicated details in regard to each; hopefully I will be able to give each of them a separate post in the near future.

Our focus is on using water wisely to grow annual vegetables and edible perennials, not ornamental gardens.

Also, I’m only giving a brief summary for each of the techniques below. As we implement them on the farms this summer, I will write a more in depth post on each with photos of our work.

Drip-line/ Soaker hose

These are a much more efficient way of using water then spray irrigation, because they don’t wet the leaves and soil surface. This also helps to prevent fungal disease. However, they are expensive, and tend to wear out over time. They are easy to damage with gardening tools. Also, they only work with clean, high pressure water, so they can’t accept rainwater or greywater.

Ollas/ Bucket Irrigation

Ollas are an ancient irrigation method. Small clay jugs or pots are buried near plants and filled with water. Depending on the moisture level in the soil, more or less water seeps out. Clay pots can be pricey. A cheaper alternative is a five gallon bucket with a small hole drilled in the bottom. Water will slowly dribble into the soil, soaking in deeply without wetting a large surface area. Buckets could be moved around to different beds, unlike ollas, which are immovable, but they lack the sensitivity to soil conditions gained with porous ollas. Delis and bakeries are good sources for free food grade buckets.

Wicking Beds and Containers

Wicking beds contain a subsurface reservoir of water, generally formed by a layer of gravel, which slowly wicks up through the soil to the plant roots. They eliminate surface evaporation and nutrient leaching, and keep the soil evenly moist, avoiding under and over watering. This is very important for some plants, such as tomatoes and lettuce. They are labor intensive and expensive to build. A cheaper variation is a wicking container built on the same principle. They can also be built from 5 gallon buckets.

Dew Catchment

This is the least tested of the ideas on this list. The basic principle of dew catchment is to insulate a smooth reflective surface, thus isolating it from ground heat at night. This lowers its temperature because of radiant cooling to the night sky. Once the temperature of the surface falls to the dew point, condensation collects and is funneled into a container or directly into the ground. Dew catchers can also improve the utilization of light rains, turning a surface dampening shower into a ground soaking drip of water on one spot. If you have any experience with dew catchment in Denver, let me know!

Mulch

Organic mulch is a double edged sword from a water utilization standpoint. A thick layer of wood chips, leaves, straw, or other organic matter can retain moisture in the ground, and works well in combination with ollas, bucket irrigation, drip lines, and soaker irrigation. However, mulch can soak up a surprising amount of spray irrigation or rainfall before any reaches the ground. Since roots usually don’t grow in the mulch layer, this water is wicked away and evaporated into the air. However, when correctly applied, mulch can go a long way towards drought proofing a garden and has many other benefits.

Lithic Mulch

Native Americans in the southwest used rocks as mulch in their gardens, which held moisture in the soil, and also increased the infiltration of light rains by shedding water rapidly into the soil. They may also capture moisture from warm air condensing on the cool lower rocks during the day. However, they can overheat plants and complicate the management of the garden. (For some plants, the extra heat is an added benefit.) In the wild, plants seem to grow lushly in and around talus piles at the base of cliffs.

Soil Management

Raising the organic matter percentage in the soil increases the amount of water that can be stored for dry times. A foot of rich soil can hold three inches of water. Also, deeply loosening soil can increase rooting depth and water infiltration. Double digging can achieve this on small sites, and chisel plowing on big ones. Hugelkultures, which are buried mounds of woody debris, achieve both these objectives. In this climate, sunken hguelkultures are probably better then the mounded types seen elsewhere. Mini hugelkultures can be dug into the ground for individual plants. Soil can also be contoured to catch water running down slopes and retain irrigation water, but this is a complex topic for another article.

Plant Spacing

Plant spacing can work both ways. A dense, Biointensive style planting can be lightly irrigated to create a moist microclimate under the leaves, slowing evaporation and speeding growth. However, wide spacing of large plants gives each plant access to more water, since the plant will react by growing a larger root system in the larger soil volume available per plant. In the end it depends on the objective. If one has a lot of room and hardly any water, then wide spacing is probably best. If one has only a little room and wants to use their available water to best effect, tight spacing will do well.

Fertilization

All else being equal, a plant in a fertile soil can get by with less water then one in an infertile soil. In a fertile soil with all the minerals in balance, a plant has to absorb and transpire less water to obtain its needed nutrients. This does not always apply, and fertilizer should not be overused. Also, woody plants should not be fertilized when they are water stressed.

Pruning

How a plant is pruned makes a big difference in how much water it uses. This is a very complex topic, and I would advise you to do your own research.

Transplants

A flat of transplants can be placed in the shade and watered more efficiently then the same seeds planted out in the eventual bed. This also has the effect of expanding the size of a small garden, since a bed can continue growing crops while the new transplants get going. On the other hand, some plants such as squash can sustain damage to the root system when they are transplanted, which reduces their ability to search for water. Large seeds should be pre sprouted until the root tip is just emerging, then planted. This helps conserve water and avoids root damage.

Timing

If plants can be started a few weeks earlier, when there is still abundant water available, things will be much easier later on. Cold frames, row covers and transplants are all valuable here. Also, deep waterings once a week are much better then shallow ones daily.

Variety

Some varieties are better at searching for water then others, and some types of vegetables are simply more drought resistant. For instance, purslane grows wild here in the summer with very little water, whereas lettuce is always thirsty and wilts in the heat. All else being equal, older varieties are more likely to be breed for tolerable performance in sub optimal conditions, but this is not always the case.

Windbreak/ Shading

For plants that tolerate the shade, an over story crop or shade structure that blocks the wind and direct sun can make a huge difference in the amount of evaporation losses.

Capillary Connection

Soil that is too loose can keep water from moving upwards through the soil. If necessary, the ground should be firmed around new transplants and seeds.