The Big Project, an update for this year.

[momomom]

It's a rainy day here in Maryland, yet again, but it is a drizzle and temperature is nice enough for shorts. I've spent it planting bulbs with my new bulb auger which is a wonderful tool and makes things much easier. I've also potted up so bits of DNA pilfered from here and there and sat several times to watch the birds at the feeders and rest

Comments

[eidolon_a]

Can you please come visit us and help us figure out what we're doing wrong? :)

[momomom]

I would so love to come visit you but I don't think you are doing anything wrong!

[eidolon_a]

No, we are. Our crops get iffier on output each year.

[momomom]

Well, 4 big things matter.

Enough sun?
Enough water?
Good soil? (lots of organic material)
Correct crops for the conditions you have.

Do you have an idea where you have issues?

[eidolon_a]

I think it's the soil issue. We have a lot of clay. We keep trying to work looser stuff and organic material in but I feel like it takes all summer for the plant to grow and it doesn't start trying to produce until August. And lots of our plants didn't even produce this year. It's frustrating. I mean, I planted 500 carrots and we got 4. *sigh*

[momomom]

Well, carrots and bad soil are a horrible combination.

Raised bed help but require soil.

To develop your own soil, maybe try fava beans instead, or any bean or pea. Soy beans for edamame are something I bet Ev would love, along with sugar snap peas. Maybe a year or two of all nitrogen fixing crops (which do not require crop rotation) would help.

Also lots of lasagna composting over the beds for mulch. I collect the bags of leaves my neighbors kindly rake up and keep them over the winter to use with grass clippings in the spring.

I think YEARS of doing this on this site has developed my soil a lot.

[eidolon_a]

Yeah, I think we need to learn how to properly compost the soil. Do you do it all year, just in the spring, in the fall? These are things we don't know, we just sort of muddle through. We had a great year the first year, a not so bad year last year and a terrible year this year. We have a compost bin for our food leftovers out in the yard but it took a full year for it to start to break down so that in the past few months it is suddenly half as filled as it was before. Should we put it in the ground even if it isn't broken down? We don't have grass clippings or leaves because we mulch it into the lawn, but we could get leaves, at least, from neighbors easy. Maybe grass clippings too if we drive around a bit. Do you do this before you plant your seeds/seedlings?

I guess I should just be asking..what book would you recommend I read this winter to better prepare me for this stuff by spring? :D

[momomom]

I don't really have a book to recommend, I have read and skimmed widely

[eidolon_a]

Okay, I'll talk to Chris about this and see if we can find some place to store leaves and grass clippings. The thing about the carrots is that the past two years we had so many carrots we weren't done eating them until December. So this was a shocking failure. It's gotta be that the soil is tapped out.

[momomom]

OK, important point. You don't store grass in bags or big piles, it will rot into an anerobic stink pot. You can use grass for 1 to 4 inch mulch or layer or mix it with browns for compost in a pile structure or in lasagna style compost/mulch.

Leaves you can store and it is good to do so because then you will have it when grass is abundant in spring and summer.

It is fine to just let the leaves stay in the bags your kind neighbors put them in. Or you can make a contained area for them. If you have a way to shred them they take less room but it isn't essential.

I wonder if you got a carrot disease. I don't know much about them except they exist. Were you rotating crops or were the carrots planted in the same soil year to year?