Saturday, October 1, 2011

planting pachyderms






it's october first and high time to begin some fall planting..so i took the elephant garlic bulbs i saved when i harvested the plants during the summer outside with a shovel, some composted manure,some coffee grounds, and some markers...i turned the compost and coffee grounds into a corner of one of the raised beds and planted them...pointy side up...about three inches deep and around six inches apart in all directions...sutck in some markers and i'm done until they show up in march ( actually i am pretty much done...they only need water in the event of a sever drought...most gardening books recommend no water beyond rainfall and that has worked out well for me the last two seasons...they are a cool weather crop that is finished before the summer heats up anyway) ...about twenty minutes all told...the cloves i harvested were huge compared to regular garlic and were very mild in flavor...i'm looking forward to some good cloves next june...later this month the jerudsalem artichoke harvest starts...they are a plant re-plant perennial ( well...not really...they just move in and take over, there no real re-planting...they can manage that on their own...i only pretend to establish rows and boundaries...have a look at some blogs from last spring to get an idea of how many rouge plants i had to cull to control the population) and i will replant after harvest...i am going to try to establish some eastern gamagrass from the seeds taken form the plants on campus out in the yard...that failed this last season so i will be putting more in in november...i believe i will try a fall planting of some northern tepehuan teosinte...i have two ounces of seeds so i can plant this fall and next spring just to see what happens...winter wheat goes in this month too...which means the cowpeas have to come out...a flurry of activity before it's time to mulch the yams and asparagus for winter...then a break to do more reading and research before potatoes next spring...more zea diploperennis too...it's okay...the work is gratifying.

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