Ron Ferrell

GOT H2NO?

Spending 8 days in Austin, Texas, last month was a harsh reminder of what it will be like to live in a desert environment. The springs around Austin that have always flowed, are now dry.

Last weekend, I was in Vici, in western Oklahoma, and they have had less than ¼ inch of rain in the past year. Pastures appear dead, crops are non-existent and cattle are being sold because of drought. This is not a ‘what-if’ scenario, this is the new reality.

Farmers are selling their pond water and well water for oil field fracking, and reports of farm wells going dry is a common story.

I grew up in rural Dewey County and every family farm had cisterns, as did many of the town folks. There was NO public water supply. To say we did not waste water is an understatement.

There were two cisterns on our farm. We caught water off our big barn into one cistern and that was for general family usage. Another cistern at my Grandmother’s house caught all of our drinking and cooking water. Our drinking water was pulled out of the cistern on a rope/bucket pulley system, and that continued even after I went to college.

Water was then, and will be soon, a major issue.

We waste water, we crap in potable water, we dump it on our lawns, we have no idea where water comes from, but all we have to do is turn on the tap, and it magically appears. So far………

In third world countries folks have to haul five gallons of drinkable water on their head for miles and miles. They do not use what water for their crap or to keep their bermuda grass alive. THEY are using it to survive.

I use to think it would be peak oil that puts a halt to suburban expansion, but now I believe it will be a lack of water. So now OKC is trying to buy water from Sardis Lake, and personally I hope the Indian tribes refuse us, because we are wasteful, irresponsible and arrogant.

In my opinion, it should be illegal to water a lawn out of the public water supply. If you don’t catch it off your roof, then let it die. Our precious water should be limited to food production and drinking water. When we run out of potable water, it won’t make a shit of difference how green your lawn is if you don’t have drinking water.

In my opinion, every homeowner should be required to catch water off the roof for incidental watering. Currently rainwater, one of the cleanest forms of water, is considered ‘runoff’. WASTE WATER. Let it run down the sewer system to be contaminated by all the other toxins flushed down the sewer system.

Historically, societies do not change until after collapse. We see this crisis looming, but what will choose to do to prepare? Green lawns or drinking water?

COMPOST TEA

At the time I decided to build my ecohut, I had a vague idea that I might like to have a vegetable garden as part of my homestead project. Having grown up with parents who gardened and canned food in order to raise a family of 10, I understand the value of home-grown food.

As I was building my ecohut, I planted a dozen or so tomato plants around a barrel buried in a weed patch of what was the previous owner’s long ignored garden. The previous owner said that his dad used this technique by filling the barrel with horse manure. He would then water the horse manure which leeched out to the tomatoes. The water leeched the nutrients out of the manure in a diluted form and wouldn’t burn the tomatoes.

At about the same time I attended a permaculture workshop. In a matter of a few hours a lawn was covered with cardboard and then a thick layer of compost to create a strawberry bed. I quickly saw the benefits of the cardboard and heavy straw, and added this technique to the barrel in my garden.

I was building a house, and had no time to weed a garden. Over the next few months, I had a terrific tomato crop. I made tomato cages of concrete reinforcement wire, and the plants grew to amazing heights and I had a tomato crop that was enviable. Beginners luck, as I have been trying to achieve a similar success ever since.

The next summer I started digging weeds and trying to carve a small garden out of a weed patch. Luckily I had sandy/loam soil that I didn’t know existed when I bought the property, so moving forward I mainly needed to add organic matter of any and every variety.

I soon came to understand the value of heavy cardboard and straw in the garden: weed barrier, moisture loss barrier and the temperature of the soil was cool and encouraging to the plants even in very hot summer temperatures. I have employed that system ever since. Ruth Stout was right…..heavy mulch is very important.

On my journey to grow a vibrant and lush garden, I read many books, attended local workshops and thought all I needed was organic material incorporated into my loamy soil since building the soil was important for a good garden. I hauled truck loads of ‘stall mix’ from surrounding horse farms, purchased hay for mulch and still my results were less than great. It became apparent that even though I had a terrific growing medium in the garden, my garden was severely lacking in nutrients.

I do not remember what led me to YouTube, but once I discovered that successful gardeners post some of their techniques in order to sell products, I became obsessed with garden videos posted by folks from all over the world.

The videos that grabbed my attention were of Alaskan gardeners who must be very successful in a very short growing season. These guys were growing gigantic, lush, beautiful vegetable plants and there was one common theme from all of these gardeners: Compost tea.

This compost tea was super tea, not leech tea. A tea made with hyper-oxygenated water, molasses and other additives. Some of these videos were for the purpose of selling their brand of tea additives, but after watching every video I could find on the subject, it became clear that the hyper-oxygenated water and molasses was standard in every recipe. The additives however, were flexible and diverse in origin.

Books on composting stress that the more diverse the additives to the pile, the richer and more robust the finished compost. The goal in composting is to have as diverse a microbial population as possible for rich, vital results. The point of composting is to allow all those diverse materials to break down so that the nutrients and microbes are available to the plant.

Compost tea is revolutionary in that beneficial microbes, which grow on oxygen and sugar, can be ‘grown’ in a bucket of hyper-oxygenated water in a matter of hours, whereas a compost pile takes months to break down so that the beneficial microbes are available for the plants to assimilate.
Now, rather than buy a truckload of rich, organic, expensive compost, I buy one bag of rich, organic, expensive compost and produce hundreds of gallons and billions and billions of rich, microbially diverse, compost tea.

COMPOST TEA RECIPE: (very flexible)

• For 5 gallons of water use an aquarium aerator pump and diffuser.
• For 50 gallons of water I use a large air pump. (large enough to power 15 aquariums)
• If you use city water, aerate the water overnight to allow the chlorine to evaporate and to elevate the oxygen level.
• If you use well water, aerate a few hours before adding molasses. UNSULPHURED ONLY. SULPHURED MOLASSES KILL MICROBES.

(Now that I have a fish pond, filled with rain water, I have specifically created this to water my garden, and I use this fish emulsion water as the basis of my compost, incorporating the fish emulsion microbes in the tea. Very rich.)

• To this prepared 5 gallon of water add 1 cup of each dry ingredient or for 50 gallons of prepared water add approximately 1 gallon of each dry ingredient.
• When adding trace minerals or bio dynamic elements, follow the directions on the packaging for recommended amounts.
• Dry ingredients you may use are very diverse.
• Remember, the more diverse the ingredients, the more robust the tea!
  

Here is a list of additives I use:

• Bat guano
• Worm castings
• Cow/horse/rabbit/llama manure (no dog or human manure)
• Alaskan peat moss, sea kelp
• Alfalfa meal
• Cotton seed meal
• Fish meal
• Fish emulsion
• Finished compost

Do research on compost tea on YouTube or search Google for compost tea. There are many scientific research papers available online regarding compost tea and more and more information available online.

I’m not telling you how to make compost tea, I’m telling you how I make compost tea … and it’s never the same recipe for me. I use what I have on hand, but I keep a very diverse arsenal of components on hand.

I am telling you that making compost tea is simple, inexpensive and very beneficial for your garden. I use it to water in my baby plants and once the plants gain in size, I use it as a foliar spray. Much research suggests that using compost tea as a foliar spray has added advantages in bug control in your garden.

So how do you know when the tea is ready? There will be an abundance of bubbly froth on the top of the water, and this indicates microbial life. This froth is very similar to the froth created when making dough with yeast. It’s called LIFE!

How to apply the compost tea: Pour it on, spray it on or use a drip application.

Any questions? Feel free to ask. I may or may not know the answer.

Garden on!

FRIENDSHIP SEED AND PLANT EXCHANGE 2011

In 1995 I moved to the country to homestead an unfinished house and five weedy, junky acres. Last house on a dead-end road, surrounded by an old growth oak forest had a great deal of appeal to me.

At the time, I was living in a condo in Oklahoma City, so the move to a primitive, unfinished house in the woods was a bit frightening. The only heat source was a wood pellet stove and I was sure I’d freeze to death as I had not even heard of such a stove. It turned out to be a terrific way to heat my house and I used that stove exclusively for my heat source the entire five years that I lived there.

I remember having this ongoing sense of anticipation that I couldn’t identify when I first moved there. Then one day as I heard a siren in the distance, I realized I was waiting for the noise to begin, and it never did. I’d forgotten how quiet the country can be. I could even hear a train whistle off in the distance most nights.

I burned, I slashed, I weeded and slowly a wonderful five-acre retreat began to emerge. Until then, I’d never even operated a chain saw. My brothers came on week-ends to help me build large porches all around the house, and we sheet-metal’ed the entire house. New roof, exterior walls and porches were now covered in a sustainable material, steel!

The squirrels that once inhabited the attic and walls slowly were forced to find a new place to live. Nothing quite like squirrels fighting and mating in the attic in the middle of the night to piss me off.

I only had one friend who thought my new location was a good idea, and would regularly come and hang out. She now lives in that house.

I decided that my city slicker friends needed a day in the country to get a taste of the good life, so I came up with the idea of having a covered dish event that I called the Friendship Seed and Plant Exchange. To my surprise everyone was excited about such an event and the turnout was great!

Everyone brought a covered dish and the food was terrific. The wine and beer flowed! They also brought their left over garden pots, seeds, bulbs and tools to pass on to others and a new event was born: THE FRIENDSHIP SEED AND PLANT EXCHANGE.

Since 1995 I have hosted this event approximately 10 times, and with each passing year, the turnout has increased, the food has gotten better and the amount of left over garden supplies shared has increased tremendously.

Two years ago was the last time I held this event and there were approximately 125 people in attendance. By the end of the day I swore I would never have the event again, as folks wanted to hear about the Ecohut, and I wanted to eat and party, and I was exhausted.

This spring a friend asked about the event and I said I just couldn’t cope because of the demands, and he immediately volunteered to help, so I reconsidered and agreed to host it again, so long as it wasn’t at my house.

So, I will again host the …

• Friendship Seed and Plant Exchange

• Saturday, April 16

• 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

• Will Rogers Park in Oklahoma City, South Pavilion

Everyone is invited to come and enjoy the 15th Annual Friendship Seed and Plant Exchange!

Please bring a picnic, a lawn chair, your left over garden supplies and join us for a casual day in the park. This is a fun, community event where people can share their garden experiences, seeds, plants, and tools as well as great conversation and outdoor fun. Meet your neighbors!

This is a NO TRASH EVENT! We encourage you to consider bringing your re-usable plates, utensils, cups and napkins and please take them home with you! If you bring cans or glass, we will have recycle bins.

Encourage everyone to invite their friends and family, and there is a new playground for the kids. Parking is onsite, and volunteers will be there to direct you in case you have any questions.

NO DOGS ALLOWED

Happy Spring 2011 --

 
Ron Ferrell

A YEAR OF MY OWN

My Mother passed almost a year ago.  New year’s eve, 2008.  She woke up in another universe New Year’s day, 2009.  Out with the old and onward with what remains. 

By mid-summer all her legal issues were mostly over.  We had a house and land to sell in a tanking housing economy and this was causing stress in the ranks of my brothers and sisters, as we were paying interest on borrowed money and little faith that her house had any sales appeal.  But with the driving determination of my sister, we prevailed. 

Mom never had a room number at any nursing home.  That was really her main request in late life, and we were able to keep her worst nightmare from becoming a reality.

Thank the universe for home hospice care.  They were the saints I’ve heard about in the bible. 

To cope with the loss of my Mother, depression and a coming spring, I built a bigger garden and planted it with dreams and images from the seed catalogs.   Then to keep me busy, I added another 20’ of garden and I planted that.  Thank goodness I did because I had a marginal summer garden, but now my fall garden kicked ass and the last 20’ plot now has roughly 500 garlic planted there.   

In the late months of summer I harvested dual colored swiss chard, kale, bok choi, and sweet potatoes.  Beets and carrots are still in the ground and I break the frozen ground when I want a fresh tuber for a meal.  I have probably a thousand purple onions up and I’m guessing 500  garlic in the ground for winter growth and a spring harvest. 

More amazing to me than walkin’ on the moon is seeing a food crop emerge from those damn little seeds.  Astounding. 

About mid-summer the land and house sold! All the doubts about our decision to buy the house in mediation were gone.  We’d made some money in the sale and were able to pay the balance of Mom’s worldly debt.  Along with that came a successful closure of all of my Mom’s residual legal and financial issues. 

After the closure of the financial issues, I finally had my money and my life back after a two and a half year ordeal of defending my Mom from a fraudulent husband and his two evil daughters. 

Now what to do?  Seek peace perhaps?  Plant something.  Invest in my future.

Both literally and figuratively I needed a big dose of compost because I had depleted all of my nutrients and sustenance.   I’d come ungrounded. 

My garden is my connection to the earth.  We live on the earth, but our sustenance comes from the earth and we should never forget that simple fact. 

I’m intently working on next year’s garden soil in a new corner of the   garden.  I now have 30 or so chickens that are continually composting the spent grains from Coop Ale brewery and lots of veggie matter from 105 degrees restaurant.  They hardly eat a fraction of it all, but the rest breaks down into rich dark soil. 

To remind me that spring is not that far away, I received the first of many seed catalogs in the mail yesterday, 2 days before Christmas.  The dreams of a rampant spring and summer garden have begun to develop in my head.  Compost for my soul. 

WHICH CAME FIRST

Everybody should be interested in a proposition which offers to the man or woman with limited means a chance to produce an article of food at a cost far below the market price, and, as a rule, of superior quality.  The greater number of people are progressive enough not to let such opportunities pass by unheeded, and they are bound to take advantage of the opportunities possible in poultry raising.  What other article of food which can be produced in a limited space offers as many varied forms of use as eggs?  Eggs can take the place of meat, in fact they are more healthful, and just as nourishing.  It is a food that is recommend for the weak and the strong, for the workers and the invalids, for the old and the young, and for every one at all times and in every clime.

When one takes into consideration the limited space and capital necessary to equip a plant sufficiently large to supply the largest family with fresh eggs the year around, one cannot help but feel that the keeping of poultry is impossible, but these are much in the minority.  Even people living in flats, in large cities, very often have some little space which could be utilized for the poultry pen.  I know of cases where poultry has been kept successfully upon flat roofs.  I have every reason to believe the vast majority of families are so situated that they can keep hens, or, better still, to make the hens help keep them, and I am also of the firm opinion that it offers to them the opportunity to materially reduce the cost of living.  This opinion is also shared by the many thousands who are now doing this very thing, and who are in a position to speak from practical experience. 

Most any one can keep a small flock of hens in the back yard and make it profitable, but when it comes to embarking in the poultry business on large scale it requires some knowledge, some experience, and some business judgment on the part of the operator or manager.  A person without these qualifications or who is not in a position to employ some one with such qualifications should not attempt too much, but should start in a small way and let the business grow with the experience. 

The above paragraphs are the PREFACE from a book entitled “SUCCESS WITH HENS”, by Robert Joos, copyright, 1914 by Forbes and Company. 

The book covers every facet of raising chickens in the early 1900’s, but does not answer the age old question of "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

“SUCCESS WITH HENS” is based in the wisdom of the time period.  The necessity of great food stuffs produced as cheaply as possible in your back garden was the goal for every American.  Corporate egg production didn’t exist in the early 1900’s, so eggs that city dwellers bought were produced by local farmers and sold to the local grocery-man, as was milk, cream and other farm based food products. 

Farm regulations for the ‘health’ of the consumer did not exist in 1914.  Now farm regulations that protect the physical ‘health’ of the consumer really protect the fiscal ‘health’ of corporate agriculture. 

Don’t kid yourself, your health falls low on the corporate list of priorities when challenged against their profits. 

Having presented that bit of history on eggs, brings me full circle to my brilliant neighbor Matt “Happy Eggs.org” Miller.  Matt has been tending a flock of chickens for close to a year now, and sells his wonderful, beautiful organic free-range eggs through the Oklahoma Food Coop. 

His eggs are terrific, beautiful, healthful and I eat 2 of them almost every morning of the world.  I recommend you do as well.  The side benefit that really peaks my interest in Matt’s flock is their value as garden soil builders.  His chickens will convert most any organic food matter into nitrogen rich compost. 

I warned him to never pass out inside the chicken pen, as the hens would eat out his eyes, and then the rest of him within a few days. 

Currently, Matt has one of the most beautiful gardens I’ve seen all summer and the compost was created in large part because of his flock of chickens, in less than 1 year.  Truly amazing!

Over the past year Matt and I have dumped many loads of horse ‘stall mix’ into his chicken pen.  Those chickens can flatten a huge pile of stall mix in a matter of hours as they sort though every morsel of horse manure looking for left over grains, grubs, and anything remotely edible.  The wonderful outcome of their efforts is soil building nitrogen rich manure and eggs.  Beautiful, nutritious eggs—a miracle of nature. 

I warned Matt to never pass out in the chicken pen, as they will eat his eyes out and then him.

A terrific food source for Matt’s chickens are the spent grains from COOP ALE brewery in Oklahoma City.  The chickens love the grains and spent grains are very nutritious.  Coop Ale owners Mark and J.D.’s goal is to recycle their spent grains in a responsible fashion, so Happy Eggs hens are happier and healthier because of Coop Ale.  Thanks COOP ALE. 

And now for the rest of the story.  Matt has been after me to have a flock of chickens, but I have resisted…..until now.  I resisted because I didn’t want the responsibility of mouths to feed, and another name for chickens in a pen is ‘bait’. I didn’t want to have to deal with the varmints in the woods around my house.  I resisted until I have seen how successful Matt’s first year garden is ... because of his chickens ... because of the nitrogen rich compost they provide and because of those beautiful brown eggs. 

Matt offered me use of one of his electrified poultry netting fences and the fence charger to start my flock.  This electrified 4’ high fence strongly deters coyotes, foxes, possums, raccoons and any carnivore that fancies chicken as a meal.  One good jolt from this fence charger, and they look elsewhere for supper. 

Last week I answered a CL ad for Welsummers chicks that are 2 ½ months old.  Welsummers are a heritage breed, beautiful and strong.  So with 25 pullets and one rooster, I am in the chicken business. 

I situated the fencing over an area in my garden that I have just begun to develop.  I dug up as much of the grass roots as I could and then covered the entire area with heavy cardboard.  Add to that many loads of stall mix and now CHICKENS!!!! 

These baby Welsummers are so darned cute.  They eat protein rich commercial chicken feed non-stop as they are growing rapidly.  I will slowly add in Coop spent grains and left over veggie matter from my table and a local restaurant or 2 in town as their food source.  They will dine on these food ‘wastes’ and in turn produce nitrogen rich manure for my garden and eggs.  Glorious eggs.  

Recycling at it’s best.

LET THE SUN SHINE IN. AGAIN.

LET THE SUN SHINE IN.  AGAIN!

105. 101. 106.  It is hot.  It’s Oklahoma hot.  They say the heat in the desert is a dry heat.  It’s just hot.  I can’t breathe hot.  I don’t mean to go on about the heat but it’s stifling hot, so I don’t know if it would be classified dry heat, wet heat or just hot.  It’s feckin’ hot. 

If the power goes out on a day like today, there may be a mass die off of without this creature comfort called air conditioning.  I’m thinking a more glorious term than air conditioning should be discussed , perhaps it should be called air heaven or air bliss.   Without air bliss or air heaven, we would all die in a matter of days. 

The age of aquarius is back.  At least the mood and the vibe are enjoying a rebirth in these unsustainable times and the power of the sun is once again important in matters of love, spirit and power.  Solar power.  This under-valued energy source could help us cool our homes and businesses and the hope for what’s possible has re-inspired the folks that matter.  Us. 

What’s possible?  What’s possible is when the typical rules of home construction are removed, and my mind’s vision is allowed to think beyond typical rules of construction when I built my eco-hut. 

What if?  What if the power does go out?  What if the grid fails?  What if I project myself out a few years to worst case scenarios.  What if I plan for my future energy needs? 

The brain is a spongy mass that can retain seemingly endless information, languages, think in the real and the abstract, contemplate good versus evil all the while know it’s doing the thinking about good and evil.  That spongy flexibility allowed me to proceed when I didn’t know what the next step was in building my eco-hut, but we figured it out.  My work partners helped me figure it out when asked to problem solve with me and let our brains wander.  Never been here before, never seen this before but let’s figure it out together.  There really was no wrong answer at that moment, so let’s think outside the box some more. 

How about instead of talking about ‘alternative’ energy, let’s talk about complimentary energy.  It seems to me that energy fueled by fossil fuel or nuclear power should be called ‘alternative energy’, not the sun. 

THE SUN IS THE MAIN SOURCE OF ENERGY THAT FUELS OUR PLANET!  And it always has been the main source of our energy. 

I sometimes still can’t believe my eco-hut , my place that came out of my brain, really does exist.  But it does exit and I have now lived in it for almost 3 years now. 

In 2006, I decided when I started this project that a designated part of my budget would be used to purchase and install a photovoltaic system.  Solar panels to help off- set my energy usage at the meter.  My dream was to make the meter spin backward on low usage days.  A dream that over the course of the year I might approach a zero energy bill, or at least a greatly reduced energy bill. 

So I spent the money, bought the system and the equipment has been in ‘installation limbo’ for the past 3 years.  You’re correct—my panels and equipment were not hooked up all this time.  

Patience paid off for me and on July 12, 2009 it happened.  Thanks to David Nordahl, my 4 panels are charging my 4 batteries.  My dream has come true.  Solar energy is now a big part of my eco-hut!  There will be some final tweaking, but my solar panels are hooked up baby!  I met David through the Oklahoma Food Co-op, and who knew that he is a certified solar installer.  He came to my rescue and my photovoltaic system is now installed and producing DC electricity.  Just in time to off-set the usage of my air bliss system.    

 At dusk the other day, I photographed my active solar panels as they sail on a stand, in contrast to my passive solar roof.  Both kinds of solar have come full circle for me now, as it will again this winter when I’m generating passive heat to compliment my active solar energy. 

What’s possible?  Complimentary energy generated by the sun is what’s possible.  

  

Thanks David

OUR OLD HOUSE LEANS TO THE SOUTH

Bangin’ across the open prairie in a covered wagon on a very large ranch near Vici, Oklahoma last month, I was looking out across the open range and realizing that this open country has remained fairly unchanged in it’s look, much as it was for my Great Grand Mother Martha in the very late 1800’s.  Her land patent was granted in 1900 and it would look very familiar to her and her 3 sons who homesteaded about 25 miles south of this very hill. 

She would hardly recognize the soul of the place however.  She wouldn’t recognize the drilling rigs, and total shock in seeing a giant windmill designed to generate electricity.  Not water.

The neighborhood that my grand- parents and parents knew is gone.  The wise ones have left the room for good.  Those folks who had to rely on community for their very survival were the wise ones.  They figured out how to survive on very little and had to grow or make the rest. 

My old neighborhood is nearly vacant.  In my old neighborhood, most neighbors were a mile away, but far closer in spirit than our city dwelling idiot next door neighbors.  My old neighbors have all moved to the cities and someplace where life was easier to create their new lives. 

Now those home places are being sold off to the highest bidder.  Not for farming, but for a place to put buckets of cash from their parent’s mineral rights and so far it’s far safer than sending it off to Wall Street.  Invest in your street, not Wall Street was their motto.  Very few of them had the extra cash even for food, much less an imaginary street in New York City.

 ‘New York City’ was not necessarily a phrase of praise for most Okies.  The terms city slickers implied uppity and too good to get their hands dirty.  Like ‘Made in Japan’ for us who lived in western Oklahoma, it was a slur against not being of us, not willing to work hard and New York City and Japan were equally as far away as I was concerned.  Japan had bombs, New York City didn’t.  We use to have a pride of ‘Made in America’ and that’s been outsourced to other countries as well. 

Betty says “what’s important today, isn’t very important”.  AMEN!

As the farms are sold off a few structures remain.  Those structures were the influence of what I currently live in.  If it’s still standing, it was most likely a metal farm structure—a grain bin or a widmill.  The old woodies, the barns of glory and the family homes are disappearing.  They slowly sink.  They disappear.

My entire character was developed on a sloping red hill that held my Grandmother’s house, our house and a big red barn.  I think the barn may have been painted red after it was built, but as it peeled, it fell to the ground and disappeared into the dirt.  They chose red so as to disguise the red dirt splashes of farm life against the wall. 

Poppin’ the latch on our old barn door announced your entry into another part of your home.  The barn.  Our other life was there.  Sort of like going off to work to stack hay bales, grind feed, gather eggs.  My sisters milked as many as 13 cows before and after school.  The term was ‘chores’.  “Doin’ the chores” had big meaning.   It meant work.  It was a group effort for all of us. 

Our barn had bats, and they were respected as part of the life of the barn.  There was a full set of work harness that hung on the south wall of our barn, and because the work horses had long been sold off to the slaughter house, those harness rotted and fell into the manure.  Surely there are still metal harness bits inside the foundation of the old barn, now long gone. 

The barn loft was another part of the barn and another world of play for me.  It was a place to store hay bales, but soon became forts and places to hide from the world of my family.  A place to hide from my parents. 

A set of big doors on the east and west accepted the feed for winter and I’d sit in that open loft door, feet dangling dangerously over the edge dreaming I could fly.  I was convinced I could catch the birds that dotted our sky.  Not that I wanted to hurt the birds as much as to be one with them.  Free of the earth and mobile.

The wooden farm buildings of rural America are tired and abandoned.  The farmers die, care stops, water creeps in, the elements win and the wooden ships lilt one way or another, then they disappear.  They slowly lie down.  They sink into the earth.  Few bones remain of the once square box that harbored rural life for the farm animals and the people who cared for them. 

It won’t be long.  The barn and the house on our old farm are leaning to the south. the  

BUYING A GARDEN

 

As a member of the Oklahoma Food Co-op, I am privileged to know the wonderful folks who make it all happen.  Logistics meister, Matt Burch, is one of those wonderful people. 

A few months ago, the Co-op received a phone call from a lady inquiring about hiring someone to install a vegetable garden at her home.  I don’t think the Co-op had received a request of that sort before, so there was no positive answer for the client. 

Matt Burch has visited my place and knows that I’m stockpiling compost and stall mix and building a garden, so he asked if I’d be interested.  Always on the lookout for new income avenues, I contacted the client and invited Gloria and her husband to my place to look at my garden, and the garden of my neighbor Matt Miller.  I suggested that she look at how Matt Miller and I are building our gardens, and if our approach to gardening building suited her needs, then we could proceed.

Gloria and her husband came to my place for a tour with notebook in hand, and I suggested a few of my favorite garden books for the beginning gardener, myself included, that are a must read.  Not only did Gloria buy the books, SHE READ THEM!  Nothing like an informed beginning gardener.  Gardening really isn’t rocket science.  The information is out there for the taking so read and follow the skilled gardeners advice.  And just remember that gardening is like an ongoing experiment, because what works in Maine, may not work in Oklahoma. 

Fast forward to yesterday:  three helpers and I hauled cardboard, 40 bales of blue stem hay and a load of compost to Gloria’s house, and so by noon, she had an instant garden.  She was very pleased and I accompolished an idea hatched long ago in my mind about building gardens for people who don’t have the resources and equipment to build their own garden.

Building your own garden can take a long time if you don’t have the resources, time and equipment.  The home owner experiences frustration and at least a year before much can be enjoyed at the dinner table.  Instant garden…..just add seed and water.

Want a garden?   

No Grow Zone

NO GROW ZONE

Two of the most challenging aspects of a veggie garden are weedin’ and waterin’. 

With plenty of organic matter, cardboard and hay for mulch, watering becomes much more effective.  Overhead watering when lots of hay mulch is in place is a waste of time, so that is why I’ve installed a drip irrigation system for the first time.  (It takes 1" of rain to soak 1" of  mulch).  I think the drip system is going to be terrific in terms of saving water and time, plus it puts the water where it’s most needed….at the roots of the plants with NO evoraporation loss. The drip tape is then covered with plenty of mulch and or compost.

On the issue of weeding, the above recommendations also help in defeating weeds in the garden.  For the uninitiated, the book “LASAGNA GARDENING” is terrific.  It’s a simple read, and very informative. 

As I said in an earlier post, I prefer to pull weeds, as opposed to using a hoe or roto-tiller.  When you roto-till your weeds, you do eliminate the surface weeds, but you also bring to the surface all those millions of weed seeds that are lying there waiting for their chance at sun and germination and the viscious cycle begins all over. 

So I firmly believe that pulling weeds (and dig up the root) of any size works best and smothering their little cousins is a very effective form of weed and moisture control.  If you think about it, seeds lying in the top ½ to ¼” of soil are the only ones who have any hope of life.  Smother the buggers.

Weed control from outside the perimeter of the garden is another issue.  In my garden the 2 main culprits are Johnson grass and Bermuda grass, and both send out long, intense runners looking to spread their genes into the rich part of their dirty world. 

It dawned on me the other day that if I use the roto-tiller to create a no grow zone around the garden, where nothing is allowed to grow, then it would be so much easier to keep the grasses from spreading into my garden.  So I’ve tilled about half way around the garden, pulled out lots of roots, and when new shoots sprout up in the no-weed till zone, they are totally easy just to pull up and toss in the trash.  I think this technique will be very effective.

NOTE:  I do not compost any weed with tuberous roots.  THEY NEVER DIE….I put them in the trash, or burn them. 

In order to rid the garden of unwanted weeds, you must be a bit more cunning than the weeds and very, very persistent. 

Garden on

Ron

Earthworms and weeds?

 

Over the past 3 summers as I’ve struggled to rid my garden of weeds, the big weeds are the obvious target of my attention.  Johnson grass and bermuda grass are at the top of my 'evil' list as the runners will be 3' and 4' long trying to find a new home. 

I wait for a good rain and pull them in order to get root system and all.  My ally in this is effort is my heavy duty garden fork that I use to pry the buggers from my soil.  My experience is that excavating the roots is the most productive way to rid the garden of the rogues.  Cutting weeds off with a hoe only pisses them off, forcing all the growth to the root system and they come back bigger and bolder than ever. 

Earthworms in the garden are never where I think they should be and show up in the darnest places.  It happened again yesterday as it has several times over the past 3 summers that I’d pull a huge ?weed? with a massive root system attached, and there under the roots is a big fat earthworm, hard at work and very surprised to see daylight. 

There is obviously some symbiotic relationship between the root system and the earthworm, but I’m an observationist, not a scientist so I don’t know the answer to this wonderful mystery.  I actually feel just a tad sad when I unearth the worm, but gleeful when the weed is no more.  The worm moves on to nurture another weed i suppose. 

garden on…………

ron