The October Garden

The garden season is coming to an end here in Madison. Last week we harvested the last of the golden beets and carrots. The basil, swiss chard, peppers, broccoli, and bean plants were pulled up and composted. Our third planting of green beans never really made it. They were hit with low 30 degree night temperatures in late September and just sulked there with all of their flowers dropping off. We did get a few handfuls of tender small green beans for a couple meals, but in the end, I just pulled them up and composted them with all the other end of the season garden refuse. We finally had a good freeze and a couple of frosts, putting an end to the growing season except for a few hardy vegetables such as the brussel sprouts and kale and cauliflower. The frosts should actually increase the sugar content of the kale and brussel sprouts. Brussel sprouts are extremely hardy and we should be harvesting them all the way into December. Last week I turned all the beds over, and added about two inches of compost and planted our cover crop. It is a mix of hardy legumes, bell beans, and oats, which will grow up until mid-December when we get our first big winter storms. This above pic is the cover crop starting to spring in the beds.  The cover crop provides a duel role in the garden.  First, the vigorous roots dig into the soil and hold it firm to prevent erosion during the Winter. Second, because the cover crop has a hefty amount of legumes, it captures atmospheric nitrogen and converts it to a form the the plant can use. Since these plants will be turned under at the first of Spring, all that nitrogen is released into the soil for next seasons crops to use. We practice high intensity gardening with crops grown in succession all season long. When one crop is harvested, then another is planted in it's place.

For this type of gardening in the long run to be sustainable, it requires a large amount of fertilizer, micro-nutrients, and organic matter to be put back into the soil. There is no one solution either. We turned in over 6 inches of compost this year alone! To get a perspective of how much that is, that is about 7 cubic yards of compost which is about 7 front loader buckets full. That is a lot of compost for a 25 x 25 foot garden. I don't expect to add that much next year, but we inherited some worn out soil with almost no organic matter and who knows how much available nitrogen. We also turned in 50 pounds of soybean meal this season as well (soybean meal has a NPK of around 7-2-2). Finally, the cover crop. The other advantage of the cover crop is that it works during the late Fall, Winter, and early Spring months when nothing else is growing. This is truly sustainable organic gardening practices.

Last but not least, we planted our garlic and shallots last week. This is one of the things I am really excited about. I ordered a variety of garlic called Red Siberian from Peacefully Valley, a well-known online organic supply house. We ordered enough so that we can replant part of our harvest next year and continue doing that year after year. I also planted shallots. We planted some this past year and were surprised how easy they were to grow and how productive they were. We planted 10 bulbs this past year and harvested over 50 bulbs!  This year I planted I planted 40 bulbs and should harvest around 200 shallot bulbs if were lucky.
    That is it for now.