Putting in the Fall/Winter Garden

Last week we got a little rain.  Not a bunch, but every little bit helps.  I had been waiting on rain to put some moisture in the soil for planting the Fall/Winter garden.  Every afternoon when I get off work and drive home until darkness falls and I can't see anything anymore, I've been planting.  I'm trying something a little new this year and we'll see how it goes.

I'm going no-till, sort of, meaning I'm no longer tilling up the entire garden into a nice seed bed.  I've been reading about tilling and how it messes up the soil structure and kills earthworms.  Also learning that turning over the soil and exposing it to sunlight kills beneficial bacteria.  I've labored to keep the soil covered with leaves, hay, and compost in order to thwart weed pressure and conserve soil moisture throughout the growing season.  Here is a shot of a portion of the garden that I'm in the process of planting now.

Rows ready for planting

You can see that I've not disturbed the rows from the Spring garden.  After the Spring Garden was planted and the plants sprouted, I mulched the row heavily with hay.  Once the Spring garden was harvested, I left hay over it and it has done a good job as I haven't had to weed very much prior to planting.

Hay covered row

As I pull back some of the hay and inspect the soil, you immediately spot a couple of things.  First the soil has retained moisture and secondly, it is not compacted.  I can actually dig into it with my bare hands.

Soil moisture despite very dry summer

The first thing we'll get in the ground is all of our Cole crops, including Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Broccoli, Kale, Mustard and Radishes.  All of the seeds within this family of plants look the same. They can all be traced back to a wild cabbage in the Mediterranean/Asia area.

Cauliflower Seeds

Next we'll plant some beets.  I like to label the rows so I know what is coming up.  I'll take a plastic container, a pair of scissors, and a Sharpie and make my own labels and place it at the end of the row.  We like beets.  They are good pickled, roasted in the oven, or cooked on the stove top in some broth.  The beet greens (in the case of Bull's Blood beets the greens are red) are delicious raw and best eaten right out in the garden.

Benjamin was my helper yesterday afternoon late as we raced the sun to get things done.  He remarked that beet seeds are strange and don't look like most other seeds.   He's right.

Beet Seeds

Here's a closer look.  They have point on them and look sort of like the cereal, Grape Nuts.

When I said we were no-till, sort of, let me explain.  I do take a hoe and lightly work up the ground just deep enough for planting - two inches.  Also I only work up the area on the row just where I'm planting.  In the case of the Cole crops I worked up one little area in the center of each row.  In the case of beets, I'm making a double row of them, so I worked up the top of the row, took a stick and drug it down the row to make a furrow and dropped the seeds in the furrow.  Then I made another furrow four inches over and did the same thing. You can see the seeds below.  You'll notice that I have three seeds very close together.  That was not intentional.  We were rushing to plant while we still had daylight and inadvertently dropped a few.

Sowing

Once the Fall/Winter Crops have all sprouted, I'll pull hay tightly around all the seedlings and will fill the area between the rows with leaves, hay, and compost to build more organic matter in the soil and attract more earthworms.  You can see by the picture that we lost our race with the sun!

Completed row of beet seeds

We not only lost our race with the sun, but was lost our race with the mosquitoes as well!  It is time to go inside.  Good night.