Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Solanum Bed Preparation Is Finally Finished

It has taken over two months to get the solanum bed ready for it's inhabitants this year and it looks great. 

Why did it take so long? I'll show you. Here's the start of the process shown back on February 14. I sowed most of the bed with a cover crop blend from Renee's Garden. The bed had to be covered with lightweight Remay fabric to protect the seedlings from the birds.


When I got home from vacation on March 25 here's what I found. The greens has grown enough to push the fabric off of most of the bed, thank goodness it didn't happen before it got large enough to withstand the voracious munchings of the birds.


On March 29 I cut all the greens down. I didn't use a weed whacker as Renee's Garden Seed recommends for one of their methods, instead I took advantage of the height of the bed to simply use some manual hedge shears. I also didn't bother to cover the greens with black plastic as Renee's suggests, I simply let them sit on the surface and wilt.


A few days later I turned the greens into the soil. This was when I finished that task on April 2. Then I waited.


I forgot to take a photo of the bed before I scattered the additional amendments, but well before yesterday when this photo was taken all sign of any green on the surface of the soil had disappeared. Last week when I dug into the soil to see how well the greens had decomposed I couldn't find any sign of them so I knew I could finish preparing the bed. This is one of the amendments that I added to the bed, crushed egg shells. I save all my egg shells through the year and then when it's time to prepare the solanum bed I used my VitaMix blender to pulverize them. (Beware, if you want to keep the blender container looking pristine don't crush eggshells in it, it will make it look a bit cloudy.)


I ended up with over 5 pounds of crushed shells, about 3 of which I scattered over the surface of the soil before turning it over one more time. I don't understand the practice of adding eggshells or other calcium amendments to the planting hole when planting tomatoes. By the time the plant needs the calcium to prevent blossom end rot the plant roots have grown far beyond the planting hole so I turn the calcium through the soil so the roots can find it when they need it. I also spread some crab meal and sulfate of potash. The crab meal is a good slow release source of nitrogen and phosphorus but doesn't provide potassium (3-4-0) so I add the sulfate of potash (0-0-50) to provide potassium. I mix these two together in a bucket in a ratio of 5 pounds of crab meal to 1/2 pound of potash. Sulfate of Potash sounds like a nasty chemical but it's actually mined potassium and approved for use by organic growers. One batch of that mixture will fertilize a couple of my large beds and I like to keep a bucketful around so that I can amend various parts of the beds as I rotate crops through them. It's actually pretty rare that I prepare a full bed as I've done here.


The drip lines are set out in this bed in three sections with a main 1/2-inch line running along the length of the bed and then branching off in three lines across the bed. The drip lines (1/4-inch tubing with embedded emitters) are connected directly to the branching main lines. It's easiest to dig the bed by pulling the drip lines up and away from the area to be dug. I started at one end of the bed and turned over the first section. I simply turn the soil once to the depth of my little spade, about 12 inches. Then I pulled the lines from the second section over the first and starting digging there, and then on to the third section.


My garden always seems to offer up some surprise, here's the big one I found when turning over the soil in this bed, it is full of red worms, there are hundreds of them in there. I'm learning something new today. At first I thought these were the type of red worms that are used in worm bins, Eisenia fetida. But it didn't make sense because they are living in the soil in this bed. When I did a bit of research I found out that there is a red earth worm, Lumbricus rubellus, which seems to be a much more likely candidate. Anyway, they have done a fabulous job of breaking down the cover crop, there was nary a leaf to be seen.

Red Earth Worms, Lumbricus rubellus?

After turning the soil over I use my old 4 pronged hoe to break up the surface clods and smooth out the surface. I walk through the beds as I turn the soil, but the rest of the work is done from the perimeter of the bed. I like my little old hoe because it is light and it's easy to wield over the middle of the bed from the side. I work back through the sections, raking out one section and relaying the drip lines, then the next section, and then the last one.


Here's the first photo of the finished bed once again for reference, you can see how I've laid the lines out, they are 10 inches apart and each line has emitters spaced every 6 inches. That gives me very good coverage in the very loose soil. I've decided to try mulching the tomatoes with newspaper this year because of the severe drought that we are going through. It's easier for me to use full sheets of paper rather than shredding it first. We don't get rain here in the summer, I rely entirely on irrigation water supplied by the drip lines that run under the paper so it's not necessary that the mulch be water permeable. I'll also lay newspaper down once I've set out my peppers and eggplant, but that's still a few weeks off.


I'll be posting again when it's time to plant out the solanum bed, I've got another trick to share then. In the meantime my little seedlings still have some growing to do before I plant them out. 

12 comments:

  1. I used to use cover crops. But I've stopped for a while. They really increase the level of slugs in my garden. And cutworms. The only time I've ever had a lot of cutworm damage was after a cover crop. it is really good for the soil though. So I tend to go back and forth whether I use them or not. I'm guessing since you are so dry slugs aren't something you have to worry about much.

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    1. You are correct, slugs and snails are rare in my garden. Sow bugs, on the other hand , can be a big problem, their populations just explode at times and then I have to get the sluggo plus out.

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  2. After going to that amount of trouble, you certainly deserve to get a good crop! When using the eggshells, how important do you think it is to crush them as finely as you have done? In the past I have crushed shells manually and put them in the compost heap a few at a time. Do you think that is valuable?

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    1. I used to do the same thing, just crush the shells as I use them and add them to the compost. They always seemed to come out of the compost in nearly the same condition they went in. This is just my unproven opinion that the calcium in the egg shells will be more available to the tomato plants if they are finely crushed and distributed through the soil. I don't know if it has truly made a difference, some of my tomatoes still get BER, but it seems that some varieties are just more prone to developing it and no matter how much calcium is available they will get it.

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  3. This bed is a work of art! I look forward to watching your tomatoes take off. I think I'm going to steal the newspaper idea. My plants are in the ground and blooming, so I'll lay the paper around them. Thank you for sharing your hard work! It's wonderful.

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  4. It's funny how everyone has their own blend of amendments when growing tomatoes. I crush old calcium tablets and mix it into my planting hole which is usually at least a foot deep and a foot wide. So far, that seems to do the trick.
    I can't decide what to use this year for tomato supports but am leaning towards homemade tomato cages like the ones you have. Those texas ones are beautiful but cost an arm and a leg! Are yours 5 or 7 feet tall?

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    1. The cages are 5 feet tall. I used concrete reinforcing mesh that is 5 feet wide and I think I cut them into 6 foot lengths. Mine are all the same size, but other gardeners that I know like to make them in different sizes so that they can nest 2 or 3 of them together to take up less room in storage.

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  5. Your bed looks healthy and ready for your tomatoes. I was reading the comments left by others and see that you too have sow bugs. We save our small cat food cans, clean them and fill them with cheap beer. Bush them down in the soil next to your plants that have the bugs, so it is level with the soil. Overnight they will go for the beer and drown themselves or as my husband says, get drunk and drown. We have kept them out of our beds this way for years. Colt 45 is the beer we use, seems to be the least expensive. You will need to clean them each morning and fill with more beer, but in a week or two your bugs should be pretty much gone.

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    1. CJ, thanks for the tip. I've got lots of cat food cans so I think I'll give this a try, it's a lot cheaper than sluggo plus.

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    2. You're very welcome. I hope it helps.

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  6. Mind boggling. After all that work you deserve a great tomato crop. Hope you have a good year. I just throw my egg shells in the compost pile and they seem to decompose pretty well. Will be growing Jaune Flamme this year after seeing your harvests. Hope to get a taste of them if the weather gods permit.

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  7. Thank you for the wonderful tutorial.
    Wow with so fertile soil, the reward after must be very bountiful!!!

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