Garden Gallery! April 2022

Free sunflowers, Free wood chips, Garden beauty!

Good day to you! Today's post is a gallery of highlights from the past month. We're having an exceedingly rainy spring. We're so grateful for our two biggest greenhouses which have allowed us to plant and harvest, long before we'd be able to outside. We've had beautiful and heavy blooms on all our fruit trees  but we've also had some late frosts, and the rains inhibit pollinators from flying so it remains to be seen how much fruit has actually set. Here are highlights from the past month:

This year Chris has done an amazing job of starting seeds right in the raised beds of our greenhouses. This has given us a head start on many of the cool-weather crops. So far we've been eating (and sharing) lettuce, kale, radishes and green onions and have just begun to thin the carrots. In coming weeks we'll add spinach and beet greens to the mix as well. 

Chris planting celery with Aldrix. Peas are beginning to flower in the background...yum!

Llyn, meanwhile has been starting the other crops in pots for later transplanting. This is the fourth season we've grown all our starts with soil we made ourselves and they're looking beautiful!

Broccoli 'starts' grown in home-grown potting mix which consists entirely of compost generated in the paths of our greenhouses, coffee grounds, wood-ash and perlite (the only ingredient we've had to purchase).

Growing plants without concentrated soil-amendments/fertilizers or animal by-products means the plants grow more slowly but they also seem to be more resistant to pests and diseases. They are also more nutrient-dense since they don't have as much water-weight. All the garden's fertility comes from leaves, grass, vegan kitchen scraps, wood ashes and coffee grounds. LINK - For more info on veganic/organic growing.

So far this season, most of the surplus produce has gone to programs housed in the church that shares our parking lot. They have a Gleaners group, a distribution to the Seniors in our community and a Food Pantry open to anyone in our school district who meets basic income requirements. To these food charities, we've added another group: the Stone Soup Kitchen in Corvallis. 

The Stone Soup Kitchen (sponsored by St Mary's Catholic church) is a charity that serves three meals a day, every day of the year! In 2021 that was an average of 3,500 meals/month but in March of this year they gave away over 4,000 meals! We feel really good about donating to them. Because they cook/prepare our food into actual meals, we feel it is more likely to actually be eaten and go to benefit those who typically have the least access to organic, fresh veggies or the means/ability to prepare them themselves. Stone Soup Kitchen in Corvallis - LINK. 

Volunteers: Our share-giver (volunteer) days have shifted to Mondays and Fridays. Since we no longer have CSA boxes to fill (on Wednesdays), it works best to spread these days of community-help and harvests throughout the week. We have a good circle of support already committed for the summer but if you're really eager to get involved, send us an email and we'll see if we can find enough weeds for you to pull too (or maybe we'll plant some! haha). All share-givers learn about our methods of growing organically/veganically - from starting seeds, through the harvesting of fruits, vegetables and seeds for future years' plantings, AND they share in the weekly harvests.

Cindy Kitchen (thinning carrots) has been coming since 2010 ...

...along with her husband Jim (tying up green onion bunches to share).

Donn, another long-term helper, spreading grass donations in the greenhouse paths. All this organic matter helps us create soil and compost for next year's fertility.

Jenny Hicks, a new friendly face; weeding the garlic patch.

Llyn, in the rain, spreading donated wheat-straw to mulch our cucumber patch.

Suzanne, another new garden-friend, re-potting sunflowers.

Rook's still with us, entering his fifth season.

Sandra, in her second year, picking broccoli.

OSU Service-Learning is back! Oregon State University, in Corvallis has a unique offering through many of their classes. Students are asked to volunteer in the community and create a poster or slide-show describing their experience. For this they receive college credit. A typical Service-Learning group consists of 4-6 students for four hours. We had two groups in April of this year, our first since February 2020. It was wonderful to have them back!

OSU Service Learning group, April 9th, 2022. The students always bring such positive energy into the gardens!

They help us with a variety of tasks...This year:

Students turning a compost pile...

Spreading wood-chips at the base of our orchard trees.

The first group planted two rows of potatoes...

Potatoes "chitting" (collecting the sun's energy, for better sprouting - LINK for more info on planting potatoes).

They did a beautiful job of planting...Hopefully the April rains haven't drowned the plants.

Students re-potting sunflowers.

Sunflower plant Giveaway: Sunflower-pollen has the unique ability to protect certain types of bees from two types of parasites. They also provide food for many birds and the seeds can be harvested to eat or grown into sprouts. 

We've grown over 50 sunflower plants, both Autumn Beauties and Mammoth Russians to give away. The Autumn Beauties are from seed I (Llyn) harvested from a volunteer plant at our town's library a few years ago. So, as a way of giving back, and expanding our area's 'community' of sunflower plants:

We'll be giving away sunflowers through a collaboration with Monroe's Community Library. 

Mammoth Russians

Come to Storytime on Monday May 9th 10:30 am (380 N 5th St. Monroe, OR - 541-847-5174) for kid's stories about sunflowers, and the Give-away. 

Don't worry if you can't make it to Storytime, we're bringing plenty of plants and will leave them at the library till Thurs. May 12th so you'll have a few days to pick them up.

To learn Why growing Sunflowers is great for Bees...and how to grow and process sunflowers for birdseed and sprouts, CLICK HERE.  

Autumn Beauty sunflowers

Our outdoor sunflower nursery: saw horses under the swing-set (till the kids come back this summer to reclaim it!)

Wood chips galore! A local tree-service company has chosen to make our parking lot their favorite place to dump wood-chips to share with the community. Bring buckets, totes or an empty pick-up truck bed! First come, first served. If you miss the current load, check back later as they'll be sure to drop off more.

Come and get 'em!

And lastly, here are a few pictures showing the garden's seasonal progress...

Planting fruit trees...

Pruned grape vines

A beautiful April sky at the Sharing Gardens.

Llyn's Mom sent us THIS LINK to an episode of Nature entitled "My Garden of a Thousand Bees". It is an absolute delight! A nature photographer during Lockdown films a full spring and summer season of native bees in his unruly backyard garden in London. The photography is amazing; the bees come to have individual personalities and the photographer is funny and humble as he explores this micro-world.

Locally Sustainable Gardening in the Face of Supply-Chain Shortages

Originally posted at the beginning of the pandemic, in May of 2020, this post is even more relevant this year!

 

For years, the Sharing Gardens has been anticipating shortages, and higher prices on fertilizers and soil amendments. This is why we've been developing and perfecting our methods of creating soil-fertility from locally available materials such as leaves, grass-clippings, wood ash and coffee-grounds. (See links below).

Fertility without fertilizers (commercially-made ones that is...). Sharing Gardens - July 2019

Sharing Gardens - late July - 2019

This year we didn't purchase or use any fertilizers or amendments (including livestock manures) and we created our own potting mix from the worm-castings we harvested from our greenhouse paths, mixed with a courser compost our neighbor produced from hard-wood sawdust, coffee grounds, leaves and grass clippings (with a lot of help from his worms!). Here are articles about this "veganic" method we are using with great success.

Lovely compost!

Making your own "Veganic" (no animal manures) Potting Soil

Grass Clippings and Leaves for Mulch

Coffee Grounds and Wood-Ash for Fertility

 

The Ground to Ground Primer - Coffee grounds for your Garden

We have seen many headlines, and heard from fellow gardeners  about vegetable-seed shortages. If you would like to learn about saving many of your own seeds (the majority of seeds we use, we saved ourselves!) here is a post with info on saving many kinds of seeds in your own garden for use next year.

Saving squash-seeds

Family Heirlooms: Saving Your Own Seed

Please keep in mind that sustainable gardening practices at a local level will be far more successful if you build cooperative relationships with your neighbors instead of trying to do it all alone. Here is a link to many resources about how to start a Sharing Garden in your own community.

Gardening with a group! Many hands make light work...

Making Your Own "Veganic" Potting Soil in Your Greenhouse Paths - Using Worms

May 2022: This is the fourth season we've grown all our starts with soil we made ourselves and they're looking beautiful! Growing plants without a lot of concentrated soil amendments/fertilizers or animal by-products means they're slower to grow but they seem to be more resistant to pests and diseases. They are also more nutrient-dense since they don't have as much water-weight. Here's a previously written post that explains how we create our own soil (with a little help from the worms and micro-organisms in our greenhouse paths!)

 

October 2019: Here is a timely re-post of an article we wrote earlier this year about harvesting worm-castings out of our greenhouse paths. We're proud to announce that for the 2019 season we didn't purchase any fertilizers and were able to grow over 7,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables using locally available resources to feed our worms: leaves and grass clippings. We supplemented with wood-ash from heating our house, and coffee-grounds that volunteers bring us from coffee shops. We're almost done harvesting the worm-compost from our paths this year and it looks like we'll have almost double from last year's  harvest.  Enjoy!

Here is one of our greenhouses in mid-Spring. Note how the paths are filled deep with straw and other "organic-matter". As we water the plants and walk over the beds, we help the worms and micro-organisms turn this dead plant-material into nutrient-dense compost for next year's soil.

For those of us with greenhouses in which we plant directly in the ground (as opposed to using the GH to protect seedlings in pots, on tables) the necessary pathways between planting beds can seem like a lot of wasted space. Over the years, we've developed a method of composting right in the paths, creating habitat for worms and micro-organisms so that, over the course of the growing season we generate (and then harvest) large amounts of fine, high-quality worm-compost using locally available materials often considered "waste" products. We describe our methods below.

"Veganic" method for creating soil-fertility: Over the last few years we have become increasingly convinced that moving toward a veganic method of farming makes a whole lot of sense from several perspectives. Veganic agriculture is defined as:

...an approach to growing plant-foods that encompasses a respect for animals, the environment, and human health. Also known as "stockfree" "vegan organic" and "plant-based," this is a form of agriculture that goes further than organic standards, by eliminating the use of products that are derived from confined animals and by encouraging the presence of wild native animals on the farmland. (LINK: Intro to Veganics)

For many organic farmers\gardeners, if not most, fertilizing the soil means adding some type of manure and\or other animal-based products such as bone meal, fish meal, blood meal, feather meal, etc. Here at the Sharing Gardens, being vegetarians ourselves and wanting to grow food in a way that aligns with our values, we are interested in developing, and demonstrating ways of growing food that uses local materials, gathered in a sustainable way with a gentle impact on the environment.

"Veganic" agriculture: good for the Earth, good for our health.

Here is our current method of building our soil-fertility - right in the paths of our greenhouses!

Gathering Materials: Our method of gardening requires massive amounts of "organic matter" (leaves, straw, grass-clippings etc). In the many years since we started the Sharing Gardens (2009) we have developed relationships with the people in, and around our small town encouraging them to bring us these materials instead of burning them or sending them to the land-fill.

One of our neighbors brings us many trailers full of leaves each Fall. He used to burn them. Now he uses some to mulch his own garden-beds but still has plenty of surplus to share with us.

Our land is over three-acres. We have left much of it as grass so that we can harvest this valuable resource. (LINK-Grass Clippings and Leaves for Soil Fertility). When we have surplus from mulching our plants, we spread it in the greenhouse-paths to feed the worms and micro-organisms.

A System for Collection: For many years, the only people who brought us leaves and grass-clippings were those we had made a personal connection with. In 2017, a teacher from our town's Grade School approached us about doing a volunteer project with her students to help the Sharing Gardens. We spent a morning with the students and raked up over 35 big bags of leaves around town! (LINK: Yes, Money Really Does Grow On Trees!) In the Fall of 2018, our city-hall contacted us about inserting a notice in people's water-bills encouraging them to bring their leaves to our garden. We estimate this yielded another close to 50 bags of leaves. We imagine that in future years that number will grow as people hear about the program. LINK: Monroe Leaf Drive

Here's the sign we painted and set up along the road in front of our house for the 2018 leaf-drive.

As people donate their leaves, we hang the bags out to dry on a clothes-line in our greenhouse and roll them into bundles of 5-6. We feel strongly about minimizing the use of plastics so any time a bag can be re-used is a real bonus!

We set up this station in our front yard. The trash-can has bundles of leaf-bags for re-use.

In the flier that was mailed to our town, we included these important guidelines:

Please no animal waste, trash or sticks/branches, no holly or roses (too sharp), or black walnut leaves (they can kill plants - LINK). Just leaves and grass 😊.

The need for sides on your beds: With this method, it is important that your paths and beds be separated with sides so your soil doesn't mix with the materials in the paths.

Chris has made many of our greenhouse beds with recycled fence-boards held in place with stakes driven into the ground. We have used plywood ripped into four-inch strips too.

Spreading materials: Since our method of creating soil is cyclic, we could begin at any point in the process but if you are just getting started, the first step is to spread the materials. We begin this process at the end of Autumn as we are dismantling the tomato-cages, pulling up pepper-plants and weeding the beds in preparation for the following Spring.

Here is a greenhouse path that has been "harvested" of its worm-compost. It is ready for new materials to be added.

After cleaning all of last season's plant material out of the beds, cutting it into small pieces and laying it in the paths, we cover it with layers of leaves or straw, or whatever we have available.

One of our neighbors thatched his lawn and brought all that wonderful grass "hay" for us to use. Here is a college student/volunteer spreading it by the tub-full.

Llyn, spreading fresh grass-clippings on top of straw.

Creating worm-compost all season-long: From Spring through late Summer we continue to add organic-matter as it becomes available. By watering and walking on the paths we help the worms and other "micro-livestock" to break down the materials and turn them into soil.

This picture was taken in April. Note fresh grass-clippings in center and right pathways. Straw has yet to be covered with grass on left-pathway. Llyn is watering the bed of lettuce and waters the paths too, to help in the decomposition process.

During the growing season, the worms and micro-organisms are 'digesting' all this material from below. On tours of the greenhouses we often pull back the mulch to show people the thriving colonies of red-wiggler worms that live in our paths. Many times we can show them worm-eggs as well and little worm tunnels they have formed down into the rich, black compost.

Another benefit of this style of greenhouse gardening is that the mulched paths are so pleasant to kneel on. Also, many plant roots (figs pictured here) will reach their roots out into the paths and be fed by this 'living compost' through the growing season. (Pictured: Bella and Adri harvesting potatoes).

Harvesting worm-castings: We stop adding organic matter by late summer. This means there is less material to move out of the way when it's time to harvest our worm-compost. This 'undigested' material is temporarily gathered in tubs, or piles and then returned to the paths after the worm-compost has been gathered.

Here, Chris scoops up the compost with a flat, hand-trowel. We collected fourteen, five-gallon buckets from this one, forty-foot x two-foot path!

A flat shovel works well too.

Sifting and storing worm-compost:

This homemade sifter works well to remove large material and give the finished product a uniform texture. The screen is made with "hardware cloth", a wire-mesh with 1/2" holes.

After sifting, we often store the worm compost in re-purposed pellet-stove plastic bags. Storing them in this way preserves the material's moisture.

Mixing soil and starting seedlings: In the past we have been fortunate to have pre-used-soil donated from two-different nurseries at the end of their growing seasons. Though the nutrient-content of the soil was mostly depleted, the structure of the soil was still excellent as it was high in organic-matter, perlite and other substances to keep the soil light and fluffy. We are careful to only accept soil-donations from 'organic' growers (no herbicides/pesticides). Our mix-ratio was 'one-part' worm compost to 'two-parts' depleted soil.

If you don't have access to previously-used soil, there are many recipes on-line for making your own. Typically they include coconut coir (a more-renewable resource than peat-moss) and sand or perlite - so the soil drains well, and compost for fertility. Use the worm-compost outlined in this article in place of the regular compost.

Always mix soil thoroughly so the different materials are evenly mixed and do a few tests with fast-germinating seeds (like radishes) to make sure you have a good mixture.

Update October 2019: This year we have not had any used soil donated and our worm-compost harvest has greatly increased from last year so we will probably be starting our seedlings next Spring in pure worm-compost. Chris has done this before in previous nurseries, with great results. The only reason we didn't do it last year was that we had the pre-used soil donated and we didn't have as much worm-compost.

Pure worm-compost has great drainage due to all the organic-matter within. It's just that it contains more nutrients than young seedlings require so, if you have other material to mix it with, that doesn't cost you anything, it's a good idea to mix it and stretch it out.

Seedlings in our home-grown soil, Spring 2019.

Preparing beds: We also use the worm compost to fertilize our raised beds.

Chris spreading a layer of worm-compost in greenhouse beds. Note last year's tomatoes and other plant material in pathways (before we've added leaves on top). Excellent worm food!

Soil fertility is improved by adding wood-ash and coffee grounds: For some reason, worms love coffee grounds! By sprinkling grounds in your garden beds, you will attract worms to come into your soil. Coffee grounds also contain many nutrients on their own so, we also recommend adding them to your greenhouse paths and compost bins. They will attract worms and speed up the process of decomposition. (LINK: Coffee and Ashes for Fertility) (LINK: Ground to Ground Primer - Coffee grounds for the Garden)

Spreading coffee-grounds: We have a friend who regularly stops by a local coffee shop and collects coffee grounds for us. Ideally, when we have enough, we sprinkle them about 1/4" deep over the beds. Note: Though coffee-grounds are neither a local or sustainable resource, currently the are free and by using them, we keep them out of the waste-stream.

Spreading wood-ashes: After coffee we add a very light sprinkling of wood-ashes (they are very concentrated and can 'burn' sensitive micro-organisms and the worms' skin and change soil pH). We only use ash collected from natural wood that has no paint or other chemical treatments. Since we heat our house exclusively with wood, this is another 'free' resource.

Through the early winter months, we hand-dig these amendments into the soil. This provides a pleasant activity during inclement weather...

...and a nice time for socializing.

In early Spring, once we begin mowing the grass again, it makes a nutrient-dense mulch directly on the beds. Worms love fresh grass-clippings and will migrate to beds where it has been added.

The cycle starts again - Spreading materials in paths: Once we have harvested the worm-compost, it's time to start the cycle all over again!

Tomato-plants systematically being cut-up into the paths. The fallen tomatoes and weeds in the bed to the left of Llyn will also be scooped out/dug up and put into the path to feed the worms.

Layer, after layer, we build up the organic-matter in the paths.

This includes straw (if we have it) and grass-clippings.

Planting in beds and continuing to add organic-matter to the paths:

The process is an endless cycle, creating soil-fertility from local and veganic materials.

Harvest!

This method of growing, yields nutrient-dense, delicious food!

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