Polyculture vs Row Culture

Last year I was inspired by reading some permaculture books and decided to experiment with sowing a polyculture planting in part of my backyard raised bed. I based mine on the polyculture sowing described in Toby Hemenway's "Gaia's Garden."

In a broadcast fashion I sowed a couple varieties of lettuce, arugula, spinach, dill, parsnip, radish and a 'brassica mix' which included red russian kale and mizuna.

The idea behind polycultures is that the multiplicity of different plants, especially aromatic ones such as dill, helps to lower susceptibility to pests and disease.

While this may be true, I found my polyculture bed difficult to weed and harvest from. I think this partly stems from the fact that I am a person who likes order. To me, once the polyculture sowing sprouted it represented chaos, and this was difficult for me to get my head around.

The plants grew at different rates and I wasn't able to cut greens as easily as I was used to in the neat linear rows on the farms. What I read about polycultures told me to harvest whole plants instead of cutting, in order to make space for other plants to flourish. I did do this, but there's something I like more about getting 3 cuttings off of my lettuce before pulling it and letting it break down back into the top soil.

I can't help but think: what does this say about me if I didn't enjoy my polyculture experience? Polycultures mimic the diversity, chaos, and beauty of nature and of the forest. Am I dishonouring nature by growing my greens in straight lines this year? My answer is no; through companion plantings, albeit sometimes in straight lines, I maintain the pest and disease resisting characteristics of polyculture plantings. Plus I am producing more greens.

I do grow lots of other crops together; strawberries with onions & spinach, peas with carrots, tomatoes with basil, lettuce, parsley & marigolds. I view my entire backyard as a polyculture. I just choose to grow my salad greens, and some other crops, in rows.

Rows are about efficiency when harvesting, and weeding, and this appeals to the order of my mind. While I may lean towards row culture, especially for some crops, I definitely do not subscribe to monoculture.

How to Brew Vermicompost Tea

Worm castings

Vermicompost tea seems to be kind of magical. It is high in microbial activity. We brewed large batches of it last year at the organic farm I interned at and both watered with it and used it as a foliar spray on our seedlings in the greenhouse. It effectively killed an infestation of insects that were attacking our tomatillo seedlings. So now, when I see that plants in my garden are being eaten by insects, or just don't look so well, I look to brewing vermicompost tea as a potential solution.

What you'll need:

1 cup or so of worm castings
5 gallon bucket of water
Cheese cloth or permeable material to make a tea bag with
Elastics or string
Fish pump with tubing

Fill the 5 gallon bucket with water. If not using rain water, let the water sit for 48 hours so the chlorine and other stuff from city water can evaporate before you brew your tea.

Place your worm castings on a doubled over piece of cheese cloth and wrap to make a kind of worm poo tea bag. Use elastics to tie off the ends securely.

I tied my tea bag to the handle of the bucket so it rested half way inside the bucket instead of sitting on the bottom, for optimal steeping.

I used an aquarium bubbler and attached it to the end of the fish pump tube and set it in the bucket of water. Plug in the pump and let it bubble for 24 hours. Some people add a little molasses to increase microbial activity but I have yet to try this.

Use the vermicompost tea within 24 hours after the brewing is complete, as it is an active solution.

Using the vermicompost tea as a foliar spray on basil that was being eaten by insects

U Shaped Log Garden Grows Food

The garden in mid June

The new garden did/is doing very well.

Peas thrived, although we know to construct a taller trellis next year for them. Sugar Snap peas can grow 6 feet tall!

The greens supplied fresh salads regularly. Arugula, Red Deer Tongue and Red Salad Bowl Lettuces looked beautiful around the inside of the U for easy harvesting. To cut salad greens I use a knife, and leave the baby leaves about 3/4 of an inch from the ground to grow back. I do 3 cuttings max because the greens tend to get bitter after that.

The New Zealand spinach is really starting to take off now. Seems to love the heat of summer.

Making a Raised Bed Garden with Logs

I had the experience of designing and creating a raised bed backyard garden last week. For part of it we removed the sod, and double dug as best as we could (tree roots made it difficult) using a D handled spade and garden fork. Double digging loosens the soil to a good depth without mixing the top layer of soil with the deeper soil. This is important as different soil microorganisms prefer to live in different depths. We decided to put root crops in the section we double dug.

For the other sections we layed down a layer of cardboard over the sod. The neighbor was cutting down a birch tree as we were creating the garden, and these beautiful birch logs made a perfect border for the garden. Once we arranged the logs we soaked the cardboard with water for a good while, then spread an inch or so of sheep manure across the bottom layer of the garden before filling it up with soil. We used about twenty 25L bags of black earth soil.

A recently cut tree on the front lawn was a resource for mulch which we spread in the centre area of the garden and around the edges. Aesthetically I think the garden is quite striking.


The "U" shaped design faces south. Taller crops can be grown on the north edge. Around the centre of the "U" we seeded salad greens, for easy access. We seeded peas, chard, beets, carrots, spinach, arugula, salad greens, and transplanted some kale, new zealand spinach, and leeks I had grown indoors, as well as chives from my backyard garden. I'm excited to see how this garden transforms over the summer!

Rabbit in the Garden

All winter I saw bunny tracks in the snow. I finally caught a glimpse of the rabbit in my backyard one rainy spring afternoon. Cute, but potentially troublesome to my vegetables. I'm using chicken wire over my transplanted seedlings while they are still small. This also prevents squirrels from digging in freshly seeded beds.

Rainbow chard seedlings safe under chicken wire

Interplanting of strawberries, onion, and spinach

Mossy Stonecrop

There is a prolific "weed" in my backyard, and it is Mossy Stonecrop. I've read it occurs in sandy soils with low fertility. It's growing in and around the raised wooden garden beds, especially in the strawberry patch. It can reproduce from creeping stems and stem fragments, as well as by seed. That means if I wanted to weed it out, any small fragment left in the soil could grow into a new plant.

What is a weed? An unwanted plant, a nuisance...perhaps. My experience organic farming and reading gardening books has challenged the common conception of weeds I once held. Such plants can have many benefits.

All weeds tell us something about the soil they are growing in. Plants don't grow by luck, certain conditions foster them. Weeds (and all plants) have different capacities to draw specific nutrients up from various levels of the soil. Many "weeds" are edible. If slashed or pulled they can be used as mulch, and can also form a living mulch around plants.

While I won't allow weeds to strangle out plants I'm intentionally growing for food, I do want to learn from them more this growing season. Perhaps I need to add more organic matter to my soil, since Mossy Stonecrop thrives in soils with low fertility. I don't mind it's presence bordering the outside of the bed, and creeping inbetween the patio stones. I like succulents and it produces a yellow flower in the summer. I did pull a lot of it out of the strawberry patch. I will watch to see how it grows over the season.

Mossy Stonecrop (Sedum acre)

Back in the Backyard Garden: Planning

I have a backyard again. My old backyard where my Dad and I built a raised wooden bed around the perimeter of the concrete patio, and assembled a curving continuous brick wall bed around the perimeter of the yard, against the fence. I used to grow some vegetables and flowers here. Mainly tomatoes, and many perennial flowers, which still remain: lupines, brown eyed susans, columbine, a white bleeding heart, some hosta lilies.

He built a large trellis on the west side of the fence, where he grew morning glories. I plan on growing them there again this year. I also plan on building more trellises for my climbing scarlet runner beans and winter squash on the north end of the yard.

I learned lupines are nitrogen fixers and am glad about their presence in the perimeter beds. Not only are they beautiful but they have another function in the garden by fixing atmospheric nitrogen into the soil and turning it into plant available form via bacterial nodules on the roots.

I am going to experiment with interplanting vegetables and herbs among the beds which have held only flowers up until now. Why not yield the benefits of the nitrogen rich soil the lupines have been creating for years now?

I have been planning my vegetable bed since February. I bought seeds at the Guelph Organic Conference and will be getting a few more varieties at Seedy Sunday. The brands of the organic seeds I have bought are Urban Harvest and The Cottage Gardener.

An initial garden plan (draft). Bed drawn to scale to allow spacing of plants according to their mature size. Square feet = 48.
Jeavons' "How to Grow More Vegetables" informs of useful companion plantings included in my design: strawberries with onions and spinach, kale with beets, carrots with peas, carrots with leeks and chives, basil with peppers and tomatoes

I have many projects I want to do and techniques I want to implement in my backyard garden. Among these are:

• The hugelkultur bed - a raised bed and vertical garden space
• Trellises - to cover the fence in dense foliage of beans
• Polyculture vs. Row culture - a comparison in methods of planting
  
• Interplanting & Companion planting - to make best use of space, availability of light and soil nutrients and to create symbiotic relationships between plants to enhance growth and health of plants
• Mulching - heavily on all beds, likely using fallen leaves. Retains moisture, reduces weed pressure, provides a great environment for soil organisms to create healthy soil
  
• Composters - actively using and maintaining the 2 in my yard.
• Flowers - planting more to attract beneficial insects. Cosmos, nasturtium, echinacea, milkweed, sunflowers
• Mapping and identifying all plants in the garden
• Seed saving
  

I have already started some seedlings and will be starting some more in the next couple of weeks. Although I have a fairly good idea of where I want to plant things in my beds, I know my plan will evolve and change as it manifests. I am interested to see what succeeds, what fails, and how techniques I have learned about work in reality. I will document my evolving backyard garden on this blog, so if you enjoy it please read and share your thoughts and experiences!

Broccoli seedlings thrive under florescent light, with New Zealand spinach and chives behind

Hugelkultur

I learned about hugelkultur, a german word meaning "mound culture", in Toby Hemenway's book "Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture."

Hugelkultur involves burying dampened logs, branches and twigs underneath layers of compostable materials, leaves, finished compost and topsoil. The resulting mound can be planted directly into.

This method offers several benefits. The wood holds a lot of moisture, accessible to plant roots for long periods of time, thus watering will be required less frequently. The logs, branches and layers of compostable materials offer habitat for soil organisms, and the slow decomposition of the wood will create healthy and fertile soil. It is a version of composting in place (like sheet mulch).

It is important to include nitrogen rich materials in the layers on top of the logs, and shoved inbetween them, since the decomposition of the woody materials will use a lot of nitrogen in the process. A good carbon/nitrogen balance can be maintained by including nitrogen rich kitchen scraps, fresh leaves, etc into the mound's layers. Also planting nitrogen fixing legumes (peas, beans) in the hugelkultur bed will also add nitrogen into the soil.

I decided to try it out in a specific area of my backyard garden. I placed the mound in front of a south facing fence. The hugelkultur bed will serve many purposes here. It will allow me to grow climbing varieties of plants up trellises along the fence, some of which prefer to be grown in mounds (winter squash). It will provide long term fertility to the soil in this area of the garden as the logs and branches decompose. It will improve water retention in the soil in this area. It's physical location allows the mound to act as a physical barrier preventing soil and water runoff into my neighbors backyard, due to the existing slope in that direction.

This is a good example of the permaculture principle of stacking functions - getting many yields from one element of the garden system. The hugelkultur mound provides space to grow climbing and mound varieties of vegetables by providing a niche for them, it enhances the main space in my yard where I can garden vertically, it improves water retention, soil quality, and prevents erosion. It will serve multiple functions in my garden.

Wooden debris at the side of my house becomes a resource for a hugelkultur bed

The finished mound. Approx 4 ft x 2 ft, 1.5 ft high.
Layers used include: logs, branches, twigs, sage plant clippings, kitchen scraps, peat moss, leaves, finished compost, and topsoil.

I plan to plant 1 winter squash (Delicata) and scarlet runner beans closer to the fence side of the mound, and 1 or 2 summer squash closer to the front of the mound. The winter squash and runner beans will climb the trellis and fence, the beans will fix nitrogen into the soil, and the large leaves of the summer squash will work as a living mulch to suppress weeds. I am excited to see how the bed evolves over the season and beyond.

Vermicomposting Bin Moves Indoors & New Harvest Method Experiment

I have not posted in a while. The balcony garden slowly died as summer ended. We got many tasty cherry tomatoes. The pomodoros did not ripen in time. The bean plant produced 2 strange beans which I let go to seed. Growing vegetables in containers is challenging so I think I'll go crazy with flowers next year.

The vermicomposting bin has been a success. As the temperatures cooled off (lows below 4 degrees celsius), I brought the bin inside. It has found a place underneath a table my cats eat their food on in the kitchen.
3 months have passed since I first harvested the bin of its castings. I decided to try a different method than last time by moving the bin's contents over to one side, filling the empty half of the bin with new bedding (moistened shredded newspaper and hay that set for a few weeks in a plastic bag), and feeding the worms with fresh veggie scraps on the new bedding side in the hopes the worms will migrate over to the fresh side of the bin allowing me to harvest the castings.
I checked the casting-rich side a few days ago (I put in the new bedding on Oct 23rd) and there were still a lot of worms throughout. Hopefully they will move over eventually, if not I will have to harvest another way.

Ladybug Life Stages

Below is a short documentation of the lady bugs that came and lived on my balcony.

Lady bug larvae were the first evidence we noticed of this bug's presence:
July 16, 2008

July 18, 2008

After checking under leaves of the plants on my balcony garden for ladybugs in various stages of life to document, I was rewarded with these two found on the Gerbera daisy. As we pulled back the leaf to take a shot, this orange encased pupa flailed and pulsated around.

The second one was just emerging from the pupa state you see the bug above in. I have included times of the shots taken to give you an idea of the pace at which this lady bug emerged and changed colour from yellow to the bright red we know them for.
July 31, 2008 11:17 am

July 31, 2008 11:18 am

July 31, 2008 2:40 pm
August 1, 2008 5:51 pm - last sighting.

I haven't seen many lady bugs lately but I've enjoyed their presence in this urban garden.

Making Vermicompost Tea

Items used:
Vermicompost
Large bottle
Cheese cloth
Bit of hemp string
Elastics
Water (allowed to sit for at least 24 hrs)
Stick

A piece of cheese cloth, doubled over works well as the tea bag. Scoop in some vermicompost. I didn't follow any ratios, just guessed as to a good amount for the size of the bottle used. This elongated shape fit inside the bottle well.

Roll it up

Tie it off with elastics at each end and some string to ensure the vermicompost doesn't all spill out in the water. Pop that baby into the bottle filled with water that's been sitting for a while to get rid of any chlorine.

Add a stick for easy lifting and jostling of the tea bag. Some sites I read call for aeration, but I'm no professional and think stirring it frequently will be good enough. You can use a fish pump for aeration if you have one. Here is the vermicompost tea after steeping for 24 hours:

I think I'll let it sit for another few days and then water my indoor plants with it.

Vermicompost: Storing & Using on the Balcony Garden

We used our worm compost on all of the plants on our balcony garden by spreading it around the topsoil. We are making a vermicompost tea solution to water our indoor plants with.
Once I had obtained my vermicompost I had to deal with the issue of how to store it. I did a bit of online research and what I read in this helpful blog post is that if you have vermicompost (a mix of worm castings, partially decomposed bedding material and other stuff from your bin) then it should be stored in a container that is not air tight. The reason is that all of that extra material will continue breaking down and if there's no ventilation it could be really smelly and foul. This article also suggests that you first dry out your vermicompost so it's not too wet before putting it in a container. If you have vermicastings (only worm castings, ie you've taken/sifted out all of the other matter) then it is best to store this in an air tight container.
I know from looking at what I harvested from my bin that I do not have pure castings, although they compose the majority of my harvest's contents. There are still remnants of hay and newspaper that were on their way to being broken down completely. It is not wet, but just damp. I figure I will just use a plastic tupper ware container and punch some holes in the lid to store my vermicompost in.
I think the addition of the worm castings to our potted plants is already helping them and am noticing that they are retaining moisture better, requiring less frequent watering (although it could just be the humid weather we're having).

We tightened in our plants, bringing the marigolds off the rails closer to our tomato and other plants in the hopes that their pest repelling properties will help. There are no longer aphids on anything on the table (below), plus the ladybugs are kicking ass on the morning glory vine on the wall. What remains in terms of edible crops are 5 tomato plants (3 cherry, 2 pomodoro), spinach I planted a few weeks ago (enjoys cooler weather than this), garlic chives, mixed herbs, and the pole beans (haven't produced any beans yet - have been spritzing with water). Here's a few pictures of our garden these days:

The blue variety of Morning Glory I planted this year (above) and an awesome show of flowers this morning (below)

The first flowers on the tomatoes we started from seed! (above)
A wasp (?) on the bean plant (below)

Ladybugs to the Rescue

Earlier I posted about aphids entering my balcony garden. They affected the lettuce (which we removed), and were spreading to the tomatoes. We then discovered them on the morning glory vines. I had submitted to defeat figuring there was too much vine for them to eat it all, but lo and behold, nature provided its own solution with the sudden appearance of ladybug larvae, which eat aphids! They are crawling all over the morning glory, like guardians of the vine. A little ecosystem in itself, the balcony garden finds its balance. This also gets me thinking about how balcony gardens/rooftop gardens may seem removed from nature below, but they are just as subject to its forces as more traditional ground level gardens.

Ladybug in larval stage on my Morning Glory plant

Harvesting the Vermicomposting Bin

Yesterday we harvested our vermicomposting bin in order to obtain the useful worm castings they have been producing. As you can see (below) the level of material in the bin decreased dramatically over the 3 months as the worms broke down their bedding and the food scraps I gave them. The original level was near the top piece of duct tape.

There were several steps involved in the harvesting:

1) Preparing new bedding for the worms. - We did this in a large recyclables bag, in which we shredded newspaper just like the first time we made bedding for our worms. It was easy to moisten the newspaper with water and estimate the amount of bedding we needed in the bag.

2) Piling and Sorting the bin's material into 3 basic containers: worms & reusable bedding material, worm eggs (to avoid overpopulation and eggs hatching in plant pots), and the worm castings (what we're doing all of this work for!). We taped two cut open recycling bags together to create a large plastic sheet to line the balcony to do our sorting work on.

We used the pile & sort method where we emptied the bin's contents into several small cone shaped piles. The worms buried down to the bottom of the piles to avoid the light and we, pile by pile, scraped off the tops of the piles to get the vermicompost, working our way to the bottom. This was a very long and tedious process as we did a very thorough job. There were so many baby worms which were at times difficult to pick out and did not move down away from the light as well as the adult worms did.

This is what the bottom of the bin looked like after taking much of the vermicompost out. It's amazing to see what a job the worms did on that newspaper!

Piles for sorting

Pie plates helped with sorting
The Results

Two containers full of worms (below)

Collected worm eggs. Not sure what I'll do with these yet. I've read they can last many years. I am kind of playing god when it comes to the population of my worm bin (removed a little less than half of the population, and most of the eggs - they'll just produce more anyway), but I kind of have to because overpopulation would be a bad thing.
Total amount of Vermicompost collected! Several pounds (about 3/4 of that ikea garbage can is full)

Poo poo la poo poo la poo poo la pooGardener's Gold!! Harvesting all of this natural fertilizer I helped produce with my own food waste was really satisfying! Harvesting was hard work, and since the next harvest will be in late summer/early fall, I'm going to try a different method whereby I just push all of the bin's contents over to one side, fill the empty side with new bedding and food to draw the worms over, then harvest the empty side. The way we did it produces a much purer end product which I was only really concerned for when used on my indoor plants (i.e. I don't want any missed worms trying to live in my indoor plants). I have decided I will make some vermicompost tea for use on my indoor plants, thus alleviating any of these concerns.

3) Returning the worms to their new bed, while removing some of the worm population to avoid overpopulating the bin.

We added the larger container's worth of worms back into our worm bin, with freshly prepared bedding material (moistened shredded newspaper, hay, soil, some egg shells, undecomposed bedding from before). We contributed the remaining worms to the community composter in the park by our apartment building, which from what I have heard, has run out of red worms.

To come: Using the vermicompost in my balcony garden & making vermicompost tea!