Green Manure

Today I had the pleasure of planting strawberries in a patch that I had planted with winter rye last fall. Unlike the hard, dry bare soil in the rest of the garden, the soil where the rye had been was moist and soft. I left as much of the broken-up rye roots in the soil as possible (that's where the nitrogen has been fixed).
CORRECTION- Rye doesn't fix nitrogen. But the hairy vetch I planted with it does :)

So not only does growing winter rye (w/hairy vetch) enrich the soil, it makes the ground easier to work the next spring!

Seedling update:
All the seedlings planted out a week ago were fine as of yesterday IF they were covered by plastic bottle cloches. If they weren't covered, they're dead now, or on the way to it. Last night all the tender beds were covered with black plastic and the 28 degree temperatures didn't bother them at all.

Still no sprouting activity for carrots or peas.

Fertilizer

I've had a nagging feeling that my plants wouldn't do well this season unless I put down some kind of fertilizer. So yesterday at Home Depot I bought some (organic) TerraCycle worm poop but wasn't sure what to do with it. Before my trip to the garden today, I happened to glance at the cover of this month's Mother Earth News, and see that the issue has an article called
Build Better Soil with Free Organic Fertilizer!
which answered (almost) all my questions.

In a nutshell:

• Grass clippings are the cheapest form of fertilizer you can get.
• If you start with good soil, grass clippings and/or compost will provide your plants with all the nutrients they need, and also improve the soil quality.
• Fresh spring grass has more than 2x the amount of nitrogen as grass later in the season, but the article didn't say how much nitrogen is retained in the old dead grass clippings that we have available at the gardens.
• Annual application of 1/2 inch of grass mixed into the soil, or a 1-2 inch layer of grass used as mulch should provide sufficient nitrogen for the year.

However-
Certain times of the year gardeners might want to supplement this with commercial (quick release) fertilizers:

• Early spring, when low soil temperatures reduce decomposition of organic matter
• To revive overwintered spinach
• Before planting broccoli, cabbage, kale, and spring peas
• When tomatoes and peppers are fruiting
• When seedlings are 2-3 weeks old.

The article points out that most gardens are more likely to be over-fertilized than under, so I will apply a light dose of TerraCycle to my new brassicas & peas, my overwintered spinach, and my seedlings, and then rely on the magic of grass clippings for the rest!

My poor little seedlings

I've got some seedlings growing on the fire escape in containers, some good some bad. The lettuce got set out this week so the littler ones are left behind here.

Here you see the chard which will be transplanted next, as well as one laggard broccoli.

I like using the little netted peat pots for tomatoes (which have been germinating irregularly and are still warm inside) because the germinated plants can be moved to sun while the un-germinated wait to sprout. Later note, I've broken a few plants from the peat pots tipping over. The peat 8 packs can also be separated, and reused if you're careful.

I thought I was being clever with the plastic egg cartons- container, drip tray, and cover in one! The problem is that once the seedlings sprout, the cover is much too low. I raided the community recycling bin and found some awesome garbage like the giant salad container, used upside down over the plants.

The chard has been out on the fire escape for the last week getting extra sunlight. Hopefully they won't be leggy forever.

PS- Home Depot has transplants now. (even tomato!) It's too early, and they'll get killed in tomorrow night's freeze. I got 1 cabbage and 1 collard greens and will set out Sunday.

Frost!

The low temperature forecast for tomorrow night keeps getting lower and lower- I am officially concerned about the health of my freshly transplanted greens. Though most of them are in plastic soda bottle cloches and covered with transparent cloth, it's not going to be enough.



So tomorrow I will be rigging up some temporary cover. I'm not yet sure what that will be.

November 28, 2007 harvest

These broccoli, lettuce, and radishes were the last crops I got out of my garden last fall. It's looking pretty good to me right now.

Check out post from my other blog from last October- about the garden

October Post

Broccoli and cabbage was so lush and green!

Garden Status- March 27, 2008

Overwintered (might grow some more?):
tiny kale seedlings
1 broccoli
3 cabbage in very loose heads
some fine looking lettuce (probably the Winter Density cultivar)
some fine looking spinach
a few shabby collard greens (this got killed by bugs in the fall, the cold killed the bugs, now I'm hoping the collards can make it)
garlic (planted last October for a 2008 harvest.

Seeds new in the ground (nothing sprouted yet):
carrots
peas (sowed a few weeks ago)
spinach
beets
onions
lettuce
mesclun

Seedlings up, growing indoors:
swiss chard
tomatoes (low germination)

Seeded indoors:
peppers
cucumbers


Transplanted outdoors:
1 broccoli
Lettuce
kale (nice size, from neighbor K., as well as sprouts)
symposi? (an asian green)
1 other green.
This are mostly under plastic bottle cloches, then covered with white garden fabric to hold heat and protect from wind.

I have a few weeks gap here as I wait for the frost-free date to come, estimated at April 10th for this area. I suspect it will be later than that this year. In the meantime, my tomatoes and peppers need to grow a lot before they get to go outside.

First Post!

Hello, Zone 6 gardeners. This blog will feature my small community garden plot in New Brunswick, NJ, where I'm a first time vegetable gardener. From what I've read, my location is a warm zone 6. I've been hearing some chat from garden bloggers elsewhere about the need for more local information for gardeners, so this blog will contribute to the network of bloggers already out there. I haven't yet found a New Jersey vegetable garden blog that chronicles the experiences of gardeners around here. Hopefully this will fill (some kind of) niche. One of my favorite blogs is Skippy's Vegetable Garden, which describes gardening in zone 5 near Boston. That blog is my model.

About me: I'm a grad student in urban planning, interested in community agriculture issues. My occupancy of this plot may end suddenly if I have to relocate for work, but in the meantime I'm hoping to learn as much about gardening as I can so I that I can garden somewhere else!