By Andrew Haupt
Plants are in the ground in the meadow garden. We transplanted the tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and peppers last week, and planted a few rows of potatoes, corn, and beans. It’s exciting to finally see it in action. Our new roommate Eric suggested that we utilize some of the adjacent field to plant extra potatoes and winter squash and melon, so we’re giving that a try as well, letting them spread out as much as they want.
Seems like a good time for a look back on the soil blocking experiment. In summary, I think it has a lot of potential, but I’d make quite a few tweaks to it. Eliot Coleman’s mix uses compost, and a significant amount of mushroom compost from Mountain Meadow was mixed into ours. This compost smells highly anaerobic, and I think this had something to do with the fungus that many of our seedlings developed. We didn’t end up with a large number of seedlings like I expected we would. I’d also make sure to cover the planting holes of the 2” blocks (which Coleman actually says in the book, but I missed it). I’d also expand the overall space available, adding another rack for potting on. I’d consider getting the larger 4” blocker too, since adding a bunch of large plastic pots is a major hassle and seems to defeat the purpose of the blocker in some ways. Eventually we should get a greenhouse set up in order with some proper irrigation if we’re going to do this on a larger scale.
We’ve been having trouble with rabbits in the dead hedge garden -- they’ve demolished most of the hibiscus we planted and eaten the raspberries to the ground. Looks like we’ll need to add another layer of protection in there.
We also heard from the woman who owns the goat farm that we were going to get our two goats from last week -- turns out our two does aren’t actually pregnant. Apparently the buck they used wasn’t fertile. This throws a wrench in our plans, but we were both a bit relieved. It was going to be a major stretch to get infrastructure in place by the time they were coming, so we may wait until next spring and do more prep in advance -- learning how to milk, trading for goat milk to practice making products with, working on the rotational grazing plan, etc.
