April Showers....YOU'RE LATE!!!

A few days ago we had a freeze which drove home the "He who plants first, plants twice" maxim of waiting until your last average frost date to put the majority of your cold sensitive crops out. Luckily the only thing I had at risk were two types of bean, the Soy and French String beans. The Soy are the only ones that made it and most likely only because I had some row cover over them. After that freeze hit we've been under a steady barrage of rain showers which has kept me mostly out of the fields. Instead I spend the time packing the germination chamber as full of 10x20 trays full of herb and tomato seedlings as I can and helping Kristie unpack and set up our new house in the Blawnox/Fox Chapel area. Someday this rain will end, and when it does I'll be waiting...

Read more...

Compost Tea vs. Compost Extract

I was at Construction Junction (A Brett-Approved reuse store  in Pittsburgh) the other day and saw they had big burlap sacks for only $1.50. It was like the universe telling me to get off my duff and get to making some compost tea because making compost tea is what you have to do when you are trying to use 1st year soil to produce for a market garden. So, I got my burlap bags, took them up to the farm, grabbed one garden fork full of chicken poop & hay-aged compost (aged means it had already peaked, plateaued and fallen off of 150 degrees F), placed it in the sack, and put the sack in a tub full of water and went about doing other chores.

I came back an hour or so later and the tub was daaaark brown. Darker brown then I thought it was going to be.  I figured I'd leached enough compost goodness out of the mix and now just had to get it into the soil that was about to be seeded in the next week or two. As I was spreading the goodness I got to wondering if what I had was technically 'Compost Tea.'  Turns out it was not, it was something between 'Compost Leachate' and 'Compost Extract'.   Compost Tea would have required a 3-day steeping period, an oxygenation source like an aquarium pump and air stones, and a food source like molasses for the microbes to eat as they multiplied. What I spread today was still good for the soil but it wasn't as crazy good as compost tea. Here is an AWESOME paper that covers more than you ever wanted to know about the liquid gold, Compost Tea.

Read more...

Biggest Watering Can EVAR!!!

So, in honor of it raining a bunch lately, I thought I'd do a lil' post on irrigation. The only active field currently in range of a hose at SVF is Field 497.  Field 502 will have to rely on rain, manually carried water, and terra-forming/permaculture methods to meet those crops watering needs. As 502 is contour-cropped into the side of a hill, I have gravity on my side.  By using swales (mini-ditches along the rows to allow water to pool and sink in), I can increase the soil's ability to hold water increasing the days without rain the soil can go before drying out. If and when the soil does dry out I am in the process of setting up a super-huge watering can on wheels. We located a 275 gallon plastic tote on CraigsList for supah-cheap.

Rain On Wheels

Stored empty, it is placed into the bed of the truck, filled from the well (future plans have us acquiring another similar container and attaching that to the barn roof rain spout and using that rain water to fill the mobile can), truck drives to where water is needed then we have a lil in-line pump that can be run off a 12V battery to pressurize the water coming out the hose equivalent to a regular garden faucet. Of course, with as wet as it's been so far we haven't had to use it yet but it's there for if and when we do.

Read more...

Tool of the Week-Pocket Knife

Specifically the Benchmade 806D2 AFCK AXIS.

I've had the knife for about 6 years, I've carried it through 2 combat tours in Iraq and the general harsh conditions that being with Brett on a daily basis entails and this thing has performed admirably.  Nowadays, I use the blade for farm related tasks, cutting bailing wire, breaking off chunks of lime, spot prunnings, etc...  As you can see from the pic on the left, the screws that hold the pocket clip on can get loose and fall out.  This is not a fault of the blade but more a factor of me carrying the blade on my right hand pocket which is also where my M-4 rifle fell on a tactical sling so the  pocket clip took a lot of abuse.  Benchmade warranties their knives for life and will send you replacement parts for as long as you own the knife (I've got a new clip and screw set on the way).  Though the D2 steel model is no longer made the same knife is available with a new type of steel as the 806-901 AFCK, I can highly recommend this knife and this company, they are truly Brett-Proof and thus they are Brett-Approved.

Read more...