monsters of the earth

MONSTERS OF THE EARTH


we have all seen these little grub worms that get in our
grass
well your grass since i dont have lawn grass i have to
worry about
buffalo and thunderturf dont get the damage from these
varmints like st augustine bermuda and other lawn grasses do

if i do find one of these guys i usually just leave it along
or
i fling it over the fence to our country n chickens
and
the shark frenzy that occurs when the flock goes after
it
the winner chicken doesnt share is what i noticed

yesterday i got my bed where i will put my onions
in february
ready for the winter rest

i removed all weeds and cut off at the ground my peas
that were growing as a cover crop
leaving the roots in the ground to provide nutrition to the
soil as it breaks down
the pea fixed nitrogen to the soil as it grew
a natural fertilizer

then i raked the bed removing the mulch i had added
i always use mulch to hold moisture in the ground
and
to keep the soil cooler in the summer and warmer
in the winter
the mulch will also breakdown into compost
and
eventually into soil
good stuff mulch

i use pine straw if i can get it since its acid and allows
rain to get down to the soil but still keeps the soil
cool or warm
or
i use your leaves you gave me

then i applied 4 inches of my compost which is from
my chicken run area
its made up of newspapers paper shreddings cardboard
lots of your leaves and grass clippings you gave me
the chickens have been digging and shredding this stuff
and mixing it all up for me for over 6 months
they are my compost workers
of course they made frequent deposits in all this to
add lots of nitrogen to it

its not a finished product but its close

i rake it out even
i dont even work it into the soil
i added a thick dusting of pure composted chicken manure
i get from under the roosting area
its full of feathers poop and leaves
its a real high nitrogen compost
so im careful how much i use of this stuff

then i add handfuls of an organic fertilizer
i used ladybug brand 8-2-4
then
i soaked the whole bed with a mixture of humates and molasses
this provides energy sources for the good bacteria and fungi
that are needed to improve the soil

i then took some more of those leaves that you gave me
thanks again
and covered the area with about 3 inches of them



now i am ready to plant my 300+ onions in late janurary

note
we are about half way through the ones we harvested
in late may

they are hanging as onion chimes in our garage

when i was shoveling the compost from the chicken run
i threw a shovel load onto my garden bed
wow
is what i said
when is saw these guys



these are monsters of the earth
grubworms on steroids is what they looked like

in the past i use to throw them to the chickens
man talk about a chicken frenzy when the ladies saw
these guys

now i know better not to do that anymore
these monsters are the larva stage of the giant biggo
rhinoceros beetle

which does a great job making compost
they chew up plant materials breaking it up
and pooping out good fertilizer material

so i gently dug a hole in my garden bed
buried the guy
gave him a pet
thanking him for the job well done

the organicgreen doctor

beating the heat

BEATING THE HEAT
this is the time in the summer garden when its almost
too hot to garden


some things do well right now
like okra the hotter the better

other things in my garden like basal peppers like banana
bell poblano jalapeno and egg plant are doing well
my left over tomatoes from the spring are ending their
tomato producing careers
so


i have placed a solar cloth over them to keep the hot
summer sun off of them
the tomatoes probably will shut down soon but
the other things will continue on until the fall then
take off when those fall temperatures start to drop

in fact in the fall they are more productive and the fruits
are so  much bigger than in the spring

if of course i can keep those pesky grasshoppers off of them
im trying nollo bait which has a fungus in it that infects the
hopppers when they eat it
they die
other grasshoppers will cannibalize the dead ones
the cycle continues

i also have sowed black eyed peas on the beds that have
been harvested like the onions and potatoes and garlic

the peas are a cover crop that fixes nitrogen in the soil
plus if im lucky i will produce enough peas to have a
mess or too for eating with my wife shes cornbread

yes she cooks it in an iron skillet and flips it over
half way through the cooking

speaking of onions
my mom in law is here visiting and one of the jobs
we save for her is to put up the onions
so we had close to 200 onions to put up
how do we do it
we place an onion in an old pair of pantyhose
in the leg
swing it around
tie it off
then add another onion etc etc etc


thats how we get our onion chimes

i know its hotter than hell here but its also time here in
central texas to plant the fall tomatoes
so
i went of course to one of the top nurseries in the us
the natural gardener in austin texas to get my tomatoes
they are hard to find anywhere else this time of year

i planted them in a bed where the peas were growing
i cut off the peas at the ground leaving the roots in the soil
to continue to breakdown and provide nutrition to the soil
i then added 4 inches of dairy cow manure i bought since my
country n compost isnt ready yet
then i added a scattering of an organic fertilizer over the compost
i used ladybug 8-2-4
then i added a light dusting of cottonseed meal
then i gently worked this into the top 2 inches of the soil
sometimes i just plant right in the compost
in the hole for planting i sprinkled the earthworm castings
thats worm poo
then i watered the tomato plant in well with liquid seaweed
then i put a small collar around the base of the base of the
tomato plant with a sliver of wet newspaper to protect it
from being cut down by the cutworm

then i  covered the soil with a thick layer of mulch
which was leaves that had been partially composted
and made that layer about 4 inches thick
to hold moisture in and to protect the soil from the sun and heat

then i set up pvc pipes and covered that with some row cover
to block off that mid day and afternoon sun

then all i need to do is keep them watered until the fall
i use drip irrigation with my rainwater i collect

here is one of my milkweeds i planted this year
i have 5 of these planted
to help those monarch butterflies as they migrate through this area
i am looking forward to the monarch display this fall

so there is stuff to do in your garden right now to get
ready for the fall garden
try getting your beds ready with the compost and fertilizer and
mulch so all you have to do this fall is plant the stuff
remember around here the fall is the best time
to garden in this area

the organicgreen doctor

your ps and os

YOUR PS AND OS
this is about gardening
knowing when to plant and what to plant

here in central texas the two things to plant now are
ps
potatoes
and
os
onions

they both need to be planted now here to get them going
good so they can be ready to harvest
before the suffocating heat in texas hits us in the summer

i planted the potatoes and the onions in their own beds
that are 4 ft x 14 ft
the width is 4 ft so i can easily reach across to the middle of the
bed from each side

these two beds are hugelkultur like beds i made last year
click on the link and read my blog on this and see the link
on a newspaper article on using this method

basically each bed is about 2-3 feet deep with layers of cardboard
newspapers logs limbs leaves compost dirt more layers of leaves
compost dirt newspapers until the bed is complete
then its topped off with 3-4 inches of my country n compost
sweet smelling stuff

i put cottonseed meal and lady bug brand 8-2-4 fertilizer on these
beds several weeks ago and covered them with a layer of oak leaves
i let this all cure during this time
then

two weeks ago
i got about 300 plants of 1015 onions a sweet onion that does
well for us each year

we had the best onions ever last year
i figured out over time that 300 is about the right number to plant
we pick every other one as we need green onions












at harvest we store them in those onion chimes ive written about
before

i get the onion plants the size of a pencil that come in bunches of
about 25+

i plant them one hook em horn distance apart the first knuckle depth
yep i have one dirty finger at the end of the day that takes a long time
to get back to normal
about 4-6 inches is the width apart i plant them

i water them in with liquid seaweed
sprinkle them with a light covering of pine straw
and
when its cold i keep them covered with row cover that white sheet
stuff that acts like a blanket to keep it warm but allows the blanket
to breath and allows water to penetrate

on warm days i take the cover off

they are harvested usually in june based on the weather
the plants start falling over so they tell you when its time

pictures will be posted of the harvest

for the ps
potatoes
i use the same beds
prepped the same way

i get seed potatoes from the nursery
i get red lasoda since we like red potatoes and they do well here

i try to find and pick out the small taters so i dont ever cut them
dry them and put sulfur on them
that just seems like too much work
i just take the tater and drop it in the hole

i dig a trench thats 8 inches long down the length of the bed
then dig a second one so that they are spaced 2 feet apart

i drop the uncut taters in the hole 1 ft apart

i then cover them slightly with soil
in between the taters i sprinkle some of the organic fertilizer
the bed is then covered with a thick row cover until the weather is warmer

as the plant grows out of the dirt i add more dirt until the plant gets eventually
up to the level of garden surface
so i have 8 inches of depth for the tater to grow new ones

usually in june when the plant starts to die back some i harvest the
taters
however ive usually been digging out new potatoes for a few weeks before
i do my final harvest
i cant keep my hands out of the soil

i plant about 28 taters and i get usually 2-3  5 gallon buckets of potatoes

so its time
you can even plant the potatoes in buckets or barrels or pots

they the ps and os need to be planted now though

so
mind your ps and os

the organicgreen gardener

whats left

WHATS LEFT

take thousands and thousands of these guys and put them
in a bag
you know a lot of you do this every year and put them on the
curb to be disposed of in usually land fields

we use to like to rake them up and jump in them and scatter them
i guess because we didnt have snow
we made leaf angels

thanks to the campises guynes butlers and nagles last year
hope i didnt leaf anyone out
and
thanks to my wife she and even me on occasion jumping
out of our car or truck and taking some of those bags off
your curb
hope you didnt mind
we accumulated close to a hundred bags of their and your leaves

so what did we do with your leaves and whats left of them

whats left allowed me to take this











an onion set i only plant the 1015 onions do so in january
300+ of them
then
in june i pull up the completed onion

this one is sitting right now on my kitchen cabinet
plucked from our garden in june
waiting to be used tonight on our pizza

heres what happened to your leaf

we placed the leaves in a layer about 1-2 ft deep in our
chicken run which runs around three sides of our garden
for a total of 90 ft
it is about 3 ft wide
think of a c laying on its back

then the chickens from march to now december walk through
these leaves
pick out any weed seeds any insects
then scratches and scratches and scratches them
if you have ever seen chickens scratch then you know what i mean
if you havent then its your loss

so that now in december they are shredded down to fine particles
which when combined with months of chicken deposits
and moisture and composting
make the best compost ever
it smells you know how good dirt and compost smells
so good you could almost eat it
almost

here is a picture of one leg of my chicken run or my compost pile
this week

this layer of compost is 3-4 inches deep
is 3 ft wide
is 90 ft long
running this information in the cubic foot calculator from the
natural gardener
i calculate that i have about 3 cu yards of the best compost
that you can ever use on your garden
that that you make yourself

i dug some of this up and after clearing off my 4 ft x 12 ft bed
where last year we had tomatoes planted
this year will be my onion bed
the bed is a combo of the anthill or hugelkulter method 
and
the keyhole garden method

i then place a 3-4 inch layer of my or your leaf compost on
the bed and spread it out evenly
i scattered an organic fertilizer in this case i used ladybug 8-2-4
you can use medina growin green or any good organic fertilizer
commercial fertilizers can build up salts in the garden
contaminate our water system
and can harm the dirts bacteria fungi and worms etc
then
i lightly scatter cottonseed meal over the bed

then
i cover it with a mulch i use in this case pine straw as it easily
lets in water but provides protection and warmth from the cold
sometimes i use your leaves for the mulch

now i wait
and let all this marinate now for two months
let it get good and rich and get that right flavor
then
i rake off the pine straw
poke a hole in the ground with my gloveless index finger
i like the dirt on my finger and under my nails
it seems to connect me better with my garden
i lightly sprinkle in some earth worm castings
then
i drop in the green onion plant and this all starts over again
and
we make these onion chimes again

you should try this
saving your leaves
make your own mulch
plant your own garden
see whats left
of your leaf

thanks again to the above mentioned families for their
kind donations to the country n organic garden

the organicgreen gardener