Green Manures and Why Plant Them

wheat and vetch

People often ask what we mean by green manure.  It is a term used for a crop planted to cover the soil and add nutrients to the soil.  Clover and other legumes add nitrogen to the soil. Rye and deep rooted grasses break up hard soil.  Green manures also cover the soil and keep it more temperate like mulch does.  This promotes microbial life in the soil.  

Rye

The root matter of green manures adds organic matter to the soil.  The organic matter helps both sandy and clay soils become more like a sponge that has air and can hold moisture after rain.  Ken read a couple years ago that for each percentage of organic matter the soil has, the crops planted in that soil can go without rainfall - for example a field with five percent organic matter can support crops with no rainfall for a month.  This enables Ken to spend less time irrigating crops.

clover

Ken plants several different green manures and combinations of green manures.  Some over winter and others die with frost.  He chooses based on time of year. moisture, what is needed, and other factors

CSA Newsletter

Greetings from the Garden!  This box has a variety of lettuce and salad greens, baby beets with big tops, green onions, asparagus, bok choy, Chinese cabbage, radishes, and strawberries.

Field Notes.  This weekend marks the summer solstice.  It is the time of the longest days of the year.  Ken is taking full advantage of it, and often works until dark.  This season the push is on as spring started later than usual, so there was less time to do the spring tasks, especially those that depend on length of day.  The fact that Ken is nearly caught up is impressive.

With the warm days comes a whole new set of heat loving weeds.  Ken faithfully cultivates as soon as the soil is dry enough after each rain to stay ahead of the weeds.  On sunny windy dry days one pass with the hand cultivator and most weeds are finished.  Some weeds are a bit more tenacious - purslane for one.  Like many weeds, purslane and dandelions and plantain all came with European settlers as edible and medicinal greens.  Purslane looks like a rubber plant with its succulent leaves, but has a very lemony flavor.  It contains vitamin C and A; we often add it to the box as it is a nice salad addition.

Our other  news this week is the latest addition to our crew - a kitten.  Last year my efforts did not result in a dependable cat; the result was a lot of rodent damage here.  The worst were voles that ate fall planted spinach and spring seedlings when they were hardening off in the garden.  Although Oscar and Ken did catch a vole or two, it was after the damage had been done.  Although this kitten is only in training, it seems healthy and curious.  

From the Kitchen.  The baby beets have begun.  The first crop of beets seems so fresh - the greens are often large and so I see this as one of the "bonus vegetables" that have two delicious parts.  Cut the tops from the roots, and eat the tops soon.  Beets are in the same family as spinach and chard, so the beet greens will work for not only those greens recipes, but most any recipe for greens.  The roots are small and tender - so delicious.  

Chinese cabbage, like many Asian vegetables like bok choy, grows in cooler weather and at a faster rate than European cabbages.  Chinese cabbage is versatile - one friend tells me that Chinese cabbage makes great cabbage rolls.  I like to use the outer leaves in cooked dishes and slice the hearts into thin "ribbons" for salad.  My Asian salad dressing contains the following: sesame oil, a bit of toasted sesame oil, mild vinegar, tamari, a bit of honey,  powdered red pepper, and toasted sesame seeds.  Experiment to find the ratios you like. 
'Til Next Week, 
Judith

CSA Newsletter

Greetings from the Garden!  This box has a variety of lettuce, endive, salad and braising greens, sorrel,  young cilantro, green onions, radishes, sun chokes, asparagus, and strawberries as we have them.

Field Notes.  We have been getting plenty of rain.  A couple years back during several drought years, Ken joked that he forgot how to grow if we got adequate rain; this year may be the test!  It is so nice to see the crops and green manures look lush.

This has been a week of fencing - the bear fence, expanding the geese and pigs, and the cucumber fence in the garden.  Setting up fences takes time.  It is odd how many different jobs are involved in growing food - it is not just planting some seeds and harvesting!  

Ken has been cultivating all three growing spaces to stay ahead of weeds.  The heat loving plants have been doing well.  Our cool weather this week slows them down, so we will have to wait and see what the weather brings.Cool weather makes for great greens and all the brassica family like bok choy and Napa cabbage.  With heat the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and the members of the nightshade or solanaceae family thrive.  But even the nightshades prefer temperatures below 90; that is when they drop blossoms.

From the Kitchen. Endive is an early season favorite.  Each year I think of a friend who told me that she and her friend got together and their  favorite meal was endive with a creamy dressing and spaghetti with tomato sauce.  That would be a tasty combination!  Endive can also be cooked if it seems to have stronger or more bitter flavor than you like.  I often add rinsed chopped greens to hot pasta and toss before adding a sauce.

Strawberries - a power house of flavor and nutrition.  I eat them when I know their source - Why? Strawberries are often sprayed repeatedly with chemicals.  For more information check the Environmental Working Group's list of the Dirty Dozen - the fruits and vegetables with the highest chemical residues.  These in your box have no chemicals - organic or otherwise.  Rinse, eat and Enjoy!

'Til Next Week, 
Judith

Heat Loving Crops in the Mobile High Tunnel

With the lettuce and other greens out, the mobile high tunnel is filling up with heat loving crops like tomatoes and peppers.  

We are monitoring to keep temperatures at optimum for those crops - too cold means limited growth, and too hot means blossom drop and no fruit.  It feels a bit like Goldilocks and seeking that "just right" situation!

Strawberry Season Starts

Ken is doing some experimenting with fruit in the greenhouses.  

The strawberries in the greenhouse are ready to pick while the ones outside the greenhouse are just blooming

And we get the ones with blemishes - bird pecks, slug bites, etc

Flowers - Wild and Otherwise

So much is blooming right now!  The most fragrant is this wild apple - it has the tiniest fruit- just large enough to hold four seeds.  Ken thinks it is hawthorn or apple.

And the iris have begun!  this one from my friend Lesa..

and this from Janette

and the first of the Siberian iris, possibly my favorite flower.

Peonies from my mother are in the bud

And fragrant valerian is also in the bud

For wild flowers we have geranium

lady's mantle and false Solomon's seal

and annual self seeding daisies

CSA Newsletter

Back road to the mobile high tunnel

Greetings from the Garden!  This box has asparagus, lettuce, salad and braising greens, radishes, green onions or chives, bok choy, sun chokes and parsnips

a flower often planted for bees in Europe

Field Notes.  Ken is busy!  Many crops are going in this week  - like the curcurbit family such as cucumbers, melons and squash.  The zucchini is already in the garden.  Ken has been transplanting hot weather crops - tomatoes and peppers are in the mobile high tunnel.  Out in the field the onions and garlic look great.  And Ken has also been planting flowers for insectaries for beneficial insects and pollinators.  And in his "spare time" he is picking asparagus, pulling greens and radishes for farm sales, and doing all the animal chores.  No, I have not been lying on the sofa eating bon bons!

 With the rain the mosquitoes are hatching.  One evening they were so pesty that Ken wore his bee suit and leather gloves!  I have dug out insect repellent for the first time in years.  Although the mosquitoes may seem annoying, we are so glad there is moisture, and we just work around the weather.

Monday the wildlife damage person brought us a fence for the bear.  Ken has not encountered the large bear a second time, but as strawberries are just starting to ripen we are glad to have a way to keep the bears out of the greenhouse.  I netted the strawberries this weekend to protect them from the birds.  Many birds eat insects when they are laying eggs and feeding young, but once their young start to fly, they all are very happy to peck holes in strawberries!  Strawberries will appear in your CSA boxes as we have them.

Joy choy

From the Kitchen.  Bok choy is here.  I always get excited when the bok choy is ready - it is the first of the really solid food after the radishes and salad turnips.   It is in the category of what I call bonus vegetables - two delicious parts.  I usually cook bok choy briefly.  I separate the stems from leaves and cook stems a couple minutes and add the green leafy part just as I turn off the heat so it wilts and turns bright green. 

Red bok choy

I like bok choy cooked with onion of any type and one of my favorite additions just before serving is a little umeboshi vinegar - sweet sour and salty.  I also make an Asian dressing I use on everything from spinach to grilled asparagus to bok choy.  It is sesame oil, a little toasted sesame oil, a bit of honey, some mild vinegar, tamari or soy sauce and some powdered red pepper and toasted sesame seeds.

Beet thins are a versatile green.  I like to add the tender leaves to salad for sweetness and color.  They are great in stir fry or braising mixes.  Once we thin a few times the beet roots with tops are not far in the future!

'Til Next Week, 
Judith