Concerning Comfrey:

 

I grow comfrey for many reasons. It an extremely hardy, strong and drought tolerant plant that propagates well. It blooms for a significant portion of the growing season and with it's potential medicinal properties, it makes a great pollinator feed.  I've even heard comfrey referred to as "the miracle plant. This one shown in the picture is the largest comfrey plant I have and as usual, it's loaded with bees.

Comfrey has a deep taproot system that can bring minerals up from deep underground and grows many large mineral-rich leaves quickly.

I use comfrey mainly as to make a "tea" for fertilizer and I compost a lot of the leaves too. Some people have used comfrey as a poultice to help heal cuts, burns, sprains and even broken bones, but I have no idea how well it works. Some say that it makes a good mineral supplement for certain grazing animals as well. Certain compounds in the plant make it somewhat toxic to humans, so I don't eat it..... much! 😉

Some varieties of comfrey have been notorious for spreading all over the place and taking over, but if you get the variety I have, it is sterile and only propagates by root division. Bocking 14 is the name of the variety I have. 

Comfrey wasn't available at any garden stores I visited, but a friend reccomended a local garden nursery. When I went there the first time, an old woman came out of the house and told me she was closed. When I came back the next time, the same woman was outside working and I had to track her down and ask if she had comfrey. She said she had some and led me arond the barn with her shovel in hand. We came up to one large comfrey cluster and she dug out a few sprigs of it with a little bit of roots on the end of them. I wasn't sure if they would be strong enough to make it home, but she was certain that they would be fine.

Well, the plants survived to say the least. They're very easy to care for and grow like no other. I usually cut them 2 or 3 times a year to freshen them up and use the leaves.

What I love most about raised beds...

 I was recently asked "What do you love most about raised beds?" There are many great reasons to use raised beds, such as:

Containment of soil 

Control over soil mixture 

Definition of the garden space 

Facilitates square foot gardening 

Raised soil height improves accessibility 

Reduces the need to walk on the soil

Planning is simpler

I think my favorite thing about raised beds is the organized look of it all.

Here is a picture of my "three sisters" bed from a few years ago. As you can see,I was able to mow the grass right up to the bed and weed whack along the edge for very clean look. That year, I topped the beds with 2 inches of compost that I had bought and it payed huge dividends. "Just looked them beans... and look at that corn!" (as Johnny Cash sang about)

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Me trying to explain to someone how their food is killing them.

🤣🤣🤣

7 Reasons why I love using my "Earth Machine" composters

Let me preface...

Earth Machine is a brand name of home sized compost bins. I remember seeing them for years before I got one and thinking it looked like an overturned trash can. Years ago, my coworker gave me this Earth Machine that he didn't use. I had just moved into my first home that had a yard I could work in and I immediately started gardening.  Over the years I acquired two more of these bins that were left at the roadside. I knew the value of what those people were getting rid of and I promptly turned the vehicle around to get them. 

7 Reasons why I love using my "Earth Machine" compost machines

1. It's easy

The Earth Machine has a venting lid on top where you load all your raw compost materials. The bulk of materials that I add in are leaves, grass clippings and any other garden waste. A lot of people get into composting to get rid of kitchen scraps, but I have found that kitchen scraps are not nearly enough material to fill one of these bins. They hold approximately one half of a cubic yard of material.

2. Structure

The black PVC construction is a strong, long-lasting material. It retains moisture and attracts solar energy to increase temperature. There are also vents on the side to let an appropriate amount of air into the bin to aid the composting process.

3. Access port

As you may see in the photo below, there is an access port at the bottom.  In theory, you can dig the finished compost from the bottom, but I have not had that experience.

4. Compact design 

The bin is only about 3 feet in diameter and about 3 feet tall, so it takes up very little space in the yard. The sides taper toward the top to make it easy to lift the bin off the pile.

5. Lightweight 

When it comes time to turn the pile, I can simply lift the bin up and off and move it to one side. Then I can turn the pile over, right into the bin again.

6. Efficiency 

If I keep these bins full, they can eat up a good portion of my grass clippings from a half acre of lawn. In the time between mowing, You can see how the pile sinks down from the top. 

7. Open bottom

Probably my favorite part of this bin is the open bottom. This feature allows the compost to touch the native soil and leaches compost tea into the surrounding area, turning your compost area into a metropolis of beneficial microorganisms. At my last home, the previous owner had used a lot of chemical lawn fertilizers and pesticides and I could not find a single worm for years on that property for years after I moved in. Then after about 5 years of gardening and composting, The earthworms became abundant.  

Final thoughts

One of the keys to composting is to keep the pile balanced. It needs a balance of green and brown materials, and a balance of moisture. Too much either way will slow down the process. 

I let someone use one of mine one time and they complained that it was full of flies and bugs. I looked inside and they weren't lying, but they didn't really have a compost pile in there, it was just a heap of watermelon rinds and corn husks mostly. If you know compost, you know that this is not a good way to do start building a pile.

How I planted Garlic: Autumn 2022

Here is what i started with: my summer garlic harvest from 2022 was approximately 100 bulbs.

This is my new garlic bed made with CMU (cinder) blocks. Interior dimensions of the bed are approximately 4'x8' (1.2m x2.4m). I poked the holes about 6" (15 cm) apart with a pointed stick. See the big peace sign in the background... my mom made that out of vines and sticks from the forest. Thanks Mom! ☮❤🙂

Break apart each bulb into individual cloves, but carefully leave skins fully attached. Each of my bulbs has 4 cloves on average. This past summer, I harvested about 100 bulbs

Push each clove down into the soil, about 4 inches (10 cm) deep.  I planted exactly 128 cloves in total. 

Space each clove about 6 inches (15 cm) apart side to side.

Cover with a deep organic, biodegradable mulch.  I used leaves and grass clippings, but wood chips or pine needles could also work. 

Three weeks later, I already see some sprouts coming through the leaves. Its going to be getting colder soon, so these should go dormant and come back with enthusiasm in spring! ✌❤🙂

Onion Harvest 2020

So, I harvested, cured and cleaned up my first batch of Egyptian walking onions. They aren't the biggest or the fastest growing onions in the world, but they are one of the easiest that I've grown so far.  

 

Fifteen years for one good carrot???

Yes, I have tried growing carrots many times over the past 15 years of growing my own garden. I've had gardens on six different properties and this year, I got what I think was my best carrot I've ever grown. 

In the past when I have attempted carrots, I either planted them too close, didn't have enough patience, let them get too weedy, didn't have the right fertility, who knows? They were always either very small, bitter or sometimes nothing but leafy tops.

This one was happy though and it lived a good life. I planted them in mid April with the radishes.  It was a danvers variety, known as a half size carrot; it was only 3 or 4 inches long, but the flavor was exceptional.

I actually didn't even mean to pick it, I was weeding and noticed something orange poking out from the pile.  That night I had it for dessert and it was sweet, tender and juicy. What a blessing! 

This definitely inspired me to try growing more.  Maybe I will try to plant a winter crop of them! ✌❤🙂