Winterizing for Spring

[Chuck]

Most of us have already harvested just about everything in our Spring garden and those lucky enough to live where the ground doesn't freeze have already planted or is planting our Fall and Winter garden. But what about getting a head start on next year now by doing both? Now is the perfect time to enrich the soil with organic materials that will be the nutrients for next year and at the same time have a great harvest just before it is time to plant in the spring. There are many ways and methods but here is what I do. The first thing I do is dig a trench in my planting bed as shown in the first pic and fill it with compost or other organic materials as shown in pic 2. I then rake up the dug soil and smooth it into a nice raised bed as shown in pic 3. I happen to have a bunch of 4" PVC pipes that I scrounged out of dumpsters on construction sites that I worked on. You can use coffee cans, or 2 liter plastic bottles with the bottom cut out and achieve the same thing. I then place the pipes where each of my winter plants will be as in pic 3. I use these pipes only because I find it easier to pour compost tea into them as I walk along the row without having a lot of the tea run off into the walkway. I pour a quart of tea into each one 3 times a week until my seedlings are big enough to transplant. The distance between each pipe will be how far apart I will plant next years tomatos or peppers or whatever I have determined I will plant there next Spring. When I transplant this winters seedlings I will move a pipe half way to the next pipe thus establishing where next springs tomato will be planted as in pic 4 and pouring down compost tea through out the winter, giving my tomatos an extremely fertile soil to grow in.

 

[headfullofbees]

I have never seen soil that dry.

 

[Chuck]

I have never seen soil that dry.

Believe me Bees that soil is not dry (for this part of Texas anyway) It is actually slightly moist as it rained about a week and a half before. This July or August I will send you a pic of dry

 

[Momhardatwork]

Wow, I am very impressed by your dedication and hard work. Most people would not understand that what we put into our gardening is usually what we get out. I would be following this suggestion if I still had a yard but I have lots of inside plants and a deck garden. When I do obtain a house again, I will definitely follow your suggestions.
Thanks for the post!

 

[Chuck]

Wow, I am very impressed by your dedication and hard work. Most people would not understand that what we put into our gardening is usually what we get out. I would be following this suggestion if I still had a yard but I have lots of inside plants and a deck garden. When I do obtain a house again, I will definitely follow your suggestions.
Thanks for the post!

This is the first of many. I will be showing how I work my entire garden from a winter garden until this time next year. I am not expecting anyone to take my efforts as the gospel, only as a hint of the methods that they can use in their own circumstances

 

[zigs]

Will get started on mine when i've finished the Autumns burning of hedge cuttings.

 

[R.R.]

So, you pour compost tea 3 times a week where the tomatoes are gonna be growing next spring, right?

 

[Chuck]

So, you pour compost tea 3 times a week where the tomatoes are gonna be growing next spring, right?

Yes. I do this until I find the soil extremely fertile. My gauge as to what is extremely fertile soil is when I can reach down and grab a big double handful of soil and it has a bunch of earthworms in it. When this happens I slow down on the compost tea to 1 quart per week if it doesn't rain Instead of compost tea 3 times a week I add a teaspoon of bloodmeal, bonemeal, wormcastings, greensand etc.once a week on top of the soil and water it in with 1 quart of tea. This maintains the fertility of the soil while at the same time adding minerals and other nutrients without keeping the soil soaking sopping wet. I only do the 3 quarts per week for 3 weeks at the most. Just long enough for the buried compost to be activated.

 

[R.R.]

What attracts the worms? Compost tea?

What is greensand?

 

[headfullofbees]

That regime may work in the dry US, but have one HUGE concern about it in a wet climate like mine, it is this:

compost tea, especially actively-aerated compost tea, does not add a huge amount, if anything, in the way of nutrients to the soil.
What it does, is add huge numbers of microbes which make the nutrients already in the soil more easily available for plants to take up.

Here in the UK we already have to replace some nutrients which run off the soil due to the amount of rain we get; if we make more nutrients available to the rain, we may, in fact, be purging our soil of nutrients.

Here in the UK I'd be more likely to suggest ways of locking in nutrients, like growing green manure, and adding rotted down manure/compost.

Frankly, I just turn over the soil in clumps to let the frost get at it, breaking it down and killing many of last season's nasties.

 

[ChanellG]

Wow. That is a lot of work and from the photos it looks like a lot of area to maintain.

It also rains a lot here (though not lately) and one of the wetter periods is late winter/early spring. It can be make or break for some plants during that time because conditions can contribute to damping off.

 

[Chuck]

That regime may work in the dry US, but have one HUGE concern about it in a wet climate like mine, it is this:

compost tea, especially actively-aerated compost tea, does not add a huge amount, if anything, in the way of nutrients to the soil.
What it does, is add huge numbers of microbes which make the nutrients already in the soil more easily available for plants to take up.

Here in the UK we already have to replace some nutrients which run off the soil due to the amount of rain we get; if we make more nutrients available to the rain, we may, in fact, be purging our soil of nutrients.

Here in the UK I'd be more likely to suggest ways of locking in nutrients, like growing green manure, and adding rotted down manure/compost.

Frankly, I just turn over the soil in clumps to let the frost get at it, breaking it down and killing many of last season's nasties.

I agree with you on compost adding huge numbers of micro organisms. However I somewhat disagree on compost tea not adding nutrients. If you make compost tea with no nutrients in it then it will not have any. But, if you add nutrients to your tea as you make it you will in fact be adding nutrients. Having said this, compost tea does not make nutrients in and of itself. Where the nutrients are, as you correctly state, are locked up in the organic mater in our soil.

Lets make a bucket of compost tea. Let's start out with 2 or 3 handfuls of manure based compost. This manure has X amounts of NPK. Sheep manure very little, cow manure more than sheep and chicken manure quite a bit more than sheep or cow. When mixed in the aerated water it dissolves but it does not multiply which is great because if it did we would all have nitrogen burned plants. What we now have is in effect very diluted fertilizer or plant nutrients. Lets go a step further and add a tablespoon of bat guano. That diluted fertilizer isn't so diluted anymore.

I am sure you are just like me, always adding organic matter to your soil then waiting for the micro organisms to break it down, releasing the needed NPK and the trace minerals all plants need. By adding NPK to our compost tea all we are doing is hedging our bets on the race of micro organisms versus organic mater. Lets help out those micro organisms by cheating a little. Lets add an once or two of liquid humus or humate to our bucket of tea which will in itself help break down organic mater.

Growing green manure is a great way to add organic mater and nutrients to the soil but it has its drawbacks. You have to turn it under and wait for it to decompose. If you turn it under and immediately plant the CO2 released will be a detriment to fast growth. By letting a piece of ground planted with a green manure cover crop go fallow for a season is an excellent way refurbishing a weak or depleted soil but you still lose a season.

All in all with your abundant rain (ENVY HERE) and the leaching of nutrients I think adding NPK to your tea would be very beneficial and efficient way of delivering just about any nutrients your plants need and by adding molasses you are really speeding things up and making those mycorrhizae very happy

 

[headfullofbees]

No.
Here it's better to not turn it into water-soluble forms.
Mycorrhizae feed only from plants.

 

[Chuck]

No.
Here it's better to not turn it into water-soluble forms.
Mycorrhizae feed only from plants.

What you say about Mycorrhizae is true. What I am saying is that NPK solids or granules dissolved in your tea is a great delivery system. You will still have your plant material in the mix. Personally I find it advantageous to fertilize a little bit at a time than to fertilize a lot at once. Especially in your circumstance where rain may be washing away or diluting your source of NPK. I don't know how you water or even if you have to but I try to water with nothing but compost tea. I don't mix NPK every time, maybe every third time but I find adding a little NPK fairly regularly is a steady source of available nutrients (nitrogen) that allows my plants to keep growing at a very steady pace while at the same time not discouraging any of the micro organisms that are busy at work breaking down organic mater.

 

[Chuck]

What attracts the worms? Compost tea?

What is greensand?

Semi composted organic mater is what worms eat and having a steady source of carbohydrates in your tea helps break down larger particles of organic mater and also is of great benefit to micro organisms which is where molasses comes into play. Add it all together and you have worms.

Greensand is an ocean sediment that is a great source of minerals such as iron, plus a bunch of other minerals as well. It is or was mined in parts of Texas but now I think the UK is the largest producer. It is good stuff and lasts forever. Oh, and the reason it is called Greensand is because it is green