Hi Everyone.
You should be in the middle of your fall harvest now, enjoying this gorgeous weather and also doing some cleanup for the winter. Now is the perfect time to clean up, getting rid of those dead plants, taking care of tools, etc. Remember to either bag and throw away or burn any plant material that is diseased or heavily infested by insects or full of seeds, but compost most stuff rather than throw it away. Every piece that you can recycle within your property adds to your level of sustainability. Creating your own compost, rather than purchasing it in bags is a great If you’re not composting now, you really should start. You know that compost adds organic matter to the soil, as well as providing a bit of nutrition, but the thing that it does the most is feed and support the micro herd. Those little guys work so hard supplying nutrients to our plants and keeping the soil open to allow air and water to move through easily, that we should really do everything that we can to help them out. That includes providing them with compost, avoiding tilling as much as possible, avoiding chemicals, which kill them, and keeping the soil covered with organic mulch to prevent dramatic temperature swings, maintain even soil moisture, and provide a continuous flow of organic material for the micro herd.
There are a lot of ways to make compost. There’s the traditional way of building a holder or multiple holders for the waste to be composted, loading up the first one, periodically turning the material from one container to the next one until the material is well broken down, and then putting it on the garden. There’s a lot of material on composting, from books and magazines, to tons on the internet, so I’m not going to do a treatise on composting, but I will mention a couple of easy ways to make compost that don’t involve turning or building or much else that involves hard work.
Here’s one method that works especially well if you don’t have very large quantities of waste. Just keep a blender reserved for kitchen wastes on the counter or any other easily accessible area. It has to be easy to reach or you won’t do it. As each bit of waste occurs, add it to the blender and replace the cover. When the blender gets about half full, add some water and blend it up. Really grind it up good. You want tiny, tiny pieces. Now take it to the garden, pull back the mulch over an area, pour on the contents of the blender and replace the mulch. Done! The tiny bits - thanks to the blender - will break down very quickly, providing nutrients and humus for the micro herd and through them, for the plants.
But what can you do when you have larger quantities to deal with — either because you cook for a lot of people or you’re including lots of garden waste and leaves, too? Well, just designate a shady area that is both out of the way and readily accessible to the garden. Pile all of your stuff there. The pile should be at least three feet square, but more is fine. Once everything is piled up, water it well, cover it with a tarp, and forget it for a year – with one exception. During dry weather you can check it periodically and add water if it gets too dry. It should be about as damp as a wrung out sponge. But you only have to do that if you want to maximize the output. When you take that tarp off at the end of the year, you will have a beautiful pile of compost. All you have to do is move it to the garden. Thus the reason for choosing a spot with easy access to the garden. There may be a few large pieces that aren’t fully broken down yet, but all you have to do is sift or pull them out and throw them on the start of next year’s pile.
Okay. For planting during November, you can still plant carrots and radishes if you do it really quickly before the end of the first week of the month. You have all month to plant garlic, shallots, spinach and turnips. The recommended varieties of shallots are Matador and Prisma for bulbs and Evergreen for greens. You have more choices with spinach – Bloomsdale Long-Standing, Melody (AAS, DM), Unipak 151 (DM) and Tyee (DM) are all recommended savoyed or wrinkled varieties. By the way, ’DM’ after the name stands for downy mildew resistance, and since that is one of the worst problems we have with spinach, I think it pays to choose downy mildew resistant seed. If you prefer the smooth-leaf types, choose Ballet or Tiger Cat, neither of which is resistant to downy mildew. When selecting turnip seed, the recommended varieties are Just Right (AAS), Purple Top, Shogoin, Tokyo Cross (AAS), and White Lady.
If you planted carrots in October, remember that you should side dress them with 6 to 7 pounds of 8-8-8 fertilizer or 4 to 5 pounds of 8-24-24 per 100 foot row, three to four weeks after planting. If you haven’t planted yet, make a note for next month. Side dress with 4 to 5 pounds of 8-8-8 fertilizer or 3 to 4 pounds of 8-24-24 for garlic, but do it four to six weeks after transplanting. If you planted Irish potatoes during August or September, you should side dress them with 6 to 8 pounds of 8-8-8 fertilizer or 5 to 6 pounds of 8-24-24 when the plants are 6 to 10 inches tall. You should also fertilize your cole crops, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, collards, kale, kohlrabi and mustard, with 5 to 6 pounds of 8-8-8 or 3 to 4 pounds of 8-24-24. Do this 3 to 4 weeks after transplanting and again in 2 to 3 weeks. “Cole,” by the way, is a description of plants in the Cruciferae or mustard family that are descended from a wild cabbage found around the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. They are also called Brassicas. “Cole” is often confused with “cold,” which seems to make sense as they actually are grown during the cold part of the year, and often taste even better after being exposed to a light frost, but the proper description is “cole.”
Well that’s about it for November. I hope you continue to enjoy this beautiful weather. If only it would rain a little. Remember when we were complaining about too much?
Until next time, Happy Gardening
You should be in the middle of your fall harvest now, enjoying this gorgeous weather and also doing some cleanup for the winter. Now is the perfect time to clean up, getting rid of those dead plants, taking care of tools, etc. Remember to either bag and throw away or burn any plant material that is diseased or heavily infested by insects or full of seeds, but compost most stuff rather than throw it away. Every piece that you can recycle within your property adds to your level of sustainability. Creating your own compost, rather than purchasing it in bags is a great If you’re not composting now, you really should start. You know that compost adds organic matter to the soil, as well as providing a bit of nutrition, but the thing that it does the most is feed and support the micro herd. Those little guys work so hard supplying nutrients to our plants and keeping the soil open to allow air and water to move through easily, that we should really do everything that we can to help them out. That includes providing them with compost, avoiding tilling as much as possible, avoiding chemicals, which kill them, and keeping the soil covered with organic mulch to prevent dramatic temperature swings, maintain even soil moisture, and provide a continuous flow of organic material for the micro herd.
There are a lot of ways to make compost. There’s the traditional way of building a holder or multiple holders for the waste to be composted, loading up the first one, periodically turning the material from one container to the next one until the material is well broken down, and then putting it on the garden. There’s a lot of material on composting, from books and magazines, to tons on the internet, so I’m not going to do a treatise on composting, but I will mention a couple of easy ways to make compost that don’t involve turning or building or much else that involves hard work.
Here’s one method that works especially well if you don’t have very large quantities of waste. Just keep a blender reserved for kitchen wastes on the counter or any other easily accessible area. It has to be easy to reach or you won’t do it. As each bit of waste occurs, add it to the blender and replace the cover. When the blender gets about half full, add some water and blend it up. Really grind it up good. You want tiny, tiny pieces. Now take it to the garden, pull back the mulch over an area, pour on the contents of the blender and replace the mulch. Done! The tiny bits - thanks to the blender - will break down very quickly, providing nutrients and humus for the micro herd and through them, for the plants.
But what can you do when you have larger quantities to deal with — either because you cook for a lot of people or you’re including lots of garden waste and leaves, too? Well, just designate a shady area that is both out of the way and readily accessible to the garden. Pile all of your stuff there. The pile should be at least three feet square, but more is fine. Once everything is piled up, water it well, cover it with a tarp, and forget it for a year – with one exception. During dry weather you can check it periodically and add water if it gets too dry. It should be about as damp as a wrung out sponge. But you only have to do that if you want to maximize the output. When you take that tarp off at the end of the year, you will have a beautiful pile of compost. All you have to do is move it to the garden. Thus the reason for choosing a spot with easy access to the garden. There may be a few large pieces that aren’t fully broken down yet, but all you have to do is sift or pull them out and throw them on the start of next year’s pile.
Okay. For planting during November, you can still plant carrots and radishes if you do it really quickly before the end of the first week of the month. You have all month to plant garlic, shallots, spinach and turnips. The recommended varieties of shallots are Matador and Prisma for bulbs and Evergreen for greens. You have more choices with spinach – Bloomsdale Long-Standing, Melody (AAS, DM), Unipak 151 (DM) and Tyee (DM) are all recommended savoyed or wrinkled varieties. By the way, ’DM’ after the name stands for downy mildew resistance, and since that is one of the worst problems we have with spinach, I think it pays to choose downy mildew resistant seed. If you prefer the smooth-leaf types, choose Ballet or Tiger Cat, neither of which is resistant to downy mildew. When selecting turnip seed, the recommended varieties are Just Right (AAS), Purple Top, Shogoin, Tokyo Cross (AAS), and White Lady.
If you planted carrots in October, remember that you should side dress them with 6 to 7 pounds of 8-8-8 fertilizer or 4 to 5 pounds of 8-24-24 per 100 foot row, three to four weeks after planting. If you haven’t planted yet, make a note for next month. Side dress with 4 to 5 pounds of 8-8-8 fertilizer or 3 to 4 pounds of 8-24-24 for garlic, but do it four to six weeks after transplanting. If you planted Irish potatoes during August or September, you should side dress them with 6 to 8 pounds of 8-8-8 fertilizer or 5 to 6 pounds of 8-24-24 when the plants are 6 to 10 inches tall. You should also fertilize your cole crops, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, collards, kale, kohlrabi and mustard, with 5 to 6 pounds of 8-8-8 or 3 to 4 pounds of 8-24-24. Do this 3 to 4 weeks after transplanting and again in 2 to 3 weeks. “Cole,” by the way, is a description of plants in the Cruciferae or mustard family that are descended from a wild cabbage found around the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. They are also called Brassicas. “Cole” is often confused with “cold,” which seems to make sense as they actually are grown during the cold part of the year, and often taste even better after being exposed to a light frost, but the proper description is “cole.”
Well that’s about it for November. I hope you continue to enjoy this beautiful weather. If only it would rain a little. Remember when we were complaining about too much?
Until next time, Happy Gardening
MaryAnn Armbruster, Ph.D.
MaryAnn Armbruster, Ph.D. is a certified Advanced Master Gardener and member of the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners.
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