october is my busiest month of the year in the garden and outside the garden
we have our anniversary then i have 2 alzheimers events in the los angeles area
one i chronicled last week in this blog and tomorrow we go down to ucla for a volunteer appreciation brunch
then we have our walk to end alzheimers here in santa barbara then i am on an alzheimers panel following the showing of the documentary turning point at ucla
this month in my garden its transition time from the summer garden to the fall winter garden
in the garden right now i have some new and some old stuff
my curly leaf kale dinosaur kale three basils three peppers eggplant okra are still producing produce but they are slowing down
as i remove stuff from the garden i replenish the soil by doing this
i add a layer of unfinished compost or i might use mulch from my walkways
i cover that with a bag of soil conditioner or i might use compost if its available
for my recent garlic bed i dug up one of my walkways between my beds which are about 2 ft deep filled with mulch from 2 years ago
this stuff has all composted down and is full of compost
this was added as a 4 inch layer on my garlic bed
i then added the worm compost layer of about 2 inches from my 5 gallon worm tower bucket buried in my walkways
then i added a sprinkling of an organic fertilizer
then i forked it in with a broad fork which works all this stuff down deep as far as the forks go
then i soak it all in with a solution of fish emulsion seaweed molasses which is the old johns recipe from the natural gardener in austin
in this case it was about 60 california early garlic cloves known as the gilroy garlic
yes that gilroy where all those folks got slaughtered with the ak47 at the gilroy garlic festival
and i
added about 20 garlic cloves saved from last years garlic
i picked the best looking bulbs to use
yes plant them pointed side up about 1 1/2 in deep
eg
my onion bed which i did a month ago and will plant in a month with onions from dixondale farms in texas was prepped this way
i overseeded it with a cover crop of beans oats peas hairy vetch
in a month i will cut those down and feed the tops to my worms in my worm buckets
i have seven of those do the math thats 35 gallons of worm compost i am always making in my garden plus my mulch compost walkways that are almost 2 ft deep and 1 foot wide
i have 80 ft of walkways
so when you go to my garden and see that things are bigger and more productive than most in the community garden
well you know why now
remember the old garden saying you put a $5 plant in a $50 hole
so far for the fall winter i have planted new curly leaf kale dinosaur kale red kale rainbow chard broccoli cabbage lettuce mix multiplying onions garlic
to finish out the garden this fall winter i will add carrots sweet peas cilantro onions to what i have already planted
i will leave one of my beds fallow by prepping it like above and planting my cover crops on it
i will harvest the cover crop and let it lay where it grew to act as a mulch
i also leave the roots in the ground to breakdown and leave its nutrition in the soil
i also have ran a line from the two rainwater tanks so that the overflow from them will go into my walkways providing extra rainwater to keep the mulch wet
remember we can go 6 months or more without any rain
this month we invite school kids to do a garden program here in the garden
around 20 schools send over 600+ kids through our program each year
seeds pumpkins rainbow food nature appreciation
when they leave they have felt smelt eaten looked at all of our garden
and get to leave with a small pumpkin a bag of seeds a good time and a smile on their faces
mr hudson loves this pumpkin
he likes to sit on it and pat it
yep
its a busy month in the garden
i personally do at least 10 of these days
and
enjoy it
a new generation of kindergardeners
the organicgreen doctor
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