Soil Fertility - Part Three - Green Manure and Cover Crops

Writing this from Arizona, where there is such incredible soil erosion, both generally in the landscape and also in the dust clouds over the denuded fields shorn of one crop and awaiting another, seems to give a sense of timeliness to the discussion of keeping land "clothed".

Reasons for planting cover crops include reducing soil erosion, increasing soil fertility and maintaining moisture in the soil. Bare soil is open to erosion both from wind and heavy rain.

 Bare soil tends to develop a crust which prevents moisture from soaking in, especially in a hard rainfall. This happens in the "washes" of the the American Southwest where there are dangerous flash floods annually. This suspension bridge (below) in Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Arizona seems completely unnecessary. But in the monsoon season the creek bed underneath will instantly become a wild and rushing torrent.

Suspension bridge in Boyce Thompson Arboretum,  Arizona

Here in Toronto in the case of Keating Channel where the Don River empties into Lake Ontario, the banks of the river have been replaced with concrete and metal walls so the water doesn't have a chance to leach slowly into what was originally a naturally occurring flood plain.

Mouth of the Don River with concrete walls

When cover crops are planted to increase soil fertility they are called green manure. These cover crops can be selected to contribute specific nutrients to the soil. Legumes, for example, are planted because they can fix nitrogen from the air in the soil. But any cover crop will add organic matter when turned into the soil. The continued process of adding biomass will slowly improve soil structure, water retension and microbial life.

I was able to get some organic rye seeds from my farmer friend, Charlie, to plant in the new beds in the field after I had dug the potatoes. Next spring I will spread compost over the rye and then turn it into the soil. If the soil is poor then cover crops can actually deplete nutrients as the decompose. So spreading manure or compost before turning in the cover crop should ensure that it is actually contributing (and not removing) fertility.

Rye on the left and Dutch white clover on the path

Rye three weeks after sowing

 I had originally thought that the path bisecting the beds on a north/south axis could just be earth, which would compact over time. However, as the summer progressed and we experienced prolonged drought punctuated by infrequent torrential downpours, I realized that with its gentle downward grade the path was going to become a major source of soil erosion. So I have sown Dutch white clover. It will not be turned into the soil but will need to be periodically mown. I'll either leave the clippings in place or, if there are enough, rake them onto the adjacent beds.

Clover germinating on the path

Soil Fertility Part Two - Fall leaves

Officially fall is here and, perhaps a little late, the leaves are starting to turn colour and soon streets and hillsides will be a riot of oranges, reds and yellows.  But that is not the only fall ritual that is returning - there is also the bagging of fall leaves for collection in the city or to be deposited at the dump in the country.

One maple in the Don Valley changing colour

Each day my headstrong dog, Scylla, takes me out for a walk. Last year, a little later in the season when the deadline for leaf collection was fast approaching, virtually every house we walked by was lined with brown paper bags of leaves. The scramble was on to get rid of these blights on the landscape. But which was the blight - each home's two to twenty kraft paper bags or the leaves within?

One household's leaf bags last year

This practice of getting rid of autumn leaves seems to be a powerful symbol of how completely we have distanced ourselves from nature, and common sense. When hardwood trees shed their leaves in the fall that is as much a part of the cycle of growth and regeneration as the first snowdrop pushing through the snow in March and these same trees leafing out in the spring.

Each bag of leaves sitting on the sidewalk is a source of free fertilizer for that household. Yet we use finite resources to produce garden waste bags, we pay city workers to remove the leaves and then use precious fossil fuels to transport them to a composting facility. Next spring each household is allowed to drive to a transfer station and take one cubic mere of finished compost back home to their garden. Since gardens need more nourishment than the the next trip is to the garden centre to purchase commercial fertilizer, which is sold in heavy plastic bags. So we pay to have our own free fertilizer removed and the later spend more money to buy an inferior commercial version of what we could have had for free.

Removing leaves from streets can be justified. Wet leaves contribute to slick driving conditions and add to the burden of snow removal in the winter. But household leaves are a different matter. They are a free and easy source of much needed organic matter and nutrients that nature intends to be returned to the soil each year. The cycle shade trees go through each year from leafing out in the spring to providing us relief from the sun in the summer to losing their leaves in the fall is a perfect natural system. As long as we don't interfere.

Fall leaves are an incomparable source of nutrients.  Being deep rooted, trees are able to bring up minerals not accessible to more shallow rooted shrubs, perennials and annuals. These minerals then end up in the leaves which fall to the ground as the weather cools. Whether you're thrifty and hate spending money unnecessarily, want a pristine uncluttered lawn or just love your garden and want it to be as beautiful as possible, fall leaves are to be hoarded, coveted, cherished.

Just a few trees starting to change colour

Depending on the need or energy of the homeowner, leaves can be used to produce leaf compost, mulch or leaf mold. Each of these requires a slightly different process and vary in their nutritional value and garden usage.

For compost, leaves provide a much needed source of carbon. Most composting tends to have ready supplies of nitrogen from grass clippings and most kitchen waste. Carbon is necessary for the heating up and then breaking down of raw materials. Shredding leaves and turning the compost pile will hasten decomposition but are not necessary. There are approximately twice as many minerals in leaf compost as in manure. Leaf compost is an important source of organic material and will miraculously remediate virtually any soil type - clay to sand.

Leaf mulch is just shredded leaves. It can be used immediately to protect shrubs and tender perennials from the extremes of winter cold and summer drought. To prevent matting a certain amount of shredding is worth the minimal effort.

While leaf mold is not as rich a fertilizer as leaf compost it does have the ability to retain water three to five times its weight. Once again shredding the leaves is beneficial. They are left in a pile and as long as there is adequate moisture they will turn to a rich crumb in a couple of years.

Whether it be leaf compost, much or mold, all are easy to make in a forgotten corner of the yard. Then the next spring or fall each household has a free, accessible source of fertilizer. No more driving to garden centres and lugging home heavy plastic bags of triple mix, fertilizer or peat moss, which is a finite resource and as such should be avoided.

Then there is the issue of draft paper bags. No they haven't been bleached but they have been manufactured using vast quantities of water at sustained high temperatures. Kraft paper is an excellent product and has its place. Garden bags just aren't one of them.

And what about gas powered leaf blowers? Think of the sheer absurdity of a landscape company which claims to be taking care of your lawn and garden and, in the process, consumes fossil fuels operating a machine at obnoxious noise levels whose purpose is to blow away all your property's natural and free fertilizer maintenance in the name of maintenance. And you pay them to do it!

Last October my daughter, Alex, returned to Ontario for the month. While here she visited my parents in Burlington. One day was beautiful and sunny and Alex and her 88 year old grandmother spent the day spreading the previous year's leaf mold around the garden and raking the leaves into the chicken wire enclosure to await the transformation into next year's garden "gold". Both of them told me how much they enjoyed the day: each other's quiet companionship, the beautiful weather, puttering around in the garden and the anticipation of repeating the whole experience next year. It sounded like the perfect day.

Sumach, often the first to change colour,  in full fall glory

Quitte a few years ago the City of Toronto stopped collecting grass clippings - suggesting that they be left on lawns instead to act as slow acting fertilizer. How enlightened. I can only hope that one day both cities and town waste disposals will come to the same conclusion about leaf collection.

I get by with a little help from my friends

The time has come to pay tribute to the friends and family who helped out in the garden this year. While it is true that "many hands make light work" it is also just a nice place to have lots of people around; a big farmhouse kitchen to eat meals in, a pool to cool off in and the beautiful paths through the woods to the corner of the field that Christopher so carefully maintains all season long.

Avo
Avo has helped out on projects for over twenty years, from building the deck and the stairs (twice now) with Christopher, to working with Alex to prune trees in our woods. He has provided the chainsaw again and again - most recently to deal with the huge limb that broke off our old apple tree, one of the few trees that we inherited when we bought the property more than twenty years ago.

Avo ready to start replacing the back stairs

Alex and Avo discuss strategy for removing this pine tree

Alex

Alex's primary interest is in trees. She has provided and planted many native trees and roses and helped plant the whips that we got to start our woods. And she has returned to prune many of those trees which have grown into a bona fide little forest. Together we also made the hot boxes this spring. And she has pulled many a weed over the years.

A sunny day in the spring as Alex prepares the ground for the hotboxes

Diane
Diane is a more recent recruit.  This spring she mulched our struggling young trees with cardboard and clippings from the pruning Avo and Alex were doing on the more established trees. And I think, despite the drought of this summer, that the young trees Diane mulched have really benefitted from the reduced competition at their base. Then later in the spring we worked together on planting the first potatoes.

Diane digs trenches for the French Fingerlings

Benjamin
Benjamin and I had never met but we had a warm relationship through email since he has become a member of the CSA this spring. So I was thrilled when he volunteered to come up and help out. While he weeded the raspberries and dug Yukon Gold potatoes I was finally able to weed the leek bed. Later he helped save lettuce and kale seed. Only later that day did I learn that he took time to make the visit ten days before his wedding!

Having finished weeding the new raspberries Benjamin moves on to digging Yukon Gold potatoes

Jill
Jill came for just over 18 hours but even so she stayed long enough to dig some of the Banana Fingerlings.

 Jill puts her efforts into digging Banana fingerlings

Charlie
Charlie has helped me in so many ways in the past couple of years. He is really the only other person I know in my area with whom I can swap tales of woe and triumph and compare how the season is going in general. As a farmer with a diversified operation including fields of grain and livestock he has also been able to help with everything from tilling my new bed in the field to giving me some of his own organic rye to plant as a cover crop this fall.

Charlie tills a new bed in the field

Thea and Scylla
And last but certainly not least, my four footed constant companions, Thea and Scylla. They keep me company, agree with everything I say to them all day long and remind me that by the time the shadows are long, the time has come for some R and R. Which is a glass of wine or beer for me and playing "catch" for them - the squeaky ball for Thea and the cuz or "squirrel" for Scylla.

Scylla covetously guards her cuz while Thea keeps a watchful eye as I add manure to this about-to-be seeded bed 

And now four months later all that has really changed is which bed we're in

 So a big thank you to everyone who came and helped make another successful season!

Soil Fertility Part One - Making compost

For the past couple months I have been increasingly interested in increasing and maintaining soil fertility.

 Part of my interest was because of the difficulties caused by the terrible drought this summer. A farmer I was talking to at the Farm Supply store a couple of weeks ago said his farm got 1 mm of rain in July and 2 mm in August! Our area of central Ontario was particularly parched this year.

I also finally decided to read An Agricultural Testament by Sir Albert Howard. It was written in the 1940's and is considered a classic. It is based on his 20 years researching the effects of adding humus, rather than "artificial manure" to agricultural land. His work was done in India between the two world wars and was an inspiration for Robert Rodale, the founder of Organic Gardening magazine.

Initially the book reads like a textbook. Rather than an impassioned plea for a "natural" approach to farming, it is a dispassionate rationale, laying out the results of his experiments and accompanied by economic justifications for an approach where "Nature has provided in the forest an example which can be safely copied in transforming waste into humus - the key to prosperity."

His method for making humus (or compost) is called the Indore method, named after the area of India where he carried out his work. The intended application of his theories is for use on plantations so the scale is huge. Either heaps or pits can be used but he gives the dimensions for pits; 30 feet by14 feet and 3 feet deep. The annual output of this size is supposed to be about 1000 tons! At the end of the book there are papers delivered by plantation owners who experimented with the Indore process. One of these men, J.M.Moubray of Chipoli Plantation in Rhodesia, calculates the cost as "1800 native days"! A different era... But he also advises that the earthworms in the compost are the most precious labourers a farmer can have.

Since I'm pretty short on labour, by anyone's standards, and I am very interested in trying to deal with adversities ranging from drought to insects, I decided it was time to take compost making much more seriously.

While I have always made compost I have been justifiably accused of using it before it has totally broken down and I have not been very scientific about the recipe for making it. Over the course of the summer I had started a pile of green waste in my bed in the field and this is where I started on my new project. The heap was already there so I pulled it apart to add a layer of manure and another thin one of wood ashes. I also decided to start adding vegetable/kitchen waste. The first source of that was my lethal weapon, baseball sized zucchini. I chopped them into sections and spread them in the centre of the existing heap. The next step was to sprinkle water and then about 10 days later to turn the pile. This heap is a little rough and ready but it is heating up and breaking down.

Giant summer squash which will be chopped into smaller pieces

Last weekend I decided to start a new heap from scratch. This was partly inspired by a Scandinavian gardening book we have which showed someone using a long compost pile as a quasi fence. My new pile will be a "fence" separating the west side of my bed from the field.

The first step was to pull the weeds from the area. This also helped to loosen the soil.

The area in which I will put the new compost "fence"

I chopped all the weeds with the secateurs and then pulled and chopped the weeds between the vegetables and the new compost heap.

from left to right: the pole beans, the weeds cleared up to the secateurs and the chopped weeds piled in a row

Then I got a wheel barrow of manure to spread along the top of the chopped weeds.

a pail of manure from organically raised beef cows

Next came the little vegetable waste as I could come up with. But as I take down the beds in the next few weeks this shouldn't be a problem. As I add to the pile it will widen but the length is going to stay at its current 10 feet.

the kitchen waste 

the nascent compost pile with spoiled tomatoes gleaned from the adjacent beds

I feel like Mildred Pierce

It's been the best year I've ever had for tomatoes - all the sun and more plants than I've had before. I've exceeded my ambition to can 50 jars of sauce,  have made pounds of oven roasted Juliet tomatoes and 8 bottles of ketchup so I decided, as my mother says "A change is a good as a rest" - time to make something else. (Of course my mother is completely wrong - there is no substitute for a rest. But it is a good mantra to help one soldier on). So here is my recipe for Tomato Pie. I make it on a few occasions every year but today I thought I would make a few and try freezing them. Unfortunately the pie plates are a little less than attractive.

1. Make your favourite pie dough. Because this is a savoury pie I sometimes substitute a little of the butter with 5 year cheddar cheese. Today I threw in a little smoked paprika to give that Ritz cracker colour.

2. Brush the inside of the crust with dijon mustard.

3. Cover the bottom of the pie with one layer of tomatoes. I made one with black heirlooms, one with Persimmon heirloom tomatoes, another with Tlacalulas and the others with Beefsteak.

Left to right: Persimmon tomatoes, Tlacalula  and assorted black heirlooms

4. Cover with the tomato layer with slices of mozzarella cheese.

5. Add another layer of tomatoes. Tuck in basil leaves (although I didn't have any today so for some of the pies I used marjoram and for others mint (which I think actually goes surprisingly well with tomatoes).)

marjoram on the left, mint on the right

6. Grind sea salt and pepper over the surface.

7. Drizzle with olive oil.

Parmesan ready to be grated and added to the grated mozzarella

8. Sprinkle grated mozzarella and parmesan over the surface.

waiting for the grated parmesan...

9. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour.

end of August harvest

It has been quite a while since I wrote anything. Our area, in central Ontario, has been particularly hard hit by the lack of rain. I was in the Farm Supply last week and a farmer was saying there had been a total of 1mm of rain in July and 2mm in August at his farm.  Last week when there was a lovely slow drizzle on Monday afternoon and then torrential downpours in the evening in Toronto there was barely  10 minutes of rain in our area. So everything is really suffering; crunchy grass, trees dropping their leaves or the leaves curling up. Most annual vegetables don't have a deep or extensive root system to pull them through such a sustained drought.

The haul last Thursday

But some things have done well. This is a photograph of the pickings last Thursday afternoon. Included are heirloom tomatoes both full size and small, snap beans, patty pan squash. The next day was devoted to digging banana fingerling and blue potatoes, picking shelling beans and zucchini and cucumbers. It has been a bumper crop of zucchini and patty pan summer squash. Cukes have been plentiful but as the summer progressed they started to get that "lute" shape which indicates sufficient rain followed by too little.

Heirloom shelling beans Jacob's Cattle on the left, Carmina on the right

Snap beans have done well and the shelling beans have just started to dry on the vine. I think it may be one of the years when they can finish on the plant. Most years it gets too wet at the end of the summer and the pods threaten to rot so the whole plant has to be pulled out and hung in a well ventilated place so the pods can still dry on the plant. There are so many beautiful heirloom shelling beans. It is almost enough to grow them simply to display in mason jars all winter. Every year I save some beans for the next year and can't resist buying new ones. I have grown Rattlesnake, King Tut and Cranberry Pole beans for many years. Bush beans include Vermont Cranberry, Carmina, Jacob's Cattle, Cannelini, Black Valentine and others I've lost the  name for unfortunately. This year the new ones are all bush beans which include Red Swan and Orca.

And tomatoes have done well. I'm going to write a separate post on tomatoes.

tomatoes

Every year I start plants of both hybrid and heirloom tomatoes. Because the heirlooms are open pollinated you can save the seed for next year's garden but hybrid seeds have to be purchased each year because they won't come true. Since every year is different the tomatoes that do the best each season vary. This particular year, with its sustained sun and minimal rain, seems to have made marked differences between the heirloom and hybrid tomatoes. The only full size hybrids I grew were Beefsteak which seem to pale in taste and texture to the heirlooms. But in the cherry, pear and currant tomatoes the comparison is less marked. The orange hybrid, Sun Sugar, cherry tomato is the sweetest. The heirloom Yellow Pear seems a little mealy and some of the heirloom small tomatoes seem to have been sweeter in previous years.

I should be more organized but I lose track of some of the varieties. Here's a sampling of what I can identify.

A variety of black tomatoes including Japanese Black Trifele  (the triangular ones at the bottom right)

The heirloom, Old German, in top basket, Sun Sugar in the middle basket

Hybrid Juliet tomatoes in the two right baskets

The rather bizarre white heirloom tomato, Ivory Queen, in the top basket , the Mexican Tlacalula below

Heirloom Persimmons in the top and heirloom Black Cherry below

First comes sowing seed, then planting, staking and pruning for best fruiting. And now, what to do with all those tomatoes..... So my kitchens have been very busy processing the past few days.

Juliet tomatoes ready to be oven toasted

The bountiful Juliet tomatoes, an AAS (All American Selection winner) hybrid with a plum shape and texture but smaller than standard roma tomatoes, is ideal for oven roasting. They are cut in half, laid out on a cookie sheet, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and then slowly roasted at 250F for a couple of hours.

After slow roasting some of the moisture has evaporated, concentrating the flavour. They are then packed by the half pound in freezer bags.

I have been using many of the small tomatoes to make ketchup. The recipe is from Jamie Oliver's At Home cookbook. It is sort of laborious and time consuming but the flavour is worth it. The ingredients include the tomatoes and olive oil, celery, red onion, garlic, cloves, coriander seed, basil, salt and pepper. After reducing by half, the mixture is put through a sieve and then brown sugar and vinegar are added. The mixture is reduced again until the proper consistency is reached.

These bottles were made with yellow and orange cherry and pear tomatoes. 

And then finally there is the tomato sauce. I remember a description from one of my favourite books by Wayne Winterrowd with photos by Joe
Eck. A Year at North Hill: Four Seasons in a Vermont Garden. He made it sound like such a nice late summer tradition. While he was lucky enough to have a pottery bowl used exclusively for the annual tradition of making tomato sauce, I use big enamelled cast iron pots. This rough and ready sauce is appealing to me - no boiling the tomatoes to remove the skins or spending time taking out the seeds. You just chop the whole tomato and throw it in the pot.

Heirloom tomatoes are coarsely chopped and to these you add chopped garlic, olive oil and sea salt. Then  roast slowly (about 250F) in the oven - at least two hours will produce a flavourful but somewhat watery sauce. This is good for when you know you'll be cooking the sauce more when it is ready to be used (like in a braise). For a thicker sauce to be heated and thrown over pasta, you simply leave the tomatoes in the oven longer. The top surface roasts turning a lovely brown. It is good to press the tomatoes against the side every once in a while to break them up and release the juices. And then it's time to start canning. I like to make batches of individual types so I have jars of black, yellow, orange and red. I don't think the flavour varies much but they look so nice in jewel tones on the pantry shelf. I also make a separate plum tomato sauce for chili.

We always aspire to make at least 50 jars. I'm not sure we've ever made it but I think chances are pretty good this year!