It lives!

Ok, I was wrong about the one banana plant dying. After taking a closer look today, and moving aside the copious amount of bean plants, I found that a pup or something like it was growing out right next to the plant that was looking bad. So I definitely can't write that one off, at least yet.

I'm a little bit nervous though, I bought some synthetic fertilizer today, a banana specific blend, like 10-5-40 or something crazy like that. I put a small amount of it around each banana. I'm pretty paranoid about synthetic fertilizers ever since I killed off a whole crop of soybeans a few years ago. It was my first experience with non-organic fertilizers, and I applied it pretty much the same way I applied the organic fertilizer. BIG mistake, everything was dead the next day, nitrogen burn. Who'd a thunk it.

Hopefully I haven't just killed off my banana plants. If they look fine, I'll probably apply a little bit every week, I figure that's better than one big blast a month.

As a side note, I gotta figure out something else to do with the compost, it just takes too long. Right now I have three piles, one of them pretty processed but still needing at least a month before its ready, another that's going to need at least two months, and a fresh one I made today from mowing the lawn and cleaning out some sunflowers. And I have more lawn to mow, so what am I gonna do? And a ton of material from chopping down the back lot. Hmmmm.

The Peanut Project

At the end of June I planted some peanut seeds that were sprouting (sprouted them using raw peanut seeds in a ziploc with a wet paper towel). They look like they're going pretty good, though it's a very small patch, maybe 14 inches long, 8 inches wide, just a little sample really. I peeled some more of the peanut pods and stuck them in another ziploc with another wet papertowel.

I think peanuts are a pretty cool plant, lots of fat and protein. I think they'd be a pretty valuable food for someone who was trying to grow all of their own food. Eventually I'm going to try inter-cropping peanuts and corn.

Oh yeah, bananas

Of the four original banana plants that Alan gave me, three seem to be doing really well, but one looks like it's not going to make it. It's the third largest one (the bigger two and the smallest all seem fine), and it really didn't look any better or worse than the others when I got it, so I don't know what might be wrong. I'm thinking about using a banana specific fertilizer there, though I'm worried that'll kill or damage the beans I inter cropped. We shall see.

Moving pretty slow...

This week was just really busy at work, didn't do much. The second batch of seeds we (Eri and I) planted are doing really well. This is the first time I've used straight peat as a starting medium, and I'm impressed.

I'd also started some stuff (tomatillo, broccoli, rapini (broccoli rabe)) in a ziploc, they all germinated, and I tried transferring them over to a container with peat in it. If it works out I'll provide details, if not, I guess it's not worth knowin'.

This weekend we've been experiencing "tropical depression Cosme," which I suppose is better than meeting "tropical storm Cosme" or "hurricane Cosme," but still leaves the yard pretty wet, and it's raining a lot. So I haven't done much (yeah, rain is a weak excuse, really I'm just lazy...).

Potato experiment revised!

The sweet potato bin seems to be doing fine, I'm thinking to harvest some leaves and try one of those recipes I found.

The potato bin though, has not really done much of anything, so we rebooted that sucker. I dug up the little red potatoes, and pretty much they were the same as when I'd buried them. I'm guessing they were too young for growing new plants, though that is just a guess, wish I had a 'tater expert around to question. Anyway, I tossed the little red potatoes and replanted with a few full size yellow potatoes, and we'll see what happens. Fingers are crossed. If a guy or gal could get significant results from growing the potatoes vertically in a bin it would really be a great way to grow a lot of calories in a very small space.

Status: got rid of some chickens, planted some more stuff

I gave away eight more chickens to my friend Doug. So now I'm down to ten. Which still seems a lot, but not as bad as 18. Or the original 26. I still need to make one more chicken coop, plus a "mini-coop" for the kids bird, the type of which I have no idea.

Doug gave me some turmeric root to plant, it's very similar to ginger. I planted that in some peat. I also planted a bunch more stuff last night. I need to get on the ball with the gardening, I should/could be growing a lot more of our food. I've been pretty tired lately though.

I mowed a back section of the yard today and started a new compost pile with the clippings. I also mowed under the chicken coop, which sucked up a bunch of chicken manure, which ought to pretty much get that new compost pile burning fast. I'll turn it tomorrow and see.

I've been reviewing John Jeavons book "How to grow more..." and Dave Duhon's book "One Circle." Both indicate that you can grow a single person's food in a pretty small amount of space, assuming that person was a eating a vegan diet. Not my thing, but I like the idea for other reasons, such as it uses a minimal amount of space, and a minimal amount of effort.

Both break things down into something like this:
30% of your space should be used to grow special root crops, such as parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, others. These are "area efficient" crops that produce a maximum amount of calories per unit area.
10% of your space should be used for vegetable crops, crops intended to provide maximum nutrients.
60% of your space should be used to grow high carbon crops, crops that, in addition to food, create organic matter for composting and hence soil building. They're really, REALLY in to soil building.

So part of what I've been doing is playing with potatoes, sweet potatoes, and now parsnips in an effort to move towards backyard sustainability. The thing is, it kind of conflicts with one of the gardenings goals, to save money. Ideally you'd use the garden to grow expensive stuff, like all your fruits and vegetables. Wasting valuable space on potatoes and sweet potatoes, which are pretty cheap by comparison to veggies and fruits, doesn't make a lot of sense. Unless you're trying to grow your own food.

I'm losing my point in there somewhere, but part of my goal is to figure out a way to grow as much of the families caloric load in addition to as much of the families vegetables and fruits as possible. Plus soil building seems to be a pretty good thing.

As a result of this dual goal thing, I'm looking at other crops to try, such as amaranth. Amaranth seems to have a lot of potential, though I don't really have an understanding of the space required to provide a significant portion of one's diet. I'm still studying it, so hope to report something later.

Closing the circle

Whenever I start thinking about "The Circle" I start hearing Elton John singing "The Circle of Life."

I think we hit a new level of recycling. Between the chickens, the worm bins, the compost pile, we're pretty much recycling all of our food stuff, yard clippings, etc. All excess food matter is now getting used for something, and eventually ending back up in the garden to grow more food. It's kind of a good feeling.

It's not a complete circle, but it's as complete as it's going to get living here.