Getting organic matter into the soil

I've started organic gardening, but my soil isn't very good. I have found multiple ways of getting organic matter into my soil, but my garden is huge 50' x 150'. In your opinion what would be the best way to get organic matter into my soil. I have a compost pile, but it is not big enough to support the entire garden. Should I grow a cover crop? Should I layer the garden with green sand fertilizer, manure then hay? My soil has a lot of clay. I have been putting hay and grass around my plants during this season. Any help is appreciated.

Yes, and yes.  Manure, hay (although many people don't like hay because of field grass seeds, I just pull them when they sprout), and compost are all good steps. Get a big delivery of manure and hay, and spread them evenly in layers, hay on top for the winter. But you mention cover crops and that might even be better. Just yesterday I read this article at Cornucopia, which says:

Forage legumes, such as alfalfa and clover in crop rotations can: supply nitrogen for grain crops; increase soil organic matter; improve soil structure and tilth; and
reduce weed pressure. 

 While you're probably not doing grain crops, the idea is the same. If you need organic matter in your soil, which we all do every year, then grow some right there on the spot! Be sure to read up on the specifics, like when to turn the cover crop under. I've never done cover crops, but I suppose that once you turn them, you'll still need manure and mulch to overwinter the site (depending on the harshness of your winter).

I use peat moss to organic up this very limey and clay-like soil here in upstate NY. That may be an expensive proposition for something of your scale, but it works very well. Grass clippings are good too!

Good luck and let me know what you decide!

Time to start hording hay and manure

The only ripe tomatoes I've gotten this year are the cherry kind and I'm already thinking about winter. Maybe it was the 48 degree night we had last week, or maybe it's the old joke from a few posts ago that we have two seasons up here, the 4th of July and winter, but I'm already thinking about bedding this baby down for the winter with layers of manure and hay.

Maybe the fact that I once again planted some things too close together is making me with I had more raised beds, and the winter manure and hay is going to help me make a couple more before the snow gets here. If I could do them now, I could get some fall collard greens, maybe some spinach and peas if the deer don't get them.

Whatever the reason, I've definitely got manure and hay on the mind. The tractor just came through the fields behind us, shooting hay bales into the wagon like the rolled up shirts shot out of cannons (like the ones that killed Maude Flanders, you Simpsons fans). Nothing like the site of a bunch of baled up hay to make me want to un-bale it and protect some fine garden soil.

I still have some green sand fertilizer, too, which must be scattered on the ground under the manure layer, which goes under the hay layer, which will go under the snow layer, where it will all lie, protected from the cold, composting away under there for months while I shiver and wonder if I put enough manure down.

For now, I'm content to just wait for the tomatoes I missed so much last year (blight). But when those babies start turning red, I'm going to be turning compost and manure, layering the open spots, planting some fall greens on top, and stock-piling hay to cover it all up with for the winter.

What the? Oh, go to...

You call that a summer? I find myself talking to this place. I'm not sure it's because I'm losing it due to my disability and financial situation, or what, but when the weather does something fun up here in central New York state, I want to say, hey, wait. That doesn't count as summer. That was like spring with a few warm days. Now the leaves are falling fast, like some cruel foreshadowing to what is, I kid you not, a prediction for this Friday.

Snow.

This whole cold thing is new to me. Last year, we moved in too late to have a real garden. This year, I get to go out there and see pepper plants that never really had a chance to produce more than a few token reminders of heat, now all post-frost droopy, just waiting for me to get out there and compost them.

I just don't have the energy, partly due to some bad pain days lately, but also because I'm an inherently lazy gardener, and I figure the winter will lay all the dead stuff flat and compost it under the snow anyway. If anything, I should throw some straw and leaves on there.

I'm getting damn good at growing the cold lovers: collards, mustard greens, kale, spinach, some lettuce--all doing great. I'd forgotten how much I like mustard greens--very spicy! Almost makes up for the lack of jalapenos...

We stopped on the side of the road and bought some bags of aged horse manure ($2 for a big bag from an honor cart--stuff the money in the hand-cut slot on the top of a plastic Folgers container), and I've layered it on top of some spots where I'm going to put peppers and other nitrogen hogs (my kingdom for a home grown tomato) next year. So, the soil bank deposit has been made, or at least part of it. I'll be putting more compost and manure out in the next few days, and then again in the spring.

I also have some clover seed I've scattered here and there, that I will turn in in the spring as a green manure. Clover's a good cover crop, and it keeps the rabbits busy so they'll stay away from the radicchio that's almost done. Or so the theory goes.

Kind of like that theory that it gets warm and sunny in the summer...

Busy Building Raised Beds, Making Deposits in the Soil Bank

My friend and organic gardening Guru Mort Mather likes to say that the soil is like a bank account, you can't withdraw unless you make deposits. So, in case you've all been wondering what the hell I've been up to these last few weeks, there you go.

Our new friends, Sonia and Dave of Nectar Hills Farm (web site coming soon), who sell grass-fed meats have a great pile of composted manure (steer, chicken, lamb, goat...) that we've been shoveling into bags and hauling home, where we mix it into the soil in the new raised beds we've been building. I've been meaning to post about this, but after working all day and doing all the other internet work (ironically, also organic) I have to do, I just never had the energy left. Looking at this picture now, it doesn't seem like much, but I don't have a tiller, so I've been turning over chunks of lawn with a straight hoe, chopping them up and mixing with compost, manure, and peat moss. Due to my arthritis, I have to go slow, and let Robin and Spencer do the heavy work. So, it's slow going.

But as you can see from the picture, it's going well. The soil is very clay-like, and the pH is really high (8), so it takes a lot of work to get the pH and the drainage right. Under every bed is a layer of gravel, topped with sand, topped with soil that is almost all peat at the top inch.

One advantage to slow going (and early starting) is that once a bed is prepared, I don't plant in it right away. I water and wait a week to see what weeds can shoot up through an inch of peat moss, then I hoe them under and rake again, repeating the process, and killing all kinds of weeds before they can get going well enough to sap resources from my veggies. This is Mort's weed control trick that I have used ever since I learned it, because I, like Mort, am essentially a lazy person. I don't want to be pulling weeds this summer that I could have killed now, while they're still just babies.

All the cold hardy plants are in and up already: lots of spinach, greens, lettuce, arugula, peas, radishes, carrots and other cold tolerant veggies. I did put some beans and early spring toms in, and then had to cover them for last night and tonight's frost that may or may not happen (didn't happen last night). For some odd reason, the spinach plant I let our little nephew Luca plant is much bigger than all the rest... Must be the something about the enzymes on his little hands!

It's been a while since I had a garden this size, and I'd forgotten how much work it is! Plus, we've been getting started on a grass-fed beef jerky and various baked goods business (yes, we hope to sell the jerky on-line once we've established a local addicted population following. So, I'm exhausted and, in an odd way, happy that it's too cold to even haul the seed starter trays outside today. I'll just stay here with my cold feet in a heating pad and catch up on all the web work I have to do!