5 Principles of Soil Health: In the Garden

By the end of summer the garden was looking pretty raggedy, so for the past several weeks I've been busy cleaning out the beds, transplanting fall seedlings, and sowing root crops. Late, I know, but we had very hot weather all the way through the first week of October. I waited for cooler temperatures and rain to moisten the soil.

While I worked, I took some photos, because I want to make a record of my new gardening workflow. Specifically, I want to make a note of the principles we've learned from videos by Gabe Brown (Keys To Building a Healthy Soil) and Ray Archuleta (Soil Health Principles). They discuss five specific principles, all learned from observing natural processes.

5 Principles of Soil Health

1. No mechanical disturbance
2. Soil covered at all times
3. Diversity of plant species
4. Living roots in the ground as long as possible
5. Animal impact

These principles have not only changed how I do things, but how I see things. They have changed my perception of soil stewardship. At the end of this blog post is a list of posts detailing what we've learned and how we've applied it to our pastures and other areas. Here's how I've been applying them in the garden.

Example: one of my cowpea beds. It was one of the first beds I double-dug 2-and-a-half years ago for a hugelkultur swale bed.

Most of the plants are dead, and much of the mulch has decomposed.

Living root in the ground, because there is symbiotic relationship between living plant roots and soil microorganisms. It's these organisms that do the work of building soil.

Instead of pulling the plants, I cut them off just above ground. The
dead roots will add organic matter to the soil as they decompose.
CAVEAT: I do pull weeds by the roots. I only leave veggie roots.

Of the living cowpeas, I cut off most of the vine, but leave some leaves.
This keeps living roots in the ground, which feed soil organisms.

No mechanical disturbance. Some soil disturbance is natural; birds scratch and critters dig. Using a shovel leaves chunks intact and the microorganisms can recover. Tilling destroys the soil ecosystem.

Soil covered at all times. Most of us learn about this the hard way. Leave soil bare, and nature will plant it with all kinds of "weeds." Better to get it planted with what we want from the get-go.

 I neither raked up nor tilled in the leaf mulch. Rather, I left it, covered it
with woodchip compost, seeded, & covered the seeds with more compost.

Diversity of plant species - each bed is planted with root crops, greens, and a sprinkling of low growing Dutch clover.

Animal impact - I admit that animal impact is minimal in the garden. Occasionally, I fence some of it off for the goats with the electric netting. Cats make an impact as well, but not a good one! They seem to think that any freshly planted bed is a litter box!

While I was doing that, Dan milled new border planks for the beds.

Just waiting for everything to grow.

This is definitely a work-smarter-not-harder approach to gardening! I've even had some success in keeping the dreaded wire grass at bay. I'll have another post with pictures on that soon. In the meantime, here are the links to my soil building series that I mentioned above.

• Carbon: What I Didn't Know
• Carbon and Soil Building: Designing A Plan
• Soil Building Experiment #1
• Soil Building Experiment #2: Pastures
• Developing a Pasture Rotation Plan: Part 1
• Developing a Pasture Rotation Plan: Part 2
• Developing a Pasture Management Plan
• Soil Building Experiment #3: Hay Growing

I especially recommend that you watch those videos. They explain the rationale behind the five principles and give excellent examples of why they work.

5 Principles of Soil Health: In the Garden © Nov 2019

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Homegrown Diet Diversity (And a Recipe)

An experiment - Ricotta Crust Fig Tarts - recipe below.

One of the challenges of relying on a diet of homegrown food is variety. Over the years I've tried to grow as diverse a garden as I can, but truth be told, some things are easier to grow in any given climate than others. If all I had to do was the garden, maybe I could succeed. As it is, we've got too many other things needing tending, so my gardening time and energy are limited. Instead, I focus on growing things that I can count on to do well in our region. Even then, there are no guarantees. I just have to take advantage of what produces well, and at the very least, hope I can get a seed crop out of what doesn't.

Mostly, our diet diversity is seasonal. Meals focus on whatever is producing well at the time. I do shop at the grocery store, but my shopping list is pretty basic. It sticks to staples we can't or don't produce ourselves such as olive oil and unbleached flour, a few particular favorites like black olives and bananas, and sometimes items to fill in a nutrient gap, like carrots for vitamin A after we've eaten up our own. I also shop for good deals for stocking up.

When it comes to meal planning, I focus on using what I have the most of. And that often means day after day of pretty much the same things to eat. When our chickens are laying well, we eat eggs every day, usually for lunch. But how many ways are there to eat eggs? A lot, actually, but before the summer is over, I still get tired of eating them. Zucchini is another "when it rains, it pours" kind of food. My solution to zucchini fatigue is to not plant it!

For the past several years I've been experimenting with trying to find diet diversity through creativity. I've also been trying to transition to substitutions for store-bought items with things I have readily available. Salad dressing, for example. I love ranch dressing, but dislike its ingredients. Dan likes oil and vinegar, but I have to buy those too. After experimenting a bit, I figured out that plain kefir on my green salads is just fine! Or I can easily add something like Cockeyed Jo's homemade Not "Lipton" Dry Onion Soup Mix for a flavored dressing if I wish. (And check out Jo's other recipes while you're there. She has a lot of homemade substitutes like that). Another dressing or dip we like is to mix kefir with salsa. Sometimes I add leftover home canned dried beans (black turtles are especially good). Former junky foods become tasty and healthy.

Kefir makes an acceptable substitute for sour cream on baked potatoes, and with baking soda for an excellent leavening agent. We also use it in smoothies, to top a bowl of canned fruit, and as a milk substitute on cold cereal (a rare treat, but when I find a good deal on Nature's Path organic cereals at the discount grocery store I stock up.) As you can see, we're finding a number of ways to incorporate a healthy probiotic food into our diet while eliminating several commercially processed foods.

Another one I've been experimenting with is ricotta. I have a lot of whey from cheesemaking, and making ricotta is one way to use it. It's usually used in lasagna, but I've experimented with other ways to use it.

• First, my ricotta recipe
• Ricotta Biscuits (no fat)
• Ricotta Gelato
• Gnocchi (Italian dumplings)

It was the gnocchi dough that got me thinking about pastry crust. Since Dan likes pastries, that led to another experiment.

Ricotta Crust Tarts

For the crust:

• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 cup flour
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt

Mix with a fork. Roll out to about 1/4 inch thick and cut into 12 squares. Line muffin cups with pastry squares.

For the filling:

Use with your favorite pie filling. I used fig that I canned previously.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

The crust wasn't flaky but it was good. I think I'll try it with baking soda and whey as leavening and see how that changes the texture. I'd also like to try these with a custard filling, for which I'd have to bake the crusts as empty shells. So, more experimenting and I'll have an update one of these days.

Homegrown Diet Diversity (And a Recipe) © Oct 2019

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

The Solar Panels Are Up

For the past couple of months I've been sharing with you about our plan to put my chest freezer and second pantry refrigerator on solar energy. After finishing the updates and modifications to the back porch, Dan went to work building a rack for the solar panels. This was a weather permitting project, but we didn't mind the pauses because we definitely need the rain.

He's especially happy that he didn't have to buy a thing to build the rack! He was able to use materials and hardware that he already had.

Required spacing of the panels was specified in the installation manual. For these, a quarter-inch.

The angle will be somewhat adjustable.

The next step will be running the cables from the panels to the house, which is about 30 feet.

In the above photo, the corner of the house that you see is our back porch. That's where the freezer and fridge will reside. A battery box will be built next to the house under the windows. Options for the cables are putting up a pole and running them overhead to the house, or burying them in a conduit under the driveway.

It's hard to be patient about getting this project up and running, but it's important to take the time to do our homework and think things through. Every completed step is progress.

Next - Wiring the Solar Panels

The rest of this series can be found here:

• Solar Pantry Part 1: Feasibility
• Solar Pantry Part 2: Analysis
• Solar Pantry Part 3: Alternatives
• Solar Pantry Part 4: The Plan
• Solar Project Part 5: Back Porch Preparations
• Back Porch Progress

The Solar Panels Are Up © October 2019

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com