New from Texas - Need a grow plan

[peterd]

I have been dawdling in the garden most days so the clock has been running on any updates. I also set up my own private cloud server at the house that now replaces Apple, Google, and every other data harvester and privacy seller of your family's data and I have not tweaked the app on my phone to leave photos so all my photos have been transferred to my private cloud server in the house. It feels awesome knowing all my data is mine again and no more nagging Apple 5GB photo limit reached every 3 days. My ancient old 2 Terabyte hard drive I haven't used for approaching a decade now runs my private cloud data backup and my old Samsung SSD runs the cloud data. I have oodles of free space and no nagging to pay monthly fees for the most miserable of data increases on public cloud companies.

I'll have to split the posts to catch up the latest in the garden.

First up we have had the worst weather ever. Freezes, Summer Weather, Major Storms, Winds Powerful Enough to lift up Dorothy's house and send it to Oz, you name it! This is just one rain event recorded the next day. Typical for this area, a deluge of rain in a drought period. Most folks just wash all that run down their gutters and into the street but I have captured it all in the woodchip garden conversion.




I planted a pound of cow peas (black eyes) and then three more the following week. These are the first of the first batch of plantings to emerge. I have zero fertilizer and zero watering of the woodchip garden conversion since last winter its just sat and done its own thing.



My severe pruning method to make tiny orchard trees has not killed off a single one of the fruit trees I ordered and put in for the Spring season. This was the last holdout, the Japanese Persimmon. It finally decided it liked to grow after all.



All the other fruit trees are just loving life.



Speaking of loving life, the potatoes are going great in the woodchips and loving every day. The Asparagus as well, though it gets another year to start developing the thicker spears my family loves.



My wife



Corn I am filling in some skips and finding the largest and fattest worms I have ever dug out of my garden which makes me really happy. Another three years of worm population increase through worms getting it on under the woodchips and I will have tons of worm castings ready to make the plants pop even more. These corn have roots growing through and interacting with the mushroom mycelium growing on the woodchips below the very top dry layer. An inch or so down and everything is damp and moist.



Sweet potato slips getting a start in the action. I shut down the sweet potato slip growing and just planted everything I had out into the chips.



Native American grapes are waking up and taking off.



Bean rows are starting to wake up and grow. Notice I had to put some of the branches I got cutting down my front yard tree the previous year into action during the massively powerful high winds we had so that the trellis structures didn't lift up and join Dorothy on the trip to the land of Oz. These worked awesome for the task.



Not sure if I ever got in tobacco plant out photos, but this was the front yard. Little Yellow in the back and orientals up front.



During all this storm and weather chaos I decided to do a little pressure cooking of cavendish.



Worked a treat and to dry I used my large metal bowl as a solar collector, a front yard tree stump piece as a high winds weight and one of my unused growing totes as an outdoor drying chamber complete with bug screen. This worked so well, by 2 or 3 in the afternoon all the cavendish tobacco was completely in low case and dry'z'bone.

 

[peterd]

Speaking of trees my new replacement front yard tree woke up and decided to show a sneak preview of the glory ahead in future years. Here is a close up of the flowers. No two flowers will ever be identical, you can have solid red to white to peppermint candy cane combinations in-between.



Before heading back, in the front yard I cut the Flame Acanthus down to the ground. Top dressed the woodchips in a thin layer of remaining compost and broadcast wild flower seeds, pollinator mixes, and all sorts all over the compost. Here the Flame Acanthus is shooting back with gusto and the wild flowers are just starting to pop up. In the background are catmint starting to send up purple blue flower spires and some bulbs I've just started to dead head.



In the back yard I have some sneaky little plants peaking up behind the potatoes. These are my Moringa trees I planted from seed got from Mexico last year. I planted the entire back fence with groupings of them so I can enjoy Moringa trees and their health benefits until next frost. They will regrow from underground roots each spring.



One thing that took a large beating with the yo-yo-extreme-ping-pong weather cycles were the sunflowers. I have two in the backyard that survived and are rooting down and starting to take off and thrive. The ones planted out front with the orientals took the full beating of winds with no benefit of fences to act as a poor wind break. They didn't make it.



Now for the biggest lesson of the garden. I am growing a landrace of Collards, they have about 22 different retail seed packets of standard named varieties that everyone can walk into retail stores and buy seed packets of.

But I also bought fresh seed, packed for planting Spring 2022 of the same varieties that went into breeding my landrace. They were all grown together int he same 1020 tray, received the same grow lights, got the same hardening off outside, planted in the same ground in adjacent rows. All my landrace rows have 60% of the plants going absolutely gang busters super strong.

But *every* single named variety I have planted has struggled. Weak from decades of breeding neglect. This at the time of these two photographs was the *best performing* named variety retail seed packet collard. It received everything the same including the same number of organic caterpillar spray from the same sprayer mixed with the same mixture of spray.



And here are my landrace collards right next to the poor specimen in the photo above.



I have seen poor performance from retail store seed packets for years, I sent these photos overseas to family in the UK and they report back similar struggles with retail store seed packets. I don't know of vegetable breeding (unless hybrid or patent protected plants) for common vegetables occuring since the 1950's. Year after year I keep being shown similar results. My landrace side-by-side grows have just about cinched it for me, I am going to start landracing "all the things" and leave the retail store seed packets for others since I converted my entire backyard for food production not playing in the garden.

 

[landrace]

Check out Joseph Lofthouse if you haven't already, very inspiring and informative, https://lofthouse.com/

 

[peterd]

Check out Joseph Lofthouse if you haven't already, very inspiring and informative, https://lofthouse.com/

Very nice forum handle

You caught me, I actually have talked with Joseph a lot this year and when he released his latest book I picked up a copy right away. Only now am I taking it seriously and casting a very serious eye across the garden at the performance and building the momentum internally to move . I am going to start sourcing his landrace beans if I can find them and his landrace squash. I have other farmers I am looking at acquiring their landrace maximas, beets, and so on. Staying out of the retail seed market seems to be the way to go, at least for my garden.

It is not just the retail store named variety collards that are doing poorly, all the retail store named varieties are performing poorly and showing a lack of genetics to thrive without constant babying and large amounts of external inputs to make them grow big and produce.

Here is an example of my genetic Grex of Seminole Indian Pumpkins (mostchatas). As I select the genetics in the strong plants for seed collecting my own seed stock grows stronger each grow season.



Here is "Hales Best Muskmelon" which I have nicknamed "Hales Worst". This is typical performance of the retail store named variety seed packets. Not only does it perform poorly planted out in the field, but it also was one of the worst performers indoors under grow lights over winter. Those grow light Hales Worst got tossed and seeded these.



From our very own @skychaser at NWT seeds is this Melon for comparison, it has done well under his stewardship. Again I will select the most vigorous for seed stock for next season. Pysically they are about half the size of the Grex Seminole pumpkins but different species, and compared to Hales Worst it is going great.




I really should take a picture of the tobaccos. The winds have been so severe and fierce that the plants have been pushed flat against the ground as in a hurricane and the leaves rippling in the gusts of wind. I have had two of the larger that have actually pulled out of the ground part way the winds are that strong. I just finished burying them back to the proper depth again. I may end up starting a "horizontal" landrace of tobacco if these winds keep up

 

[skychaser]

Man, you like wood chips! lol You do know wood chips pull nitrogen out of the soil the first year or two until they break down some? Then it puts it back. It's great for building organic matter in the soil in the longer term as long as you compensate for it pulling nitrogen the first year.

Land race means a couple different things to different people. It is either the original strain that evolved and was cultivated in the part of the world it came from. Or it means a strain that has been localized by generations of growing it in a new part of the world. I always think of it as the first one.

Try getting seed from Baler Creek Seeds. http://rareseeds.com They are very fussy about what they buy or sell. I've grown lots of things for them. They have a seed buyer who travels the world looking for new plants to add to their collection. They first imported Kajari seed from India/Pakistan around 2012. They were selling for a nearly a dollar per seed back then. I did the first commercial sized grow of Kajari in the US for them. Took a couple years to get it pure. Had lots of crosses and other melons mixed in with the original seed. Unfortunately it is very susceptible to a type of Fasarium Wilt that hits certain melons. My crop was wiped out last year. Save your seed. It's still very rare and I sell it as fast as I can grow it.

I don't know anything about the Hale's watermelon you have. I have one called Bozeman that was developed in the mountains outside Bozeman Montana specifically for areas with very short growing seasons. Blacktails are the only other watermelon people grow with any success around here that I know of. My AG agent told me I couldn't grow watermelons here. Now he just laughs as we pass by the melon patch and says " I keep telling you that you can't grow watermelons here" And then I send him home with a couple nice ones to eat. Those Hale's might do well in a different climate. The Bozeman's love the northern tier states but might hate it in Texas. ??

 

[BrotherJ]

Man, you like wood chips! lol You do know wood chips pull nitrogen out of the soil the first year or two until they break down some? Then it puts it back. It's great for building organic matter in the soil in the longer term as long as you compensate for it pulling nitrogen the first year.

I'm pretty sure that's a myth. I've never had a nitrogen problem with wood chips and I don't know of anyone who has. There are some people who add inches more wood chips every year and their gardens are fine. I know one personally. If the decomposition of the wood absorbs nitrogen, it's probably gaseous nitrogen dissolved in rain. I don't know of any (real world) instance in which soil has been depleted of nitrogen by rotting wood.

 

[MadFarmer]

I'm pretty sure that's a myth. I've never had a nitrogen problem with wood chips and I don't know of anyone who has. There are some people who add inches more wood chips every year and their gardens are fine. I know one personally. If the decomposition of the wood absorbs nitrogen, it's probably gaseous nitrogen dissolved in rain. I don't know of any (real world) instance in which soil has been depleted of nitrogen by rotting wood.

I've heard it explained that wood chips only tie up nitrogen where they come into contact with the soil, if they're not tilled in then it would only tie up nitrogen at the surface.... I'll try and find supporting documentation this weekend.

 

[deluxestogie]

Fresh Wood Chips for Mulch – Harmful or Good?

The Accumulation of Soil Organic Matter from Wood Chips

Bob

 

[skychaser]

I've heard it explained that wood chips only tie up nitrogen where they come into contact with the soil, if they're not tilled in then it would only tie up nitrogen at the surface.... I'll try and find supporting documentation this weekend.

That makes sense. The only real interaction would be with the surface soil. Probably only the top inch or two. The first article Bob posted essentially says the same. Second one wants a log in so I didn't read it. I have put 4 inches or more down on the surface for mulch in landscaped areas. It's a great way to suppress weeds and hold in moisture. Takes years for it all to break down.

I have also put down several inches of chips on an area that is very heavy in clay and tilled it in to add organic matter to the soil. Done it a couple times, and composted that area heavily with leaves every year now for over a decade too. It used to be hard packed in summers and water puddled and ran off when irrigating it. Never found a worm there. It is quite different now. Water soaks in and there are now worms. It was my USDA AG agent who told me about chips depleting nitrogen. He told me the name of the bacteria (which I long since forgot) that first takes hold and starts to break down wood. When it dies and other bacterias take over the notrogen is released back in. He told me that after tilling in a lot of chips to add more nitrogen if I grew there the first year. Chips are free here. Tree companies run adds on craigslist looking for places to dump. Most of what you get here is Ponderosa Pine. Some Elm and other yard trees, but its probably 90% pine. The type of wood might make some difference. too I don't know about that.

 

[BrotherJ]

The type of wood does make a difference. If you've got cedar, cypress, or something similar, those chips can take an extra five or more years to completely break down. Common pines and hardwoods tend to completely break down in three to five years unless you have very active soil life that can break them down quicker. I think of three years as a minimum in making soil from wood.

What I really don't like about the assertion that wood chips absorb nitrogen from the soil and thereby deprive nearby plants of nitrogen is the fact that there has been very little controlled experimentation to show this. Please note that there is a big difference between an experiment and a controlled experiment. How do we know where the nitrogen is coming from? Does the soil get depleted or is aerated water (rainfall) enough to provide the nitrogen for the bacterial and fungal decomposition, meaning that nitrogen is not being absorbed from the soil? How about the idea that nitrogen is only being sequestered in the top inch of soil because that's where the fresh wood chips are? Who assayed hundreds of soil samples, taken at various times and at varying depths of fractions of an inch, to show that this is true? There's been an awful lot of extrapolation from laboratory data in the absence of real science. (By the way, agricultural agents are pretty hit and miss, and I don't accept appeals to authority anyway.)

I've personally seen enough instances of people heaping green wood chips right next to nitrogen-hungry annuals without any problems to make me question the original assertion. I don't see a reason to even investigate because there doesn't seem to be a problem to investigate. There's a suggestion that a problem may arise, but I haven't seen it. So, I'll ask again, has anyone actually SEEN nitrogen-hungry annuals under-perform such that the wood chips are the only possible explanation? If not, there may not be a problem at all!

Related: When I first got into metal detecting years ago, I ran into an issue constructing a test bed. If the soil is disturbed, a metal detector hardly works at all! After a couple of good rains on the test bed, the metal detector starts working normally. What gives? The soil naturally has a structure that is created by draining water. When the soil is jumbled, all of the magnetically responsive materials in the soil are jumbled. After enough water has drained through the soil, those same materials get aligned with each other and so the soil no longer interferes with the magnetic field of the detector. The important point here is that the water drains through the soil. What is left behind when the water is gone? Lots and lots of tiny air ducts! The next time you see rain, think about the fact that all of the water is going to run through the soil. The soil is naturally ventilated because of this. The draining water can actually pull some fresh air in behind it. So, with that much air and water moving through the soil all the time, shouldn't we have plenty of nitrogen to go around for bacteria and fungi? (This is not the same as the chemically bound nitrogen that many plants would like to use.)

Don't the bacteria and fungi that break down wood need free nitrogen like they use when decomposing wood above ground, as in a standing stump? I am of the opinion that air and rainfall deliver the nitrogen to drive the fungal and bacterial decomposition of wood. They certainly do above ground, so why not below? I think the decomposing wood and the nitrogen-hungry plants are pulling their nitrogen from different sources.

 

[landrace]

Very nice forum handle

You caught me, I actually have talked with Joseph a lot this year and when he released his latest book I picked up a copy right away. Only now am I taking it seriously and casting a very serious eye across the garden at the performance and building the momentum internally to move . I am going to start sourcing his landrace beans if I can find them and his landrace squash. I have other farmers I am looking at acquiring their landrace maximas, beets, and so on. Staying out of the retail seed market seems to be the way to go, at least for my garden.

It is not just the retail store named variety collards that are doing poorly, all the retail store named varieties are performing poorly and showing a lack of genetics to thrive without constant babying and large amounts of external inputs to make them grow big and produce.

I'm pretty new to agriculture but reading about landracing, it just made so much sense. I got a lot of seed from the Experimental Farm Network, including some of Joseph's, and I'm trying plant multiple varieties of all my veggies to at least allow for at least a little crossing. It seems like his squash is hard to come by, I did get some of his beans which I am excited to grow. It looks like you are having some good success already and that's awesome to see.

I'm doing a grex of Rustica tobacco this year, was able to get about 10 varieties from NWT Seed which is small but considering they are relatively unimproved and diverse already, hopefully there are a lot of genetics in the mix.

Perhaps if any of my endeavors come to fruition we can swap some seeds this winter (I know you might not be familiar down there but in Michigan, it's cold and dark half the year, we call it winter. Haha)

 

[deluxestogie]

Second one wants a log in so I didn't read it.

PM sent. I don't want to clutter this thread.

Bob

 

[BarG]

Just grow, don't over think it. Good luck

 

[BarG]

No matter what you learn from the best, experience is the best teacher.

 

[BarG]

The type of wood does make a difference. If you've got cedar, cypress, or something similar, those chips can take an extra five or more years to completely break down. Common pines and hardwoods tend to completely break down in three to five years unless you have very active soil life that can break them down quicker. I think of three years as a minimum in making soil from wood.

What I really don't like about the assertion that wood chips absorb nitrogen from the soil and thereby deprive nearby plants of nitrogen is the fact that there has been very little controlled experimentation to show this. Please note that there is a big difference between an experiment and a controlled experiment. How do we know where the nitrogen is coming from? Does the soil get depleted or is aerated water (rainfall) enough to provide the nitrogen for the bacterial and fungal decomposition, meaning that nitrogen is not being absorbed from the soil? How about the idea that nitrogen is only being sequestered in the top inch of soil because that's where the fresh wood chips are? Who assayed hundreds of soil samples, taken at various times and at varying depths of fractions of an inch, to show that this is true? There's been an awful lot of extrapolation from laboratory data in the absence of real science. (By the way, agricultural agents are pretty hit and miss, and I don't accept appeals to authority anyway.)

I've personally seen enough instances of people heaping green wood chips right next to nitrogen-hungry annuals without any problems to make me question the original assertion. I don't see a reason to even investigate because there doesn't seem to be a problem to investigate. There's a suggestion that a problem may arise, but I haven't seen it. So, I'll ask again, has anyone actually SEEN nitrogen-hungry annuals under-perform such that the wood chips are the only possible explanation? If not, there may not be a problem at all!

Related: When I first got into metal detecting years ago, I ran into an issue constructing a test bed. If the soil is disturbed, a metal detector hardly works at all! After a couple of good rains on the test bed, the metal detector starts working normally. What gives? The soil naturally has a structure that is created by draining water. When the soil is jumbled, all of the magnetically responsive materials in the soil are jumbled. After enough water has drained through the soil, those same materials get aligned with each other and so the soil no longer interferes with the magnetic field of the detector. The important point here is that the water drains through the soil. What is left behind when the water is gone? Lots and lots of tiny air ducts! The next time you see rain, think about the fact that all of the water is going to run through the soil. The soil is naturally ventilated because of this. The draining water can actually pull some fresh air in behind it. So, with that much air and water moving through the soil all the time, shouldn't we have plenty of nitrogen to go around for bacteria and fungi? (This is not the same as the chemically bound nitrogen that many plants would like to use.)

Don't the bacteria and fungi that break down wood need free nitrogen like they use when decomposing wood above ground, as in a standing stump? I am of the opinion that air and rainfall deliver the nitrogen to drive the fungal and bacterial decomposition of wood. They certainly do above ground, so why not below? I think the decomposing wood and the nitrogen-hungry plants are pulling their nitrogen from different sources.

Thats an interesting post. It raises questions for me since I have an abundance of sawdust and flakes, I have been leary to add to much to veg. Garden . I disc every year .

 

[BarG]

That makes sense. The only real interaction would be with the surface soil. Probably only the top inch or two. The first article Bob posted essentially says the same. Second one wants a log in so I didn't read it. I have put 4 inches or more down on the surface for mulch in landscaped areas. It's a great way to suppress weeds and hold in moisture. Takes years for it all to break down.

I have also put down several inches of chips on an area that is very heavy in clay and tilled it in to add organic matter to the soil. Done it a couple times, and composted that area heavily with leaves every year now for over a decade too. It used to be hard packed in summers and water puddled and ran off when irrigating it. Never found a worm there. It is quite different now. Water soaks in and there are now worms. It was my USDA AG agent who told me about chips depleting nitrogen. He told me the name of the bacteria (which I long since forgot) that first takes hold and starts to break down wood. When it dies and other bacterias take over the notrogen is released back in. He told me that after tilling in a lot of chips to add more nitrogen if I grew there the first year. Chips are free here. Tree companies run adds on craigslist looking for places to dump. Most of what you get here is Ponderosa Pine. Some Elm and other yard trees, but its probably 90% pine. The type of wood might make some difference. too I don't know about that.

I totally agree to adding any organics to especially hard packed or clay soils, long term can only help loosen it up, common sense to me . As far scientific attributes go that's out of my purvue. I go by my gut.

 

[BrotherJ]

Thats an interesting post. It raises questions for me since I have an abundance of sawdust and flakes, I have been leary to add to much to veg. Garden . I disc every year .

I would recommend trying it on a small area and see how those plants do compared to the rest. The wood has to break down so its nutrients become bioavailable before it will be helpful, but I don't think it would be a hindrance. If it doesn't cause any problems, working in wood dust and flakes every year could be a great long-term amendment strategy. I'd be quite interested to see how it turns out.

 

[BrotherJ]

I totally agree to adding any organics to especially hard packed or clay soils, long term can only help loosen it up, common sense to me . As far scientific attributes go that's out of my purvue. I go by my gut.

From some material I remember finding a few years ago, I think it's the humic and fulvic acids that do the trick. They cause hard clay to crack apart and eventually break up into tiny pieces. Any soil can be made better with the right compost.

 

[BarG]

I add saw shavings and dust (excluding ply voods and treated lumber.) On occasion, but mostly mushroom compost. Every other year .

 

[peterd]

@skychaser yes I did order the Baker Creek catalog well before Winter started so I could get a head start on growing indoors before transplanting in Spring. I ordered a lot of companies catalogs, I also source my seeds from both local big box stores, Home Depot and Lowes. My seeds are not single source supplier, but I have found most of the named varieties (well above 80%) performed poorly for me. Back to Baker, they are a major supporter and provided the majority of funding for Joseph Lofthouse's landrace breeding work, so I like them for that. However, they were the only company that shipped me their catalog so late that by the time I received their Baker Creek catalog, it was already two weeks *after* I had transplanted all plants grown from every other company's seed packets so that's a big let down.



It is a very pretty catalog, however, once I opened it and started reading it, I knew this company was not for me. I am not their target audience based on the way they have structured and marketed their seeds within the catalog.



Baker Creek is marketing themselves as a highly "Boutique" seed sales catalog. All the strange, bizarre, interesting things to catch the eye of the average bored housewife who gardens is in here. I am interested in growing food and lots of it, not the latest craze or bizarre plant never seen before in other seed catalogs. While I appreciate they have aced the quality of catalog and appeal for their target market segment, sadly I am not it. If you pick up the Johnny Select Seeds catalog and compare it side by side with Baker Creek you can see which one is designed for farmer, market gardeners and serous growers and which targets people who want to play in their garden for various reasons.

Here is an update on your Kajari, not knowing the seed status I'll be sure to save the seeds if wilt does not take the plants out before fruiting. It is already flowering.



I am not growing a watermelon with regards to Hales Best Muskmelon is in the melon family. This area of Texas is big time watermelon growing country with various you pick watermelon farms within short drive from me. Muskmelon (Cucumis melo) seed packet had the following description "Netted and moderately ribbed. Very vigorous, drought-resistant plants; powdery mildew resistant"

I did not provide a recent photo of my Hales Worst Muskmelon, as it has not changed in size much from the previous photo but has yellowed more and has wind damage on the leaf tips.

@landrace I am 3 landrace selections removed from the original breeding stock selection of seed. The farmer I got mine from was actually starting this for creating a landrace selection that is more cold tolerant than collards currently available on the market. Since I am selecting in heat, you should try to get as close to the original stock as possible to recapture and cold genetics I may have already selected out. I'll send PM if I find any sources with them.

Back to some garden updates, I agree with the general sentiment that some folks prefer to learn from what nature/god/whatever you want to call it shows you in front of your face what is happening right then and there in your garden while others prefer to stick with the book worms, ag agents, etc. who may or may not have any first hand field experience. I am not here to change anyone's mind on anything, just sharing some photos and let everyone make up their own minds to whatever it is they want to make them up about.

Here is a close up of the corn I took last week so people can study the leaves in more detail as far as nutrients go.



And the tips of the corn leaves



Here is a True Yam, this is my African Yam, it was grown in Nigeria before it came to me and my garden. Here it has sprouted, and sprouted it is, this puts the growth rate of Tobacco to shame and is like a giant monstrous arm shooting out of the woodchips. I think it may reach the expected 15 meters (50+ feet) in length so I am redirecting it towards the back fence and will let it run along the fence line all the way as my native American grapes are just getting started and won't be needing the fence line for running fruiting vines this year. The board is a cutoff from an 8 foot board I had laying around and decided to warp and twist so it gets repurposed in the garden as a true yam leader. Not that the sprout still has not put out any true leaves yet, it is amazing the amount of stored up vigor this sprout is exploding with.



Speaking of which, here are a few of the beans that could be seen in the background.



and higher up, the tips have already started reaching the tops of the trellis stings and are starting to top over the other side.



continued in next post.