Comings and Growings BLO Newsletter for October 2014 October, originally the 8th month (on the Roman calendar), is now month 10. If you read the small print you will see on your calendar that autumn began officially on September 22nd. But that’s out in the stars and it takes a couple of weeks for Earth’s weather to catch up to that astronomical time table. However, by the time we get to October 1 we can confidently say its fall; at least for gardening purposes. The Fall Break this year actually came the night of September 18th when we got a light rain that dropped the temperatures and shifted the season of growth, probably for the duration of the year. This year we have been blessed with mostly nice weather and extended warm periods enabling most people to get one of their best ever gardens as things had plenty of time to complete their cycle in abeyance of the command to be fruitful and multiply. October signals kick-off time for a number of change-over activities in the garden, lawn and ornamental beds. As your summer crops get harvested you can clean out the spent plants and use them to make compost. Then follow up with fall fertilization and liming (if needed) and sow one of several kinds of cover crop seed (or a combination of them) to get an overwintering protective cover to be tilled down early next year. Further details are provided below on these activates and the products needed. Here is a reminder that the Fall Vegetable Garden Package we announced in a September BLO Bulletin is still on special price at 20 percent off regular prices. Cover Cropping – Fall is generally the best time to plant cover crop seeds following the harvest of your food garden, Usually the weather remains mild enough for fall-sown cover crops to germinate and get up aways before cold weather halts growth. Also by October we are getting regular rains that assure seedlings do not dry out before putting down good roots. Our seed sourcing has gotten somewhat more difficult, but we are now fully stocked up and have a new 2014 price and growing instructions sheet posted at the store and on our website blacklakeorganic/OrganicCoverCropPriceList. The Nitrogen Fix – In general your cover crop will grow better, produce more organic matter for turning under next spring and grow more nitrogen (on the roots of legumes) if your soil is well mineralized and limed. Nitrogen-fixing is not automatic and obeys the rule of nothing in, nothing out. Crossing the fingers has a low success rate. Our latest shipment of clover seed came pre-inoculated with nitrogen-fixing microbes, which adds to seed cost. Mulching Time – This is also excellent time to do Fertile Mulching around your fruit trees, berry bushes and ornamental trees and shrubs. To get you going on that project we have our Tree and Shrub Fertile Mulching Package still on special at nearly 20% off. Refer again to the Fall Preparation Measures Bulletin from last month. Fear of Fertilizing for Fall Feeding has been expressed by a few people who have been told that it is harmful due to stimulating foliage growth that can be killed by winter freezes. This is old school thinking from a time when fertilizer meant nitrogen. When you use a slow-release, balanced organic fertilizer this does not happen. Fall is best for lawn care, be it new lawn installation or feeding and maintenance. There is still time to fertilize and lime as well as sow lawn seed through October. We sell an excellent, balanced organic lawn food (BLOOM No. 4) which works best using a drop spreader. Lime can be mixed with fertilizer (if it is needed) for easy, once-over application. We have two regionally adapted lawn seed mixtures for either sunny or shady conditions. Now is also an excellent time to apply our “ecology” mix of low-growing wildflowers and grasses for a truly colorful lawn next year. This mix is named Fleur De Lawn. Just one pound is needed per 1,000 square feet and instructions come in the one pound package (with a saving of around 20 percent) is still on special. See the BLO Bulletin sent out in September. Garlic Month – October is also the best time to plant garlic “seed”. We have 9 varieties of beautiful organic garlic for sale at $20.00 per pound. Garlic will ordinarily increase 5 to 10 times the amount planted. You can find variety information by going to blacklakeorganic/gardeninginformationleaflets. Composting Tips – It takes both organic matter and suitable minerals to enliven soil for supporting plant and crop growth. If we say that the object of composting is to produce stabilized humus for use in garden and farm soils, there are several points that need to be considered and steps or components to be incorporated in the making of high quality, true humus. These things are not generally known to gardeners and farmers who may think they are making compost or humus, but may just be hastening the rotting of organic matter down to essentially nothing. A Peck of Dirt – is supposed to be eaten by each of us in our lifetime. In case you never knew, a peck is a quarter of bushel and a bushel used to be a standard measure of grains, produce, etc. before the invention of plastic buckets and tubs. Compost, too needs a peck (or more) of dirt (aka soil) and ideally some clay to be fed to it. The dirt adds a number of things, including minerals and microbes, but the essential thing is that real humus (a byproduct of microbial decomposition of organic matter) cannot be made without dirt and also some clay being intermixed into the “broken down: organic matter. You can find a good, short discussion of this by Steve Solomon on page 127 in The Intelligent Gardener. Compost Fortification – To make a superb, fully fertilized humus or compost, we recommend you use BLO’s Compost Fortifier Mix (BLOOM No. 10) as you make your pile and as a new, very meaningful twist, incorporate up to 25% by volume of biochar, either raw or charged, in this layers. Checkout the BLO Gardening Information Leaflets on composting and biochar in gardening on our website blacklakeorganic/gardeninginformationleaflets. Organic Ingredients – Thanks to the ascendency organic gardening, more and more fertilization materials are becoming available designated as “organic” or Organic grown and appearing on our price list as such. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they always come at a higher price to us and thus to you. Just letting you know. Knock-Out-for Sluggo – Information is now coming out that Sluggo Slug Bait is not the environmentally harmless pesticide it has been billed as; this despite the fact that it carries the OMRI stamp of approval for use in organic gardening and farming. What do you know, another chemical corporation has deceived us. For particulars you can go to cloudforest/cafe/gardening/warning-sluggo-toxic-for-people-and-wildlife-t3846.html. We will sell out what we have left and stop carrying Sluggo. Sour Note – Eagle-eyed Steve Solomon caught my grievous error in the “Sour Corn “article we recently posted. It was in the Total Mineral Matter chart of 5 Vegetables. The correct difference from highest to lowest readings should have been as follows: Snap Beans = 263% less (not 6.5%) Cabbage = 170% less (not 6.3%) Lettuce = 204% less (not 4.3%) Tomatoes = 203% less (not 8.1%) Spinach = 231% less (not 12.4%) I was never good at Math! I Can See Clearly Now that this newsletter has gotten too long. But there was a lot more that I (GK) wanted to put in it, mainly dealing with animals and their responses to feedings of minerals and to ingesting biochar. We keep discovering more and more beneficial and amazing properties of biochar. It is a gift that keeps on giving. Perhaps we will follow-up with a special newsletter or articles on the many benefits of biochar in removing toxins, reducing odors and putting on muscle, etc. as a result of putting small amounts into the feed of pets and livestock. Testimonials – Here are some totally impromptu statements from customers this September: Everybody’s Doing It – “You’re Medicine Man [soil], That’s great stuff. I got some last year. I didn’t have to add anything. It came out great. The plants are bigger than I expected.” Thanks for the Info – “I really love the emails you send out and all the information on environmental and ecological subjects ---- especially about the birds.” Keep Up the Good Work – “Keep writing your newsletters, I love them. We are new to the area and so glad to find this source. I learn so much. I read the newsletters out loud to my sweetheart.” Store Hours – This is a reminder that we are now closed on Sundays for the fall, and until further notice. That means we remain open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 to 6.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 16:48:09 +0000
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