Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[yarrow@sfo.com]

Title: Re: [Livingontheland] Cardboard

My garden has a dozen or so plastic gallon water bottles with the bottoms cut off. I put a stick in the center to keep each one from blowing away or falling over, and I use them to cover seedlings. From about Oct-Nov to Apr-May, the birds are eager to eat every new green leaf, including self-seeded kales, so if I want winter vegs, I need to cover them. A few years ago, when my first winter broccoli crop was getting munched, I used lots and lots of Sluggo (the nontoxic iron-based stuff), thinking it was slugs. But then, while I was in the garden, I saw birds hopping onto (what was left of) the broccoli stems and taking small bites. (I didn't use Sluggo at all this past year.) Sometimes I see slugs or snails inside the tiny "greenhouses."

Last year I took the covers off the snap peas when they were 3 feet high, thinking they were big enough to fend for themselves, and in a couple days they were eaten down to bare stems. So now the pea trellis stays under row cover all winter and spring.

This year the birds started eating the fennel/finocchio when it was a foot high, so I covered them up again.

The clear plastic bottles are also good for protecting new seedlings. I live in a year-round gardening climate (Calif.), but even when the temperature does not get down to freezing, a layer of frost covers the plants most mornings in the winter. The bottles keep the frost from settling on the plants, protect them from the wind, and keep them a little warmer during the day. I always leave the tops/caps off the bottles so that air can circulate, and this does not allow enough frost in to make a difference. When the plants outgrow the cloches, I uncover them (seems to be ok so far for kohlrabi and broccoli raab) or else add row cover or something similar.

In Iowa, if you have a small garden (as opposed to a farm) and don't have a greenhouse or cold frame, look up http://wintersown.org/

-- it's a method popularized by a Long Island gardener who was eager to plant seeds when the ground is frozen. She uses any plastic container, punches holes in the bottom for drainage and in the top for air, fills it with soil, and plants seeds. If the container does not come with a clear top, she uses clear plastic. She even plants tomatoes this way!

At 6:38 AM -0500 12/28/07, Fargir@aol.com wrote, in response to this post,

>I recycle disposable soda bottle
halves to sprout the seeds, giving the first leaves a
bit of time protected from mice and slugs.  These fit
into holes cut thru the cardboard mulch - seedlings
are even better.<

  

    I'm a bit slow today. Could you go into detail?  2 lt. bottles? Which half? Maybe, would it help with vine bores?

Thank's. Trying to keep typing to min. Slipped on ice 2 wks. ago and have a hair line fracture in the r shoulder. hurts to type with r hand

Peggy in Iowa