Just call me Pop. Started sixteen years ago and now I have five grands calling me Pop.
4 Likes
I’ll stick “soda” in front of it. Soda Pop. 
2 Likes
My grandmother loved the garden, but didn’t have much practical knowledge. I think most of the fruit trees and beautiful flowers she had were planted by the previous occupant of her house. She had many fruit trees and a lovely garden kept up by people she hired. I didn’t learn how much work there is in keeping even a small orchard.
However little I knew of the work, my grandmother did very much appreciate the garden. Even if she didn’t teach me how to grow, she taught me to love the fruits of the earth. I am grateful to have tasted a fresh fig, a juicing orange, and a loquat. But I didn’t learn that her 200 foot long 40 foot high loquat hedge was a rarity and something I still dream of at age 40. My grandmother tried to teach me how privileged I was - how grateful I should be for the fruit and the food- but like most, that is a lesson we learn on our own no one can teach you.
I lived on a youth ranch for a while. I learned basic gardening and foraging. I worked hard - and I learned the joy in that. However, I didn’t learn, even now, how to be grateful for those early fruits. I think I’m still a bit bitter about those lost loquat trees. A bit angry that eating fresh, good, fruit is a privilege that many don’t get to enjoy; a thing that I often don’t get to enjoy (and 25 years since I’ve had a loquat). A bit resentful that I was supposed to be grateful as a child for something that fell off a tree!
Still hoping to learn that lesson.
A bit less maudlin:
I didn’t learn how all gardening was local! I learned to garden in CA. Moving to VA made everything insane! reading about @alan’s experience is close to similar in the shock value - except that where/when I was in CA each plant had to be coddled. Water was so precious and I hand watered each plant - mostly tomatoes- (in the morning at 6am while it was allowed and before the sun came up). Fruit and nut tree orchards were failing all around me because there wasn’t enough water.
In VA, grass just grows… on the side of the road,…in your driveway,… in your veggie bed…where you don’t want it. Now I’m busy cutting things down, trying to get them to grow less!! Sadly, so far this year, I do have to water, but it’s still so easy to get things to grow!
1 Like
After moving out of my dad’s house I started with growing blackberries from Home Depot. I wondered why they were so small and was so disappointed. I learned it was the cultivar they were selling when I got older and got more involved looking things up and actually figuring things out. No one ever taught me cultivars can make such a big difference with some fruit. I then started like you and started growing things like butternut squash. I remember watering it all the time all summer then getting 10 squash. It was all eaten in 3 meals between my mother, grandmother and I. I then joined a local gardening group and learned you could get a early crop of things like leaf lettuce and I can keep trimming the leaf lettuce and letting it regrow until I planted my summer crops a month or two later giving me plenty of harvest. I learned summer crops where I lived was kind of a waste with annuals but kept the lettuce going as I certainly got my money every year with lettuce. Like you my mother had an apple tree and apricot tree she never had to water. I got a mulberry tree and some blueberries but did not keep the blueberries or the mulberry. Were you around when the mulberry trees were 25 dollars and the blueberry bushes were 15 dollars. Ah good times. I then bought cherries and started my involvement on this forum. I then added peaches and it went on until I added everything under the sun to my garden. You are in the starting phase. Next is the I hear about X fruit and expanding into everything phase.
3 Likes
What is your opinion of dust mulching? I’ve read old literature that swears by it, whereas the more recent information I’ve found does not. I tried it out a couple years in areas of my vegetable plot, and it seemed to work well for maintaining moisture in lower soil layers and it keeps a clean tidy appearance. I’ve used wood chip/leaf mulch also, it builds the soil but the weeds always seem to come through rather quickly and with that mulch I can no longer work my hoe through the rows very well.
I have a book published in 1910 that does a very good job describing use of a dust mulch and the effect it has.
Dust mulch implies tilled soil. There are some areas using dry land farming where dust mulch does not make sense because tilling the soil reduces production. These are usually areas with little or no rainfall. Tilling also kills earthworms which is a problem with some highly amended organic soils. Tilling is shallow, usually 2 or 3 inches deep. Just deep enough to suppress weeds and loosen the top layer of soil. Some soil types are not amenable to using dust mulch. Heavy clay or very porous sandy soil are better managed using other methods.
Dust mulch works very well where there is abundant rainfall (such as the southeastern U.S.) along with summer dry spells. When properly used, dust mulch suppresses weeds, reduces evaporation, and encourages plant growth. Dust mulch is relatively high maintenance. It must be renewed after every rain, otherwise weeds take over and the benefits are soon lost. This brings up management practices because the row middles have to be kept free so they can be tilled. Tomatoes must be trellised or caged. Pole beans make more sense than bush beans.
Effective use of dust mulch in gardening requires use of relatively long rows. It is too much work if beds are used. For a lot of years, I made beds for onions, radishes, carrots, beets, turnips, etc. I had to manually work out the weeds. This can be done but is relatively labor intensive.
Summarizing, renew after rain, use rows, not beds, keep on top of the weeding. Benefits include very good production, moisture management, and good soil tilth.
Want to know about other mulch systems such as fabric ground covers, wood chips, or even rock/gravel?
1 Like
I wonder if I read the same book, about the same time period. Also, since you asked, I have a lot of pea gravel laying around, but didn’t consider if for mulching–seems to reflect a lot of heat upwards, also does a poor job of suppressing weeds in my area (PA zone 6). My last hesitation for using the rocks is that I feel once you go that way, you have to stay the course–difficult to remove or work the soil later on. Have you found good use for rock mulch?
1 Like
Gravel mulch requires weed fabric first. I’m not talking about the cheap stuff from Walmart. Professional grade landscaping fabric followed with about 4 inches of gravel will stop most weeds. For that matter, landscaping fabric should be used under wood chips too. Why? Because weeds will grow through wood chips plus the chips absorb nitrogen from the soil. Plants won’t grow very well when wood chips are sucking up all the nitrogen.
1 Like
Thanks
Having things grow through wood chips is a good thing depending how you look at it though. I have ground covers, blackberry and raspberry growing under wood chips and it is nice being able to mulch for water needs but getting more plants.
1 Like
Both of my grandparent sets farmed and gardened. One was a truck farmer. So I was around melons, cucumbers, tomatoes, beans ,peas, potatos, rhubarb, strawberries, rasberries, onions, squash, roses, flowers chives, turnips, radishes, sweet corn, and sweet potatoes from the time I was a small child. One of my first memories is at age three going out into the garden during rain after being told not to, getting stuck in the mud, and getting spanked by my grandmother.
5 Likes
Looks like the research since the 1910 papers were published points to organic mulches being preferable-- at least for the crops that they include in the article. https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/403/2015/03/dust-mulches.pdf
I’m in a relatively dry area and non-soil based mulch (mainly I’ve observed leaf/chip mulch, but some inorganic as well such as stones), rather than bare soil or what seems like a close cousin in intensively cultivated dust mulch soil, is pretty important for us to limit evaporative losses.
2 Likes
As noted, dust mulch is useful in some climates, not others. There is a very good reason farmers use no-till systems almost entirely today. Cover crop followed by no-till is arguably the lowest overall cost production system. It requires very good knowledge of the cover crop and the production crop that is planted. The primary benefit of a dust mulch is in reducing weed competition.
1 Like
Maybe your grandparent’s also had this problem?
Rabbits just love those tender, young green bean plants. Woodchucks love them even more.
Your trellis is perfect, provided it is strong enough that the wind won’t blow it over.
Do you have fencing outside the field of view of this picture?
2 Likes
I still refer to his book.
3 Likes
The area is fenced but not rabbit proof.
we called my grandfather pop and his dad pop pop.
then and their wives were the gardeners in my family. my dad was a lawn-and-dusty millers yard guy, he did have a quince and a birch he liked and planted a maple for me when I turned 5. but the older generations are who were growing food. my great grandpa had a lot of ways to do all kinds of things I would never think of myself. he had been a bricklayer and would do all the garden after work every day.
he built a half brick half glass greenhouse for my great grandma. cursing in Italian the whole time.
4 Likes