Mixed Bed Construction

Looking back on the construction of my subterranean hotbeds, this is one that hasn't been covered on the blog yet.

I decided to make one bed with a diverse mix of species -- spruce, alder, aspen, whatever I could find. Depending on the piece, it was laid either vertically or horizontally, making it a truly "mixed" bed.

"Before"

This bed was built during the second year of hugel-construction in the garden. The green areas on the right are one-year-old rotting wood beds, growing prolifically. The bare soil at left-center includes the place where the mixed bed went in.

"Before"

The soil was so dense before building the subterranean beds, that it felt like walking on a high traffic hiking trail. Our farmer friend Bill remarked on the sensation underfoot, saying that it felt like hard pan, with no give. Now it is fluffy with earth worm castings and plenty of aeration as the wood settles and breaks down.

I put manure on the top of every exposed vertical end, to provide nitrogen at those important interfaces. The logs were surrounded by horse manure, with longer pieces in layers with the manure.

Next, I added lots more wood, filling some of the gaps with large and small pieces.

Another load of horse manure helped turn this into a hotbed. Thorough watering after every layer helps trap moisture inside the bed. This is the one and only chance to directly water these surfaces, so it's important not to take shortcuts in applying water during construction.

And leaves! Lots and lots of leaves...

A little soil, more leaves, and more water.

As I built up closer to the surface, I added smaller diameter wood in a bed of leaves. The experiment here is to see how it works planting into the smaller diameter wood as compared with the large pieces. Also, being smaller, they have greater surface area and will break down quicker -- similar to the smaller food pieces in your compost pile. 

More water

Another layer of horse manure on top of the small wood and leaves, providing nitrogen and warmth.

More leaves, more small wood...

...and a final skin of soil across the top.

This close up of one of the vertical pieces helps you to visualize how accessible the wood tissues would be for roots to penetrate, as compared with the side of a log. This is the rationale behind placing pieces vertically. However, that said, my horizontal beds are performing just as well in general, so the orientation has not proven critical in the Wood for Food garden. The amount of manure and rotting straw seems to be a more important factor (the more the merrier).

"After"

Who is Hardy? Perennial Garlic

Garlic is well known for being hardy. When fall-planted, it begins to grow and then has no problem going dormant through the winter, ready to be first up in the garden. Unfazed by spring snows, you cannot beat the hardiness of this plant. Or can you?

Quite accidentally, I learned a few years ago that garlic is even more hardy if you allow it to grow as a perennial. Wow! It will not only be the first sign of life in the spring, but it will become lush, thick, and tall before the radishes have sprouted -- or even been planted.

You can use the garlic greens like a "cut and come again" option for salads, baked potatoes, and anything else you like to eat with the lively taste of fresh garlic. It's a wonderful garnish for just about any meal. It's got to be incredibly good for you, too, with its rich green color and its bioactive components, especially when eaten raw.

Then, throughout the season, you can tug on one of the plants that make up a clump, and enjoy fresh cloves also. Just leave some in the ground and you will always have garlic... no planting required.

If perennial garlic was not "a thing" in my garden before, it is now!

Who is Hardy? Green Orach

The past two mornings, it has been -4 C, or 25 F. I wondered if I would find all the tender green orach sprouts keeled over, but no! In fact, they looked as vibrant as ever. At first I saw the clumps of volunteer sprouts, and thought that maybe they had protected each other from the cold, like individual moss plants growing together in thick cushions for insulation in cold or dry climates. 

However, when I saw these individual sprouts doing fine, I knew there was more to it than density. I thought perhaps the pine needle and leaf mulch had made the difference here.

When I found sprouts growing out of bare soil, supple and alive as ever, I concluded that this must be one hardy plant. It isn't just surviving a solid freeze that makes green orach hardy. This plant seems to be much less picky about soil warmth for seed germination, too. In early March at 3,000' elevation in North Central Washington, green orach has come to life throughout my garden, both in cold frames and out in the open -- before the radishes, spinach, lettuce, kohlrabi, carrots, or any other seeds showed signs of life. I don't know to what degree the slow burn of rotting wood is warming the soil, but I do know that it's still too cold for most other seeds to sprout. 

I use orach mainly in salads.

(Green and red pictured in the center of this harvest bowl from last year) 

Don't believe it if people tell you that orach is a "warm-season plant." It is perfectly happy in cold weather. It gets the warm-season reputation, though, because it doesn't bolt nearly as quickly as spinach, and is reluctant to become bitter even in the heat. What's not to love?

I would like to extend a heartfelt and special thank you to Berta, who shared this seed with me. The first time I ever met her was at Lost Lake and she asked, "Do you have a garden?" When I said yes, she replied, "Hold out your hand. Do you have a pocket?" Soon my jacket pocket was filled with green orach seed, and I knew I had met a kindred spirit. :-)

Spring has Sprouted

At first I wasn't sure what these prolific volunteer sprouts were. Then I found some still emerging from their seeds, and realized that they are green orach, one of my favorite salad greens!

A few days later I found this... Green orach branches laying on the ground have sprouted like mad!

Inside the cambered frame, the red orach has also come to life. I will relish their tender leaves in salads, tacos, etc. The only thing better than green orach is red orach! They are pretty enough to grow for their looks alone, but also delicious and very good for you.

  

Outside, it was 42 F or 6 C today (left), and there is still snow on north-facing slopes. However, the sun was shining... and inside the tipi greenhouse it was 90 F or 32 C (right), in the shade of a large pot. It was sweltering! This is just a simple tipi, with plastic on the east, south, and west sides, and an old thrift store blanket on the north side. I don't think you could make a more cost effective greenhouse.

The cauliflower has sprouted inside the tipi greenhouse. I surrounded the sprouts with coffee grounds because the slugs are already at epic levels. They are a *special* part of the microclimate we've got going.

Cauliflower-to-be (already being munched, but hanging in there)

This sight is a miracle to me: last year's seed husk with a live plant establishing itself. Wow.

And out on the property, more miracles -- the first buttercups of the year! This is my daughter's hand, for scale. 

Few things bring more joy around here than the first sprouts in the garden, 

and the first buttercups on the hills.

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Late winter garden

Thinking about year-round gardening and winter gardens might conjure up images of kale surrounded by snow, and last year's carrots being dug out from under the mulch in January. These are wonderful components of a year-round garden. Once spring begins to show its face, we turn our attention to planting for the new growing season. But what do you harvest after the winter garden has pretty much been eaten, and the new growing season is in its infancy?

This year I tried fall-planting some seeds that I knew wouldn't mature on time for the dead-of-winter garden. I also left some key plants in the ground during autumn harvest. Of course there are also a few precious perennials that don't mind the cold weather, either. Today I'd like to share how these methods have translated into an active late winter and early spring garden.

Outside of the garden, my composted manure pile is frozen hard as a brick. But here in the aspen hotbed, the soil is supple, and these Egyptian walking onions are hanging in there.

New onion greens are coming up, sprouting from onion bulbs that fell off the top of last year's walking onions. (This is a perennial onion.)

During harvest time last fall, I left a few onions in the ground, which now means green onions in late winter! (This onion variety would normally be viewed as an annual, but I'm growing like a perennial.)

Today I harvested the first radish of 2016, in the tipi greenhouse. Note how sickly the top of the radish looks, and yet underneath the soil was a beautiful salad-ready radish. I planted this seed last fall, and it sprouted and grew just a little before winter hit. Little did I know that it has been steadily growing, perhaps as the days have started to get a little longer and milder.

Last autumn, I accidentally sprouted a bunch of onion seeds (they got wet), so I laid them in the soil in the tipi greenhouse. Now they are coming to life! Soon I will be cutting green onions from their tops. It's an accident worth repeating.

I had no idea that this purple kohlrabi was hanging in there, in a cold frame that my Dad made for me, using a window from a workshop upgrade. This winter garden produce was missed during the core of winter -- and therefore is available for spring, when I've only just put kohlrabi seeds in the soil. I think I'll let it grow a bit bigger.

This is a third generation garlic plant -- each year, I keep leaving it in the soil, and it provides me with lots of garlic greens as one of the year's first salad offerings.

And now for the dark side of our microclimate: it isn't all peaches. Warmer soil means that we ALREADY have lots of slugs, pill bugs, and who knows what other competition for our goods. However, I'm working on making room in my heart for pill bugs, since they mainly like to eat dead and decaying matter, similar to earthworms, which will help the garden. I hear that they can also take in heavy metals, so they can do some serious good. (They also like tender young shoots... I will plant twice as many bean seeds as I actually need, and hopefully there will be enough seedlings left after the pill bugs are through.)  Slugs however, seem to take more than they give. I'm working on appreciating the fact that they serve as food for some of the birds that enjoy the garden. 

All in all, cultivating a milder, more moist microclimate is worth it to me.

Awakening

It may seem like your garden is fast asleep underneath the snow, but a rapid melt can reveal a surprising amount of vitality and growth. These nubs of chives were invisible yesterday; today the snow has receded and revealed that they were far from dormant underneath their white blanket. These chives are growing out in the open, with no protection from the elements.

The edges of snow are pulling back, and the amount of green I am discovering is frankly knocking my socks off.  Also, this is our first spring starting the year off with cold frames and covered beds in place. The intent of the frames is to protect from the elements and to capture some of the heat being produced by the slow-burning, subterranean hot beds. Let's take a look around for signs of life in the frames:

The same story of growth beneath the snow was played out in this bed, which does not have a top cover but does have 1' wooden slab walls all around it. Last year's blackened chard leaves lie in stark contrast to vibrant orange stems, ready to spring up with new life.

This red Russian kale was tucked up against my mini cold frame and made it through the winter with just a sheet over it.

I didn't even know that this onion had been busy growing inside the cambered cold frame. It was last year's onion, and escaped harvest due to being completely obscured by tomato plants (the jungle effect). Now we have green onions to enjoy! They are amazingly nutritious and of course taste great.

This is the west half of "Bill's bed," where today I finally harvested the last of last year's carrots, and planted some lettuce seeds in their place. When I opened it up, I found a few plants that made it through the winter and are starting to perk up a bit.

Yes, only a bit! Although these plants may appear to be in a sorry state, this is a vision of beauty to me. These yellow and white Swiss chard and kohlrabi plants are primed to grow radiant as soon as the weather grows just a little milder. In the meantime, I see it as a beautiful mess.

What a difference some rough slabs and a cover can make!

Over on the east side of Bill's bed, more Swiss chard has overwintered. 

Also in the east half of Bill's bed, the garlic is up! I peeled back the leaf mulch to find the plants much bigger than I would have expected at this time of year. 

I'm not sure if there is a more hopeful sight in February. 

And for those beds where the snow seems more stubborn...

Black plastic!

Stay tuned... the garden is awakening.

Subterranean Hot Bed Valentines

 

Wishing you a Happy Valentine's Day, from my awakening garden to yours! 

The snow is starting to melt... it won't be long now. (I took this photo last week.)

This is what I'm seeing out the windows as I write. Perhaps a little less spring-like, but I'm still going to plant beet seeds in one of the covered beds this afternoon! Planting is my Valentine's tradition: first direct seeding of the year. The soil is still frozen as hard as a brick in many places, but in the covered beds, it is soft. The seeds will wake up as soon as they feel ready.

This is a potato I pulled from the garden last fall at sunset... and saved for Valentine's Day here at the Wood for Food blog. All of the photos below were taken throughout the past year, except for the last one.

This is what it looked like close up. What says, "I love you," more than a heart-shaped potato? ;-) Hey, I guess it depends on who you are.

Some people like roses...

...and I do too. But I also like magenta colored Swiss chard!

And shiny red onions that reflect the blue sky.

Whatever your favorite way to say, "I love you," just make sure you express it. 

2015

2013

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About the title of this post: Big thanks to Kristin Ackerman for sharing the apt name, "Slow-Burning, Subterranean Hot Beds," to describe the Wood for Food garden.  Till now, "Hugelkultur" is the name I've been using to denote the use of rotting wood, since it is the technique that inspired the main idea of my beds. Hugelkultur denotes hills above the ground, with hügel meaning hill in German. Since I've built my hugelkultur underground, it does not form a hill. So, "Slow-Burning, Subterranean Hot Beds" makes a lot of sense for the way that I'm gardening.