Gardeners Black Gold

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I hit the jackpot this weekend, unlimited black gold.  I have a friend at work who lives in the country and has several cows and horses.  She told me that I was free to come and pick up a load of manure in my truck.

So me and the family drive out there and check out her property.  My daughter had a really good time seeing the cows and the catfish in their pond.  And the best part.....I didn't even have to shovel a single ounce of it.  They had a front end loader and just loaded my truck right up.  They also said I was free to come back anytime.  How awesome is that!  Now this is a gardeners dream, unlimited organic fertilizer.

I have already started putting it to use.  I added some layers to my compost bin.  I also mixed in some in my raised bed that I just harvested carrots from.  I am just living the gardeners dream.

I planted some eggplant in this bed after mixing this manure in.

Manure in the back of Old Red (That is what I call my truck)

A Gardeners Omelet

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There is a saying: "If you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs." Meaning if you want to make or change to something better, sometimes you have to destroy something else in the process.  That is the price of progress.

The egg in my case was a 30 ft October Glory Red Maple tree that I planted in 2003. It is planted in the back of my yard up on a hill. It is a great tree, but it is just in the worst spot for my garden up there. I also have another Autumn Blaze Red Maple that I planted in 2005 that is in the direct line of sight of the tree I want to remove. So looking from the front of my house, you can't even really see this tree because the Autumn blaze is in front of it.  If you look at my corn along the fence, it is growing in a perfect U shape. The middle of the corn gets some shade from the tree where as the outer edges of the corn do not. Removing the tree will also let me expand my planting area from 4X25 to 16X25, which is substantial. The soil on that hill is very sandy and loamy, unlike the Georgia clay in most of my yard.

So today after much consideration, I removed all the limbs about 12 feet up the tree.  Now my corn is getting equal sun all the time. I will cut down the rest of the tree at some other time.

You can see the slight shade the tree puts on the corn.

This is the corn from a distance after I removed several of the limbs. Notice the U shape of the corn along the fence.  The corn on the edges is 1 to 2 feet higher than the middle

Another view from my back patio, you can see the Autumn Blaze directly below in front of the rock wall.

Friday Night Party

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So how exactly does a gardener party on a Friday night? They spend their whole night harvesting, blanching, and freezing carrots that's how. That is how I spent my Friday night. I know it sounds lame, but that is how I roll these days.

I harvested 238 carrots out of one 4X4 bed. I had planted 256 seeds, so that is a pretty good germination rate. The plants were at 90 days and I think they were pretty much done growing. I had some really nice sized ones, but I also had several that were too small. I don’t know if I planted them too close together or if they didn’t get enough sun. Overall I am pleased with the results. This is what square foot gardening is all about, maximum harvest in the minimum amount of space.

It took me about four hours to harvest, clean, cut, blanch, and freeze all the carrots. I need to get some kind of cutter or food processor because cutting that many by hand got old really fast. I filled 12 quart size freezer bags. I think if I could have grown more of the larger carrots instead of so many small ones I would have easily filled 25 bags. That is going to be my goal for next time; to fill 25 bags out of one 4X4 bed. I put 15-20 ounces of carrots per bag because that is about the size of a can of vegetables. One standard sized can is 15 ounces.

I am really tired, and off to bed. Tomorrow brings a new day and the opportunity to plant my eggplant seeds where the carrots were. I am just living the gardener dream.

Carrot Harvest - Danvers #126

Carrots filled one side of my kitchen sink

A batch ready for bagging

Final Results