Skimming and Concentrating

After a tough winter of “couching it” a.k.a. holding down the couch, I was taking on the blubberous proportions and pallid hue of Moby Dick. I needed some sun and March exercise. My first impulse was to start a spring walking program, but then I decided to just work my garden this year with hand tools only and skip firing up the tiller. I had plenty of time on my hands and I just might enjoy the quietude and the meadowlarks singing.

Two acts of magic had occurred in my garden patch over the past fall and winter. The first was the disappearing act of the compost piles. Where I had put about ten pickup truck loads of horse manure, ruined hay bales, and autumn leaves, only about one pickup load of semi-finished compost remained. It had literally vanished into thin air. The second act of prestidigitation was the appearance of truck loads of green manure/cover crop ryegrass from the three pound bag of seed which I cast to the wind late last fall. Because of the ryegrass seed, which I brought home in my car glove compartment last year, I have enough organic material for my garden. The compost on the other hand, will have to be rationed out.

With a sharp bladed, long handled shovel I skimmed a little over a foot wide swath of ryegrass and top couple inches of dark top soil and laid the turf to one side of the row. This skimmed area is where I plan to put my planted row. Next I dug out the skimmed-off row to a shovel depth and put the soil to the other side of the row. (I know this sounds like a lot of work, but recall I am doing this as a workout regimen as much as anything; it’s a lot cheaper and more enjoyable than going to a gym.) After I dug out the row, I spread about an inch or two of my limited compost into the trench bottom. Next with a pitch fork I laid the sod that I had skimmed off, inverted grass down, on top of the compost. Then I skimmed off the top couple of inches of sod which I had originally laid sod on next to the new planting row and inverted that, grass-down into my new planting row. Finally, I pulled the soil from the other side of the row, back over all the inverted sod. In a nutshell, what I have done is created rows of concentrated organic material alternating with valley rows of relative infertility. The patch looks like a graveyard of really tall skinny men.

This is all just an experiment. I believe I enjoy experimenting as much or more than the actual gardening. I am really a newbie at gardening and don’t know what I’m doing except that I’m enjoying the outdoors. My plan is to let the long rows of inverted sod rot down in the soil for a month and then plant into them. I hope as the green manure further composts in the soil, that it will serve as a slow release organic fertilizer throughout the summer. I plan to resow the infertile valleys between the seed rows with more grass and then when the soil has warmed up in mid-June, cover the new grass and kill it with Maple leaf mulch. Hopefully this process will bring back fertility and maybe next year my whole patch will be dark soil to a shovel deep depth.

Each year I am curious as to what will get me this year. My first two gardens in my retirement were only marginal successes. (That is a euphemism for “not successful”.) The first year the cute bunnies and the drought got the better of me. Last year insects covered my plants but I decided to wait until I saw actual eating damage to the plants, just in case these might be beneficial predator bugs which ate the undesirables. I waited and no leaf or fruit eating damage showed. Too late I realized these were not eating bugs but sucking bugs. They were sucking the life out of the plant without any visible damage. Live and learn.

So this whole skimming and concentrating process took me a couple weeks. I did enjoy the outdoors, and got some exercise and sore muscles. Now I am just waiting to plant and see what happens next.