Garden season retrospective. Part 4 of N

Berry patch retrospective.

it was planted in 2014 from very small root stock, 

They were hit by early snow, some ended up dead

And later it was mulched

later more was added (on sale or plants trade)

Here one can see new transplants in late summer (should have trimmed those and should have not kept as much foliage ...it did not do well transplanted from semi-shade to full sun).

One can see stocky spring transplants and leggy late summer transplants.

 They all made it mostly, well aside of major digging work on site (bare spot on left is where the machinery had to come from and dif a large hole not related to berries at all)

 This is same by the end of 2015

 This is 2016 this summer

So these are all second canes berries.
And by this time patch needs thinning, I'd say the mother plants needed that in spring, but I did nt get to it as we had quite odd weather and maybe I should have. Also I did hold on it because several not thorny berries types were considerably damaged by rabbits. Thorn-less blackberry and boysenberry sustained the most damage, boysenberry was eaten flush to ground.

Also that was they year when we had unusual amount of grashoppers and they did some damage also.

Thinning raspberry is a necessary maintenance for both first year canes type or second year canes type. It goes from

to

One should not leave many canes, all weak and thin canes should go and give room to new first year canes that will become second year canes next year, one would identify second and first year canes easy, first year cane does not fruit, second year cane does.

It it is first year fruiting variety, they are easy, trim all, let it re-grow in spring, trim all late autumn or winter when it's dormant.

All second year canes are cut (ones that had berries) for this type, first year canes are either cut out completely (any weak or too close) and top of the cane is trimmed too at about 3mm from the last bud, no need to leave cane much above the last bud, it will dye off, no need for the palant to wast energy there. Correct top of the cane pruning is important.
How high - it depends. Outer side of the row gets trimmed to about 60cm, inner to about 80cm, or 2 and 3 feet accordingly. If canes look sort of thin - 2 feet or 60cm.

One of easy ways is to set up the patch such that one side of drip line has one year canes, next year switch the sides. It's one of the ways to manage. Another way - second year canes are  'thornier'
 So there was a lot of material taken and put into compost-hugel beds.

When it comes to pest management and fertilizing here are my helpers
We saved this one ad it was nearly run over by a truck on the road, put it into tank, watched a little to be sure it was not run over.

 It was ok, so we made if a toad house near nice rock where there is a lot of bugs (hoppers) , dry creek near by, drip system and it did stick around. Here is toad release spot next year

 I also caught and released into garden every praying mantis I found, into raspberry patch or into garden, When they produced eggs I placed those in raspberry patch. A lot less hoppers


Here is second part of garden helpers.
When we have raid earth warms get washed out on marge driveway

they are collected and set into new bucket

 When they settle I put the stuff into new worm bin, feed it, when they multiply over the winter I release the whole crowd into my berry patch to go do their worm business.
They compost my kitchen waste or bad vegetables that chickens do not get. 0 produce waste and good benefit to my plants and worm castings too.
All my banana peals get nicely worm-composted and any of my bad winter squash does to.

Russian chickens. Orloff

Russian Orloff  is aside of Pavlovskaya is the only stock we can get on this side of the pond.
RO's are better and I like them better personally as dual purpose.
Here are some of different stages of the birds these tiny not black and white are the offspring of

 these they are the parent birds at a bit older age.

little older

 Juveniles feathered, they look like any ~1.5-2 month little ones

about 3 month

A bit older at 4 month-ish

A bit older 5-6

fake  'mama hen'

I did have some broodies, not of Orloff breed so, they look kind of like that... fluffy, angry and hormonal

this particular foster broody did not work well so, first time, some make good broodies, some not so good, just have to see which one is best and keep that one.

Russian ORloffs are on endangered chicken breed list, lately they were taken to 'threatened' status with < 500 birds.
Here are pictures of older cocks, 2y old

close to 11 month old

In US there is no such a thing as so called 'black gene' in Orloff's, it basically means it was a 'project' bird. This one cam out of very nicely priced pack of pure bred show quality eggs, single survivor.
It is 1/2-Orloff

Crosses are large, 'dress' nicely, cold hardy, heavy and grow decent meat on them.

 Orloff kind of a head dominates, the other parent of this mix had typical large single comb.

There is another breed that can have different colors Gilyan, they are separate and were used in breeding Orloff's a long time ago. At this time there are Gilyan chicken in Russia and I did see some in UK.

Боярышник - Russian buckthorn

I may have that established as transplant after all. Mine is a tiny twig tree because that' how it gets from abroad.
But here is the 'daddy' the tree compared in size to a human

 and the fruit.

not my strawberry production patch. I like strawberries.

the soil in the region is black, naturally, it is like that about 1+ meter deep. or more... they do not exactly know how deed, they did not dig to get lover, it was still black. That soil is the feature of the region. This site is not dig up, but due to the sr. age of the owner now grass and stuff between rws is cleared in the beginning of the season by helpers so the owner does not have that much of a trouble maintaining, it can get to full cover over the season, And the owner likes things very orderly.
this is kind of like when they get the covers cleared between the rows and get new patch in over other crops that were there last year. the green matter living there and overwintered is 'hoed' into the dirt.

they mulch with animal manure and compost, The owner is sr. enough already for them to have difficulty managing leaves and other things. So it' the time when site has developed enough to feed them and have not that much of a maintenance trouble, It looks like they get the covers cleared and plant. at other times they just let covers take over when it's not planted.

they mulch there with compost and manure

 what is not cultivated and left from previous year be looks like so

Зачем деда в лес ходил... Why did grandpa visit forests

Была такая история... про сад и пасеку естественно, потому что 30 с лишним ульев это дело такое, не будет сада и поля не будет пчел и меда.
Так вот зачем деда в лес ходил. Ну за грибами это понятно. А вот зачем землю носил и в сад садил... Как говорили за силой ходил.

С точки зрения современной микробиологии на стыке с big data мы получаем совершенно естественную картину. Определенные схемы поведения процессоров обработки данных не будут проявляться н на чем кроме как на соотвествующих объемах данных. То же самое в микробиологии происходит. Определенные микроорганизмы будут присутствовать только при наличчи опрделенного объема среды обитания. То что в лесу ростет в пробирке не ростет так успешно и не размножается.

Вот за тем в лес деда и ходил и садил все это в саду чтобы для садовых растений и деревьев та же лесная сила была. Так как языковые выражения были старого до революционного образца то как называли так и называли. Прошло довольно немного времени, скажем так <50 лет  для того чтобы микробиологи нашли что такое лесная сила. Это огромное количество микроорганизмов, грибов и грибков и мхов. Все это привлекаетя различными сахарами и сложными соединениями которые вырабатывают корни растений. Получаем симбиоз, меньше болезней, вредителей и прочего не нужного. Микориза симбиотическая была открыта достаточно не давно а существовала многие тысячелетия. Явление микоризы было описано в 1879—1881 годах Ф. М. Каменским. В западной агротехнике значение этому не придавалось.
В результате здоровый сад, здоровые пчелы и молочные фляги меда литров нак на 25... вобщем ее не поднимешь просто так эту флягу, тяжелая однако. Вот таких 2 стояло дома всегда.

Потому для того чтобы у вас была в саду та же микробиология что и в лесу, сходите в лес за землей. наберите там где такие хорошо перегнившие листья все в таких ниточках мха и грибов, вот это самое оно. Лесная сила. Это сажаем в саду под старые листья и пусть себе ростет. Нужно чтоб это дело не пересыхало и было живое. Вот такие мини кучки холодного компоста живут в саду и делают свое дело в листовом перегное.
В вашем огороде это тоже работает. Ну конечно если вы его постоянно не перекапываете, потому как тогда все высохнет, перегреется и накроется ваша микробиология. Потому что ее среду обитания вывернули на изнанку. А в огороде тоже все росло и картошку копали вилами а потом соломой гнилым сеном и чем попало без семян дабы не просадилось по картошке все это дело закрывали.
Но основная сила всегда в саду была. там листья никогда не сгребали, иногда выжигалось при случае какой большой болезни. Но такое случалось исключительно редко. А так кучи листьев не жгли в основном то...

So... why did grandpa go to the forest...
There was a story ... about the garden and apiary of course, because more than 30 hives is.. delicate matter, if there is no garden and the fields will not be bees and honey.
So that's why my grandfather went into the woods. Well, it is clearly for the mushrooms. But why did he bring back ... dirt... and carried to the garden and seeded that there ... As it was said for the forest power he went to the forest.

From the perspective of modern microbiology at the junction with big data, we obtain a completely natural picture. Certain patterns in data processing will never appear unless there is the appropriate volumes of data present, it's not going to process big data same way as a tiny 1024 set. The same occurs in microbiology. Certain microorganisms will be present only when there is appropriate (large) of habitat. The fact that the forest biology will not grow in a lad just the same... many organisms were not considered to be present because in lab they did not grow, the habitat was too small and that was not right. The earth will not process the biology data the same, not needed, not going to sweat and go process big data if there is none. not so successful, And  IT does not breed in lab, too small.
Mycorrhizae was not discovered for quite some time, yet it was there in forests for centuries.

As a result, a healthy orchard and garden, healthy bees and honey by a milk jugs about 25 liters give or take... In general it is not that easy to lift the jag, pretty darn heavy. There were 2 of those the house at all times.

It is for the power the grandfather in the forest goes... and all this brought in the garden so the same power will be at the root of orchard trees. Since linguistic expressions were old-fashioned pre- revolution ... the power it was called. It took quite a bit of time, say <50 years for microbiologists to found out what that forest power is. This is a huge number of micro-organisms, fungi and mosses. All this attracted by various sugars and complex compounds that are produced by roots. We get symbiosis, less disease, pests and other things not necessary.

So to get that forest power aka biology in the garden ... one goes into the forest, and gets the culture, enough of it, go to the forest to the ground, get to place  where such good humus leaves are, they should have all these threads of moss and fungi, this is the most of it. Forest the force. It is planted in the garden under the old leaves and let them rest and be, do not disturb it. It is necessary that it does dry up and is alive. Where are a handful of mini cold compost piles in the orchard and the life forms do their work in the sheet of humus and old leaves. Cover let those be

In your garden it is also working. Of course if you do not dig it constantly, because then everything is dry, overheated and here goes your microbiology... caput. Because its habitat was turned inside out. And in the garden just as well everything was growing and potato was dog out with pitch forks and then rotten straw and hay with anything without seeds (weeds and what else, no need to seed those, seeds heads are ripped off and in the fire they go) was put over that ... whole thing covered.

But the main strength has always been in the orchard. It never had leaves raked, sometimes pies were burned the case of a big disease. But this happened only rarely.



Ну а если леса ни того... нету... Тогда ищите где вода, микориза и в тундре имеется. Берите биоматериали в природе, луг есть? Речка или ручей какой хоть с каким задрипаным деревом или кустами есть? Вот там и будем био материал собирать. Уж что есть, то и принесем, а дальше оно само разведется если этому листьев дать.
На чем такое хорошо ростет... само собой на отрубях. Ну про закваску это все потом как нибудь, а пока отрубей насыпать можно в кучу и биоогранизмы там разведутся замечательно.


Now what one is going to do if they have... no forest. Then look for water. Mycorrhizae exists in tundra. Get your bio material in nature. Do you have a meadow, a prairie.. Any kind of river or a stream with some vegetation and maybe some tree however ugly or some bushes... There we go collect bio material. If one has something they use that something, give it some good old leaves, some water and shade, mimic where it was, it will propagate.
Where does that all biology grow... what's the good medium... Bran naturally, wheat bran or whatever bran (rice, any kind of whatever grain or seed...) About wild fermentation we'll talk later, at it's own time. For now go get some bran and stick into that cold compost pile next to your collected biology, cover, keep moist (do not over-water or anything of that sort), and let it be. DND :)

Garden season retrospective. Part 3 of N

Chicken it the garden are let to do 2 things:

clean bugs

clean plants that I did not pick.

This is succession planting of tomatoes after peas. Peas are good and dry and tomatoes are coming nicely. Chickens are not interested in tomatoes greens, good thing.

 I think after 2 seasons of testing I like peas more on outer side of the row and I can lay them after the harvest as between the rows mulch/cover

 I like this way better where it was layed and already put under wood chips.

 Here is another type of succession planting after cucumbers were frozen by very late frost.

 Another type of companion planting Currants, garlic, strawberry and alpine strawberry

 Grapes and garlic and strawbery.

 Onions, garlic and strawberry.
Not sure I like walking onions combo

 More companions (sorrel, berries, sunchokes, borrage, garlic and others :))

 Seeds in making. These overwintered... sort of, I just could not get those parsnips out, and boy they made seeds.

Cleaning and

 Chilling.

'
When chickens are not in garden (most of the time) they are outside