COVID-19 In The Garden of Eatin'
We'll be updating this post to show the progress of the gardens. So check back if interested and let us know if you have questions or suggestions.
It's been quite some time since we updated any blog readers about our garden efforts. This year especially, when political leaders have been singing, "Everything's gonna be alright..." while things have gotten worse and worse, we've been wondering about the efficacy of the so called "market" and how ~it~ will continue to perform its vital "invisible hand" functions during an international pandemic. This question has had some serious implications for our garden projects.
Since about 1776 when Adam Smith taught us about the invisible hand, we have tended to assume this thing called "the market" would correctly value commodities and motivate efficient distribution from where stuff is produced to where it is needed. That free market valuation would ensure that those people who wanted or needed something the most would be able to choose to devote their own precious resources to the acquisition of that particular commodity at aggregate prices to make sure all of the available commodity would clear the market. (Clear the market simply means that all of a particular thing would be sold at prices determined by the free expression of consumers and producers.) If there was ever a situation of more demand than supply, an automatically increasing price would insure that people who wanted that thing the most (or those who could best afford it) would be able to acquire it. When fewer people wanted a thing, the lower price would make it more attractive.
This idea of the free market is an attractive and elegant notion. Every once in a long while, when everything is going just right, this free market does seem to function. In fact, when everything is going along just fine, the free market is likely the fairest way to handle the complexity of pricing, distribution, production planning, and consumer choice. Of course, when things have not been going just right we have always been quite willing to jump in and provide a little management. During world wars, as just one of many, many examples, production planning has dictated the need to manufacture more tank turrets and fewer luxury automobiles, more beans, bullets, uniforms, jeeps, bomber aircraft and troop ships. Central planners, with the absolute authority of the state, have intervened to set prices, dictate production, micro-manage distribution, restrain competition, and limit consumption. These kinds of interventions have happened over and over and they are usually justified by some sort of crisis.
Truth is, we have always acted as if we understood that the free market was a fair weather phenomenon. When we really need soldiers, we draft them. We don't usually just offer larger and larger salaries to entice young people into hand-to-hand combat. When a sergeant points at a machine gun nest and orders a private to run up and throw a grenade, they don't have to negotiate over the price of the fee for compliance with that dangerous order. Likewise, we do not decide who is going to get the available organ donation through an auction process. In an ethical world we would consider the age and health of the recipient as well as insuring some fair manner of deciding who gets the kidney. We attempt to impose some human idea of fairness into situations that are just too important to be left to the inhuman market for resolution.
This past willingness to let markets determine some things and to reserve the human administration over other things is why we have been so surprised at the way this COVID-19 pandemic has been (mis) handled. All over the country we have been hearing about supply shortages. From vital medical equipment, to protective clothing, to toilet paper, cleaning supplies, eggs, meat, cheese, milk, fruit and vegetables, things are in such short supply in some places and at the same time in a situation of catastrophic surplus in other places that we wonder why anyone thinks the free market is going to function without a little crisis management. We see eggs, milk, cheese being dumped into sewers. We learn of whole herds of cattle, pigs, and chickens being slaughtered for waste, because the market does not compensate farmers to raise the animals to maturity in this crisis. We hear of warehouses jammed full of toilet paper destined for commercial markets and long lines of people being turned away because of a lack of toilet paper packed for home use. And we have watched videos of farmers plowing under beans and other vegetables because their prospects of selling them to restaurants during a lock down are uncertain. We have even seen short term contracts for crude oil being valued by the market at negative numbers. Crude oil so worthless that you will pay someone else to take it off your hands!
Supply Chain in a nutshell: Think of a long complex pipe. On one end is production (the mines, farms, factories, and fisheries.) On the other end of the pipeline is consumption (you, me, we, they.)
When it works most efficiently the production matches consumption. People are consuming what is being produced and producers provide what is being consumed. When a farmer slaughters a herd of beef cattle destined to come to market in 18-24 months, because the price is too low to compensate, that action helps to drive up future prices. When lots of farmers do the same thing, there could be a bubble in the pipeline leading to food shortages in twenty months. Usually the scarcity of one product is compensated for by an alternative; if beef becomes scarce and expensive consumers will eat more pork and chicken.When the markets for all of these items are in disarray we could have food shortages.
The market is not functioning right now. And no human knows when it will begin to function again. The present governments, Federal, State, Local, seem to be unwilling or unable to intervene in any significant way. And now, springtime in 2020, is the time when people may be able to avert some of the supply chain difficulties we may or may not experience during the coming winter. Now is the time to acquire an insurance policy against continued market and political dysfunction...now. You'll need some sunny space, a shovel and some seed.
So we are expanding the gardens up here on Sweet Gum Hill. We figure it this way: if things get better quickly we can always give away excess produce, but if things do not get better quickly we will have vegetables for ourselves and many of our friends and neighbors will also have beans, cabbage, potatoes, and fruit.
What would be extremely helpful, we suggest, is if our elected leaders would, just once, use their daily crisis briefing to explain to the American people the need for them to consider victory gardens this year, this month, right now. The exercise will be good for us. The support for food security may prove to be invaluable. And did I mention, this is lots of fun? If you have only a hundred square feet of space in your backyard, a ten by ten plot of sunny space, you have room to grow enough beans to put away for a long winter. If you have a half acre of good sunny space, you can provide most of your food supply. But it is not an instant turn of a key. You will have to start soon. And that is what I would like to hear from our leaders in this time of pending potential emergency, the advice for Americans to begin their victory gardens now.
Here is what we are doing up here on Sweet Gum Hill.
The following photos show that fenced garden in more detail. Here is the southern half; (you are looking east in the next photograph.)
June 15: The white planters are full of squash plants, well underway now., The red onions do not seem to be suffering from too much bolting. The beans are sprouting. The broccoli plants each have a little head forming...now just about the size of a tennis ball.
June 15 Broccoli
June 15 Yellow Crookneck Squash
The northern half of this garden, still facing east.
June 15 Asparagus bed. This ends asparagus season here on Sweet Gum. Another delicious year. But we just doubled the square footage of the asparagus bed and added almost fifty plants. Next year we hope to eat so much asparagus that we actually can easily consider giving it away. The maintenance for this bed for the rest of the summer: 1) weed. 2) protect the ferns 3) add a layer of leaves and some river sand just before fall freeze 4) otherwise, keep off the asparagus beds!
Next photograph is taken looking west on May 23:
Below is a July 5th garden. Situation: dry and hot. But this plot has been very productive of asparagus, bell peppers, onions and broccoli this year. Beans and squash will soon be ripe.
We also have an isolated patch of Nantucket Pie Pumpkins growing on the south face of the hill. They will go in the ground as soon as the peonies begin to blossom...Peonies somehow know when it is safe to plant the squash family. {Note to myself: collect seeds from this variety of pumpkin.}
Pumpkin plants are in and mulch is down on May 23:
June 15 Nantucket Pie Pumpkins
Over the hill, in this photo below, you can see to the back right a patch of three varieties of potato. In front of those three beds is another garden for three dozen cabbages (on the right), later in the spring we'll finish planting this plot with green beans and brussels sprouts, and cherry/grape tomatoes.
Western Slope Gardens
Out behind the peaches we planted three hills of potatoes: red, white, and yellow. Fifteen pounds of seed potatoes should produce some thirty cubic feet of produce! Imagine three heaping wheelbarrows full of delicious fresh potatoes.
May 29: Potato beds all weeded and mulched for the first time this year. Potatoes like to have a mulch bed rise with them as they grow. That helps them put out more potatoes as the season progresses. So we weed and then mulch with straw and then shovel a little garden soil over the straw. We'll do this again every month now until harvest.
Mid Spring potatoes are such lovely plants!
June 5: Potato beds looking towards the south. We have now piled three layers of straw and soil on the hills. More to go. Plants are looking good so far this year.
June 15: Looking like a potato year!
Our gardening "method" is a combination of a European "hugelkulture" and Scottish Highlands "kitchgarden." We've been asked to explain what we do to turn a hill of clay and stone into garden spaces. Anyone who has traveled in the Scottish Highlands has seen the lush gardens they grow in steep and rocky spaces. Those kitchgardens were our inspiration. It takes a few years to do this, but it is worthwhile effort.
June 15 Kitchgarden. Beans sprouting, Cherry Tomatoes growing quickly, cabbage and brussell sprouts coming along well. The two varieties of cucumber are the stars of this plot. Remember the dismal failure in the old location. Rotating crops is vital.
I wish I could present these instructions in the same brogue that they were given to me when we heard them near Glasgow. Alas, here they are in American Standard.
First, we dig out a spot in this rocky clay from which this hill is comprised, putting the rocks all around the pit. Then we throw kitchen veggie waste, grass clippings and rotten wood from last year's firewood into the hole. Then we bury it for a year. In the second year we grow beans.Then after that, every fall we turn the ground and pile the leaves on top before a spring tilling. In a few years we stop tilling and just replant. This yields a kind of raised bed of the richest loam soil that we have ever had for a garden.
We never add chemicals or additional fertilizer. Not really interested in learning the chemistry behind those methods of gardening and we have found that we can patiently garden without additives. The most important aspect in this no-additive gardening is to build the beds over time and then after that final intensive bean season we begin a rotation that goes like this:
Beans, Roots, Greens, Fruit.
That's it. Beans followed by potatoes, followed by Cauliflower, Broccoli, and cabbage, followed by tomatoes, cucumbers, squash,, pumpkins, watermelons, and peppers. The difficult calculation is to keep enough beds for each phase of the rotation, so each year you get some of all of these veggies.
Asparagus, strawberries, fruit trees, and raspberries do not follow this routine. But each Fall, we layer another inch or more of oak, maple, and peach leaves (no walnuts!) into the asparagus beds and whichever beds we will be growing beans in. So far it has worked. When it stops working we'll try something else.
Here is an example of a new raised bed that is ready to plant this year. Note that we have also just started another terraced bed just behind this one. We will be filling the new bed up this summer.
This bed is ready to plant! This year, Watermelons!
On the rear side of the above raised bed, we are starting a new bed. See below. This year we will toss in yard waste (old rotten firewood, branches, leaves) and kitchen veggie waste (coffee grounds, veggie scraps, egg shells, etc.). Then next spring we will add a few inches of soil on top. Then grow beans. The following year we will use it as an expansion to whatever we will then be growing in the first bed. In this way the raised beds grow year by year. We always have a place to put yard waste, and we will have created nicely terraced garden beds.
Raised Terraced Watermelon Patch on May 23:
May 3, first handful of asparagus harvested. Spring has arrived. Now we'll eat asparagus almost every day until some time in early June when we declare enough to be enough.
At the same time Asparagus begin to emerge, the woods on the sides of this hill begin to explode with a variety of mushroom we love called Morels. We like them best dried and crumbled generously into gravy for turkey, pork, chicken and beef. They add a hint of apples and almond flavoring. It would not be Thanksgiving up here without Morels found during early spring.
Over the years we planted some apples, pears, plums, cherries, and a couple dozen peach trees, each in their own "hueglekulture" pit. Peaches are a good source of energy, they can be preserved by canning, drying, nectar. And there is nothing in the world so tasty as one of Sandy's peach pies in, say, deep February, to raise your spirits and encourage a guy to go out and get another armload of firewood to heat the house!
Late May and this year's peach crop is looking good so far.
Last year's peaches
Tomato beds.
Sandy informs me that she intends twelve more tomato plants in her raised beds again this year. During the summer and early fall, we usually eat about a third of them fresh from the plant. We eat them until we can eat no more, we smell like tomato plants by mid-September! The rest she gives away and cans. Each year we make sauce and salsa from the prior year's stewed tomato surplus. This year we plan to put away more than ever! Because mid winter jambalaya, soup, spaghetti sauce, and chili are always welcome comfort in the cold months.
"Slicin Tomatoes and Roma Tomatoes on May 23:
July 5: Tomatoes looking good!
Behind those raised tomato beds, you can almost see grape vines. We plant our grapes on east facing slopes and intersperse each vine with an iris cultivar. Or perhaps we have the iris cultivars and intersperse them with grapes. Perhaps it is a matter of the time of year we are talking about. But in any case, we have fifteen vines producing white (Niagara), smallish red wine grapes on the right. And behind all of those are the concords and seedless concords. We also have at least one muscadine that has survived several Pennsylvania winters. Keeping our fingers crossed!
Terraced Berry Patches: We have four patches of red and yellow raspberries, one patch of wild blackberries, and as for black raspberries, that's what you get if you stop mowing up here for a year. They are all around the perimeter of the fields.
Lessons learned:
Cucumbers
Sometimes you just have to be willing to modify your plans. This year's first planting of thirty-two heirloom pickle cucumber plants, lovingly started a month ago indoors, were destroyed in a matter of days. The culprit is a small yellow and brown striped bug called a cucumber bug. In about two days the plants were eaten away, leaving only the veins and stem structures. They looked like little brown wire sculptures. And so in retrospect, please let me reinforce one of the first guidelines of natural gardening. You must rotate your crops. I tried to use the same plot for cucumbers because of the convenience of the climbing fence being already in place. So yesterday we replanted all of the cucumbers into one of the new beds on the other side of the property. I'll burn the mulch/hay in the old location and grow beans there for a year or two.
Potatoes
This year, we put in three hills of potatoes; white, yellow, and red. Each hill has two rows of plants. The rows in each hill are ten niches apart. Then the rows are planted so that each plant has 12 inches of space between it and the next plant in that row. The rows are fine. But the hills need more space between them for several reasons. First, the soil that is mixed with straw and used to build the hills comes from the space between the hills. We need more topsoil to build the hills this year, mainly because the plants are growing so quickly. So next year double the space between the hills to about five feet.
Meat Protein
We raised meat chickens. Our flock included 20 Cornish Cross chicks and 4 Rhode Island Reds. They all did well. The Cornish Crosses grew so quickly that withing 8 weeks they were ready for freezer camp. We learned that the only way to make this variety taste good was to deep fry and then to bake the meat. It is a rubbery and almost tasteless mouthful of chewing project. On the other hand, we loved the Rhode Island Reds. They met us as a little sub-flock in the morning. Every time we went outside they were curious about us and joined us in our walks around the yard. Didn't have the heart to kill and eat these hens. They became more like pets. So last time we saw them they were heading off to seek their fortune with a nearby larger flock that included a cool new thing called roosters! So chicken raising for meat we tried. Next big animal project will be egg laying hens.My one big lingering concern for the year is meat protein. We will not be raising chickens this year, several local friends are raising chickens, selling eggs, and selling pork as well. We also have a friend who raises black angus steers on grass and natural grain. Yum! We want to support their efforts by purchasing what they have to sell. But where-o-where will we get enough protein to get through the crisis? I have some ideas and will promise to devote ample time to that lingering concern.
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