Small fall garden update

     I have fallen behind in my blogging of late. This is due to prioritizing my energy mostly on school work. Chemistry is not a dear friend, (sadly that is just not how my mind works). But on a truly positive note my garden is not so bad as you might think.
     My tomatoes are still going, albeit at a reduced rate. My larger varieties are finally making a decent showing. Squash and I are destined to remain bitter enemies it seems. I've tried three different varieties this year (both summer and fall) sadly they have fallen short of expectations. I got a late crop of Anaheim peppers which is nice. Glad I let them hang around during the summer heat. They will be making a nice addition to some chili here soon if things cool down enough. My spinach didn't work out the way I had hoped, but they are making a showing now. So too are my rainbow Swiss Chard, and Georgia collards. This year my garden has been a lot of error and trial. That is not usually how its said but it is certainly how it feels. The red Romaine lettuce seems to be doing better now that the most of the oppressive heat has past.  I have about three pounds of garlic that will be going in here soon so I won't be running out next year. This is especially good as I hate having to buy garlic in the store. Its too expensive for the quality and lack of variety that you can find. Lucky for me I went with all heirlooms and a few different ones just in case some don't perform as well as I hope.

     I found a source of some free horseshit horse manure which I am really excited about. I should be collecting that in the next week or so. The plan there is to amend the soon to be backyard garden with that for the spring, and still have enough to let it compost over the winter for use when I need it.

     If I can keep my self honest my goal is to start keeping some good records about the goings on here in the terms of inputs and yields that I get starting in the spring. What this really means is spreadsheets, which I do not like, but will hopefully help me keep track of some good metrics going forward. Things like how much of my own produce I actually eat, what didn't work, what does, all that good stuff will be nice to have for subsequent years. 

    On a separate note the backyard re-fencing is almost complete which means...one step closer to hopefully some chickens in the spring. That will be triply beneficial, I get good pest control, I get eggs/meat, and I get poultry litter to fertilize with.

Hopefully I will have some more stuff to share soon,

Ryan

Soil test results

Something like a month and a half ago I took soil samples from my yard. I did this so I  could find out what my soil quality is. Here are the details.

My only concerns right now are adding some organic matter and maybe seeing if I can get my soil slightly more acidic. Ideally I just want to get it down to maybe 6.9 or so. I have no idea if that is even realistic since the soil is almost completely neutral. Luckily for me I am in an Animal Science program at an agricultural college. I'm hoping to score some natural fertilizers in the form of various animal manures. Chief among them are chicken and cow manure, with horse manure added in for good measure. If anyone has a recommendation for lowering my soil pH please leave me a comment. 

It doesn't always work out like you want.

Life is one big experiment. And like all others this one does not come with a map or a guarantee of success. My raised bed went together like clock work which is great. Its just the after that is giving me a hard time. I planted it out and everything was going fine for a while. Now it seems that I counted my chickens before they hatched (before I even got them as the case is for me). Either the rain has gotten to my plants, which I doubt, or I used too much of the manure and humus mixture in combination with the topsoil I filled the bed with. This is more than likely the case as I planted some backup tomato plants about two weeks later in a different bed and those seem to be doing fine. What has caused my problems? I think that the levels of nitrogen are way to high from an overabundance of manure. This has caused my roots some problems and is killing my first planting. If this is the case then eventually I will pull the failed plants and some of the soil in the raised bed and remix it with an amendment of native soil and in an attempt to balance out the npk ratio and the percentage of organic matter. If nothing else this will be a lesson learned on my journey to growing my own food. Hopefully by this time next year all I will need to buy from the grocery store are the meats, dairy, and some fruit that I cannot grow my self (at least until I have some more land...but that is still down the road). The one thing I am certain of is that my thumb is green. The herbs that I am growing and the fruit and vegetable production class I took way back in 2013 have proven that much. That and the fact that I helped my dad garden as a kid, and even created a producing garden for his house this year are definitely reassuring. I'll have some more pictures here in the near future.