Gardening: it's genetic...or something

I reached that time in my life when it was time for me to build a garden. again.  Since I was 17, I have been moving around a lot. really a lot. Along the way, I have done my best to establish little garden plots here and there, which I have only ever managed to tend for a few months before moving again. But about a year ago, the opportunity rose to establish a creation I can really call my own. So I started dreaming and then digging. (p.s. you can click on the pictures to make them bigger)

Last spring I did a bunch of reading and checking out all sorts of crazy ideas on the internet...I mean I was actually writing my thesis...no. no I wasn't. I was using this garden planner.

Following the plan right from the beginning.

The Plan

Raised beds with 2 kinds of kale and slightly failed bok-choi
and arugula mix in the background.

First decision: raised beds. Why?
 - drainage. the field where I wanted to build my green empire was saturated most of the year
 - clayey soils. really easily compacted and not so good for growing roots so better soil would have to come from building the garden up on the clay
- warmer. this garden is at 63 degrees north. Further north than Anchorage and Yellowknife. needless to say, the growing season is short. raised beds warm up faster than the ground giving a slight growing season advantage.

Starting out on the floor of the little plastic greenhouse. It was
difficult to limit the number of seedlings I started!

 - no step. when a growing area is defined with clear walls, it is easier to train animals and people to stay out of them :)

Second decision: Hügelkultur. What? Why?
 - burying large amounts of organic matter (usually wood) under the topsoil.
 - absorbs water in spring on this almost swampy site and releases it in the summer making for less watering. at least that is the theory. Less watering appeals to me because I live 130km away from this garden and there are no outside taps to set up an automatic irrigation system.
- keeps the topsoil out of the water and helps it drain in the spring
- we had lots of old half-rotten firewood to get rid of, so under the garden seemed like a good place

Later on in the little plastic house. cilantro, tomatoes, peppers
and lots of later seedlings

Third decision: not organic. Why?
 - I don't like the social hoop-la that has grown over this term, so I won't use it. just like I won't use herbicides or other pesticides and I won't be using fertilizers. So am I growing organically? depends on what your definition is. by the purest standards I am not. I use regular seeds from the store, not organic ones. I use regular old manure, not stuff from an organic farm.

The Build

Digging down into the water table, then building it back up again.
First layer: wood. Second layer: soil. Recycled roof "tiles"
as garden bed walls.

So, it was time to start designing and digging. and digging. and digging. Steps:
- First dig down a section and move the heavy clayey soil to the side.
- Fill bottom with old firewood
- Place walls
- Dig down next section and use that soil to bury the firewood in the first section.
- Repeat until entire bed is dug.
- add several wheelbarrows of composted horse mature and blend with the very clayey soil.
- add thick layer of straw
- add another layer of horse manure
- add sand. blend lightly with horse manure.

Building up the layers and walls. Third layer: manure (mixed well
with the soil below; front right). Fourth layer: straw (back right).
Fifth layer: more manure (far left). Sixth layer: sand, mixed lightly
with the manure below (mid-left, unmixed).

- sweat and smile

The Location

mid April

There are both benefits and drawbacks to the garden being located on an old farm. The benefits: leftover equipment and "waste" from old farming days. The drawbacks: leftover equipment and waste from old farming days.

Drawbacks.

exactly 4 months later...mid August

In the digging process I unearthed sheets of plastic, tarps, wiring, pipes, a silver spoon and some old Finnish markka (coins from before the Euro). The plastic was never ending and the tarps simply could not be removed from the depths so I just had to cut out around the edges of my garden and move on. So much garbage and it wasn't even the "dumping place" on the old farm.

Benefits.

Beautifully composted old manure piles stashed in the forest. This was like black gold and made my garden possible. Despite the fact that most of this horse manure was well over 7 years old, there was still enough power left in it to get some impressive broccoli, towering dill, giant carrots, monster parsnips and voluminous lettuce.  Also, I found a stash of a few hundred old roofing tiles that made the best garden walls I could have hoped for. There was lots of improperly stored firewood that worked so well under my garden beds. So...quite a few plus points over all!

Again, mid-August

The Result

Peas and the incoming army of weedy germinants

It grew pretty well for the most part (especially weeds). Who knew that such cute broccolis could become such monsters? I was really pleased with most things, but did face some real disappointments with a few others, most notably the bush beans. After I planted the seeds (in pots in a greenhouse) there was more fermentation than germination. that was unfortunate. The beets didn't even make it to the size of a ping-pong ball and one variety of carrots was pretty sparse.

Thanks for the photo Kathleen!

Next Year?

Overall, what did I learn?

little lettuces, snap peas and the broccoli monsters that grew in
the middle of everything!

- Mulching. All the permaculture information I have read praises the use of mulches. No. not just praises, it goes beyond praise and describes it as a necessity. This is true. I didn't mulch as advised and the result was days and weeks of weeding. really a truly impressive amount of weeds grew in such a small area. This is changing next year and I have a round bale of straw ready to go as a mulch. I will be mulching right from the beginning.

Nikki, thanks for being such an awesome paparazzi. Now I
actually have picutres of my garden at maturity :)

Towering dill. The bees and hoverflies and all kinds of good pollen-loving beasties swarmed to my garden to get some!

- Spacing. I learned that spacing on seed packets should not be reduced; if anything, an increase would often be more appropriate, especially when attempting intercropping.
- Do not plant anything close to cabbages. They dominate space, overtake light and I'm sure gobble up all kinds of nutrients too. even the weeds can't grow under them, which is a good thing!
- plastic greenhouses need proper anchoring. seriously. they do more harm than good blowing in the wind

Other things to try next year:
- more flowers. especially edible ones.
- green manure.
- crop rotation!
- potatoes (the ones pictured came from Aku's personal field)

That's all for now! Maybe there will be another blog next year ;)

Squash monsters. They suffered from a drought after most of the fruit was set, so about half of what should have ripened actually dropped. :(

Peas and weeds and calendulas

Some of the very few vine-ripened tomatoes this year. It was a cold and wet summer.

The more successful carrots and spring onions...in the spring :)

  

The onion harvest. I wish that I had included something for scale because these were not normal-sized, they were TINY. 

Falling leaves and snow

-10 and sunny. Beautiful morning by the lake!

3 yellow chanterelles, a bag of winter chanterelles and a few
layers of black horn-of-plenty to fill the drier

So autumn has basically come and gone. Well, not officially, but it has been feeling downright wintery until...yesterday? We had 10cm of snow and -10 to -15 for a week so I was pretty convinced (and optimistic) that winter and ski season were fast approaching.  However, we set our clocks back an hour on Sunday and pretty much as soon as we lost summer time, the summer weather returned. irony. Now it is +8 and sunny, making it warmer than it was on midsummer day (June 21) this year. It snowed then.  Just before the snow came I managed to get the very last mushrooms of the season...little frozen chunks of winter chanterelles, yellow chanterelles and black ones










Last weekend we headed up to Rautavaara where Aku is a member in a hunting club to try our luck on the last weekend that bird hunting season is open. The targeted game birds are like grouse, metsäkanalinnut "forest chicken birds" in finnish, but can be much larger than the Canadian grouse I am used to. For example black grouse, or teeri, are over 3lbs/1.4kg and capercaillie, or metso, can be up to 15lbs/6.7kgs. Well...we saw both, and some hares, which are also in season. However the only thing we got at the end of the day was cold. There was enough snow that mushrooms and frozen berries were out of the question.  Both Saturday and Sunday temperatures hovered around 1 degree with freezing rain coating the trees and shrubs. It wasn't terribly pleasant for anything except a good sauna afterwards.  We tried something new in the sauna: katajavasta (juniper vasta), a first for both Aku and I.  I believe that I have previously mentioned that Finns like to make bundles of birch branche, vasta, for beating themselves (and others) in the sauna. Ok, sounds weird, but it is surprisingly pleasant.  Instead, how about beating yourself with bundles of juniper (Juniperus communis) branches? Yeah, seriously. We thought that was just a cruel rumour to get some poor drunk/foreign fool to inflict pain on themselves.  BUT, we tried it and it just so happens that it can be pleasant feeling and pleasantly fragrant.  It should be noted that these branches need to first be softened by searing/steaming them on the sauna stove and a much gentler touch is required. Strange but true...and effective!

We had to drill a hole in the 10cm-thick ice to get water for the sauna.  This was about the maximum visibility that we had the whole weekend. and no...this photo was not taken in black-and-white!

Freezing rain. Enough said.

One of the great things about the wintery feeling was that I felt totally justified and excited to tuck into comfort food.  I made a thanksgiving dinner for my Finnish family (no turkey, but pumpkin pie and cobbler!), lots of stews, mashed potatoes, root vegetables and the oh-so-traditional Finnish casseroles. Since Aku participated in a fairly successful moose hunt this year, we have a healthy supply of local wild moose meat in the freezer. Mmmm...the possibilities! (and cost-savings!) Meat is so terribly expensive here...and I am particularly cheap since I am unemployed.  So, I have started to get into traditional Finnish game food recipes. Yesss...that is truly comfort food! Take käristys for example (the following bit is a recipe, skip it if you're not into cooking generally or eating meat)....

Käristys is traditionally from lapland for cooking reindeer, but has been popularly adapted for moose.  I guess reindeer can be a bit chewy and given the fact that everything in Lapland is frozen most of the year, here is the (delicious) result:

- Start with a whole roast or large tougher cut frozen.  Not all the sinewy bit have to be trimmed off, but the worst bits should be. Defrost it slightly at room temperature.  It should not be melted, just not totally solid anymore
- Use a sharp knife to shave/slice thin leaves of meat off the end of the roast (across the "grain"). They should be thin enough that some light comes through them.





- heat up a large heavy-bottomed pan and add a generous quantity of butter (or oil, but I like butter).  Leaner meats require more cooking fat, fattier meats less.
- add a few pieces of meat at a time and brown them quickly. when they are browned, push them to the side and add a few more. continue until all the meat has been browned.










- dice an onion and mince a couple cloves of garlic (ok, this bit may not be traditionally lappish, but it is delicious). Keeping the browned meat to one side, add the onions and garlic to the pan. You may need to add more butter ;)

- Once onions are softened mix them in with the meat. Season with salt. add a bit (maybe 1cm in bottom of the pot) of water (or beer or more butter :) ) and cover with the lid.

- Aku's family really likes to add a few drops of sesame oil for flavouring or liquid smoke.
- simmer covered for about an hour.
- serve on mashed potatoes with lingonberry sauce. Cranberry may also be a good substitute. Some people like to have salt cucumbers (like pickles) on the side.

- Vegetables?? naah...this is Finnish food!

Ok, the recipe is over :) 

... and so is the posting