More Work in the Gardens - October 29, 2019 @goldenoakfarm

Calendula in the Big garden

Even though we’ve had many frosts and it’s been cold, it was so mild on Tuesday the bees were out and about. I’ve left flowers for them when I could.

Our signature white oak tree still has no shortage of leaves to drop. But this year is an anomaly in that there are NO acorns. Not one. My helper friend and I discussed this and decided it had to be due to the heavy equipment that was driving under the tree’s dripline. It probably wrecked the mycorrhizae fungi that supports the tree. It takes at least 9 months for this system to repair itself. The biology was also probably destroyed and it will take 3 months for that to repair, when the soil is warm enough for life to resume.

Me? I’m glad to not have to pick handful after handful of acorns out of the mulch, as I’ve done in past years. White acorns sprout upon hitting the ground and can have up to 12” taproots by spring. Not fun to remove, hence the tarps.

My helper friend and I got out to the Small garden first thing on Tuesday morning. A cold start had been forecast but it was really mild outside. I cleaned up all the leaves that had come down since Friday and he filled 5 gallon buckets with loose mulch hay. I crouched on my cardboard sheet (to keep dry) between the rows and stuffed loose hay down over each plant area. The hay leaves will keep the weeds away, but the garlic would have a hard time getting through it. So I keep them away from where the plant will be and fill that area with loose hay.

Once that was done we got out the tarps and put them over the area. This will keep the acidic leaves and branches (and acorns when we have them) out of the garden. In past years, when the garden was maintained, I covered the whole thing. But we were unable to get it weeded and mulched this year so there was no point.

While I was doing the Small garden, he was bringing hay to this area in the Big garden. I wanted to finish mulching the part I’d gotten weeded. When he left, I finished up the load of hay. I need 1 more load for the area front left.

All the while we were doing this, glimpses of this pen taunted me. It’s the next, and probably last, big project I need to get done before it’s too cold.

I had wanted to get more work done in the Big garden, but I doubt that will happen. We aren’t likely to have any more mild days like Tuesday was.

This calendula volunteer has done very well this year, with all the weeding and planting of trees by it.

I harvested all the flowers and they filled a tray in the dehydrator.

The New Herb garden at dusk with the yellow leaves of forsythia at the back. The leaves have held on in this area far outside the normal on most of the trees. There’s still a lot of color to be seen.

The lower right corner shows the wildflower seedlings that have come up on the drainfield. I hope they all do well.

Wednesday my intern is coming and I hope my husband will get us another load of mulch so I can finish the Big garden. Then we will start the take down of the pasture pen. A cloudy mild day is forecast.