Tomato Guild at Chicken Wing

This year, I focused on planting a tomato guild at Chicken Wing Garden. Guilds are grouping plants that have specific 'jobs',  that work together to benefit each other. There is usually a central element (in this case tomatoes), and it is surrounded with complimentary plants. In this case, the guild I have created for tomatoes is as follows:

• Planting densly helps to reduce competition for nutrients
• Borage brings nutrients from deep in the soil and stores them in its leaves. Because it grows quickly, you can simply cut off the borage stems and leaves and use them as a mulch around plants. Mulch helps protect soil as well as add nutrients as it decomposes. This is known as 'chop and drop.' Comfry is another excellent chop and drop plant
• Borage also attracts beneficial insects, known as insectary plants. Bees love the borage flowers and help polinate surrounding flowers and fruit trees.
• I planted giant sunflower along the north edge of the tomato bed, which will catch the sun and provide more heat for the tomatoes, which need as much help gathering heat and sunlight in the short-lived pacific northwest summers.
• The sunflowers also provide the tomatoes with natural stakes to climb up.
• I also planted pole beans, which are nitrogen fixers. Tomatoes are heavy nitrogen feeders and need all the nitrogen they can get to grow big!
• The beans also climb up the sunflowers, which provide the perfect growing medium for the beans.
• And lastly, I planted basil all around the tomatoes as a ground cover. Basil helps get rid of bad insects as well as helps tomatoes taste better!

So in one bed, I will be able to get tomatoes, beans, sunflower, basil and borage for harvest as well as provide nutrients, trap heat, and have something for plants to grow up.

You can create your own guilds by thinking about what your central plant needs and then finding other plants that compliment it perfectly. Companion planting to the extreme!!

Chicken Wing Garden in July 2013

July is a time of rapid growth in the garden. Finally the hot weather has arrived and plants that I have been nervously watching seem to grow before my eyes!

Jamie and Lindsey, faithful and wonderful apprentices at Chicken Wing Garden in 2013

Flowers everywhere! Calendula, Queen anne's lace, nasturtium and more

Flowers!

Everything is getting bigger! grow beets grow!

Tomatoes are starting to form and get bigger! So proud of the tomatoes this year!

Tomato bushes!! Even with heavy pruning, the tomatoes are so full!

UFC Market June 2013

Chicken Wing harvest: flowers

The first few markets of the UFC this year have been amazing with so much more diversity and quantity than years past.

Lindsey making flower bouquets

Harvest and baby in tow!

Mason street garden June 2013

Sunflower, tomato, basil and bean guild

Garden getting big!

View of the garden from my bedroom window!

In the third year, the garden seems to finally be growing like it should. With soil mended and perennials and annuals growing together, the garden is finally taking shape.

Small plants starting out in mid-june

Wood Chips at Chicken Wing

Finally got wood chips all over chicken wing. The UFC got a donation of around 4 yards of wood chips from an arborist company that dropped off the pile for us.

Wood chips are great in the garden for many reasons:

• Helps retain soil moisture, especially in dry sunny summer weather
• Helps protect soil from the sun, which can kill bacteria and fungi on contact
• Wood chips slowly breakdown and add organic matter and nutrients to the garden over time
• Helps prevent pooling of water and mud while watering
• Suppresses weeds from growing in paths
• Looks beautiful 

There are several disadvantages worth discussing:

• Provides a great moist habitat for slugs
• Depending on the type of wood chips, could pose some problems with the garden to look out for. for example, most of the wood chips delivered to Chicken Wing come from conifer trees. This will will be slightly more acidic than desired for a garden. Over time, PH levels back out, and the advantages of the added organic matter outweigh the acidity, but it could pose some short-term problems. 
• Wood chips, or any carbon source for that matter, can deplete nutrients in the short term. As wood chips begin to break down, the use up the nitrogen and other nutrients during the breakdown process, taking nutrients away from plants. While this is true, as the wood chips continue to break down, they will add even more nutrients over time by providing nutrients for the entire soil food web. Again, the problem with wood chips is a matter of timescale. In the longrun, more organic matter in a garden is aways a good thing.

Mason Street Garden May 2013

At Mason Street Garden, I am starting to see signs of better soil. While some plants are still having trouble, most plants are really looking pleased. By year 3 of adding as much organic material as I can find onto the beds, they are starting to look good!

It seems like some plants are loving the new soil: rhubarb, raspberries, strawberries, artichoke, sunchoke, potato, tomato, sunflower, onion

But some plants are not as excited: kale, broccoli, chard, beets, and most herbs

Not sure if this is due to soil or another factor, such as yearly weather or slugs.

Bird's Eye view of the garden. It's symmetry is
pleasing to the eye. I can't wait for the fruit to bear!

Chicken Wing in May

The garden just explodes this time of year. Now with the threat of frost gone, usually the last week in April in the Willamette Valley, every seed sprouts. And that includes weeds! Well, there are no such things as weeds... but I end up having to pull out a lot of plants that I like because they are taking over the plants that I am trying to grow. I only remove "weeds" when I am ready to plant somewhere or if they oare overcrowding other plants. But until then, I'll let the weeds do their thing. Weeds are there for a reason: they are mending the landscape. Some weeds bring nutrients up from deep in the ground, others break up soil. Some attract insects, while some keep them away. Keeping bedspace covered at all times, even if it is with weeds, help keep moisture in the soil because soil is not exposed to heavy rains or the sun. A weedy garden means the soil is good. If weeds don't grow, then you should be worried. Something is very wrong with your soil if you are not weeding in May.

Early Tomato Planting at Chicken Wing

Because of the unseasonably warm and dry weather ,and its expected continuation, I went ahead and planted the tomatoes in early may this year. It was getting HOT in the hoop house during the 80 degree days we've been having, where they had been for the last two months. In addition, my tomatoes plants were very large already, and were itching to get in the ground. I could tell because some were starting to flower. I quickly pinched off flowers and started lookin to plant!

When planting tomatoes, here is what I do...

Dig a deep hole - two feet or so. You want to plant the tomato deep in the ground in order to give the plant more stability as it grows. Tomatoes can be buried, and will grow roots out of its former stem! Don't try this with most of your other veggies, as the stem will rot.

Plant tomatoes with enough room to grow big. I like to plant densely, about 1 plant every foot and a half  to two feet.  I prune tomatoes heavily - down to two main stems per plant - so plants don't get too bushy and fruit gets bigger and tastes better.

I add some sea kelp for extra nutrients at the bottom of the hole. I also add compost.  Tomatoes like lots of nutrients.

I prune off the bottom leaves in order to plant the tomato deep into the ground. It makes the plant seem much smaller after you plant it, but it will be stronger and happier. Don't worry, it will get plenty big!

After pruning to bottom leaves off. It's ready to go in the ground!

The tomato goes deep in the hole.

Make sure the soil in nice and fluffy around the tomato so that water doesn't sit or puddle near the tomatoes.

Tomatoes in a line... hope they grow big!

Chicken Wing is lookin good!!

Chicken Wing Garden in April

Perennial herbs and flowers sprouting!

April is such an exciting month in the garden. Teased with days in the mid 70's and sunny, followed by a week of cold rain, and chilly slug-filled nights.

But the garden comes alive in April... Most perennials and seeds that over-wintered start growing in April as well. It has been really fun to see what is growing at chicken wing. There is lots of bounty already, borage, calendula, queen anne's lace, succulents, mallow, sage, and more!

We are also working hard planting seeds for the UFC... beets chard and spinach have dominated. We also planted chamomile, valerian, arugula and cilantro.  April and may are full of seed planting followed by nail-biting over whether they will grow. It sometimes seems as though nothing is going to grow but it always seems to! Chicken wing doesn't seem to have any problem growing everything else, so I can only image how many chenopods and cucumbers will be coming out of the garden in a couple months!

Tomatoes in UFC hoop house look GREAT!
Big as my head

Adding chalk board paint to the front sign!

Spinach starts and large borage

Chard sprouts

First Asparagus harvest!

Borage - amazing in the garden for many reasons...

Finishing touches to the UFC sign

Nitrogen Nodules at Failing St Garden

Cover crops can be used for a variety of reasons....

But in good soil, faves beans are ideal nitrogen fixers for overwintering cover crop

Check out the nodules of nitrogen. All legumes fix nitrogen and are good in any garden whenever possible!

Chicken Wing March 2013

Chicken Wing March 2013

March is exciting... Start turning over beds, pulling weeds, turning under cover crop, transplanting, spreading compost, seeding in the greenhouse, planting potatoes, peas and arugula, and sowing the first seeds outside by the end of the month. The work you do in March shapes the garden for the whole year. It's a good time to dig into the soil because it is still wet and easy to work, but not waterlogged.

Asparagus shoots

Planted Beets, Spinach, Cilantro and Chard

Peas popping up

Rhubarb poking it's head out

Garlic

Arugula babies popping up between garlic

Arugula sprouts

Borage - all over Chicken Wing!