June 08, 2019
I have a row of beets that are just too pretty to pick. Their cranberry colored stems and dark green leaves with cranberry colored veins are in contrast with all the other assorted shades of green in the garden. They are uniformly tall and evenly spaced and I hate to ruin the symmetry by picking some. Soon the leaf miner maggots will begin to make the leaves turn brown and I'll have no problem harvesting them. I had so little problem with spinach leaf miner maggots this year because early plantings can avoid the problem. The flies don't hatch until warmer weather so my recent spinach planting should suffer an onslaught. Keeping the leaves that turn brown picked off the plant and disposed of can break the egg hatching cycle..
There are probably chemical insecticide solutions too, but I don't even want to look into it. I don't trust that we know enough about the wide range of negative side effects that chemicals can cause in the ecosystem, because we only test for short range toxicity to the specimens we are familiar with, and ignore the consequences to those we think are insignificant. There is no insignificant life. Living organisms are all connected. All of life depends on other life..
June 09, 2019
I harvested the garlic patch yesterday, and like the beets, I didn't want to remove them because I've enjoyed looking at them. I noticed the leaves starting to turn brown a few weeks ago, and knew their days were numbered, so I cut back on the water. As a result the soil was not wet, and it made popping the bulbs out of the ground a snap. The entire process was accomplished on my knees, with kneepads on, using a short handled garden fork. The sun was on my back and I had a blast..
I kept stopping to look at the soil with all it's holes, cracks and mysteries, and picked up the dirt clods to break them apart and observe the microbial habitat. I marvel at the soil, knowing it's so much more than we see. It's like a living city full of activities and interactions, but all we see is dirt. I found a nice place in the shade by the gate to dry the bulbs for 3-4 weeks, so I'll still get to see them every day..
June 10, 2019
The empty garlic patch looks freshly tilled. All the uprooted bulbs left behind multiple size dirt clods and powdery soil. I beat the clods to uniformity and rake the ground smooth. Sunlight on barren earth is anathena to gardeniers so I cover it with compost. Compost sitting on top of the ground is not working to improve it, but merely keeping moisture from leaving, so I put the sprinkler on it for an hour. As the water flows through the compost it carries the tiniest particles of it, along with billions of microbes, down into the soil, beginning the enriching process of the environment for the future plant's roots..
The soil is alive when moist. Bacteria need water to function. They encapsulate and go dormant in dry soil, or they die. In a couple of weeks I'll be planting more corn here, so I'll keep the ground watered until then. It seems funny to be watering an empty patch of dirt but I'm watering the bacteria..
