About Grunt and Grungy ...

For those of you who don't know about us, a little history to fill you in.

Between the two of us we had over a hundred years of experience gardening. (Now that makes me feel old.) We had gardened in climates that can be described as West Coast Marine, to Sub Arctic wilderness, to flat prairie and finally settled in what we commonly refer to as our little piece of paradise, here in the Creston valley, in south eastern B.C., Canada, located about 10 km. north of the Idaho panhandle and just below Kootenay Lake.
The property lies in a small microclimate that gives us a zone 5/6 Canadian version or 6/7 US version.
We were avid gardeners for years, and about 10 years ago noticed that more and more of the old varieties of vegetables were no longer being offered. Being raised in the generation that thought "if you aren't part of the solution, then you are part of the problem", we decided to start growing heirloom and open pollinated varieties of vegetables (especially tomatoes) and offering the seeds to other gardeners.
Well one thing lead to another and we ended up starting a private seed bank so that our and your grandchildren will be able to have the same tastes that you are having now. This past couple of years we had gone past tomatoes and started seed banking (cold and cool storage) any annual vegetable seed.
If you have questions or would like to contribute to this blog, please feel free to contact me at any time.

Also for those who wish to trade please contact me at the below e-mail address and I will get back to as soon as possible. Thank you.
Cheers,
Grunt
grungysgarden@gmail.com


I am sad to report that Dan McMurray passed away on February 15, 2012 at his home in Wynndel, British Columbia. Dan was 69 years old.

Much of the final years of Dan's journey is chronicled on this blog. He was a man who made a difference to many people, and his family believe that his thoughts in the last years and months of his life, and his work in preserving heritage seeds should remain available.

Disclaimer

What I post about ways, methods, and results is based on what I observe in my garden. Your growing conditions may achieve results that differ from mine. I am putting this blog here to offer a site to exchange gardening ideas and methods, and to exchange seeds.
I welcome questions and discussions about anything gardening. The only dumb questions are the ones you don't ask. I will try to find answers for questions that I can't answer, and may post links to sites that have clearer answers than I can come up with.

Seeds

I do have tomato seeds to offer. The seeds are free, but I ask you to help cover the postage and handling in one form or another.
They can be obtained through trading seeds, or paying for postage at the rate of $2.00 for the first ten varieties or seed packs, and an increase of $1.00 for every ten varieties or seed packs beyond that. Seed packs are approximately 25 seeds each (not counted, just a pinch of seeds). Germination rate usually exceeds that of commercial seed packs. If you have problems with germination, let me know, and I will replace the seeds, either with more of the same variety, or with a variety that I think will give you something similar to what the original variety would have. Please note. I am not a seed company. Iwill only offer seeds from my current trade lists and also if I have lots to spare from previous years. I don't check germination on older seeds, but my experience has been over 80% on five year old seed.

2010 FALL SEED LIST = http://tinyurl.com/4whnxy3 Some seeds from this list may be in limited supply, but I will do my best to fill your request.

Albums containing photos of most of the varieties I have, and other photos that may be of interest, can be found at:
http://www.picasaweb.google.com/tvgrunt, or
http://www.picasaweb.google.com/danvaltrial

When you have made up your list, send me a copy at grungysgarden@gmail.com

Changes ...

The status here has changed substantially, as you can see above. The blog will continue, hopefully with more frequent input than recently.
Seed saving and trading/sharing will also continue. I still want to bank seeds, not just of tomatoes, but I am older than the lead photo on the blog would indicate, and have passed the seed bank on to younger hands.
In the meantime, I will continue to pay it forward, and trade/share seed to all corners of the world, as I did with Val.
This poem, which we both have known since the 1960's gave us much comfort through Val's battle with cancer.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.



Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.


Life comes with no guarantee of quality or quantity. It is up to you to remember to smell the flowers, watch the sunset, hear the birdsong in early morning, and the spring frogs in the evening. What ever happens in your little corner of it, it is still a beautiful world, and you do yourself a great disservice if you fail to see and celebrate what is there.
Grunt

A little footnote here, that will stay at the top of the blog. I have married again, for the fourth time. Another internet marriage, as Val's and mine was, and just as good, although completely different.
I was also diagnosed with lung cancer in May 2011, and started treatment to cure it in late August 2011.
The blog will carry on, in much the same vein as it always has. I will post mostly garden related articles, but also a few comments on things and life in general.
For a while, I thought Gump had it right = sh*t happens. He's wrong = LIFE happens


I am sad to report that Dan McMurray passed away on February 15, 2012 at his home in Wynndel, British Columbia. Dan was 69 years old. His family wishes his blog to remain for those who wish to read Dans' journey.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Another new spud bed

This is just to show you how quick and easy it can be to establish a new bed. In this case, it will be used this year to grow potatoes, although you could do the same thing without the potatoes, just to establish a bed for use next year, with a minimum of labour.

This is what I started with. I didn't even bother to mow the grass before starting.

Cardboard installed, first loads of mulch in place, and seed potatoes nested in the mulch. My "guard cat" is a paranoid wuss.

And here is the finished bed, just waiting for the potatoes to show up. Total time between the first photo and the last one is one hour, twenty five minutes, and that includes the time to mow the grass for the mulch.

When the potato plants start flowering, probably early August, I will add another heavy coat of mulch around the base of the plants, perhaps twice in a two week period. The plants tend to put out most of the tubers almost on the surface of the mulch then, and they will sunburn if they don't receive another blanket of mulch, just as they would if you didn't hill them. Come harvest time in the fall, I won't need a shovel, as the tubers will almost all be above the cardboard. And since they are totally surrounded with green mulch, there should be no scab on any of them. I will try to remember to post update photos of the progress of this new bed.


Next spring, the soil here should be much easier to dig, than it would be right now, and it will have a fairly high humus content due to the amount of broken down weed roots and mulch. Most of the cardboard will literally dissolve over the summer and winter. I will also expect a fairly high worm population when I do turn the soil.


Cheers

Dan

8 comments:

  1. That is really cool! I will have to try it as soon as I can get a lawn to grow.

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  2. You can do the same thing with leaves or straw for mulch.

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  3. How thick is the mulch over the spuds? I use a comparable system, but don't get good results, and I wonder if I'm piling on too much grass cuttings. I can plant through a layer of dead leaves (my other option) which has been there a while, but not much seems to grow satisfactorily through freshly laid ones.

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  4. Initial covering should only be 3" to 4" of mulch, not packed down. Since what I am putting on here is freshly cut, and hasn't lost bulk through drying, it is more like 5" to 6" thick. Potatoes have no trouble pushing up through even 8" of grass clipping (although it may take them some time) but find it very hard to push up through even 2" of matted leaves. If you have to use fresh leaves for mulch, put the leaves down, and punch a hole in them to plant your potatoes. Once the sprouts come up, you can add more mulch. When the plants start flowering, definitely pack on more mulch, and fairly heavily = that is when the plants will start producing a bunch more spuds, almost on top of the original mulch. If you don't add mulch then, you will have a lot of greened potatoes.
    As for the above photos of the new potato bed, we had two weeks of rainy weather right after I planted the potatoes, and most of them rotted before I thought to check on them. The rain kept the grass wet, and too cool to promote sprouting, which would have taken care of the problem.
    It's not a total loss, as It gives me an extra 10" to let the Rouge Vif D'Etampes squash run, and the soil will still be easy to dig for a new bed nest year.

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  5. For some reason straw did not work for me. I tossed some dirt on a few plants and it worked good. Next year I will try trenching plus dirt.

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  6. If you had the same weather I did, the two weeks of rain following planting were probably to blame. I got busy at other things right after doing the bed, and didn't notice that the spuds were too wet for too long = I got one plant to come up. The up side to it, is the squash I planted between the two spud beds had lots of room to grow. Rouge Vif D'Etampes is beautiful when it matures.

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  7. I don't remember when I planted potatoes but I think the ones I planted later with no straw did better. We did have a really cool and wet spring. How did your tomatoes do? I planted my tomatoes too close together and did not stake them up very well. They didn't do very well and the slugs were all over them.

    I'm also wondering what you favorite pole bean is?

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  8. I think almost everyone in our neck of the woods had the same sort of result in the garden, nothing much good. Tomatoes were a lost cause here. I usually harvest something over 4000 lbs. This year the harvest really wasn't. Normally we have a tomato tasting, the last week of August = I didn't have a half dozen ripe fruit in the whole garden then. The tomato pick off to take care of the bulk of the fruit, usually happens second weekend of September. I didn't have anything to be picked then. I took in about 300 lbs of greenies, that finally finished ripening or rotting just before Christmas.
    Hopefully we get something approaching a normal summer this year, and get back to being able to brag a bit about our gardens.

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