I moved to my New Hampshire vacation house last April and almost immediately had to leave for California. When I got back at the end of May, I set out to put in a garden but soon learned why New Hampshire is called ‘The Granite State.’ The soil in my field isn’t very rich and there is a lot of rock – some of it so big that I’ve needed the tractor to pull it out. My solution to the soil was in the forest. I used the tractor bucket to scrape the grass off an area of the field about 30′ x 20′, then pulled a dozen or so buckets of soil from the woods.
The forest here is mostly deciduous trees, so the soil is rocky but good, well-composted earth. I dumped it on the ground I’d cleared, then used a spade and a garden claw to churn it into the earth that was already there. My garden ready to go in a couple of days.
How did it turn out? Mixed results. I was planting from seed, so the tomatoes only bore fruit for about two weeks in September before the cold set in. Same for the green beans, though a bit earlier. The zucchini were great as were the two types of lettuce. The cucumbers were a big disappointment, only bearing a few cukes from the few plants that survived. Next year I’ll try a different kind and, of course, plant them earlier.
A groundhog decided to put its den near my garden, dining regularly on the lettuce and cucumber seedlings which it extracted from the ground roots and all. I had to shoot it, but did not let it go to waste. Groundhog stew. Yum! (Actually, I didn’t care for it but I’d do it again.)
This year’s garden wasn’t so much about getting food as it was about learning what works. Next year, I’ll expand it in both size and scope, continuing with the plants that worked and trying something new in place of the ones that didn’t. I want to increase the variety and experiment with planting throughout the season (lettuce every 3 weeks, beans once a month, etc.) so as to create a longer period where they’re bearing fruit. I don’t have a real greenhouse, but I do have several of those little ones, about a cubic yard apiece. I’ll use them next year to jump start the seed germination. Plans to build a greenhouse were found in this forum, and my wife and I are now tentatively planning to build one in next year.
I ordered Glassine envelopes from Amazon, organizing and labeling seeds from the various plants (not the lettuce or radishes.) Surprisingly, most of the Burpee vegetables I bought ARE heirloom! Tomato seeds and pulp were squeezed into jelly jars now in my freezer. Cherry tomatoes had the same fate, though they went into jars whole. I learned this year that jars aren’t even needed. Whole tomatoes protected by nothing more than seran wrap freeze just fine and stay viable for at least two years. The envelopes with other seeds went into glass jars after I’d dried them for a week. They’re now in my refrigerator. I added some dehydrated milk to these jars to act as a desiccant.
The forest soil worked well but it was a lot of work to retrieve. It’s an unlimited resource available to me, but I’d rather create compost since it’s easier. To that end, I built a 30 foot corral from tree branches and hillside, and added a few leaves and a lot of cut grass to it over the summer. Now that it’s fall, I hauled 17 trash bins of newly fallen leaves and have been mixing them in. I hope to have a lot of high quality compost next year.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by
Decomposed.