As good as a gold mine

I'm thinking a lot about soil fertility at the moment, as we are building new raised beds, and topping up the existing ones. The undergardener has been collecting horse manure, chicken manure and spent mushroom compost for me, as a special treat :-)

The horse manure in particular was lovely - well rotted, light and not too wet - reckon we'll be looking for more of that. Our acupuncturist - who is also a horse trainer - provided that - reckon we'll be looking to get more treatments real soon!

Anyhow, it got me to thinking about a book I studied for the Leaving Cert - way back when - Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad. Much has been written about this book, not least the fact that it inspired Apocalypse Now. Watching that would have been great Leaving Cert preparation....

Anyhow, the thing I keep thinking about is the mention of the guano island - an island made of or covered in bird excrement - "as good as a gold mine- or better", says the character, trying to get the crew to undertake the perilous voyage to harvest the guano.

In the mid nineteenth century, guano was found in large quantities in Western Australia- this became a lucrative export for the colony - ships would make a journey of several months to Australia and back to collect the guano for British farms. I suppose a strong constitution woudl have been a requirement for the return journey, especially when you crossed the equator.

The US passed a law in 1855 allowing it's citizens to annex any such island, harvest the guano, and then relinquish posession once the guano deposits were exhausted.

A fascinating topic, although not for dinnertime converations :-)and indicative of the general importance of soil fertility, and how it was achieved before petrol chemical based fertilizer.

Teaching

Last night was my first Tuesday evening gardening class. I was nervous about it, but excited too to meet all these people who were so keen to learn to garden. Unusually for me I had heartburn for a day beforehand, which I can only attribute to nerves.

So I worked in Dublin all day before the course, and drove back to Mullingar directly to the school. I was listening to very mellow music to recharge my batteries on the drive. Amazingly, I got several calls on the way home for people interested in the course, but sadly it had been full since the previous Thursday.

Got to the school early- the Mullingar Harriers were using the car park, so the gate was open. Got the school open and set up, and had a few moments to calm myself before the students arrived.

The first few minutes were a bit messy - getting students registered, waiting for the latecomers, and no one really talking among themselves. But then we got going, and a good interaction started. Things got a bit more relaxed once they started cutting and pasting covers for their diaries, and the questions were fast and furious.

My favourite part was when someone asked me if I bought Lidl's compost activator, and I said that I preferred to use 'wee'. There was a pause while this was digested, and someone said - do you mean 'urine'. And then lots of joking about quality of such after a few drinks. We also had a lot of discussion on types and quality of manure too. So they are starting to think about things differently, I think.

Overall, a pretty successful class, I am encouraged that I can do it. I was pretty buzzed when I got home, so am exhausted today, though I'm sure that will get easier. Quite looking forward to next weeks class, and to the Saturday class on the 24th.

High summer

 

This is how the garden looks mid July. Lots of colour from the runner beans, and the sunflowers - which are providing support for the borlotti beans - who are providing nitrogen for the squash at the bottom. It seems to be working great. You can see leeks, carrots in the chimney pipes, calendula, nasturtiums, potatoes, carrots, corn, mizuna.
In the foreground is an apple tree - in a pot - this one belongs to the school, and will hopefully be planted this winter.

There are paths between the beds, but what is in the beds is very close together. I have been trying square foot gardening - a bit, not all the palntings are in a perfect square - but the density is keeping the weeds suppressed, and because we have lots of manure and compost in the beds, fertility isn't a problem. Also, regular watering with Worm tea seems to help.

Nitrogen!

 
We know that Broad Beans (and other legumes) fix nitrogen in the soil, so they are good things to plant not just for food, but for green manure. When these bean finished producing, we pulled them up, and you can clearly see the nodules of nitrogen in the roots. So we scraped them off before putting the roots in the compost bin. Go beans!