Richard mix, grex experiments - Squash / Pumpkin

[mare.silba (Mare)]

@Richard

Definitely the soil is one of the other major problems. Clay soil and a lot of rocks.

I know exactly what you mean! That type of soil just can’t hold water for long during summer (and also dry and hot spring and autumn that we have more and more).
For example - we had some 35-40mm of rain some 10 days ago, that’s fine amount (and completely unexpected at this time of year). 5 days later my soil that isn’t mulched or has only lightly sprinkled mulch dried out - and our daily highs are still bellow 30°C. With higher temperatures that amount of water dries out in a day, mostly two.

It’s good that you have better watering infrastructure this year, regular watering helps a lot. I’m curious, did you experience periods where you water a lot and every day, and it barely or at all makes a difference?
At my place shallow soils on base rock means that even drip irigation by itself doesn’t mean a thing, one has to add either plastic cover or really deep mulch above drips for watering to have any meaningfull effect.

Here’s an idea for future, if it fits your farming style and available resources - it is to prepare/regenerate soils for future growing of cucurbuts (and other demanding warm weather crops) in highly degraded land with long hot and dry conditions. It’s also for anyone else reading this thread and having similar issues .

Idea is to use natural rain and temp. patterns with low input from us to get higher percentages of organic matter into the soil and to have better structured soil - mainly to get higher water holding capacity of soil and less compaction.
This will have other benefits too, for example having more soil biology in place for better partnership with our new landraces.
It’s something that I’m playing with but due to small area for growing I have to balance between regenerating soil and growing stuff that I can harvest and eat too.

During cooler season that also has more rain (I’ve noticed that Balearic islands have similar patterns of rain through seasons as Adriatic islands) I will seed a diverse mix of cover crops/green manure/‘weeds that I like’ type plants. The higher the number of different species the better, there are experiments that proves this concept of higher number of species. Due to the cooler weather and natural rain patterns this can grow very well without any inputs by me, even in our soils, maybe just slight watering of freshly sowed seeds if drought lasts into late September/October.
Early spring, week or two (or three) before main crop has to be seeded/transplanted, I’ll cut that growing mix down completely (or crimp it) - important thing is to leave all roots in the ground, they will provide structure in the soil and work against compaction. I’ll also leave all residues a.k.a. cutted material on the soil to provide some protection from the sun and wind, and aditionally feed the soil for the next month or so (it ‘dissapears’ after that time here).
Than I’ll just seed/plant my main crop into this residue.
After few years doing that, in beds where I can do that regularly / several seasons in a row, structure and water holding capacity of soils are steadily growing.

Yes, main topic of this community is landracing and adapting seeds instead of having high inputs into gardening/farming and changing our environment.
But when dealing with highly degraded soils in combination with long periods of drought and high temps, and if water availability is a problem on top of that - I believe that landracing seeds will only get us to a certain point.
You can’t fight desertification just with seeds and still growing a variety of different vegetables that we are used to. At one point harsh conditions means that certain species can’t grow anymore, no matter how genetically diverse they are.

So, helping out our soils to hold more water and longer time - I don’t see it as this high input changing environment around me, but as regenerating space around me to be more resilient in the face of desertification and climate change, both land for growing and natural area around me.

And I think I’ll start a new thread for dryland farming in Med area, not to derail this thread any further (sorry about that).

[Hugo (Hugo Morvan)]

Well, that sounds like a great plan! If you want some of Salvatore Ciccerrelli’s evolutionary population wheat i might have some end summer. It contains 2000 varieties of landrace wheats from the most marginalised lands fro; Syria.Iraq,Turkey etc, From the mountains to the sea and grows well in arid places.

[mare.silba (Mare)]

I think that beautiful wheat population should be grown for seed to eat (and I do want some ) and that some other are better suited for this cover crop thing which in this system you grow over winter and cut down early spring so no seeds for the next season (or eating).
I found out that rye and oats are great in mixes for building soil structure and soil biology, hence those black oat seeds that I’ve put in the serendipity pack .

[mare.silba (Mare)]

Back to the theme of this thread - cucurbits .

I was thinking about seeds - how much of the squash/pumpkin/zuchinni etc. seeds that we all have/buy and grow and share, both specific varieties and genetically diverse populations, are actually grown without any additional input in the form of manure/fertilizer? And how many of those are grown without some type of fertilizer input and in harsh conditions regarding soil quality (and depth) and local climate?

@Richard I think you said in previous posts that planted seeds come from various swaps, do you have any idea if some of those seeds were grown without additional input in manure or fertilizer or stuff like that? What about climate and soil conditions?

I think that in places like yours or mine (climate and soil wise + low input style of growing) those seeds grown in milder condition with additional inputs get double shocked - harsh environment and no ‘food overload’. It makes sense to me to help them along at first.

@JesseI

If direct seeding seems like it’s less likely to make even plants then help them just enough to get started, but little enough to make some selection. Caring for hundreds of transplants is a lot of trouble and might end up in a failure because of that. Direct seeding you don’t need more than a few row meters and 10-20 row meters per species if you want more diversity. It’s a lot easier to care for and easier to use mulch or whatever. Then you can increase the area and reduce care while you increase seeds.

I really like Jesse’s suggestion, and not just because it fits conditions that I have and my gardening style . Direct seeding from the start basically train the seeds for harder sprouting conditions imidiately, not few years down the line. I found that my clay rocky soil doesn’t allow for seeds that need more nicer conditions to sprout. Better for them to learn from the beginning .
EDIT: one does have to have enough seeds at first to do this, off course

[Hugo (Hugo Morvan)]

@mare.silba

EDIT: one does have to have enough seeds at first to do this, off course

Yep, seed multiplication is always the tripping block, It’s even a catch22 if you do not have access to a bit of better land where you can multiply those hardened off seeds, It’s the same for Jessel and Polarca and everybody up north , but they have water and reasonably composted soils,
My farmer friend ideally puts the manure in the fields next year in long snake like lines, if the success with the seeds we’ve sown in the gigantic pile continues, i think we’ll have access to more to play with, I could dedicate one side of the snake pile to multiplication of those hardy seeds only,
Then you get them back… Far from ideal m it would be way better to do it with a local manure pile where you are, If you’ve got family that farms or friends, warm them upm show them the pics that come…
Because Jessel is hundred percent right you need these easy ways of direct sowing to really find those lucky treasures of crossed out titans that withstand everything better. Then you can go out into the world and share the love and get the ball rolling locally.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

@Hugo

Yep, seed multiplication is always the tripping block, It’s even a catch22 if you do not have access to a bit of better land where you can multiply those hardened off seeds, It’s the same for Jessel and Polarca and everybody up north , but they have water and reasonably composted soils,

Can’t say I’ve any of those. On average it rains less up north than in most parts of central Europe. Average is 600mm annually, which is fine as long as summer isn’t hot and there is rain during summer. It seems that hot and dry often coincide, like couple years ago when it was record hot and less than 100mm of rain during june-august after dry spring. I haven’t used composted soils either. Some manure, but mostly it’s just natural clay based soil that, when it comes to soils, it’s quite poor in quality. It’s also just a thin layer (20-30cm) before it hits clay as hard as concrete, which means that few weeks of no rain can deplete all the moisture that is easily available. I have been a bit worried many times can seedlings break through and it has caused some problems. That’s why I usually try to keep it moist to start with so that it gives in more easily. Lot’s of seeds sown in the same space also helps for them to break through when they work together.

[Hugo (Hugo Morvan)]

That’s about what i get too 675 mm in a normal year. What do you get Richard?
30 cm of clay soil that doesn’t sound too bad either Jessel,
What do you mean with breaking through? Breaking through to what? To the deeper layers where it stays wet?

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

@Hugo

That’s about what i get too 675 mm in a normal year. What do you get Richard?
30 cm of clay soil that doesn’t sound too bad either Jessel,
What do you mean with breaking through? Breaking through to what? To the deeper layers where it stays wet?

It’s fairly hard when it’s dry meaning you are not going to dig with a shovel (in it’s natural stage). Seedlings (at least those bigger ones that need to move some soil) have a hard time coming through to the surface, even when it’s softer after tilling and sowing seeds. it still sticks easily when it’s dry and effectively surface needs to crack for a seedling to emerge.

[Richard]

I bought an small water counter and making some calculations I think I underwater the plants by a lot. I am watering like 0,5 liters per plant everyday… Now I have doubled the water, so 1 liter every day.

[Richard]

@mare.silba

I think you said in previous posts that planted seeds come from various swaps, do you have any idea if some of those seeds were grown without additional input in manure or fertilizer or stuff like that? What about climate and soil conditions?

I got a bunch of seeds from all around spain. I going to say most of them were planted in raise beds full of compost. I am still waiting on some swaps from people that grow without water (secano), but most of them will be grains and flowers.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

@Richard

I bought an small water counter and making some calculations I think I underwater the plants by a lot. I am watering like 0,5 liters per plant everyday… Now I have doubled the water, so 1 liter every day.

It’s easy to underestimate the need. With year to year variations in weather, one thing works one year and not the the next year when there is little less water available and just a little hotter. Maybe it doesn’t need big increase if they have some water available deep down, if they just want to go look for it.

[mare.silba (Mare)]

@JesseI

It’s also just a thin layer (20-30cm) before it hits clay as hard as concrete

Just some quick info for all of you that have a hard clay layer beneath your topsoil, some call that layer hardpan and it is very hard to break through.

I’ve read at several places that people have excellent results with breaking through hard soils and even through hardpan/cement-like clay layer with daikon radish (one of the places was on permies, by Briant RedHawk, brilliant reading by the way).

I can’t say from personal experience what it does to hardpan layer, as I don’t have that, I have hard rock instead . But I can say that for decompacting and aerating clay based soils it works great. I’ve tried it this winter in one bed - sowed early autumn, ower winter growing and harvested seeds late May. After the soil in this bed is of great structure and I’ve planted aubergines there…

Will definitely incorporate daikon radish into my growing plans for all garden beds - the best thing so far to keep my clayish soil nice and not compacted.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

Daikon radish may not be that easy to grow here to start with and I’m not sure how easy getting seeds would be even if I could grow them. I rather grow what I can grow for seeds. With no-dig soil layer should loosen with roots and micro-organisms. Addidng biomass on top will make soil layer thicker over time.