Raised Bed Renovation Is Completed. 3 Nov 23.

 This raised bed is completed now.  I finished stapling in the plastic chicken-feed bag liners.  In total, I've added ten 5-gallon bucket loads of good garden soil, to raise the level.  I mixed in some chopped marigold "green manure".   The soil surface is now smoothed.

I'll add more eggshell, then cover with a nice layer of tree leaves.  Then it's ready for winter.

When dry season begins in Spring, I'll stain the "new" treated (reused) 2x4 braces.  I think this is the strongest, most likely to last, method to keep the sides vertical and square for the long term.

Bone Meal And EggShell Meal. 3 Nov 2023.

 About every ten days, I make a big batch of dog food with chicken thighs as the main meat ingredient (for the taurine). I portion it out into 7 oz portions, refrigerate a three day supply,  and freeze the portions to because later.  As a vegetarian, I don't have bones from my own meals.

The chicken thighs are slow cooked overnight, and the bones just fall off.  I dry the bones.  In the past, I threw them into the woodstove, to supply minerals in the ash, which I scattered onto the garden beds.  We decommissioned the woodstove (breathing is a good thing), so now what to do with the chicken thigh  (femur) bones?

After drying thoroughly, I pounded and ground them using a granite mortar and pestle.  The came out like this.

They are a bit crunchy and a bit fluffy.  Not that different from purchased bone meal, except less dense.

I also grind eggshells the same way.

Bonemeal is mainly a phosphorous source, especially good for bulbs, roots, flowers.    From wikipedia, the NPK is about 3:15:0 and calcium content is about 12%.  (a sobering, sad, macabre comment in Wikipedia, "In desperation, farmers collected the bones from major battlefields like the Battle of Waterloo and the Battle of Austerlitz to crush them and refertilize the soil.")

From The Spruce, bone meal promotes flowering, fruit, and seed production, and is slow release over about four months.  I imagine that is slower in winter months, and is retained in the soil for later.  There is also some magnesium and zinc.  Acidic soil (which mine is) is needed to break down the bone meal.

Eggshells are mainly a calcium source.  They are 95% to 97% Calcium Carbonate (Wikipedia).   My soil tests low for calcium, due to Pacific NW rains and other factors.  Eggshell is also a soil conditioner.

Here I added both additives to the recently planted German garlic bed.

It would be better to add before planting the garlic, but I didn't think of it.  I used about a cup of each.  Then used a small stirrup hoe to work it into the top inch of soil, well above the planted garlic cloves.

Nemagon Mustard Groundcover Update. 26 Oct 2023.

 Here's the first raised bed with growing Nemagone mustard.

So far, so good.  I don't know if they will grow through a hard freeze.  Time will tell.  They are reported to die with a 26°F  freeze.  If they don't survive, I'll just cover with leaves for weed prevention.

I'm growing the Nemagone as a sort of biofumigant.  Also here.  It's meant to reduce potential pest and disease load in the soil, as well as being a ground cover to reduce weed seed load, and a green manure crop to return nutrients and humus to the soil.  That's a lot to hope for. It also may not be necessary, since I don't bring in plants or soil from elsewhere (except tree leaves) and I rotate my crops.  But I don't think it hurts, and it might help.

I had these through the winter, two years ago.  They survived, and then grew very well in late winter / early Spring.

Bearded Iris Update. 26 Oct 2023.

 These are the bearded irises that I planted early to mid Sept. in containers.  I've kept the containers on the walls of the cement block raised beds, where they get the most sunlight and also are very easy to pick out tiny weed seedlings before they establish.

These are the rhizomes that I cleaned up from my old iris plantings, which had become weedy and I could not care for the last couple of years.  So far, I think they look excellent.

I don't know if it's good they are putting on so much growth before hard winter begins.  Just have to wait and see.  Irises are rugged.  I don't know that they are even as prone to rot as some writers state.  My main challenge has been fungal and bacterial leaf diseases.  I hope that growing them in a well draining, fresh, potting soil helps with that.  

A couple of those rhizomes are quite large.  Fingers crossed for blooms next Spring.

These are the new varieties that I bought, which I planted in mid Sept.

They haven't grown quite as much as the old rhizomes that I cleaned up, but they seem to be establishing nicely too.

I've also been removing all of the old leaves as they turn brown and soften.  Maybe that will help with disease prevention.

Red Hot Pepper Pepper Sauce. 26 Oct 2023.

 Here's the hot peppers sauce.  I filtered it through a sieve for liquid hot sauce, like Tabasco sauce.  I like this better,  It's hotter and richer due to the added garlic and fermentation.  Fermented hot sauce contains lactic acid (like yogurt and sauerkraut), whereas the commercial version has acetic acid (like vinegar).  

This time it was mostly Serrano peppers (especially the hybrid variety, Altiplano) with some Thai and Tabasco peppers for extra heat.

The pulp is also good for cooking, so I saved that too.

This is a really rewarding project, from starting seeds to making sauce.