One of the best things about being a member of our region's local food community is the opportunity to continually add layers and layers of partnerships with one another. A great example of this was on display yesterday. Our garden crew started the day by harvesting cherry tomatoes, some of which will find their way to the kitchen at Junk Ditch Brewing Company in Fort Wayne (Junk Ditch also graciously hosts one of our farm share pickup locations). Then the crew applied some spent brewing grains from the Junk Ditch brewery to the experimental "lasagna" garden beds we are building. Since it was a Pizza Friday on the farm, that afternoon the mouthwatering smell of bratwurst braising in beer--one of the ingredients for the weekly pizza special--began to drift from the brick oven. The beer was Dach Pils...from Junk Ditch, of course!
Speaking of lasagna beds, we mentioned those a few weeks ago and thought we'd include a quick update. As a refresher, we are experimenting with building up some garden beds in a "lasagna-style" (also called sheet composting or sheet mulching) as we transition to a fully no-till gardening system and search for the best no-till techniques for our context. Sheet mulching has been utilized by people around the world for a long time. It's basically a form of cold composting in which we pile layers of carbon-rich materials ("browns") and nitrogen-rich materials ("greens") on the soil and then give them lots of time to break down into a nutrient-rich, microbially-active medium for growing plants.
We are particularly intrigued by sheet composting because we have the ingredients required: a) access to raw organic materials, b) plenty of space in which to build the beds, and c) lots of time to let them decompose.
For these beds, we started with a layer of spoiled hay from our pastures. We take one cutting of hay each season to provide supplemental feed to our cattle through the winter, but we don't always use it all, so we are pleased to find another use for it in the garden. Once we rolled out several round bales of hay, we put spread a layer of straw from this summer's harvest of Red Fife wheat. And now we are layering in spent grain from the brew team at Junk Ditch as it is available. On top of the grains we’ll put down a layer of compost made from last winter's hen bedding--a combination of wood chips and chicken manure that we have put through a a thermophilic composting process to kill off pathogens and weed seeds and stabilize nutrients. This layer will provide a boost of microorganisms that will speed up decomposition.
We'll top all of this with a layer of leaves in the fall (unless we come across another source of organic matter before then) and then leave the beds to decompose. We’ll have the whole winter to wait and wonder about what we'll find in the spring. If all goes well the beds will be ready to plant sometime next season, but we don't really know--it's an experiment! That’s the thing with farming--a lot of time can pass before you see the results of a decision you've made. Often you only get one chance a year to try something. That's why we take lots of notes! So here's a tip: if you’re growing things at home, keep a journal, spreadsheet, or some kind of record of what you’re doing and when you're doing it. You'll be glad you did!
