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| The broad leaves suggest a future in hogging the sun for growth. Pumpkins are also good for shading the corn patch. Pumpkin in the Compost, Part I. |
Autumn approaches and the pumpkin is still growing out of the compost. The plant took a long time to sprout and form its initial leaves. I watered it during the dry season, then left it alone. The roots reached deep enough to mine the moist compost for water and nutrition. The vining tendrils reached out for support from the chicken wire and the blossoms formed.
Yard debris is piled around the plant, including pears from my my neighbor's tree. When frost ends its growth, the components will become part of the compost during the winter. The soil food web of life does the following to give us healthy soil and plants:
- Shredders like springtails and earthworms tear dead plants apart for bacteria, nematodes, protozoa, and fungi to attack.
- The microscopic creatures mineralize the chemicals, breaking organic matter down so the plant can use the component parts. A plant cannot absorb a bean pod, but fungus can.
- The biomass, which includes all creatures in the soil, keeps recycling all these components, which build up in various ways.
My gardening neighbor is throwing his garden trash into the compost, located in the corner next to his backyard garden. I deliver roses to his front door.
Nine Inches of Rain
Our record rainfall, nine inches over several days, gave the rose garden a boost. Soon we had over three dozen roses in bloom at once. We had enough for large vases of roses for each neighbor, another for school, roses on the altar, and many blooms still on the bushes.
Our grandson said about a grasshopper on the rose, "I will just hang around here. Don't mind me." I was cutting roses for the neighbors when the same grasshopper (or his cousin) was on the roses near the blooms. He looked well fed but I saw no damage. Healthy plants shrug off insects and plant diseases. The insects attract predators, so balance is kept without sprays.
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| Pigweed is plentiful in Arkansas Hog country. I harvest it for compost. |
Mulching is Done for the Year
I promised to stop mulching, so I made two more trips to Lowe's, each one the last. No, really, I promise this time.
Sassy loves Lowe's. The customers and clerks welcome her. One family smiled at her and petted her, saying, "We have a three-legged dog, too." I asked, "Does your dog have a blog?"
I had piles of soggy newspapers, which made me want to mulch the entire fence line. Our helper wanted some work to do. He is fast and neat, knowing my plans. We ended up with about 200 feet of fence lined with newspapers and mulch, The only un-mulched part of the fence is the compost, which is the ultimate mulch. We mulched the dead tree, because that will be the support for trumpet vines, a favorite of humming birds.
The chemical fertilizer crowd used to pan compost as "OK but really low in NPK." That is like saying, "Steak is fine, if it makes you feel good, but you should concentrate on vitamin pills for all your meals. If you feel hungry, eat more vitamin pills."
The soil food web people see compost as the ultimate soil amendment because of its complex chemical combinations, humus, earthworm cocoons, and soil creatures. That is why I am saving the compost for the corn patch, where pumpkins and pole beans will also grow.
Corn demands nitrogen, so the chemical people say, "Pour on the nitrogen fertilizer, but not too much or it will be all greens and no crop." But the soil food web delivers nitrogen to the roots, chiefly through fungi that need carbon from the root tips. The soil food web balances the chemicals according to the needs of the plant.
Mulch feeds the birds by providing a feeding ground for them. Fungi reach up into the mulch to break down the shredded wood and feed the roots. Mulch pretends to shelter insects and earthworms, but movement and noise alert the birds that food is being served.
Spiders show that mulch effectively promotes insect life. Soon after I mulch a plant, a web is cast about the surface of the shredded wood. A spider, unbidden by me, decides that the spot is ideal for a home, with fresh meals delivered hourly. In contrast, a raked bare soil area under the plant will remain dry and relatively free of insect life. Earthworms will avoid the surface until dark.
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| You can buy this toad house for only $72 - named Hopsburg Castle. What happened to using broken clay flower pots? Toads love dampness and slugs. |
Orders for the Spring
I am ready for spring planting. The spinach will be covered when the frost arrives.
Some gardening plans include:
- Straw bale gardening in the sunny garden, for potatoes and strawberries.
- Peas, asparagus, Malabar spinach, gourds, and pole beans along the fence, stage left.
- Roses along the fence, stage right.
- Screening plants along the back fence. No offence, but the alley view needs a vegetative wall of butterfly bushes and sunflowers.
- Tomatoes galore in the vegetable garden.
- Trumpet vines for the dead tree and a nearby living tree.
- Roses around the maple tree in front.
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| Nothing beats the giant Russian, Siberian, striped sunflower for growth, screening, and seed production. |
Lucky To Have Clay
My Army veteran neighbor used to dig out the clay soil from yards when he landscaped them. They filled the empty area with topsoil. If they did not punch holes in the clay bowl before filling with topsoil, the lawn floated like a waterbed during heavy rains. In fact, that waterbed effect has been portrayed recently in the local paper.
We have a clay yard, so it turns white and brick-like when dry. No waterbed effect during rainstorms.
Wake up, gardeners. Clay is the best soil of all. The tiny particles hold the most electrical charges, which are needed for the ion exchange of minerals. Once clay is amended with organic matter, the soil is much easier to dig and even more fertile.
I could hardly jam the shovel in the prospective spots for screening bushes, so I made a slight bowl with my shovel. I began watering those spots when days of rain intervened. Afterwards, digging the moist clay was a dream. Our grandson helped with one excavation. In each cavity I poured a bag of mushroom compost. I also put the upturned sod back in the hole, to compost with its captive soil creatures. The organic matter will mix with the clay soil from the inevitable explosive growth of soil creatures. Planting will foster even more development of soil health.
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| Tim Glende started this debt-ridden debacle in Savoy, Illinois, which was foreclosed by WELS and sold to Baptists. Glende studied under Mark Driscoll! |
Go Big or Go Home
I know when ministers have inhaled the toxic fumes from Fuller Seminary, Willow Creek, or similar carnivals of con. They write, "Go big or go home."
They emphasize bigness as a measure of their success. The harvest of weed seeds is plentiful.
Robert Schuller was the model of success, with his Crystal Cathedral, sold to the Catholic Church in bankruptcy. He founded the Church Growth Movement, minutes away from Fool Her Seminary, but he resigned from his own church - bitter and angry.
Mark Driscoll made pulses race with his enormous numbers and abusive language. He used church funds to manufacture a best seller, and plagiarized without shame. He also resigned from the church he founded.
These blowhards and their disciples never take into account Paul's words about being faithful stewards.
1 Corinthians 4:1Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. 3But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. 4For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. 5Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.
The Church Growth imposters are so intoxicated with themselves that they mistake their cleverness for God's Word.
The soil food web exists without our planning or wisdom. We can destroy it, but we cannot order one spider, one earthworm, or one fungus to obey our will. They were all programmed by the Creator to do His will.
Paul also wrote about sowing and watering.
1 Corinthians 3:5Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? 6I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. 8Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. 9For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
Ministers should be studying Paul rather than the appalling Church Growth leaders.
