Well, October 15th has come and gone, again–the magic, “If your fall cover crops aren’t in the ground by today, give it up” date for the Monterey Bay. Arbitrary?, you betcha!
Tempting fate as ever, I am going to stage my own private One Straw Revolution–thank you Mr. Fukuoka–and reinvigorate the native loamy sand of this, our little one acre slice of heaven.
- It’s going to start this way:
- step one: pull the noxious weeds before mowing broadcasts the seeds–straight to the green waste can for this lot!
- step two: mow the dead stuff (Before 10 a.m., so’s not to get the dreaded knock on the door from the fire department, seeing as it is high fire season–the Mediterranean climate: a blessing and a curse.)
- step three: broadcast cool season cover crop seed, maybe some light hand cultivation on the rises prior to broadcasting seed–to prevent bald rises and lush cover crops at the bottom of same; possibly cover with light layer of broadcast composted year old garden waste.
Waste not, want not, eh? Also, the light layer of compost will help keep the seeds evenly damp while we pray for the coming of the rainy season–not too much, but please, oh please, not too little–and thwart a few birds.
Yup, that’s how it’s going to start. Are there different and perhaps better ways to do it? Oh, heck yeah! By the same token, the best time to do it would have been seven years ago when we first moved to this lovely spot. Faulting that, anything will be an improvement and at least I am not dousing the place with alternating courses of Round-up and Miracle Gro. Even if we were not in the Elkhorn Slough watershed, that would be bad. And, given that our water source is directly under us, it would be dumb.
I do try not to be bad and dumb when I can avoid it, but things don’t always go as planned. Just ask Hamlet!
Yet another exciting episode of Guerrilla Gurl’s Ongoing Organic Garden Adventure!
