Limitless Imagination & DIY Living Soil Amendment | Huw's Garden Journal #5
Plus a rather strange vegetable you can sow this week that makes kohl rabi seem normal!
Hello and a very warm welcome back to the Journal!
The garden is happy, the tomatoes have finally been giving some lovely harvests, and I’ve lost count of how many bumblebees that have been enjoying the monarda, Korean mint, and cosmos.
This week is a little shorter journal than usual as I am heading off on another exciting filming trip on my campaign to capture as many interesting gardens for you to enjoy on my YouTube channel over winter.
When I visit these places, I usually do a lengthy sat-down interview and end up cutting out a lot of the conversation to create a potent 10-12minute video. But what I will do differently moving forward is release the full-length 1st cut conversations/interviews as an audio file in upcoming journals for you to listen to in a similar manner to a podcast.
The skill of the week is something I highly recommend you try if you’ve never done it before. It is about creating a microbial amendment in 3-5 days which is going to give you soil a lovely boost of life to help keep your plants in tip top conditions for the remainder of the growing season.
Image: Dahlias pictured yesterday evening. I wish these flowers came into my life 10 years ago!
Huw’s Garden Diaries inbound
Yesterday, Sam and I finished filming the first episode of the now Substack Exclusive Huw’s Garden Diaries, and the video is all uploaded ready to release on Saturday morning!
I know a lot of you who are excited to have this series back, and I forgot how much I enjoyed filming them, and I am taking a break on YouTube very soon (there will be a video on YT explaining this weekend) but the diaries will continue throughout my YouTube break.
If there is anything in particular you would like an update on/for me to respond to in a diaries video, please do leave a comment or send me a message as it would be a lovely way to get you involved in the series too.
Thought of the week
“The yield of a system is theoretically unlimited, or, limited only by the information and imagination of the designer” - Bill Mollison, Co-founder of Permaculture
This is one of my favourite quotes which really inspires me to push the boundaries when it comes to finding solutions or getting the most out of the garden, and for gardeners there is a simple tweak to make it garden-specific:
“The yield of a garden is theoretically unlimited, or, limited only by the information and imagination of the gardener”
The internet has the unlimited information part covered, and so I like to think that doubling down on imagination is what I need to increase yields from my garden (yield can be more than just food, of course!). Having a curious mindset I feel really helps me tap into the imagination, but I wanted to share this quote with you to see if it also strikes a certain chord.
Skill of the week JMS
JADAM Microbial Solution is a very easy and is an incredibly effective way to propagate great quantities of beneficial microbes to apply to your soil. These improve soil structure, nutrient availability, and the microbial ecosystem. The two key times to apply JMS are 3-4 times in the 3-4 weeks leading up to planting out a crop, and then once you have crops growing you can water with diluted JMS as a supplemental boost to soil and plant health. This is particularly useful towards the end of summer to help strengthen plants.
You want to make JMS in the environment it is to be used to propagate the specific microbes suited for those temperatures, for example a JMS made in a polytunnel should be used for polytunnel beds. Image below of finished JMS solution (pictured yesterday) ready for application:
To make your own JMS:
Place 2 boiled potatoes and a handful of leaf mould in the centre of a 50x50cm fabric square (muslin, cloth, or hessian)
Bring the 4 corners of the fabric together and use string to tie into a small sachet
Now tie another piece of string to a handle of a 40-50litre bucket filled with rainwater and tie the other to the fabric sachet, allowing enough length so the sachet can be placed into the water but not sink to the base.
Sprinkle in a teaspoon of sea salt (extra minerals) and firmly massage the fabric to mush together the leaf mould and potatoes so the water turns cloudy
Loosely place a lid on the bucket and leave for 3-5 days
Once the surface of the liquid has created a nice ring of active bubbles (sometimes it is more so a covering rather than a ring), the JMS is ready for use. You want to use it when the bubbles are fresh (white, not turned brown) as this is when the solution is the most microbially active.
Dilution ratio 1:10 (on bare soil) 1:20 (on planted soil)
What to sow
This week’s what to sow list is available here or you can can always search sow.today online (in the search bar) whenever you want to access it.
One crop I want to highlight that isn’t on the list due to its extreme rarity is Wa Wa Ga Choi Stem Mustard (a.k.a. "The Thing"), pictured below. I will be trying it for the first time this year in a polytunnel, and invite you to give it a try as well!
Here is the description from Real Seeds:
So, definitely our strangest vegetable, a unique sort of plant from Szechuan in China, where it is famous. How on earth to describe it?
The stem swells up like a kohl-rabi but making lots of bumps rather than one big one. The stem and leaves can be used sliced in salads, cooked, pickled or stirfried. The flavour is delicious, savoury and somewhat - but not very - spicy. It's also excellent as a kimchi-style ferment with garlic, ginger & chilli
However, slightly tricky timing-wise: If sown in Spring it will just bolt. Instead, sow it to overwinter - between late July (to grow on outdoors) to early September (for a tunnel/greenhouse). Alternatively sow VERY early right at the start of Spring under cover.
It makes leaves quite quickly, say 4 or five weeks to a reasonable plant size; then it makes the swollen stem which should be ready roughly 3-4 months later. A fantastic crop to grow overwinter for harvesting when other crops are scarce.
Available from Real Seeds here in the UK who also have an amazing range of winter salads and radish seeds to grow that you would struggle to find anywhere else.
Happy sowing and hope you have a lovely rest of the week and I’ll see you again on Saturday (and tomorrow for paid subscribers for Huw’s Garden Recipes),
Huw
PS - Win a ticket to my next 5-day Permaculture Kitchen Gardening course, find out more in my latest YouTube video here which also teaches a technique to help unlock a whole new layer of imagination!
Oh I'm looking forward to getting the 1st cut full length audio file of your interviews here!
I saw on another video, you're growing yacon. I am on my 3rd year. The first year, it was so absolutely delicious. Last year it rained so much, it didn't taste very good. Hopefully this year will be better. We loved it raw (first year). Friend loved it, got really bad gas off a piece the size of a pinky finger. I look forward to any information you'll give on it. I understand there is a yacon syrup that's supposed to help diabetics? I greatly enjoy your videos. Thank you!