A Perennial Vegetable Garden

I haven't written anything in a while, Easter being a very busy time of year. But now we're in May and the weather is right for planting.

It's amazing how the clay soil becomes increasingly workable with daily watering.  I am very grateful for no-till gardening which is keeping my top soil from blowing away on these windy days. The recent wind gusts have thrown all sorts of garden debris around, but plentiful soil moisture remains 5 inches below the ground. Soil is the best place to store water where deep healthy roots will be able to access it.  Most days I haven't had to water the older beds, the lush ground cover of parsley, mint, catnip, lavender, as well as "backyard weeds" has kept the soil in the old plots moist and friable.  

Japanese permaculturist Masanobu Fukuoka wrote in his books: "One Straw Revolution" and "Sowing Seeds in the Desert" about his technique of using white clover as a perennial no-till cover crop.  Whenever he needed to plant new crops, he would remove a plug of white clover and insert the new seeds or seedlings, pat it down and repeat.  His hillside plots, unlike mine, have been developed for decades, but I'm sure his techniques as well as those of other permaculturists will benefit my garden, however long mine lasts.

My backyard garden expansion is nearly done.  The area looks so much better now that I've straightened out the old plot boundaries skewed since created a  year ago. A new raised bed has been planted with native sweet corn in a 3x4 pattern. I've started heirloom yellow-orange tomato seeds indoors and the bean plants will be sown around the corn.  The squash will go in last. The soil in all of the beds has been treated with beneficial nematodes which I'm hoping will prevent last year's crop failures from grubs and other garden pests. 

My experimental plants the Moringa oleifera and the Malabar spinach have arrived and the spineless cactus too!  The Malabar spinach does taste like mild spinach, but it needs to grow much more before the leaves can be harvested. The moringa tree is starting its growing season - I think it's grown an inch over the last week and can be expected to grow 3 feet in a single season. The tree grows well in the tropics, is said to be nutritious; the drumstick pods are edible and they are used to purify water.