Growing your Garden

Growing your garden in the best soil and condition you can is better for you, your family, your community and the environment. Unfortunately, what's best isn't always what's easiest or most time efficient and we do have time, energy and limited resources in our very busy lives. A few tips that can help you:

Start out with healthy soil, it will cut down on the "bad bugs" and keep beneficial insects and organisms in your garden. Adding a good compost and other organic matter to your garden on a regular basis will keep the soil healthy.

Choose plants that will thrive in your area and growing conditions. If you have a short growing season, you don't want to plant a veggie that is going to take more time than you have to mature. It's a common sense thing that I know you already know!

Practice good plant care. Don't over water, over fertilize, or over prune your plants. Keep it simple! Water thoroughly but only as much or as often as is really needed. Mulch the soil to keep moisture in and you don't have to water as often. In any case, you don't have to water for an hour every day for your garden to flourish... a couple times a week in the hotter months and 3x in extreme heat is more than enough.

Bugs - Praying mantis are a good option instead of using a commercial bug killer on your veggies. They are a good bug and will take care of the bad bugs. Plus they are just interesting to have around! Lady bugs are helpful in ridding your gardens of aphids and other pests. Both can be purchased. Parasitic wasps, lacewings, birds and toads help keep your pest population down too. Check the Internet on how to keep them in your garden and provide them a good home.

Worm poop fertilizer - yes you read it right! Turning waste into plant food with the help of worms! Drill holes in the bottom of a large plastic box. Fill it with moistened shredded paper or cardboard. Add some peat moss or leaf mold to increase the water retention. Mix in a couple handfuls of soil that the worms need for grit. Occasionally add a pulverized eggshell for calcium and grit. Place red worms in the bedding. Bury kitchen scraps, coffee grounds and filters with the bedding in one corner of the box and cover loosely with black plastic. Place the next offering of scraps next to the first. Do NOT put dairy or meat in the box with your other kitchen scraps. Keep the bedding moist but not wet. The worms will be working in the box turning the scraps and bedding into "worm castings".. or "worm poop", if you will. Use the castings as a slow release organic fertilizer in your garden. NOTE: One pound of red worms can process about 1/2 pound of kitchen scraps per day! Add bedding every 4 months or when you have more castings than bedding in the box.

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Some growing pointers:

Loose-leaf lettuce prefers cooler temps, so don't plant it in direct sun. Put straw near the lettuce to keep the soil cool and ward off weeds. Keep sowing small crops every couple of weeks as far into the fall as you can. Harvest outer leaves as soon as they're big enough to eat and the center will continue to grow for future harvests.

Peppers love hot weather so wait until the soil is at least 65 degrees to plant them and give each plant two feet of space. Support them with stakes or cages. Harvest the first green peppers to encourage future growth. After the first harvest, allow some green peppers to stay on the plant and turn yellow, orange or red for more flavor.

Green beans: Bush beans grow fast and mature all at once. Sow some seeds every two weeks to harvest them all season. Pole beans need a trellis to grow but will continue to grow all season as long as you keep picking them.

Grow your cucumbers on a trellis or along a fence to save space and make the picking much easier than letting them trail along the ground where slugs will eat on them. Sow a second set of seeds in mid summer to have a harvest all season. Keep your cukes well watered or they will become bitter.

Take your old CD's or DVD's that you don't want, run a string through the hole and suspend from the fence or tree branches where they will reflect the sun confusing squirrels and birds so they won't dine on your garden.
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Garden Preparation

It's that time of the year again! Pre-Spring and time to start thinking about and preparing your garden space.

First, select a sunny location that receives at least 6 hours of sunlight per day.
Second, be sure that area has a source of water nearby.

Then, it's time to prepare your space! Remove all large weeds, sod/grass, and large rocks from the garden area. Test your soil to determine it's pH content, salt concentration, and nutrient needs. Some County extension offices will run the tests, private testers are available in many areas, or you can buy an "at home" tester and do it yourself.

If you have sandy soil, it warms early in the Spring, allows a lot of drainage, and doesn't compact. Unfortunately, it also doesn't hold the necessary water and nutrients around the root zone.

If you have clay soil, it readily holds moisture, locks out air to the roots and is dense. Because of it's properties, the roots have difficulty growing very deeply, producing a smaller product.

If you have loam soil, it contains equal portions of sand, silt, and clay. It holds moisture and nutrients around the root zone and drains well to deliver oxygen to the roots.

To determine what type of soil you have, turn over a shovel full of dirt. If a handful can be squeezed and it doesn't stick together, it is sandy. If the handful forms a sticky ball that doesn't easily come apart, then you got clay. If the handful forms a ball that crumbles easily and isn't sticky, then loam is your soil. Of course, you can have a combination soil too so don't rule that out.

Soil should be 5% organic matter. Straw, twigs, leaves, peat moss, sawdust, grass clippings, manure are a few examples. Spread the organic matter 2 - 3" thick over the area and then incorporate it 6 - 8" deep.

Do NOT add sand to clay soil in an effort to improve drainage - the two mix and form a low grade cement instead!

Do NOT at peat moss to clay soil - they both hold water and you will end up with too much water.

Add nitrogen fertilizer to the organic matter to aid in the decomposing process. You will add more fertilizer later on also.

If your soil is acidic, add lime, gypsum or dolomite per the package directions.

If your soil is alkaline, add iron sulfate or ground sulphur. Iron sulfate will change the pH quicker, but also breaks down quicker. Ground sulphur will stay in the ground for years.

When your soil is dry enough, it's time to start tilling it. Take a handful of soil from about 3 - 4" down and compress it into a ball. Drop it on a hard surface and if it shatters, the soil can be worked. Till as deeply as possible to break up the soil. Try not to go the same depth each year or you run the risk of creating a "hardpan layer" just below the tilling depth. This layer, or floor, is where water accumulates and cannot soak through. Plants don't grow well unless this "floor" is broken through.

Next: Compost and Mulch

ref: essentialgardenguide.com