garden planning – ONE HUBCAP FARM

Posted on February 28, 2019February 28, 2019 by Mary Ann — 1 Comment

Raised beds are saving the garden

I may be slightly insane. Even though the weather has been terrible: cold, dreary, rainy, and the garden has been muddy, I have been out working in the garden and preparing for spring.

man wearing gray shoe standing on brown soil — Photo by Pedro Sandrini on Pexels.com

And I love it.

Of course I would prefer to work on a sunny, 65 degree day, but as I told my husband, if I waited around for the perfect weather I would never get anything done.

I would rather be out in the cold and rain completing the heavy work than working when it’s 100 degrees outside and I must avoid chiggers, snakes, heatstroke, and sunburn. I can always put on a coat and a hat.

I am able to continue gardening no matter how wet the soil because I do not till the soil and because I have raised beds. I have no idea when the soil will dry enough to allow a tractor to plow it, but the soil in my raised beds is workable almost all of the time.

I stand in the pathways to work so I do not compact the soil in the beds. Water pools in the pathways, so sometimes I have to wade through puddles and avoid slipping in the mud.

The rain left me with a moist seedbed above the muddy paths. I sowed seeds of kale, Swiss chard, and radishes in this bed yesterday, and I covered it with plastic. The rain that fell during the night did not wash away my seeds, thanks to the plastic, and it will give the seedlings a bit of protection from the cold.

Last night, when I went to bed, the garden beds were neatly covered with plastic. Beds covered with the white/clear plastic have seedlings inside, and the black tarp kills cover crops and weeds in preparation for spring planting.

This kale and mizuna have appreciated the protection of the plastic this winter. Drip irrigation, in the form of drip tape, irrigates the crops under the plastic.

Today was sunny and warm, but the changing weather rearranged my plastic covers. I am now off to order more sandbags so I can adequately hold down the edges of the plastic. At least I don’t have to worry about torrential rain or cold temperatures this week.

Consider making beds in your garden instead of plowing or tilling it. Some people construct beds out of wood or other materials and fill them with soil. If you have a large garden, however, wooden beds will quickly become prohibitively expensive. Instead, construct the beds by raking the soil into beds

I enjoyed seeing this ladybug visiting my garden.

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Mary Ann

Make a square foot garden this spring

Square foot gardening is a simple idea, one that seems almost too easy. It will appeal to those of you that like organized garden beds and scold your plants for taking more space than you allotted. If you are averse to digging deep beds in clay soil, or tilling the garden, you will also appreciate the laborsaving methods.
It’s not just another raised-bed garden, although the square foot garden boxes are raised beds. The original idea in square foot gardening (my apologies to Mel Bartholomew, author of the Square Foot Gardening books, if it was his unique idea to have raised bed gardens) is the precise seeding of the beds within a square foot allotment of soil.

Square foot garden beds for sale at the store in Columbia

After you create the square foot garden bed, which can be of any length, but usually not more than two feet wide so that the gardener can reach easily across the bed without stepping on the soil, you lay a wooden grid across the soil. Each square in the grid measures 12 inches by 12 inches. Into the square foot, you place seeds or transplants spaced precisely in accordance with their needs. In the early spring, you would set out one broccoli plant per square foot, sow seeds for 16 carrots, or four lettuce plants. Remembering your multiplication and division facts will help you with this process; make four rows of four columns for carrots, to yield 16 holes, or plant your four lettuce plants three inches from each side of the box and six inches apart in the middle. This is a great project for a young child learning math skills.

Unfortunately for my daughters, the square foot gardening box I made for them to use is not precisely square. I had some cedar 4x4s lying around that were approximately the correct length (I didn’t want to saw them to precise lengths) and I laid them in a rectangle. They aren’t the correct 6 inches deep, either, but because I’m putting the beds on good garden soil, instead of clay or sand, the plants will be fine. I’ll let their father teach them precise woodworking skills; I teach them the axiom, “Close enough for government work!”

Then, I cut some stakes to approximately the correct length with some hedge loppers, and used my favorite tool, zip-ties, to hold them together. It’s not perfect, but it will work. I didn’t want to trouble my husband to overbuild another gardening project. I knew I would really need his help later on that day to fix the underground short in the electric fence, and without the electric fence, I wouldn’t need to worry about having a square foot garden because the deer would eat the plants.

I filled the bed with some of the square foot gardening mix I bought at the Square Foot Gardening Foundation’s retail store at 3100 North Main Street in Columbia, and we will plant the garden in a few weeks when the weather becomes reliably warm. The store sells soil mix, gardening books, and premade square foot gardening boxes. They also plan to have demonstration gardens in the spring, and they plant gardens in area schools. The books and the website, www.squarefootgardening.org, give details about making your own soil mix and grow boxes.

Storefront of the SFG Foundation in Columbia, SC

I have helped my children plant gardens every year, and usually they become another chore for mama. I hope that this year, with the organization of the square foot garden, I can instruct them to weed a square, and they will be able to see a clear end to the task. The easily overwhelmed adult gardener may also appreciate finite gardening chores.

The books and the website, www.squarefootgardening.org, give details about making your own soil mix and grow boxes. If you live near Columbia, please visit the store at 3100 North Main Street.

Posted on February 5, 2013February 10, 2019 by Mary Ann

Plan Your Garden Before You Buy Seeds

While you are waiting for the seed catalogs to arrive in the mail, or if you are already enjoying the print or electronic version of the catalogs, make a garden plan before you purchase any seeds. It is fun, of course, to choose new varieties of any intriguing seed.

Without a plan,you may waste many seeds, and you risk planting the same crop in the same place year after year and causing diseases or soil nutrient deficiencies.

If you prefer to plan your garden on the computer, try Mother Earth News’ garden planning software. I prefer a paper, pencil, and ruler to do the actual planning, although the information available at the Mother Earth News website helps with planning on paper and on the computer.

I draw an outline of the garden, somewhat to scale, including fences, permanent beds, and paths, and I make copies of the original for future use. It is easier to motivate
myself to fill in the blanks in subsequent years than to start anew.

One of the main reasons I plan my garden is to make sure I rotate the crops that are most susceptible to disease and attack by pests. There are basic groups of plants, and I try to avoid planting them in the same spot more frequently than once every three or four years.

According to the Today’s Homeowner website, an easy way to divide the garden is to consider the plant’s products: leaves or flowers (like lettuce and broccoli), fruits (like tomatoes, potatoes, and corn), roots (carrots, beets, and onions), and legumes that feed the soil (like beans and peas).

Tomatoes and potatoes, for example, remove many nutrients from the soil in order to grown, and they are susceptible to the same diseases. If you plant them in the same place year after year, yield will eventually deteriorate.

To replace nutrients the potatoes used, plant beans or another legume, which release nitrogen into the soil, after the potatoes. Diseases and pests that affect potatoes do not usually affect beans, and the pests and diseases should decrease in the absence of host plants.

On my garden plan, I write the crops I planted in different spots. I usually have separate plans for each season because I plant a garden all year. When it is time to plant a new crop, I make sure to put it in a bed that has not had a member of its group in a few years.

Depending on the level of detail of the records you want, you can write “beans” on one area and “tomatoes” on another or you can write down the variety’s name. I grow several bean varieties, for example, so I write down each variety.

I use labels on the rows too, but the writing on the stake often fades or the stakes disappear by the end of the growing season. Keeping detailed records of yields of the different varieties helps me eliminate varieties that do not perform well and buy more of those that do well in the garden.

Posted on January 18, 2012December 29, 2023 by Mary Ann — 3 Comments

Plans for the New Year in the Garden

I have all the usual New Year’s Resolutions many people have, which I will not share here in case I do not achieve them, but I will share my
plans for the garden. Gardening resolutions have to take the form of plans, not resolutions, because there are so many factors beyond the gardener’s control that may prevent their accomplishment, factors besides, “Well, that cake looked so tasty I just had to eat it.” Planning the garden in the winter is a
wonderful occupation, because the hot days and hard work are a long way off. My plans are usually too ambitious, but I enjoy planning most when it includes some dreams.

This year, I have a large area that pine trees covered until we had them cut in September. I sowed it to rye grass and clover, and I will move the chickens onto the grass, let them eat the cover crop and fertilize the area. The trees grew in clay, and the soil will need some work before it is ready for my orchard. I plan to till in the cover crops the chickens leave behind to give the soil organic matter. I do not know when I will get the apple, pear, cherry, and peach trees planted, but I will work towards the eventual orchard this year. An orchard is an investment in time and money, and I want to make sure the soil is ready, and I
want to make sure I choose the best varieties of trees for my area.

I have read about grafting non-disease resistant heirloom tomatoes onto disease-resistant rootstock. For example, I could graft San Marzano tomatoes, which I want to grow to make sauce out of, but which die quickly in the garden, onto the lower stem and roots of the Celebrity tomato, which resists disease, and get the disease resistance of the Celebrity and the fruit of the San Marzano. I saw grafted plants for sale in a gardening magazine for $7 each, and they will become expensive if I buy many. I will spend the winter reading about grafting tomatoes, and will experiment with them. I did achieve one of my perennial gardening
goals last summer: I grew enough tomatoes to can to last me through the winter. Every year is different, though, so I am always looking for ways to outsmart pests and disease.

I want to grow enough Irish potatoes, onions, garlic, and sweet potatoes so I do not have to buy any. The onions and garlic are in the ground now, and I will have to plant the Irish potatoes later this winter, and the sweet potatoes in the spring. I have grown more than enough garlic for us for several years, and I will keep trying to accomplish the other goals.

What are your gardening plans? If you have never gardened, it is a great time to begin one. Do all the heavy digging and soil preparation now, when it is cold, and when warm weather comes you can leisurely plant your garden. And, working in the garden will complement your resolutions to lose weight and
exercise more, while you’re having more fun than you would on a treadmill at the gym. Next time I’ll write about my favorite seed catalogs and plant resources, and you can order some catalogs or look at some websites and plan your garden this winter.