Category Archives: garden

Beginning Gardening Series – Design Considerations

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As with any venture, it pays to plan beforehand.  Here are some considerations to take into account when planning your garden.

Sun Requirements

First to consider is sunlight.  Plants need sun.  Most plants need up to 8 hours of sunlight, some can make do with 6 and some with 4.  But you won’t be able to grow tomatoes and peppers if you don’t have at least 8 hours of sun.

Garden Accessibility

Placement of the garden is important.  Is the site easily accessible?  If it’s not, then you probably won’t be visiting it very often.  And gardens require frequent checking.  The ideal spot is close to your kitchen door, or where you will walk every day.  That way, you can eyeball the plants and see if they are thriving, if they need water, if weeds are encroaching, and what can be harvested.  Okra and squash can go from edible to gigantic and woody within a couple of days.  It pays to keep an eye on them daily.

Start Small

What sort of space is available in that sunny area?  Is it small?  Is it large?  The temptation for a large area is to turn it into a garden immediately – and then it gets away from you and grows weeds and you get discouraged.  Even if your family is excited about a garden, how excited will they be when it is hot (for a summer garden) or cold (for a fall/winter garden) and the garden needs watering, weeding, and harvesting?

Time Availability

No matter the size of the space, START SMALL AND SUCCEED.  What time do you have to devote to a garden?  A small plot, maybe two 4’x8’ beds, can be maintained in about 15 hours a day.  For a larger area, such as a 1200 sq. ft. garden, plan on devoting up to 4 hours a day.

In-ground or Containers?

Do you want to prepare an in-ground garden or go with containers?  If you rent and your landlord doesn’t want you tearing up lawn, then containers or straw bales might be the way to go. (NOTE: In the Resources section of this website is a summary of how to build a straw bale garden.)  Alternatively, if your sunny spot is on a patio or paved area, containers and/or straw bales would work well.

Physical Capability

What is your physical capability?  I’m of the age that working an in-ground garden is difficult, with all the bending required, and getting and down and then up again isn’t so easy.  I opted for containers and straw bales in my last house.  My next one, I’ll build raised beds (at least 24” high) to avoid stress on my back.

Agriscaping

Another way to garden is to tuck edibles in and amongst your ornamental plantings.  Some vegetables can be very pretty and colorful (bell peppers come in purple, yellow, red, as well as green).   This is called “agriscaping.”

Budget

And then there’s money.  How much do you want to spend on building your garden?  There are ways of digging in-ground beds and building soil that are inexpensive, and there are methods that are as expensive as you want them to be – like building raised beds with timbers, bricks, pavers, or rock.  Look to your budget.

Width of Beds

If you are planning go build the garden in-ground (or even if you build wooden boxes for raised beds), consider how wide the beds should be.  Three feet wide is an easy width for accessing even the middle of the bed from either side.  A four-foot wide bed might be a stretch.  And why is this?  Because you don’t ever, ever want to walk on the planting beds once they are set up.  Walking on the beds compacts the ground and reduces the ability of the soil to absorb water and provide ease of penetration for plant roots.  We’ll get into soil building in another module.

What’s Ahead

In the next installment, we’ll talk about water for your garden.  Stay tuned ….

 

Beginning Gardening Series – Why Grow My Own Food

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One of the questions I am asked, is “Why should I grow my own food? I can get what I want at the grocery store, even organic produce.”

I Eat Healthier

There are several reasons that I have always grown some of my own food.  One of them is that it promotes healthy eating.  I am much more likely to eat a variety of vegetables if I have just picked them from my own garden.  Sometimes I decide what to cook for dinner depending upon what is ready for picking.  I also find that the vegetables that come from my garden taste better. This is because they are picked just at their prime.  Vegetables at the grocery store, even organic vegetables, are harvested one or more days (sometimes weeks) before they are offered for sale.  Because they have to travel varying distances from the farmer to you.

Good for the Planet

And that brings me to another reason for growing my own:  food from my garden doesn’t travel so far.  Think of the use of fuel to transport vegetables and fruits from South America, or even across the U.S. There is no use of fuel to transport vegetables from my garden to my kitchen – just good ole steps for my fit bit to record!  I’ve heard it said that the average distance a vegetable or fruit travels is 1500 miles from farmer to plate.  That’s a lot!  In fact, it takes between 7 and 10 calories to produce and deliver 1 calorie to your plate.

Grow or Buy Local

That’s also why I urge folks to buy from local farmers what they do not grow themselves – the transportation distance is much less, and the vegetables are usually harvested within 24-48 hours of when they appear in the farmers market.

Better Nutrition

Getting back to healthy eating, a March 2008 report was released that said organic plant based foods are more nutritious and provide an average of 25% more nutrition than conventional foods at the grocery store.  This study was based on a comprehensive review of 97 published studies comparing the nutritional quality of organic vs. conventionally-raised foods, controlling for level of maturity, handling after harvest, and testing in the same form.  Further, there are more studies showing that pesticide and herbicide residues are still on the conventionally raised foods that are offered for sale at the supermarket.

Biodiversity

Home gardeners often choose to grow heirloom and heritage varieties, as opposed to conventional varieties of vegetables.  This practice preserves biodiversity of our food.  We are losing biodiversity at an astonishing rate. As agriculture has become more and more the realm of agribusiness, crops are selected for their uniformity, ability to be machine harvested, and maturing at the same time for efficient harvest.  AS a consequence, fewer and fewer varieties are being cultivated.  According to the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN), 75% of plant genetic diversity has been lost worldwide since the 1900s.

Well-Being

And finally, I garden because I experience a feeling of independence, even by growing one or two vegetables. I also get more vegetables for my dollar when I grow my own.  And there is the feeling of well-being that comes with digging in the dirt and watching a plant grow and the eating the food it gives me.  That feeling of well-being is also why gardening is used as “dirt therapy” for veterans with PTSD, as well as in prisons (there is a marked reduction in violence), and in people who are dealing with emotional and mental issues.

In short, there are a number of reasons to garden.

What’s Ahead

And in the coming installments, we’ll talk about what you should consider when planning a garden, what to plant, how to plant, and how to harvest.  Stay tuned ….

What Can I Plant Mid- to Late-March in Dallas?

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Getting the itch to really garden with the great sunny days?  Here’s a guide to what you can plant now and for the next 2-3 weeks.

It’s still not too late to seed in

collards
lettuces (look especially for the heat resistant varieties if you want to lettuce to last longer)
spinach
radishes
mustard
turnips
Swiss chard

Late March (depending on our having received our last freeze – usually mid-March), you can seed in:

Beans – all types
Corn
Cucumber
Malabar Spinach (a climber, but beautiful!)
Purslane
Cantaloupe
Water melon
Summer Squash
Winter Squash (acorn, butternut)

And you can start setting in those transplants for tomatoes!  Wait a bit on the peppers till after April 1.

Container Gardening Class!

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March 10, 1 pm at Trinity Haymarket (1715 Market Center Blvd).

 

Containers are solutions to:  no sunlight in backyard or place for a garden; rented digs when you don’t want to dig up a landlord’s ground; mobile – you can take your garden with you!; and…. you can create a wonderful soil for just about any plant.  Few limits to what you can plant in your containers – depending on the size.

We’ll talk about how you can repurpose all sorts of containers to garden in the space you have. Subjects will cover large containers as well as small, and special considerations associated with container gardening. We’ll also cover what plants go best in containers and discuss planting mixes.

Join us for a fun and creative session!

Update on those late plantings

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If you read my last post, you will know that I am experimenting – isn’t all gardening experimenting? And that’s what makes it really fun!

About 10 days ago, I planted seeds for broccoli raab, cauliflower, and collards and placed the 4″ pots in a wicking bed.  Well, yesterday (at 9 days) I checked them.

The broccoli raab had sprouted, as had the collards.  However, the cauliflower was having difficulty.  Since the cauliflower was on another wicking raft, I moved it to the raft with its cole buddies.  Also, I was told that sometimes it is necessary to top water till fully moist before the wicking is started – sort of like priming a pump.

Here’s a picture of the little seedlings!  It’s another 70 degree day today and tomorrow, with temperatures dipping into the 60s in the next couple of days.  But still not close to freezing.   I’m optimistic that I can grow them to transplant size.  Although, in the wicking bed I could easily protect them, while the water reservoir maintains a more constant temperature.

Note the bits of green to the left and barely visible in the middle.

Stay tuned….

Too Late to Plant? Maybe Not…

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Various planting guides stop at about November, while others continue on through the winter, recommending what plants can still be seeded.

In the past, I’ve tended to plant my carrots as late as the first of November (when the tomatoes are dying back), and reap a harvest in February and March of great carrots that grew slowly but fully during the winter.  I’ve also planted turnips in October, to have very juicy turnips for Thanksgiving.

This year, I decided to try an experiment and plant (by seed) three crops even this late – I’m writing this November 17.  The three crops are winter-hardy:  collards, cauliflower, and broccoli raab.

I’m fortunate enough to have a nifty bottom watering container on the property where I’m renting.  See the picture.

If you have taken a permaculture course, you may recognize this concoction.  It is an IBC tote that has had the top third cut off, PVC pipe is inserted so that a greenhouse or shadehouse can be created; the tote has water in it, upon which is floating styrofoam rafts covered with fabric (wool or cotton).  The fabric wicks the water up to the top of the rafts, on which you place your pots with seedlings.  The next picture will show what the collards and broccoli raab containers look like, all floating on their raft.

So… I took some 4″ pots left from transplanting herbs into a garden bed, filled them with rich, rich soil from the keyhole bed I’d built (a compost pile by any other name) and which we’d broken down and salvaged the soil.

Then I planted seeds and soaked the seed medium.  Then I placed on the wicking raft.  I’ll watch the plantings for the next several weeks and see if they (1) sprout; and (2) become viable transplants this late in the season.

Stay tuned…..

 

SEEDING Dallas II is Next Saturday!

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Our mini-conference on urban ag is scheduled for November 11, 2017, at the Owenwood Neighbor Space (formerly Owenwood UMC).  We have three tracks:  learning gardening, community garden management, and market gardening.

Registration is only $10, and it starts at 8:30 am, ends by 1:30 pm.

Here’s the link to register:  http://www.grownorthtexas.org/events

See you there!

After the Freeze(s)

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I do not ordinarily do anything out of the ordinary to keep my plants from succumbing to freezes – I prefer to “experiment” and observe which ones make it through light and hard freezes and which do not.

Prior to the first hard freeze, in early December, I had harvested most of my red mustard, green mustard, and broccoli raab.  Good thing – they did not survive the hard freeze. Here’s a look at my mustard after the freeze.

Only the chard managed to come back (but then, chard is VERY resilient). Also weathering the freeze was the sorrel, as well as my radiccio.  Of course, the kale made it through (although I’d mulched it just in case), and carrots.

 

 

The Freeze is Coming … the Freeze is Coming

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Well, all I can say is it’s about time!  Usually we get our first freeze the third week in November, and now here it is the second week of December!

So what to do to prepare?

I’ve been out today, getting my garden, chickens and faucets ready for the next three nights which it’s going to dip way below freezing.

First, I made sure the chickens have some additional straw in their coop.  No, I don’t really worry about them keeping warm unless it dips into the ‘teens.  They have down and feathers and fluff up rather nicely in the cold, and do quite well.  (Our comforters have down in them, remember?)  I also gave them an extra ration of corn late this afternoon.  The carbohydrate helps them get the body fires going and helps keep them warm.

mulched-kale

The garden?  I mulched with some old straw around the plants that may have a hard time.  I’m generally of the attitude that if a plant can’t handle it, then I’m not going to worry. Like chard, that can have ice on it, wilt a bit and come back within a day or two in the thaw.  But my kale, mustard, broccoli raab and peas, now that’s another story. You can see the kale all mulched up in the picture. I gave the plant feet a nice 3″ of straw on the ground.  I didn’t have to water, because the rains during the last few days took care of that.

Now… the hoses and faucets.  I disconnected both garden hoses.  Then I covered the faucets.  The one in back, that sticks straight up I covered with a 5-gallon bucket.  The one in front, coming out the side of the house skirting I wrapped with bubble wrap and duct tape.  That worked last winter quite well.faucet-for-freezebucket-on-faucet

Learning and Teaching …. It’s Been a Busy Month!

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Just wrapped up our second Whole Systems Gardening Class at School of Permaculture!  It was a delight and privilege to be on the team teaching this 4-day intensive, seed to seed, harvest and preserve garden learning experience.  We combined classroom and hands-on, with seed starting, marked out a mandala-style garden, learned about soil life, built an 18-day compost pile, tasted wonderful fermented vegetables and learned a lot about nutrition …  Truly an experience.  Watch for another class this fall and definitely another next spring!

My teaching schedule has kept me busy – and will continue keeping me busy.  There was the Garden Readiness class at Trinity Haymarket a few weeks ago, and on March 26 I’ll be talking about Companion Planting to get the best results from your garden. And on April 16, I’ll be holding another Straw Bale Gardening class at Trinity Haymarket.

For other venues, I’ll be in Denison for the Culture of Arts Festival, talking about Companion Planting on April 2.

You can catch me at the Arboretum on April 9, discussing Permaculture Basics for the home garden.

AND, on April 15, I’ll be a panelist on urban agriculture at the Sustainable Summit held by Cedar Valley College.

For those of you who know me, you know I can talk gardening until your eyes glaze over.  But I truly enjoy sharing my knowledge with anyone who wants to garden, and garden better.

NOW…  I’ve also been on the road, learning.  I attended the Southern Sustainable Ag Working Group conference in Lexington Kentucky at the end of January (I believe I posted a couple of photos of the permaculture farm I visited). And the second weekend of February brought the Texas Organic Farming and Gardening Conference to Rockwall.  My head is still spinning with all that I learned.  I’ll be passing along knowledge gained as I transcribe my notes.

That’s all for tonight …  Digging in the dirt is good for the soul.  Grow something!

Anita