Winter Garden Design!

Winter veggies are some of the most nutritious, well worth growing!

Any garden design starts with where the garden is!  It can be part of your ornamental landscape, an area set aside in your yard – front, back, side, at a Community Garden, many places – even a ‘stolen’ spot along a street!  If you are planting at home, creating an edible landscape, remember, it can be beautiful and nutritious.  You can use as little or as much space as you like.  When we say things like ‘Food Not Lawns,’ you choose how much space you want to use for food, for your lawn, if any, whether you want box raised beds, or less intrusive looking mounds or terraced areas.  You are the creator!

If you haven’t already done, now is the time to think on how to design your garden for your winter veggie garden needs! How will you get the best out of your available area? If you are an experienced gardener, what can you do differently this year? Your design can be as simple as the one below, or you can check online for wonderful design sites!

For heat capture, the ideal is the Food Forest layout! Have a perimeter of trees in a U shape with the opening to the south. Read Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway! Or plant right next to the warm house! Greenhouses are lovely. Even small ones, or DIY cold frames are a blessing!

Sun/Shade Winter veggies enjoy full sun just like summer veggies! If you don’t have room for a Food Forest, generally the rule is tall to the north, short to the south. If you have shade, then tall goes into the shaded area, short and shorter in front of them.

Wind Strategies: Plant cold tolerant fruit tree with berry shrub borders on their sunny side, on the side the wind comes from. For small areas, use straw bales for the same effect, or erect a board enclosure. If you will be growing vining peas, use your trellises as windbreaks, being sure to stake them securely. On a balcony or deck, put tall box planters with trellises along the area the prevailing wind comes from. Secure them well too!

Rain/Water
• Design for good drainage, avoid planting in areas that flood. Even water loving veggies don’t like wet feet! But, if that’s the only area you have, install raised beds, or rock lined bioswales to slow, spread, and sink water to improve your water table.
• Plant on top of mounds and furrows (tops flattened), mulching the sides to reduce erosion, water gently so the mulch doesn’t wash away.
• On hillsides, plant just inside the top of the outer rim of the raised lip of the terrace, mulch well, water gently. Fill the lower inside of the terrace with cobble to slow rainwater, prevent erosion.
• On high areas, dig out the center and if you need to, use that soil to raise the perimeters to capture water for water-loving plants – lettuces, chard, carrots, bunch onions. Add some sand to improve drainage if needed.

Freezes?! If your area has freezes, pick a windy location that keeps cold winter air moving. Remove perimeter shrubs that stop air flow. And get out your floating row covers! You can use them to extend your fall harvests and start spring plants sooner too!

Bon appetit!

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FEBRUARY is Seedling Month! Clean-up, Maintenance, More Plan than Plant!

This is your last chance to plant more rounds of winter veggies you love the most, and the littles that grow year round.  Peas are especially heat sensitive, but we Coastie pea lovers can get one more round!  At this time be sure they are mildew resistant varieties!  But it’s really time to think in terms of those summer treats you love too!  Space is an issue now unless you have fields!  Those of us in 10’ X 20’ Community Garden plots need to reserve space and prepare those soils.  I plant some of the smaller border plants, like lettuces, where they will be on the sunny side, then add the bigger plants that need more heat behind them in March.

Plant LETTUCE, beets, brocs, cabbages, cauliflower, celery, chard, kale, kohlrabi, potatoes, radish, spinach, turnips.  Asparagus and artichoke bare-root.  Or put in asparagus from seed in March.

Clean things up.  Prune your trees, remove dead wood in your herbs.  Divide clumps of Society garlic.  On ground that needs more humus, lay down some bagged steer or well aged horse manure, let the rains wash the nutrients down, in about 2 months dig it in.

Continue with your harvesting, sidedress your producing plants, do your snail prevention.  After rains, foliar apply another batch of aspirin – stimulates growth, boosts the immune system, and baking soda and powdered milk to boost their immune system and act as a germicides.  Don’t forget to add a dash of liquid soap to make the mix stick!  Hold off on watering for a few days to let the potion do its job.  Your plants will thrive!

Select your plants Mindfully!  This takes more than a quick trip to the Nursery and buying whatever they have on hand.  But, hey, if that’s all the time you have, then go for it!  If you have the time, do some quick online comparisons at Universities that specialize in Mediterranean climates.  Check out this year’s All America Selections!  Ask at your local nursery why the varieties they have are their choices.

• What pests or diseases did your plants have last year?  Select for resistance or tolerance.
• Is that plant heat tolerant, bolt resistant?
• What is the disease or pest cycle?  Can you plant at another time, just a few weeks later to avoid them?!
• Is it a long producing pole plant, or a heavy one-time bush producer?
• How much space will that amazing plant take up versus it’s return?
• Is that variety better for canning or table eating?
• Do you want a hybrid, or will you be seed saving and need an heirloom that plants true year to year?  In a community garden, with all kinds of plants close together, few true seeds can be saved.

Start Your Seedlings!  If you have a greenhouse, and it can be a very small humble enclosure, even a row cover setup, start your seedlings now to plant mid to late March!  At home?  Easy!  Use flats, peat pots, six packs,  punctured-for-drainage plastic containers reused from your kitchen.  Sterilized potting soil holds moisture and is easy for tiny roots to penetrate.  Put them in your greenhouse or with grow lights 7 to 10 inches above, on 14 to 16 hours a day.  Put a plant heating pad underneath, a heat cable, or a moisture protected 15/20 watt bulb in a ‘trouble light,’ for warmth, 70 degrees F.  For better germination, spray aspirin on your seeds before planting!  Another great trick is seed soaking and presprouting!

When they are ready, let them sit outdoors in the daytime shade for a week, then in the sun for a week, then all day the 3^rd week.  That process is called hardening off.  The beauty of seeds is you can get the very best plants, and varieties your nursery doesn’t carry!

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January – the Gardening Delight of a New Year!

Harvest, Replant, Maintenance, Spring Preps, SEEDS! 

Keep harvesting!  Plant consideringly.  That means, summer planting starts in March.  January, February are generally cold, so slow growth though day length is getting longer.  Keep in mind what space you want available in March for the March starts.  If you are a winter plant lover gardener, one way to do this is to plant another round of your favorite winter plants, then in March designate a ‘nursery’ area, and start your summer seeds there.  Transplant the babies to their permanent locations as the spaces become available.  That in mind, plant more broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, chard, kale, kohlrabi, potatoes.  Plant an understory of all year favorites – beets, carrots, parsley, radish, and turnips, on the sunny sides of taller plants.  And LETTUCES!  They love January!

January IS bareroot month!  Start bareroot artichokes, short day globe onions, strawberries (if you missed November), asparagus, horseradish (Be warned! Invasive).  Depending on the weather, strawberry flowers may appear shortly after planting.  Remove them so more energy goes into root development.  Seascape, developed by UC Davis, is an everbearer strawberry that produces well in our moderate coastal climate most of the year. Sequoia is an large berried everbearer; Chandler is a June bearer – produces May/June, then done.  For those of you at home, plant bareroot cane berries, blueberries, roses, deciduous fruit trees!  Visit Bay Laurel Nursery in Atascadero!

Clear overwintering pest habitat, debris; weed.  Turn top soil to aerate and let the bad fungi die, pray for the good ones.  Sidedress your producing plants lightly – add some fish emulsion with kelp.  Sprinkle and lightly dig in cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal or fish meal.  Keep a weather watch; keep those old sheets and coverings about in case of hard freezes.  Farmers’ Almanac on Frost   Weather.com Frost Map  Make this one your home page during cold winter months.  No mulch this time of year; it keeps the soil cold.  Rain Tips!  Secure peas and tall plants.

If you have been growing favas, time to secure them from winds, rain.  Pop in a few stakes and tie them with that green stretchy stuff, or some twine.  If they have too much shade, water or fertilizer, they will go to leaf and no bean pods.  If that happens, pinch off the growing tips.  Take ‘em straight to your kitchen for steaming or stir fry!  Back at your garden, side-dress with a sprinkly organic box fertilizer or fish emulsion with kelp, or whatever your choice is, water well!  Takes about a week for the beans to appear.  Let them get 5 to 8 inches, filled with beans, and their yours – tasty and high in protein!  If you are growing for seed, let the pods blacken and dry.  Black?  Yep, I know, counter intuitive.

Make compost, start preparing your soil for spring planting.  Make raised beds.  Plan your spring garden; get seeds, wait until March to start planting your summer veggies.  Wait for it.  Plants planted out of season struggle with weather, day length, temps, and are susceptible to pests and diseases they aren’t naturally able to fend off.  Now, if you have a greenhouse….

No greenhouse?  Start Seeds Indoors – we are now the prerequisite six to eight weeks away from March!  Start tomatoes, marigolds, peppers, cosmos, zucchini, impatiens, salvia, basil, and others.  Especially start peppers!  They take longer than other veggies.  Otherwise, wait until all chance of freezing temperatures have passed and buy transplants at your favorite nursery.  I’ve seen zucchini started in the ground in January thrive.  If it doesn’t come up, no problem!  Put some more seeds in soon again!  Keep planting.  I haven’t seen it work with tomatoes, but Marshall Chrostowski of Pacifica Institute’s Garden starts his toms in January for late March picking!  He uses heat transmitting black row covers on the ground, and floating row covers above.  That’s clear plastic with holes over hoops.  They make the soil 15 degrees warmer, with 15-20% warmer air!  You can buy floating row covers at your nursery.  Give it a try! Eating garden fresh organic tomatoes late March?! Yum! Row covers will speed up your notorious slow-grower peppers too! Not only do floating row covers warm things up, but they keep flying pests away from your plants! Check out Digital Seed’s Planting Schedule!

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March 2011 Santa Barbara CA Gardening Events!

March 6  Orchid Greenhouse Exchange 1 to 3, 5155 Camino Floral  As with all Neighborhood Exchanges:  Bring whatever you have this time or year, or a baked good to share, or something garden related: an article of interest to pass around, etc..  But do come, no matter as we all get something out of being together!

March 12! 10 AM How to Grow More Delicious Edibles Per Square Foot Than You Ever Thought Possible! That will include 10 Space Saving Strategies and 11 Practices for Higher Yields! Cerena Childress, a Master Gardener presentation at La Sumida Nursery – Rain or shine. Class is FREE!  Would love for you to join us!

March 11 to 13  International Orchid Show Earl Warren Showgrounds, U.S. Hwy 101 at Las Positas  805-969-5746

Saturday, March 19 San Roque Garden Exchange 10-1  1440 Jesusita Lane

March 20  Happy Spring Equinox!

March 26  Fairview Gardens, Urban Homesteading, all day 9 to 5, Garden Layout & Bed Prep, Lasagna Gardening! Mark Tollefson. Lasagna gardening, a layered approach, creates highly aerated soils with high fertility. Discover how to use this system to grow many vegetables in a small space and at a higher rate of efficiency and productivity.    $85.00

Sign up in advance for April 30 Sheet Mulching – The Lazy Gardener’s Guide to Growing, all day 9 to 5    $85
June 4 & 5 Introduction to Permaculture: 2 Day program Two full days $195
June 18 Container Gardening – Gardening for small spaces 9 am to 12 pm $40

Earth Day 2011 “Powered By the People” April 16, 17

The Community Environmental Council (CEC) will host the Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival at Alameda Park Saturday, April 16 and Sunday, April 17, 2011. The 2011 theme, “Powered by the People,” is in line with the CEC’s Fossil Free by ’33 campaign and emphasizes the power of daily choices in making Santa Barbara one of the first fossil-free communities in the nation.

The festival will feature approximately 250 exhibitors, a free valet bike parking section that is expected to hold over 1,000 bikes, and the third annual Green Shorts Film Festival. It will also include the festival’s 11th Green Car Show – featuring the largest collection of efficient and alternative fueled vehicles between Los Angeles and San Francisco and the longest-running show of its kind in the country.

Volunteer, attend, do come and enjoy!

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January! New Year, clear, crisp, pristine gardening

Or wear your awesome Sloggers!  With boots like these from Sloggers Garden Outfitters, No Problem!  Regrettably, their selection for men lags.  Oops, did I say that?!  No matter, buy some for your Sweetie!  Valentine’s Day is coming….

This is bare root time – plants without soil on their roots!  For us SoCal gardeners that’s cane berry bushes, deciduous fruit trees, strawberries, artichokes, asparagus, short day onions.  Think twice about horseradish.  It’s invasive as all getout!  If you do it, confine it to a raised bed or an area where it will run out of water.  Rhubarb, though totally tasty in several combinations, ie strawberry/rhubarb pie, has poisonous leaves!  That means to dogs, small children and unknowing people.  Either fence it off, or don’t grow it.  I don’t recommend it in community gardens because we can’t assure people’s safety.  Bare root planting is strictly a January thing.  February is too late. 

SoCal’s Lettuce Month!  They germinate quicker at cooler temps!  Grow special ones you can’t get at the store, or even the Farmers’ Market!  They like a soil mix of well aged compost, organic veggie fertilizers, chicken manure.  Lay your seeds in, barely, and I do mean barely, cover them, 1/8 inch, pat them in.  Water gently with a watering can, or use the mist setting on your sprayer.  Keep the bed moist.  That might mean watering even twice daily!  If it is going to rain heavily, cover the bed so the seeds don’t wash away.  Slug and snail cocktails (Sluggo) make sense or your seedlings may vanish.  If your seeds just don’t germinate, be sure your seed is fresh.  Feed the bed once a week.  Fast growth keeps it sweet; slow growth is bitter!  Eat the younglings you thin from the patch, or transplant them.  Pluck those larger lower leaves for robust winter salads!  Plant another patch in 2 weeks to a month to keep a steady supply! 

As you harvest your winter veggies, keep planting, from seeds or transplants.  Transplants will speed things up by a good 6 weeks if you can find them.  Your winter veggies are broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, lettuce, parsley, peas, chard.  Seeds of beets, carrots, lettuce, peas, radish, turnips, do well.  Pop in some short-day onions. 

Remember, harvest your cabbages by cutting them off close to the bottom of the head, leaving the bottom leaves.  New smaller cabbages will grow from those axils at the stem/leaf junctions.  You might get as many as four babies!  Do the same with lettuces!  Once you harvest your main broccoli head, let the side shoots form mini broccolettes!  The further down the stalk you cut, the fewer but fatter your side branches.  Pat Welsh, Southern California Organic Gardening, recommends the variety Bonanza.

The SideDress Dance continues – if you harvest, you fertilize.  That’s a good rule of thumb.  Sprinkle some fertilizer or drizzle your favorite liquid mix, especially before a rain.  Dig it in lightly, but not in a circle.  You don’t want to break all the tiny rootlets that spread out at the surface from your plant.  So do it on a couple sides max.  Dig it in a bit so the N (Nitrogen) doesn’t just float away into the air….  Use half strength of summer feedings to avoid a lot of tender growth a frost would take. 

Start seedlings of peppers!  They are notoriously slow growers, so to get them in the ground in March, start now!  Ask your Latino friends; they are experts!  When you see them planting, you do the same.  While you are at it, ask them if they happen to have any spare jicama seeds!  Fresh-from-the garden jicama is like nothing you have ever tasted! 

If you tossed wildflower seeds, keep their beds moist. 

Start a garden journal, especially enter your genius thoughts!  Domestic harmony?  Clean up your shed/working space, or build one.   Build a greenhouse!  Plan your spring garden, order seeds.  Order fall seeds now too so they won’t be sold out later on.  Build your raised beds – that’s with frames if you want frames, and start building your soil. 

Great Rain Tips!  Please click here!  Mulch keeps your plants from getting mud splattered.

Frost Watch!  Keep an eye on your weather predictions!  If it starts getting down near 32 degrees, run for the covers! That’s your cheap sheets you got at the thrift shop, spare beach towels, old blankies, and cover your plants mid afternoon if possible!  For things to know about cold weather plants, and more tips on how to save your plants, click here!

Do I see green leaves sticking out of the corner of your mouth?

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Protect Your Veggies from Freezing! Cover and tuck ‘em in!

Cold season things to know about your veggies!

• Fertilize.  Healthy plants can withstand more cold.  But. From August on, if you anticipate a cold winter, avoid applying fertilizer with Nitrogen, apply at half your summer rate, until after the last frost, to prevent a flush of tender growth that can be damaged by the cold.
• Cool season crops, such as broccoli, cabbage, peas, and onions, originated in northern areas, and can tolerate frost and light freezes of short durations with little damage, plant cold hardy varieties.  But other tender morsels often die literal black deaths from killing freezes.  Lettuces, your fragrant basil, and peppers are usually the first to go.
• Better taste!  Cool-season vegetables, such as carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts, produce their best flavor when they mature during cool weather.  They react to cold conditions and frost by producing sugars, making them taste sweet, especially Brussels sprouts and kale, but also parsnips and leeks!  Ask the folks at the farmer’s market stands if their farms have gotten a frost yet – farms in the country often get frost long before the cities.
• Certain vegetables “bolt,” or produce seed stalks, when there are several days at low temperatures.

Frost we understand, but what’s a Hard Freeze?!  When temperatures drop below 32° Fahrenheit (0° Centigrade) and remain there for several hours, even only 2 hours will do it, typically killing seasonal vegetation. Several hours at 25 to 28 degrees, ice crystals form not only on your plant, but in your plant, damaging the cell walls.  The coldest time of day is  just before daybreak. Clouds at night can absorb and reflect heat back to the earth. Wind can mix the ascending warm air with the descending cold air. Calm, clear nights pose the greatest danger of frost.  Wind:  If it is windy, less worry.  Cold air must settle to form frost and any wind will usually prevent this.  Or, a wind may dry your plants, making them more susceptible to freezing!

Floating Row Cover, Winter Frost Blanket, over Tomato Cages - see how they are staked in place by the cages?

Frost or freeze survival….

• Watch your weather forecast religiously!  Weather has no mercy.
• Water early in the day.  Wet soil insulates and protects roots.  The water warms up during the day and releases heat slowly during the night.  The upper part of a plant may die, but the roots may be strong enough to push up new growth!
• Move frost tender plants under eaves, a spreading tree, into greenhouses, garage.  Key word here is UNDER.
• Haunt yard sales, the thrift shop, for old bed sheets, blankets, tablecloths, curtains, towels, shower curtains, burlap sacks, tarps – many end their lives covering garden plants for frost protection!   Use newspaper with clothes pins so it won’t blow around.  Plastic can be worse than nothing if it touches the plant.  Prop up an unused trellis, get creative!  Use those wire tomato cages to support your covers!  Lay them down among short plants, stand them around taller plants.  At home you can lay out a folding chaise lounge chair, or lawn chairs, and cover them!!  Secure the edges with stakes, rocks, bricks, or cover with soil.  You can use upside down plant pots only if they are large enough that the plant they will cover don’t touch the pot.  Put a rock on top to keep it from blowing over!  That’s called a hot-cap!  The beauty of floating row covers (see image), also called frost or winter blankets, is they can be left in place during the day!  Cover the plants mid- to late-afternoon if possible, before temperatures start to drop.
• Set up windbreaks.
• What you can’t cover, that is not frost hardy, harvest.  Root crops such as carrots and radishes should be harvested or mulched heavily before a hard freeze.

After! 

• If you didn’t cover, wash your plants off before the sun gets on them.  Sometimes that will counteract the freeze burn.
• If you did cover, take the covers off, before the sun hits the beds, so everybody can get their sun quotient for the day!  Winter days are short!
• Dry out your covers, keep them handy.
• Damaged leaves appear dark green and watersoaked at first, later becoming black.  If your plant is totally gone, it’s compost, replace your plant.  Except potatoes!  They will resprout, give ‘em 10 to 14 days!
• Should you trim the ugly damaged stuff off and give your plant a lot of fertilizer to help it?  Whoa, Nelly!  That’s a NO!  The damaged part is protecting the now undamaged part.  If you trim and add a lot of fertilizer, tender new growth will form, and that will be toast if there is another frost or freeze.  Wait to trim until no more frost is predicted, feed lightly.

Was that groaning, whining I heard?  Stop it.  Just go out there and cover your plants, no fooling around, you hear?!  You will be glad you did, it’s your plants’ lives you are saving!  Besides, reviving is harder than covering.  Many will be well past the window for replanting, so cover, cover, cover!  Better to have a yard full of ghosts (sheet covers) and look silly, than lose your plant entirely.

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Important Principles for No-Loss Production Time

This post is the 2nd of how to plant a lot in your urban garden, and up your production in a small space!  Please also see the 4.17.10 post!  Thanks, and good planting to you!            

Gopher Basket

Gophers and other Blessed Pests First!   When I give this as a talk, you should hear the groans from my listeners when I say we must start by talking about gophers.  They know what I’m talking about.  I want to emphasize to take care of this before you even think of doing anything else.  I’ve seen so much heartache over lost plants, literally tears, some of them my own.  You lose the months it took your plant to grow, and the food you would have gotten from it.  All that work raising your little plant, having a personal relationship with it, and suddenly, with no mercy, our hungry little friend takes it, gone.  Just gone.  So, before you start planting, install 1/2″ aviary wire or hardware cloth barriers.  Aviary wire is cheaper, doesn’t last as long.  How long it lasts depends on your soil.  I’ve heard anywhere from 3 to 10 years.  Do what your budget lets you.  Not taking care of this means a lot of lost production time.  If you can’t do the whole bed, do parts, or buy or make gopher wire baskets, especially for your favorite plants you use all the time, the most.            

What to plant:  experiment with how much you need, KEEP RECORDS!  Over planting a veggie cuts down on space for variety, and may produce more than you can or want to eat.  In your records include where you got your plant, the name of its variety, planting and harvest dates, yield, what you liked about it, didn’t, could have done better for it, comparisons with other varieties of the same plant, other kinds of plants.              

Avoid loss of production time by choosing plants for success!             

• Choose disease & pest resistant varieties for your area.
• Choose slow bolting varieties for longer harvest per square foot.
• Choose heat tolerant varieties that need less water, cold tolerant.
• Choose tomato and pepper varieties that produce small fruit. The smaller the size of the fruit, the more fruit the plant will produce.
• Choose a plant that produces year round, year after year.
• Don’t raise onions, potatoes (unless you are Irish ), winter squash and cabbage. Those crops are relatively cheap to buy and don’t rely on “just picked” freshness for quality.

When to plant:  In a small garden this becomes critical mass.  If you plant a seed when the ground is too cold for it, it rots, no plant, you lose time.  If you plant too soon, it may be too cold and no blooms are able to form, or if they do, no set fruit.  Learn your plants’ needs.              

Greenhouse, Lots of Solar

Greenhouse!  Getting a head start is an age-old planter’s trick, just about required repertoire for a gardener’s tool basket!  There are so many ways to do it!  Greenhouses are the cat’s meow!  But if you don’t have one, don’t let that stop you.  Dig a protected underground spot, cover with glass or plastic and raise your plant babies while the over head winds are howling!  Start ‘em in your south-facing kitchen window, in the garage with grow lights, in a free-standing clear plastic wardrobe closet you pop into your garden, use a protected spot in your garden as a mini nursery!  Be creative!  While your winter or summer plants are finishing, start your next season’s plants!  You will be 6 to 8 weeks ahead!  Now that’s excellent use of production time!              

How much to plant:  Think of how much production per square foot you will get.  Will that serve your needs compared to the variety of the production of the entire garden, that plant itself?  For example, would a wide Romano bean be more productive than a slim bean?  Would a plant that has a longer production period be more useful?  Are you wanting to can and have a lot of harvest at once, or do you want table tomatoes all summer?             

Don’t plant too much of one vegetable. Two zucchini plants may produce more than enough.             

Or, plant a lot of what you grow well, grows well on your space, then trade for other goodies?             

Where to plant:  Do you need to assure having that plant?  Biodiversity, planting in different places throughout your garden, may be more effective that row cropping or putting all of one plant in one place where if disease or a pest comes, you lose them all as the disease or pest spreads from one to all.  See also Rotation, below.                          

Succession planting:  Limited by a small available area, choose your favorites that you want a steady supply of and use your self-discipline to wait to periodically plant another installment of your crop.  We have heard about spring planting, and most of us ask, ‘Did you plant your garden?’  With succession planting, part of your garden is going to be bare unless you have planted successively before, and each area that is finishing becomes available sequentially.  The question, ‘Did you plant your garden?’ no longer applies.              

If you have a short season garden, fast maturing plants like radishes, lettuces, can be planted successively as fillers in any spare spot.             

With succession crops, plant in the northmost area first; later plantings will not shade previous plantings too much as the first plantings finish.              

Rotation:  Hard to do in a small plot.  What is the size of a ‘small’ plot?  10′ X 20′ would be considered a small plot.  Small for what?  In a 10′ X 20′  plot, the length north to south, it is logical to put tall plants to the North, shorter to the South so they don’t shade each other.  That is especially true in winter when the sun is low in the South.  So where do you rotate your tall tomatoes too?!?              

You can space them with 2’ open space between them one year, plant in the open spaces the next year.  But is that enough tomatoes?  Do you want more?  In a small plot, dig your planting hole, fill with compost and worm castings and any other amendments you want to use, ie mycorrhizal fungi, then plant in the compost!  If your plant is a manure lover, add some.  As you water, the compost, etc., juices (compost tea), go down into the soil below feeding the roots as they grow.  You have to ‘build’ new soil as you go.             

If your 10′ X 20′  plot is lengthwise east to west, you have more ‘tall’ area to plant in the north.  But it is still hard to rotate in small plots.  Feed your soil well.             

Soil Depletion:  In a small plot, this is an issue.  The soil simply gets used up, turned into plants, pulled up with the roots.  If at all possible, make compost!  Bring in alfalfa/manure/fresh organic green trim and make a hot pile.  You can do this simply with a removable reusable chicken wire enclosure.  When not in use if folds up into little space.  You can plant where the compost was made.  Start your pile in enough time to use before major planting.              

• Compost:  You put in your soil.  It contributes to the slow release of Nitrogen, the prime ingredient plants need for good growth.  It can also be used as mulch, 2” minimum, 4” better!  http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/plantsci/hortcrop/h885w.htm           
• Vermicompost:  Worm castings are very low in N (Nitrogen) but have special plant-growth hormones.  The humus in castings improves your soil’s capacity to hold water.  Castings suppress several diseases and significantly reduce parasitic nematodes, aphids, mealy bugs and mites.
• Mulch – You put on the surface to preserve your soil, keep it cool and moist, to prevent light germinating weed seeds from sprouting.  Organic mulches, like barks, straw, leaves, what you chop and drop, deliberately grown mulch plants that are then felled in place, can be nutritious to your soil as they decompose.  Mulch especially makes sense if you are a busy person since it cuts down on weeds.  Weeds use up your soil, nutrients your plants need.  So in the long run, as it prevents weeds and feeds your garden, you also have less expense feeding your soil. 

   

Irrigation:  In a tightly planted biodiverse veggie garden where things are changing rapidly, soaker hoses may not be the answer.  They are more useful for row planting and more permanent non-veggie plantings.  It is hard to tell how much water your plants are getting when water pressure varies much, not just from others using water at a community garden, but from the part of the hose nearest the spigot to the end of the hose.  If you use mulch it may be hard to tell how much water your plants are getting, and in time, the hoses can get buried more deeply than your most shallow rooted plants!  Plants that no longer need water, some tomatoes, mature onions that you want to dry, may get water you no longer want them to have and it may be difficult to move your hose far enough away unless  you plant at the end of the line, remove the hose, double it back on itself.  But all that finagling may be tiresome if not time-wasting.  If you are a vigorous farmer, you may cut your hose while digging.  And there are going to be times when the hose simply gets old and tired and the holes get bigger.  Repairs are easy, but it does take your time.   

Simple Sprayer

I have come to prefer hand watering and I find I have a closer relationship with my garden as I watch and water.  It is difficult to water underneath when you hand water, but keep it in mind to do, especially if you have just done some foliar feeding – don’t wash away all that food on the leaf.  Water plantings of small seeds very gently with a low flow, or by hand with a sprinkler can so seeds don’t get washed away, buried or unburied, or tiny seedlings damaged.             

That said, it is easy to lay soaker hoses in a small plot.  If you intend to leave them there once laid, put them about 8” apart,  so you can plant just about anywhere without relaying the hose.  Slightly bury or lay mulch on top of your hose, to prevent evaporation loss and to keep your plants from getting wet and mildewing, reduce snail/slug habitat!   Well laid hoses save time and water.  You can be watering while you do maintenance and harvesting.             

If you are really busy or are gone for periods of time, get an automatic timer.  Some water is better than no water.             

Pollination:  Put some buzz in your population by having a few bee attractor plants either in your garden or nearby!  Pollination equals production, so this is critical.  Otherwise, you hand pollinate.              

Managing Pests and Diseases:  First rules are to keep your plants healthy – well fed, make healthy soil, and reduce risky habitat.  Make habitat, plants for beneficial insects, poles for birds, rocks for lizards!                  

The small plot advantage is you can hand manage pests, cutting expenses.  You can track individual plants and see what they really need when they need it, remove immediately if necessary.  The disadvantage is it you lose it, it’s gone and you have to start over if there is time.  For some plants, if you miss the growing window, you are out of luck.              

Harvest:  In a small plot you can’t afford not to harvest plants that stop production if not harvested frequently, peas, beans, cucumbers.              

Seed Saving:  There may be little space or time to let plants grow to the seeding stage.  But if you have a very favorite plant – tasty crop, strong, exceptional production, it may pay to let it seed.             

Cover cropping:  If you need to miss a season or want to give your soil a rest and a boost, plant nitrogen fixers that as they grow, are living mulch, then later you knock down, chop into the soil, becoming green manure.              

Your rewards:  The freshest, most nutritious, tastiest organic veggies ever!  And the outdoor enjoyment, therapy, and relaxation a garden can give.
 
Go ahead, do it, turn off your cell.

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February 2010

Happy New Year of the Tiger, Valentines!

General PT Info | February | Soil First! | Seed Starting Basics
Rainy Day Tips | Winston Smoyer Memorial Community Garden
The L.A. Community Garden Council | Botany Buddies
Permaculture Investing | Volunteer 40^th Earth Day!

Dear Pilgrim Terrace Gardeners and Garden Friends,

John Cookson joins our list.  He already gardens at home and has 14 fruit trees!  Tony Miller, who lives in the ‘hood, is thinking about getting a Pilgrim Terrace plot.  People who signed on at the 2^nd Annual Seed Swap are Ann Lasko, Tina Smarsh, Wendy Robins, Don Hubbert, Francisco Villarreal, Theresa Russ, Mindy Lau, Susan Green, Chona P….ck, Rebecca Traver, Teresa Bothman, Amy Rhiger, Chris Ahlman, Mark Wilson, Ann Lawler, Brad Lauster Plot 40 at Yananoli Community Garden!, Indi Saleh, Cat Almo, Laurie Constable, Carrie Clough, Heather Shea, Teisha Rowland, Madya Penoff, Michael Barney, Todd Richardson, Wynn Stone, Stevie Richardson, Iris Scott, Krista Harris, Laura Lynch, Catherine At…., Andrew Goldstone, Liz Gorman, Meg West, Jim Bell, Kristy Lee, Amy Jacobs, Reese Lamar, Ryan Dixon, Caroline Richardson, Madeline Moreaux, Kathy Hunley, Scott Chatenever, Kristen La Bonte of the Greenhouse & Garden Project UCSB, and Judy Sims of s’Cool Gardens, which aims to develop gardens in all public schools throughout Santa Barbara County!  I list all your names to keep the networking going!

FYI I talked with Jim Roehrig, our Backyard Harvest hero.  He often offers, FREE on Craigslist, 40+ days old compost, to pickup, a combo of horse, bat and chicken manure!    

General Pilgrim Terrace Garden info:   

There was a great turnout for the  2^nd Annual Seed Swap!  It was a perfect time of year, with spring planting imminent, to share seeds and garden knowledge!  I represented the Community Gardens and gave mini talks on Seed Saving Tips.  It is generally agreed we need more community gardens, like on the Mesa, in Goleta, more in SB.  Several of us were filmed, and may be put on YouTube and/or the Green Shorts Film Festival! 

Seeds for Haiti  When the Seed Swap was over, I was given the remaining seeds to give to you Pilgrim Terrace gardeners.  But a call came out for seeds for Haiti, so they are on their way there instead.  If any of you have seeds to spare, please contact Brenda Cooper at  brendaatbass@yahoo.com  She’s leaving from La Fayette GA with a team for Jacmel, Haiti Feb 11, so no time to lose!

At our garden meetings with Antonio he mentioned the possible use of Roundup in our pathways.  It has already been used.  If you don’t prefer it to be used by your plot, to insure good organic food, keep your pathways weed free!  While the soil is soft from the rains, try to get the nutgrass out before it gets its 4^th leaf.  The nutlets are about 3 to 6” down, and are linked by ‘roots,’ so dig a bit to get the whole plant if possible.  If you can’t get the whole plant, just keep at it, it will exhaust the nut in time.  Talk with your neighbors, see if they will help you by keeping their half of the pathway clear.  You don’t have to do the whole area at once, do just 5’ or 10’ at a time, a little each time you are at the garden will get the job done! 

Across-the-Plot Gardening Tips: 

February Hints 

PLANT!  Petunias, potatoes, bareroot artichokes, more beets, broc, cabbage, carrots, celery, lettuce, kale, potatoes.  Feb is the last chance to plant peas!  Choose a disease resistant variety since they will mildew easily when the weather gets warmer!  You like onions?  Onion seeds sprout extremely easily!  San Felipe and Pronto S intermediate day-length onions are good choices. 

SIDEDRESS  Are your lettuces or some of your plants a little pale, or yellowing?  They are likely needing some nitrogen!  This cool time of year slows the uptake, and if you have been harvesting, they need a little boost.  You will get more side shoots of broccoli, and your lettuce will green up!  Give them bloodmeal for a quick perk up, then a fish/kelp combo (2-3 tablespoons/gallon – watering can), some chicken manure, alfalfa meal, and/or compost tea!  Your choice.

SEEDLINGS IN THE GREENHOUSE?!  Did you get seeds at the 2^nd Annual Seed Swap?  Now is the time to be starting your little guys in the greenhouse!  There is a great selection of planting containers in the shed – go for it!  If you didn’t, come to the many Neighborhood Exchanges and trade seeds, transplants.  When you grow yours, start some extras to trade and giveaway!  If you don’t have time, get some organic seeds at Island Seed and Feed in Goleta, or order online at Seeds of Change and Abundant Life Seeds, two good sources!  Get the best because you may want to save some seeds at season’s end for next year’s planting.

Aphids/White Flies Season  Keep an eye out for these critters in your broccoli, cabbages and kale.  The simplest thing to do is spray ‘em with a jet of water from the hose, both topside and underneath the leaves!  If the infestation gets beyond your tolerance, or the plant gets badly stunted or loses its healthy shape, remove the plant – don’t compost it.  Don’t procrastinate on this because aphids/white flies spread.  This is one of the prime reasons to plant your plants in separate groupings or areas, rather than in a row, so the invaders can’t walk plant to plant.

GOPHERS  Sorry to say, we got ‘em.  There are traps in the shed, or you may wish to bring your own, or maybe you would never trap a poor cute little gopher.  But.  They make children.  Bill Henderson, Plot 25, has helped many of us learn how to use the traps.  I can show you, and Joe Diaz in Plot 3 can help you if you would like that.  For very useful information, please see University of California, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Pocket Gophers.  You can plant onions throughout your plot, some say that deters them, but don’t plant onions where you would grow peas.  Onions stunt peas. (Carrots enhance peas.)

Slugs and Snails can eat a plant overnight, only the bare stem remaining, if that.   Some good strategies are below.  For important details, please see University of California, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Snails and Slugs 

• Remove hiding places – leave a few hiding places (traps), remove the snails that gather there
• Use drip irrigation to reduce humidity and moist surfaces = less habitat
• Choose snail proof plants as possible
• Use copper barriers
• Make habitat for natural enemies ie tall poles for birds
• Use bait like Sluggo/Escar-Go.  Sluggo is organic, safe for birds and animals, pets and children, can be used on the day of harvest, and is effective even after watering or rain!  Is it really ‘organic?’  See this article by conscientious Golden Gate Gardener

Soil First – Get ready for spring planting!

What is the difference between Compost, Worm Castings, Mulch?

Compost you put in your planting holes, dig in, or put on the surface and cover with mulch.  It replenishes your soil.  It supplies Nitrogen, the prime ingredient plants need for good growth.

Worm castings, vermicompost, are very low in N (Nitrogen) but have special plant-growth hormones.  The humus in castings improve your soil’s capacity to hold water.  Castings suppress several diseases and significantly reduce parasitic nematodes, aphids, mealy bugs and mites. 

Compost and castings need to be dug in or covered with mulch.  The Nitrogen in compost will simply off gas, if left exposed on the surface.  If not mulched, both compost and castings will dry out, making nutrients unavailable for use by your plants.

Mulch you put on the surface to preserve your soil, keep it moist, the temp cool for more fragile plants in summer.  In winter it keeps rain from splashing mud up on your lettuce leaves; in summer it keeps fruits like cucs and strawberries clean.  But what most of us love, is it prevents light germinating weed seeds from sprouting!  Yay!  Organic mulches, like barks, straw, leaves, what you chop and drop, deliberately grown mulch plants that are then felled in place, can be nutritious to your soil as they decompose.  But you might want to leave bare soil under tomatoes and peppers.  They thrive with the heat!   

Seed Starting Basics!

The hardest part to starting seeds may be choosing which to start!  There are so many choices!  But basically, the process is easy.  The trick is to mimic Mama Nature if you aren’t planting in the ground – you need light, soil, water and food.  That’s it. 

So if you didn’t fling seeds about the garden last fall, broadcast, to start when and where they will, here goes!  A windowsill, that gets 8 hours of bright light, or maybe grow lights will do the job, or the greenhouse – someplace where, if possible, you could put your starts in a tray to get water from the bottom.  If you are using a greenhouse, shorten the start time by a week since a greenhouse is usually warmer.  If you use a windowsill, turn your plants often to keep their stems vertical.  Spindly?  Not enough light.  If you will be moving your starts from smaller to larger containers, potting up, keep the need for enough space to do that in mind.  Any container with drainage will do, especially recycled ones! 

If you have a seed packet, it will tell you when to plant, or check online if you don’t.  Know that bell peppers take a long time.  An old trick is to start another batch in a week or two, or in a month.  If one group fails, another may do fine.  If you took a chance it wouldn’t freeze, but lost, you have a backup batch to plant.  If you are buying seeds, get enough.

Pick some good soilless potting mix – it’s light, water retentive but drains well, disease, insect, weed seed free.  Fill your container then water it to settle the potting mix.  A general rule is to plant 3 – 4 times as deep as the width of your seed.  If the seed if very fine, just cover with a fine layer of your mix.  Some seeds need light to germinate.  LABEL with date and plant name! 

Since potting mix doesn’t have nutrients, you need to add some once the first true leaves (the ones that form after the two cotyledons) have developed.  Half-strength doses of fish emulsion/kelp once a week will do the job the first three to four weeks.  Then give full strength every week, or two. 

Two common problems are planting too deep, and over watering.  Either way your seeds will rot, or your baby plant will get the vapors, a fungus called ‘damping off,’ and, uh, expire.  Now that’s sad.  So pay attention to your planting depth, and much as you love your little guys, don’t keep their surroundings too humid or wet.  Remove them from soaking trays as soon as the soil is moist.  On the other hand, letting them dry out, or get too hot, is the literally the end.  Steady attention is required.  Each year you will learn more.  Get a baby sitter if you have to be away, a trustworthy plant-experienced sitter. 

If you get one tiny whiff of a disease or pest, or any of your plants die of damping off fungus, remove those plants immediately.  Things can spread quickly among plants that are close together, young and tender.  Don’t reuse the potting mix.  If you have mold, things are too wet. Start over, or scrape it off, stop watering a few days, increase air circulation, even use a small fan.  That may do the job, or, it may not.  Let the soil dry out a bit between watering.

Room temp water is good.  Let chlorinated water sit overnight to let the chlorine dissipate.  Avoid softened water because of the salts.

The last part of the process is called hardening off.  First let them have an hour of shady outdoor time during the warmest part of the day.  Don’t put them on the ground if there are slugs!  Then into the sun a few hours.  Then some overnights.  Then into the ground, on a cloudy day if possible, into well watered soil!  If it is a warm day, you might want to rig some shade.  Don’t forget to add some mycorrhizal fungi at the roots.  Congratulations, you did it!  You are a plant parent!

Rainy Day Tips – Anticipate!   

Fertilize before a rain so the fertilizer will soak in.
Take the cover off your compost to let it get wet.
Tie or stake plants that may topple from wind or weight.
At home, set up to collect rainwater for later use! 
Make raised beds, mounds, to help with drainage issues.
Mulch to keep soil from splashing up on your plants, keeping your harvest clean, and soil from eroding from where you want it.
Plant for air circulation so foliage dries quickly.  Plants too closely spaced tend to get mildew easier.
Choose mildew resistant plants!  Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and potassium bicarbonate are quite effective as sprays against mildew and certain other diseases.
Water less frequently and at the ground, not overhead.
Check frequently to see how your plants are doing.
Practice arm-chair gardening!  Read garden books, magazines, browse web sites, buy some seeds from mail-order catalogs, make your garden layout!
Get some seeds, soilless potting mix, gather containers with, or make, drainage holes.  Start some seeds 

Other Community Gardens: 

This stunning made-from-recycled trellis lives at the Winston Smoyer Memorial Community Garden, Alhambra CA.  The garden boasts nearly 100 individual garden sites that are tended by gardeners who enjoy planting fresh flowers and garden vegetables. They also enjoy getting together once a month for informative monthly meetings and workshops on gardening.  To see more of the trellis builder’s doings, please click ToroIchiban.  Be sure to read the mouse-over infos at that site!

The Garden is named after Winston Smoyer, a retired Alhambra High School teacher, who was one of the most ardent Alhambra Community gardeners in its history. He loved his plot, and provided friends with a never-ending supply of fresh vegetables, including some of the largest zucchini known to Alhambra. He was also a community activist, serving as long-time President and Curator of the Alhambra Historical Society, member of the Board of the Alhambra Day Nursery, member of the Alhambra Chamber of Commerce (where he won the Chamber’s prestigious “Citizen of the Year” award), and other community organizations.
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Los Angeles County has nearly 3,800 plots in 60 public community gardens, but nearly all have waiting lists. Eight acres in Long Beach accommodate 308 gardeners, but volunteer coordinator Lonnie Brundage says the waiting list has been capped at 85 — and she still she receives about 30 phone calls a week from residents eager to dig in.  The 50-plot North Hollywood community garden also has a waiting list. Santa Monica’s community gardens have 117 plots spread out across three sites, but 175 people are still in line for a spot.  So how about yard sharing?!  You may have land but no inclination to till , or “the will to till, but not the land.”  Check out GrowFriend.org!  Santa Barbara County could use an organization like this.

Here are their 5 Steps to Successful Garden Sharing! 

1. get to know each other – talk about everything!
2. write down your garden sharing agreement
3. print it out and sign it
4. check in with each other regularly as the season unfolds
5. have a harvest festival – invite the neighbors!

The L.A. Community Garden Council says:  “Approximately 70 community gardens are growing in Los Angeles County, serving 3,900 families. Community gardens are vibrant, cooperative organizations that build neighborhood self-reliance, and reduce poverty, mitigate global warming and benefit the LA River and Ballona Creek watersheds. Los Angeles devotes little taxpayer money to community gardens yet they return abundant neighborhood benefit.

Good Green Thinking! 

What was once a 90-foot steel frame structure that housed new trees, shrubs and the occasional pile of brush at the University of Science and Arts in Chcikasha, Oklahoma, is now teaming with new life and activity as the location of a Community Garden!  The project is funded by several sources.   

Fourth grade students from Chickasha Public Schools are participating in the garden as Botany Buddies!  “What we did with the Botany Buddies was go to the store and buy a variety of seeds and starter kits. We took them to the fourth grade class and asked them to figure out what they wanted to plant. The students grew the seeds in the classroom. The kids then came out and planted their seeds. We showed them how to plant and how to compost. The kids got a kick out of knowing they would be eating something that was grown in cow poop.  J

Upcoming Local Events: 

1)  Thursday, February 4th, 7-9 pm the Santa Barbara Permaculture Guild will offer a FREE presentation (no charge or donations) by permaculture teacher and natural investment advisor Michael Kramer. He will share his thoughts on “Natural Investing and Financial Permaculture.”  That includes community, corporate and regenerative investing.

This meeting will be held at the Karpeles Manuscript Library, 21 Anapamu St. in downtown Santa Barbara. There is city parking right behind the building.

3)  Saturday, February 13, 7-9:30pm ~Mycelium Running~ How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, Paul Stamets at the Fe Bland Forum auditorium, SBCC West Campus, 721 Cliff Drive. Admission $20 ($10 SBCC Students), no reservations, first come basis.  The event is sponsored by the SBCC Center for Sustainability and the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Non-Profit. For more information, (805) 965-0581, ext. 2177; msbushman@sbcc.edu.

Paul has discovered four new species of mushrooms, and pioneered countless techniques in the field of edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation. He received the 1998 “Bioneers Award” from The Collective Heritage Institute, and the 1999 “Founder of a New Northwest Award” from the Pacific Rim Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils. In 2008, Paul received the National Geographic Adventure Magazine’s Green-Novator and the Argosy Foundation’s E-chievement Awards. He was also named one of Utne Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World” in their November–December 2008 issue. He has written six books on mushroom cultivation, use and identification.

3)  April 17th and 18th at Alameda Park, 40th Anniversary of Earth Day! 

Would you enjoy helping?  Volunteers are needed.  Maybe your favorite organization would like to exhibit?
Contact Dave Fortson at david@loatree.com. For more information: www.CECSB.org

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” — the Dalai Lama  

May you and your garden flourish!
Cerena

“In the garden of thy heart, plant naught but the rose of love.”  Baha’U'Uah
“Earth turns to Gold in the hands of the Wise” Rumi

Cerena Childress, Plot 46
elist holder Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden
805-898-7888

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