Merry, Muy Delicioso, Mouth Watering May!

If you didn’t plant much in April, now is the time!  Cantaloupe!  Transplants of winter squash asap so they will have time to grow and harden for harvest!  Tomatoes planted now while the soil is warmer and dryer will stand a better chance against soil fungi.  Plant 2nd rounds of late March, early April plantings.

Sow seeds of lima and snap beans, beets, cantaloupe, carrots, celery, chard, chicory, chives, slo-bolt cilantro, corn, WHITE radishes with cucumbers to repel cucumber beetles, radishes with eggplants as a trap plant for flea beetles, leeks, warm-season lettuces, melons, okras, green onions, peanuts, peppers, pumpkins, soybeans, warm-season spinaches, squashes, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes.  At the same time put in transplants of what you can get, and you will have two successive plantings in at once!

Long beans are an exception.  I find they don’t really take off until it’s good and hot, so wait until June to plant them.  Also, they are the last bean producers, filling in at the end of summer.  At the end of summer they are crankin,’ you won’t believe how quickly they get that long!  Even better, they don’t get mildews!  Their taste and texture is slightly different than our standard green beans, but delish also!

Creature Department! Head of the L.A. master gardener program, Yvonne Savio says ‘Interplant cucumbers and beans to repel cucumbers beetles and prevent the wilt diseases they carry. Also plant Cucurbita lagenaria gourds as trap plants for cucumber beetles. Plant potatoes to repel squash bugs.’ And here’s a trick she recommends! ‘When hand-picking those hard-to-see tomato hornworms, sprinkle the plants lightly with water first. Then, as the horn-worms wiggle to shake off the water, you can easily see them and remove them.’ Doncha love it?!

Important to know this: Later this month, when foliage on garlic, bulb onions, and shallots begins to dry naturally, stop irrigating. Dry outer layers needed for long storage will form on the bulbs. When about half of the foliage slumps to the ground naturally, bend the rest to initiate this maturing. The bulbs will be ready for harvest when the foliage is thoroughly dry and crisp. Not pretty, but it’s the way it works!

Be careful with your strawberries! Give them a balanced fertilizer, like a yummy micronutrients fish/kelp mix, now and after each heavy fruit-bearing period for continued strong growth and fruit set.  One of our gardeners fed them this mix every other week and his harvests were outstanding!  However, if you have skunks, etc., don’t use fishy stinky stuff because it attracts these foragers. Avoid mulching with manure, especially chicken, that has a relatively high salt level strawberries don’t like. Even with excellent irrigation and drainage, summer heat will cause its saltiness to burn the berry plants. So what to use if you have skunks and the like? Bunny poop. Get it on Thursdays at the Animal Shelter. You are doubly warned.

Mulching? Do it in summer! Self Mulching! This is the cheapest, easiest technique! Transplant seedlings close enough so that the leaves of mature plants will shade the soil between the plants.  If you choose to do this, alternate plants that get the same diseases or pests with plants that don’t get the same diseases or pests. That’s all there is too it! Roots are cool and comfy, less water needed. Natural mulches feed your soil as they decompose. Avoid any that have been dyed. Strawberries and blueberries like loose, acid mulches – pine needles or rotted sawdust. Raspberries and blackberries enjoy SEEDLESS straw.  Plants are done?  Chop and Drop!  Mulch is just so clever! Besides the underground advantages, above ground, it keeps plant leaves off the soil where snails, other critters, soil diseases, climb onboard. It keeps leaves drier, less molds, mildew. It keeps fruits off the soil, prevents soil splash, so you have clean harvest.

See the entire May newsletter!

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Eight Quick & Easy Gardening Tips!

Choosing healthy Transplants!  When at the nursery, check if a plant is root bound.  Carefully pop the plant right out of the container!  You want white lively roots with plenty of space between them; no girdling, no tan color like the ones at the left in the image.  A girdled plant will never be quite as healthy as one that has had normal growth.  If they are tan they are old and may have disease.

If your soil is poor, or you have only asphalt or concrete, consider raised beds or straw bale gardening!

Nowhere in nature will you find row furrows.  Plant for biodiversity!  In fact, California entomologists compared plantings of all one variety of broccoli to mixed plantings of four cultivars. They found that the combination crops had fewer cabbage aphids. So merely mixing varieties in a monocultural planting may help reduce pest problems.

Lettuces can be kept from bolting, producing a stalk, by regularly picking the outer leaves, keeping them from maturing properly.  This ‘cut and come again’ approach to harvesting can extend the time they produce for up to 10 weeks!

Vermicompost, Worm Castings, causes seeds to germinate more quickly, seedlings to grow faster, leaves grow bigger, and more flowers, fruits or vegetables are produced. These effects are greatest when a smaller amount of vermicompost is used—just 10-40 percent of the total volume of the plant growth medium in which it is incorporated.

Intercrop, Interplant for better space usage!

• fast and slow growing plants in the same space, like radishes and carrots or spinach and peas
• small plants next to large like cantaloupe and corn or spinach and Brussels sprouts
• deep and shallow plants like potatoes and cabbage or turnips and lettuce
• heavy and light feeders like broccoli and carrots or corn and beans

To avoid mildew, space your plantings enough for air circulation and, especially if your area is shady and/or if you water evenings.  Better to water at ground level, not overhead, in the AMs if possible.  It’s good to rinse off leaves from time to time, so your plant can fully photosynthesize for fat harvests!  Too much dust and dirt can hinder that process.

If your soil is crusty or hard and ‘heavy,’ it’s hungry.  It needs humus, more compost.  Compost keeps your soil soft and friable, increases its water holding capacity, adds nutrients.  Yes!

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Preparing Your Precious Soil!

A Queensland, Australia author explains the Nitrogen issue well:  The presence of undecomposed organic matter in the soil stimulates an explosion in the populations of the micro-organisms that rot it down. This explosion makes a heavy demand on soil nitrogen, to form the body proteins of the organisms. When decomposition is complete, the population returns to normal levels, releasing nitrogen back into the soil.

If crops are planted before the decomposition process is complete, they usually suffer from a deficiency of nitrogen and are more vulnerable to attack from the higher population of plant-pathogenic soil micro-organisms. The usual diseases that occur are seed rots or damping-off of young plants. Losses are often so heavy that replanting is necessary, resulting in high establishment costs and a delayed harvest.

Take care that you do not mix the subsoil (usually a lighter colour) with the topsoil, but add plenty of organic matter to both.

After digging, leave the soil to settle. Ideally, you should dig over a new border [planting area] in autumn and leave for the winter. But gardeners do not always have control over time-scales, are busy and frequently impatient to get going with planting! Do try to let the earthworms do their stuff though, and leave the newly dug border for [at least] a few weeks. You can remove annual and perennial weeds that emerge over the coming weeks, further cleaning the border.

Great!  So have patience.  It will be worth the wait.  This would apply after you have turned under winter ground covers, chopped and dug in green manure favas, or added manures unless it’s bunny poop, which can be used instantly.  My favas have already flowered and I’ve dug them in, last week of January, so that soil will be ready to go mid March!   Dig in, watch, weed, wait, weed, plant!

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From Turf/Food Not Lawns, Lasagna Gardening, to Hugelkultur!!!

Say what?!  Why is Hugelkultur, ‘hoogel kultoor,’ considered a Permaculture* technique? It resuses logs – freshly downed or old, wood debris right in place. It fits the needs of the land – less to no water, self fertilizing soil building! ‘Hugel’ means hill in German.  In this case, steep is good, tall makes for easier harvesting!  It is another form of composting in place, or building a raised bed, with more benefits, concentrating heat and nutrients!  Sepp Holzer has used the technique, but never called it Hugelkultur.  His wonderful method is diagrammed in the image.

Paul Wheaton at RichSoil.com explains it simply:

‘Hugelkultur is nothing more than making raised garden beds filled with rotten wood. This makes for raised garden beds loaded with organic material, nutrients, air pockets for the roots of what you plant, etc. As the years pass, the deep soil of your raised garden bed becomes incredibly rich and loaded with soil life. As the wood shrinks, it makes more tiny air pockets – so your hugelkultur becomes sort of self tilling. The first few years, the composting process will slightly warm your soil giving you a slightly longer growing season. The woody matter helps to keep nutrient excess from passing into the ground water – and then refeeding that to your garden plants later. Plus, by holding SO much water, hugelkultur could be part of a system for growing garden crops in the desert with no irrigation.’ He does caution about what kinds of woods not to use, and recommends the best ones to use.

Holzer’s diagram shows one log.  At Wheaton’s site the diagrams show a veritable lumber yard pile!  Gradually the pile decomposes making super nutrients!  Lay down your logs – don’t be shy, stack ‘em deep, twigs, branches as per the images. Fill with dry brown leaves if you have them. If you are taking up sod, turf, lay it over the top of the logs upside down, cover with soil! Plant!

You can make borders if you wish – dense hardwood logs, stones you removed from the soil you gathered.  There are so many terrific ways to vary making a Hugelkultur garden! Use what you have about, do what fits your site needs. With urban neighbors nearby or woodlands, street side to backyard, it works! Start small, add some each year, or do huge if you have the materials available!

This might not be a project to start at the beginning of a rainy season. Now would be excellent! Get some plants on the mound right away. Vines with big leaves are terrific to protect the soil from washing away, let the soil settle, get the system percolating. Squash, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins. Use some allysum as filler.

Perfect in areas short on water because after it’s established, the first two years, it needs NO irrigation!  It is self feeding, no fertilizer needed!

Lawns to slopes! Hugelkultur terraces act like mini bioswales to slow, spread and sink rainwater!  That’s Hugelkultur farmer Glenn Kangiser’s planted slope in the image below!  Would love to see your images if you give it a go!

See all the details, and Paul Wheaton’s thoughtful therapy on how to talk with your skeptical friends and neighbors, and tons of images!  Click on every image to go to a thread about it! Marvelous inspiring ideas!  I used to say garden anywhere, now I’m saying Garden EVERYwhere!

* “Permaculture uses ecological design to build self-sufficient human systems that meet our needs while regenerating and healing the natural environment. Central to the practice of permaculture are three core ethics, taken from the study of cultures which have traditionally lived in balance with nature: care for the earth, care for people, share the surplus.” Permaculture Guild of Santa Barbara, sbperm2006@googlegroups.com

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Fertilizing Your Favorite Summer Plants!

One school of thought is if your soil is great when you start, no fertilizer is needed for the rest of the season! Then there are others who fuss and mother attentively weekly, even daily. The rest of us do what we can when we can or if we have to. Do your best. Most of all, watch your plants. Check on them frequently – at least that, especially after drying winds, super hot days. They will tell you what they need. If you don’t understand the ‘symptoms,’ you can get help and figure it out. If you are container gardening, regular fertilizing is a must because nutrients are leached away as you water.

Humble homemade compost just can’t be beat as a fertilizer! Whether you do it in a bin, a pile, lasagna garden or sheet compost in place, it adds a wide variety of nutrients that are easily taken up by your plants, adds tilth to your soil, that’s loamy nutrient laden soil with excellent water holding capacity. Compost is not only a soil enhancer, but a water saver! Even manures, that are also excellent for your soil, need to be composted first. Composting stabilizes the Nitrogen.

Use the NPK of organic fertilizers to your advantage!

1. Nitrogen – N gives leaf growth, and lots of it! If your plant looks tired, and leaves are yellowing, give them a fertilizer high in N. Plants can uptake blood meal quickly; use it for emergencies. Bone meal decomposes slowly. A handful in your planting hole is good to feed your plant later in its season. Too much N makes your plant grow fast and soft, more susceptible to diseases and pest attack.
2. Phosphorous – P promotes a strong roots, prolific flowering and fruiting! Use quick uptake fertilizers high in P if you, oops, put too much Nitrogen around and are only getting leaves.
3. Potassium – K works in tandem with P, and helps your plants resist disease.

The critical times for fertilizers are

• when you plant
• when your plant starts into production, at and/or just after flowering – see below, and fruiting, when it is working its hardest

Beans – produce their own Nitrogen, grabbing it right out of the air and sending it to little nodules on their roots. But, give them a light feed AFTER heavy blooming, and at pod set. Use fertilizers higher in P, for more blooming. If your beans look tired, production slowing, and they start to yellow, common late in the season, give them a little fish emulsion/kelp boost or scratch in very small amount of chicken manure to perk them up and extend their production time.

Brocs – Summer brocs are usually making tons of side shoots after having made that main head in winter or spring. You can see they are still working hard. Scratch in a thin layer of chicken manure, lay on a mulch of clean well aged horse manure a couple inches deep, scratch in bunny poop if you can get it, within the entire drip line area of your plant so all its roots get a taste!

Cukes, Zukes, Melons – Fertilize when the vines are about a foot tall, but before the vines start to run. Give them double what you give your other plants, because these babies are hungry monsters! Fertilize them a week after blooming and again 3 weeks later. They are working hard. If you are growing dwarf or container/patio varieties, give them about the same as your other plants.

Corn – TLC at12” to 18” tall. Higher in N, because that is a mighty stalk with huge leaves your plant is making. Unless you are growing early maturing, smaller, or dwarf varieties. Then if you jazzed up the soil at planting, you may not need to fertilize at all. Your corn knows what to do.

Kale – to keep your kale in vibrant production, feed it generously. It is another plant that we use for the leaves it is constantly producing. It is one of the workhorses of your garden.

Lettuces, chard – scratch in chicken manure every couple of weeks or if production slows or the leaves yellow. They are constantly making new leaves and you are constantly removing their biggest lower leaves. They need food. If you are not a manure fan, do a fat tablespoon of fish emulsion/kelp mix even every week and keep ‘em well watered!

Peppers – magnesium and sulfur! OK, those babies can be as hot as brimstone, so they need some uppity fertilizer. They take up sulfur and magnesium most easily by foliar feeding. A tablespoon Epsom Salts in a gallon of water will do the trick. Water your plants before you apply, not after and wash it away. Do it early to midday so the plants have time to take it in before evening dews and it just runs off the leaves. Put it on right away at transplanting, again at first flowering and at fruit set. Also give them a taste of manures.

Strawberries – they are a continuous heavy producer per the size of the plant! Fish emulsion/kelp every other week makes them very happy. In their case, pine needle mulch is a form of ‘fertilizer’ because it causes the soil to be slightly acidic. Strawberries like that.

Tomatoes - Magnesium deficiency in the soil may be one reason your tomato leaves yellow between the leaf veins late in the season and fruit production slows down. Epsom salts can keep plants greener and bushier, enhance production of healthier fruit later in the season, and potentially help reduce blossom-end rot. 1 tablespoon Epsom salts per gallon of water at transplanting, first flowering, and fruit set. A taste of manures for your toms too, one to two weeks before, and after, first picking. In Santa Barbara first picking is usually right about the 4th of July. Remember, we want production not leaf, so fertilizers higher in P at this time.

When I say scratch in….

• I recommend you only do it on two sides of your plant, not in a circle around the plant breaking all the tiny horizontal roots. This is one time you don’t want a heavy hand that would damage significant roots either.
• It’s important to cover your fertilizer with soil, get it into the top 2 inches, because the N simply off gases if left exposed. It dries, it dies.

Worm castings are not a fertilizer. Not. They have negligible Nitrogen, usually like .05%. Their NPK rating is 1-1-1. See? But they are a terrific amendment for other reasons! They 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. Add some castings when you add your other fertilizers. You can add some wonderful compost too. It IS a fertilizer. The best results I have observed at Pilgrim Terrace, for super healthy vibrant plants, has been with chicken manure. It is efficient for the space it takes up and the price paid. A couple of us are going to be using bunny poop, so I am excited to see how it does.

Water it in. That’s like making compost, manure, worm tea in place! The water helps disperse the fertilizer and percolate down into your soil for hungry roots to feed on.

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June, Summer Solstice, the Magic Happens!

March and April plantings are paying off handsomely now as we have warmer and the longest days of the year!  Harvests are coming in, tomatoes on their way!  Pick beans when your plants are dry to prevent spreading rust and mildew.

Plant more rounds of your heat lovers - seeds or transplants –  basil with tomatoes, peppers and eggplant best from transplants, corn, beans, cucumbers, okra, zucchini.  Put in more melons, and some winter squash only if you are in the hot foothills.  Late plantings will often ‘catch up’ since they have more heat, longer hours of sunshine.  Plant another round of radishes to repel cucumber beetles from cukes and zukes, and as a trap plant for flea beetles on eggplant.  For fall toms, put in seeds now, transplants in July.  Pop in some more year-rounds:  beets, carrots, chard, bunch onions, turnips, fragrant herbs.  Remember, plant seeds and transplants of the same plant at the same time to get continuous crops!  And mix things up to confuse pests and prevent disease spread.  Some here, some there….

Strawberries want to make runners in June! Instead, clip off the daughters, give your strawberries a quick uptake 0-10-10 type fertilizer, high in Potassium and Phosphorus, P & K, to keep them flowering and producing. Plenty of time to get daughters in October. Keep your strawberries wet! If they dry they stop fruiting.

If you planted garlic in November, now is harvest time!  Dig down, see how the little guys are doing.  If they are fat enough for you, stop watering for a couple weeks, and harvest!  If not, we did have a cool spring, let them grow a bit more….

• When you harvest garlic, dig, don’t pull.
• Be gentle. Freshly dug garlic bulbs will bruise easily and it is easy to accidentally slice a bulb open while digging if you are not careful. When harvesting garlic, lift each bulb individually from the ground. Place it in a container where it will not get jostled too much.
• Get the garlic out of the sun as soon as possible. Garlic will blanch and burn in the sun. Put the freshly dug unwashed bulbs in a dark, dry place as soon as possible.
• Allow garlic to cure in a warm, shaded area where there is plenty of air circulation. When garlic has cured, about three weeks for warm inland areas, six weeks or more on the foggy coast, trim off roots and cut necks to one-half inch length.

Time to feed your hardworking plants! Feed them as they start to flower, and while they are producing fruits.  Leaf producers like lettuces, kales and chard need a little chicken manure scratched in.  Pretend you are a chicken!  If you lay in too much Nitrogen, put on some Sea Bird quano high in Phosphorus, to bring blooms as well as leaves.  In fact, once your plant starts flowering, you can put some fertilizer on that is higher in Phosphorus to keep them going!

If you laid straw under your tomatoes or along your cucumbers, to keep soil with the wilts fungi from splashing on them, replenish it, make it a bit deeper as your plant gets bigger.  Mulch crops that don’t need that much heat, but enjoy moist feet.  Plant moisture lovers more densely in summer so they can make a living mulch for each other.

WATER!  Be sure your babies have plenty to drink.  To be sure things are good, poke your finger in the ground AFTER you water. You will be amazed how the watering you did may not have wet more than a 1/4″ to 1/2″ deep. Your plants’ roots are deeper than that. They can be dying of thirst when things look prettily wet.  Regular water is best.  Cucumbers especially need that.  Their fruit is practically all water, so guess where that water is going!  Tomatoes are picky.  Too much or too little and they are unhappy.  Experience is going to be your best teacher.  If you succession plant, you have more chances of learning in the same season.

Clean up and deadhead!  Trim away any damaged, diseased, or done parts, remove sick plants or ones that are not thriving, or step up your attention to them.  Put in plants instead of letting weeds grow and use up your soil.  Beauty be.

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Time to think about MULCH!

Especially toward the end of April! Pull back or don’t apply mulch to keep your soil warmer while you are starting seedlings and transplants. When the weather gets warm and the soil starts drying out quickly, apply your mulch!

Compost and mulch often get mixed up. Compost is incorporated into the soil and sometimes used as mulch, hence the confusion. Mulch is always put on the surface, not incorporated into your soil. For it to be an effective weed suppressant, it needs to be a bare minimum of 2″ deep, preferably as much as 6 ” deep. It depends on the texture of your mulch and whether it lets light through or not, and how much you have available. We want no light on the soil so light germinating weed seeds won’t germinate! Mulch cuts down on water splash, keep your plants and their ground-laying fruits clean and fungi diseases from getting on your plants’ leaves. Mulch keeps plant roots happy with cool moist soil, shades the soil but not your do-business photosynthesizing plants’ leaves! Mulch prevents erosion of soil away from your plant, and from hillsides.

Whatever you use as mulch, especially when you are growing veggies, choose ones that will feed your soil! Eventually, organic mulch does decompose. That’s why seed free straw, barks, chop and drop healthy plant cuttings, downed leaves, are all good. Put down a couple inches of well aged manure. When you water it will be like making manure tea feeding the soil underneath. But it’s better, if you are laying down manures, compost or worm castings, to dig them in a bit because if left on the surface they off gas Nitrogen, the very ingredient you intended them to add! At which point, when you dig them in, they are not mulch, but an amendment. So, though compost may be used as mulch, on the surface, you don’t get your best mileage out of it when you use it that way. Redwood mulches, pine needles make your soil slightly acidic. Strawberries like that. I use the cones to drape berries over, keep ‘em off the ground, less slug bites! Redwood and needles are pretty. Shredded redwood is expensive, especially if you put down the 3″ or more it takes to prevent light going through it.

Yes, larger pieces decompose more slowly, and use up Nitrogen as they decompose. This is not so good in a veggie garden since it uses N the veggies need. Same problem when we do continuous sheet composting/lasagna gardening. The process takes N from the soil; our plants may not thrive the first year or so until a soil base is established unless you use a good bit of compost in your planting holes.

We do use wood chips in our pathways at Pilgrim Terrace. We want large pieces there so they will take longer to decompose. Local tree companies that can be trusted bring unsprayed, undiseased chips, when they have them. They deliver to us to save dump fees. It there is any chance you will be planting there sometime in the future, also choose the type of tree you prefer. Oaks have tannins, eucalyptus and tea trees have aromatic oils that inhibit plant growth. Check to see if any commercially packaged mulches are dyed. Not likely here except perhaps in the big box stores? If you are using manures, check if animals have been fed hormones, eat pesticide sprayed hays, or pesticides have been sprayed on the manures to reduce flies.

Short rooted plants like beans and strawberries really do well with mulch. Plants that have soil fungi problems, like tomatoes, it’s better not to use it, and water minimally. Drier soil has less fungi. Cucumbers have short roots and soil fungi problems – best to pick resistant/tolerant varieties.  More on Mulch!

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Tomatoes, Wilts, Fava, Coffee Grounds

Reporting on the Great Fava Versus Wilt Experiment!

Some of you have been following my fava experiment, that, per John Jeavons, favas counteract the tomato Fusarium and Verticillium Wilts fungi, hoping it would work. Issues for me were lower leaves, humidity, low spots, nearby plant water needs. I religiously watered only nearby plants. But that was still a problem because the neighboring plants needed a LOT of water, and the toms were in low spots. The fava ring, planted around each tomato, grew really well and was so bushy I forgot to reach in and trim the lowest ground-touching leaves off my tomatoes. The favas created a humid environment, blocked air flow. They got the wilt first, kind of like a trap plant. But then it spread to the tomatoes because I had planted them closely, not knowing how far apart I should plant them. Perhaps I should have removed the favas at first signs of the wilt?

I didn’t give up on favas.

• As per the long-term plan, I decided where I would plant some of this summer’s toms, and put in dense fava patches in those places. They are now ready to be used as green manure.  Tip!  Cut them down just as they begin to flower.  When they flower, the energy of the plant no longer goes into making leaves, but production.  And the stalks get tougher the longer they grow – harder to chop up.
• At planting time, I will add a good dose of animal manures and compost, and my usuals – a huge handful of bone meal, a handful of non-fat powdered milk, and worm castings, and a new item, a tad of coffee grounds (see below), as well, to the planting holes.
• I’ll plant on slightly raised mounds for drainage, and plant only plants that need less water nearby.
• I’ll top the area with a one inch layer of compost, then cover with a thin layer of straw mulch to prevent the splash factor. When water splashes up from infected soil onto the lower leaves, the plant is infected. I will replenish the straw monthly. Straw has air flow through its tube structure, allowing the soil to be drier even though straw is a mulch.
• I’ll plant my resistant and tolerant varieties so their leaves don’t touch, and trim the lowest splash susceptible leaves away, remove infected leaves promptly. I don’t expect to stop the wilt, just slow it down, a LOT.
• Instead of long living indeterminate varieties, I’m going to plant determinate faster producing varieties successively, removing infected plants when they finish producing.
• Another thing I’m going to do is plant later. Rather than put young vulnerable plants in cool fungi laden soil, depending on the weather, I’m going to wait until late May, even June, when the warmer soil is drier. In the past I have had volunteers come up in July and gotten good crops from them late August, September!

Coffee Grounds: Myths, Miracles or Marketing?!

Here’s some study results adapted from the Washington State U report! Disease suppression As they decompose, coffee grounds appear to suppress some common fungal rots and wilts, including FUSARIUM! In these studies, coffee grounds were part of a compost mix, in one case comprising as little as 0.5 percent of the material. Researchers suggest that the bacterial and fungal species normally found on decomposing coffee grounds prevent pathogenic fungi, like Fusarium, from establishing. Currently, disease suppression from coffee grounds has only been demonstrated under controlled conditions on a handful of veggies, bean, cucumber, spinach, and tomato. Their efficacy in gardens and landscapes is unknown, as is any protective activity on other plant materials such as trees or shrubs.

Not all get a jolt – Weed Suppression Not all plants get a jolt from coffee grounds. Seed germination can be inhibited by water leached through coffee grounds. Growth of crops such as Chinese mustard (Brassica juncea), komatsuna (Brassica campestris) and Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum) were all inhibited by coffee grounds, as was that of ornamentals including inch plant (Tradescantia albiflora), geranium, and asparagus fern. One investigator speculated that toxic substances released from decomposing coffee grounds were responsible for their inhibitory effect. This effect also reduces weeds, and perhaps in a landscape dominated by large shrubs and trees, only germinating seeds and seedlings would be injured. But as there has been no experimental research on coffee grounds and woody plants, this is only speculation, says the author.

Moral of the story is go lightly, only 0.5 % in your compost – that’s a 1/2 of a %! That’s very little! Just as our soil only needs 5% humus, over composting is not helpful, so is too much coffee grounds. When I first started gardening, I laid some grounds down as mulch. Bad beginners move. The plants there died, and that area grew plants poorly for the following two seasons. I wonder if grounds work on Verticillium?!

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Give your plants a chance!

Healthy care and choices make the difference!

Not too much N (Nitrogen)  It imbalances your plants, just like too much sugar for us.  You get lots of leaf, no fruit, growth is too fast and ‘soft,’ inviting to pests and diseases.

Watering practices make a difference.  Overhead watering is not good for most plants, but especially not for fuzzy plants that like it dry – tomatoes, eggplant.  Too much nighttime wet equals mildews and more slugs and snails, more remedies and pest prevention, more costly.  Plants drink during the day – water in the AM when you can.  Make furrows, water deep, let it soak in laterally.  Make basins to keep water where you want it.  Drip systems usually don’t work in a veggie garden you are planting biodiversely, mixing things up.  Also, veggies come and go pretty quickly in an active garden.  If you are row or patch planting, if the area is long or big enough, a drip system could work well. 

• Water soaked soil is dead soil.  Soil organisms, soil builders, simply drown.  If in a low spot, check your drainage options; build a raised bed.  Add organic water holding compost, water less no matter how much fun it is!
• Dry soil is dead soil.  Nitrogen off gases, your soil organisms die or go away.  See if you can channel some water to that area.  Install furrows or build soil walls or basins to keep water where it is needed, avoid wasteful runoff.  Again, add organic water holding compost.  Water deeply.  If you are gardening at home, busy and forgetful, perhaps you could install drip irrigation on a timer. 

Avoid spreading viruses that can spread diseases.  Really check those plants you buy at the discount nursery.  Remove diseased plants and don’t compost diseased plants.  This is a tough decision when it comes to disease tolerant plant varieties.  They can have a disease yet still produce.  They are bred to do that.  Is that ethical?  If you are gardening at home and make that choice, that is one thing.  If you are in a community garden, and the disease is windborne, is it fair to your garden neighbors?  Maybe we all need to get tolerant varieties.  

Some diseases lurk in garden border weeds.  Or you can bring them into the garden by walking through weeds.  Insects bring some diseases and so do animals, like our skunks, raccoons, possums.  If the ‘weeds’ are habitat for beneficial insects, be careful what you remove, consider the balances. 

Ants.  Whether you mind them or not probably depends on how many there are and what they are doing.  If they are tending aphids, no!  Not only are there ants with aphids, but white flies are attracted to the aphid honeydew as well.  Otherwise, ants are virtuous hard working cleaner uppers!  The take away dead insects.  Balance is the key. 

Varieties matter.  Planting a variety out of season makes that plant struggle and be vulnerable to pests and diseases it can’t handle.  In Santa Barbara we have the cool damp ocean areas and the hot dry foothills.  Different varieties will thrive in one and not the other.  Planting too early or too late, your plant will try, but may not be able.  Some gardeners are totally pro Heirloom, against hybrids.  But Nature herself hybridizes, it is a natural process.  It occurs naturally by area and plants that grow there do the best there.  In a way, we subtly do a similar thing ourselves when we select seed from our best plants.  I think being flexible in your choices will get the best all around results. 

Planting at the Right Time makes a big difference.  Sometimes you just won’t get germination if it is too cold or hot.  Or a plant thrives in temporary weather, but dies when it goes cold again, or too, too hot.  They need certain temps and day length.  Some may survive, but never thrive later.  That is sad to see.  So respect them.  Know them well enough to honor their needs.  Planted at the wrong time, pests they aren’t equipped to handle may eat them alive.  If you are a big risk taker and financially don’t mind a few losses, go ahead.  Some will succeed, for sure.  You may or may not get earlier production.  Sometimes plants can be planted a month apart, but the later one will ‘catch up,’ and produce at the same time as the earlier plant!  Same can be true of smaller and larger transplants because it all depends on temps and day length.

Once your plants are going, sidedressing keeps them going!  Sidedressing usually starts when your plants start to bloom, make fruits.  Scatter and lightly dig in a little chicken manure and/or lay on a ½” of tasty compost, some worm castings, water on some fish emulsion, blood meal if they are yellowing and could use a quick Nitrogen boost.  Water well.

Plant appropriate varieties on time, water and amend well, keep watch on pests and diseases.  Robust happily producing plants are worth it, and a joy to watch!

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15 Super Tips for a Productive Summer Veggie Patch!

Asymmetrical Design

Whether you are tucking things into niches between ornamental landscape plants, planting a patio patch like in the image, setting up a first time summer garden patch, or replanning your annual garden, here are some great ideas to increase your production!

1. If you have space, and are creating a back, or front, yard food forest, always start with your tree placements first! Determine which veggies grow well with each kind of tree. Santa Barbara Mediterranean Food Forests

2. Keep in mind veggies need sun! 6 to 8 hours, preferably 8! They are making fruit, and often many! That takes energy.

3.  Put tall plants to the north (see image below), so they won’t shade the shorties. If there is a partially shaded area, plant your tallest plants on the shaded side so they can reach up to get some sun; put the shorter plants in decreasing heights, in front of them so all get as much light as they can. When you are planting rounds, another batch every few weeks, start in the north or the ‘back’ – the shaded area, and work your way forward.

4. Trellises and tall cages are terrific space savers and keep your plants off the ground out of harm’s way – pests, diseases, damage. Your veggies will be clean, and have more even ripening. Cucumbers, beans, tomatoes. Squashes and melons can be trellised if you provide support for heavy fruits. Even Zucchini can be grown up through cages leaving a lot of ground space for underplantings. Harvesting is a lot easier and certain when those fast growing zuchs are up where you can see them!

Inefficient Single Row Planting

5. There are rows and there are rows! Single row planting wastes space! Compare the images. If you do rows, plant 2 or 3 different plants in side by side rows, then have your walk way, then another 2 or 3 plants together. Whether you do 2 or 3, or even 4, depends on plant size, your reach, and ease of tending and harvest. Plant taller or medium size plants, like peppers and eggplant, by twos so you can reach in to harvest. Plant shorter smaller plants like lettuces, spinach, strawberries together since they are easy to reach across to harvest. If plants in the rows are the same size, plant the second row plants on the diagonal to the first row plants. That way your rows can be closer together and you can plant more plants!

Attractive Multi-row Veggie Amphitheatre around the Eden Project restaurant!

6. Rather than rows, biodiversity, mixing things up, confuses pests, stops diseases in their tracks, because they can’t just go from the same plant to the same plant down a row. Since we are not using tractors, there is no need for rows at all, but they can be lovely. The curved rows in the image are behind the Eden Project restaurant outdoor seating! Truly garden to table!

7. If you need only a few plants, rather than designating a separate space for lettuces and littles like radishes, tuck them in here and there on the sunny side under bigger plants! When it gets big enough, remove the sunny side lower leaves of the larger plant to let light in.

8. Plant what you like, and will really eat along with some extra nutritious chards, kales.

9. Plants with the same water needs are good together. Like a salad patch – lettuce, arugula, spinach, bok choy, bunch onions, radish, chards. Putting the things together that you will harvest together saves time! Put carrots at the foot of pole beans.

10. Overplanting can take the fun out of things. Too many zucchini in hot summers, and you are going crazy trying to give away the over large ones you didn’t harvest soon enough. Too many green beans are labor intensive harvesting, takes forever. Planting green beans too close together is hard to harvest, and they mildew more with low air circulation. Overplanting is delicious when you plant lots of lettuces, carrots then harvest what you thin out! That’s baby kales, chard, mini carrots. These are the eat-on-the-spot-in-the-garden types!

11. Traditionally, and if you lived in the North with cold winters, you planted the garden all at once in spring! If your parents did that, you are unthinkingly likely to do it as well. In our SoCal Mediterranean climate, we plant all year though there are warmer and cooler veggie seasons. But each of these seasons are longer, and overlap! It is easy to get 3 plantings in succession IN EACH SEASON! Some plants will grow all year, mostly the ‘winter’ plants in our coastal gardens, for example, beets, broccoli, onions and cabbages. It takes strength to leave open space for successive rounds. But you can do it. Mark that space off, plant temporary fast growers, nitrogen-fixing fava, or lay down some soil feeding mulch like seedless straw. That space will be super productive when its turn comes.

12. Pole plants, have a lot longer production period than bush, like beans! Indeterminate tomatoes are true vines, can last all season long, but are susceptible to Fusarium and Verticillium wilts/fungi diseases. Might be better to plant determinates, limited growth varieties, in succession. That’s plant a few, then in a few weeks a few more, and so on. Let the determinates produce like crazy all at once, pull them when they show signs of the wilts. If you have only a small space available, or want to do canning, then bush plants are for you!

13. Plants that act as perennials in our climate are smart money plants! Broccoli’s for their side shoots, continuous kales and chards.

14. Special needs or companions!

• Eggplants, though heat lovers, love humidity, but not overhead watering. Put them among other medium height plants.
• Basils are great on the sunny sides of tomatoes, and go to table together.
• Corn needs colonies - plant in patches versus rows! Every silk needs pollination because each produces a kernel! The best pollination occurs in clusters or blocks of plants. Consider that each plant only produces 2 to 3 ears, usually 2 good ones. How many can you eat a once? Will you freeze them? The ears pretty much mature within a few days of each other! So, if you are a fresh corn lover, plant successively only in quantities you can eat.

15. Consider herbs for corner, border, or hanging plants. They add a beautiful texture to your garden, are wonderfully aromatic, repel pests! Remember, some of them are invasive, like oregano, culinary thyme. Sage has unique lovely leaves. Choose the right type of rosemary for the space and look you want.

Please be CREATIVE! You don’t have to plant in rows, though that may be right for you. Check out this Squidoo Vegetable Garden Layout page! Check out the Grow Planner for Ipad from Mother Earth News! They may make you very happy! This is a perfectly acceptable way to play with your food.

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