Across-the-Plot Gardening Tips April 2023!
Oh, Yes, Time for Those Luscious Heat Lovers!
…each a miracle of seed and sun, I’ve always been one to enjoy tomato or cucumber right off the vine, with never a trip into the house—one magical wipe down a shirt-front and they’re ready. ~ commenter Rachel
Happy Santa Barbara Earth Day! It returns to Alameda Park Saturday and Sunday April 29 & 30! The 151st Arbor Day is Friday April 28! Please plant trees, lots of trees!
March 30 Santa Barbara had 1-3” of SNOW on our mountains, and, yes, it’s been chill, and we have rain saturated soil! Many gardeners are waiting for mid to late April to plant in drier soil. Night temps have still been in the 40s, in the next five days predicted as low as 44°. 60° to 65° soil temps are what we are looking for. BELL PEPPERS especially need warmer temps, nighttime temps steadily above 55°F and soil temps above 65°F. If planted too soon, sometimes they miss their natural growth sequence and never produce. Check out the Quick Guide to Summer Veggie Soil & Temp Preferences!
APRIL through JUNE Planting Timing
Weather note! In Santa Barbara it is cooler and a lot more moist than usual. As it warms, mildew will be in the picture. The soil is saturated and when it warms a bit, it is prime fungus – verticillium and fusarim wilts, habitat. The crops that suffer the most from wilts are tomatoes and cucumbers, squashes coming in third. Some gardeners will be waiting until May/June, when the soil is more dry, to plant those crops. Resistant/tolerant varieties will do well as long as they can. If you plant now, be prepared to start some new plants again, in May and/or June.
APRIL is true heat lovers time! Start MORE seedlings indoors NOW for successive June plantings. Sow seeds right in the ground! If seeds and tending seedlings aren’t for you, get transplants and pop them in the ground per their right times! April 1 or as close to it as you can, start your Jicama seeds! Winter squash for sure. It needs time to grow big and harden for winter storage. MAY for cantaloupe, peppers, pumpkins and squash! Wait until the soil has warmed to 70°F before planting squash and melons. Many wait until May, some even June, to plant tomatoes to avoid soil fungi. May and June are good for Urizun Japanese Winged Beans. Some gardeners wait until JUNE to plant okra. Okra really likes heat and grows quickly when happy. Choose faster maturing varieties like hybrid Annie Oakley F1 for coastal SoCal. Heavy Hitter is a phenomenal producer in the right location – you may need only 1 or 2 plants! Some Long beans and Asian tropical veggies need warm temps to start from seeds. If YOU anticipate a HOT summer, plant a tad earlier and be prepared to plant second rounds as plants finish early! Also be prepared to deal with it if our Santa Barbara summer is overcast as often is the case after all.
While we are waiting for the right temps, do soil preps that may still be needed. Weed out plants that won’t help your summer lovers. Make your soil fluffy with water holding compost, only 5 to 10%, while also adding tasty well aged composted manure, and worm castings too! If you don’t have enough castings, save what you have and add to your planting holes amendments.
Keep COMPOSTING! Soil building is the single-most important thing you can do for your garden. Compost keeps your soil aerated, has great water holding capacity, feeds slowly just perfectly! And if you made it, you know what’s in it! Make it HOT, Cold, or In Place! In place takes the least time, is the most efficient, is a worm buffet! Make a trench 6-8″ deep, put in your ingredients, chop fine with your shovel, sprinkle with well aged composted manure, mix in some soil so the chopped bits don’t form an impervious mat, cover with the soil you removed. Give it 1 to 3 weeks and you are ready to plant! Dry is dead, so be sure it is always slightly moist. Giving back to Mama Earth is nature’s natural way! And, like Will Allen says ….there is something very Spiritual about touching the soil, that’s where life begins.
Put in last minute amendments, soil preps for May plantings of cantaloupe, okra, more tomatoes. About Manures
Heat lovers are eggplant, limas, okra and bell peppers, pumpkins! Transplant early-maturing varieties of beans, cucumbers, eggplant, melons, bell peppers, squash, and tomatoes. Sow and/or transplant asparagus, beets, carrots, celery, chard, corn, herbs, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, heat-tolerant leaf lettuce, okra, summer-maturing onions, parsley, peanuts, the last peas (choose a heat-tolerant variety such as Wando), white potatoes with zucchini, radishes (with cukes and squashes to repel cucumber beetles, and with cukes, squashes and eggplant to trap flea beetles!), rhubarb, and spinach.
Choose heat and drought tolerant varieties when you can. For example, why wait when it gets HOT and your tomato stops setting fruit?! Get heat tolerant varieties the heat doesn’t bother! See Tomatoes are the Fireworks of Your Summer Garden!
Tomatoes! Heirlooms are particularly susceptible to the wilts, Fusarium and Verticillium. Instead, get hybrid varieties that have VFN or VF on the tag at the nursery. The V is for Verticillium, the F Fusarium wilt, N nematodes. Ace, Early Girl, Champion, Celebrity, are some that are wilt resistant/tolerant. In you are in continual drought conditions, consider getting only indeterminates. In the Mother Earth News tomato survey, they found gardeners chose heirlooms over hybrids if their soil is wilt/blight free. Otherwise, the longer the gardener has gardened, they more they chose wilt resistant hybrid toms if their soil has fungi. La Sumida has the largest tomato selection in the Santa Barbara area! Haley St Home Improvement probably has the largest pepper selection. See Special Planting and growing tips for your Tomatoes and Cucumbers!
Time for heat-resistant, bolt-resistant lettuces of all kinds! Sierra, Nevada, Jericho, Black Seeded Simpson are some. Green Star wins the beauty award and is super productive! Tips for super Successful Transplanting!
Strengthen your summer garden! Organize your Companion plant sets! Keep the biodiversity rolling! Plant pest deterring plants first so they will be up and working when you put in your seeds or transplants!
- Alyssum, in the image above left, is a great old fashioned pretty border plant, an understory living mulch. And white Alyssum repels the cabbage butterfly and feeds mini beneficial pest predators like hoverflies whose primary food source is aphids!
- Basil repels several unwanted insects, is great near tomatoes but not in the basin with the tom. The tom needs less water. Water the basil but not the tom!
- Beans, Cukes, Dill, Radish Combo! Cukes and Beans are great on one big trellis, one high, one low unless you are growing long cuke varieties. They can fill a trellis all by themselves! Dill to go with pickling cukes. Radishes to deter Cucumber beetles.
- WHITE Potatoes with Zucchini to repel squash bugs.
- Radish with eggplant, cukes & zukes as trap plants for flea beetles and to repel cucumber beetles.
- Carrots love being with cilantro and chamomile, and chamomile improves the flavor of any neighboring herb! Plus, it helps neighboring plants – called the Plant Dr!
- Hot peppers emit a chemical from the plant roots that helps prevent Fusarium wilt, root rot, and a wide range of other plant diseases!
- Calendula traps aphids, whiteflies, and thrips!
- Marigolds are brilliant and called the workhorse of pest deterrents!
- Lettuce and carrots make a great understory below larger plants like peppers, eggplant. They act as living mulch! If you already have enough lettuce, beets and carrots, scatter a living mulch, soil feeding legume seed mix under those plants. At the end of the season you can turn it all under – aka Green Manure. Or remove the larger plants, open up spots and put in winter plants! See much more – Living Mulch/Green Manure!
- Plant whole sets of companion plants as in the image above right! Very efficient use of space!See more at Super Spring & Summer Veggies Companion Planting Tips!
Keep ’em coming! If you have already done some early planting, at mid to late April schedule to pop in another round! Poke in some bean seeds where your very last peas are finishing, add cucumber seeds or transplants between the beans, plus dill at each end of the trellis to be there when you pickle those cukes! Plant more radishes to deter the Cucumber beetles, repel flea beetles. Fill in spots that could use a helper companion plant like calendula or chamomile! Succession planting makes such good sense. To keep a steady supply of your veggies, put your seeds and transplants in at the same time. Seedlings will come along 6 to 8 weeks after your transplants! But, again, if tending seedlings isn’t your cup of tea, just leave space and put in more transplants in 6 to 8 weeks after your first planting.
It is perfect to put in fast growers like lettuce, beets, turnips, arugula, to hold space until you are ready to plant bigger plants. When it’s time for the bigger ones, clear a space/harvest, pop in your seeds or transplants and let them grow up among the littles. As the bigger plants start to shade out the littles, remove strategic lower leaves of the big plant so the littles get light too! If you anticipate a HOT summer, plant littles on the morning light side of larger plants.
Put in borders of slow but low growers like carrots, mini cabbages, in more permanent placements, like on what will become the morning side of taller backdrop plants like peppers and eggplant. Let your Alyssum ramble. Add some Marigolds. Plant purple and blue favorites for bumble bees – rosemary, scabiosa, lavender, chives. Bumble bees pollinate tomatoes, the nightshade family; honey bees don’t! See Pollination: Honeybees, Squash Bees & Bumblebees!
Natural Disease & Pest Prevention!
- Be wise and pick the right plant varieties for your temps and conditions! If hot and dry, get heat tolerant, bolt resistant, drought tolerant, disease tolerant/resistant. If you are just starting, just start! You will learn as you go. Our climate is changing, so we are all adjusting and new plants are being hybridized, and hybridize naturally, for new climates. We can get varieties from other areas that are already used to conditions we will be having. Together we will do this. Locally, save seeds from plants that do the best with the heat and share some of those seeds at the Seed Swap and with other gardeners.
- Think biodiversity! Religiously plant companion plants that naturally repel pests – no pesticides needed, enhance each other’s growth so they are strong and pest and disease resistant. Mix it up! Less planting in rows, more understories (living mulch) and interplanting. Split up groups so pests won’t go from one plant to the next, and the next. Allow enough room for air space between, no leaves of mature plants touching each other. That breaks up micro pest and disease habitats.
- Make top notch soil!
- In planting holes
– Add worm castings for your plants’ excellent health. 25% is best; 10% will do if that’s all you’ve got.
– Add a tad more tasty properly aged composted manure mixes where manure lovers will be planted.
– Add non-fat powdered milk for immediate immune system support at planting time
– Put in a finely ground bone meal for 2 months later uptake when your plant gets to flowering time.
– Add bird guano high in P, Phosphorus, at planting time. It helps your plants continue to bloom LATE in the season! Choose an NPK ratio like 1-10-0.2, takes 3-4 months to become available to your plants.
– Add an eency tad of coffee grounds (a 1/2 of a %) if you have wilts in your soil
– Sprinkle mycorrhizae fungi directly on transplant roots and pat it on, all but Brassicas, at planting time to increase their uptake of nutrients and water.
– Add acidic compost where you will be planting celery and string beans. - Immediately drench your transplants, foliar feed, with a non-fat powdered milk, baking soda, aspirin, soap mix to jazz up their immune systems. Specially give your peppers an Epsom salt and soap mix foliar bath for a taste of sulfur. More details and all the recipes.
- Thin baby plants you have deliberately or not overplanted! Many are great tiny salad greens. Most of all plants need space for their roots, or they struggle for soil food (can literally be rootbound in place), are weak and disease/pest susceptible, are not able to reach their full productive size. See this terrific post on Thinning Seedlings by DeannaCat!
- Maintenance! Keep your plants strong while they are working hard! Be ready to do a little cultivating composts and manures in during the season (called sidedressing), or adding fish/kelp emulsion mixes if you don’t have predator pests like skunks or raccoons! Keep your plants watered and vibrant, but not so much as to make their leaves soft and inviting to munching insect pests like aphids. Trap gophers immediately if you are able. Install wire protection.
- Harvest promptly. Insects and diseases know when plants are softening and losing strength as they age. Insects are nature’s cleaner uppers, and they and disease organisms are hungry! If leaves are yellowing or not looking up to par, remove them and don’t leave them lying on the ground. Whiteflies are attracted to yellow.
- Prevention A frustrating typical spring disease is Powdery mildew. It’s common on late peas, Curly Leaf kales, broccoli, cucumbers and zucchini. First, get the most resistant varieties. Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation. Apply your baking soda mix. Drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! Do this the same or next day if transplanting. A super combo is 1 regular Aspirin dissolved, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. Not only is prevention so much better than after mildew has set in, but this mix stimulates your plant’s growth! See Aspirin Solution!
Lots of rain so far this year. But, please, always use your Water Wise Practices!
Please water before 10:30 AM and after 4 PM as possible. Use a watering sprinkler head or wand with a shutoff valve. Berms need to go to the dripline of your plant so tiny subsurface feeder roots can fully supply your plant with water and nutrients as it needs. Some plants need ground water to 1 and a half times the size of the foliage diameter. Slow, spread Sink!
- Choose heat and drought tolerant varieties! They need less water! Some will keep producing at 85° and above!
- How much should you water? General rule is 1″/week. May take two, three waterings a day in extreme hot weather. Seeds and seedlings must be KEPT moist. On very hot days frequent waterings during the day may be needed. Some of your plants may need shade covers.
- Trenches or waffles?! To save water consider planting IN furrows, where moisture settles and drying wind crosses overhead. Plant crosswise to the prevailing wind so drying wind isn’t funneled down the trench, and, if possible, also to the Sun’s arc so the plants’ root areas will be slightly shaded by the depth of the furrow in early AM and late afternoon. If you still want your plants on top of the furrow, make the raised part of your furrows wide enough that you can put a mini trench on top of it! That’s what commercial strawberry farmers do. That holds the water up at your plants’ surface feeder roots area. If you make the sides of your trenches low slopes, and water carefully, your furrows won’t seriously degrade from water washing the sides away. Nor will seeds or plants be buried too deeply. But some maintenance will be required.Plants grown in thoughtfully made trenches need far less waterings and far less maintenance time. As the plants grow, they also self mulch and need even less water and less frequent waterings.Trench planting is akin to the New Mexico Zuni waffle gardens. The advantage of waffle gardens is, you can see, the wind and sun arc directions don’t matter to waffle gardens! The wind can change direction and it’s no problem! Berms cover all four sides. You can save the making and maintenance of berms by simply digging down! Zuni climate is hot and dry, sometimes windy. The berms/sides that shelter each waffle space cause hot drying winds to rise/cross over the waffle and it stays more moist inside. Be sure to mulch your waffles after the soil gets warm and before temps get hot. At that point you want to keep your soil moist and cool. The early Zunis used gravel from the nearby riverbeds. Similar sunken beds for growing food with less water have been used globally in arid regions, arising independently by Indigenous farmers.
Curtis Quam’s waffle garden, which he tends with his family at Zuni Pueblo, NM = less water used, food security. By Greta Moran, photo by Curtis Quam. - Please always be building compost. Compost increases your soil’s water holding capacity.
- When planting, make mounds with basins on top for virus sensitive plants like toms and cukes, make sure the bottom of the basin is higher than the level of the surrounding soil level. Rather than losing water to evaporation from overhead watering, put the water right where it will do the most good and nowhere else. Make the mound to the dripline or to 1.5 of it so your plant’s small surface feeder roots get moisture for food uptake. For larger leaved plants like squashes, put a stake in the center of the basin so you know where to water when the leaves get big and cover the basin. With a long watering wand you can water under the leaves rather than on them ~ unless they need a bath to remove dust. Fuzzy leaved plants like tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini don’t like wet leaves. Water at ground level.
- Once your soil is heated up, PLEASE MULCH! Straw, Self Mulching, a living mulch of understory plants like lettuce, or plant soil feeding living mulch legumes! It keeps your soil cooler, more moist, less water needed. And it stops light germinating weed seeds from germinating! Super heat lovers like melons and winter squash may be the exception. See Mulching right for each plant!Straw is dead, but has its advantages. It is organic and does decompose in time. It gets fruits up off the ground and keeps soil from splashing up on lettuce leaves! If not too deep, straw can shade but allow airflow. Your soil is cool but if has fungi it is best to let the soil dry a bit. Straw mulch can help reduce cucumber beetles 3+ different ways. 1) Mulch might directly slow beetle movement from one plant to another. 2) The mulch provides refuge for wolf spiders, daddy long legs and other predators from hot and dry conditions, helping predator conservation. 3) The straw mulch is food for springtails and other insects that eat decaying plant material; these decomposers are important non-pest prey for spiders, helping to further build spider numbers! In addition, laid on an inch or less thick, it lets airflow dry out wilts fungi in soil. That’s why straw is good to use under tomatoes and cucumbers. With other plants, lay it on 3-6″ deep!Living Mulch, Self mulching, planting closely enough so your plants self shade, is a tasty and efficient use of your soil nutrients. It’s doubly efficient space use when you plant smaller companion food producing plants under, beside, among, around larger plants!Soil feeding Living Mulch You can up the amps by tossing a mix of legume seeds under your plants to feed your soil as well! You may decide to do both. Plant the small plants you need, grow legumes under the rest along with the right companion plants per the crop there.
- Sprinkle and pat on Mycorrhiza fungi right on the roots of your transplants when you put them in the ground. It increases uptake of nutrients, water, and phosphorus that helps roots and flowers grow and develop. Ask for it bulk at Island Seed & Feed in Goleta. (Brassicas don’t connect with it, so your over summering kale or broccoli doesn’t need it.)
- Dust Mulching, cultivation, weeding, is perfect to break up exposed soil surface. That keeps the water from wicking to the surface and evaporating. Do it especially after rains. If you use a hula hoe you do two things at once! Just a half to one inch depth cuts off weed sprouts that use water. Indeed, it turns the soil a tad, all that’s needed. More weeds will follow, but it’s quick and easy to repeat the process. Two, three times, a few days apart, and there will be few weeds after that for a while. Get ’em while they are small and easy to do. Smart gardening.
Plant Pollinator Food, Herbs and Flowers! Sow or transplant basil, borage, chervil, chamomile, chives, cilantro, comfrey, dill, fennel, lavender, marjoram, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory, tarragon, and thyme. PURPLE is best for bees, blue next! Be mindful where you plant them… Mediterranean herbs from southern France, like lavender, marjoram, rosemary, sage, savory, and thyme, do well in hot summer sun and poor but well-drained soil with minimal fertilizer. On the other hand, basil, chives, coriander (cilantro), and parsley thrive in richer soil with more frequent watering. Wise planting puts chives by your broccoli, kale, but away from peas if you are still growing some. Cilantro, a carrot family workhorse, discourages harmful insects such as aphids, potato beetles and spider mites, attracts beneficial insects when in bloom. Dill is a natural right next to the cucumbers since you will use the dill if you make pickles. They mature about the same time. Let some of your arugula, carrots, lettuces, cilantro bloom! Bees, pollinators and insect eating birds and beneficial insects love them and you will get some seeds – some for the birds, some for you, some to share at the seed swap! Grow beauty – cosmos, marigolds, white sweet alyssum – all benefit your garden in their own way! See Grow a Pollinator Meadow at Home! Here are some special considerations – Courting Solitary Bees!
May your crops be abundant and your Spirit blessed!
March Cabbages, Kale, seedlings and flowers! Great Images at Rancheria Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA!
Updated annually
Check out the entire April 2023 Newsletter!
Designing Your Spring/Summer Veggie Garden!
Quick Guide to Summer Veggie Soil & Temp Preferences!
Seed Soaking/Presprouting Tips & Ideas! Part 1
Veg Gardening Changing Climate Survival Guide!
The Inspiring Permaculture Restoration of Mexico City’s Chinampas
Upcoming Gardener Events! Santa Cruz Permaculture 2023 Design Permaculture Course April-Sep, April 29-20 CEC’s 53rd Santa Barbara Earth Day Celebration! International Permaculture Day May 7! ADVANCE NOTICE NATIONAL HEIRLOOM EXPO Sep 2023!
Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!
The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.
Curtis Quam’s waffle garden, which he tends with his family at Zuni Pueblo, NM = less water used, food security. By Greta Moran, photo by Curtis Quam.
Green Bean Connection 