Cleaning up the Garden

Cleaning up and Putting the Main Garden to Bed

While my container garden has winter-hardy plants growing, I'm letting the main garden hibernate. This is good practice for a few reasons:

* It's good to let the soil rest and recuperate after a hearty growing season

* You can test the soil and add natural soil amendments such as blood meal, bone meal, kelp, greensand, compost, and the like: these soil amendments will break down gradually over the winter

* If you've been plagued with pests such as Mexican bean beetles, leaving them exposed in the cold, naked garden will reduce their population

*If you've not been bothered by pests, mulching the garden will keep weeds to a minimum and will furnish their  own nutrients to the soil

You do want to weed before doing all of the above, one last time before cold weather hits. Otherwise, it's time to tell the garden "Good night: sleep tight."

By RainBoxRed (Own work) [FAL], via Wikimedia Commons  Garden Clean-Up

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Dreaming of a Spring Garden

Spring Vegetable Garden: Dream Big, but Start Small

Ahhh! Spring is here at last! It's time to shake ourselves out of hibernation mode and start digging in the dirt.

As with every year, I have a lofty aspiration of creating the vegetable garden that will surpass all others. This is a hopeful season, after all. In order to keep this goal realistic and manageable, I have created a path to get the garden to where I want it to be this year.

1. Test the garden soil: done. The garden soil's N-P-K ranges have graduated from depleted to deficient. We're making progress here!

2. Add soil amendments to the garden soil: in progress. Recent heavy rains are delaying this chore a bit, but we do need the rain so no complaints here. This year I'm adding blood meal (for nitrogen), bone meal (for phosphorus), and numerous, about a hundred or so,  Nori sushi roll wrappers, cut up (for potash), as well as good ol' reliable compost.

3. Plant snow peas, carrots, and Swiss chard (the rainbow variety) in the container garden area: mission accomplished.

4. Plan the main garden with an app: done. For a list of great gardening apps, you can't go wrong with Gardenista's "The Top Ten Gardening Apps You Need Now." 

5. Start tomato, cucumber, and squash seeds: partially complete. Some of the seedlings didn't make it, so I'll try again this weekend. I also want to start some pepper seeds--both hot and sweet varieties--at this time. One thing I really want to do is to start at least 90% of my plants from seed myself,  rather than rely on bought transplants.

6. Feed and mulch the blueberry planter box: done. I used pine bark mulch since the blueberry bushes are acid-loving plants.

7. Feed and mulch the strawberry plants: in progress.

8. Transplant the four citrus trees--Meyer lemon, key lime, grapefruit, and kumquat: mission accomplished. The trees are looking happy.

9. Transplant tomato, cucumber, squash, and pepper plants: in about a month to six weeks' time.

10. Keep the compost pile going: this is a continuous project.

11. Plant green beans, wax beans, collard greens, and basil: in a few weeks.

12. Mulch the main garden: in about six to eight weeks' time. This will cut down the weeding headaches tremendously.

13. Put a comfortable lawn chair near the garden area in order to relax and bask in the garden: soon, very soon.

Here's to making garden fantasies a reality! Happy Gardening!

By Spedona (Spedona) (Cliché personnel - own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

This is close to how I envision my garden in the making.

Mulching: A Practical Miracle

What Is Mulch?

Mulch is, usually, an organic covering to be heaped around growing plants. Mulch can consist of straw, fallen leaves, tree bark, chipped trees, and even cocoa hulls (NOTE: Do not use cocoa hulls if you have pets: chocolate in any form is toxic to dogs and cats); there is also a plastic mulch on the market. Mulch is  applied in order to discourage weeds (the botanical pest, not the television series) from appearing--I would be lying if I claimed that mulch entirely eliminated the need to weed--as well as to conserve water and to deliver nutrients, gradually, to the soil. As an added bonus, mulching can help mark the boundary between garden and yard--extremely helpful if you have a housemate who has no clue about gardening and what distinguishes garden from yard (yes, a fence would help too: that has not happened yet and probably will not during this season).

How to Mulch: One Method

The following mulching method works for me: water your garden well, and then spread a layer of compost on the ground, near and surrounding the plants. On top of this compost, spread a heaping layer of mulch--I prefer fallen leaves (hey, they're free) and then water the garden again to wet the leaves (or whatever you use as mulch). You may need to top off the mulch every three to four weeks. Otherwise, be secure in the knowledge that you have saved countless hours weeding and that you are conserving water, nutrients, and much-valued time--leaving you free to sit back and actually enjoy your gardening space.

What are your thoughts about mulching? Please feel free to share your insights in the comments section. 

Christine Matthews [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Mulched snowdrops

Weeding Woes

Weeding: The Necessary Chore

"That's Roman wormwood - that's pigweed - that's sorrel - that's piper-grass - have at him, chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don't let him have a fibre in the shade, if you do he'll turn himself  t'other side up and be as green as a leek in two days.  A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had sun and rain and dews on their side.  Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weed dead.   May a lusty crest-waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust." --  Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

Let's face it: there's nothing sexy or appealing about weeding a garden. Of all the gardening chores, weeding is my least favorite. However, keeping weeds from stealing valuable water and nutrients from your plants is crucial. Below I have some suggestions in making weeding less onerous. 

1. Start weeding early in the growing season, and keep weeding throughout the life of this season's garden.Set aside 30 minutes to an hour each week, preferably in the cool of the morning, to tackle this chore. Don't let weeds get the upper hand.

2. Make weed pulling a meditative exercise: as you pull each weed, visualize removing a specific problem (money issues, for example) or character flaw (such as jealousy)  from your life.

3. You can also make weed pulling an exercise in emotional release. If something is bothering you, take it out on the weeds. Pull them, scream at them, stomp on them. Then, burn them in a fire-safe container. You will experience a much-need cathartic release and will feel much better. Of course, if your neighbors seem worried, you may need to explain to them and/or to the police what you're doing.

4. You can get even with some weeds by eating them: some weeds, such as dandelions, lamb's quarters, or purslane, are edible but should be picked young. Be sure you can identify a weed as edible; if in doubt, don't eat it. Also make sure that the weeds you pick are free from pesticides.

5. In order to reduce the need to weed, consider mulching your garden -- a topic for next time.

By Rosendahl [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons