Did you ever want to take up vegetable gardening, but worried you didn't have a green thumb?
Read on. (Thread).
(Looks like we are all in for the Long haul. So a hobby whee you grow your own food seems like a timely idea...)
Read on. (Thread).
(Looks like we are all in for the Long haul. So a hobby whee you grow your own food seems like a timely idea...)
Why am I qualified to talk about this?Well, before I came to JPL I grew about 30% of my food for several years.
I wasn't a hobby, it was an obsession.
And I had spreadsheets.
I grew berries, fruits, summer crops, winter crops. All of it.
My spreadsheet had over 1000 entries.
I wasn't a hobby, it was an obsession.
And I had spreadsheets.
I grew berries, fruits, summer crops, winter crops. All of it.
My spreadsheet had over 1000 entries.
And I can tell you all my mistakes and have you harvesting your own food in about a month.
So here's the deal. It's not about having a green thumb. It's about making good dirt. You get good dirt, plants will do just fine.
How do you get good dirt? Lotsa work. Backbreaking work. And chemistry. Let's start small. Maybe a little 4x8 patch of dirt. Get that going and build up from there.
How you get to good dirt depends where you start. I started with Carolina a gray clay. It's like that crappy Georgia red clay, but without the red iron. It was super nutrient poor. Oh and acidic too. Like pH 5. That will eat through rebar (slowly). Clay is bad.
So I had a magic recipe that I'll share. For a 4x8 bed. Add about 0.5 lbs of lime (makes neutral) and 2 lbs of gypsum (breaks up clay like magic*). About 20 lbs pine bark soil conditioner.(organic stuff and acidic), 0.5 lb greensand. (Trace elements) and 0.5 lb phosphate.
Dig it up double shovel deep. Really deep. Plant roots will thank you. Mix in gypsum, lime. Dig dig dig. Break up clay remove rocks.*
*gypsum has a lot of calcium ions. Bind up hydroxyl's on clay minerals. Clay structure falls apart. While you are digging at some point clods break up and rocks will start to magically float free into surface. Magic.
So now that you've dug and mixed gypsum and lime in. Now mix in pine bark soil conditioner. It'll get easier to dig. Ooops. Forgot to tell you about the peat moss. Yeah mix in about half a bag of that. Dig. Mix. Dig. Dig. This should take all afternoon. Do it right.
At end, mix in the greensand and phosphate. At thay point you've got all the nutrients in there your plants will want. Can always throw in some 10-10-10 slow release stuff too. I usually do it just before planting.
If you've got compost, put it in there too. But mix it at top so your plants don't have to fight too hard to get it. Use a cultivator rather than a deep fork at this point.
In a season or two, you can tell if you've got good dirt by looking for earthworms. Earthworms are your friends. If you got lotsa worms, you have a great garden. But it sometimes takes a while
Compost is another thing. I never fully appreciated good compost until starting up a veggie garden. Now I "get it". Compost is garden gold.
You can start getting that right now. Make sure you get right ratio of "greens". (green leaves, stems etc) to "browns" dried leaves. I like 2:1.
When you make compost, leave some of older compost in the bin or pile. It'll help culture the new set. Also water it from time to time.
When you make compost, leave some of older compost in the bin or pile. It'll help culture the new set. Also water it from time to time.
I had a hardcore compost tumbler, but you can seta compost pile aside and turn it every month or so. Will take a season to get good compost.
How can you tell it's done? When you can't really recognize anything in there any more. Maybe some bits of brown straw, but that's it.
Stuff to never compost: meats, fats, poo. Bad. Also corn cobs, broccoli, Brussels sprouts. (Too thick, doesn't break down). Anything diseased.
One trick is to use semi-broken down compost (winter accumulation in the compost pile) for potatoes. They will LOVE it. Just throw the semi-raw stuff I with potatoes, and when you are done just tiyrn the bed, voila, perfect bed for winter vegetables!!!
(y'all think you are just gonna use your new it of dirt in summer for one crop? Oh no. We're goin' year-round baby!)
((Depending on climate, of course.))
((Depending on climate, of course.))
So...what/when are you gonna plant? It depends on local climate. Find your "date of last frost". That's a key date. Anything before could get frozen up. Many plants can't deal with this that (tomatoes, sweet potatoes). But some can (spinach, pac choi).
The absolute easiest thing to grow is garlic. If you want a confidence builder, this is it. But garlic is really wierd. It has its own cycle. You plant in late, and harvest in summer when leaves floop over and go brown. It does its own thing.
You dig up the bulb. Can store some. Or wait til fall, separate and plant each clove to make another full bulb next season. (You can do math on this. It goes exponential). The really cool thing about garlic is that it adapts to your soil. It grows better and easier each season.
My favorite garlic I found growing in an old compost pile when we moved into our old house. But you can try any store bought clove. (You like your garlic you are cooking with right now? Save a few cloves and plant it!)
OK. How about stuff from seed?
Let's try lettuce! You can get a crop ready in about a month!
If you are in a really cold climate, you'll need to start this indoors. If you are in a warmer climate (after last frost date) you can start it now outside.
Let's try lettuce! You can get a crop ready in about a month!
If you are in a really cold climate, you'll need to start this indoors. If you are in a warmer climate (after last frost date) you can start it now outside.
Some lettuce can bolt (make flowers, goes bitter) in hot weather. In North Carolina it went from warm Spring to Summer hot in a week.
When plants bolt they try to flow and change their chemistry. Leaves get sparse and really bitter. Roquette arugula is one of the first plants to bolt in spring warm up, then cool-season lettuce, then spinach, then pac choi. You can use these as timing indicators.
If you are planting after arugula has already started to bolt (like here in SoCal), go for a warm season lettuce. My favorites warm season lettuces are Tropicana and Nevada.
Oh. Yeah. Where do you get seed? I've got my favorite suppliers. Territorial Seed Company and Johnny's Selected Seeds. Both are awesome!
(on a family vacation to Maine, I took a day off just to visit Johnny's Selected Seed farm and wherehouse. Yeah, I was VERY hardcore.)
Another easy choice is spinach. A littlee longer to harvest time (45 days or so). My favorite is Space. (Regiment is no longer offered). May not do well in summer.
But what really kicks-ass is Perpetual Swiss Chard. If you've got time, this is my favorite plant. Leaves are almost tender enough to eat raw like spinach. But cooked? Heavenly tender. Leaves and stems can cook seperately.
Perpetual Swiss Chard leaves are like super-tender spinach. Stems come out like tender asparagus. One plant, two side-dishes. Deal!
As name suggests, this plant is not a one-shot deal. I've over wintered it unprotected in North Carolina. It may try to bolt, and you just have to cut flower stalks to keep it good. I think my record is three full years of production! (But easier and better to do new plant)
Another plant is Pac Choi. Stemed and wted with soy sauce and garlic butter is great. My favorites are Joi Choi. Grows fast. Easy. Can deal with some heat. Definitely great in winter in cold climate.
For most of these, you can just trim plants a little and keep it going for several weeks (months in winter time). So your single bed can keep you having a little food for a while.
OK. Gotta break now. When I come back we'll talk beans, sweet potatoes, squash, and garden mistakes. Oh and pests too.
Starting up new thread on what to plant.
Here:
Here:
