A Step-by-step Resurgent Garden

This is a gardening letter to myself:  My gardening enthusiasm waxes and wanes with the years.  Some years, I go all out and the garden produces in abundance, and other years life intervenes and I don't have time to put into a really successful garden.  Some years, I never get started and the garden sits fallow.  But inevitably, that urge to grow, to nurture and plant overtakes me again and I wonder where to begin.

So this guide is an overview of the successful steps I've taken in the past to make my garden work.  If I tell myself this all in one place, I don't have to re-invent the wheel, and re-learn the knowledge all over again.  Below, I've gathered 8 steps that I need to consider.  The purpose is to create links to a more in-depth exploration of each topic, so this is really an index, of sorts, for further research.  I need to have a way to supply each of these pieces

I've divided the list into two categories:  Planning and Structure.

Planning includes the informational pieces:

• What to plant - Plant Selection, Perennials vs Annuals
• When to plant - Frost dates, crop rotation and succession planting

Structure are all the physical pieces of the garden.

• Raised beds
• Compost and soil enhancements
• Seed starting, Transplants
• Row covers and low tunnels

So, my future self,  its January, and you're determined that you will have a garden this year. What do we need to do to get started?

1.  Frost Dates

It helps to plan your garden around a schedule.  Doing things at the right time means less work and better results.  But the schedule is not the same for every part of the country.  Instead it is set by the frost dates in your area.  There are two frost dates in every year:

• The Last Frost is the date in the Spring when freezing temperatures are no longer expected; technically, below a 30% probability.
• The First Frost is the date in the Fall when the probability of freezing temperatures climbs over 30%.

These dates are readily available on the web.  Bonnie Plants has one, as well as the Farmer's Almanac
 
For my area, the last frost in the Spring is March 28th while the first frost in the Fall is expected on November 18th.

So how do we use these dates?    Let's take Radishes, as our example.  A typical seed packet will say, "For a spring planting, sow seeds 4–6 weeks before the average date of last frost."  If my last frost is March 28th, then I could be sowing radish seeds in late February or the first week of March.

"Sow seeds 4–6 weeks before the first fall frost."   Since my first frost date is November 18th, I could sow radishes as late as mid-October and still get a reasonable harvest.

So we set the clock by the frost dates.  Note that they don't start the clock; many thing should happen before then so that the process is already in motion when the garden kicks into high gear.

2. Plant Selection

Often when people think of gardening, they envision a summer activity with tomatoes and cucumbers, but the garden can be productive in most months of the year with the proper planning.

However a productive garden is one that is not only green but produces the things that you want to bring to your dining table.  It only makes sense to plant what you will eat.  I say that by sowing, I am making a promise to the plants that they will be harvested and enjoyed as part of our regular meals.  So plant selection needs to be given some thought.

To some gardeners, the garden is a field of experimentation, with various cultivars and new variants to try each year.  I used to wander up and down the aisles of my Home Depot garden center, looking at the racks of Bonnie Plant seedlings, envisioning what I want to bring home, and seeing what new exotic offering caught my eye. 

Lately, my approach to my garden is that I want it to be productive. I want to plant something that will produce reliably and in abundance with consistency and efficiency.  While I appreciate the beauty of the living system, I also want to devote my time to something that can feed my family as well.

I need to find out which lettuce produces the best for my climate and day length and temperature, and then plant that variety year after year for a consistent yield. For now, I need to be aware of what variety I'm planting, how it performs, and how much I like the taste and texture of what it produces.

In addition, I like to create a page for each specific plant that I grow.  Remember that I only have a limited number of plant types that I work with so it makes sense to know as much as possible about each one.  This includes my own experiences from year to year.  I also include how I'm going to prepare that vegetable for eating, so I have an idea before I plant it.  Eat what you plant and plant what you will eat.

3. Succession Planting and Crop Rotation

At this point, many new gardeners' eyes begin to glaze over, but this is a simple concept that makes the best use of space, limits disease, and balances nutrients.  Basically, what we are doing is dividing our garden into three categories based on the type of production of our plants.  The tree categories are:

• Roots
• Leaves
• Fruits

Each type of vegetable pulls the same kinds of nutrients from the soil and creates an environment for the same kinds of diseases.  Plants that mostly are grown for their leaves (like lettuce, cabbage) tend to deplete the soil of nitrogen, root crops need phosphorus and potassium, while fruiting plants (such as tomatoes, and peppers) need a balance of the three.

The simple solution is to divide your garden into three sections where each type will be planted.  Then "rotate" the crops by planting the root crops where the fruit crops used to be last year.  The fruit crops will be planted in last year's leaf crop areas; and the leaf crops will no be planted in the root crops area.

At the same time, planting tomatoes in the same location year after year will allow tomato diseases to persist in the soil and more readily attack the plant in subsequent seasons.  By planting carrots there next year instead of more tomatoes, the tomato diseases have nothing to thrive on and so diminish.

I aim to support three plantings in the garden:  The season starts in March or April when the earliest of the cold hardy Spring greens are sown.  This is followed by the basic tomato, pepper, and zucchini planting of Summer.  Finally, I put in a Fall and Winter rotation starting in about September.  These will start well and some of these will lie in the garden over the winter, harvesting cabbage in January and February.  The last of it will be out and eaten in time for the Spring when the cycle begins again.

In order to achieve that, I need to begin a more regular record keeping system, rather that relying on notes I've jotted down or breezy, "top of the head" posts.  My suggested system is to create a calendar with all of the activities that are useful for a given month.  What am I supposed to be doing in my garden in April (for example):  what am I sowing indoors into my propagator, what am I hardening off, what am I setting outside, what am I feeding in the raised beds, and what am I harvesting.  At any given moment, I could be doing any or all of these things.  

Early Spring:   Bok Choi, Rutabaga, spinach, parsnip, broccoli raab, radish, Kale, chard
Summer:  Tomatoes (cherry, beefsteak, Roma), Peppers (jalepeno, green bell, sweet red), Zucchini, Eggplant
Fall:   Cabbage (red and green), Red veined sorrel, carrots, parsnip,

 

4. Perennials

Typical garden vegetables are grown as annuals, started from seed each year and then removed when they are done.   However some produce, including many fruits, are better grown from plants that persist for many years, producing harvests year after year. 

 

5. Raised Beds

The quality of soil in your backyard varies widely from location to location.  You may have a deep loam soil in an older neighborhood, or you may have 2" of topsoil over a hard clay.  For this garden we are going to bring in much of our growing medium and fill a raised bed above the surface of the ground.  Raised beds have many advantages, including giving you control over the soil composition, but also in greatly reducing soil compaction, which is one of the enemies of your garden. 

A more aesthetic reason is that raised bed gardens have the benefit of looking more elegant and better managed.  A typical backyard garden has a tendency to look a little unkempt and ragged, a little uninviting.  The raised bed keeps things carefully constrained and manageable.

Anyone can build a raised bed garden anywhere of exactly the size that fits their needs and space, and keep it neat and manageable.

Refer to this page for more discussion about Raised beds

6. Compost

So you start a new raised bed garden, and the first year it is tremendously successful.  Everything grows and the produce is impressive.  So you plant again next year, with nearly the same success, though not quite as much to show for it.  And the third year, your plants seem to lack the spark of the first season and some of them fail to thrive at all.  You get a few heads of lettuce and a few tomatoes, but you begin to question if a garden is really worth the trouble.  In the fourth year, you decide not to bother...  What was happening?

As you grow in your garden, the vegetables that you harvest gradually consume the fertility of your soil.  If you want to maintain that level of productivity year after year, you must return the nutrients to the soil while maintaining the proper composition and soil structure  Ultimately, you will need to make amendments to the raised bed every year to maintain fertility and consistency.

To maintain healthy soil in a raised bed, you need to add 3-4 inches of organic material each year.  Ideally, this will come from your own compost, and will require two of the 18 gal compost tubs of finished compost for each 4' x 8' raised bed, along with grass clipping mulch in Summer and shredded leaf mulch in the Fall.

If you don't end up composting your own, you will need bags of commercial compost from the garden center for each 4'x8' bed.  Either option is completely viable, but you have to use some combination of these sources to replenish your gardens productivity.

Rather than using an oversized compost heap or an expensive compost tumbler, we are going to start with plastic storage tubs as our composter.  I use ordinary 18 gal, rectangular plastic tubs, which measure about 18 x 24 inches on the lid.  You can find these at any Walmart but they are commonly at thrift stores as well.

7. Seed Starting

Many seeds will achieve the greatest success both in germination and later production, if you start them indoors for a few weeks before planting them as a seedling in your garden.  You can achieve this effect very simply by buying your live plants from the garden center, as is common with tomato and pepper plants.

However, you can achieve the same effect yourself with a home seed starter or propagater.  These systems can be as simple as a Jiffy pot set on a heat mat, or they can be very elaborate and control light, moisture, and temperature to optimize your success.

Starting your own seeds allows you to control what to plant, and when, since the Walmart garden center isn't going to stock red-veined Sorrel in January when you want to start it. It prevents the vain hoping that what you were looking for, the cool jalepenos, the Japanese eggplant, still happened to be available when you got there.

The most effective system for seed starting is the Aerogrow system.  However, if the goal is to transplant the seedlings into the garden, they need to go from the soilless hydroponic system to a grow medium that can be planted out in the raised beds.  And they can't stay in the aerogrow for too long because they will develop extensive roots that will be pruned away when they are transplanted. 

The best schedule is to grow them for 2 weeks after germination, and then transfer them to potting soil in the garage where the temperatures will match the outside.  Another two weeks in the grow medium will acclimate them and develop the roots necessary to put them in the garden.

Seed starting is an important component in the overall system.

 

8. Row covers and hoop houses.

 In most places, the temperatures allow for a productive growing season between the last and first frost dates and that limits what you can plant and how long you can grow.  However, covering the garden beds with plastic can keep a killing frost at bay for several weeks, allowing you to start earlier in the Spring and harvest later in the Fall.  It can turn a one-season garden into a three-season garden.  For the little effort it requires, it can produce a tremendous reward. 

 

Start the Clock

Each of these eight elements I've just mentioned fits together into an interconnected garden system that when working properly increases your garden's productivity and your satisfaction.  Your garden is properly envisioned as an ongoing system where each element supports and feeds into the others.

1. Early in the year, you begin preparing the garden beds for the growing season, harvesting the last of the winter crops, cleaning away weeds and amending with compost so that they will be ready when they are needed.
2. You might consider building winter structures like row tunnels to give you an extended growing season or protect from unexpected late frosts.
3. You start with your plant selection, knowing which plants grow best in your area and which you enjoy eating the most. You locate and order fresh seeds for this growing season, or use some that you've saved.
4. The garden planner tells you which beds you will plant your selections into, rotating crops to avoid disease and depleting nutrients
5. Consulting your frost dates, your garden planning tells you when you can set the selected plants out into the garden, 
6. Working backwards from the set out date, you start the seeds indoors in your propagator to have them ready at the right time.
7. When the seedlings are ready, based on frost dates, row covers and their own hardiness, the spring plants are set into the garden and begin to produce.  As the caretaker, you monitor for weeds, disease and insects.
8. As the spring and summer progress, the garden is mulched with grass clippings to return productivity to the garden soil and organic fertilizer is used with heavy feeding plants like tomatoes.  Row covers are removed or replaced with insect netting.
9. As the spring plants, like lettuce and spinach, mature, they are harvested and brought to the dinner table. Remember that most spring crops will bolt when temperatures increase, so plan to harvest them on a regular schedule so the beds are empty for the Summer crops.
10. In the meantime, you are looking for succession plantings and what will replace these plants when they are done. Spring lettuce and radishes will be replaced with tomatoes and zucchini
11. New seeds are started in the propagator in anticipation of being needed later
12. As the crops are harvested, new plants from the propagator are brought out to replace them.
13. Compost boxes prepared last Fall and Winter are turned and evaluated for being added to the beds as a top dressing. 
14. When summer crops are done, but while there is still some warmth in the fall, cool season winter crops are being prepared for the fall season.  Again referencing the first frost date, seeds are started with plenty of time for them to grow indoors, and then also be set out in the beds with several weeks of development before cooler winter temperatures limit growth.
15. Some of the more frost tolerant kale and cabbage will overwinter under row tunnels, giving a taste of the garden all winter.  The plastic row tunnels are prepared and installed in early November, again based on frost dates.
16. Also in October, fall leaves are shredded and gathered to be used as mulch in the fall months.
17. After the beds are mulched, more shredded leaves and trimmings from the garden beds are used to refill the compost boxed