Practical Garden Management

 My purpose here is to put together a very high level perspective on managing a productive vegetable garden that is used as a source of sustainability for a normal family.

1.  Raised Beds.  Start with a gardening space that you can manage with an easy effort.  It's easy to start out enthusiastically and plant hard through the spring, but by the time July rolls around, you are exhausted and have no desire to go outside in the heat.

If you garden in raised beds:

• You have significant control over the quality of your soil.  In-ground beds are at the mercy of whatever hard-pan clay soil the developers left after they leveled your lot.  Rehabilitating that inhospitable soil can take 5-10 years and considerable frustration.  Making a finished soil your top layer in a raised bed creates ideal growing conditions for your very first year.
  
• Raised beds can give you discrete, carefully defined boundaries that are considerably easier to manage.  It gives you clear area for measuring fertilizer, planning crops
  
• It is easier to keep the space weed free.  Beds raised 18" above the surface of the lawn helps to keep down weeds and reduce nuisance pests like rabbits, squirrels, and the family dog.
• Distinct beds allows you to better manage disease, minimize transmission

2.  Start small.  Begin with 1-2 beds and go through the entire process first.  Then add more beds as you are able to manage them.

3.  Plant what you will eat.  Think about things that you will use in your kitchen and pair that list with things that are easy to grow.  Your objective is to create a list of things you can use. This will form your initial planting list.

4.  Find the recipes that you need to prepare the vegetables that you grow.  For example, when growing radishes, I can use it fresh in a salad, pickle it in the refrigerator, or roast it on a sheet pan with mixed vegetables.  If your objective is to preserve the harvest, like tomatoes, put that plan in place.  Consider both the preservation method, and also the recipes that use the preserved produce.

Next, ask yourself how often will you want to prepare that crop.  Will I eat radishes once a week, or once a month?  This will give me guidance on how much of it to plant.

5.  Research the varieties that work best for your region and the uses you will put them to.  Do you need hardneck or softneck garlic?  Are you looking for slicing tomatoes or tomatoes for sauce?  

6.  Research the growing techniques you will use for your chosen variety. Which potatoes will match the length of your growing season?  Do you need an 8' stake or a cage for your tomatoes?

7.  Think in terms of three season gardening.  Put on your list Spring crops, Summer crops and Fall crops.  For each season, identify the time you need to plant outside in the garden. This transplant becomes a marker for the rest of the calendar and is often in May for most summer crops.  Count back two months to identify when you need to start seeds indoors to grow into transplants.  Count forward the "days to maturity" written on the seed packet to know when to harvest (typically 70-90 days).

Then, look at ways that you can put in a Spring crop that will be ready by May.  For example early maturing peas, lettuce, and radishes.  Use the same three dates:  start with transplant date, go back for seeding date, go forward the days to maturity for harvest date and make sure that falls in early May.

Finally, most summer crops are ready for harvest by the end of August.  In my area, there is still plenty of time to mature a crop between September and the really cold weather of late November. 

8.  Identify Succession Partners.  Start with main crops, grown from May through August.  Then find a seasonal replacement for the Fall season.  Starting plants in September and growing into Fall can be easy.  Similarly, find a pre-season crop for early Spring that can start in cold temperatures. The crops grown in the cool weather seasons can be the same or different.

This will give you Pre-season, Main Season, and Replacement harvests.    This will give you a suite of three vegetables that will occupy the same garden bed throughout the year.  

These three partners, grown in succession, means that you always have something growing in your garden.  Because they are determined ahead of time, you already have made preparations for them;  you have the seeds ready, you know the spacing and supports they need,  you've already got them started in seed trays.

For example you may want to start with peas in the Spring, switch to Kentucky Blue pole green beans for the Summer, and then back to Provider bush beans in the Fall.

9.  Stay with the plan.  As with all gardening, a 30 minute session in the garden 3 times a week will keep on top of most activities that it requires.  Frequent short sessions are easier and more effective that waiting until you have a big project.  An overly complicated plan is hard to stick to.  Having no plan is easy to get behind and lose interest.  

Instead, keep to the seasonal schedule and the weekly sessions.

10.  Record your activities and observations in your garden journal.  Keep a record by date of your weekly activities.  What are your planting. How is it growing.  What is the weather like.  What is being harvested.

Make it a habit to check back on how things were doing a year ago by reading previous journal entries.

11.  Set up a place for starting seeds.  You will need a place for initial germination of seeds, and then a place to transplant your seedlings into 2-4" cups that can be grown on into a size for the garden.  This could be a section of your office, a corner of your garage, or an outdoor greenhouse.  Take the steps necessary to provide light and warmth, which could be heat mats and LED shop lights or full-on hydroponic systems, or simply a bright window.

Garden Planting Calendar

 I have been working on making my gardening more focused and streamlined, and less experimental and impulse driven.  For me, that means focusing on what works and is the most productive.  The result of this is a gardening calendar that gives me an overview of the entire growing year.  At any given month, I can check the calendar and see what I should have planted in each of the beds, and what is coming up to be harvested.

The calendar is based on four raised beds.  There's also an optional bed for herbs or other experimental crops.  Obviously, this could be four separate beds, or a single garden plot broken into four sections.  I've chosen crops that I like, that are easy to grow and productive in my area.  

If I want to, I can easily add a new garden bed and start an additional line of plants, as long as I think in terms of the whole growing year.  Similarly, I can practice crop rotation, and change one vegetable for another, moving the tomatoes to the Pepper bed.  But the idea here is to minimize the chaos and reduce the decision fatigue.  Garlic flows into potatoes, which flows into Fall garlic.

Click on the calendar to expand it to full size.

This calendar tells me a few key points to planning my gardening year:

 

1.  I have scheduled a main crop with an accompanying cool season crop.  The main crop is scheduled for transplanting in May, and being done by September.  The cool season crop takes advantage of the Fall and Spring growing seasons.

 

Similar examples of succession companions:  

• Sweet Pea, Pole Beans, Bush Beans. 
• Beets, 75-day melons, Kale
• Leeks/Multiplyer Onions, Chard, Leeks
  

2.  The succession companions are always the same.  When the tomatoes are done, the radishes go in.  I don't need to puzzle about what is coming next or which plant strikes my fancy.  I know exactly what I'm going to next.  

 

This allows me to think about succession ahead of time, as well.  So as an example, the heavy feeding tomato is followed by the lighter feeding radish.  The root zone radish breaks up the fibrous root network of the tomato.

3.  Within the vegetable type, I have latitude to select varieties if I want to experiment.   One planting may be of Red Globe radish, while the next might be Daikon, or French Breakfast.

 

Having said that, pay particular attention to what grows well in your specific garden.  Stay with proven winners that you have experience with, rather than putting down random experiments each time.

4.  The calendar is designed around specific transition periods.  A spring planting in March is followed by a transition planting in May where 80% of the crops change from cool to warm.  A second transition is in September and cool season plants are done before the first frost.

5.  Cool season crops have the option to come out in November or overwinter to the following spring.  You don't have to overwinter crops every year.  It's perfectly acceptable to leave some or all of your beds fallow some winters.

6.  Two months before transplanting, seeds should be sown indoors so they can be up-potted and ready.  Tomatoes transplanted in May should be sown in March.  Lettuce transplanted in March should be sown indoors in January.  

 

These dates begin to make the calendar quite complicated for a simple graphic, but it's worth developing for a more explicit gardening protocol. 

Daikon Radish Dish

Daikon and Beef Recipe

Autumn Leaves in the Garden

 Every year I get an abundance of fallen leaves from the 7 maple trees in my landscape.  I have mentioned in several places how I use them in the Autumn to enhance my garden, but I want to gather that information into one place so I can reference it consistently.

Managing Fall leaves is a prominent part of my garden management in October and November.  The leaves don't fall all at once, and if I leave them until the trees are bare, it can get overwhelming and also be bad for the lawns.  I just say this to mention that this is a task that will be spread out over several weeks and doesn't have to happen all at once.  

 

Step One.  In the fall, over the course of several weeks, I gather the fallen leaves from my yard in large black plastic contractor bags.  These are the 40-50 gallon bags made of 4-5 mil plastic.  These are larger and stronger than the 33 gal leaf bags or kitchen trash bags meant to go into a trash can.  I use these stronger bags to last an entire year, sitting outside in the weather.

The leaves are gathered in the grass catcher of my lawn mower, and as a result they are moderately shredded, not whole leaves.  The mower may also pick up grass clippings and weedy greens as well.  I'm not concerned about the purity of the contents, as long as it isn't sprayed with any chemicals.

I spray water from the hose into the bag, so that the mulched leaves are thoroughly wet.  I then tie up the top and leave them to work their decompositional magic.  I don't punch holes in the bags or do anything extra, with the intention of keeping this process as simple as possible.  I want the contents of the bags to retain moisture that the fungi need to work.  Then I store them on the shady side of my garden shed, out of direct sunlight, and simply leave them undisturbed.

The primary purpose of these bags is to create leaf mold, which will function as an effective soil amendment to the vegetable garden beds.  The leaves are broken down through fungal decomposition, which is an anaerobic process quite different from the aerobic bacterial process of composting.  This leaf mold does not want to be aerated or turned over, like compost will.  But the fungi working on the surface of the leaves will begin to break it down into smaller components and eventually turn it into something approximating soil.  

This process usually takes 12-18 months, depending on temperature.  The longer it works, the better it will be to amend the soil, but typically if you gather leaves in October, by the next October it will be noticeably finer.  If you then wait over winter to the following spring, it will be ready to be added directly to the soil  to increase fertility and conditioning. 

The number of bags I gather depends on what I need to do with the leaves, so we'll return to this question after our discussion.  

I use fallen leaves in four ways to enhance my garden and landscape.

One.  At any time of the year, I will use fallen leaves as a mulch to be applied to the surface of an existing garden.  I continually keep planted beds mulched to retain moisture, suppress weeds,  retain heat and keep the surface of the soil from hardening.  If I don't have leaves, I will use grass clippings instead.

I will mulch at the base of existing plants, and will completely cover the surface of beds that are unplanted if they are resting over the winter, for example.  Before the end of Autumn, I will make sure that each of my garden beds have been treated in this way.

Two.   In the Spring, I use this years crop of leaves to create watering Cores, using the core gardening method.  Before planting in the spring, I dig a trench down the center of each raised bed and lay down 6-8" of mulched leaves and grass.  Then I cover it over with 12" of garden soil for planting.  This 8"x8" core of organic matter soaks up and retains water throughout the growing season that the plants roots can access.  This process will reduce the overall watering needed for each bed, and will help the plants persist through the dry summer months.

Three.  Also in the Spring, I will use the well-rotted leaf mold in the 18-month old bags as a direct soil amendment, working it into the top layers of earth, in the same way that I add 1-2 bags of Black Kow composted manure to each bed.  I will typically make this major amendment before planting the heavy summer crops like tomatoes and peppers.

Four.  At the end of the growing year, I plan to renovate one of the four garden beds each year.  This involve a deep digging process to remove intrusive roots and attempt to push back and break up the hard packed clay another few inches.  I work the mowed leaves into this 2" of clay at the bottom of the bed to expand the depth of root space and condition the soil from underneath. 

At the end of November, there are always leaves left over, even after all the gathering is done.  For the front yard, I move these leaves into the woods, and for the back yard I use the riding mower to mulch them in place.

Greenhouse: Why?

To Extend the season.  You can grow things in the greenhouse and prevent them from freezing, extending the temperature of the growing season for a month at each end.  But keep in mind that low tunnels, that only enclose the garden bed itself, can be just as effective and can be easier to manage during the summer when they are no longer needed.

This is true, but in some locations it isn't the temperature but the lack of daylight that limits the growth.  

On October 11th, sunrise is 7:25 am and sunset is 6:25 pm for a total daylength of approximately 11 hours.  

The threshold of 10 hour days is typically when plants stop growing and developing.  On October 31st, daylength is approximately 10 hours.  Actual daylight hours, including twilight, is about an hour longer.     

On December 21, day length is 8:23 hours long in Virginia, the shortest day of the year.  On February 10th, daylength again crosses the 10 hour threshold when the most cold-hardy plants begin growing again.

A final thought on this topic is that if  you are primarily interested in extending your growing season, then using low tunnels can be a better option.  Cold Frames, low tunnels, and other temporary measures can be easier to work with, more manageable, and much less expensive.

To give yourself a place to work.  This is one of the more important functions of the greenhouse.  The greenhouse can be a general purpose workspace to support the rest of your garden.  It allows you to keep working in the garden even when its dark or raining. After work, after dinner, you still have a place to focus on your garden. You don't have to retreat indoors and abandon your thirsty plants.  It can also be heated, at least temporarily, in the winter. 

A place to start seedlings.  One of the biggest factors in starting seedlings is a space to work.  You need to have a workbench or a potting bench to fill your trays, manipulate the seeds and work on one seed tray at a time.

Next, you need a place for newly seeded flats to germinate in the full sun.  This will require a good amount of space to lay everything out.  You should allow 4 weeks for a freshly sown seed tray to reach the stage where they have true leaves and are ready for the shock of transplanting. 

Eventually, you need to transfer those seedlings to larger 3-4" pots, that will continue to mature.  This will get them ready to be planted out in the garden at the appropriate time.  Typically, that's another 4 weeks of growing on.  And its important to note that you need to be able to hold them at the pot stage, because conditions vary from year to year and you'll need flexibility as to your planting out date.  

While this is happening, you'll need to be preparing for the next round of succession partners to begin the journey.

Overwintering.  The greenhouse can be a place where you move sensitive plants indoors to escape the frost and snow.  In an unheated space, plants are still susceptible to deep sustained freezes.  But a greenhouse can keep dormant plants from being killed by lower temperatures that they wouldn't survive outside in the elements.

Outdoor Greenhouse: How

 I have often considered constructing a greenhouse at my urban homestead, and have created numerous low tunnel and high tunnel systems for growing later into the fall and earlier in the spring.  The question for me has been, what kind of a greenhouse do I want?  What size should it be and what materials should I make it out of.  Do I invest in a prefabricated aluminum and glass Elizabethan structure, or is a rough and ready DIY set up the most efficient and economical one?

The key to greenhouse success, for me, has been adopting a system that allows me to take an incremental approach to design and implementation.  Instead of going all in on a $5,000 commercial greenhouse right at the beginning, I found it better to start with a simple high tunnel greenhouse for a relatively modest investment.  But this will allow me to answer questions about where to locate it for optimal placement, what size it should be, and how I can best use the space.

Then, after I test it out and answer a few questions, I can begin to improve the existing structure.  Finally, I can confidently make a more substantial investment, knowing that I'm getting exactly what I need.

YEAR ONE

Step one.  Identify the location for the greenhouse.  This will give you a sense of what size you can accommodate.  Consider 8x10, 10x12, 10x16.  Go out into your yard and physically outline the working space you are talking about and see which one actually makes sense.

Step two.  Using concrete blocks outline a foundation for your greenhouse at the size you selected.  Level your blocks from corner to corner, digging down as needed and checking with a level to make sure that the foundation is perfectly level.  Leave an empty space in the front for the doorway.  Doors are typically 30" - 36".

Step three.  Spend some time to level the floor inside the foundation perimeter.  You don't want to create a pit that will trap water, so make sure that it can drain away.  At the same time, you want to level the floor so that it is flat.  Set the concrete blocks aside, and then cover the entire area with industrial landscape fabric that blocks light and resists tearing.  Replace the concrete blocks into their former location, resting directly on the landscape fabric and keeping it stretched tight.

Step four.  Use pressure treated 2x6, and lay them flat along the top of the concrete blocks, creating a wooden surface.  Drill holes through them and drive rebar through the 2x6s and into the ground.  These should be 2 feet on center.  The rebar should be 36" or longer so that the rebar sticks out the top of the concrete block by about 12".   This will form the spikes for the pvc walls.

Step five.  Using 3/4" pvc electrical conduit, join two 10' pieces together to form a large hoop.  Place one end of the pipe over the rebar on one side and bend it over to insert the other end over the rebar spike on the other side.  The spikes and the pvc ribs should be 24" apart. I use pvc fittings at the very top where the two 10' lengths join and then space the joints apart with connecting lengths of pvc.

Step six.  Using 2x4s, frame up the ends of the greenhouse to add structural support.  Create an opening for a 32" storm door at one end, but it can be covered by plastic to start.  At the hip intersection, extend a 1x3 or 1x4 board to keep even spacing between the ribs.

Step seven.  Create a double ridge pole from 2x4s, set 32" apart (based on the width you left for the storm door.  Secure the hoop ribs to these ridge poles.  Use mounting brackets where each pipe meets the ridge pole, two per hoop.  Using furring strips, attach an 8' diagonal brace reaching from the hip down to the 2x6 base, to keep the hoops perpendicular.

Step eight.  Use plastic sheeting to cover the end panels.    Cover the door end of the greenhouse separately from the sheet covering the hoops. 

Then, use a sheet of 10x25' 6 mil plastic sheeting to cover the entire greenhouse, from the back to just meet the front door panel.  Using 1" pvc pipe to hold the plastic sheeting in place at the base.  Attach a handle at one end so that the sides can be raised by rolling them up on the pipe.

Step nine.  Use plastic folding tables and wire framed shelving  inside the greenhouse to create a working space.  This will get you started for a relatively modest expense and the components will be waterproof and resilient.  Then, as you get a better idea of what you want, you can upgrade them to the cedar potting bench of your dreams.

Step ten.  Consider adding a shade cloth over at least one end, during the summer when temperatures can be hot inside the greenhouse.  Also consider your options for lighting, if you want to use the greenhouse as a workspace after dark.

YEAR TWO

After having used this temporary greenhouse for an entire year, you should have a better answer to several questions.  

This will give you a clear idea of the size of greenhouse you need.  Were your chosen dimensions adequate or should you really consider going a size larger?  Do you need more space to move around inside to work?  Was there room for shelves and work surfaces, seed starting and potted trees overwintering?  Everything that we have done so far has been with an eye to minimal investment and an impermanent installation that can be taken apart and resized.

Each of the components can be made more secure, more sturdy, more permanent.

For example replacing the sheeting on the ends with polycarbonate panels.  You can upgrade this to use clear polycarbonate panels, creating a more solid end. 

Upgrading to UV stabilized greenhouse film.  You can exchange your draped plastic door for one you construct on hinges, or install a regular storm door in the end with a handle that latches.

Consider the floor of the greenhouse and covering the landscape fabric with washed gravel.  

YEAR THREE

When this plastic begins to break down in 2-3 years, consider upgrading to greenhouse film

By year three, about the time the plastic sheeting wears out, you should consider replacing the pvc hoops with a framed roof covered with clear corrugated panels. 

Alternatively, you can consider buying a commercially constructed polycarbonate and aluminum greenhouse from Costco or Harbor Freight and installing it on top of your concrete block foundation.