The last weekend in February, and I'm looking at seed catalogs and gardening magazines! The first day of spring is 21 days away, but I can get a head start on my summer garden, even in fickle Colorado, with a couple of easy steps.
First I'm going to take stock in the state of my trees and shrubbery. We haven't had any BIG or heavy snows (comparatively), but I know there's some winter 'kill' out there that should be attended to while they are still dormant. This will reduce the chances of disease and bugs from entering the cuts. We're supposed to have sixty degree weather this week, so it should be a perfect time to stroll around the yard and do some trimming.
The second thing that I'm going to do is that while I'm walking in the garden, I'll be wearing Lawn Aerator Shoesto aerate the lawn. These will help air and moisture get to the roots of the grass for a good head start on the growing season.
The third thing I'm going to do this month is check the soil in my garden and designate an area where I can sow some cool-season vegetable seeds. As soon as the soil can be worked I'm going to toss down some spinach, lettuce and Swiss chard seeds right into the garden. Peas and radishes can also be sown at this time, as all these plants will survive frost and flourish in chilly weather. And since my soil has so much clay, even though I've been amending my garden soil with compost for years, I may opt for sowing these vegie seeds in my raised garden bed. Another option for those of you out there who do not have raised beds is growing spring crops in large containers. Salad days, here we come!
Showing posts with label garden beds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garden beds. Show all posts
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Fall Cover Crops for Better Spring Soil
With a good 1 to 2 inch layer of organic compost over your garden bed, and a cover crop of green manure planted from seed in the fall, you will be on your way to improving your garden soil for next year's planting. Sown from seed, cover crops germinate very quickly and will grow all winter long. Then simply till the cover crop in once it flowers in spring. The cover crop's foliage will help protect the soil from getting compacted, which can happen in constant winter rain or from blanketing of snow. And when you till it in, the foliage adds organic material that will improve soil structure, increase nutrients and help your soil retain moisture.
Plants in the the legume family, commonly known as the pea family, bean family or pulse family, include soybean, alfalfa, vetch or fava beans. These are some of the best cover crops available (check online seed companies and nurseries). Legume plants are special in that they will retain nutrients that will then be returned to the soil when tilled in, thereby providing nutrients for your spring and summer crops next year. These crops have assertive root systems, which are helpful in breaking up hard soils. They are also very hardy and frost tolerant.
Cover crop seeds can be broadcast in mid-October right over that one to two inch layer of compost and all around the fall crops that are currently growing in your garden. Fall cover crops will grow quickly and reduce weed problems, but won't grow tall enough to overwhelm existing plantings.
Making organic compost for your fall cover crop is easy with tumbling composters. Look for models with more than one section inside: one for new compostable materials and one section for completed compost. If you live where there are temperature extremes, consider one of the Jora tumbling composting machines. They are manufactured in Sweden, and insulated to withstand temperature extremes.
Happy Composting!
Plants in the the legume family, commonly known as the pea family, bean family or pulse family, include soybean, alfalfa, vetch or fava beans. These are some of the best cover crops available (check online seed companies and nurseries). Legume plants are special in that they will retain nutrients that will then be returned to the soil when tilled in, thereby providing nutrients for your spring and summer crops next year. These crops have assertive root systems, which are helpful in breaking up hard soils. They are also very hardy and frost tolerant.
Cover crop seeds can be broadcast in mid-October right over that one to two inch layer of compost and all around the fall crops that are currently growing in your garden. Fall cover crops will grow quickly and reduce weed problems, but won't grow tall enough to overwhelm existing plantings.
Making organic compost for your fall cover crop is easy with tumbling composters. Look for models with more than one section inside: one for new compostable materials and one section for completed compost. If you live where there are temperature extremes, consider one of the Jora tumbling composting machines. They are manufactured in Sweden, and insulated to withstand temperature extremes.
Happy Composting!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Compost for Roses
I've got a rose bush that I planted for the fragrance that it has. It's not blooming yet, but has numerous buds just about to spread their lovely scent throughout my garden. I read yesterday that this month is the time to feed roses with fertilizer OR mulch one inch thick with compost. Well, you know which I'll be doing! Our tumbling composter, along with BiOWiSH™ Compost Boost from www.BestComposters.com has made an abundant supply of rich organic compost, thank goodness. We've used it to revitalize older garden beds, plant new beds like the raised bed my husband built to my specs, and start the garbage can potatoes. Seems like there can never be too much compost ready for the gardens! So when it stops raining, out I go to feed that lovely rose bush with an inch of compost all the way around. Better plan to add more compost to that raised bed, as well. The straw/alfalfa mix has been decomposing and the vegetables in the bed are in need of more soil and compost to send those roots out into. Happy Composting!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Planter Box Gardening for Less
Well, we finally got it done, in spite of all the weird weather we’ve had! Our garden is planted!! My husband got the new planter box made, we got our plants and seeds assembled and got them all planted. Whew, what a relief!
The planter box was a big thing, even though there is a lot more area to plant in the ‘in ground’ garden. We are experimenting with the box. We’d gone back and forth for a couple of weeks trying to decide how best to fill that planter box. We knew we were going to use a good quantity of our organic home made compost, straight from our tumbling composter. But what other medium? Top soil was my initial plan…shopping at our local hardware store had me doing the math. The planter box is 12’ x 3’ and 16” deep…a lot of box to fill. That’s some 500 cubic feet of top soil needed, at $2.50 per cubic feet equals $1,250. Even if we mixed the top soil with compost 50-50, we’d be buying $625 worth of top soil. Then I ran across an article about hay bale gardening. This gardener takes hay bales, dowses them with nitrogen (fertilizer), digs a whole in the center and fills it with soil and plants. Sounded intriguing, so I talked with hubby. And he had his own idea. This is what we did: Two bales each of straw and alfalfa, run through a chipper to break it up and mix it well - $32. Into the planter it went, with two gallons of BiOWiSH™ Compost Boost and warm water – under $5. Mix garden soil excess that we had from last year, that wonderful black compost and a little perlite, add to holes dug down into the alfalfa and straw mix and plant. The BiOWiSH™ Compost Boost has already started the decomposition process, heating up the mix and starting to turn it into more compost. Hubby and I are both excited to see what results we’ll have in our new planter box. It was big enough to fit three tomato plants, six broccoli, and 16 onions, for under $100 inside the planter. We won't talk about the redwood lumber that went into building the thing, but it sure is pretty!
By the way, readers remembering the blog about our newspaper planter pots will be interested to know that the single half sheet of newspaper held up just great! I ended up peeling it off of the lettuces very easily when it was wet. The spinach and broccoli seeds planted in them germinated; however, they did not get very big. Next year we’ll get some real grow lights to start them under, and maybe get an earlier start….like February?!?
The planter box was a big thing, even though there is a lot more area to plant in the ‘in ground’ garden. We are experimenting with the box. We’d gone back and forth for a couple of weeks trying to decide how best to fill that planter box. We knew we were going to use a good quantity of our organic home made compost, straight from our tumbling composter. But what other medium? Top soil was my initial plan…shopping at our local hardware store had me doing the math. The planter box is 12’ x 3’ and 16” deep…a lot of box to fill. That’s some 500 cubic feet of top soil needed, at $2.50 per cubic feet equals $1,250. Even if we mixed the top soil with compost 50-50, we’d be buying $625 worth of top soil. Then I ran across an article about hay bale gardening. This gardener takes hay bales, dowses them with nitrogen (fertilizer), digs a whole in the center and fills it with soil and plants. Sounded intriguing, so I talked with hubby. And he had his own idea. This is what we did: Two bales each of straw and alfalfa, run through a chipper to break it up and mix it well - $32. Into the planter it went, with two gallons of BiOWiSH™ Compost Boost and warm water – under $5. Mix garden soil excess that we had from last year, that wonderful black compost and a little perlite, add to holes dug down into the alfalfa and straw mix and plant. The BiOWiSH™ Compost Boost has already started the decomposition process, heating up the mix and starting to turn it into more compost. Hubby and I are both excited to see what results we’ll have in our new planter box. It was big enough to fit three tomato plants, six broccoli, and 16 onions, for under $100 inside the planter. We won't talk about the redwood lumber that went into building the thing, but it sure is pretty!
By the way, readers remembering the blog about our newspaper planter pots will be interested to know that the single half sheet of newspaper held up just great! I ended up peeling it off of the lettuces very easily when it was wet. The spinach and broccoli seeds planted in them germinated; however, they did not get very big. Next year we’ll get some real grow lights to start them under, and maybe get an earlier start….like February?!?
Monday, April 26, 2010
Not So Common Chive
I walked in my garden this week in our BestComposters.com Lawn Aerator Shoes so that all that wonderful moisture that we’ve gotten all week can make it’s way down to the roots of our lawn. It’s a really easy way to do something nice for your lawn! Beforehand, we’d spread a little of our compost as a dressing onto the lawn as well, and the nutrients will be absorbed more quickly with the aerating too. As I did my aerating and checked out what damage the storms might’ve done in our yard, I was overjoyed to see my alum schoenoprasum, or Common Chive, poking up through the Spring snow. This hardy and easy to grow perennial is one of two planted in my garden years ago when I discovered that my family enjoys snipped chive on baked potatoes. I personally love the sweet pink blossoms and look forward to adding them to my salads for a blast of color and splash of mild onion flavor. The chive plant is a member of the same family as onions, garlic and leeks and is lovely whipped into softened butter and added to mashed potatoes or on grilled meat. It can be added, as well, to sauces, soups and salads, and is especially yummy in chicken or tuna salad. The vibrant green pleases the eye as much as the flavor enhances the salad!
You can plant the seeds of the chive plant now in your garden, or anytime in a pot to set on a sunny window sill. Once it has bloomed (don’t forget to add those gorgeous clover-like blossoms to your salads!), the tops should be snipped all the way to the soil. You’ll be pleased to see them shoot right back up and provide you with more chives all through the summer and early fall.
Being from the garlic family, the flavor of chives is comparable to garlic, but can be savored by those of us who are sensitive to garlic without concern. And like garlic, chive has therapeutic qualities. It won’t keep the kids from Twilight away in a ring around your neck, but will aid digestion of rich foods, protect your respiratory system, and has antiseptic value.
Hints:
1. Freeze fresh chives by mincing the shoots, spreading in a flat casserole dish and flash freezing. They can then be stored in plastic freezer bags.
2. When cooking with chives, add them at the end of cooking.
3. Make chive butter by creaming 4 TBSP chopped chives with ½ cup softened butter. Add ½ tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Roll into a cylinder in a sheet of parchment paper and refrigerate for approximately one week.
You can plant the seeds of the chive plant now in your garden, or anytime in a pot to set on a sunny window sill. Once it has bloomed (don’t forget to add those gorgeous clover-like blossoms to your salads!), the tops should be snipped all the way to the soil. You’ll be pleased to see them shoot right back up and provide you with more chives all through the summer and early fall.
Being from the garlic family, the flavor of chives is comparable to garlic, but can be savored by those of us who are sensitive to garlic without concern. And like garlic, chive has therapeutic qualities. It won’t keep the kids from Twilight away in a ring around your neck, but will aid digestion of rich foods, protect your respiratory system, and has antiseptic value.
Hints:
1. Freeze fresh chives by mincing the shoots, spreading in a flat casserole dish and flash freezing. They can then be stored in plastic freezer bags.
2. When cooking with chives, add them at the end of cooking.
3. Make chive butter by creaming 4 TBSP chopped chives with ½ cup softened butter. Add ½ tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Roll into a cylinder in a sheet of parchment paper and refrigerate for approximately one week.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
More Garden to Love
I am awfully glad that we have used our tumbling composter all winter long, as well as a static compost heap to which we've added BiOWiSH™ Compost Boost. What this means is that we have a great supply of garden ready 100% organic compost! We really need all the compost we've made because we are adding to our garden. Out in front of my house will be a garden bed that'll be 4' x 3', and then a larger raised bed in back that'll be 12' x 4' and 16" deep. And I almost forgot the Garbage Can for Potatoes that we'll need to fill as well. So I'm sure that we will use all of our compost just getting those two gardens and garbage can filled with top soil and compost.
Our tumbling composter made composting super easy with it's turn handle and sliding door for adding materials. I make sure that I cut up my kitchen scraps into one inch size pieces...the more sides that can start decomposing the faster the process will be. We add to our kitchen scraps the leaves that were gathered from last fall that we've stored, along with shredded cardboard, a handful of garden soil to add microorganisms and coffee that our local coffee shop has given to us. Giving the tumbler a turn every day or so keeps the air circulating and the microorganisms happy. We check to make sure that the moisture content inside the tumbler is ideal...a handful should feel like a squeezed out sponge...damp but not dripping.
Throughout the fall and winter, as we continued to add composting materials to our tumbler and static heap, I occasionally would wonder what we would do with all the compost that I knew we were making! It seemed like an enormous amount of materials. But as the BiOWiSH™ Compost Boost and microorganisms worked their magic, the materials turned into more compact, rich brown soil-like compost. And the compost itself isn't the only benefit: both my husband and I were pleased at the amount of water we were saving by not running the garbage disposal. We really saw a difference in our last water bill. But now that I think of all the garden that needs the rich nutrients that our compost will deliver, I'm doubly glad that we've made all that compost. I don't think we'll have any to spare for neighbors without composters or compost piles, but I have a feeling we'll have vegetables to share!
Happy Composting!
Our tumbling composter made composting super easy with it's turn handle and sliding door for adding materials. I make sure that I cut up my kitchen scraps into one inch size pieces...the more sides that can start decomposing the faster the process will be. We add to our kitchen scraps the leaves that were gathered from last fall that we've stored, along with shredded cardboard, a handful of garden soil to add microorganisms and coffee that our local coffee shop has given to us. Giving the tumbler a turn every day or so keeps the air circulating and the microorganisms happy. We check to make sure that the moisture content inside the tumbler is ideal...a handful should feel like a squeezed out sponge...damp but not dripping.
Throughout the fall and winter, as we continued to add composting materials to our tumbler and static heap, I occasionally would wonder what we would do with all the compost that I knew we were making! It seemed like an enormous amount of materials. But as the BiOWiSH™ Compost Boost and microorganisms worked their magic, the materials turned into more compact, rich brown soil-like compost. And the compost itself isn't the only benefit: both my husband and I were pleased at the amount of water we were saving by not running the garbage disposal. We really saw a difference in our last water bill. But now that I think of all the garden that needs the rich nutrients that our compost will deliver, I'm doubly glad that we've made all that compost. I don't think we'll have any to spare for neighbors without composters or compost piles, but I have a feeling we'll have vegetables to share!
Happy Composting!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Growing Potatoes in Containers
You may remember, or you may need to check back in the archives for a January blog of mine about growing potatoes in a garbage can. In that blog, I talked about how I loved the idea of growing my own potatoes without having to dedicate so much of my garden space to it. Growing potatoes in a garbage can solved the issue of space requirements, and also watering issues, since hubby is going to place the can under one of our hanging tomato plants that he's set up with a drip system! Clever, isn't he?
So I went out and got a new garbage can for my trash and am ready to drill air holes in the sides of the old garbage can (AFTER I clean it thorougly with BiOWiSH™ Bin Wash. That 100% organic cleaner will remove all the odors and odor causing bacteria from my old trash can so that I can start this grow with a nice clean can.) But then I read an article in my Friday, April 9, 2010 The Denver Post Grow insert called "Potato box yields scads of spuds" and it gave me pause. It seems that this fella, Greg Lutovsky, out of eastern Washington state has developed this 4 foot square spud box that can provide a really impressive yield of potatoes! Mr. Lutovsky lists five steps to succes in this process:
1. Select late-season potatoes. My hubby says this is vitally important because short-season potato varieties produce a limited amount of potatoes and then the plant dies off.
2. Plant in multiple layers; like lasagna, put in a layer of soil, a layer potatoes and additional side panels as the vines grow a foot above the soil level, making sure to leave at least 2/3 of the vine above the new layer of soil.
3. Wind a soaker hose through each successive layer of soil and taters so all layers of roots get even moisture.
4. Provide the potatoes with a medium of loose soil, like compost mixed with potting soil.
5. Don't overfertilize! He recommends a 5-10-10 fertilizer instead of a standard plant food. I think I'll stick to my organic compost that I make in our tumbling composter that our website offers, so that the potato plants will be continuously nourished by the compost.
This all sounds like simple, sound advice. And frankly, harvesting the vegies sounds like a walk in the park! The only trouble is that we'd already planned on a garden addition this spring, adding a raised garden in our backyard so that: a) we have more space to grow vegies and b) we have less lawn to mow (!). This addition will entail a trip to the hardware store for wood, funds for the wood, time planning out where exactly to put it in our yard and how to build it, laying down newspaper over the grass to keep it from growing into the planter and filling it with compost and soil. This is a large enough investment of time and money to have me putting the Potato Box on hold until next year. So if you're interested in growing your own potatoes with a limited amount of space and effort harvesting, and you like woodcrafting, Google "Build a Potato Box" or check out the diagram available on lifehacker.com.
So I went out and got a new garbage can for my trash and am ready to drill air holes in the sides of the old garbage can (AFTER I clean it thorougly with BiOWiSH™ Bin Wash. That 100% organic cleaner will remove all the odors and odor causing bacteria from my old trash can so that I can start this grow with a nice clean can.) But then I read an article in my Friday, April 9, 2010 The Denver Post Grow insert called "Potato box yields scads of spuds" and it gave me pause. It seems that this fella, Greg Lutovsky, out of eastern Washington state has developed this 4 foot square spud box that can provide a really impressive yield of potatoes! Mr. Lutovsky lists five steps to succes in this process:
1. Select late-season potatoes. My hubby says this is vitally important because short-season potato varieties produce a limited amount of potatoes and then the plant dies off.
2. Plant in multiple layers; like lasagna, put in a layer of soil, a layer potatoes and additional side panels as the vines grow a foot above the soil level, making sure to leave at least 2/3 of the vine above the new layer of soil.
3. Wind a soaker hose through each successive layer of soil and taters so all layers of roots get even moisture.
4. Provide the potatoes with a medium of loose soil, like compost mixed with potting soil.
5. Don't overfertilize! He recommends a 5-10-10 fertilizer instead of a standard plant food. I think I'll stick to my organic compost that I make in our tumbling composter that our website offers, so that the potato plants will be continuously nourished by the compost.
This all sounds like simple, sound advice. And frankly, harvesting the vegies sounds like a walk in the park! The only trouble is that we'd already planned on a garden addition this spring, adding a raised garden in our backyard so that: a) we have more space to grow vegies and b) we have less lawn to mow (!). This addition will entail a trip to the hardware store for wood, funds for the wood, time planning out where exactly to put it in our yard and how to build it, laying down newspaper over the grass to keep it from growing into the planter and filling it with compost and soil. This is a large enough investment of time and money to have me putting the Potato Box on hold until next year. So if you're interested in growing your own potatoes with a limited amount of space and effort harvesting, and you like woodcrafting, Google "Build a Potato Box" or check out the diagram available on lifehacker.com.
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