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Post by ogeezer on Feb 26, 2007 7:23:51 GMT -6
City gardens and country gardens are different—not only in the amount of space each can fill, but in the types and quantities of foods that can be produced.
Gardening, like everything else we hope will succeed, begins with a plan. Pencil and paper (or a computer keyboard) are your initial gardening tools. The best time to do this is about February, when you begin to long for springtime, and the gardening catalogs begin to arrive in the mail. First, take a sheet of paper and divide it into four columns. In the first column on the left, make a list of the fresh foods and herbs you enjoy eating—go wild with this step, just write down everything you generally buy: Lettuce, sage, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, potatoes, kohlrabi, basil, green beans, radishes, and so on.
Next, in the second column, write in how many pounds of the food you eat in a typical week. For example, your family might enjoy a lettuce salad three or four times a week—figure one pound of lettuce per group meal. Over a typical week, that would add up to about four pounds of the greenery, so put “4#” in this column. This doesn’t have to be exact. A ballpark figure is sufficient. If there are some things you only have once in a while (watermelon? corn on the cob?), skip it in this column.
In the third column, we’ll have you do a little math. Figure that you have a 20-week (five-month) main growing season, more or less, depending on your region. Now, multiply the “per week” amount times 20 weeks and find your “seasonal consumption” rate of the food; write that in column three. For lettuce, that four pounds per week becomes 80 pounds (4 x 20 = 80) over the growing season—a respectable amount of greens. For occasional items, such as watermelon, just put the number consumed per season in this column (that is, “3 watermelons” or “12 ears of corn”). Ballpark-figure this column, too, just to give you an idea of your regular consumption patterns.
If you wish, you can continue into the fourth column. Here, you can ballpark the cost of the goods—those weekly four pounds of lettuce, if they come precut in a bag, probably run you about $2 per pound or more, meaning you spend more than $160 per season just on salads (4# x $2 x 20 weeks). A single watermelon or pumpkin might be $7, but if you buy one only in the summer, it might not set you back enough to be worth going through the effort to grow it.
#Steps are a good place to set out pots of plants. Large pots for tomatoes make colorful decorations on your porch or deck.
At this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what foods are mainstays in your diet and which are the infrequent treats. Go ahead and cross off the food items that you consume just a few times during the season. Those foods can still be purchased when you want them. Here’s what I’ve got on my family’s list of regulars: Basil, cilantro, lettuce, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, beets, turnips, strawberries, blackberries, dill, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, green onions, garlic, zucchini. After looking at the list, put a question mark next to the cilantro because your local market always has it fresh now, and it’s very inexpensive.
NEXT TIME, something about Selecting Plants suitable for urban gardens...
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Post by ~WineMe~DineMe~69 on Feb 26, 2007 7:56:18 GMT -6
nothing like a good ole country garden to gather your vegatables from.
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Post by ogeezer on Feb 27, 2007 6:33:42 GMT -6
SELECTING PLANTS From your list, examine the “relative value” of the items you have room for the small available garden area. Tomatoes, for example, are a backyard garden favorite, and there are varieties for every taste. It requires about 3 pounds to fill a quart jar, and a quart makes about a single family meal for most. Each plant requires about 2 square feet of space, a considerable garden area in an urban backyard.
If canning is in plan, it’s cheaper, and a better use of time, to grow highly productive cherry tomatoes and purchase canned tomatoes in case lots from discount chains. Bite-sized cherry tomatoes produce all season, crank out dozens and dozens of fruit, come in several varieties and colors, and can be easily dried for later use if there are extras. At the current price for small boxes of cherry tomatoes, it's easy to figure a savings of more than $100 on this one item alone with just 2 or 3 plants. Plus, by collecting seeds from the open-pollinated plants and you won’t have any seed expense next year, either.
Green beans are another productive plant that can be harvested for a long period through the season. For the urban garden with limited ground, pole beans are more generally productive over a longer period than bush beans. They can be trained up on any kind of support—chain link fence line, trellis, arbor, or even among flowering plants. Shorter bush beans are easier to harvest, but their production is short term and limited.
Zucchini and other squash are available as bush plants and as the regular vine types. Bush plants do require less ground space, and were developed for city gardeners, but my experience with bush plants has been disappointing so far. The production just isn’t there over the season. The vine varieties, though, can be planted so the runners grow in among other plants; finding a hidden cache of squash or cantaloupe among the roses is always a pleasant surprise.
Herbs and spice plants can fit just about anywhere in the garden space. We are fanatical about basil and would consume fragrant basil almost every meal if we could. Considering that our local markets carry single stems of basil for about $1.50 each, we’ve probably saved on the order of $300 by planting our own. Genovese (large leaf) basil is quite attractive as a small row or mini-hedge, too.
PLANTS OR SEEDS One of the issues facing a city gardener is the best method of acquiring plants: Is it better to go with started plants or to set seeds? Each method has its benefits and drawbacks. Started plants are easy easy easy—you just buy it and pop it into the ground. Additionally, started plants are usually available early in the season, so you can get a jump on the harvest. The main drawback is that a single healthy starter can cost three or four times more than a packet of seeds, and only gives you one plant. If you plan to garden in a big way in your small space, you could spend almost as much on starters as your projected harvest will be worth, which tends to negate the cost benefit of home gardening.
On the other hand, if you start with seeds planted directly in the ground, your harvest will be later in the season, but your costs will be much lower. Some gardeners believe that plants that aren’t disturbed while growing are healthier and hardier, too. If you save your own seeds, even on just a few plants, you’ll save additional cash. Seed packet labels advise the proper planting time for your region. Some seeds can be started indoors in styrofoam cups and potting soil under a south window or grow-light, which can provide the benefit of both started plants and low-cost seeds.
CITY GARDEN CARE Keeping a city garden growing well helps it produce well. Plants wilted by heat or that aren’t watered sufficiently during dry spells, or those that don’t get properly fed, simply won’t give you the bounty that you could have. Plants in pots are particularly susceptible to weather changes and rely on your generosity with the water and fertilizer to keep them going. Plan to hand water your garden if it doesn’t rain for a week or if the soil around the plant is dry as deeply as you can stick your finger into the soil. Then, deep soak it rather than just sprinkling the surface.
...until next time when we'll get into planting techniques.
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Post by ~WineMe~DineMe~69 on Feb 27, 2007 12:35:03 GMT -6
maybe i should get you to come make me a garden!
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Post by ogeezer on Feb 28, 2007 12:25:15 GMT -6
Taint got the time ... which is why this topic is for you to DIY
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Post by ~WineMe~DineMe~69 on Feb 28, 2007 12:31:25 GMT -6
you can't blame a girl 4 trying! ;D
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Post by Sílený Jízda on Feb 28, 2007 14:48:04 GMT -6
We're looking at doing a garden ourselves since we have enough land now to do so. Unfortunately, we also have an abundance of deer and other natural woodland critters that like like gardens as well.
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Post by ogeezer on Feb 28, 2007 16:12:32 GMT -6
PLANTING Now that you have a fair idea of what and how much you would like to grow in your city garden, the next step is finding spots to grow it in. Think small scattered plots. Think up. Think containers. Between these three essentials, you can grow just about anything in an extremely limited amount of space.
A chain link fence makes a nice trellis for growing green beans.
Small scattered plots fit in nicely with an urban landscape, planning various items within an existing landscape scheme. Look for corners, edges, backgrounds, and open spots in the yard layout. Ideally, if you draw a map of your planting areas and layout the location of existing flora, you’ll have a clearer idea of spots that can be converted to food plants. Keep in mind that if you are planting food near conventional landscaping, you may need to alter fertilizing and pesticide spraying to more food-friendly alternatives.
“Edible landscaping” has been a gardening theme for the past several decades. Plant colorful kale along walkways, scented herbs in clumps below flower displays, and beans to twine up over existing trellises or low walls. Strawberries make beautiful decorative plants as well as producing fruit throughout the season (if you choose long-bearing varieties). Recently, landscapers have discovered that the many varieties of sweet potatoes, with their colorful heart-shaped leaves, make beautiful display plants. Berry bushes can be planted behind tall flower displays or along a fence line to soften the appearance and give a “wild” quality to the area.
Smaller plants, such as green onions, garlic, dill, and other herbs, fit nicely beside many other types of plants, and may help deter pests. Every tomato plant can be paired with garlic and basil since each helps the other grow better. If you like garlic, tuck a clove or two in every open 2x2-inch spot. You’ll have more than you know what to do with at the end of the season.
If you have a patch of lawn that you’re willing to give over to a garden, here’s an easy way to prepare the soil. In early spring (or, preferably, the fall before you plan to garden), lay out the area of your garden-to-be and place several layers of newspaper and/or plain un-coated cardboard over it. Put a thick layer of mulch or leaves over that. Weight it down with rocks or border the area with recycled wood. Now, just wait. By late spring, all the turf will have died back, and the newspaper or cardboard will be well on its way to dissolving. Earthworms may have moved in, too. This all provides a nice layer of compost under the top mulch layer. Don’t uncover this area. When you are ready to plant, just dig a hole through to the dirt and put your seeds or started plants directly into the ground. As long as you don’t disturb the underlying soil, you’re less likely to have to battle weeds as well.
Grow some plants “up.” In a conventional rural garden, plants can be left to splay over hill and dale, covering vastly more ground than actually required to put down strong roots. In an urban setting, training plants to trellises and even weaving them into chain link fences can be an excellent way to convert air space into garden space. I’ve grown beans in long, narrow, deep window-box type planters and run strings up over windows on the south side of the house. The beans love the heat and extra reflected light from the windows, provide shade as they grow, and can be easily harvested by moving the screen and picking directly through the window.
A 16-foot long wire hog panel will bend in an attractive arch to provide a makeshift trellis and is strong enough to hold cucumbers, cantaloupes, and even grape vines, and has conveniently sized openings to pick through. Heavier fruit and squash can be slipped into the leg cut from old pantyhose and tied to the trellis structure. As fruit enlarges, the hose stretches to accommodate and may save it from an early drop. Cucumbers grown on trellises are straight and don’t get exposed to ground organisms that might cause mildew. Be sure to mulch heavily around the roots of trained plants to preserve moisture.
Containers can grow an abundance of food. A container is anything you can fill with dirt that will provide sufficient drainage so roots don’t get waterlogged. Aside from the usual and obvious (and expensive) decorative planters at home stores, don’t ignore the benefits of coffee cans, plastic carriers, old bathtubs, laundry baskets, and even trash barrels. Containers can be free-standing or placed into a hole dug in a decorative spot. Last year, we took around four pounds of sprouted and spindly potatoes leftover in a forgotten bag and planted them in a 35-gallon plastic trash can. We cut a set of drainage holes in the container, then dropped about a foot of dirt in the bottom and set the spuds down into that. They were eager to grow. After each 6 or 8 inches of new tops, we’d bury everything but the top inch in more soft dirt, although we could have used any low-nitrogen cover, including shredded newspapers. The plants eventually reached the top of the barrel, and were completely covered in dirt. By the end of the season, we tipped the barrel, and recovered about 60 pounds of potatoes—giant spuds near the bottom and fresh “new” potatoes near the top.
Happy Veggie Gardening & Wishes For a Full Harvest to ya!
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Post by ~WineMe~DineMe~69 on Feb 28, 2007 19:39:33 GMT -6
my granddaddy used to get hair at the local barber-shop and put it out around his garden, he said it kept the deer from coming in and cleaning it out!
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