Gardening

arbilad · Head Chef

Gardening

crazymom5 · Senior Member

My dh has used it and we really like the results. We didn't get a garden in last yr because our weather was wacky! Hopefully this yr we'll get one in.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

It's a good system for small space situations. I use aspects of it in my garden.

Euphrasie · Senior Bucketkeeper

I pretend that's what I'm doing. Which works for me. But I'm probably doing it all wrong.

I figure anything that allows me to grow food in a desert has to have some merit.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

There's no such thing as "doing it wrong" or "failure" in gardening. It's all research.

arbilad · Head Chef

I like concept of putting the plants in a raised bed made up of a custom potting mix. Our ground here in Colorado is very alkali, and we have a lot of clay in the soil.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

Raised beds cause the soil to dry out faster. In the spring, this is an advantage, because wet soil is cold soil. Raised beds warm up faster, allowing earlier planting. In the heat of the summer, raised beds can be a challenge to keep well watered. Certain heat loving crops can do quite well in clay soil, because it holds water better.

It's like everything else -- it has pros and cons. Mostly pros though. The compost/peatmoss/vermiculite mix does encourage rapid growth. When I put my garden in, I couldn't afford peat moss, so I used compost in place of peat. It still worked.

Be warned, however, if you have more than a few raised beds, watering by hand gets to be a real drag. I usually water plants by hand (either with a cup or with a spray nozzle on the hose) when they are small and the weather is cool, but I switch to a semi automated system as the weather heats up. (I place the drip lines when the plants are small, however, 'cause once they're larger it's a big hassle, if it's possible at all. I just don't turn it on until later on.)

One thing I would recommend for Colorado -- up at the higher elevations the air just doesn't hold much heat, so nighttime temps can plummet to freezing even when the day was warmish. You'll have better results if you plan to protect plants from nighttime temps from the start-- even in the summer. WaterWalls, floating row covers, cloches, cold frames, etc. will all help to moderate temperature swings and protect plants from drying winds. The plastic covered cube Mel recommends works, but it was far to small to be practical for the scale on which I garden. I use full bed covers and it helps a lot.

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

arbilad wrote:

I like concept of putting the plants in a raised bed made up of a custom potting mix. Our ground here in Colorado is very alkali, and we have a lot of clay in the soil.

We have alkali really bad also. That and weather fluctuations have made regular gardening a hit and miss proposition. Square foot gardening works well for this type of situation. I went to the recreated plymouth plantation a few years back. They used a raised square foot gardening type setup which they said was how the pilgrims did it because of how rocky and difficult it was to grow crops there. So I guess the concept has been around a lot longer than the square foot gardening books.

arbilad · Head Chef

Jason, that sounds similar to the new square foot gardening book - raised beds.
I just ordered the book from Amazon. I'll probably get boards soon to make the raised beds. And I'm searching for a source of vermiculite.
Hopefully we don't have watering restrictions this year. We have near record snowfall, but I wouldn't put it past them to tell us that we're still in a drought.

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

arbilad wrote:

Jason, that sounds similar to the new square foot gardening book - raised beds.
I just ordered the book from Amazon. I'll probably get boards soon to make the raised beds. And I'm searching for a source of vermiculite.
Hopefully we don't have watering restrictions this year. We have near record snowfall, but I wouldn't put it past them to tell us that we're still in a drought.

You might want to try making a drip irrigation system even if you don't have watering restrictions. This would work especially well with the square foot system. It is pretty easy to put a drip system together and they help conserve water big time. Even I had no problem assembling the pieces. I even made one for the back yard that puts out a nice mist for when it gets hot in the summer time (100+ degrees). It makes it nice to go outside and uses very little water. Watering at night and very early in the morning can save you a lot on water. During the heat of the day, much of the water will evaporate before it even reaches the root zone.

Jason

-- Edited by salesortonscom at 16:21, 2007-02-23

arbilad · Head Chef

That's good watering advice, especially since the book recommends watering as close to the roots as possible.
I found a cheap source of vermiculite about 5 minutes from my house. They sell four cubic feet for $25.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

Vermiculite: include local nurseries in your search. Especially places that grow their own stuff from seed. If they won't sell it to you, they will tell you where they get it. Don't buy it in the little 8 qt bags at Walmart or wherever. Get the really big 12 cu ft bags. They're usually light brown in color... the ones I got were made by Therm-O-Rock. (www.thermorock.com)

All gardening books will tell you to water before 6pm, to allow the leaves to dry before night--to prevent fungal diseases. In a dry climate, this isn't as critical, like Jason mentioned, and night watering saves a lot of water. Using drip irrigation reduces evaporation to a very great degree, however, and I have had good results watering in mid-day, whereas sprinkling at that time of day I would lose 50% of the water to evaporation.

arbilad · Head Chef

Learning to water correctly will be a challenge for us, but hopefully we can master it.
I've been reading some interesting things in the book. For instance, he tells how to make a tent over your gardening box to protect it from frost or give it shade. I think that's a fantabulous idea, because it will effectively allow me to extend my growing season. My last frost date is in mid may, if I remember correctly. So effectively my growing season is just from Mid-May till the end of August, which is cutting things a bit closely.
If I put plastic tents over my garden boxes, I can protect plants against the effects of a mild frost, and thus I'll be able to plant sooner and harvest later.
Of course, I could just start the plants inside, but I haven't gotten the hang of acclimitizing them to the street yet. I've lost whole groups of plants trying.
I need to get some peas and cabbage planted in March. Both of them are frost hardy. In fact, I've heard that with peas they need a little frost to get them going well. And there's very little better than fresh sugar snap peas straight from the garden. I'm salivating just thinking about it. I'd take fresh sugar snap peas over chocolate any day.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

The plastic will help a little, but dont expect to add a month on either end of your season, using these. Especially in areas where spring snow is common, little plastic covered frames won't hold up long. In addition, you have to be very careful not to fry your young tender seedlings on sunny days -- the temp inside a plastic cover can soar to 90+ when the temp outside is only 60.

Yes, they'll extend your frost free season, but not for free -- and the costs are not just money.

I'm currently experimenting with a cold frame. It's a much more permanent structure, made of wood and glass, that provides serious weather protection to the plants inside. I've had various salad plants survive the winter inside, even though growth slowed to the speed of cold tar during the coldest months. But, it's been enough of a success, that I've decided to build another unit.

Roper · Senior Bucketkeeper

I'm preparing for a garden next year. I've been doing compost for our ornamentals, but I've tripled the size now in anticipation of a vegetable garden next year.

I plan to build raised beds this winter. Any design suggestions? I also plan to use a drip irrigation system, hopefully with a lot of captured rainwater. Is there anything specific I should design into my beds to facilitate a drip system?

-- Edited by Roper at 12:18, 2007-06-27

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

It's hot and dry where you live, right Roper?

If that's true, raised beds could be a mistake. They dry out much faster than ground level beds. This is an advantage for early spring planting, because the soil warms up faster, but it can be tough to keep plants watered in raised beds.

The Square Foot Gardening book talks a lot about how to construct raised beds, but they don't need to be raised at all, really. You just need a permanent walkway that is mulched to prevent weeds, and some kind of border to keep the soil in the beds. Flexible plastic borders could serve this function. The beds would still be neat and attractive, but much easier to keep moist than a raised bed system would be.

I have a small garden with raised beds that I use primarily for early spring and late fall gardening. I grow my main season crops in traditional rows in temporary beds.

Roper · Senior Bucketkeeper

Hot, yes. Dry, not really. The DFW area gets between 30-40" precip annually. This year, May and June have been the wettest in 20 years. I had to move my vincas to the cover of the porch because the leaves are turning yellow--too much rain.

I'm going to install a rain capture system--our rain gutters will go into linked barrels or a cistern to use for gardening. So I'm thinking the water issue won't be a major concern.

One of the reasons I like the idea of raised beds is that my knees hurt for days after just an hour of gardening, even if I use good knee pads.

I may be able to get some old railway ties, but I've heard that the creosote may leach into the garden soil. Anybody heard anything about this? Some people have also recommended not using treated lumber for the same reason. Thing is, I want my beds to last more than just four or five years. Maybe masonry?

arbilad · Head Chef

I haven't had a problem with water retention so far with my raised beds. The square foot gardening method recommends a mix of soil that includes both vermiculite and peat moss. Both are excellent at retaining water, and that's been my experience so far this year.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

Cedar is very rot proof, but expensive. Do people have vinyl fences down there? Making raised beds from vinyl fence rails seems like it would be a most durable solution, and they would look good, too.

Roper · Senior Bucketkeeper

Thanks, Bok. I hadn't thought of vinyl. White vinyl fences are pretty popular around here. And you're right, they would make attractive beds and would be easy to keep clean on the outside. I'll look into it--it can't be more expensive than treated lumber. Have you priced that stuff recently? I could hire a few undocumented workers to do masonry for not much more wink

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

No I haven't priced it. But when I have to redo my plain ole douglass fir raised beds, that's what I'm planning on using.