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February 25, 2006
Pre-Spring Garden Planning
Copyright © 2005 Tammy Clayton
The end of Februrary already? My how time does fly! The sun has already become more readily available than in the past few months. Perhaps more cold and clear, but those candle-hours are important to the sleeping natural world; it is their built in clock. You cannot lie to a plant, it knows what time it is. Far more intelligent than one gives them credit for.
As you plan what to add to your garden this winter, I am sure you are paying attention to the light and water requirements all good perennial vendors attatch to each entry in their catalog. This is very important to your success with each plant. But it is possible to mix more drought loving plants with those that require more moisture in the same planting with good results. The secret lies in the substructure of each given plant’s area in the bed.
Drought lovers do like some water, they will reward you with a much more beauty with some weekly water…in a drought bed. But what if you want to put say - lavender and phlox in with lobelia and ligularia? Those water requirements can really hamper one’s creativity! So some knowledge of drainage engineering will give you the ability to try mixing them in the same planting area. Lavender and Phlox like drier conditions. Not that the Phlox will die in a spot where daily overhead watering is recieved. It will survive and grow huge, and flower excessively, but be stricken with fungus that makes the lower leaves yellow, icky looking and then become half defoliated. Ground watering is it’s preferred daily moisturizing treatement. One can place it in a corner the sprinkler doesn’t hit and water that section by hand once or twice a week and it will reward you very nicely indeed. Since Phlox is rather tall, this avenue of placing it in the back corner works out well. It likes the moisture but not on its leaves. Roses fare better this way as well, especialy since one cannot control what the heavens will pour down. Less black spot and such other marring problems will occur, if ground water is used vs. overhead.
Lavender on the other hand loves it hot and dry. It doesn’t mind what heaven pours down IF there is a good drainage structure where the roots are. Too much water retention and it will slowly die. To conteract good soil water retention where one would like to plant the ever so beloved lavender row, a blind drain is required. It is called “blind” because on the surface you do not know that it is different from the rest of the area. In a planting area that is scratched once or twice a month some of the substructure will mix into the top surface and change the color of the topping soil. But once the bed fills no one will see this. (Surface scratching, by the way will put much needed air tunnels to roots, create more water availability to roots, and lessen the amount of weeding one must do, if it is done twice a month.)
The smaller the particle size of soil, the moisture it will retain. Clay having the most minute pieces and sand having the largest. Each person’s garden area will have a totally different soil structure. If you are in hard clay, I would advise that either you excavate 6” of clay and fill with 7 inches of peat/topsoil 50-50 fill OR raise the bed at least 6 inches above the harsh environment of the clay. Raising it is much less labor than excavating! Not too many things will do nicely in clay. The only way around it is correction. Once you have nice workable soil, with good moisture retention, yet good drainage - you can go about planning what goes where and how to amend each area for certain plants.
To get good drainage, you need to go down at least 4-6 inches, depending on the plants requirements. SHARP drainage is engineered with pea gravel in a 2” layer, followed by 2” of coarse sand, topped off with 2” of your rich garden soil. In times of extreme moisture the worst of it will lay in the gravel bed. The gravel there also holds more heat than the moisture retaining soil, therefore using the warmth to do away with excess water faster. Variegated irises planted with a bed of road gravel 4” beneath the surface will grow three times more lushly than those in average garden soil - they love that heat! Heat and drought loving plants are much happier in that environment when regular water is recieved. It is the retention that causes decline and not what comes from above. More moderate drainage would be created using 3” of sand and 3” of soil on top. Since each plant has different needs, your engineering of drainage will require a bit of working on. But it opens doors to what you can put in a planting as happy bedfellows that no drainage field would never allow you to attempt.
Plants such as Ligularia need loads of moisture. To truly enjoy these types of plants you must keep the soil moist at all times. So to plant these in a happy spot, average garden soil (50/50 peat-topsoil mix) must have good composted humus worked in and layed on top as a mulch. This holds water and coolness where it is needed for the roots to stay wet enough. Another neat trick I have seen that might aid in keeping these hungry types lush would be a water reservoir or two at their bases. Using an inverted 20 oz. pop bottle with the cap on and bottom cut off. Then 3/4 of the way up the bottle poke a small hole every inch. The water in the reservoir only leaks out when the water in the soil is depleated. So it slowly oozes moisture where it is needed. Refilling it would depend on the heat index and the amount of rainfall or irrigation in a given spot. To keep the soil from filling the bottle, a peice of landscape fabric, a hunk of old polyester fabric, or even the foot of an old nylon stocking, rubber banded in place allows moisture in while keeping most of the dirt from washing into your reservoir.
If tulip bulbs are rotting in an area due to heavy spring and fall moisture a more aggressive drain system is needed that will carry the water down and out more quickly. Water runs down hill, so an incline to your drain bed is needed. The more water, the more layers of decreasing size fill is needed and the deeper one must go to drain the area. BEWARE! Sometimes you can over do drainge and even daily watering will not keep things moist enough! If that problem occurs, excavate and change your “recipe” to lessen the sharpness of draining. As with all things, experience is good guidance as to what is enough and what is too much. Heavy water problems can be solved with this system. The bigger the area, the bigger your drain field. Using successive layers of 1-2” roofing stone, pea gravel, coarse sand and topsoil or garden soil. Some drains go down a whole foot or more. The layered field can also be used with slotted tile pipe in a sock, attatched to solid pipe in some severe situations. A one to two inch decline over many feet can take a “pond” in your lawn or garden out to the woods or curb; to an area that it is no longer a detriment to whatever you are trying to grow in that spot. This same system was used repeatedly over the coarse of decades by my father who specialized in “corrective drainage” while in the landscape contracting field in. We employed it in many planting areas of customers yards with much greater success of what we could grow in any given customer’s yard. (It was also used to correct basement flooding.) This will widen the choices of what you can grow together under “normal” garden conditions quite a bit, no matter what your limitations are at the moment.
About the author: Raised by a highly respected & successful landscape contractor in the metro Detroit area, Clayton wanted a career in anything but landscaping! Now an award-winning landscape designer, Clayton runs Flowerville Farms, a mail-order nursery in Michigan. Read more at LostInTheFlowers.com.
Posted by Richard at 07:41 AM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2006
Hydroponic Tomatoes
Author: Jim Kennard, President - Food For Everyone Foundation
Q. I’ve heard about so many ways to grow tomato and other tender plants early - from using Wall-O-Water’s to taking the bottom out of wastebaskets, and they all seem to be a lot of work, with no guarantee of success. What do you suggest for someone who’s serious about growing the high-value crops like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants?
<p>A. If you are only growing a few plants the methods you use may not be all that important. However, if you are wanting to grow a sizeable garden or maximize your production, you should pay careful attention to the following procedures as taught by the Garden Doctor, Jacob Mittleider. Dr. Mittleider's methods have been extensively tested and proven highly effective in 30 countries around the world. If these instructions seem difficult or too much work, just consider that you are learning "The Poor Man's Hydroponic System" that will give you yields of tasty and healthy vegetables between 3 and 10 times what your neighbors get. Here is a summary of the procedures: </p> <p>1. Plant your tomato, pepper, or eggplant seeds 8 to 12 weeks before the average last spring frost date - 8 weeks for 8-10" plants in 4" pots, and 12 weeks for 12-14" plants in gallon pots. Peppers and eggplant will take a little longer than tomatoes. </p> <p>2. Prepare growing mix by combining 25-35% sand and 65-75% sawdust (or other clean material such as peat moss or perlite, etc.), and adding the Mittleider Pre-Plant Mix at the rate of 1 1/2 ounces per 18" X 18" X 2 3/4" seedling flat. You can make your own natural mineral nutrient mixes by looking in the Fertilizer pages of the Learn section on the website at http://foodforeveryone.org/soil_bed_fertilizing/49/how-do-i-mix-t he-pre-plant-formula. </p> <p>3. Using plain water, thoroughly wet the mixed materials, let sit overnight, then plant about 100 seeds in each of 6 or 7 very shallow rows in the flat and sprinkle sand over the top, just sufficient to cover the seeds. </p> <p>4. Place burlap over the flat, water gently so as not to move the seeds, and keep the soil moist, but not soaking wet in temperatures between 75 and 85 degrees fahrenheit. No light is needed, but cold temperatures will kill germinating seeds, so pay particular attention to maintaining temperatures in this range if possible. </p> <p>5. As soon as sprouts emerge, water through the burlap, then remove the burlap and place the flat in full light all day long. Waiting even a few hours will cause your plants to "stretch" looking for sunlight, and will create long, skinny, weak stems, from which your plants will never fully recover. Temperatures can now be cooler than for germination, but remember that your plants will go dormant if temperatures go much below 60 degrees for any length of time. </p> <p>6. Begin watering daily or as needed to maintain soil moisture, with the Constant Feed solution of 1 ounce Weekly Feed mix in 3 gallons of water (16 ounces in a 55 gallon barrel). Continue with the Constant Feed watering until plants are placed in the garden. </p> <p>7. When your plants have at least one set of true leaves (not the seed leaves), but before they crowd each other and begin to stretch, transplant at least 2" apart in flats or 2" pots. </p> <p>8. When plant leaves begin overlapping, prune 2 or 3 leaves from each plant. This will shock the plant briefly, and it will make a thicker stem, then after a few days it will again extend the growing tip and produce new leaves. This procedure can be done twice without harming the plant. </p> <p>9. As soon as leaves begin to overlap the third time, transplant into 4" or gallon pots, depending on your time schedule for planting in the garden and the amount of space in your greenhouse or growing area. When leaves overlap again, separate the pots to provide unrestricted light to all plants. These procedures will give you plants with short, stocky and sturdy stems, very capable of handling the rigors of growing outdoors. </p> <p>10. If your plants begin producing sucker stems, prune them all off, leaving only one main stem on each plant. And when the plants approach 12" in height push a small stick or dowel into the soil near the stem and tie the stem loosely, protecting it from falling over. </p> <p>11. When the danger of frost is past, transplant your seedlings into the garden. Harden off outside for 2 days first, and then immediately after transplanting, apply 8 ounces of ammonium nitrate to a 30' row of seedlings - at a distance of 4" from the plant stems, and water it in thoroughly. Three days later, begin applying the Weekly Feed mix in the same manner. </p> <p>If you have limited space and cannot accommodate 4" or gallon pots, or you just want to put your plants into the ground sooner than the ideal time, you may have success using the Mittleider "Mini-Greenhouses." Cut 4' lengths of 3/4" Schedule 200 PVC pipe, then bend them into a capital A shape, with a 4" flat top, 9" sides and 13" legs. Put both legs into the ground at the top of the ridges to a depth of 5-6". Place a 4'-wide X 33'-long piece of 6 mil clear greenhouse plastic over the bed and bury the edges with dirt on all sides. Pictures are in the Photos section of the free gardening group at MittleiderMethodGardening@yahoogroups.com. as well as in several of Dr. M's books. </p> <p>Open the ends during the day for air circulation, and on warm days, remove the dirt from one side and lay the plastic in the aisle. Failure to do this may cause your plants to cook, as the mini greenhouses will heat up quickly with sunlight. On nights when frost is expected, put an extension cord with a couple of 100 watt bulbs near the ends of your beds, and for a hard frost use a small heater (be careful you don't melt your plastic cover). </p> <p>Complete instructions and excellent illustrations are in Dr. Mittleider's books at http://foodforeveryone.org/garden_books/. </p> <p> About the author: Jim is a Master Mittleider Gardening Instructor, and has taught classes and worked one-on-one with Dr. Jacob Mittleider on several gardening projects in the USA and abroad. In the past three years Jim has conducted intensive food production training projects in Armenia, Madagascar, and Turkey. The Foundation website www.foodforeveryone.org provides free materials and information including an ebook, greenhouse plans, Gardening Group, and large FAQ section.</p>
Posted by Richard at 07:45 AM | Comments (0)