Monthly Archives: April 2010

Reduce, Reuse, Retire

I am undertaking three experiments this year in an effort to not only garden well, but garden sustainably, easily and in a way that helps out the environment.

I have long been intrigued by the concept of square foot gardening ever since I first heard about it while doing a news story in my former position as a Farm Broadcaster (agricultural journalist for radio…you know those guys who wake you up in the morning with pork belly prices and news about farm conditions). 

The benefits of square foot gardening are manifold.  You can produce more with less space, weeding in the raised beds is easier, if even necessary, and you have more control over the environment in which your plants are growing.

My problems with the system number exactly 2.  Number one, philosophically I am a cheapskate.  One of the reasons I garden is to save money on produce.  So spending money on the lumber or railroad ties to build the frames ran my cost per plot up and lowered my ROI.  Number 2, I am a REALLY bad carpenter.  I did not trust myself to build the frames to begin with and the thoughts of piles of mis-cut, mis-measured, mis-constructed piles of lumber and the awkward looking, almost-square frames did not thrill me.

So I have created my own concept for square foot gardening made easy and cheap.  The local tire dealer in my small East TN town had piles of old worn out tires just sitting around.  I knew these were bound for the local dump at some point and would add to the environmental problem.  So, I called him up and asked how much he would charge for some of the ‘junk’ tires.  He told me I could have all I was willing to haul away, for free! 

Never one to shirk at anything that is free, I loaded up two dozen tires (I am getting more this weekend) and returned home.  Once home, I mixed compost and top soil 50/50 in a wheel barrow then misted the mixture with Monty’s Liquid Carbon to improve its organic structure further.

I arranged my tires in three locations for three distinct experiments, the first is my “tire-farm” on the edge of my traditional garden, the second is a ‘kitchen garden’ just outside my back door so my wife can have ready access to them, and the third is my “Tater Towers” out in the garden area.  I will show pictures of each and describe the process below.

First, let me say that each wheel barrow took about 7 shovel-fulls of dirt and 7 of compost to fill.  Once filled, mixed and treated, each barrow-full of my created dirt is enough to fill two tires.  I fill the tires, including the area inside each tire till it is just about flush with the rim.  This new soil mixture is far richer and looser than my native East TN clay and makes a better growing medium without having to overhaul my entire garden. 

One benefit of using these tire gardens is that the black of the tire attracts early spring sun and acts as a heat sink, warming the soil quickly.  The plants in my tires are germinating much faster than those in the actual garden. The soil also drains better than the heavy clay in the garden.  The two factors are a benefit, but also a cause for caution; you will need to water more frequently.

“Tater Towers”

I have planted my potatoes in tires (four seed potatoes per tire) and I may thin them later as needed. As I planted them, I soaked them overnight in Monty’s Liquid Carbon and Monty’s 4-15-12. They have emerged and are looking good.  My next step will be to place another tire on top of the existing one and filling it again with the soil/compost mixture.  Each time the plant is covered, it will send it through a stress which will cause it to send out more lateral roots, each one of these laterals will start producing more potatoes.  The plant then, in an efort to reach the sunlight, will continue growing toward the top of the new tire in the stack. By the time I am done layering the tires, I will have four feet tall towers that should be full of potatoes at each level.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  So far, things are looking good.

The Kitchen Garden

My wife and I both love to cook.  I prefer to use as many fresh ingredients as I can and having them at the ready will be convenient throughout the summer.  In order to accomplish this, I have arranged a row of tires just off of our back porch and have filled them with my soil mixture as described above, then planted onions, tomatoes, basil, oregano, thyme, parsley and other goodies bound for sauces, spice racks, and fresh salads. 

The tomatoes, because they are heavy feeders, and due their mature size  have been planted one plant per tire.

The onions are planted intentionally too thick, so that I can thin them for green onions while letting some of the bulbs mature to full size.  As this planting plays out, I will plant more throughout the season.

The herbs are planted two varieties per tire to make the most of my space.  Again, I will keep you posted, but the ‘crops’  have been planted for one-two weeks and are all looking good.

The Tire Farm

One section of my garden , toward the back and out of the way in case it fails miserably :-), I have dubbed my “Tire Farm”  I have groups of four tires arranged by crop.  Again, these are filled with my dirt mixture as described above.  Although I am not, I suppose you could use just a straight potting mix or regular top soil. So far I have planted broccoli, lettuce (leaf), spinach, carrots, and watermelon with others to be seeded as time and weather permit. 

This was my first year to plant carrots and I had no idea those little seeds were so small.  I eventually gave up trying to separate out the little buggers and just scattered seeded them then covered them with a layer of compost.  They have germinated well, but I am going to have to thin them heavily.  The other crops have all starting germinating this week after being in the ground about 7 days.

As with all of my seeds, I soak them in a solution of Monty’s seed starter and Monty’s Liquid Carbon.

Again, with words and pictures I will let you know how my experiments work throughout this season.

Enjoy, and write/post back any stories you may have or recommendations for successfully gardening in square foot style.  I would enjoy hearing your stories of success and difficulty. Plus, the other readers might benefit as well.

In the meantime, I am looking forward to the results, knowing that I have taken something bound for the dump, that will not break down in my lifetime, and found a useful new purpose for it; one that will benefit my family and the environment (and save me some money.)  Who knows, if all goes well, I may expand.  I have already threatened my wife with an entire garden full of tires next season.

New way of planting onions, They are up and looking good.

After only marginal success with my onions last year, I decided to try something different this year.  So far, so good. 

For those of you following this blog, you know I harvested some free compost this winter. My soil here is extremely heavy clay (more on that in another post), but my onions just would not develop fully in the tight soil.  So this season I (okay, honest moment, mainly my protesting son) scraped up some of the better top soil from unused corners of the garden and mixed this 50/50 in a wheel barrow to create a lighter, more organically rich type of soil.

Once this was accomplished I (another honest moment, my daughter, pulled back the soil about 1 foot wide by 75 feet long on the south facing side of my garden.  I put this strip on the south so that my corn, okra, beans, and tomatoes would not block the sun from my ground dwellers.  This strip is serving as the home to my onions and cucumbers this year.

As the dirt work was being done, I soaked my onions sets in a mixture of 1 tsp of Monty’s 4-15-12 and 1 TBSP Monty’s Liquid Carbon in 16 ounces of water. (I did this for both my white and yellow onions. 

Once the soil was pulled back, I (okay, this time it was me) dug one inch deep holes in the earth spaced 1 inch apart in all directions in a grid about 1 foot by one foot.  Then I placed my onion sets in the indentations.  Once they were in place, I covered them with 3-4 inches of my newly created soil/compost mix.  Two weeks later they are up and looking good.

Without having to fight through the hard East Tennesee clay, the onions are emerging early.

For those of you who grow onion regularly, you will know that onions spaced only 1 inch apart will not develop fully as the bulbs will crowd each other.  However, my plans are to make my first harvest in about two weeks.  This will give us some good, early spring onions, or green onions, and leave those remaining with the space they will need to develop into good sized bulbs.

If you are doing the math, you know that my 2 onions patches must look awfully lonely in a 72 foot row.  Indeed, they do.  But my plans are to plant similar subsequent patches every three weeks into early/mid June so that I will have a continuous harvest of fresh onions this season.

Keep checking back and I will keep you posted on how this experiment is working, but so far, so good.

Remember: Take time to enjoy your garden

Whether you are gardening for the flowers or for the freezer it is important to remember why you are doing it in the first place.  I know many times this time of year I get so caught up in the business of it all that i forget to really enjoy what is happening around me.  I have spent every spare minute in the garden with the kids digging, hoeing, planting, trying to get everything planted.  It has been fun and we should have a great garden this season (my onions are already coming up and my watermelons are germinating nicely.

However, that said, nature is in full bloom.  The dogwoods, red-buds, daffodils are all telling me Spring is here.  My wife jsut harvest some lilacs from the corner of the house and took them to a very appreciative mother who was having a rough day with three grand-kids.  All the while, I have not taken the time to get my camera out once this season.  Shame on me.

So, as a reminder to you.  take some time off.  Go enjoy your garden or at least take a look at what nature is growing for you down that path and just a little to the left.  and while your there, here’s some tips on how to get some winning photographs from a photography blog I subscribe to.