April Week 4

Organic Gardening Calendar
27 Weeks to first frost date in zone 6

By: Kathi

What better time of year is there? The trees are blooming with reckless abandon now. It seems that after the historic warm winter of ’07, followed by the historic late freeze of ’07, followed by record rainfall, followed by record heat and drought of ’07, that the plants are a bit skittish about coming up. Never the less, it is planting time.

Things you will need: Plant Material
Seed

Whether you are vegetable gardening or flower gardening, or both, the general aspects of good gardening technique remain the same. Personally I go for as good as I can get without going nuts with the back breaking labor.

Here I think it is worth repeating myself somewhat about compositing and mulching. These two things will save you more work and gain you more than anything else I know of.

It’s all about the soil. Every thing regarding growing is about the soil. So your job as a grower is to give your plants the very best opportunity to thrive. Good soil will get you 95% of the way there. It will help, but not compensate for drought.

I have my vegetable rows out in the field. All winter long they have been sitting with a covering of grass clippings on top of them. When I mow, I bag the grass clippings. These bags, when full, can then be taken to each row and dumped out. I sling mine along the length of the row, and do two bag widths of clippings side by side for each row. Once the row is covered with the fresh clippings, take out a leaf rake, the springier the better, and first rake out the clippings to cover the entire row width. Then take the leaf rake and bounce it up and down on the spread out grass clippings. This lifts the clippings; will allow you to make the clipping depth uniform across the bed; and will add enough air to the clippings that they will decompose quickly and not smell like rotting plant material.

The optimum depth of fluffed up grass clippings is 6 inches. This is a nice full depth that will smother weeds, and block light from getting to the soil. Grass clippings that touch the soil will begin a rapid decomposition, that will signal to every near by earth worm that food is available. This is the primary objective….to attract worms. The clippings insulate the ground to stop the daily cyclic warming and cooling and helps retain moisture all the way to the surface during dry spells.

What do the worms do? The worms break up your soil, loosening it so that plant roots may more easily penetrate the soil. They munch on the composting grass (or other: leaves; mulch) and as with all critters excrete the remains of dinner. Those remains are the richest; most expensive to purchase; best all round fertilizer on the planet. Go ahead, look it up in the catalogs. At those prices, any amount of home made worm poo is worth it’s weight in gold.

In my hardiness zone, I put organic pre- emergent on my grass clippings in late November. Our average winter days can be in the upper 40’s and low 50’s easily, creating a perfect sprouting temperature for winter weeds. Using the organic pre emergent will rid your bed of 90% of the viable winter weeds.
After the winter is gone, I take my tiller and turn under the grass clippings into my rows to prepare them for planting. Be sure to allow the planting row to sprout. Then till it under again. If you can do this a second time all the better. (Of course seeds from grass clippings can be reduced drastically by cutting your grass before it goes to seed. If you cut it too late, you are certainly increasing your work.)

Now that it is planting time, if you started your seeds indoors, you should set out the transplants and put down another dose of pre emergent.

If you are setting out seed, do so, but hold off on the pre emergent until your seeds have sprouted and have obtained their first true leaves. Rake or pull out any weeds that have appeared, then put down your pre emergent. Again – ORGANIC pre emergent. It is cheaper, it works better, and it won’t leave chemical residues in your crops.

January Week 1

Organic Gardening Calendar
By: Kathi

What better time to start this year’s gardening than the first week of January?
If you intend to change over to organic gardening, there is no time like the present. My experience has been in the US agricultural zone 6. You should adjust the timing of these posts to your particular climate.
For our purposes, April 15th is the normal frost free date, and October 15th is the normal first frost date.
If you have never tried organic gardening, you will find it easy and immediately rewarding. You will be improving your soil and reducing the toxins in your environment, and you will not believe how much better home grown organic fruits and veggies taste than corporate grown, pesticide ridden, picked green produce.
Each week I will post a new installment on the tasks that need to be performed for a successful garden. The most important thing to get started is your bulk composting routine. If you are an urban gardener, spend the $200 to get a high quality tumbling composting unit. Gardeners Supply. has a fair selection of composters. If you can afford it and have room, get two. Or, if you can’t afford one, a large black garbage bag will do, or a 3’x3’ wired in container. If you are a rural gardener and have the space, an open pile is fine, especially if it can be accessed to be turned by tiller.
The reason for two compost bins (and two compost piles), is that when you get your first pile sufficiently large, or the tumbler full, you will need the second pile or tumbler to add new compost material to. Never throw anything in the trash that you can compost!
In the kitchen, get a bucket or a pail, or a zip lock bag. Anything you can put vegetable waste in, and seal it up. Save everything that you normally throw in the trash that is fresh, canned, or frozen produce. Never add meat/dairy products to your compost. When the kitchen bag gets full, take it out and throw the contents into the tumbler or compost pile. Tumble or stir.
In your office, shred all that wasted paper, taking off any plastic labels. Here, you can either be a purest - or like me, rationalize that any ink on the paper might not be vegetable based, but it is better to compost the paper than send it to a land fill. If you are a purest, be sure to get your paper to a recycler instead.
Continue to add all your yard waste, leaves, small twigs, grass clippings, last year’s annuals, and weeds to your compost pile. This process will be ongoing for as long as you garden. This is why you should go ahead and spring for the good quality compost tumblers. If you don’t, you will regret it, and most likely end up purchasing them in a few years anyway.
Also this week, go to Garden’s Alive. It is a mail order organic gardening company that has good products, and their catalogs are very informative. They are not the only suppliers of organic garden products, in fact big box stores like Home Depot, Walmart, and Lowes are carrying organic gardening products. Use the Garden’s Alive catalogs to educate yourself on what to look for before you buy.
Finally, if you have any fall bulbs that you haven’t planted yet, get them in the ground now, before it’s too late. They will be stunted this year, most likely, but will survive to be beautiful next year.
Until next week…