Timeline

• February 10th: need to be germinating anything like peppers growing from seed

• March 1st: cut off window for growing basically anything from seed (didn't happen this year...)

• April 1st-10th: Last frost date, in theory (theory is fact, and the garden was ready to go April 7th)

The garden beds should have soil in them before mid-March (try early March), but not mulched until after the ground warms up. The garden beds ended up with media in them in early April.

Current Tasks

Delete as completed.

• Plant more lettuce and chard
• Fill pots and presoak media

• Buy nets for trellis (one or two of these?)

• Buy deer fencing
• Buy new lettuce seeds

Seed Propgation

See /SeedPropagation

Plants to Germinate

Easy:

• Basil

Transplants

Given the effort required to germinate a lot of things, we'll probably have more success just acquiring transplants for most things.

Needed

• Rosemary
• Habanero (2)
• Cayenne Pepper (1)
• Thai Pepper, if possible

Garden

Pests

• Figure out how to deal with stinkbugs

  • http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/controlling/stinkbugs/

  • http://njaes.rutgers.edu/stinkbug/pesticides.asp (looks like applying "Spectracide" around the deck might work)

• Deer fence
• Birds

  • We have a stream so puncturing things like tomatoes for water isn't as likely, but maybe we should get them a water source near the garden anyway to be nice people.

Construction

Several small raised beds due to limited areas that receive enough sunlight, root infested soil (well, living in a forest does have its disadvantages), crappy soil, large drip lines, etc.

Soil

Soil: http://www.areamulchandsoils.com/mulch%20price%20page.htm ($20.50 per yard2) The minimum order is way more than we need.

Raleigh will sell us compost and mulch at reasonable prices. Then we just need an equal amount of soil-less media.

Strata:

• 3" (overflowing top of bed) mulch
• 10" 1:1:1 peat moss:vermiculite:perlite base media, mixed 1:1 with compost
• 1" of mulch
• tilled earth

Main garden bed had a small amount of blood meal added with the bottom mulch dug in (blood meal to compensate for nitrogen loss as it composts). Also added recommended amount of bone meal to mixture about halfway down (since the plants will likely need it when their roots get about that deep).

Layout

Pending raised bed plans... at first glance, Square Foot Gardening looks like a reasonable framework to sketch things out.

• 5'x3' raised bed

• 2 5'x16" beds, around a 6' tall garden trellis cube made of electrical conduit (Five 10' boards)

  • Two were built, two were not. Unfortunately, the ends sat out in the rain and are a bit warped and there's already a lot of garden happening.

Main Plot

First step: allocate each square roughly so that we can visualize the garden. Unspecific order (easier to perform plant location optimization after we know how many squares of each will be grown).

Cell 3x5 is the one in the corner closest to the house / next door.

planned, not yet planted, normal text is planted.

Garden CUBE

Probably just live with only two beds, perhaps three.

Bed are ~60" long internally, plots are spaced 15". Cucumbers can probably be spaced tighter because of low weight, maybe squeeze three into 30" with the squash.

Cell 1 is furthest from house

An additional bed could be used for more summer squashes (e.g. pâtisson, zucchini).

Containers

• Rubbermaid bucket of 4 Sweet Banana Peppers
• New Mint
• 1x Red Beauty Bell Peppers

Media

Not sure... 2:1:1:1 peat:vermiculite:perlite:compost mix, relying primarily upon slow release fertilizers ("plant tone" for now, possibly osmicote later) rather than relying entirely on organic media culture (because it's not possible in a container to supply all nutrients that way).

Several failed attempts were made at producing media of varying proportions and even using pine park fines as a base; the problem turned out to be a lack of surfactant in the mix. Watering each pot with ~1/4tsp Seventh Generation Dish Detergent (basically sodium lauryl sulfate) dissolved in two gallons of water seems to allow the media to fully hydrate and drain without clogging (or not, I think that batch was bad because dried peat moss aggregated around chunks of perlite).

Ideas

Take inventory of available containers -- ClintonEbadi 2013-01-29 20:24:04

Onions? More herbs?

• Habaneros x 4
• Overwintered peppers x 1
• New bell peppers x 2
• Aurora Peppers x ??
• Basil x 6
• Overwintered Rosemary x 2
• New rosemary x 3
• New mint x 2
• New catnip x 1

In the yard somewhere

Possibly just mix a bunch of herb seeds together with a bit of sand, toss in a spot near the edge of the yard, and cover with a thin layer of topsoil.

• Chamomile
• Chicory
• Anise
• Cumin
• Lavender
• Rosemary (good hedge for the front!)

History

• /GardenLog2012

CategoryEvergreen