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

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

• Buy deer fencing
• Buy new lettuce seeds
• Plant radishes
• Acquire seedlings
• Construct hot pepper bucket

Seed Propgation

See /SeedPropagation

Plants to Germinate

MISERABLE FAILURE (oh well)

Transplants

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

Needed

• Peppers (4 cell pack of each, not growing all of them)
  • Habaneros
  • Thai ("Bird's Eye" or similar)
  • Poblano
  • Serrano
  • Another kind of red bell pepper
• Herbs
  • Rosemary
  • Basil (6xsweet italian, maybe 2xoriental)
  • Thyme
  • Sage
  • Oregano
• Roma tomatoes
• Marigolds

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, SFG book says one every 6", so 5" should be fine.

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 Pepper

  • Looks like this one might be dying -- ClintonEbadi 2013-04-29 04:24:23

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).

The surfactent may or may not have been the problem. All attempts at making media with available components failed... I'd wager that the peat moss was too fine or something. Gave up and just grabbed a bale of Pro-Mix BX and made the following blend:

• 5 gal Pro-Mix BX
• 1 gal screened compost
• 2 cups Plant Tone (recommended amount for 1 cu ft, close enough)
• 1/2 cup blood meal for initial fertilization
• 1/4 cup bone meal for a bit of extra phosphorous

Idea with compost/plant tone (basically chicken poop)/bone+blood meal is to get fertilizers from a variety of sources. Possibly going to end up switching to slow-release chemical fertilizer granules mid-season.

Ideas

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

Onions? More herbs?

• Hot Pepper bucket
  • Habaneros x 2
  • Serrano x 1
  • Thai x 1
• New bell peppers x 2
• Basil x 6
• Overwintered Rosemary x 1
• New rosemary x 2
• Repurpose dead pepper pot for herbs
  • Oregano, Sage, Thyme, and perhaps Lavendar
• Poblanos

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