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.

• Finish Planting Main Bed
  • Buy new lettuce seeds
  • Plant more lettuce
• Buy deer fencing
• Finish Trellis
  • Install netting
  • Tie down with rope and stakes to prevent it from swaying in the wind under load

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

• Rosemary
• Chives
• Tarragon

The All-Knowing Internet says chives and tarragon are good companion plants too.

Acquired

• Peppers (4 cell pack of each, not growing all of them)
  • Habaneros
  • Thai ("Bird's Eye" or similar)
  • Poblano
  • Serrano
  • Red Bell Pepper
• Herbs
  • Basil (6xsweet italian)
  • 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.

Garden CUBE Trellis

Netting: Dalen Gardeneer, 60lbs breaking strength (looks pretty typical).

See Clinton's weblog posts about the trellis for details on the construction process. After using the trellis for a season, update wiki or website with general design (don't want to add too much to the "I built a trellis that ended up collapsing but never wrote about that part" noise).

Materials

• 1/2" EMT Conduit for legs and low-weight supports
• 1/2" Rigid Conduit for supports for things like squash and melons
• 1" PVC (plumbing, schedule 40) Side outlet elbow junction
• Various bushings to adapt pvc junction to 3/4" and 1/2" thread
• 1/2" and 3/4" EMT Set Screw to threaded connectors

Building It

• Measure a square on the ground
• Hammer in a piece of rebar in each corner
• Put EMT over rebar, decide on a height, and cut all of them to be level.
• Build the needed elbows
  • 1/2" threaded bushing for direct connection of rigid conduit
  • 1/2" threaded bushing to attach 1/2" EMT set screw connector
  • 3/4" threaded bushing to attach 3/4" EMT set screw connector, which is used to attach the cut end of the rigid pipe (unless you have a pipe threader, in which case why are you taking advice from amateurs). It's not a super-snug fit, but it seems close enough.
  • Measure, cut, install horizontal supports
    • 1/2" EMT seems fine for things like tomatoes; 20lbs of weight results in a bend that you can see if you're looking for it. Attach with two set screw connectors to elbows.
    • 1/2" rigid conduit doesn't bend before the pvc on the ends starts deforming so if the trellis can handle heavy things, it looks like this is the best bet for squash/melons. Attach one end to a 1/2" threaded pvc connector in one elbow, and use a 3/4" set screw adapter on the cut end.
• Stake and tie down elbows
  • Keep the frame under slight tension so that it does not sway back and forth easily.

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
• Rubbermaid bucket of hot peppers (2x Habenero, 1x Serrano, 1x Thai Chile)
• Serrano Pepper
• Red Beauty Bell Pepper (2)
• Karma Bell Pepper (2)
• Small bucket of Basil (8x, will thin to 4 or 6 and plant 2 Thai Basil)
• Mixed bucket of herbs (oregano, thyme, cilantro, sage)
• Repotted Rosemary
• Repotted Catnip
• Parsley (3x)
• New Mint
• 2 Rubbermaid buckets for lettuce
• 12" pot for Origanum syriacum

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?

• New rosemary x 2
• Poblano + bell pepper in the large bucket
• 5 gal bucket for tomatoes
• 18 gal rubbermaid bin with 3 tomato vines for trellis

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