Improving Clay Soils - Fine Gardening Article

Improving Clay Soils - Fine Gardening Article

This is the best article I've seen to date on how to condition clay soil for a successful garden. Since my backyard would be better suited at pottery making than gardening, I found this author's suggestions to be handed down from the garden gods themselves. For those of us in the south, this should be required reading!

The Busy Season

This is my first morning in months where I've gotten my gardening out of the way before 8AM.   With the ridiculous heat and lack of rainfall, I've been up early every morning to water, plant, weed and fertilize my gardens.   All had to be done before I had to go to work or before the heat set in at 11.  In the past couple of days we've had rain and mild weather.   My gardening suddenly became less of a chore.  I actually got to enjoy it again!   


Now it is time to update you all with more interesting posts and pictures.  Onward to mayhem!

Lettuce Entertain You

As you may know from my previous blogging, I have an Aerogarden. A gift from my ever-so-thoughtful husband. Some time in January, I started it out with herb seed pods and now I have a flourishing herb garden (I transferred the herbs into pots when they got too big for the AG). Since then, I've started with the salad greens pod set and I have to say I'm loving the AG for salad greens. I've never had luck with lettuces outdoors - the pests were just too much for me to handle - so growing them in an AG is a perfect solution. I get fresh salads about every week with no pests!

I thought I'd share a little of my Aerogarden experience with you. If you've ever pondered getting one, I highly recommend it. Yesterday I noticed it was time to harvest again. So I snipped off all the fully grown leaves and ended up with a huge bounty for my lunch. I made my own italian vinigrette using equal parts red wine vinegar and olive oil with a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice to act as a binder. I added to that some dried italian seasoning and shook it up. Dressing was ready! Then I snipped some parsley, red and italian basil from my herb garden, chopped them up and tossed the fresh herbs into the salad. Since I don't have any tomatoes yet, I ate the salad with just the dressing and herbs. I have to tell you there is nothing like fresh salad greens. The chickory added a nice spicy flavor and the arugula was delicious. The romaine and baby lettuce had just the right crunch. A perfect lunch! (channelling the ghost of Dr. Seuss? yup!)

Inventory, Planning & "Companion Planting"

The seedlings are doing well - most are nearly ready to plant.  Now I need to take an accurate inventory of what I'm growing and lay out a garden plan.  I'll start with the inventory.  This will change once I eliminate some of the seedlings.  I'll be giving them to friends and neighbors as I simply can't plant all of them in my garden. Container gardens have limited space, so a well thought out plan is vital.

Inventory
9 Green Peppers
9 Red Peppers
9 Salsa (medium heat) Peppers
9 Jalapeno Peppers
9 Eggplant
10 Roma Tomatoes
8 Beefsteak (Big Boy) Tomatoes
9 Cherry Tomatoes
12 Tenderpod Green Beans
6 Heavyweight Green Beans
8 Pumpkins
1 Cantaloupe
4 Romanesco Broccoli
5 Watermelon
9 Strawberry - various types


Now that I have my fruit and vegetable inventory, I need to figure out which companion plants will work well.  What is "companion planting" and why should I use it?  There was a time when the Indians from North America planted corn, pole beans and squash together, the beans were nitrogen-fixers, the corn acted as a support for the bean plants and the squash was like a natural mulch (the spiny vine also prevented raccoons from entering the corn field). This method of planting one or more corps in close vicinity for the purpose of extracting mutual advantage is termed as companion planting.

To start, I'm going to refer to this handy dandy list of companion plants to lay out my garden plan.  The list says that I should plant tomatoes with peppers and my beans with my eggplant.  That is going to be a little tricky as I'd planned originally to do the opposite, but I want the best possible benefit for my plants, so I'll have to add some additional containers for the extra tomatoes I plan to grow.  We eat a lot of tomatoes and I wanted to try my hand at making and canning my own sauce from the Roma tomatoes.  The pumpkins and watermelon are going to be planted in the ground in a sunny spot on my property.   There, dear handy husband JJ will be setting up a nice support system for them to climb on and they'll have plenty of room to spread out.  We could use the ground cover, too.  The Romanesco Broccoli plants were not started from seed.  Those are coming from a supplier in a couple of weeks and will be planted in separate pots companioned with  some geraniums and rosemary (should be very pretty!).  Because I wanted a special kind of cantaloupe, I also purchased that as a plant from a supplier.  Also arriving in a couple of weeks.  I was thinking of planting that with the melons and pumpkins and then doing a row of corn behind for them to climb on.  Still fussing with that idea, though as I'm taking on a lot as a first time gardener.  I'll let you know what I decide and, of course, if it works :).  The strawberries will all go into two gorgeous large strawberry pots made by Burley Clay.  They're the best pots you can get and well worth the expense, if you ask me.  I have 9 holes and the top to fill in each pot, so I'll probably have to buy another 12 or more strawberry plants from my local greenhouse once they get them in.  Should be any day now!


Was that everything?  I'm pretty sure that was everything.  Now comes the hard part and I'm going to have to think on this for a few days.  How many plants of each type to plant in my containers?  Here are the two large raised plant trays that I have set up.   If any of you can offer any advice, I'd welcome it as this is the hardest part for me.  :)  Thanks for reading and commenting!

The Hummingbird Migration of 2010 (or How To Get Those Rascals To Visit)

It is that time of year again.  Time for our tiny backyard kamikaze pilots to return from their long winter vacation in South America.  I'm referring, of course, to the hummingbirds.  

I've found a handy site for tracking the hummers' progress - Journey North. No matter where in the US you live, you can find out if the hummers are heading your way.  

Next, we should get prepared for the thirsty travelers.  If you don't already have a hummingbird feeder, I highly recommend the 8 ounce Aspects HummZinger Hummingbird Feeder.  I've tried about a half dozen different types of feeders and this is the best by far.  It is so much easier to clean than any other feeder I've had.  You simply pull it apart and either hand wash or pop it in the top rack of the dishwasher.  It comes with a little port brush to clean the ports. That'll take you less than a minute.  It has a built in ant moat (big plus!) and is all red - so it is less likely to attract bees and wasps.  (Many hummingbird feeders have red and yellow - yellow has shown to attract insects, while hummers just don't care one way or the other.)   If you get a lot of hummers and they're not too territorial, you can get the HummZinger 16 ounce feeder - but I find the smaller feeder requires more frequent refills - guaranteeing you'll have fresh food out.   Hummers will reject a feeder with spoiled food.  Finally, the big bonus of this feeder is that it doesn't leak.  Every other kind of feeder I've owned has leaked something awful.  This feeder has never spilled so much as a drop. 

Speaking of food - don't waste your money on buying gimmicky hummingbird "nectar".  They don't need the red dye and you can make your own sugar water at home.  I have a perfect recipe that will make your hummers stop and stay for the season.   I make a 32oz (1 quart) batch of this at a time and store the leftovers in the fridge.   

Boil 2 cups of water - then remove from heat.
Add 1 cup of sugar - stir well until fully dissolved.
Add 1 cup of ice to cool if you're going to serve immediately.  If not, just add 1 cup of cold water.

That's it!  Most people recommend a 5 to 1 ratio water to sugar - but I've found that my hummers like the extra sweet nectar that I put out.   After a long flight migrating from South America they can use that extra energy and they'll see your home as a little oasis.  Hopefully they will stay all summer long.  If you want any advice or have any questions, please feel free to ask.  Next time - feeding hummers, butterflies and bees with your summer flowers!  

Fanning the Babies

As I posted previously, I've had problems with "damping off" in my seedling trays.  I've also had problems with leggy bean seedlings bending over to the point of breaking - though not because of damping off (thankfully!).  Well I found a solution for both problems.  I rotated my seeding trays so that the one with the most damping off (herbs/wildflowers/tomatoes) is now on the heating pad.  Then I poured some water into the bottom tray instead of watering from the top (great tip! wish I'd known that earlier!).  Then I broke out this mini fan and directed it onto the tray with the bean seedlings (beans/peppers). 

The heating pad was just to help kill off any remaining fungus from the damping off.  The air circulation from the fan also helps with that.  However, what I didn't know is that the fan blowing on the leggy bean seedlings will actually condition them to grow their stalks a little stronger so they can withstand the winds when I transplant them outside in a week or two.  I may be imagining it, but I think they already look a little stronger.  They stopped needing the use of my little support sticks that I put in the soil for them to lean on.  Its a start!  I'll let you know how the damping off and stalk conditioning works out.  I've already stopped seeing any fungus gnats so that's a good sign.  The surviving seedlings already look a little healthier.

I also started taking the pumpkins and the one adolescent tomato plant outside to begin their hardening process.  I'll probably start doing the same with the beans and peppers as soon as their stalks are strong enough to withstand the wind.  

Ooh and I nearly forgot to mention!  I finally picked the showpiece container plant for my garden.  Its going to be a setsuma mandarin orange tree.  If you're looking for a citrus tree for your garden this year, my Southern friends, and you're having a helluva time finding any because of the disease outbreak in Florida, send me a message.  I have good news and helpful info for you.  Think Monrovia!  More to come...

I Am The Seedling Slayer (or What NOT to do When Starting Seeds Indoors)

So I've had this problem for years now.  I'm an over-nurturer.  Just ask any of my friends that come to visit.  I tend to over feed them.  Well I also do the same for my plants.  While I've always had a pretty good green thumb, I tend to over nurture my plants, so of course I did that with my seedlings.

I started seeds in my house this year.  So nervous was I about direct sowing outdoors after the last frost, that I just had to start all my seeds indoors.  *eyeroll*  I'm such a nut.  Anyways, I've had a pretty good return on my efforts thus far except that I killed all my first attempts at tomatoes.  I started with 9 each of Roma, Cherry and Big Boy tomatoes in a big tray seeder.  In the rest of the slots, I planted wildflower seeds.  72 Slots in all were planted.   My seedlings came up nice and strong and I was sooo pleased with myself.

Things were great until we had some great weather one day and I thought "my babies could use some fresh air and sunshine!".  Wrong wrong wrong!  See, what I didn't know was that the sun can burn seedlings.  Yeah, it made no sense to me, either.  It seems that you have to do what they call "hardening" your seedlings before they can tolerate long periods of direct sunlight.  And before you can do that, your seedlings have to have "true leaves".   True leaves are the next set of leaves that grow after a seed germinates.  When a seed germinates, it comes up out of the ground with these round, lumps of leaves.  Those are not "true leaves".  The next set that they grow is the "true leaves" set.  Once you see those, you can start to harden your plants.  

To harden them, you take them outside for a short period each day successively.  So, for instance, on Saturday you take them outside for a half hour.  Sunday for an hour.  Monday for an hour and a half.  Tuesday for two.  etc.  You do this for about a week.  Well, I didn't harden my seedlings at all before taking them outside for 5 hours that day.  After I brought them back in, the plants were in such a state of shock and burn that they just died back.  See what I mean?  Over nurturing.  

So I sewed all the slots with seeds again, this time choosing very hearty wildflowers, some of the tomatoes and some beans.  I also broke out another of my seeding trays and planted my peppers (4 different kinds) and two kinds of green beans.  I knew better than to just take them outside this time, but I just had to do my over nurturing thing again.  This time I over watered my little seedlings.  It started when they looked droopy.  I thought "awww!  you guys need some water!" and broke out my little watering can.  They just got droopier.  They would get thin at the base of their stems and fall over and die.  I watched with dismay as I lost about 40% of my first tray (tomatoes/wildflowers) and about 10% of my second (peppers/beans).  I didn't know what to do.

Then this week I noticed that I had a full-blown infestation of fungus gnats.  You may have seen these little guys before.  Tiny black gnats that you'll see flitting about the soil in your plants.  I had them last summer in some wildflowers I tried to sew in one of my containers outdoors.  Lost the whole pot to the gnats before I learned what had gone wrong.  And what I'd done to nearly kill every one of my seedlings this year. 

See, what happened here is called "Damping Off".  It happens when a yahoo like myself gets crazy with the watering can or when tainted soil is used.  Since I knew I'd used soil I'd mixed myself from perfectly sterile components, I knew it had to be the water.  Luckily I had that episode with the wildflowers last year, because I knew just what to do to stop the problem in it's tracks.  Dampening Off happens when fungus attacks the seedlings at the soil line.  Causing the seedlings' stems to thin and the top of the seedling to fall over and die.  The fungus gnats were just the harbingers of doom - like vultures circling over my seed trays.  (albeit very tiny vultures in a very large flock).  The solution?  Well you know me - it has to be organic.  And there was an organic solution right in my spice cabinet.  I sprinkled the soil of each seed tray lightly with cinnamon.  Cinnamon is a natural antifungal.  The flies took off and my seedlings are looking healthier.  In a few days the fungus gnats should be completely gone - their main food source (the fungus causing the Damping Off) having been eradicated.  

 So the short story is - when planting your seedlings - don't take them for a day in the park and if you over water them like a doofus - use cinnamon.  The lives you save may be your own plants.   You may make some enemies of the fungus gnats, though.  They'll just have to get over it.