How to Conserve Water in the Garden

Established Beans Don't Need Much Water

Compiled by Robin

In these days of water restrictions and drought throughout California, conserving water is more important than ever. Knowing the needs of each plant in your garden will help you water efficiently for maximum harvest and minimum water waste. I’ve gathered together some general watering tips as well as specific advice on how to water 15 of Santa Cruz county’s most popular home garden crops. Even during years of plentiful water and in areas of adequate rain, gardeners might consider the unpredictability of the weather and possible climate changes. Careful water use protects our future resources as well as lowering our financial commitment to the garden.

Making Seed Bombs

Easy Care Native CA Poppies

Inspired by Demo at the Maker Faire

Now that it’s raining again in California, and weather will become balmy throughout most of the US during the next few weeks, it’s time to think about bombing our landscape—with wildflowers. These bombs, made with recycled newspaper, will absorb water, break down, and with a little luck provide substrate to nurture the seeds inside as they develop. Making seed bombs is kid-friendly provided that an adult supervises or operates the blender. Whip up a batch and toss a few by your fence or in a weedy area, and see what happens.

Top 10 Herbs to Grow in Pots

Sweet Basil: Everyone's Favorite Garden Herb

Suggestions by Robin

Back in the days when I lived in the not-so-great part of Santa Cruz, before the city added street lights to discourage nefarious trades of all kinds, my landlord inhibited my attempts to have a garden by sudden yard activities. One time I came home the yard was shorn into a badminton court. Another time, horse poop was scattered all over everything. Another time the deck was ripped up, along with the jade plants I’d started growing next to it. Being a compulsive gardener and purchaser of seedlings, I began growing just about any plants that came my way in pots. Herbs, whether annual or perennial, are most practical. Not only do they add spark and finesse to meals, a line of herbs in same-size pots adds charm and elegance to even the most Spartan-looking landscapes. Here are 10 of my favorite pot-friendly herbs.

The Farm Report

Culinary Poppies Hoping for Some Rain Today

At Robin & Bruce’s House

Along with honoring veterans, participating in parades, and barbecuing, for many of us Memorial Day weekend means cleaning up the yard and doing some work in the garden. When I lived in New England, this was the weekend that I’d finally get to the planting, after much planning and soil preparation. In the Santa Cruz mountains, we started planting last month and are now harvesting lettuce and greens. And yet, harvesting a few veggies always seems to lead to planting more when it’s still early in the season. What are you planting this week?

Top 7 Plants for Container Gardens

Classic Container Plant, courtesy FuchsiaMagic.com

Plus 3 Container No-nos

Container gardens are all the rage right now, according to popular garden periodicals from budget-conscious Better Homes and Gardens to spare-no-expense Sunset Magazine. Containers come in all shapes and sizes, and more container-friendly plants are hybridized every year. Containers can provide inexpensive patio décor, and can be moved around during the growing season as temperature and light exposure changes. Container gardens require less soil and less manual labor to get started than larger beds, but they also require more frequent watering and fertilizing during the growing season. Be prepared to check the soil moisture and plant wiltiness every day when it’s hot out. Some plants will need daily watering when the weather is especially toasty.

Here are a few easy-to-grow plants that adapt well to containers, plus a few that I wouldn’t recommend under most circumstances. For other ideas, check your local garden store for new container-friendly varieties. Try chatting up workers and shoppers, if the opportunity presents itself.

DIY Square Foot Garden (SFG): Making a Hoop House

Easy, Functional Hoop House

Instructions by Bruce

My last two posts were about making a square foot garden: building the raised beds, and mixing the soil and planting. Today is the final chapter, on what it takes to sustain the garden: water, fertilizing, and temperature control. Making an inexpensive hoop house will allow you to plant earlier and get growing despite nighttime temperature dips. You can also use the hoop house to foil most bugs while providing the diffused lighting that seedlings prefer. I’ve also included a few tips on early-season garden maintenance. So without further ado, let’s get to it.

DIY Square Foot Garden (SFG): Making Soil and Planting Seeds

Bruce in Action

Instructions by Bruce

Once you have a raised bed built for your square foot garden (details in Sunday’s post,) you’re ready to fill it with soil, make the square foot grid sections, and plant your seeds. You can also build a hoop house to protect small plants from cold temperatures; I will give hoop house instructions in my next post. All New Square Foot Gardening, the latest and greatest book by SFG pioneer Mel Bartholomew, recommends soil made from equal parts of peat moss, vermiculite, and organic compost from several sources. Vermiculite holds moisture and reduces the amount of watering necessary. But there is considerable debate about it due to its high cost and sustainability (it’s mined). Bruce reduced the amount of vermiculite in the mix. He noted that a high quality compost mixture also holds substantial water as well as loosening the soil—vermiculite’s other soil-building contribution. Bruce replaced the classic SFG wooden grid with a woven grid of nylon twine secured by wood screws, both of which we had on hand. Without a grid, as Mel Bartholomew points out, it’s not a square foot garden.

DIY Square Foot Garden (SFG): Raised Bed Construction

My Hero of the Raised Beds

Instructions by Bruce

After doing a fair amount of research, hubby Bruce built some raised beds with a protective hoop house over the top.  He’s made a set of raised beds once before, and made some improvements this time. An IT guy by trade, Bruce made the construction sound easy. We were both intrigued by square foot gardening (SFG), a method of dividing the garden into square foot sections and planting one crop per square foot. The space requirement for a SFG is only 20% of that needed for a conventional garden. And you’re less likely to grow more than you can eat. It’s a great method to get food variety in a small space. We’re growing beans, lettuces, chard, squashes, braising greens, dill, and cilantro, despite recent near-freezing temperatures in the yard at night. I’m sharing Bruce's method for building the raised beds and hoop house over the next three posts. I encourage you to build your own too!

9 Steps to Planning a Perfect Garden

Springtime Joy in the Garden

Method by Robin

It’s officially spring, and sometime between early April and late May, folks in the 48 contiguous states will start preparing their gardens. Soon we’ll be digging the beds, removing the weeds, and amending the soil—or preparing the containers. Then we’ll be planting the seeds or seedlings, slug/bug-proofing, watering, fertilizing, and mulching. And later, feasting on our harvest. But first, for a productive growing season filled with just enough of the veggies that we love without overworking ourselves, it’s best to do some planning. Here are some tips for looking at your space, time, energy, and budget before you start planting.

Top Ten Plants for August Harvest

My Seed Poppies in June

Happy First Harvest!

It’s Lammas, the ancient Anglo-Saxon festival celebrating the first harvest. On this holiday, halfway between summer solstice and autumn equinox, ancients gathered grain and baked bread to share in hopes that later harvests would be bountiful. In ancient Celtic tradition, Lughnasadh is a time for harvest wild caneberries as well as grains.

Here in the Santa Cruz mountains, we have little corn and no wheat to harvest. But I do have seeds from poppies planted back in early April, and a perfect dry summer day for harvesting. Blackberries are beginning to ripen along rural pathways, so like the Celts we can graze in nature. August is a rich month for harvests, and the easiest time of year to eat locally on a budget. Below are a few foods to look for from your local farm this month.

12 Tips for Nontoxic, No-Poison Gopher Control

A Movie Star We'd Rather Not Meet, from Caddyshack

Inspired by Gophers Limited

Got gophers? If you’re a gardener in the US west of the Mississippi, you probably just said “Yes,” possibly followed by some expletive. It’s disheartening to lose the veggies that you’ve worked hard to cultivate at the hands (or the teeth) of these rascally rodents. For me, the last straw was the demise of a third lovely old English rose bush planted by a former resident. But using traditional poisons will also poison into your organic soil. Rain brings the poisons down into the water table. Poisoning gophers also poisons their natural predators such as gopher snakes, owls, bobcats, foxes and coyotes: your friends in gopher control. And of course, poison is unsafe around children and pets.

Top Ten (Plus Two) Garden Plants for May

Lavender & Poppies Combine Beautifully

Easy to Grow Food & Flowers to Plant Now

Gardening is a never-ending process on the central CA coast, just like all yard-work. In this temperate climate, it’s easy to dream big, yet always feel a bit behind in what needs to be done. There’s planning, preparing the soil, planting, thinning, weeding, applying organic fertilizer, and of course watering throughout the dry season. There’s harvesting, hiring a garden-sitter if you go on vacation, and turning over the beds at the end of harvest. Even in winter, there’s trimming the perennials and protecting them from freezing. That’s a lot of work. So why do we do it?

Early Season Gardening

Don't Try this at Home, Kids

Starting Tomatoes and Culinary Poppies

I’ve always loved digging in the dirt, how about you? Were you the kid with perpetual dirt stains on your knees, mixing mud of various consistencies for different “baked” treats…mudpies and their ilk? Or “stucco” a wall with mud? Did you ever use the hose to add water to your sandbox to get the sand to stick together so you could make something? If so, you have great potential as a gardener. Just loving plants is not enough. There’s no getting around the dirt factor. You have to be okay with getting dirt on your hands, clothes, and places you wouldn’t imagine dirt might go.

Happy New (Fruit & Vegetable) Year 2012!

Cabbages are Still in Season

It’s a new fruit and veggie year! Our CSA (consumer supported agriculture) farm is distributing the first of our seasonal shares this week. It’s time for new veggies, new recipes, and new ideas for conserving energy, both personal and planetary. This year I’m also changing my blog format to be more user-friendly. Instead of a weekly list of my veggies and menus, I’ll be writing a monthly listing of seasonal veggies, menu ideas, and recipe links, so you can get all of your menu ideas from one page each month. As I write new recipe posts during each month, I’ll link them up from that month’s reference page. I would love to find a stand-alone app to create weekly menus. If you know of one, please share so we all can make weekly menus easily.

Garden Planning

Accompaniments to
Garden Planning

As snowdrops push their way to the earth's surface and open into sweet white bloom, so vague dreams of this year’s garden develop into the excitement of planning beds and choosing seeds. I must credit Renee Shepherd from Renee’s Garden for getting me started early this year by sending me some seed samples last month. I met Renee quite a few years back as my teaching assistant in an Environmental Studies class at University of California. According to my sources (a former employee), she is still as sweet and as dedicated a worker as I remember her, donating seeds for charitable projects around the world. Throughout the years I’ve grown plenty of her heirloom flowers from seed, and am excited to be branching out into herbs and veggies.