Archive for SOIL PREPARATION
March 19, 2012 · Filed under GARDEN PLANNING, general, SOIL PREPARATION, Starting a garden from raw ground · Tagged creating garden space, garden soil preparation, kitchen garden, new vegetable gardens, raised bed garden, starting a garden from raw land, vegetable gardening
Here is a picture of the new vegetable garden section this morning after a dusting of snow. It is now fenced completely except for the 2 gates, one of which was created today but still needs to be hung. All the raised beds are done.
My friend Adam, has been helping me and boy what a help he is! Quite the worker bee! He came out the other day and finished creating the beds except for one area that has a giant rock in it. I swear this rock keeps the whole neighborhood from sinking! So we let it remain (like we could dig it out-ha!) and will make an area with a bird bath and flowers to show it off.
The new garden has gone through an amazing transformation since I cleared the land last fall. I still have to put the horse manure in the new beds. It’s been a lot of work but is coming along nicely and should be ready by tomato planting time.
March 19, 2012 · Filed under 10 things to do in the garden in March, GARDEN PLANNING, general, SOIL PREPARATION, Starting a garden from raw ground · Tagged composted horse manure in garden, preparing gardensoil, vegetable gardening
Time to Get Busy!!
March is an incredibly busy month for gardeners. So many things to do (or should do) that it makes my head swim. New garden sections to make, ordering my final seeds, starting seeds inside, starting seeds outside, transplanting seedlings, amending the beds-the list goes on and on and I love it! Soon my hands will be brown again from digging in the dirt. No wonder I liked to play in the dirt when I was a little kid!
Next I will complete the new beds, finish the area around the new garden, make two gates for the new garden section to keep the rabbits out. Then I will put horse manure as a soil amendment on all the beds both new and old. My trailer was so full, my Forerunner could barely pull it. I bet I have about 2000 lbs of poop in it! The stuff I got is still a little hot (oh really? the manure was a little steamy when it was loaded!) but will cool down over the next 2 months before I plant tomatoes. I’ll use my really aged (6 months or more) horse manure, aged chicken manure and compost for the potatoes and fava beans that will go in the old section later this month. The vegetables I plant in May will get this newer ‘aged’ manure as it will have time to decompose and cool down.
I’ve decided to put the greenhouse on the back burner until the garden is in and then have it ready for fall which makes more sense anyways as it will be hot in June.
March 8, 2012 · Filed under COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS, DISEASE CONTROL, GARDEN PLANNING, GARDENING TIPS, general, mycorrhizal, ORGANIC DISEASE CONTROLS, ORGANIC PEST CONTROLS, organic pesticides, row cover, SOIL PREPARATION, squash pest controls, squash tips, starting seeds tips, tomatoes growing tips, VEGETABLES · Tagged difference between heirloom and hybrid plants, Heirloom plant, hybrid plant, Santa Fe Master Gardener Vegetable Class, vegetable gardening
I’ve been totally busy teaching classes lately and the last class I taught was the Santa Fe Master Gardener Intern Class on Vegetables. All I can say to the interns is hang in there. Yes there are some difficult classes to get through but there are some great instructional classes as well that are like a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t till I became a Master Gardener that I really blossomed as a gardener. And now I am a rabid gardener! The knowledge you will continue to gain afterwards, the contacts, camaraderie and friendships you will develop will help you grow as well as the plants you will be growing! Hopefully you enjoyed and learned a lot from the Vegetable class. (Yes it was my favorite class when I was an intern!) So for those of you who couldn’t come to class or aren’t in the program but are interested, here are the information sheets. I want to make them available to all.
VEGETABLE GARDENING IN SANTA FE gives an overview of vegetable gardening in Santa Fe.
INFORMATION SHEET covers what the differences are between an Heirloom, Hybrid and GMO plant and explains what mycorrhizae fungi is and how it helps plants grow.
HERBS is a list of perennial and annual herbs we can grow here in Santa Fe.
PLANTING TOMATOES and PLANTING SQUASH both address how to transplant them into the garden and some of the things I add to help grow these beautiful vegetables and also how to help thwart the dreaded squash vine borer and squash bugs.
SEED STARTING DATE CALCULATOR from Johnny’s Seeds is the same one from the previous post but if you didn’t read it, then here it is. A great tool for when to start seeds or transplant them into the garden.
And now if you will excuse me, I will continue starting my seeds inside! Perfect day-cold, windy and snowy!
November 15, 2011 · Filed under Fall/Winter Planting tips, GARDEN PLANNING, general, giant pumpkin growing tips, GIANT PUMPKINS, mycorrhizal, SOIL PREPARATION · Tagged amendments for pumpkin patch, composting, fall garden chores, preparing pumpkin patch
Horse manure on top of pumpkin patch
I’ve been really busy this fall around the garden since the Pumpkin Bash. It seems like I never have time to do any projects when the garden is going so I try and get some of the projects done in the fall before the dead of winter. Last week cleaned out the pumpkin patch and then I rented that Bobcat where I spread out about 4 yards of horse manure on top of it. I really needed to dig it in or it would blow away before spring.
giant rototiller-16 hp
So yesterday I rented a giant rototiller (16 hp) and plowed in the 4 yards of manure, 50 lbs dried molasses (it smells so sweet), 50 lbs mushroom compost (are we cooking here?), and 50 lbs of gypsum (for calcium-makes strong bones, I mean strong plants!) in the pumpkin patch.
final pumpkin patch done
Now it looks so beautiful and is ALMOST ready for next spring! I still have to dig in some leaves (in the holes where I will be planting the pumpkin plants next spring) and a little (I mean very little) composted chicken manure to start the decomposition process so they can decompose over the winter and become leaf mold or should I say leaf gold by spring. This will be the third year for this pumpkin patch and boy what a difference three years makes when you add amendments each year. It’s starting to look good and the rototiller just cut through it fluffing it up together. I don’t like to rototill very much because of how hard it is on the soil microbes but felt that I needed to do it for now since this dirt was so void of any organic material and hard as a rock. I think after this year I’ll won’t have to do it again. I will add more mychorrizial next spring to help replenish the soil microbes.
April 25, 2011 · Filed under GARDEN PLANNING, general, SOIL PREPARATION · Tagged composted horse manure in garden, preparing gardens, vegetable garden, vegetable garden plans, vegetable gardening
MY FUTURE GARDEN-CAN YA SEE IT!??(click picture to see bigger)
Well, I told everyone on my blog and in the Master Gardening classes about Arrow Ranch’s free horse manure here in Santa Fe that they load for free and when I went to get some, they were all out! So I had to scrounge around to find some OLD manure and finally did in Eldorado horse stables. Went and got 2 trailer loads full and got it all dug in main veggie garden except for 3 small beds that I will finish up this week. I will hook up the drip system and make sure it is working also this week. Here is a picture with what will be! Not much now but just you wait!
We’ve been having some great weather, but this week it’s suppose to get cold at night again so I think unless the weather changes, I will wait till next week to plant tomatoes. Now all I got to do is wait for good weather…
March 5, 2011 · Filed under 10 THINGS TO DO IN THE GARDEN EACH MONTH, 10 things to do in the garden in March, general, SEEDS, SOIL PREPARATION · Tagged 1, cool season crops, growing seedlings, planning your garden, spring gardening, ten things to do in the vegetable garden in March, vegetable garden, vegetable gardening
Now is the beginning of our season for fruit and vegetable gardeners. I got my light boxes out! Woo! Hoo! Here we go! Here are 10 things to do for or in your garden this month.
1. Finish ordering your seeds or getting your seeds if you haven’t already.
2. Get your light tables and heating mats out and ready to go. Use florescent lights that are at least 3000 lumen. I use the daylight ones. They produce less ‘leggy’ veggies.
3. Start tomato, pepper and eggplant seeds indoors to set out later as transplants depending on variety.
4. Finish your garden plans
5. Get your soil tested to see what amendments you might need to add to it.
6. Put horse manure that has been aged for at least 6 months on your garden beds and dig in. Don’t put on ‘hot’ manure.
7. Hurry up and finish pruning your fruit trees. Not much time left.
8. Spray your fruit trees with dormant oil before their buds turn color to smother any dormant bugs.
9. Water your trees.
10. Plant COOL SEASON vegetable seeds OUTSIDE on ST. PATRICK’S DAY. Some varieties include carrots, beets, lettuces, spinach, arugula, bok choy, swiss chard, onions, brocolli, cabbage, peas, radishes, mustard, kale and other greens.
January 20, 2011 · Filed under general, SOIL PREPARATION · Tagged garden cleanup
Finally-done. It only took 4 months but the garden is finally ALL raked up and I put it in my trailer. Then I took my trailer that was overflowing with all the garden debris to the dump. I don’t keep any of the dead plants because I don’t want any possible disease or pests harboring in my compost-especially in winter when it doesn’t get so hot. It all came out to 600 lbs! That’s a lot of loading.. and dumping..
December 5, 2010 · Filed under general, SOIL PREPARATION · Tagged A & L Western Laboratories, preparing soil, soil analysis, soil tests, testing your garden soil
Not having great soil is really a problem here in Northern New Mexico and makes growing anything a challenge. Having good soil where you want to plant veggies is the most important thing you can do. People ask me all the time how do I grow such great veggies and the secret is-it’s all about the soil! So the more we learn about how to improve our soil the better our growing results will be. So read on.
Here is an excerpt from Payne’s Nurseries site here in Santa Fe on ‘How to Build Your Northern New Mexico Soil’ which is worth reading in it’s entirety.”We have three basic types of soil here in Northern New Mexico: caliche, adobe and sand. All are alkaline, with a pH often over 7.0, and tend to contain abundant quantities of sodium, calcium and potassium. Caliche, adobe, and sand all lack organic matter, the nutrients and organisms of which are essential for sustaining high quality plant growth and production. Caliche is made up of sand, gravel and clay. Adobe is essentially fine clay. Neither soil type is easily penetrated by water. Sand, on the other hand, allows water through but has a limited ability to hold nutrients or moisture.” Check out the article. Most of us have some combination of these 3 types. Fertilitzers feed the plant but not the soil which also needs to be fertile and more and more people are just learning that.
One of the things I mentioned in an earlier post is I’m getting a soil test specifically for growing my giant pumpkins and I will get one for my veggie garden where I grow tomatoes also. I researched where other pumpkin growers are getting their soil analysis done and I will use A & L Western Laboratories in Modesto, Ca for mine as they can test for any crop I specify versus a general soil test. My fellow pumpkin nuts tell me to get the S3C COMPLETE Analysis package from A & L and to get the recommendations as well. The soil sample collected should be a composite from 10 to 20 locations within a selected area; a sufficient number to “average out” variations. You can learn how to properly take soil samples from them here. Other soil testing companies may have other protocol so check with whoever you use as to how they want you to collect soil samples.
There is nothing wrong with getting a general soil test (instead of for a particular crop) and that is what I would get if I didn’t grow competitively but I want to get the most out of my soil for my pumpkins.
You can also get a general soil analysis from a NMSU laboratory here and you can go to NMSU Soil Test Interpretations site to learn what your test means. Reading the tests isn’t easy but once you get one done you’ll be better able to understand what needs to be added to your garden for next year’s growing season so you can have a wonderful lush, productive garden next year. I’ll post what the results are as soon as I get them back.
May 20, 2010 · Filed under cucumbers, general, SOIL PREPARATION, SUMMER SQUASH, tomatoes, VEGETABLES · Tagged cucumbers, preparing soil, SUMMER SQUASH, tomatoes
When I think of all the things I still need to do in the garden, I’m overwhelmed. So I break all the things I need to do into bite size projects and surrender that it will get done when it gets done. Yesterday I was down in the main garden preparing some holes and adding amendments with composted horse manure, fertilizer, rock phosphate and mycorrhizal in it. Today I planted the summer squash and cucumber seeds in them. Thirteen of my 35 tomatoes look pitiful. Luckily I have some more to replace them which I will do by the end of the weekend. They either froze or thrashed by the wind-tough winter and spring. Tomorrow I need to focus on a glassblowing workshop we are doing so looks like I wouldn’t get back to it till Saturday.
April 2, 2010 · Filed under general, SOIL PREPARATION, starting seeds tips, VEGETABLES · Tagged cool season crops, soil prep, vegetable garden
This week I finally planted one of my raised beds up by the house. But first I prepped the soil by digging in 3 inches of composted horse manure-then I planted spinach, snow peas, cauliflower, lettuce, arugula, lettuce and mesclun seeds. Then I put the existing drip system in place that I will use after it stops freezing at night. Afterwards I covered the bed with medium weight row cover. For now, I hand water right through the row cover which is nice as it doesn’t disturb the seeds and gives protection from the cold at night and the rabbits when the seeds sprout. I’ll take pictures as soon as they come up.
March 29, 2010 · Filed under general, GIANT PUMPKINS, SOIL PREPARATION · Tagged compost, composting, SOIL PREPARATION
Well we got about 14 yards of composted horse manure yesterday most of which went into Bri’s Giant Pumpkin Patch with enough left over to replenish the regular garden. I struck gold-brown gold! It was fun driving the Bobcat. I want one of these! Here are some pics.
driving the bobcat
getting ready to dump the load
dumping the load into the trailer
spreading it into the new giant pumpkin patch
March 27, 2010 · Filed under general, SOIL PREPARATION · Tagged compost, SOIL PREPARATION
Bri-1996-2009
Since I lost my beloved horse, Bri, last October to colic, I don’t have any more horse manure for the garden or my compost piles. My neighbor called me and said they were renting a Bobcat for the weekend and offered it to me to take all of their horse manure after they got done with their projects. They have about 4 years of it so it should be well composted. Today I went over and got a lesson in driving the Bobcat. Fun! Tomorrow I will get up early and start loading my trailer with it and making runs to my garden. I’m delighted as I made a new area for the giant pumpkins last fall and tilled some manure in but it needs more so I will amend it with this new stuff . I also need some for the new area where the tomatoes will go. I rotate my tomatoes to not be in the same place for three years so they will go where the pumpkins were last year. I can’t wait to get this stuff-it’s like gold! I will take some pics of the project tomorrow. Who would think one could get so excited over poop!
March 2, 2010 · Filed under SOIL PREPARATION, VEGETABLES · Tagged gardening, SOIL PREPARATION, tomatoes, vegetable gardening
Time to start some of my seeds! So here is how I do it:
Yesterday I got out the light fixture I made last year and brought it in the house. This year I’m going to try some natural light bulbs (instead of the flourescents I had last year). I also washed all the pots and containers in a 10% bleach solution to disinfect them in case there was anything to deter the baby seedlings growth. Then I number the pots with some masking tape and waterproof marker so that they correlate with my seed list of plants I want to grow (so I know what I planted in each pot). I put tape on the pots with the number instead of stakes with the name in the pots as sometimes the stakes fall out. Nothing like a mystery plant where the tag falls off!
Today I got the soil in the pots, watered the soil and then planted some of my seeds to their proper depth and put a little sand over them (the sand seems to stay moister and the seedlings can push through it easier). Then I mist the sand. That way the seeds don’t get disturbed or washed away. Afterwards they go on a plant heat mat to keep warm till they germinate. I will put the lights on a timer after they germinate. Some plants need light to germinate and some don’t. I’m still learning about this. I believe I read somewhere that tomatoes don’t need light to initally germinate but do right afterwards and of course thereafter.
I planted some tomato seeds, some pepper seeds and some eggplants. All these plants seem to take the longest to get growing to decent size before transplanting, so I like to start them early. I still have more tomato seeds to start but are waiting for the seeds to come in.
Last year I used Jiffy Soil starter and wasn’t happy when I first watered the seeds as the water rolled off the soil-so this year I got this new soil (Sun Gro Metro Mix 300) and the water immediately soaks in-much nicer! I am also going to put some insulation around the light fixture to keep the plants warmer at night as my tomatoes struggled last year when the house was cooler at night. I hope this will help. Tomatoes and peppers hate to be cold as I learned last year.
Also last year I was able to “sneak” my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants in early- April 23 (our last freeze date is May 15th) in wall of waters and they did really well (look at my slide show to see them) so that is another reason I start them this early but we will see what this year brings. We’ve had a very cold and wet winter so far (it was snowing again today)..sigh. But it was nice to be in and doing something gardening wise!
January 17, 2010 · Filed under SOIL PREPARATION · Tagged amendments, gardening, gardens, soil, vegetable gardening
I started getting the beds ready in the fall by adding some amendments but couldn’t get to all of them because of the weather changing to snow. So yesterday as the weather was beautiful-50 degrees and the ground wasn’t frozen, In my future giant pumpkin patch particulary where I will put the plants, I mixed up some compost, mushroom compost (small amount), horse manure (somewhat composted), Winterizer Yum Yum Mix, and pelleted gypsum which helps break up the soil and adds calcium which pumpkins so love and need. I still need to put some composted horse manure all over the patch but that will be another day.
My friend Adam, has been helping me and boy what a help he is! Quite the worker bee! He came out the other day and finished creating the beds except for one area that has a giant rock in it. I swear this rock keeps the whole neighborhood from sinking! So we let it remain (like we could dig it out-ha!) and will make an area with a bird bath and flowers to show it off.
