Garden planning and planting

I like to keep track of what's happening in the garden so I made a garden binder for myself. I can record what seeds I sow- variety, brand, age (both directly in-ground and in our 'greenhouse' aka Juan Rapido's sunny office window), where plants are in the garden, when I plant, when I harvest, etc. Data keeping over time aids future planning- if no seeds spout from a package after a few tries then those seeds are no longer viable; if I plant a variety of pepper that does well and we love, I want to remember for next year. I also created a multi-year garden journal- just a notebook with a page for every day of the year. When something notable happens, I make an entry for the year and jot it down- bud break on the apple tree, first daffodil, or tree planting.

Since I have nice new rectangular garden beds, I decided to try using the square-foot gardening method. In this, you divide your garden bed into square feet- either physically with string or lath, or conceptually (I used a sharpie on the top of the boards). Then into each square foot a specified number of crops can be planted. I made guides with cardboard to help with spacing. But you can get fancy and make yourself dibbles. For example, in one square foot, you can grow 4 lettuce, or 16 radishes, or 1 broccoli. I started by drawing a plan of the garden, assigning each location a zone number, downloading and printing some grids, and putting this all in my binder. Each 4'x4' or 4'x5' or 4'x6' part of the garden has a grid where I write the date and crop planted. I made a quick list of what I thought I'd want to grow, how many of each plant to plan for, and thought about spacing out harvests over time. How do you think about what to grow? Ex. We eat radishes. But they grow quickly and I don't need more than 5 or 6 a week. So every two weeks I plant a square foot of radish seeds (16). We eat one cauliflower/ Romanesco/ cabbage a week so I planted the new 4x4 raised bed with the first round of Brassicas and I'm saving the middle section of the 4x12 bed for the next round. Those seeds just sprouted this weekend! Having a grid and a plan means I can think about what will go where before I even start sowing seeds.

I also watched the sun/ shade move around the garden before starting. The shady area under the Ceanothus is reserved for leafy greens that don't like too much heat. This past weekend we picked up our plant order from the UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners of Alameda County and filled in what they didn't have from Western Garden Nursery in Pleasanton. Sunday was spent adding Sure Start organic fertilizer, plant supports (cages, stakes), and planting the summer crops, mostly in the upper beds. Living somewhere with sun and heat for the first time in 23 years I'm excited to try a few tomato varieties, peppers, melons, winter squash, and eggplant!

At this point, most of the garden has been planted and we've already had two salads of radish, lettuce, & arugula. The next project will be to finish extending the irrigation system to the new beds.

Crop list

Burbank Tomato

Sungold Cherry Tomato

Purple Cherokee Tomato

Sugar baby Watermelon

Sun and Moon Watermelon

Jaune de Canari Melon

Charentais Melon

Black Beaty Summer Squash

Long Island Cheese Winter Squash

Koginut Winter Squash

DiCicco Broccoli 

Snowball Cauliflower

Romanesco

Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage 

Green Beans (variety)

Jalapeno Chili Pepper

Anaheim Chili Pepper

Sweet Banana Pepper

Poblano Pepper "Hot Caballero Red"

Fava beans 

Marketmore Cucumber

Tendergreen Cucumber

Sumter Cucumber

Black Beauty Eggplant

Oregon Sugar Pod peas

Kohlrabi

Blue Vates Kale

Lacinato Kale

Red onion

Hardneck garlic

Purple Top Turnips

Red Beets

Bloomsdale Spinach

Mustard Greens

Basil, Italian Genovese

Basil, Thai

Radicchio

Butter lettuce

White bunching onion

Cilantro

Arugula

Dill

Early Scarlet Globe Radish

French Breakfast Radish

Raised Bed installation

I like using raised beds for several reasons. They are easier to work in than in-ground beds and if you build them out of a sturdy enough material you can sit on the side to work the garden. The soil warms faster and filling the bed gives you more control over the growing medium, especially useful if you have poor, rocky, or contaminated soil. Finally, if there are ground-dwelling rodents eating your veggies, you can line the bottom of the raised bed with 1/4" hardware cloth to prevent entry from below. I also like the orderly look and defined growing space that raised beds create. In the past, I've been able to build beds with recycled plastic lumber- sturdy and indestructible for large-scale public use. The downside is the expense. So for our first round of garden beds, I opted for a lighter weight and less expensive option. The cedar beds I bought from Greenes Fence Co were easy to put together and I did a few things to try to prolong their life. 

First, I purchased an eco-friendly wood treatment from Vermont Natural Coatings in the cedar color.

That should help keep the wood from turning silver with age. Then I lined the inside of the beds with fairly heavy-duty landscape fabric. In this case, I didn't worry about lining the whole bed, but just enough to keep the soil and water from running out between the wood slats or out the bottom.

Finally, I set the corner posts on bricks so that the wood isn't sitting on the soil surface. Reducing soil and moisture contact with the wood will help keep it from rotting. The kit I bought had enough pieces for me to build a 4' x 12' and a 4'x4' bed since I didn't follow their instructions.

 After that, my friend offered to pick up 1cyd of American Soil and Stone "Local Hero Veggie Blend" to fill the beds. I mixed it with some bagged potting mix. It didn't take too long to empty the truck and fill the garden bed. Time to plant!