photo credit: hardworkinghippy

Here in the Williamette Valley temperatures are still below normal. I lost some basil to dampening off. When conditions are cold and damp they stress tiny seedlings and promote the growth of fungus. If this happens seedlings will suddenly just fall over and die. So sad.

So here are four things to do to prevent dampening off.

1. Clean your containers. Recycling old containers is very environmentally friendly, but without a good cleaning they can harbor diseases. Before reusing your containers, wash them with very hot water and a biodegradable soap. If you still have trouble, you can mix a small amount of bleach in to help sterilize things.

2. Sterilize your seed starting mix. If you are reusing old potting mix it also could be hiding diseases. Commercial mixes aren’t always sterile either. You can bake your potting soil in the oven at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes. However this process does involve a smell that some might not enjoy. Another option is to cook your seed starting mix in the microwave. Cover and cook for about 8-10 minutes until steaming. Allow to cool.

3. Provide ventilation. Seeds need to stay moist in order to germinate, but there can be too much of a good thing. Providing a little fan for your seedlings can help them grow strong and stocky as well.

4. Avoid overwatering. You don’t need to water unless you see the top of the soil is starting to get dry, especially once the seeds have germinated. I find that even tiny seedlings without their first “true leaves” often have roots going right down to the bottom of the container.

Truthfully most of the time I find I can just buy some seed starting mix, pop it in a container, water, add seeds, water again, and presto! Baby plants! However, if you are starting seeds when it is cold and wet, dampening off can be a problem. Depending on what seeds you are starting, you might need to provide a seedling heating mat to avoid stressing your little darlings. In general, the more ideal the conditions, the less you have to worry. So give them lots of warmth and light too!

Hopefully warm, sunny weather will be on the way soon and we can forget all about the dreaded dampening off.

Technorati Tags: choosing garden containers, climate change, container gardening, Patio Gardening, seed starting, vegetable gardening

photo credit: gregor_y

Deb asked a very important question, about how to get you garden ready for planting, what to do with those nasty dirt clods. First, I think of clods as signals to your that your garden dirt needs something different.

Clods happen often in heavy clay soil. Clay soil can be great for growing plants because it contains lots of nutrients, but it’s also very heavy, making it difficult for the roots of your garden plants to penetrate. There are various solutions for this, but adding large amounts of organic matter to your garden beds has always worked for me. I like getting loads of old horse manure and then mixing a thick layer into my soil a few weeks before planting. You will get some grass seeds mixed into your soil when doing this, but I find that those weeds are easily pulled when they are small.

The most important thing to remember about dirt clods is that you shouldn’t be digging up your soil when it is too wet. I learned this from John Jeavons’ classic book, How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits. This is the book to buy if you are gardening in a small area and want to grow a lot of food for yourself. Jeavons’ recommends “double digging” your soil. This deeply loosens your soil and adds a ton of nutrients to create super fertile soil. Once that is done you can plant your vegetables much closer together than the standard recommendations and still expect each plant to produce well. The result is a ton of produce is a tiny area. I don’t always do this, but if I had the energy and a very small garden it would be the best way to grow a lot in a small area.

As Jeavons’ explains, if you dig while you soil is too wet you will break down it’s delicate structure and compact it, resulting in clogs. Think of your garden dirt as a cake; It has a crumb with a mixture of tiny rocks and bubbles of air and water. You don’t want to dig right after a rain, wait at least a couple of days. If you start digging and the soil sticks in big clumps to your shovel you know the soil is still too wet. Don’t dig when your soil is bone dry either. In California’s Central Valley where I use to garden, dry soil was like cement, making it impossible to dig. Even if you soil isn’t so heavy, you shouldn’t dig when it’s too dry because you will compact the soil and dry soil turns into dust and blows away very easily. They say it takes 1000 years to create one inch of good topsoil, so you don’t want any of that good stuff to blow away.

Sometimes I don’t dig or turn my soil at all, but rather clear away the weeds, mulch the soil with organic matter, and plant straight into that. If you want more information about planting a garden without having to dig and turn your soil, I would recommend Lasagna Gardening, by Patricia Lanza. Either way, it’s worth it to invest time and effort into preparing your soil before you plant. A little extra effort at the beginning will save a lot of effort and produce stronger healthier garden for you all year long.

Technorati Tags: garden soil, organic soil preparation, preparing your soil

photo credit: dok1

One task you should be thinking about in your fall garden is preparing your sustainable landscape now for spring planting. There are lots of different ways to prepare your garden dirt for spring planting from double digging to lasagna gardening. If you prepare your garden beds now then you can plant earlier in the spring, when the dirt is still too cold and wet to dig.

There are many good organic amendments you can add to your garden dirt now because the soil amendments will have time to rest over the winter and be ready to enrich your soil in the spring. Many organic soil amendments like compost or manure can chemically burn your plants if you add them to your while they are too fresh. Adding them to your dirt now will give them time to mellow before you plant.

What should you add to your soil now? Compost! If you don’t have compost from your own compost pile ready many cities now compost green-waste and allow residents to pick up the finished compost. If your city doesn’t do this you can buy compost from your local nursery.

One of my favorite soil amendments is old bedding from horse stables. Most stables have a huge pile of this stuff sitting around and are happy to let you truck it off for them. The bedding is a usually mix of horse manure and wood shavings which enriches and loosens your garden soil. It will contain some grass seeds that might germinate, but I have found that these are easily weeded in the spring when they are small. If you don’t want to risk it nurseries sell various types of animal manure that has been sterilized to kill any bacteria or seeds.

Again, this manure might still be chemically “hot” and burn your plants if you put it straight on your plantings. If the manure still has a strong yucky smell I would be cautious about where you put it. Finished compost and composted manure shouldn’t smell bad.

Another great thing to add to your garden dirt is leaves. You have to rake them off your lawn anyway, you might as well put them to good use. Composted leaves can be a great soil amendment. The trick is getting them to stay where you want them and not blow around. If you have a chipper you can put them through that and then spread them directly over your beds. You can also run over them with a lawn mower to break them up before spreading them. Some gardeners spread them as is on their beds, but I find that whole leaves tend to mat up over the winter making spring planting difficult. They also blow around causing you to have to rake them up again. Another option is to bag them up and allow them to decompose over the winter and then add them to your soil in the spring.

The final question in preparing your garden dirt for spring is whether to dig your amendments into the soil or mulch. Gardeners generally have strong opinions about this one way or another. I prefer to dig amendments into the soil of my vegetable beds once a year and then mulch. I also dig in lots of organic material like compost or manure when I first prepare a perennial bed or border. Many people advocate a no-dig method in order to reduce erosion and avoid disturbing soil ecosystem. No-dig can work, but it takes time (as in years) and I’m too impatient. I like to jump start my garden dirt! How about you? What are your favorite ways to prepare your soil for planting?

Technorati Tags: fall gardening, Garden Dirt, organic soil preparation

“Bark dust — the landscaper’s finish coat — is now selling for roughly $232 per unit (which is 7.4 yards, or about two and a half pickup loads), up 62 percent from last spring.

Bark, a byproduct of lumber milling, is in short supply because of the dramatic housing slump. Reduced demand for lumber translates to idle mills and less bark.”

Luckily there are lots of cheap alternative to buying bark. In Sacramento SMUD, the local power company collects all the trimmings from their work keeping power lines safe and supplies gardeners with free wood chips.

Even if your city doesn’t produce anything similar you can call local tree trimmers and ask them if they have an extra load wood chips they would like to get rid of. Often it cost them to get rid of the stuff so you are doing them a favor. You might think you don’t need an entire truck load of wood chips, but a thick layer of mulch is the best thing you can do for your garden. It keeps your soil cool and moist during these long Western summers.

Compost, either homemade or municipal is another great alternative. Davis, my home town offers free compost, made from local green waste twice a year. Residents have to shovel and transport the stuff back to their own gardens, but with a little planning local gardeners are able to get a few large bags or a trunk full each April and October.

If you live in San Francisco, then you can participate in their groundbreaking municipal composting program. Residents and restaurants compost food and yard waste and it all gets processed in a huge facility near Vacaville. The resulting compost can only be bought from Jepson Prairie Organics if you are a wholesaler. Technorati Tags: gardening, gardens, composting, compost

Technorati Tags: compost frugal