January 2009 Archives
I got a great question in my comments about my new square foot beds.
Zippy wrote:
So in case anyone else is curious about why I'm using Hill Country Garden Soil in my beds instead of Mel's mix of compost, vermiculite, and peat moss, here's my answer:
Zippy wrote:
Hi Rachel, and thanks for your site! Good to see other Austin bloggers out
there working with square foot gardens! I had a question on my blog from a
fellow Austin gardener about using the Hill Country Garden soil in an SFG.
I remembered that I had come across your site last spring when I was
researching using SFGs in Central Texas, and how you talked about using the
Hill Country rose soil in your raised beds, and now I see you're doing the
SFG with the HC Garden Soil and compost. I referred her/him to your site,
but thought I'd ask you myself: why did you decide not to do the
traditional Mel's mix of compost, vermiculite and peat moss, and how is the
Hill Country Garden soil working out for you? I used Lady Bug Revitilizer
compost, perlite and peat moss in my two SFGs last spring, but if the HC
Garden soil + compost works well, that would be a heck of a lot easier than
mixing up stuff for the new SFGs I will be planting this spring.
So in case anyone else is curious about why I'm using Hill Country Garden Soil in my beds instead of Mel's mix of compost, vermiculite, and peat moss, here's my answer:
Hi Zippy! Great questions.
Last year, when we made our first raised beds, we chose Hill Country rose soil on the advice of one of the guys at the Natural Gardener. He suggested it because it was slightly acidic, which can be helpful in our alkaline soils. Over time, the alkaline will leach in, but having slightly acidic soil is a bit of a buffer. I hadn't read the "All New" Square Foot Gardening book at that point (though I had read the original book), so I didn't know about Bartholomew's transition to raised beds or his soil mixture. Our first raised beds weren't technically square-foot gardens because there weren't any grid, but let's just say that when we started building the new raised beds for our first front yard SFG, we knew what needed to be done.
Before we got started on our new gardens, we attended a seminar at the Natural Gardener called Prosperity Gardening - which was basically all about square-foot gardening. John Dromgoole is apparently working with Mel Bartholomew on an even better soil blend, so they have several square foot test beds set up to try out different soil combinations. They've found that most of their soils (which are all blends of decomposed granite, compost, and topsoil in varying combinations) work just as well as Mel's mix - as does the bed of straight compost. If you haven't been out to Oak Hill to see their SFG's, you really should go if you get the chance - they're quite inspirational!
In general, I've tried to avoid peat moss, one of the main components of Mel's mix, from a sustainability standpoint. I'd read that the harvest of peat moss was unsustainable, though my quick google search just now indicates that the jury might still be out on that one. In any case, it's trucked in from Canada, and if there's anything my Canadian husband and I know for sure from our many months of long-distance dating, Canada is a long way from Austin!
So far, I've been very pleased with the Hill Country Garden Soil, and I've been pleased with the Rose Magic in the back yard beds, as well. There was no real thought behind our switch - just another employee recommendation.
Time for another installment of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, where Carol of May Dreams Gardens invites us to show others what we have in bloom in our garden.
We recently got an outdoor weather station, which informs me that the temperature dropped to 32.5F last night. The night before, the temperature fell to 30F - not quite the hard freeze we were fearing, but enough to knock some of my blooms out of commission.
The other thing that complicates GBBD for me, particularly when it falls on weekdays, is that I have to leave the house before it's entirely light outside, and I don't get home until it's dark in the evenings. I had just enough time this morning to search out a few blooms before the bus arrived to take me to work.
The strange light on this one? The sun was just rising over the fence when I took this photo of the lavender in my herb garden, which survived our long, hot, dry summer and seems to be flourishing this winter. Why do I bother growing grass in my front yard, when I could grow lavender, instead?
I bought a small flat of sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) a few months back, and it has impressed me by taking neglect and drought in stride. I put a couple of plants into this pot, and a few more into the square foot gardens in the front yard. I bought a small flat of Alyssum 'Easter Bonnet Violet' at the same time and have found it not quite as tolerant. That said, both seem to be thriving in my square foot garden in the front yard, though I didn't have a chance to photograph them this morning.
Please disregard my sad brown grass. We're in a drought.
We recently got an outdoor weather station, which informs me that the temperature dropped to 32.5F last night. The night before, the temperature fell to 30F - not quite the hard freeze we were fearing, but enough to knock some of my blooms out of commission.
The other thing that complicates GBBD for me, particularly when it falls on weekdays, is that I have to leave the house before it's entirely light outside, and I don't get home until it's dark in the evenings. I had just enough time this morning to search out a few blooms before the bus arrived to take me to work.
The strange light on this one? The sun was just rising over the fence when I took this photo of the lavender in my herb garden, which survived our long, hot, dry summer and seems to be flourishing this winter. Why do I bother growing grass in my front yard, when I could grow lavender, instead?
I bought a small flat of sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) a few months back, and it has impressed me by taking neglect and drought in stride. I put a couple of plants into this pot, and a few more into the square foot gardens in the front yard. I bought a small flat of Alyssum 'Easter Bonnet Violet' at the same time and have found it not quite as tolerant. That said, both seem to be thriving in my square foot garden in the front yard, though I didn't have a chance to photograph them this morning.
Please disregard my sad brown grass. We're in a drought.
I've had a great time learning to force bulbs this winter. This is my second paperwhite project; I potted the first set of paperwhite bulbs at Thanksgiving, and by a week before Christmas, I was able to give them away to my grandmother. I received this bulb and pot set for Christmas and planted them shortly thereafter.
I brought them to work with me, to take advantage of the giant windows in my office.
I arrived at work Tuesday morning to see the bulbs capped with at least three buds, and by Wednesday, they were starting to unfurl. One of my cowokers took photos of the process, which I'll post if I get copies of them.
Today, my office is filled with the scent of paperwhite (Narcissus tazetta, according to the packaging). I would characterize the smell as perhaps cloying, but sweet and perfumy. So far, my office mate hasn't complained.
Stalkers take note: The Eyes of Texas are upon you.
Owing to the limited daylight I had to work with today, I didn't get pictures of everything blooming in my garden.
I'm using pansies heavily this time of year, to fill in spots in my square foot garden, as well as to add color to the back yard.
My bulbines, ever faithful, continue to bloom, despite our sudden descent into seasonal temperatures.
I've got some purple trailing lantana growing discreetly in the front yard so I won't be tempted to remove it, and some Salvia greggii still blooming, as well. It's time to shear them down, I know!
And that's about it! I'm looking forward to the approaching spring.
Owing to the limited daylight I had to work with today, I didn't get pictures of everything blooming in my garden.
I'm using pansies heavily this time of year, to fill in spots in my square foot garden, as well as to add color to the back yard.
My bulbines, ever faithful, continue to bloom, despite our sudden descent into seasonal temperatures.
I've got some purple trailing lantana growing discreetly in the front yard so I won't be tempted to remove it, and some Salvia greggii still blooming, as well. It's time to shear them down, I know!
And that's about it! I'm looking forward to the approaching spring.
Happy New Year to the loyal few who haven't given up on me ever posting another weblog entry. One of my New Years resolutions is to be more organized in documenting the changes and progress I see in my garden. Not all of that is likely to get posted on this site, but some of it hopefully will!
In October, 2007, we built our first raised bed, a 4' x 8' x 10" box of untreated pine, in the back yard, so we wouldn't have to fight with our dense clay soil and the weeds that continually sought to overtake our vegetable garden. In January, 2008, we added a pair of 4' x 4' cedar boxes. In general, I love my raised beds. I love that I can dig into them with a trowel, that they're largely weed free, that the soil is rich and well-drained.
We've been growing veggies in our raised beds with fair to middling results. We've had enough produce to be able to taste a bit while we're wandering around in the garden, but not enough to really use or give away or save for later. Gardening is, even at the best of times, a moving target. Each year is different from the one before it, and it can be hard to pinpoint what factor made the difference. Are our beds getting enough sun? Are they being watered sufficiently? (Goodness knows there hasn't been enough rain for them in the past year! 2008 was the fourth driest year in recorded history in the Austin area.)
We've concluded that our back yard beds aren't getting enough sun, and that we haven't been organized enough to maximize the potential of the beds. I've been researching square-foot gardening for the past few months, as a way to better organize our planting efforts, and over the holidays, we've been working to put together a couple of boxes in the front yard.
Thankfully, we don't have an HOA.
We decided on the front yard for two reasons:
1) We get much more sun in the front yard. We have a couple of live oak trees, but they're young enough not to block the sunlight on the beds for several years, at the least.
2) We want people to know what their food looks like when it's growing. Kids ride their bikes up and down the sidewalk all the time, and I suspect most of them don't get the chance to experience much gardening. We decided that sharing some of the produce with passers by was a fair tradeoff for locating our new raised beds in the front yard.
So we built our two new 4'x4'x6" beds out of cedar. We originally went to Lowes to get the lumber, because we had a coupon for a discount, but... well, either their saw couldn't cut 2-inch planks, or the employee operating the saw didn't know how to use it. We have a small car, and fitting 8-foot planks in it isn't a viable option, so we went to McCoy's in Georgetown and got our lumber there. It was a bit of a drive, but it was a good excuse to have lunch at the Monument Cafe with my friend Claudia, so it was well worth it.
Scott used 3" wood screws to fasten the planks into 4'x4' squares, and then we used bamboo staking to make the permanent square-foot grid. We filled the beds with Hill Country Garden Soil from the Natural Gardener, and then we top-dressed with farm-style compost, for extra rich soil. We used several layers of newspaper as weed barrier, both in and around the beds; you can see some sticking up that needs to be mulched over.
And then we started to plant our squares! Two beds give us 32 squares for planting, and most of the squares can be subdivided for maximum production in minimal space. It turns out, 32 is a lot of squares. We definitely aren't using our square-foot garden to its maximum potential yet, but having extra squares gives us a way to pace our veggies; we have a couple of squares of lettuce and greens seedlings, and a couple more where we've planted seeds for various kinds of greens, which will be ready to be harvested in several weeks. I interspersed several squares of pansies with herbs and vegetables, to keep things pretty and colorful, and I plan to transplant some of our strawberry offshoots from the beds in the back yard.
And from there, we'll see how it goes! There's a chance for rain tomorrow, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.
In October, 2007, we built our first raised bed, a 4' x 8' x 10" box of untreated pine, in the back yard, so we wouldn't have to fight with our dense clay soil and the weeds that continually sought to overtake our vegetable garden. In January, 2008, we added a pair of 4' x 4' cedar boxes. In general, I love my raised beds. I love that I can dig into them with a trowel, that they're largely weed free, that the soil is rich and well-drained.
We've been growing veggies in our raised beds with fair to middling results. We've had enough produce to be able to taste a bit while we're wandering around in the garden, but not enough to really use or give away or save for later. Gardening is, even at the best of times, a moving target. Each year is different from the one before it, and it can be hard to pinpoint what factor made the difference. Are our beds getting enough sun? Are they being watered sufficiently? (Goodness knows there hasn't been enough rain for them in the past year! 2008 was the fourth driest year in recorded history in the Austin area.)
We've concluded that our back yard beds aren't getting enough sun, and that we haven't been organized enough to maximize the potential of the beds. I've been researching square-foot gardening for the past few months, as a way to better organize our planting efforts, and over the holidays, we've been working to put together a couple of boxes in the front yard.
Thankfully, we don't have an HOA.
We decided on the front yard for two reasons:
1) We get much more sun in the front yard. We have a couple of live oak trees, but they're young enough not to block the sunlight on the beds for several years, at the least.
2) We want people to know what their food looks like when it's growing. Kids ride their bikes up and down the sidewalk all the time, and I suspect most of them don't get the chance to experience much gardening. We decided that sharing some of the produce with passers by was a fair tradeoff for locating our new raised beds in the front yard.
So we built our two new 4'x4'x6" beds out of cedar. We originally went to Lowes to get the lumber, because we had a coupon for a discount, but... well, either their saw couldn't cut 2-inch planks, or the employee operating the saw didn't know how to use it. We have a small car, and fitting 8-foot planks in it isn't a viable option, so we went to McCoy's in Georgetown and got our lumber there. It was a bit of a drive, but it was a good excuse to have lunch at the Monument Cafe with my friend Claudia, so it was well worth it.
Scott used 3" wood screws to fasten the planks into 4'x4' squares, and then we used bamboo staking to make the permanent square-foot grid. We filled the beds with Hill Country Garden Soil from the Natural Gardener, and then we top-dressed with farm-style compost, for extra rich soil. We used several layers of newspaper as weed barrier, both in and around the beds; you can see some sticking up that needs to be mulched over.And then we started to plant our squares! Two beds give us 32 squares for planting, and most of the squares can be subdivided for maximum production in minimal space. It turns out, 32 is a lot of squares. We definitely aren't using our square-foot garden to its maximum potential yet, but having extra squares gives us a way to pace our veggies; we have a couple of squares of lettuce and greens seedlings, and a couple more where we've planted seeds for various kinds of greens, which will be ready to be harvested in several weeks. I interspersed several squares of pansies with herbs and vegetables, to keep things pretty and colorful, and I plan to transplant some of our strawberry offshoots from the beds in the back yard. And from there, we'll see how it goes! There's a chance for rain tomorrow, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.
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