FarmCity Food Garden Construction

Gardening Season Has Begun!

This January, it's been frosty, and foggy, and now we're back to rain again.  But believe it or not, the gardening season has already started!  

Planning: There's lots to consider for the upcoming season: in recalling what crops your grew last year (where they were planted, how they did), you'll be working out what this year's crop rotation will be.  You don't want to plant the same plants in the same place year after year, because the soil will have accumulated diseases and fungi particular to that kind of plant.  So in order to keep down such pests as garlic rust, tomato blight or wireworms in your carrots, it's important to rotate the location of your crops each new season - preferably on a 3 or 4-year cycle.  

You'll also want to think through whether the various crops did as well as they could have - or whether you want to change strategies: maybe you just can't grow a pear tree in such waterlogged soil, so you'll have to move it to a drier spot.  Or the beets were too tough and fibrous, so they should be planted in a somewhat shadier area.  Or those heirloom beefsteak tomatoes just aren't your thing.

Beyond the planting plan, there are plenty of other issues to consider, of course - take your pick from the full array of gardening issues and questions that constitute the rich world of food gardening!  From wheelbarrows to soil care,  from building new beds to contemplating companion plants (like calendula, left).

Ordering Seeds: The absolutely best part of food gardening - except maybe the eating part - is deciding what to grow for the coming season.  Time to have a look in the freezer at the seed you saved from last year.  You'll also soon be seeing veggie seeds in every grocery store and gardening centre - and it's impossible to resist browsing them.   Or if you're going the catalogue route, it's worthwhile working with a company from your local area so that you're sure you're getting accurate information (for people on the West Coast, we've mentioned West Coast Seeds before).  

Outdoor Planting: the one crop you can sow outdoors within a few weeks, is peas.  They prefer the cool climate of late winter/early spring - and die off by late June.  Plant them in repeated flights 2 or 3 weeks apart, so as to keep a steady supply going for as long as possible.   They'll need to be near a trellis or other support, of course, so they can grow up into the sun and away from the damp soil!

Indoor Sprouting: It's a bit early yet, but for some of your planned crops, you'll need to be starting the seeds indoors well before the outdoor season starts.  Tomatoes, peppers (right), melons and artichokes, among others, need a longer growing season than we actually have here in the Vancouver area, so they should be planted indoors in March.  You can probably get any of these as a bedding plant in May or June, but growing from seed means you have far more varieties to choose from - including heritage plants and organically grown seed.  And it's a lot cheaper to grow from seed, too.

Sprouting Set-Up: In addition to getting seeds, you'll also need to ensure that you have the plant trays and lights needed for indoor sprouting.  These days, most good gardening stores supply these set-ups.  Just make sure to get not just growing trays - with holes for drainage - but also another set of trays without holes, to catch the run-off (learned that one the hard way!).

Inspect Your Garden: Now is also the time to go out and give your garden a good looking over, with an eye to what needs repairing or replacing - or how you want to expand your garden.  Do some of the raised beds need replacing?  Will you need a new wheelbarrow?  Is this the year to expand your garden to the front boulevard, where the light is amazing?  How much manure should you order?  And so on.

 How Can We Help?  We would be glad to talk over your ideas with you, and look at your garden, however large or small.  We can help you: arrive at an overall garden design for your particular situation; repair raised beds or build new ones; do the heavy lifting of moving soil and manure; plan and build custom planters, trellises, arbours, garden sheds and composters; lay a new drip hose system; dig in your cover crop; and spread compost.  Feel free to inquire about anything you need help with. 

Expert Gardening Advice: We have recently welcomed gardening expert Susan Stewart, 30-year veteran of West Coast food gardening, to our crew.  She's available to consult with you, in your garden, about your garden design and planting plan or on any other food gardening questions you may have.  Email or phone to book an appointment!

 

Good time to plant garlic!

Yep, still planting time!  It may feel as if not much grows in winter, but along with many greens and brassicas, garlic can easily be planted from September through November for harvest the following July. Plant them in a sunny spot in your garden (or where the sun used to be, now that the rains have started!  Don't fret, the sun will come again!)

Garlic Growing 101:

Soil: Garlic and onions grow well in a light, medium fertile soil that drains well.   Too much nitrogen in the soil causes heavy top growth and delays bulb formation.  This is why garlic and onions are known as a second yield crop, which means they do best when planted in an area where another crop - tomatoes or other plant that has needed a highly fertile soil - has already been grown and harvested.   For our West Coast environment, where the heavy rain means the soil is usually acidic, it also helps to amend the soil with wood ash or dolomite lime.

Planting - is just like planting all the other bulbs that you're putting in this fall!  Break apart the bulb and set individual cloves 4"-6" (10-15 cm) apart and about  2" (5cm) deep with the pointy side up. Garlic likes moisture, so if you plant the cloves even deeper, it should result in fatter bulbs.  

Again, like other bulbs, garlic doesn´t need its own bed: it can be planted in amongst other vegetables - in winter, scattered through a kale bed or interplanted with broccolis - as "health keeper."  Garlic repels slugs and snails, and also helps to prevent fungal infections in your other plants.   

Pests: Garlic is a relatively carefree with few pests or diseases.  Avoid leaving old plant parts in the ground and - as with all your food crops - use a rotation system in your garden, changing beds each year in a 3- or 4-year rotation.  We have also found out the hard way that top dressing (or probably digging in) manure is a bad idea: it apparently helps promote garlic rust, a viral infection that, while harmless to us, can slow growth and eventually kill the plant.

Garlic, the great protector!  While garlic and onions help to protect other plants, they're also medicinal herbs for us!  Besides vitamins and organic acid, they contain sulfureous essential oils - the source of that lovely garlic scent!  It's these oils that make garlic a good defense against disease: they have natural antibiotic properties, resulting in an antiseptic and disinfectant effect in our bodies. During cold season, people also take garlic pills - or just tuck into their favourite puttanesca recipe - to help fight off colds.

We like to grow "Red Russian" which has substantial purple-streaked bulbs and which can handle wet weather very well. It has a delicious taste and stores for about 4-6 month.

Below, a leek in the spring sun - another member of the onion family.

Year-Round Harvesting in Vancouver

Fresh lettuce in January - thanks to our row coverings!  Using the technique outlined in an earlier post about covered beds - using rebar, PVC pipe and plastic sheeting to make mini-greenhouses - we have been expanding our winter gardening ideas, and are now harvesting sweet, succulent lettuce in the middle of winter!  

Reading this mid-winter, you might look out at the pouring rain, and think, "No way I'll garden in the winter!"  But it's actually easier than in the summer!  Weed, prepare, and seed the beds in late August (earlier for the broccoli and other brassicas), and build the row covers.  In the first few weeks we watered a little, using a drip hose - but once the fall rains come, the ground gets so saturated, you don't even have to water all winter!  

Here's one covered bed, shown in late December, with various lettuces and other greens:

We've also been able to harvest sprouting broccoli (in the foreground) and kale throughout the winter - rather than only in early spring.  And out in the uncovered garden, our cabbages are overwintering as usual. 

I'm also throwing in a photo of our covered garden last August.  We built a super-sized cover (really, an ad hoc greenhouse) over some of our tomatoes, to protect them from the blight.  The greenhouse spanned two 5-foot wide garden beds with a path between - and was high enough to stand up in.  We left the ends open so it wouldn't get too hot or humid in there, but even so, the added heat really sped up the tomato ripening.  Lazy about weeding, we also grew an extraordinary crop of chickweed beneath the tomato plants.   We fed it to the chickens, of course!

It's Almost August, and There's Plenty of Time to Start Your Garden!

Here it is, getting on in the summer, and you just never found the time to find a free patch of dirt and start your new veggie garden as you always meant to!  But never fear, August is still planting time - and there's lots you can grow!  

Okay, it's too late to grow tomatoes or start corn, but there's still time to grow a crop of turnips, scallions, radishes, lettuces, and all kind of greens: endive, kale, collards, spinach and chard.  In the heat of the summer, most of these should be planted in partial shade - they'll go to seed in full sun.  The lettuce and the radishes, you should be able to plant in successive plantings a few weeks apart, and get several rounds of crops off before the summer comes to a close.

Plus, now's the time to start a seed bed of your winter crops - kale, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and onions.  You start them all from seed in one small area, then as the rest of your garden peters out in the fall, transplant the winter seedlings to the rest of your garden.   

From then on, they'll grow for another 6-8 weeks, depending on the weather, then basically go dormant through into late January or so.  Then, in February-March, you can start eating fresh food from your garden again!  We really do get a good nine months plus of garden food in a year!

You can also consider what perennials you want in your garden - raspberries, blueberry bushes, currants, and so on, and plan to plant them in the fall.  

Tomatoes - Already!

Most of us who grow tomatoes probably use nursery-grown seedlings, which we plant out in mid-May or so.  But really, the tomato-growing season has already begun!  In the Lower Mainland climate, tomatoes actually have to be started indoors several months before we can safely plant these heat-loving beasties outdoors!  If you can't wait to get out in the garden, you can start indoors now!

We choose to start them indoors ourselves because, while many nurseries are stocking more varieties of tomato seedlings than ever before, we still prefer the wider range of choice (and the economy) that we can get out of the seed catalogue.  From West Coast Seeds (http://www.westcoastseeds.com), we ordered seeds - many of them organic - for romas (great for sauces), several heirloom tomato varieties, and a couple different kinds of cherry tomatoes - as well as a few of the standard kinds (beefsteak tomatoes, for instance).  One of our favourites is the Green Zebra, which we grew last year: a gorgeous striped green when ripe, it is slightly tart but also sweet, and really juicy and firm - and it ripens early, so it works fine in places that don't quite get full sun.

These are our tomato sprouts after ten days (above) and after about 3-1/2 weeks (below).

The system we use to sprout the seeds involves these plastic trays and covers.  We cut holes in the covers to insert fluorescent tube lights.  (We have only very small south-facing window sills, so unfortunately, we can't use natural light - also a fine way to go).  Art Knapp's in downtown Vancouver - carries the trays and lights (http://www.artknapps.ca).  But beware!  The trays have holes in the bottom, so unless you put the tray in a tray - or water the tray over the sink - it will leak!  (We learned the hard way!)

We also started some artichokes at the same time (below).

Planting Time! No, Really!

The rule of thumb is that the May long weekend is the time to plant your veggies and flowers in Vancouver. And that's true for heat-loving plants like tomatoes, peppers or basil.  But plenty of plants prefer cooler temperatures. 

      Our fancy sign, to keep the kids from stepping on our newly planted peas.

Take peas, for instance: for the best possible pea crop, you should plant your first seeds mid-February to early March!  You can start harvesting peas in May (give or take, depending on the variety).  Try successive plantings every few weeks, to keep a steady supply - though peas generally don't do well once it gets summer-warm.  We usually stop sowing peas in mid-May, through to early July, when we start planting successively in to August, for a fall harvest.

On the West coast, peas, like tomatoes, are subject to a fungal infection, so it's a good idea to rotate the crop each year to another part of the garden - on a four-year cycle.  Since peas are legumes, though, you'll be glad you spread them around: with the help of a particular soil bacteria (which you can also buy and deliberately innoculate your pea seeds with), legumes capture nitrogen in the soil, providing nutrition for the next plant that's lucky to grow there!