How Does Your Garden Grow

We have emerged from the "lone and dreary wilderness" of AZ to become Utah "farmers" as Haleigh has said.

For the past few months, we've cleared a bit of land and tried our hand at planting a spring and summer garden.  It is HARD work.  I can now understand a little bit about why people are so serious about vegetables around here.

Here's what we new Utahns have learned so far about gardening. Before I begin..I have to credit all our newly found knowledge to Liz Binks...our garden guru.  She was so helpful!

First...the plot of land is very important.  We chose a spot in our back yard that had previously been a playground area covered with bark and moved it all to other spots of the yard, windowwells, and landscaping.  Then the ground had to be tilled with newly added compost dirt.  I've previously posted about our pile of poop.  Other facts we learned were adding all the necessary nutrients for this region and the timeline for preparing the soil:

Every March

100 sq feet =    ¾ qut of 16-16-8

                        ¼ qt of ironite

then add 2 qts of sulfur (1 qt every year after)

Next after soil preparation is the planning for watering.  

Watering Hints:

How you water is important.  Watering too frequently isn’t good because our water has salt in it and this leaves a salty crust on the top of the soil.  Plants don’t grow as well when the soil is salty.  When the leaves are too wet they are susceptible to fungus diseases.  Cucumbers, melons and squash may get powdery and downy mildew and probably die before the crop matures if you sprinkle the leaves regularly. If you do sprinkle the leaves try to do it first think in the morning so the leaves have a chance to dry quickly and use an impact sprinkler that puts the water down softly and slowly without the run-off.

You can water using the furrow method.  Put a diffuser on the end of your hose, put it in the furrow and turn on the water so it slowly moves down the furrow and soaks up the soil.  Furrow irrigation is conductive to deep, thorough watering.  Sprinkling usually only waters the top so the roots do not go down and form a good root system.

If you eat the seed or the fruit of the plant, water deep about once a month.  This includes the tomatoes, peppers, melons , cucumbers, squash, corn, and beans.

If you eat the roots or leaves of the plant, water them deeply two times a week.  This includes the lettuce, cabbage, spinach, swiss chard, celery, cauliflower, beets, carrots, and potatoes.

A drip line irrigation system can be used to water the garden.  This allows a small amount of water to soak into the ground until it is all wet enough.  Also a drip hose can be used to water the plants.  

With options like drip systems, irrigation, sprinkling, etc., we decided to irrigate this year with the use of furrows.  We mapped out three zones for the garden area depending on frequency of watering and what should be planted there.

I've been listening to every person who knows anything about gardening and taking note of the little things they say about each type of vegetable, berry or fruit.  I feel like they are almost characters in a story since they all have particular needs for planting, care and harvest.  Here's what I've learned, where we put them, where to put them and recommended types of each plant.

Here is Zone 1...

Summer Garden

Warm season

Deep rooted

10 days – 2 weeks

10 – 15’ deep root zone

Tomatoes –3 per stake, if it flowers its good, too much water makes a bush

            -roma

            -celebrity

Melons-need room to spread

            Watermelon

            cantaloupe

Squash

butternut squash

            hubbard squash

banana squash

Asparagus-starts, takes about 3 years, 8-10 weeks

Fruit Trees

Peach- prune with open vase method

            -Lemon Elberta

            -Red Haven

Nectarine – plant near peach trees to cross pollinate, prune with open vase method

Pear

            -Bartlett

Apple - prune with two different methods:  modified central leaders which staggers or central leader which swirls

            -Jonagold

            -Gala

Here is Zone 2...

Summer Garden

Immature Fruit

Once a week

5-8’ deep root zone

  

Beans-use seed

Corn - use see, plant one row at a time for succession harvesting, 4-5 seeds on a hill a foot apart, need room to spread

Peppers

jalepenos

green peppers

banana peppers

Eggplant

Zucchini - keep on a mound and keep putting more on top

Summer Squash

Cucumbers –don’t support bush

Yams

Peanuts

Rhubard

Pumpkins –keep on a mound

Onions –plant every four inches, white bulb under ground, keep really moist

            -walla walla

            -red

Here is Zone 3...

Spring/Fall Garden

Leaf and Root

Cool Season

Shallow rooted

Twice a week

1-3’ deep root zone

Lettuce- use seed, gone by July, don’t pull out, thin it by snipping the leaves off, when it sends up seeds it’s done

                -loose leaf mixed

Celery

Spinach - use seed which are good for 1 year for all varieties, when it sends up seeds it’s done

Swiss chard

Radish - use seed

Beets

Carrots –- use seed, pull the whole carrot, leave on carrot every inch

                -nantes

Turnips

Potatoes –cut two eyes and plant eyes up, mound until they flower

Broccoli –use plants, break crown off, use spray if theyget little green bugs, pull when they flower

Cauliflower –harvest in september

Cabbage

Peas –use twine 3 feet apart with 3 strings high and put 2 posts per row

                -Oregon giant snowpeas

                -Lincoln shell peas

                -sugar snap peas

Stawberries – use plants, are perennial which means will return each year, and only produce well after a few years, Junebearing –big crop in June or Everbearing-continual smaller crop,  plant every 1 foot, send out feelers, can pinch off, replace after about  4 years, keep really moist

-Albion Strawberries – everbearing

                -Autumn bliss – everbearing

Raspberries – use starts, plant every two feet

-canby thornless raspberry

So after learning and mapping it all out.  We set off to buy the seeds, hoses, plants and supplies.  There are many places to choose from for whatever the need is:

Good Places:

Laura Kays – Salem – berries, potatoes

Diamonds – Springville – flowers and veggies and hanging plants (call in March/April-pick up in May), go in May for tomatoes, peppers, onions

Olsen’s Garden Shoppe in Payson – fruit trees

Hansens (with gma) –some veggies, flowers, asparagus

IFA – potatoes and seeds and hoses

  

Catalogs:  Territorialseed.com

   Gurney’s

  Utah State Extension Service – fruit tree pruning guide

I especially liked seeing my friend Liz at one of the nurseries talking and gently stroking the leaves of the plants.  :)

So we came back and started planting over the course of many days.  One day my grandma and uncle came over to help us and offer advice.  My uncle's advice for all plants was "Bury them, water them and wait till they grow."  I told him that he didn't understand how many ways I can kill a plant.  LOTS!  I need more details that that!

Finally after the planting was done, we had to make things cute.  Carter and I got to work on creating garden signs made from floor samples and paint sticks staple gunned together and painted pictures and words of where things were planted.  I think they turned out very cute and all the kids now can talk about what is growing well or not.  

(Sorry these pics are so small...I've had camera issues with my new phone)

And the final pics are in!

Here are our garden boxes which now hold herbs and berries.

And the back garden, zoned, irrigated in furrows with signs.  We've taught the kids to weed and water only walk in the "tunnels" which are lined every week with the latest lawn clippings.  

Here is zone 3.

Here is Zone 1 (with our tomato stakes Doug made) 

and Zone 2

 The issues we've been seeing are grasshoppers, weeds from the past and seeds that aren't coming up.  I think about 50% of what we planted is still alive.  I expected it all to live and thrive and Doug expected none of it to survive our learning curve, so I guess we are both right.

Reasons seed don’t come up

1 . soil gets too dry

2.  packed soil or hard crust

3.  cold weather, slow germinations, seeds rot

4.  fungus diseases such as “damping off” keeping the soil too wet will cause this

5.  cut worms and other insects

6.  poor, old seed

And just to send you off with a little joy...I've included this lovely song with something that always brings a smile to my face...singing produce!