This is just one of the reasons that we are renovating our demonstration garden:
The tracks are from several weeks ago, when we were working to remove the remaining concrete from the wheelchair garden area. There had been a little bit of rain a few days before, and the bobcat left these ruts. Ugh. Since then, they haven’t drained. Granted, a lot of this water is from yesterday and today. Still…it isn’t even pretending to drain. It’s just sitting there.
The first part of our garden renovation is going to be putting in drain tiles that will help move water away from the garden, especially through our lovely, sticky clay, compacted construction pad. When our building was originally built, this area was compacted like the foundation area. Then a little topsoil was added and proclaimed “ready to garden.” Yeah, not so much. These conditions are why we have always used raised beds and worked hard to develop a high organic matter loam soil in those beds. Even with the added drainage, these conditions are also why we will always use raised beds in our Demonstration Garden and also why we recommend that almost all home gardeners in this area also use raised beds.
Many parts of Sedgwick County naturally have a very heavy clay soil like is below our demonstration garden. If you can dig a hole in your garden or yard and fill it with water, and it takes more than 24 hours to drain, you absolutely need either a different location or a raised bed or berm to make your garden successful.
Why does it matter? Isn’t it just water that the plants can use? Actually, it matters a lot. Plant roots need oxygen as much as we do, and if the soil is full of water, there is no space for air! Water can smother the roots of the plants and increase the ability of some problematic diseases to move around in the soil and infect plants.
It might seem ironic to be talking about drainage as a problem after such a dry year. But if your soil is compacted and poorly drained, even a dry summer doesn’t protect you from problems. If anything, it makes it worse because your soil is either soggy or rock hard.
Improving soil drainage and structure. The reason we recommend raised beds so often is that they are a relatively quick solution to a problem that might otherwise take many years to fix. The way to actually improve your soil as it is will vary with the exact problems, but it would include a combination of deep tine aeration/ripping, incorporating organic matter by the ton, and probably planting some deep rooted cover crops like winter radishes that can break up the soil over several years (and incorporating them for more organic matter). Even then, you will still have a heavy, clay soil, albeit with better organic matter and drainage. Given all that work, raised beds seem like a good choice, don’t they?
I’m not quite sure what to make of the weather forecast for tonight. The predicted lows are conflicting, ranging from 21 to 24 degrees. I know, that’s not a very big difference. But it is a big difference for some of our cool weather vegetables. 24 degrees or warmer means little to no damage on most things. 21 degrees means more damage.
I would recommend that you be safe rather than sorry and either cover your fall veggies tonight or else pick and preserve most of what is ready to go.
Hey, can anyone help me out and tell me what that wet stuff is that keeps periodically falling from the sky? I don’t recall it being around these parts recently. Maybe it’s a newcomer?
According to the forecast, we’re supposed to get our first frost/freeze in the Wichita area tonight. I’m seeing 30 degrees as the projected low. Of course, I’m always skeptical of that first freeze until it actually happens. However, we have to assume it will happen. So, what do you do about your garden vegetables?
Here are my thoughts:
Cool weather loving vegetables and herbs (lettuce, spinach, root vegetables, thyme, sage, strawberries, broccoli, etc) shouldn’t need to be covered with this projected low temperature. They may sustain very minimal damage on the edges of older leaves, but they won’t be killed, and you will have little loss in edible value. Many of these vegetables get sweeter after a couple freezes. If you cover these vegetables tonight, be aware that they will need to be uncovered, because they will get too warm under a row cover most days yet. Read the rest of this entry It’s been awhile since I’ve updated you on the Family of 4 Garden – in part because I’ve been gone so much. I still need to post some pictures from my trip too – maybe for the Friday PhotoEssay. To be completely honest, neither you nor I have missed much. Stupid summer.
Actually, today’s harvest was one of the best we’ve had (except for last week), since mid-July. That’s sad. Really sad. We had a nice handful of the smaller-than-normal Golden Rave Romas, a small ‘Fabulous’ slicer, a purple bell pepper, and a big pile of purple cayenne peppers. Not too shabby! Now…what to do with the cayenne peppers?
In the last few weeks, we have also removed all the squash/cucumbers/cantaloupe and the do-nothing Chocolate Cherry tomato. As discussed last week, we aren’t planting anything for fall.
Here’s the cumulative of what’s been harvested since early August. It’s pretty sad.
1.8 lbs of tomatoes @ $2.00/lb = $3.60
7 bell peppers @ $1.25/each = $8.75
0.25 lb hot peppers @ $2.50/lb = $0.63
1 bunch Swiss Chard @ $2.99/bunch = $2.99
0.20 lb. okra @ $4.00/lb = $0.80
Monthly Total: $16.75
Year to Date: $183.20
For some reason, I suspect that we aren’t going to end up much above $200, although the Swiss Chard will probably kick in here as it cools down and we should still get a good number of peppers.
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That might work....I think the challenge with how we were doing it was that the pots were too big to
Thanks for that very informative information. I plant tomatoes at home. I just want to share it to y
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