Soil Planning for the Garden Expansion

Posted on July 29, 2013 by JonesGardenBlog

As I’m planning for my garden expansion and calling around, emailing, googling and trying to get my hands on all of my available options for wood and soil, I’ve come up with the following dirt scenario.

I don’t have a good straight up option for compost, at least none that I’ve found yet.  I still have a few calls to make on this one, but it’s not looking good.  Of course I do have about a batch and a half of my own compost, which I will definitely be utilizing, but that won’t be nearly enough.  If I go the straight compost route I would be looking at almost $70 a cubic yard buying bags of compost from Home Depot.  Ouch.  To amend the current garden and expand I’m looking at 6 cubic yards.  That’s $420 on dirt.  Nope.  That’s not going to work.

There is a landscaping center called Pioneer that carries a sandy loam, which according to their website is:

33% screened fill dirt, 33% mulch, 33% manure. Sandy Loam is A great medium for vegetable gardens and other applications that utilize the warmth and micro nutrients of manure.

This is actually what I used when I first started gardening several years ago and it worked pretty well with a regular amendment of compost every season.  I can get this for about $32 a cubic yard.  Less than half the price… sounds pretty good.

So that’s where I plan to start.  I’ll amend the big pile with my own compost, several bags of well aged manure, some coconut coir, and Azomite to add extra nitrogen, organic matter, and trace minerals to the mix.

That’s my plan.  Any suggestions?

Posted in dirt | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Rise of the MELONS!!!

Posted on July 25, 2013 by JonesGardenBlog

These are just a couple random watermelon pictures because, number one, they are my favorite thing in the garden right now, and two, after giving up over a dozen melons they are making a resurgence and producing more.  I love that.  They’re like the gift that keeps on giving…

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Do you see the watermelon growing off of the fence?  There is actually another one, lower down on the other side.  If they keep it up they will be growing out in the middle of the yard!

Posted in Arizona Garden, Desert King Watermelon | 13 Comments

I messed up on the tomatillos

Posted on July 24, 2013 by JonesGardenBlog

The beauty about gardening is that every season is a learning experience.  I’ve been trying to keep better notes than I have in the past so that my gardening knowledge can grow more intentionally.

In my current log (which is really just a workbook with worksheets for each season) I have a note next to tomatillos that says, “need to use tomato cages next year, they tend to fall over”.

That’s a ridiculous understatement and a bit of a misstatement at the same time.  It’s not that the tomatillos “fall” over, they are more like an invading army reaching for TOTAL GARDEN DOMINATION… MWAHAHA!  Okay, maybe not quite like that… but pretty close.  They don’t really fall over because they can’t support their weight, they are obviously designed to vine out, and as they do the vines themselves begin to root into the soil, like this (forgive the horrible blurriness).

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My mistake, after not caging them, was that I let them keep going without training or trimming.  They’ve gotten to the point where they completely dominated the green beans and were forcing the squash into submission.  Squash!  I mean, come on, squash!

Tomatillos know no boundaries.  They may have met their match with the sweet potatoes, which have a mind of their own.  In any case I started trimming this morning… significantly.  We’ve only gotten a few tomatillos this year, in spite of the massive plants because they are tough to see and even tougher to get to!

So I trimmed.  Well, it was more like Conan the Gardner, hacking away mercilessly, but I think I made my point.  The tomatillos are back to their original space (mostly).  Hopefully they will focus on making some fruit.  After all we use the tomatillo fruit to make tomatillo salsa.

I love tomatillo salsa, which is of course the reason I planted the monsters in the first place.

Hopefully they start behaving now.  If not, I’ve got a better plan for next year.

Posted in tomatillos | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Garden Expansion

Posted on July 23, 2013 by JonesGardenBlog

In order to capitalize on the extended AZ growing season I’m planning a garden expansion.  Good times!

The problem that I have in the winter is light.  The backyard faces north and so light is limited, especially in December.  What I am thinking is adding two wooden, wall mounted, vertical gardens.  They would be three layers high, about 10” x  10” x  8’, with 12” of space between the levels.  Forgive the rudimentary drawing but I’m envisioning something like this:

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I’ve been thinking leeks, onions, kale, peas, and garlic.

There would be two units (so six total layers) that would mount to the back wall of my yard, which gets sun the whole winter.  I liked the idea because the sun would warm the block wall which would keep the plants a little warmer at night as well and help with any light frosts.

Along with these I am planning four raised beds on the part of the yard that is NOT under our big metal play set.  I’ve consulted with the kids on this and they are on board.  They are also of the understanding that eventually the whole yard will be garden.  Smart kids.  These will get sun MOST of the winter and from my experience the plants kind of “pause” until the sun comes back.

I’m not the greatest builder/DIY guy on the planet, so any thoughts or comments (especially on the vertical units) would be appreciated.

Now I just have to figure out how to get the cost down.  I’m really kind of limited for compost options in my part of the valley, and this is quite a bit of wood.  Hmmm…

Posted in Arizona Garden, intensive gardening, vertical garden | Tagged , | 14 Comments

Save Those Seeds

Posted on July 22, 2013 by JonesGardenBlog

I’ve been gone for a couple of days for some very WET camping, but I’m back and wanted to do a quick video on selecting the right fruit for seed saving.

Posted in desert garden, Desert King Watermelon, Starting Seeds, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 5 Comments