Vertical Gardening

I have been asked by friends to describe exactly what a vertical garden is and how to make one and grow veggies in it. So here goes. I first learned about this process from Mel Bartholomew's book, Square Foot Gardening. He advocates building raised beds in square foot increments, in narrow long beds as this conserves on weeding among many other benefits. I suggest you find the book. It's been around since the 1980's and is pretty easy to find. The New Square Foot Gardening includes more versions for roof top gardening and gardening in 6 inches of soil.

Generally speaking, Square Foot Gardening consists of dividing a 1' x 1' garden space up and figuring how many plants you can put in that space. For example in a 1' x 1' space, sixteen radishes or nine spinach or one eggplant could fit. He has carefully planned everything out and it really does work! It saves space, water and weeding.

Vertical gardening is an extension of his space saving ideas. Peas and beans are natural climbers and everybody trellises them or stakes them. But how about cucumbers and melons? Anything that grows on a vine can grow vertically. I have had better luck with my cucumbers since they stay off the ground and get more sunshine. I can also see them better and can determine when they are ready to harvest. The ones on the ground tend to hide out longer and get a scaly appearance and some don't get enough sun and are yellowish instead of dark green.

My vertical cukes could win a county fair ribbon, but not the ones on the ground. Everybody asks if it damages the veggies. You can see from my pictures that it doesn't. They seem to be growing perfectly fine. One suggestion, if you are growing melons, find a knee high hose and put the melon in it and tie it up so the melon has some support, but can grow as large as it needs. I did this and it also kept the bugs off of the fruit. If you look really hard in the center of the picture below you can see a cantaloupe hanging in a knee high hose!

I set up my vertical garden with stakes and 2” x 4” fencing wire. I built the garden on a u-shape with the stakes in the center of a 18” wide space. I plant on both sides, alternating the seeds as I plant. During winter and early spring I plant snap peas and in the summer, cukes and melons. It has been tremendous satisfying this summer.

Mel's support frames in his vertical garden is made of electrical conduit. He uses string to trellis his plants but also mentions netting. I have seen snow drift or construction netting which is bright orange used too.

If you have any interest in creating square foot gardens or vertical beds, I highly suggest buying this book. You can easily find it used for under $10 and it is worth every penny. Happy Vertical Gardening!

Summer Vacation

Having just returned from three very different vacations practically back to back, I am feeling rested, invigorated and inspired. Yet, it makes me ask the questions.

Did pioneers need vacations to “get away from the farm?” Could they in fact take vacations? And if they did, who watched the farm?

My first getaway was to the San Francisco Bay area where I feasted on fabulous friendships and panoramic views. As I truly did leave my heart in San Francisco. Flying into the Bay area I am always surprised at the landscape as the plane hurled across the San Joaquin Valley, truly the big valley. The giant lush irrigated valley produces more than 10% of the food consumed in the United States. It seems to go forever and then abruptly ends at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Crossing the Sierras, brown and barren, give way to the massively populated peninsula known as the Bay Area. The development emerges past the mountains and like the valley seems endless.

The second trip involved family and a wedding. I traveled back to my mid western roots to the farmlands of Northern Ohio just south of Cleveland. Out the window of the plane I saw neat and tidy, brown and green patchwork of endless farmland. The corn was knee high and the tomatoes still small and green. I was disappointed that the wedding was in early summer and not late August when the harvest is plentiful. My summers as a youth were spent eating thick slices of beefsteak tomatoes sprinkled with salt, fresh picked corn on the cob and juicy watermelon. Spending days with cousins around Granny's kitchen table crunching potato chips and drinking Pepsi from glass bottles and spending nights in a trailer at the Lorain County Fair while my cousins showed horses and shoveled horse manure.

I returned just a few days ago from the last part of this three-legged adventure from New Mexico, an Enchanted Land of Spirit and Sky. Having spent a week at a yoga camp for women, submerged in practice and meditation, renewing my spirit and inspiring my life, I have returned to my small backyard garden. Relieved that the hurricane rains and some very helpful friends sustained my vegetable garden while I was away. I sit happily munching on cucumbers in the hot Texas heat.

As a part time pioneer, I have the luxury of growing what I can and if I am not successful, driving to the store or farmer's market where someone else has done a better job. My life is not dependent on my harvest and I have the freedom that in a day's time I can travel to another geographic region and find pleasure in those surroundings. Truly the best of both worlds, content and grateful, all at the same time.

Radical Homemaking

After having read Spike Gilespie's blog at http://austinist.com/2010/05/21/i_am_so_popular_removing_sex_from_t.php I purchased the book Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes. This book centers around an emerging wave of feminism that honors domestic skills as a fundamental step to heal and solve many of today's global crisis. As Shannon Hayes boldly states, “radical homemakers are men and women who have chosen to make family, community, social justice and the health of the planet the governing principles of their lives.” Furthermore she raises the question, “How might I advocate for a meaningful and sustainable domestic life without inadvertently condoning the further subjugation of women?”

Pioneers had no struggle or confusion with personal identity connected to domesticity. Men and women shared equally with the variety of chores necessary to create a sustainable existence. There was no other choice. Today industrialization and technology have created so many more choices and so much confussion and struggle.

I have chosen to investigate an alternative lifestyle as a radical homemaker and a part time pioneer as well as being an artist, full time mother and public school teacher. I embrace the philosophy of this book. Having only read the preface and introduction, I am filled with an overwhelming wave of emotion and that emotion is hope.

Squash Bugs

Well, it happened. My beautiful yellow neck and zucchini squash, dead and flattened to the ground, attacked by some unknown pest. Last year I thought it had been roly poly bugs and had spread the compost out early before planting to release the bugs to the top of the soil to either roly poly off or be eaten by birds. I felt somewhat confident that I would not have that pest to contend with since there were no roly polys in sight at planting. But, I have discovered a new garden nemesis, the squash bug, or so I think. I never actually saw this bug. My friend told me that they had destroyed his plants.

I was out of town for 6 days and my squash plants went from this....

....to this in just a few short days.

I think that I am giving up now on planting yellow neck and zucchini since this is the third year that I have grown great foliage only to have the plants destruct before the sight of any vegetable. I did however get three beautiful straight neck yellow squash. The plant itself had grown rigorously from the small seedling that I started in the cold frame. They had survived the month long stretch uncovered in the garden after the cold frame theft. See blog entry, March 27, 2010 for details. I had babied them along in the garden, suspiciously wondering if in fact they would make it. How did the real pioneers manage crop failure? It was a matter of life and death, whether or not your family lived or starved. Me, I'll just buy my veggies at the farmer's market or grocery where someone else has figured out how to keep off squash bugs. But, what was it truly like back them?

On the internet, I did find a few ways to control squash bugs. One being physically picking off the bugs, another being better variety selection as there seems to be certain varieties more or less susceptible to the pest. Planting catnip, tansy, radishes, nasturtiums, marigolds, bee balm and mint may help repel the bug to some degree. As well as by adding to the garden environment natural enemies of the bugs like spiders and ground beetles and other beneficial insects that might curb the population. Me, I have determined my solution to pest control, I just won't plant them next year and use that precious garden space for something a little bit more pest hardy and heat loving like okra or eggplant. I love my summer squash, so I will see you at the local farmer's market instead!

Agarita Farms

Last Saturday I went out to a friend's farm in Fredricksburg, Texas just 90 miles west of Austin in the spectacular Hill Country. I bribed my 14 year old daughter with ten bucks and dinner to join me. We made out way west listening to Blink 182 and reading the latest Seventeen magazine. Two hours later, we meet Tom and Bev Carnes at their home on the 365 acre family farm around 4:00. Tommy is a high school friend of mine from Denton where we graduated a year apart. I found him on Facebook and was curious about his farming life.

The end of May is hot and humid, but there were a few clouds in the sky that kept the sun from constantly beating down on us as we toured the crops, some fading out while others were just getting started. Unlike my backyard garden, Tommy has rows and vast varieties of veggies I only have a few each of. I really liked the mixed lettuce garden that he lets go to seed in the summer so it can reseed itself in the fall when things cool down.

He and Bev have been selling their vegetables at the local Fredricksburg Farmer's Market on Thursdays making about $200 a week. No, the farm does not support them, rather Tom hangs a shingle in Kerrville where he practices law. Bev works on the farm and helps manage Tom's financials and books guests into their two farm-stay cottages at the far end of the property and works part time as a speech pathologist. It's a two person operation, work is slow, but there is always new innovations while they learn through trial and error.

Grazing on diverse meadows and pastures are some 100 plus Jacob and Navajo sheep. They raise them to sell and for their coats. Shearing took place a few weeks ago, and yes I did bring home both a Jacob and Navajo fleece, but that is another entry on another day.

I plan on returning to Agarita Farms to encourage and support these two hard working folks while they create more sustainability for themselves and others. For more information you can reach them at http://www.agaritacreek.com/

Lazy Blogger

OK, so are you still a blogger even though you haven't blogged in over a month or more?? My day job, teaching art to 180- 6th, 7th and 8th graders and full time parenting of two teenagers has kept me busy, but enough with the excuses.

Garden update- Well, a few of the seedlings that survived the stolen cold frame (see 3/27 blog - The Cold Frame) were planted. I did go to my local nursery for summertime favorites like eggplant and cucumbers. And after only 7 weeks in the ground I ate my first cuke. Tonight I will harvest from the garden for a first of the season mini feast, some eggplant, green beans, a cuke, tiny pear tomatoes and some swiss chard.

The onions that my son planted last October were finally pulled and a friend made some green onion kim chee. For fun and color, I planted some zinnias and nasturtium flowers. Growing up in upstate New York, my mom saved us a bed that we seeded with zinnias for summer cut flowers and I have always enjoyed their hardy color in the heat of the summer.

The yellow neck and zucchini plants are huge. They were seedlings that made it out of the cold frame that last month. They were the easiest to start from seeds, but I still hold my breath as the flowers bloom and die off and wonder if they will ever actually turn into squash or mysteriously die or not even grow before the harvest. Last year rolly polly bugs enjoyed them before we ever got a chance to see the squash grow. I tried treating them with diatomaceous earth, but it was too late. The bugs had been in the compost I spread and they did what they were supposed to do which is devour and decompose everything in sight. This year, I spread out the compost on the soil for about 2 weeks before I tilled it into the soil, so the bugs could wander off to find new food or be eaten themselves by birds. That seemed to do the trick and I don't have them in them in the garden. Tilling in diatomaceous earth might have been a good preventative as well.

I have many part time pioneering projects this summer planned. With only 2 more days of school left and 2 ½ months of vacation, I am looking forward to spending time doing the things I love. Next, a four chicken backyard coop. I have only been talking about this for over a year. After that I'll be making and installing another rain barrel. Later today, I'll be heading out to Agarita Farms in Fredricksburg, Texas. This family farm is owned by a high school friend and his wife in the picturesque Hill Country about 90 miles west of Austin. You can check out the farm at www.agaritacreek.com or on Facebook.

Native Plants

It's official. Between the twenty plus days of 105° heat last summer and the 20° hard freeze of this winter I have lost a dozen plants in my xeriscape yard. Purple Fountain Grass, Plumbago, Milkweed and even a Crepe Myrtle to name a few of the casualties. For the past ten years in both Florida and Texas I have dug up grass and replaced it with a water-wise landscape. I love the variety, texture and color of the native plants, grasses and flowers. Why have short green grass that you have to water, edge and mow when you can trade it for continuous flowering and minimal maintenance? The annual mulching, which I have yet to do, follows a rigorous weeding and cutting back. The spring rains hasten new growth and the heat of the summer brings it into bloom.

However for the last four years since I moved to Texas, we have broken all sorts of weather records. Wettest summer. Driest summer. Coldest winter. Longest days with rain. Almost the longest days of heat. You name it, we've had it. There is one plant out of all my plants that doesn't seem to mind the vast disparity of fluctuating weather conditions. That winner would be the humble beauty, salvia greggii, also known as Autumn Sage. It shows up red, pink, white or coral and practically blooms continuously. If you brush up next to it, it smells strongly of its herby cousin. These hardy evergreens will stand up to extreme weather and soil conditions and survive on the craggiest hillsides in a variety of terrains.

Here in Texas and and in Florida, both counties put out helpful books through cooperative extension centers that list appropriate native and adaptive plants for the area. In Central Texas go to www.growgreen.org or to your nearest local native nursery. Talk with someone who is knowledgeable about your soil and weather conditions and who will encourage and not discourage you to get rid of your grass and replace it with native and adaptive plants.