From the always cool Build It Solar blog, a “garden helper machine” built by Randy, aka “PD-Riverman”.
I really Love gardening but I have a bad back and when it comes to staying bent over in the garden it gets rough. So I built this Helper Machine. I call it My P-Machine. Planting/Picking/Pulling weeds/Putting around the garden machine.
It’s powered by two 12 volt 80 watt solar panels that charge some golf cart batteries.
I feel like adding learning welding to my New Years resolution list!
Today I did the unthinkable and made good on one of my many New Years resolutions: I planned our 128 square foot vegetable garden a year in advance. Here’s how I did it:
Identifying Seasons
Using an Ecology Action pamphlet as my guide, Learning to Grow All Your Own Food: A One-Bed Model For Compost, Diet and Income Crops, I divided the year into three seasons. Most of you reading this blog probably have two: a cool season and a warm season. Here in Los Angeles we have:
Picking Planting Dates
Using the handy Digital Gardener’s Southern California Vegetable Planting Schedule I chose planting dates (in April, mid-summer and Septmber/October) for each season and marked them down on my Stella Natura calendar. I identified the vegetables I’d like to grow choosing only those veggies that have done well in the past and that we like to eat.
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| A planning form from Ecology Action |
Deciding How Much to Plant
To decide how much to plant I rely on the charts in John Jeavons’ book How to Grow More Vegetables
Planting Compost Crops
Jeavons stresses the importance of learning how to grow your own compost and fertilizer. I adapted the food/compost ratios suggested in the Ecology Action pamphlet to match our climate. Instead of growing a big winter compost crop (Ecology Action is in cooler Northern California) I decided to treat the late summer/early fall as our “winter”. Growing vegetables in the hot, dry late summer here in Southern California is, frankly, a pain in the ass and water intensive. It’s a time when I’d rather just take a break from vegetable gardening and just grow a bunch of drought tolerant sunflowers, amaranth, cowpeas etc. On the other hand, winter here is the best time to grow all those cool season crops like lettuce and arugula. Using Ecology Action’s suggestions I came up with a compost/food growing ratio:
The compost crops will reduce my gardening workload, build fertility and assure that there’s always something growing and no sun-baked bare soil.
Apologies for a Southern Californiacentric post, but you can use the same process to identify dates and how much seed you need for any climate. In fact, if you know of a good vegetable planting schedule for your climate please leave a link in the comments.
Update: Scott left a link for readers in Texas. The Texas A&M Extension Service has a vegetable planting guide here.
And meansoybean left a link for vegetable gardeners in Montreal which you can see here.
Thanks to Hak, here’s Southern Nevada.
Kristen sent one for all of the US based on your USDA zone here.
It’s was a difficult year in the garden. A lead and zinc issue screwed up my winter vegetables garden plans. At least we managed to find some river rocks and put in a path.
I found this photo from December 2010. I was certainly a lot more organized that year.
For 2012, I’m putting in raised beds to deal with the heavy metal issue and we’ve already planted more native plants. But most importantly one of my New Years resolutions is to plan the vegetable garden ahead of time. And I’m going to take better notes (though I’ve been saying this for ten years now). Those notes simply being, the date a veggie is planted and the first and last harvests of said plant. That info will make coming up with a planting schedule easier in subsequent years. At least if I keep my many resolutions!
Periodically Mrs. Homegrown and I teach vegetable gardening classes. For the students, I’ve been looking for a way to illustrate nature’s complex, non-linear dynamics that, paradoxically, seem ordered. I stumbled across this cool sculpture that neatly summarizes the idea of “in chaos order, in order chaos.”
Imagine each of the hammers standing in for one of the systems in your garden, insect life, nutrients, microbes, fungi, etc. Now imagine intervening in the motion of one of those systems. The point is that, with complex non-linear dynamics, we don’t know what the end result of our interventions will be. Best not to monkey with the system . . .
You can see more sculptures by the creator of this video at www.kenkinetic.com.
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| Even the kittens will help, not hinder, the New Productivity of 2012. |
I feel like Erik really threw down a challenge with his mammoth resolution list, so here’s my to-do list for 2012. It’s much less ambitious. I think I’ll schedule the concrete activities for certain weeks and months, and post a calender to keep me on track:
-No lingering over breakfast, no excuses such as “just one more cup of tea” or “I’ll just check one more blog” or “the cat needs my lap”, i.e. a new striving for morning productivity. This means 1/2 hour to eat and defog, then I must do things.
-Related to the above–stick to my designated daily schedule, as if I had a real job and boss looking over my shoulder.
-Accomplish my “yucky list” this month: switching banks, upgrading my RAM, getting a new passport, and making appointments for a physical, a dental exam and an eye exam. (In terms of engaging with the medical establishment, I prefer to behave as if though the zombie apocalypse has already occurred, thus I’m well overdue for a complete overhaul.)
-Organize the labels or tags on Root Simple so our dear, somewhat abused readers can find information when they want it.
-No processed sugar for the month of January. Or beer. (sigh)
-White flour, crackers, tortillas, pasta & etc. are designated as “treats” this year, as opposed to “staples.”
-No internet surfing until after supper. No email in the morning. Email at noon and in the evening.
-Repaint the living room, hall, two bedrooms and the breakfast nook.
-Spend more time outside loving the garden–just being with it, regarding it with joy instead of judgement.
-Learn to identify trees.
-Take up archery again. This means starting with practice in the back yard once or twice a week, until I have the chops back enough to visit the range without embarrassment.
-Purge the closets. To do this, I’m going to have to either pretend we’re moving and have to pay to ship every object, or if I’m in a more morbid mood, I’ll imagine what what would happen if Erik and I were hit by a bus and people had to come in and clean out our closets. I don’t want to be remembered posthumously as a giant, acquisitive hamster of questionable taste and strange habits.
-Make a dress. (This will make Erik laugh because he will remember the last dress I made. I’ve had 15 years to recover, though.)
-Make a pair of shoes. Or perhaps just tall spats to start.
-Start a gratitude journal. I’m so cynical, really, that the very phrase “gratitude journal” grates on me. Which is exactly why I have to keep one.
-Get fit. To be more concrete, my goal is to be able to keep up with Erik on his masochistic hikes.
-One date night a week with my very ambitious but rather sweet husband.
