We Have Planted!

It has been a while since I posted. I've been a little busy and a little lazy when not busy. In any case, my daughter and I planted on May 9. Thanks to the generosity of Dave D. and Kathy G., we were able to fill the entire garden with free baby plants. Thanks to Kathy for the strawberries and to Dave for the collection of tomatoes and peppers. Each tomato plant is different from the rest, as are the peppers. Maura and I planted:

Tomatoes

• Jubilee Yellow
• Yellow Pear
• Beefsteak
• Better Boy
• Big Boy
• 4th of July
  

Peppers

• Hot Banana
• Anaheim
• Tabasco
• Mariachi
• Spanish Spice
• NuMex Sandia

and some great looking strawberry plants! Maura started out eager to help plant, as this has been "our" garden from the start. Alas, after helping transfer a couple of peppers from their containers to the ground, she lost interest so I finished up by myself.

In case you're new to this, as I am, I've heard the goal in transplanting plants is to move them as intact as possible from the container to the ground, with the depth of planting being about equal as it was in the container (e.g., the plant should have the same amount of itself above the soil as it did before). One exception to this is in the case of the plant being root bound. This refers to the tendency of plants to get their roots bound up in a tight knot while inside the confined space of a container. In this case, you should loosen up the roots as best you can to allow them to open up into their newfound home in the ground. Just be gentle.

It rains and rains and rains

We're all ready to plant, but it keeps raining. Lettuce, broccoli, and peas could all go in right now, since they are cold-weather vegetables. We need to wait for the soil to not be so soggy before we can plant.

FYI, April 29 is the date at which the chance of frost is <= 10% in Frederick. So, we'll plant warm-weather vegetables in early May.

How We Built Our Raised Bed

Last weekend had perfect weather, so we decided to go ahead and create our raised bed. This was great fun and took less time than I thought. It took about four hours, including a couple trips to the Dutch Plant Farm and one trip to Home Depot.

On Saturday evening, I cleared the 2.5' x 13' area I had chosen for the bed. First, my daughter and I staked out the area we planned to use. She had fun planting the stakes. We chose an area up against our back fence.





Second, I used my spade to create the borders of the area. Then, I used a combination of my trowel and shovel to clear off the grassy surface so that only soil was left. Most books and web site I consulted suggested only clearing off the top 1 or 2 inches. That makes sense for most people, as you want to retain as much soil as possible.

However, my yard is filled with crab grass, so I had to remove more of the surface just to get most of it out of the bed area. When creating a bed, its very important to remove all weeds (crab grass is definitely a weed in this context). Once I had removed most of the surface, I removed a few remaining crab grass roots and then, with my daughter's help, smoothed out the remaining soil with her tiny trowel, my trowel, and my steel rake. She had a blast and it was a lot of fun for me, too.

With the area cleared and the sun setting, we called it a night and got excited for our work the next morning.

In the morning, we went to Dutch Plant farm and bought fast-acting hydrated lime to bring up the PH level of the soil in our bed. I followed the instructions and, after using my digging fork to aerate the cleared bed, added enough to raise the PH level 1 point, as suggested by the results of the soil sample analysis I had done a few weeks ago.

We also bought 15 bags of topsoil (1 cubic foot / bag) and 6 bags of leafgro (1.5 cubic feet / bag). This was slightly too much for my 32.5 square foot area, so I returned 5 bags of topsoil and 1 bag of leafgro. In any case, after placing a 20' fiber edge around the bed to prevent grass and weeds from growing into the garden, I put the leafgro (organic compost made from leaves) on top of the cleared bed, then the topsoil on top of that. My daughter and I then sculpted the edges of the soil with our trowels and shovel so that the sides would gently slope down to the edges of the bed. We then wet it all down for good measure.

Finally, I went back to the Dutch Plant Farm and got 5 bags of pine bark mini-nuggets mulch, which I put over everything else. It is important to avoid leaving any soil exposed, b/c any seeds that fly off a lawn and land on the new bed will result in weeds in the garden later.

Now, we just need to wait a couple weeks to plant. A friendly co-worker told me today that she's going to give me some extra strawberry plants that she has -- my daughter will love that!

Frederick Community Garden Plot Cleared and Graded

If you haven't heard about the Frederick Community Garden yet, you should check it out. It looks like they've found a good plot of land, cleared, and graded it. What a great idea!

Techniques for Labeling Your Garden Plants

I thought that this was a useful survey of techniques for keeping track of what you've planted and where. I'm sure I'll use this info in a few weeks when my daughter and I plant our first seeds :)

Horticultural Society of Maryland Spring Lecture Series

I've mentioned the ongoing Master Gardeners Seminar Series at the Coop Extension here in Frederick a couple times. You may also be interested in lectures offered in Lutherville, MD by the Horticultural Society of Maryland.

Upcoming Lectures:

April 14 7:30 PM: Designing the New Kitchen Garden
May 12 7:30 PM: Creating Landscapes With Roses

Master Gardner Seminar Series covered by Gazette

I thought that guy was taking way too many pictures. Turns out he was from the Gazette and was covering the first Master Gardener Seminar Series class four weeks ago. Check it out.

Area Nurseries and Stores for Gardeners

While reading one of my favorite Frederick, MD blogs, I came across this useful post from 2007 about nurseries and stores for gardeners in the Frederick, MD area.

If you are looking for a good place to buy plants, vegetables, and gardening products beyond the box stores, check it out.

How to Keep Houseplants Alive

Is you thumb some other color than green? Do you consistently kill your plants? Here's a great and short article on just how to keep houseplants alive.

TV Shows on Gardening

In my quest to learn about gardening, I have turned to classes, web sites, books, and, yes, television. I recorded a slew of shows that mentioned "garden" in the description. Thus far, I have found three that have been worth my time. Maybe they'll warrant your attention, too.

Victory Garden on PBS. This is a classic. It has a series of small segments in each 30 minute show. Each segment focuses on a different aspect of gardening. I've recently seen segments on cooking with your home-grown vegetables, composting, adding art to your garden, robust year-round plants, and plants for the office. The web site is great and features video from the show.

Gardening by the Yard on HGTV. The host, master gardener Paul James, is pretty funny in a goofy sort of way. The show focuses on techniques for getting the most out of your garden in the least amount of time. The web site features full episodes and smaller segments from the show.

Landscape Smart on HGTV. This isn't just about gardening, per se, but I've gotten some good ideas for walking paths and raised beds from this show. This show is in the style of lots of the "get a massive project done in one day" shows on HGTV. The web site does NOT appear to feature videos.

Class: Growing Your Family’s Produce

I attended a class on Growing Your Family's Produce by Ted Lambert and Moira Weldon on Thursday night at the Frederick County Cooperative Extension. The class is a part of the Master Gardeners Seminar Series that I've mentioned previously.

This class, like the one two weeks ago on pruning and soil, was very informative. Mr. Lambert and Ms. Weldon discussed techniques for creating a raised bed (bordered or not), container gardening, guidance on when and how to plant various vegetables in central Maryland, dealing with pests, and tools, among a ton of other great stuff. The speakers also recommended three books that I plan to pick up:

• The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward Smith
• Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza
• Weedless Gardening by Lee Reich
  

If you can make one of these classes (there are four more), I strongly recommend you do so.

Soil Analysis Results

I received my soil sample analysis results back via email a couple days ago and then again via snail mail the next day. I used Waters Agricultural Laboratories.

I'm not sure, but I think these results are telling me that my yard is basically OK, but I just need to add some lime. So, I guess I'll add lime and a spreader to the shopping list.

Getting Organized

Well, I haven't yet built my raised bed(s). I'm excited about getting started, though, so I took advantage of some great weather this weekend to get organized. A few days ago, I purchased some essential gardening tools at Sears. I had some rusted out tools already, but wanted to replace them with ones that I swear to take better care of! I also had a Sears gift card, so I managed to pick up:

• digging shovel
• gardening spade for making nice edges
• trowel
• hedge shear w/ extendable handles

all for about $5 out of pocket. I still need some pruners and a fork.

Once I got my shiny new tools, I realized that I was going to need to get my shed up-to-snuff. My shed is in horrible shape. I don't have $$ to buy a new one, so I tried to patch it a bit by re-nailing some things that had gotten loose. My shed would have none of it -- parts of it are so rotten that the hammer simply bashed holes through the wood.

I soon realized that I would have to just make do, so I put down my hammer and organized the shed. I removed all the stuff I never use, all the stuff that was rusted, and cleaned off everything else. I then re-organized the shed so that I can easily get to everything I need when I'm gardening this spring. I am essentially a very lazy person, so anything I can do to ease getting to my tools increases the likelihood that I will actually use them :)

Some of the "stuff I never use" was old cans of paint. I took it out of the shed and added kitty litter to it to dry it out. Assuming that works, I'll be able to take it to the landfill).

Step 1: Taking a Soil Sample

According to Gardening for Dummies, my instructors at the pruning and soil class I attended Thursday night, and www.thegardenshed.net, a good first step when planting a garden is taking a soil sample and having it professionally analyzed.

Many gardeners fight year after year with problem spots and plants in their garden. They try different nutrients, additives, and techniques hoping to get their garden to grow. A good way to avoid this frustration is to send your soil away for analysis. A professional analysis, like the one I've sent away for from Waters Agricultural Laboratory, will cost you less than $20 and provide you with specific information on what your garden needs more or less of. Save yourself the insanity of years of failing plants!

The truth is that all regions are different so my garden in central Maryland may need quite different additives than your garden.

To take a soil sample:

1. Dig a small hole down 4" - 6". Make sure to use a clean and dry shovel


2. Scrape out about 1 - 2 cups of soil and put them in a zip lock bag. Be sure to remove any extraneous stuff (leaves, worms, grass, etc). If you want, you can take samples from different places in your yard and mix them together. Or, if you're going to do different things (vegetable garden vs. lawn) in different areas of your yard, you may want to get one test for each functional area.



3. Pick out a soil testing laboratory (see the last page of this pub) and mail your sample, along with their order form, to it.

Class: Pruning and Soil

I just got back from the first class in the Spring Garden Preparation Master Gardener Seminar Series offered by the Maryland Cooperative Extension. Six classes, two hours each taught by master gardeners, $58 total.

I learned about pruning for one hour, following by an hour about how to take care of your soil (nutrients, mulching, preparing for planting, etc.). To the uninitiated, I admit this may sound boring. But it wasn't. It was

AWESOME!

Totally awesome.

Did I mention that they talked about all the super cool tools I'll need to use this spring? Mmmm. . . tools are delicious.

First things first -- I need to order a soil test to find out the Ph level of my soil, as well as advice for any additives that I may need to add to my lawn and garden. Frederick County, MD soil is typically a little acidic and clayish, so I will probably need to add lime.

Welcome to A Garden Geek

I'm just an average geek. I like computers, sci-fi, and telling my wife about a cool algorithm I tried out at work until her ears start to bleed and she cries, "no, no, please make it stop."

Lately, though, I've been feeling the need to do something that is very different from the world of abstractions that is my work and, for the most part, my hobbies. I mean, how many linux transcoding media servers can a man set up until he asks himself, "what is the point?"

I want to do something more fundamental -- something I know nothing about and will probably not be very good at.

Thus, I am going to turn our back yard into a fantastic garden. I will grow vegetables, I will plant bushes, I will create beautiful walkways. Well, at least I'll try.

"A Garden Geek" is a chronicle of my journey. I plan to start with:

• laying some mulch around my trees and shrubs
• creating some nice edging around those mulch islands
• creating walking paths
• creating a vegetable garden within a raised bed.

Just a few weeks until I need to start planting, so I best get started.