Garden Tour - June 2013

First, I must apologize to anyone who was disappointed to see I didn't get a Savory Sunday post up this past week.  There was really nothing unique and exciting to post from our garden meals last week.  We've been bring in a lot of lettuce and just had a lot of ordinary salads with it.

In the mean time, I finally shot a video tour of the garden a couple weeks ago and am just now getting around to posting it for anyone to view.  It's a bit long, but there was a lot to show being the first time I've done a video tour.  Future video updates will focus on only major changes between then and what you see in this first one, so they should be much shorter.

So to spare you any more time it may take to view it, I'll get right to it:

Garden Update - May 2013

It's been a while since I last posted, but much has been growing well in the garden, while a few other plants have been struggling to outlast some some viscous looking attacks from birds, earwigs, and pill bugs.  I don't have pictures or updates for EVERYTHING, but here's a thorough look at where most things stand as of this week...

First off I have a couple of 4 x 4 boxes filling up with Mesclun mix salad greens with a Baby romaine in the middle of each.  Once they've been fully harvested over the next few weeks, they'll become the home of a Black Zucchini and a Yellow Straight Neck Squash plant respectively.

Mesclun Box #1

Mesclun Box #2

Nearby are the strawberry beds and in between each of the strawberry beds are 2 x 3 ft spaces growing some varieties of spinach (Round Leaf, Matador, Bloomsdale),  Radishes (Cherry Bell), Swiss Chard (Bright Lights, Rainbow), and more lettuces (Baby Romaine, Cimarron).  Also in between each new strawberry bed in the walk way are some mature June Bearing strawberries.  I'm not sure of the variety because they were already in the ground when we purchased the home.  Last year, before I made plans to put in new beds, I cut them down after they were done producing and then watered in a bit of 10-10-10 fertilizer.  While I had to dig out much of them to place the new raised beds in their spot, I was able to leave a few as seen below.  There's another walk way on the other side of the bed to the left.  These also send out tons of runners through the summer and have actually spawned quite a few plants here and there behind the beds as well.  How they are thriving in such hard compacted clay soil is beyond me.  They have become full of blossoms with many already producing some nice size fruit.  As soon as any start to show some color, I'll throw some small cuts of bird netting over them.  Within the new strawberry beds themselves I have planted out one bed with Albion (ever bearing), the middle bed with a Shuksan (June Bearing) and the third bed with Hecker (ever bearing).

Clockwise from top middle: Spinach & Lettuce, Hecker Strawberries,  Unknown Strawberries, Shuksan Strawberries

Close up of spinach & lettuce between strawberry beds

Some of the spinach and pretty much all of the Swiss Chard have been falling victim to birds (as evidenced by the triangular beak-shaped bites from the leaves).  I've been told birds love to much on Beet sprouts and since Swiss Chard is part of the Beet family, I'm guessing it has been birds taking clean cuts at all of the Swiss Chard sprouts and seedlings.  I'm sure some earwigs and pill bugs jump on to help a bit through the evenings.  While the spinach grows on, I'm already preparing to replant the Swiss Chard, with more mature seedlings rather than straight from seed if it becomes necessary.  If it comes to that, I'll also throw on some bird net and diatomaceous earth if necessary to help protect the plants.

Bird bites on spinach & Swiss Chard in background

Close up of Swiss Chard damage

Something ate a big chunk from this leaf

Behind the strawberry beds is a stretch where I've planted in 3 different grape roots. Two are now showing signs of life (Seedless Suffolk Red & Seedless Green Lakemont) while the other I'm still holding out hope for (Seedless Concord).  The Concord grape start had much less roots developed on it than the other two so I'm thinking it is putting more energy into growing out more roots to establish itself underground first and will start to bud out on top when it is ready.

Suffolk Seedless

Lakemont Seedless

Concord Seedless

Further north along the same stretch I also planted a couple ever-bearing red raspberries, a couple of black raspberries and thornless blackberries.  All four raspberry bushes appear to be on their way while the blackberries haven't put forth much growth above the ground surface yet.  I've gone out at night a few times and found a few of the plants swarmed by baby earwigs that I've had to spray off with some soap spray.

Raspberry growth

Next to the raspberries is the 10' x 4' bed I have some peas (Sugar Snap & Little Marvel), Broccoli (De Cicco), and Brussels Sprouts.  No blossoms on any of the peas yet, but I'm expecting some any day now.  They need to start producing quick because I'm going to be replanting the bed with some corn, squash, pumpkin, and amaranth in 2 - 3 weeks.  Otherwise, we'll just settle for eating lots of pea shoot salads and smoothies with the leaves. The broccoli plants are all showing heads now which is encouraging.  As for the Brussels Sprouts.  They clearly won't be producing before its time for them to come out so I'll give them another try this winter.  A benefit to growing them in the fall is that some early frosts should help sweeten up the sprouts should we get any then.  Also in the bed is some Spinach (Bloomsdale, Matador) and some struggling beets (Detroit Dark Red).

Peas & Broccoli

South of the peas and broccoli is a 4' x 8' bed currently growing some other peas that got off to a later start and certainly won't be producing in time before it's time use the space on some summer veggies.  I currently have some Amish Paste tomatoes slated to take their spot.  Same story is true for peas I have in the rest of the beds (Sugar Ann, Lincoln, Snow, etc.).  I also have some green beans (Red Bergundy), more Broccoli from later starts, Spinach, a stray Pok Choi that was mis-labeled and grouped with the Spinach, Kale (Lacinato & Blue Curled), Onions (Candy & Red), and Cilantro.  The Lacinato Kale and onions in this bed are some of the only store bought starts I have in the garden.  The only other store-bought starts throughout all of the garden beds are a row of Sweet Yellow Onions, a row of Walla Walla Onions, the Albion strawberries (the other two varieties were started with bare roots) and some flowers in my wife's big bed.  Besides all that, the raspberry and grape roots, everything else in the garden has been started either in our home, or directly in the garden.

Onions, Broccoli, Cilantro, Spinach, w/ stray Pok Choi, & Kale

Moving on over from the bed above is a 4' x 4' bed growing some late-starting peas and three varieties of lettuce (Salad Bowl, Red Sails, Butter head).

Lettuce Bed

Next to the lettuce bed is a 4' x 12' bed currently growing a number of things:  Peas (Snow, Lincoln), Lettuce (Red Cimarron, Black Seeded Simpson, Summertime), Onions (Green Bunching), Arugula, Beets (Detroit Dark Red), Spinach (Round Leaf), and Carrots (Scarlet Nantes, Kaleidoscope Mix, and Purple Haze).  All are doing quite well except for the peas (as mentioned further above) and the beets.  Nearly all of the beets in this bed have been swiped off by what I can only assume to be more birds.  I also lost a square of Scarlet Nantes Carrots to a cat who replaced it with something a bit more foul.  I've since built out PVC box frames around this bed and the 4' x 8' bed right next to it to hold up a barrier of bird net surrounding them.  I haven't noticed any new cat tracks or scat in the garden since.  The Arugula was started indoors and was all but lost at one point because I failed to get them hardened off more thoroughly when I planted them out nearly two months ago but most are now making strong come backs.  At the foot of the bed and just outside of it, I also have a nice looking volunteer Cilantro plant from seed dropped from a plant from last year.

Purple Haze Carrots

Volunteer Cilantro

Out in my wife's big bed is a 4' x 4' block growing some Yukon Gold and Purple Viking potatoes.  They were started beneath the ground level about 2 months ago and have already leafed out above the bed after having been topped off.  Against the house the buckets of Yukon Gold and Red Pontiacs are also showing some good growth.

Potatoes

More Potatoes

I moved out all of the tomato seedlings to be outside full time a couple of weeks ago.  I had them up on our back deck over the weekend to give them some protection from some rains storms we had.  They are all looking quite well.  The ones in the red cups that were the first to be transplanted from their cell packs are clearly miles ahead of the others as far as growth goes, but they've also had about 2 more weeks of more root growth.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes up front, Tomatillos in far back

Indoors I've been growing some Sweet Potato slips and they look well.  I also started some Alpine Strawberry plants from seeds about two months ago.  They've required a lot of patience to see much growth, but they are now starting to fill out and take off a bit.  In addition, I also have lots more basil (Sweet, Lemon, Purple Ruffle) started.

Sweet Potato Slips

Alpine Strawberries

Basil

Also noteworthy for the month of May is that we had our first "official" or measurable harvest this last week.  We picked a bowl full of Bloomsdale Spinach that was used in some panini sandwiches.  We've since harvested some other spinach, and a bit of cilantro and basil to use in some other dishes.  On Mother's Day, I stumbled upon a Garter Snake.  I love having those around because I know they prey on many bad bugs as well as mice as they get older.

First Harvest - Spinach

Serpent in the Garden

We also recently got a couple of Goji Berry roots shipped to us that we hope to raise to maturity (and find space for them) as well as a number of new seeds, mostly melons, that we'll be trying out this summer.  I actually just got the melon, squash, cucumber, okra, nasturtium, and amaranth seeds started this morning, so there will be plenty to look forward to as the season moves along.

For those faithfully following the blog and keeping up with the garden, I will have to number my beds and post an actual layout of everything we have growing in each bed and then update it with each season.  Then it should be much easier to keep up with.

Work in Progress

While the square foot garden kits served us well last year I came to think that they weren't going to be enough to grow the amount of food I'd like to grow, nor were they all deep enough to support a wider variety of crops and rotations.

I'm determined to grow most all of the produce my family will be able to eat through the summer and fall seasons while at the same time having enough left over to preserve for the winter months.  It would also be nice to have some to spare to neighbors, friends, family, and/or even the community food bank.  Perhaps I'll even be able to grow enough to make it worthwhile to set up a booth at the local farmer's market every so often or set up a micro CSA with someone.

Not only is there a sense of pride and joy that comes from being able to grow your own food and sustain yourself and your family, but with the ever-rising costs of food at the grocery stores I also see it as a way to save lots of money on groceries for much of the year.  I'm keen to start weighing and recording all the produce we're able to harvest and then add up what it would have costed at the store and see how much it all adds up to at the end of each year.  What I've been doing between last year and this year to try to maximize our gardening spaces and make them as productive as possible has definitely been costing a lot of time and money up front (the biggest cost being all of the ingredients to make up a healthy Mel's Mix for the square foot garden beds), but I'm looking at it all as an investment that once completed, will not only take much less time and labor to maintain and look after, but will also pay itself off many times over.

Thus, I've been hard at work these last few weeks remodeling and expanding our garden beds.  Below is a look at some of the progress I've made thus far.

I began the project a couple of weeks ago. The first step was to remove the kits we had started with last year and replace them with new frames I had wanted to make with some cedar fencing pieces.  I wanted all of the previous beds to be 10-12 inches deep to allow for more root vegetables to be grown as well as being able to plant tomatoes deeper and so on.  I had originally set out to use stacked 2"x6" or 2"x10" cedar boards for the walls and 4"x4" cedar posts to support them and be anchored into the ground with some cement.  As I began to add the costs for those materials up it quickly got way over budget.  I then decided to go with cedar fence boards for the walls while still using 4"x4" posts to support them, much like how John Kohler, who's Youtube channel can be found at growingyourgreens.com, likes to build his beds.  Another great demonstration of these types of beds can also be found here.

While standing in Home Depot, however, and surveying the size of the  4"x4" posts, I felt like they would be too intrusive on the growing space within the beds.  That, and the cost for each post was still a bit high for what I needed and what I wanted to pay.  I then looked up and saw some 2"x4" cedar board for half the cost and at a size that would be much less intrusive inside the beds.  I thought it out a bit more and then committed to going with that route.  I also figured that while the other route may have gotten a few more years of life, the cost savings now was worth it.

Again, it shouldn't be too hard to replace any wood that rots away in the coming years, even if it's a few years sooner than had I used thicker cuts of wood.  That, and there's something about me that isn't quite comfortable yet with something as permanent as something cemented in the ground would be.  I like knowing that I could, if a more desirable layout comes to mind down the road, be able to essentially lever and pick up any bed and relocate it without having to dig out and break into some cement.  Perhaps after these new beds wear out, I'll be more able and willing to replace them with the more durable thicker cuts of wood from the money I hope to be able save on groceries over the life of the beds.  This less expensive way I adapted from my previous plan still consists of all cedar, which is naturally rot, weather, and pest resistant, so it should still hold up for several years.  I'll be satisfied if they hold well for at least 5 years.

All of the wood unloaded and ready to be cut and assembled.

While measuring out the cuts for each board, I had the idea to use rebar rather than cement to anchor in the 2x4's into the ground.  This way, they'd be much easier to remove when they ever need to be replaced, while in the mean time, they would still hold steady and solid in the ground.  I already had a stash of 12" rebar that I was going to use to support PVC pipes for hoop houses over the previous beds before deciding to go with the expansion project.  I simply cut the 2x4s to be 1 foot each and then drilled holes about 3 - 4 inches up the middle of each 2x4 just big enough to take the rebar for the corners of each bed.

Corner posts ready to go

After that it was cutting each fence board from 6 feet to 4 feet and then screwing them onto the corner posts 2 boards high.

New bed frame ready to be flipped over and sunk into the ground.

Once the new bed frames were assembled and placed, it was time to set them up with ability to support a hoop house.  I bought some inexpensive PVC conduit clamps and mounted two to each corner.  I also added in a foot long 2x4 along the sides of the beds every 2 feet.

Hoop house supports on a corner

Hoop house supports along the side at 2' intervals

For the hoop house structure itself, I went with 1/2 inch PVC pipes at their standard 10 foot length and then simply measured, cut, and draped over some 6 mil plastic sheeting over them.  The ends are wrapped over, like a big present, and then held together with a simple clamp.  The benefits to a hoop house are that they can help to speed up the warming of the soil in the Spring for an earlier start to planting, they can serve as a mini green house, they can help protect plants from frosts, and they allow you to extend your season for fall crops and harvests.

If you leave them up for the winter where it gets cold and snowy like what we get here in Utah along the Wasatch Mountains, you can apparently keep hardy plants such as some kales, spinaches, chard, kohlrabi, and other like plants alive and growing for a continual harvest of greens and so on through the winter.  If the bed is still within the reach of sunlight, the soil will absorb that light and radiate the heat from it through the evening.  The plastic helps to hold in much of that heat.  If temperatures get too extremely cold, there are other methods to help ensure that the hoop house maintains a bit of warmth such as setting out some jugs of hot water inside of it and/or stringing up Christmas lights (non-LED).

The same hoop house structure can also be used to hold up shade cloth, bird netting, or other protection for plants as needed.  I must credit Jim Teahan of thewealthyearth.com for the motivation to get some hoop houses up.

Hoop house skeleton.  The grid across the bed is a PVC watering grid I constructed last year.

Hoop houses all completed

When days are sunny and warmer but nights are still frigid,  you can roll up the sides to allow some air circulation.  The sun can heat the inside up 20 - 30 degrees warmer than the outside temperature and can cook cold hardy plants if  allowed.

The next step, also in the pictures above, was to set up some vertical trellises on the north end (so as to not shade plants relying on southern sunlight) of each of the beds.  One of the more cost-effective and durable way to set these up was to follow what was advised in Mel Barholomew's All New Square Foot Gardening book.  That was to use 1/2 inch electrical conduit and fittings secured to the ground by placing it over some 18" - 24" lengths of rebar driven half way into the ground.

As recommended for added stability, I also got some 3' T-Posts and fastened some conduit hangers on them.  This should ensure solid support for heavier crops such as watermelons and pumpkins in addition to peas, tomatoes, cantaloupe, cucumbers, squashes, and other vining plants you can grow up them.  All I have yet to do is attach some nylon netting to them.

Vertical trellis anchored and supported just outside of the bed

At this point, most of the remodeling phase was complete.  Now it was time to move on with the expansion phase...

Recently we purchased three different varieties of some seedless grape starts (concord, red, & green) and raspberries.  While they haven't been planted yet, we needed to know where we would place them and allow us to maximize growing spaces.  At first we thought of just using the same space where two vines had already existed from when we bought our home.  The two vines already in place were both seeded varieties (green & concord) with no good trellis system in place or any proper vine training and basically got out of control through last season's growth.  We were just going to plant the 2 of the three new vines a bit away from the existing ones and then as the new ones matured over the next couple of years, we'd pull the old ones out.

Of course, after more thought, we decided it wasn't worth keeping the old vines around any longer anyways, even though I had pruned them back over a couple of weeks ago, because we just don't care for seeded varieties, especially our kids.  I also thought it would be better to pull them out now while the clay soil was was still soft and moist and easy to dig from all of the recent snowmelt and so we wouldn't have to worry about interfering with the roots of newer vines once established.

Old grape vines before they were removed

After making the decision to give up homegrown grapes for the next year or two, I had the idea to take out a chain link fence that had been propped up on some T-posts to separate what had been the vegetable garden area from some flower beds that surround our back lawn, and replace the fencing down one side with the grape vines and the other side with the raspberries.

Grape vines removed.  My daughter did all of the hard work.  =)  The length of fencing in the background has since been removed and will be replaced with a sturdy grape trellis.

This length of fencing was removed to be replaced with a trellis that will support raspberries

At the same time the decision was made to remove the old fence, I offered up the old bed frames to my wife.  We wanted to continue to make use of them since we had only used them for one year but weren't sure where and how to lay them out exactly.  After a few days of thought and some prototype placements,  it was decided to connect all of them together to make one large bed and place it in a space that had previously been occupied by a cherry tree (which we lost to an early fall snow storm this last year).  

The space was also previously home to a sickly peach tree when we had bought the home last spring and it ultimately died over the summer (the few branches that had life in the spring dried up through the hot summer we had).  At the beginning of the month we hired a friend who was an arborist to help with pruning our surviving fruit trees (apple, peach, plum) and to cut down and remove the stumps of the two dying/dead trees (cherry and peach).  

The rest of the space was occupied by a variety of spring flower bulbs, a few ground cover plants, a few rose bushes, and a few spring/summer perennials like poppies.  While this space was all very beautiful when most of it was in bloom last April, it quickly became less appealing as summer came on and most of the spring blooms went dormant for the rest of the year.  Once the apple, cherry, and overgrown (neglected) plum trees had gone into full bloom and leafing -- apple and cherry tree lied on the east side and plum tree was on the west side -- they shaded out much of this space for much of each day making it hard for many sun loving plants to grow.  We tried to keep it watered with what were several runs of soaker hoses that were already in place when we purchased the home, but had all worn out.  As the summer progressed, this seemed to only serve masses of weeds that filled up all the empty spaces.

Ultimately, my wife and I had agreed that a few weeks of blooming bulbs through the large patch of ground was worth sacrificing for months of easier to water and maintain annuals and even some more vegetables.  With the cherry tree and old sickly peach trees gone and out of the way and the plum tree nicely pruned back to a more respectable size and shape, the space appeared to be much more open and viable to sustain a large raised bed.  Bulbs like tulips, daffodils, crocuses, and chives would still be placed and permitted to grow around the perimeter of the bed as well as in all of the other flowering spaces surrounding the lawn.  

At this point I dug out some of the bigger bulbs that were starting to come up and transplanted them to other empty spaces outside of the area where the new big raised bed would go.  I then cleared out all of the remaining plants and assembled the old raised bed kits to form one big bed to occupy the majority of the space.  I still need to level them and we'll then be able to fill them up and start getting them planted in the coming weeks.  I will be the steward over the back beds while my wife has agreed to be the steward over the "new" big bed.  We also look forward to involving our young children in the planting and harvesting of all the beds as much as reasonably possible. 

Bulbs, apple & cherry tree in full bloom last April

The first snowstorm of last fall wasn't kind to the cherry tree

The "new" big bed

A distant look at the garden as of this week

First Square Foot Gardening Experience

Before I start piling on some posts relevant to the here and now of this year's garden, I wanted to provide some background on it with a post about our gardening experience last year...

We will soon be celebrating the first year anniversary of purchasing our own home...well, since entering into a big debt to purchase our own home.  A big factor in the home we settled was not only its neighborhood and close proximity to where I work, but also its landscaping and gardening space.  It already had a mature apple, cherry, & plum tree with a peach tree nearing maturity.

The previous owners however, while they loved to have beautiful roses all over the property, did not appear to have much of a vegetable garden in place besides a couple grape vines and a strawberry bed from what we could see.  However, it had been vacant and on the market for a year and not as well maintained during that year.  The prime spot for where some vegetables may have been grown at some time was full of nothing but weeds, Holly-Hocks, and hard packed clay.  When we purchased the home, I had already committed to building raised beds knowing some of the benefits they offered.  I was first introduced to using raised beds in a class in high school and have since thought that was the way to go with backyard gardens sitting on lots on at least a 1/4 acre or less.  Once we were able to close on our home, I immediately began looking up information and design ideas for raised bed gardens and it was then that I stumbled across the Square Foot Gardening (SFG) method as engineered and taught by Mel Bartholomew. I checked out his All New Square Foot Gardening book from our local library and explored it some more through blogs and forums.  After pondering the many benefits Mel professed in his book and seeing these benefits proven in pictures, videos, and blogs made by others demonstrating their success with the method, I decided it would be worth the up-front investments.

So with the decision made to garden the SFG way, and in order to get a garden in right away (it was now nearing the end of May), I hastily splurged on 3 to 4 pre-cut raised bed kits at the local Home Depot that were capable of erecting a total of six 4'x4' beds, four of them six inches deep and two of them 10 inches deep.  In addition to the beds, I  purchased some Mel's Mix soil ingredients from the local Home Depot and WalMart.  Mel's Mix is recommended to consist of 1/3 Vermiculite, 1/3 Peat Moss, and 1/3 blend of at least 5 different varieties of compost. 

Before & After

Finished Set up

Unfortunately, things didn't take off as well as I had hoped at the very start.  After the beds were set and filled with the soil mix, we planted out some little watermelon and cantaloupe seedlings that we started in some little Jiffy pellets in our kitchen window.  We also planted in some recently purchased tomato plants and sowed some beans, chard, beets, carrots, radishes, herbs, okra, zucchini  cucumbers, lettuces and spinach among other things.  

To recount, the lettuces and spinach were planted in a stand alone 4'x4' bed, 6 inches deep, that I had placed under the plum tree that is out in the middle of the garden area in hopes that it would provide a bit of shade to protect the delicate greens from the blazing afternoon heat of the sun.  All the lettuce and spinach sprouted, but I think the heat still proved too much for the spinach to handle because it struggled to grow many leaves before it started to bolt for seed.  The lettuces fared much better, but it wasn't long before they weren't happy any more either.  One variety that still did great was Buttercrunch. I made every effort to make sure that bed was getting plenty of water knowing how much those plants would need cooler moist soil. 

Lettuce bed w/ some beans started

Buttercrunch & Romaine

Buttercrunch

It wasn't long however before realizing that Mel's way of taking a cup of sun-warmed water from a nearby bucket and sprinkling it around the base of each plant in each square was not only time-consuming for all the other beds I had, but was also not going to be a viable way to maintain consistent soil moisture for each of the plants in the beds to survive the brutal heat we came to endure last summer, even for heat loving plants like the tomatoes and okra.    

I then began hand watering each bed with a watering wand every morning before work.  While it was a pleasure to get out in the garden early each morning and see the progress of what plants were struggling to come along, this was still a time consuming process each morning. I would soak the surface of the soil and figured that once it started to puddle up, that would be enough to drain through the rest of the soil and give the plant roots the moisture it would need through the day.  As it turns out though, those morning waterings were not penetrating beyond the first inch or two of the soil surface.  Only after several weeks of waiting for carrots to sprout in a deeper 10" bed did I come to realize this when digging my hand down past the first few inches of the soil that had been watered every day for weeks to that point and found the soil to be bone dry below the top couple of inches.  

 I thought I had wet the Mel's Mix I had put together as recommended thoroughly enough before filling the beds with it, but it was then apparent that I didn't.  I then concluded that the carrots, being so close to the surface were probably being cooked and/or dried out with the kind of heat we were already experiencing in June.  I knew carrots were to be grown, or at least started, in more mild temperatures, but thought I could defy the current time of the season as I was with the lettuce, but alas, only one carrot out of a few different squares ever sprouted and grew to a size big enough to eat.

On a little tangent here, but to add to the watering method complications, I was also experiencing some rather viscous pest damage on nearly all of the seedlings that had managed to come up, especially among some beans, cucumbers, and swiss chard. I could never see anything on them during the day though and for a bit was puzzled as to what was eating away at the young plants.  Only after a midnight trip out to the garden did I come to discover a barrage of earwigs practically swarming nearly all the beds and all of the tender young seedlings that were up.  I'll have to go into this story and how eventually won the battle with these reprehensible little pests in a bit more detail in another post.

Earwig damage to a bean leaf

Back on track now... at this time I grew more concerned about how to get the right amount of water into the beds to penetrate the entire root zones of the plants and the whole body of soil without having to stand out there for several hours each morning, which was time I didn't have.  I had researched drip irrigation a little bit but quickly became one of those people who thought it to be too complicated and too costly at first--this has since changed and I'm planning on using drip irrigation throughout my garden this year.  So, I opted to go out and buy some PVC piping and fittings to form a 4' x 4' grid and drilled some small holes in strategic places that would serve as 'drip' emitters.  

It actually worked out quite well in my first test run with it.  I was able to hook up a hose to it and let it run for about a half hour.  Afterwards, I checked the depth of the water penetration and found that the bed I had tested out the watering grid on was consistently moist from the surface all the way through.  Not only did this one watering session serve to keep the bed moist for the rest of the day, but in checking each day thereafter, I found that the soil stayed very nice and damp under the first inch or two of the surface for several days thereafter without receiving new water, even among temperatures reaching 90+ degrees each day.  Impressed with how the grid had worked I was able to build two more grids to serve two other beds that had plants that would accept them.  

Unfortunately, the cost of the PVC fittings to hold these grids together started to add up pretty quickly, especially after all that I had invested int he raised beds and soil mix,  and I wasn't confident how well they'd still work through the rest of the season.  So, I kept it at three grids for three of the 6 beds and figured I could continue to take time to hand water the other three.  Over the season, it became evident that the grids performed remarkably well because the seedlings and plants that were in the grids not only soon started to grow much more rapidly, but thrived and became rather happy and fruitful, though this all occurred much later in the season than I had anticipated.  It also probably helped that I was able to get the earwig infestation under control to enable the seedlings that survived the time they needed to recover.

PVC grid recently used to support trays of lettuce and swiss chard while hardening off

A summer day's harvest of lettuce, radishes, and plums from above

Aside from the square foot garden beds that we had fair to moderate success with last summer given the late start, obstacles, and other circumstances, we also had attempted a 'Three Sisters Garden' with some success in a circular in-ground bed, and also had great success with some sweet corn in a more traditional 4 inch deep 4' x 10' raised bed where we just amended the native clay with some composted steer manure and other compost.  I plan to put up some brief posts that reflect on those successes later on down the road as well.

In my next post however, hopefully later this weekend, I plan to show off the progress of the "remodel" and expansion of last year's garden that I'm currently in the middle of completing for this season.