Vegetable Garden

 

Survivor, the reality TV show, was so hugely popular that I'm surprised more people don't try it for real, that is, surviving on food grown in their own backyard. The concept might not seem as exciting, dramatic, or gripping as the TV show, although all the essential elements will be there — battles with nature, competition with wildlife, and even, perhaps, intense rivalry between friends and neighbours.

Okay, maybe growing vegetables doesn't sound quite so thrilling as browsing a salad bar, but if you've forgotten the taste of, or never even tasted, a perfect tomato or freshly popped peas, you'll be in for a treat. We're talking fresh! A shrink-wrapped lettuce shipped into the country crammed in the back of a truck can't compare with one from your own garden that traveled direct from veggie patch to table in mere minutes. Why, I've been known to take my sandwich down into the garden to add the lettuce right then and there. I know, I know, wash it first. I hear it all the time, but at least it hasn't been handled by countless strangers. Now that's fresh.

Growing your own vegetables is easy. With a little planning and a few minutes a day you can be dining on the finest vegetables ever grown — your own. Consider starting a small vegetable plot this spring. You don't have to start big. A large planter will provide a surprising amount of produce. Begin with easily grown things like peas, beans or tomatoes before moving on to the exotic stuff.

Here are the basics for vegetable growing:

Locate your vegetable garden where it will receive plenty of sunshine — at least six hours, preferably morning sun. Typically, a veggie bed is placed at the bottom of the yard, out of the way, but it will be much handier if it's closer to the house. Unless you intend growing competition sized vegetables, a soil depth of about 200mm is a good start, but make sure the bed is raised slightly above the surrounding ground to allow for good drainag, or build an enclosed, raised bed.

Best soil for vegetable growing is light and friable, especially if you're intending to grow root crops like carrots, beets or parsnips as they don't like having to force their way down into heavy clay soil. Test your soil by squishing a moist handful into a ball. Sandy soil will crumble easily while clay will clump. Clay or sandy, you can improve your soil immensely by digging in lots of organic matter — compost, shredded leaves, or aged manure.

Timing is important when sowing seeds as soil temperature affects the germination. Seed for lettuce, peas, and spinach can all be sown quite early, as early as mid to late April, depending on how warm this spring turns out to be, but that's far too soon for warm season plants like beans, corn, or zucchini. As for the true heat lovers like melons, peppers, cucumbers, and squash, June will be soon enough as no seeds will germinate until the required minimum temperature of the soil is reached. Fortunately, instructions for planting time, sowing depth, and spacing of seed are usually on the seed packets.

The directions on the packet usually call for quite wide spacing between rows. For instance, it's often suggested peas be planted in rows of over half a metre apart. This is mainly to allow access for picking, but the rows can be closer in a home garden.

Especially important is planting depth. A seed has only just enough energy packed into it to push a limited distance to the surface: Plant too deep and nothing will come up. Many seeds are tiny, making it difficult to space them precisely, so if that's the case, plant lots and thin them out as they begin to grow. Alternatively, you can forgo growing from seed and purchase actual vegetable plants. They're available at most garden centres these days, but then you'll miss the excitement of seeing those first sprouts pop up.

After planting, avoid walking on the garden whenever possible as this will only compact the soil. I always keep a couple of boards handy to lay across the bed if I need to get in there for weeding or picking.

Once the plants are up and growing, it's a good idea to mulch between rows. Mulch can be almost any organic material such as leaves, straw, or grass clippings. Not only do mulches cut down on weeds, they help the soil retain moisture.

Moisture is essential for success, so plan on watering your vegetable garden regularly. There will be weeds to pull occasionally, too, and you may be challenged by insect pests, but with a little diligence, you, and your vegetable garden, will fight off all challengers to survive and reap the rewards. Imagine the glory of that first tomato!

Planted Picture Frames 2004

I like messing around with plants, in addition to growing them, and I have one “arrangement” that always attracts attention. I got the idea sometime in the late 1980s when I was over at a friend’s place, idly flipping through an old copy of a National Geographic magazine. I was looking at pictures in a story on the Appalachians when something caused me to look closely at an image of a rustic mountain homestead. There were plants growing on the wall. I’d no idea what they were, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. They were growing in a picture frame. That’s impressive, I thought, I must try that some day.

Fast forward a few years and after figuring out how to do it, I did get around to making the first of many hanging frames fille
d with plants. It wasn’t difficult, just a piece of plywood, preferably pressure treated, with a frame around it, then a piece of wire mesh sandwiched between it and an outer decorative frame. In this case old barnboard left over from the fence. I first made a couple of small ones, about forty by fifty centimetres (15” x 20”), and a later one about twice that size. I soon learned smaller is better as the big one was heavy, something to think about when hanging pictures.

Since it would be hanging on the wall, the plants would have to be something tough enough to survive growing in challenging conditions. I decided on sempervivum — hens and chicks as they’ll grow anywhere with little soil, and the frames would only hold an inch or so. As for soil, regular potting mix was too light and could fall out, so instead I used garden soil that I could squish into the wire mesh. I didn’t hang the frames the moment I’d planted them or the plants would have fallen out. I gave them a whole season to allow them to root securely through the wire mesh.

I don’t leave them hanging on the wall in winter, although the plants are hardy enough. I take them down and simply store them in a sheltered spot, out of driving rain. Even when they’re on the wall, I place them away from the prevailing wind to avoid the soil eroding or the plants washing out in a storm. They do need watering occasionally, but only lightly. I have since tried using other plants. Small sedums work well, and if I had room for them indoors, I could use tender succulents. I once planted one with Scottish moss and it looked like a small piece of lawn. However, it required more care than ones filled with succulents.

I’m obviously not the first to create these living pictures. It could well be the person living in that rustic cottage in the Appalachians or even earlier by the gardener who took care of the hanging gardeners of Babylon. They aren’t difficult to make, and I have done workshops in the past for garden clubs, so they are popping up here and there. I did once see the same concept on sale at a garden show at an exorbitant price for something I knocked together with a few pieces of wood. $300? I could buy at lot of plants for that.

If you use this design to make one, please credit  --  www.davidhobson.ca

The Gruelling Garden

Survival of the fittest. You see that every day in the garden, and not only among plants and bugs. Every spring I barely survive my own enthusiasm. This is the time of year when I'm wishing the snow away and eager to get out into the yard, where the first thing I'll likely do is strain something. I do it every year. At the first opportunity I'm out there poking away at the compost heap to see if it moves. If it does it means the frost is out of it, so I run to the shed and fetch a fork to give it an enthusiastic turning. Then I spend the rest of the week walking funny and cursing the compost heap, when it's really my own fault for letting myself get out of shape.

I do try to stay fit over winter by shovelling snow, but there's only so much to shovel and this year it hardly snowed at all. When this happens I soon start to lose the little bit of muscle tone I have. When there is a lot of snow still around, I'll sometimes haul out Wally, my wheelbarrow, and use him to move it from the pile beside the driveway to the backyard. This way I keep in reasonable shape and at the same time help the garden by extending the snow coverage for my more tender perennials.

Of course, the neighbours aren't too sure what to make of this. Clearing snow off the driveway may be acceptable -- even encouraged, but putting it in a wheelbarrow to move it around the yard does raise a few eyebrows. I know they think I'm nuts, but a fresh lettuce tossed over the fence in summer helps keep down the rumours.

What I don't understand is, the neighbours may roll their eyes at me doing a little honest toil, but they think nothing of someone jogging down the street in the middle of winter wearing pink spandex, shrink-wrapped around too many big Macs. Maybe it's the colour. Maybe I shouldn't wear the yellow ones when I'm getting my workout, even though they match Wally perfectly.

As each year goes by I'm finding harder to stay in shape, so I came up with a great idea. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. This winter I cleaned up the garage and turned it into my very own garden gym. It was easy. I tied a couple of bricks to a shovel, and I hooked up a rake to the wall with a bungee cord. Now I can stand there for hours pretending I'm digging the veggie garden over or raking the lawn.

That's not all. I developed a whole range of exercises to simulate yard work. One of the harder jobs in the yard is pushing a wheelbarrow. I wanted to bring Wally in to wheel around the garage but there isn't enough room. I solved that by substituting a couple of pails for Wally and I carry them back and forth instead. When I get the hang of it I'll put something in the pails instead of pretending Wally's empty.

Another exercise I discovered quite by chance. I was in the gym doing some bungee raking, and hadn't quite got the hang of it. I had the rake pulled to the limit when it slipped out of my hand and boinged around the garage. Dangerous? I'll say. It slapped me in the head a couple of times before raking everything off the shelf where I store all my odds and ends. Two hours of simulated weeding as I cleaned them up was easily as effective, and exciting, as the real thing.

Yes, the garden gym works great; however, being cooped up in the garage without the distractions of nature I've discovered a whole new perspective on what I'm actually doing to myself out there in the yard every spring. After a few weeks of working out I've come to realize how much stress I actually put my poor body through.

No wonder it's always grumbling. I now believe that gardening is just as grueling as any sport. Why, maybe gardening should be in the Olympics. That would be so thrilling. Can you imagine the spine-tingling tension of a topiary competition, or the excitement of competitive weeding? And let's not forget the sheer titillation of questionable garden clothing.

But then I suppose there'd be the usual scandal over the use of illegal growth hormones (that will be a biggie, I'm sure), and we'd have to watch those hokey interviews with the medalists: "I owe it all to my pony, Jenny, for providing me with what it takes to grow healthy plants." Meanwhile the medalists will all be sitting there holding shovels with trademarks showing and wearing shrink-wrapped spandex with the logos of huge fertilizer companies plastered over them.

Maybe not. Maybe I'll skip today's workout and give the compost heap a poke instead -- ooh, ow.

DREAMING OF A GREENHOUSE?

 A Beginner’s Guide to Greenhouses

When it’s cool outdoors, I love to walk through an old greenhouse and feel the warmth around me. Slatted wooden benches, a hard-packed dirt floor, rusty heating pipes and, of course, plants all add to the pleasure. Throw in an old chair and a cup of tea and I'm a child again, back in my uncle’s greenhouse watching his tomatoes grow. It's the all-pervading earthiness, combined with nostalgia-inducing fragrances that evoke these feelings. To me, a greenhouse is such a comfortable place to be.

Around this time of year, I begin to think, boy, it sure would be nice to have a greenhouse in my backyard. I do have a small one, but it's just something I knock together in April to hold seedlings prior to planting, little more than a glorified cold frame. So, why don't I have a real greenhouse in my back yard? I'm not sure. Just haven't got around to it, no space available, not cost effective. These are the usual excuses, but they aren't very strong ones.

Making the Commitment

I know I'll be looking closely at all the greenhouses on display at the spring garden shows. I'll also be asking all kinds of questions and carefully considering the pros and cons. After returning home, I might even venture into the garden with a tape measure to size up suitable locations. I do this every year, but somehow the commitment is lacking. Part of the problem is that it's a conundrum. If I use space in the garden for a greenhouse, where would I plant all the extra stuff that I'd be sure to grow in it? I barely have room now.

And so it goes. Maybe you aren’t trouble by indecision and are happily planning for a new greenhouse. If so, here are a few tips to keep in mind.

Basic Guidelines

Look twice at the quality, especially if you get the bug at a garden show. There are high-quality greenhouses on display at reasonable prices. The framework is usually solidly constructed of aluminum with windows of glass or polycarbonate, but I've also seen flimsy plastic frames. These look fine at first glance, but you wouldn't want to be inside one during a wind storm.

Furthermore, consider how you will be using the greenhouse. For instance, if you want to grow orchids or other exotic plants year-round in a cold climate, you will want a substantial greenhouse, so look at double or triple glass or polycarbonate panels and a heating system. If it's only to provide an early start in spring, then a lightweight model may be sufficient. As for size, I haven't met an owner yet who hasn't wished for a greenhouse that was just a little larger. At least ensure the doorway is wide enough to haul stuff in and out with ease.

It's easy to say buy the biggest, but do consider where it will be situated. Out of the way at the bottom of the yard might be the first choice, but unless you like trudging through snowbanks to visit your orchids, the closer to the house the better, provided it will receive plenty of sunlight. Additionally, having a greenhouse close to the house means it will be easier to provide heat, light (if required) and water.

I might wax nostalgic about packed dirt floors, but these really are impractical. Paving stones or gravel are far superior, or better still, install a concrete base. Either way, ensure the greenhouse is anchored to the ground. There’s no point buying one if you're going to donate it to a stranger three blocks away after the first gust of wind.

Additional Considerations

Before signing on the bottom line, think about the extras. How will you heat it? How will you cool it? How will it be ventilated? These are important factors to consider, and they need to be addressed. A greenhouse might produce wonderful, evocative fragrances, and your very own tomatoes in January might prove delicious, but if the cost of growing them is equivalent to a trip to California to pick your own, you might want to hang on to the growing space.