Garden Post - Spring 2009

As many of you have inquired about the Cannon Family Garden for 2009, I decided finally to take some time to put together a post. Some of you may know that I have never been a very successful gardener. Granted, I've only been gardening independently for two, going on three, years. However, because the second year's garden was so much better than the first year's (though still with vast room for improvement) I feel justified in sharing a few things I have learned and am planning to do this year with my garden. (It's not technically "my" garden, but I'm so obsessive about it that Mitzi has resigned herself from vegetable garden duties because my micromanaging is insufferable.) Plus, it's always fun to post pictures.

The old sprinkler layout - before I got my hands, shovel, and hacksaw on it

This year I'm trying a few things differently. First, I ripped out our old, umbrella-spray sprinkling system because it was causing too much soil erosion and was wreaking havoc with my precious carrot beds. In doing so I found an confounding nest of tree roots throughout our garden that made working the soil a tedious affair. I also found out first hand that what I've been hearing about Boise's clay-heavy soil from native Boiseans is 100% correct. Once I got past the first three inches of top soil it was like digging through thick, heavy fudge ice-cream (at least, that's what it looked like). This further complicated my sprinkler removal job as the sprinkler pipes were buried below about 18" of thick clay. Nevertheless, I prevailed. I sawed off the buried line and capped it leaving just one head in place that I plan on using for a drip-line system. Removing the sprinkler line would also make it possible to rototill the soil. Unfortunately we have no rototiller and aren't close enough with anyone here who has one to do that this year. Instead I just used our neighbor's pitch-fork and some elbow grease to try to break up this stubborn soil and make it useful. (As a side note, I prefer this clay-heavy soil 100%-over to the gravel-pit we had for our first garden in Provo. Good grief, I'm amazed anything grew in that mess.)

Next, for reasons I don't quite fully grasp myself (something about "drainage" and "raised beds") I decided to build garden boxes this year. I made several trips to Lowe's to find out what it would cost to build a few boxes to plant in. It was pretty wild to see the price variations in the types of wood. I got some tips on what to use (more expensive = lower maintenance/lasts longer) but decided that I didn't want to break the bank on some fancy redwood boxes when I wasn't even sure if I would like this box gardening or if it would even make a lick of difference. So I went with the cheap stuff: 1" x 10" x 12' white wood boards ($65 for 5). I was told that this wood, if left untreated, would probably "gray-out" in six-months and start rotting after two years or so. After getting some more advice I learned that for $13 I could put varnish on my boards and prolong their life almost indefinitely (with relatively little work). Sweet! So I bought a small can of varnish and a $2 paint brush. They couldn't cut the boards for me at the store (they can only cut plywood, not boards) so I had to drive to our friends' house to use his table saw to cut them up for me. As I loaded the 12'-long boards into the Isuzu I tried to remember if there were any specific police codes for which I could be pulled over. Then I thought to myself: "I probably won't see any cops between here and there (about 2 miles)." But of course, about half-way from the store I drove right in front of a BPD cruiser who was stopped at the intersection I was passing through. Fortunately he had better things to do and turned the other way.

A Darwin Award waiting to happen

I assembled my four 50" x 34" boxes and hauled them out to the garden space. I tried to dig up some mounds from the existing soil to fill the boxes but knew I would need additional material. So I bought 10 bags ($1.50/bag) of top soil and 4 bags ($2/bag) of steer manure from Wal-Mart and distributed them evenly to each of my boxes. I then mixed everything together again with my neighbor's pitch-fork. Then, in a flash of revelation, I figured out what a hoe was for: packing-down soil! I'm sure it's got other uses but they are still unknown to me. I packed down all of my new soil and planted my cool-weather seeds: two varieties of peas (we haven't grown any previously because we always started too late in the season but I LOVE them!), spinach, and broccoli starts (supposedly broccoli grows well here but you have to start growing them inside early on which we didn't do, so I bought some starts from a garden shop).

Assembly

I haven't hooked up the drip-line watering system yet because we still have frosty mornings from time to time. Fortunately, our garden doesn't usually frost because it is tightly enclosed on three sides. Sadly it was humid and cold the other morning and my poor broccoli starts got seriously chilled. I've started covering them at night with a garbage bag (we'll see if that works) to keep the frost off but I may be too late. Sad!

Finished product: A garden of boxes. Stay tuned for posts and pictures about the many edible wonders these boxes will hopefully yield.

As for lighting, our neighbors have a large willow tree to the west of our garden space so the western edge of the garden gets shaded for half the day (a serious problem for vegetables I've found). Last year we planted corn on the western half of the garden and each stock got progressively smaller the further west it was located (and the fewer hours of sunlight it received). Consequently I am perplexed as to what to do with my western-most box. Right now I've planted spinach and beets that will hopefully get some good sun before all of the leaves come in on the willow. Afterwards they'll still get sun until about 1:00pm but then it's all shade. I'm saving my sunniest spots for my peas, carrots, and corn.

Corn-Sunlight diagram (Cannon Garden - 2008)

Regarding the corn, I think that I tend to be too conservative in how much corn I plant and how close together I plant it. My corn has never turned out (we grow nuggets of corn rather than ears) but I have seen people with garden boxes absolutely jam-packed with corn stalks. My mother-in-law grows fabulous corn and she plants 5-8 seeds in a single hole. Then, rather than thinning them out, she lets them all just grow up on top of each other! It's crazy but it works just fine. Plus your ears can cross-pollinate much more easily when your corn is close together and in high numbers. I'm going to jam one of my boxes full of corn this year and see how it works.

Anyway, that's my garden post. For those of you who made it through the whole thing, congratulations and good luck in your own 2009 gardening endeavors.