Tierra Lucero
Green Thumb Gardening Handbook
General Gardening Instruction
(Particularly suited to Home Gardens Project members in Taos, NM)
INDEX
<!-- Intro Preparing the Beds Planting Succession Planting Transplanting Thinning Weeding Pests and Diseases Harvesting Cooking and Nutrition Composting -->
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Intro
Gardening can be an art, a science, a hobby, a profession, and a passion. However you approach it, remember that it is best learned by doing. So jump in there, make mistakes, discover what works best, and enjoy yourself. Remember to:
- Check your garden every day. Look for pests, overly dry or waterlogged soil, diseased plants, and food to harvest.
How to tell: If your soil is too wet or dry. Stick your finger in it! Often the top of the soil will look bone dry but if you scratch the surface, you’ll find it is moist. Don’t rely on your eyes. It should NOT look silty like riverbed soil. If it does, or if there is mold growing on top, it is too wet!
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<h3 id=“prepare”>Preparing the Beds</h3>
*Weed the beds thoroughly before planting. A heavy winter mulch of straw should help keep spring weeds down, but there are always some to deal with! Make sure to get the roots. *Use compost or fertilizer when necessary, usually at the start of each growing season. Mid season fertilizing is best done with a liquid soil drench. Compost is usually added to the soil before planting.
- If you can avoid turning the soil completely, that’s a good thing. Soil develops structure, and turning the soil (and tilling it in a field) destroys that structure.
- If you must turn the soil, be gentle and try not to compact it by stepping on it or watering it with a strong hose spray.
- Rake the beds smooth and even.
- Mulch with a layer of straw even if you haven’t planted yet, to keep the top soil later from drying out and blowing away.
Planting
- Know your last spring frost date! For Taos, it’s generally considered June 1, but we can get frosts much later. Ask your neighbors if they garden and when they like to plant.
- Pay attention to the weather patterns and the climate in your yard in particular. Does your garden sit in a particularly warm or cold spot? Will it need more frost protection than plants in other areas?
- Read the seed packet before planting and follow its directions where they are applicable.
- If you are planting in the square-foot method, follow the instructions for square-foot plant spacing.
- If you are planting in rows, follow seed packet instructions. Think of how big the plant will get and give it enough room.
- For planting depth, read the seed packet directions. You might want to plant a bit deeper than the packet calls for so the seeds don’t dry out in the spring winds.
How to tell: How deep to plant seeds. Generally, the bigger the seed, the deeper you plant. Most big seeds will be planted no deeper than 1/2 to 1 inch deep, and most small seeds will be planted around 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch deep.
- Lightly tamp the soil down over the seed with your hand. Don’t press too hard!
- Lightly mulch the bed with straw. This keeps the plants warmer and the soil surface moist.
How to tell: How thickly to mulch. Mulch should be thick enough to protect the plants and cover the bed, but not so thick that sunlight and air can’t get through, or the seedlings rot under the wet straw. There should be plenty of open spaces, and you should be able to see the soil beneath.
- Water the newly planted seed bed thoroughly with drip irrigation. If you have to use a hose, spray lightly to avoid disrupting the seeds. Don’t let the water make puddles. Spray evenly and saturate the bed.
Important tip: Newly planted seeds need to stay consistently moist to germinate. They need more water than when their roots are established. Don’t let the soil dry out! If it is very hot and windy, set your drip timer to come on three times a day for 10-15 minutes each. Check the soil regularly until the seeds are germinated and standing up strong. Then lower your timer setting to twice a day for 15 minutes or less if it’s raining.
- Cover the beds with row covers to protect the seeds and young plants after they germinate.
Succession Planting
- The best way to get the most out of your garden is to plant in successions throughout the season. Always leave some room in your garden for later plantings, or just plant something new after you pull out old plants that have bolted or that you have fully harvested.
Plants that can be sown every
2, 3, or 4 weeks include:
- Salad greens
- Carrots
- Beets
- Radishes
Plants that like spring and fall plantings include:
- Peas
- Broccoli (preferably from transplant)
- Cauliflower (preferably from transplant)
- Spinach
- Turnips
Plants you plant only once a year include:
- Melons
- Tomatoes (from transplant)
- Corn (sweet corn: 2-3 plantings possible)
- Beans
- Squash
- Onions (from transplant)
- Pepper (from transplant)
- Eggplant
- Garlic
Some plants can over-winter after being planted in late summer or
early fall, including:
Spinach, Salad greens, and perennial flowers planted for next spring.
Cooking greens planted in late summer can last all winter as well!
Transplanting
- Strong sun and wind are hard on new transplants. Set out transplants on a cloudy day to reduce stress or put them out early in the morning or late afternoon. Avoid transplanting during the heat of the day, if at all possible. Provide shade and wind protecting for the transplants by using shade cloth when possible.
- Keep them in their original soil if possible to avoid damaging the roots. If the soil falls apart while you are handling the plant, be careful with the roots. (Often plants like to have their roots broken up a bit if they have become root-bound in their containers. If you see are a big clump of roots and hardly any soil, the plant is root-bound.)
- Dig a hole big enough for the plant and then remove the plant from its container and set it in the hole. Add compost to the hole first if possible.
- Don’t set the plant much deeper into the soil than it was when it was in its container. Don’t cover the stem with soil or it could rot. Also, don’t plant in too shallow so that roots are exposed above the surface. (Some plants are exceptions; tomatoes should be planted more deeply to provide stem support).
- Tamp soil lightly around the plant once it is planted and water it immediately if the soil is very dry.
Thinning
- If you need to thin, wait until the plants have their second set of leaves at least. Choose the weaker plants to remove.
- Pinch the plant out at the base of the step, don’t pull it up! This might disturb the roots of nearby plants that you want to keep growing.
- You can thin in stages if you want to. Take the weakest plants first, leaving the rest to get a big bigger before you take the next thinnings out.
Note: Many plants can be grown big enough to be thinned and eaten, such as baby carrots, beets, turnips, and greens, leaving the rest of the plants to grow to their full size. Be sure to fill in the holes left by the thinned plants with soil.
Weeding
- Remove all weeds and their roots before you plant.
- Don’t pull up weeds near seedlings or small and developing plants, you might disturb their fragile roots. Do a thorough job weeding before you plant, and wait until the plants are very established to pull weeds again. (You probably won’t be able to get the roots of a lot of weeds once your other plants are growing. Pull whatever you can.)
- Keep up with the weeds! Get your kids to weed once a week for an hour if you can. A weeded garden looks much prettier than a weedy garden, and helps to keep down pests. Plus, weeding gets you out into the garden and helps you notice how your garden is doing. It can also be a peaceful and therapuetic experience.
Pests and Diseases
Some bugs you might encounter include:
*Aphids; small usually green, transparent looking bugs. They love tomatoes, Dill, greens, Roses, Columbines and Pansies.
They suck the sap out of plants. Your plant might wilt or turn yellow and look sickly.
*Flea Beetles; small black, hopping bugs. They love many plants, especially mustard greens, Arugula, Tat Soi. They make little holes in plants and can kill small plants before they have a chance to grow.
*Grasshoppers; They can wreak havoc in your garden, one bug can decimate a whole plant over night.
*Tomato Hornworms; very large, really cool looking green caterpillars that camoflauge themselves on your tomato plants
in mid-summer and eat their leaves and stems. They can wipe out half a plant over night.
If you have destructive bugs, please don’t spray any toxic chemicals on your garden!! They are worse for you than the bugs! Sometimes there is nothing to do but pull out the infested, or diseased crops. If you do this, don’t put them in your compost pile, burn them in a bon fire so they don’t transmit their bugs or disease. But usually there are things to do:
- Keep your garden weed free.
- Don’t crowd your plants, keep air flow open. Take row covers off periodically to air out the beds.
- If you know certain bugs will show up at a certain time to eat a certain plant, don’t plant it at that time!
(Example: Flea beetles love Arugula and Tat Soi in the very early spring, so we generally avoid planting them until later
in the year so we don’t host a thriving flea beetle population that will torment us all summer). - Plants love rain so let them get rained on if there is also no hail. This might also wash off some bugs like aphids.
- Some bugs can be simply washed off, such as aphids, or picked off, such as tomato horn worms, and other destructive worms (Earth worms are, of course, beneficial and never to be killed if you can avoid it).
- Pyrythium-Rotenone is an organic bug killer that can be used if you have a really bad infestation
- Fertilize your soil and/or add compost. Healthy soil makes plants healthy which helps them to deter pests.
- Row covers will help to deter some pests like grasshoppers.
- Plant a “trap” crop nearby. Certain plants attract certain pests, for instance Dill attracts aphids. If you plant a lot of dill
near your garden, the aphids might go for the Dill and leave your other plants alone. - Some plants, like those in the Umbelum family (Dill, Carrots, Cilantro), attract beneficial insects with their flat topped flowers. In large gardens, be sure to devote 5% of your space to beneficial insect habitat. Beneficials often eat other pests. (Lady bugs love to eat aphids).
Harvesting
- Harvest in the morning or evening for best flavor, and if the food is going to be stored. If you are going to eat it right
away, harvest whever you need to. - DON’T LEAVE FOOD IN THE SUN! It will wilt immediately. Put harvested food directly into cold water if you can,
(bring a bucket out to the garden with you) wash it off, then store in the refrigerator or in a cool, dry place. - Picking the fruits of many flowering plants will encourage more production, so keep picking!
- Harvest lettuces and salad greens while they’re young, before they become bitter and bolt. (Cut the outer, older leaves
of leafy greens for harvest, leaving the younger inner leaves to keep growing. For full-head lettuces, cut the entire head off, leaving an inch or two to let another head grow). - Spinach hates hot weather and will bolt fast in summer, so pick while you can!
- Keep up with your zuccini! Pick them while they’re small and tender, they grow fast and end up as big as watermelons and then no one wants to deal with them! (Though they’re good to stuff when they’re big).
- Pick your pole beans before they get old and stringy.
- Eat your tomatoes before the bugs do! Harvesting makes for more fruit!
- Turnips are nutty and sweet when young, but get bitter when they’re very big and growing in hot weather.
- Radishes get spicier as they get older. If you can’t handle them really hot, get em’ while they’re young!
Cooking and Nutrition
There are many wonderful and simple ways to prepare vegetables. Invest in some good vegetable cookbooks if you don’t already have them. Often your kids (or husband or wife!) might think they hate a certain vegetable but will love it prepared a new and interesting way. Vegetables can be eaten raw, boiled, blanched, steamed, stir-fried, roasted, baked or grilled. If you don’t like something cooked one way, try it another way!
- Cooking greens like Kale and Collards are extremely rich in nutrients but not always the family favorite! Some people have no idea what to do with them. Don’t eat them raw (they are bitter and tough). Try chopping them up and sautéing them with onions and garlic and adding them to an omlette, or adding them chopped to soups or casseroles. They’re quite good like that, and good all by themselves, steamed or put into boiling water for a minute or so to soften them.
- Mustard greens are way too hot to eat alone, but mixed with other salad greens they add spice and flavor to regular salads. Try growing many different kinds of greens for truly delicious salads.
- Have a barbeque and try roasting all sorts of different veggies. Roasting really brings out flavors in a new way.
- Some veggies are just scrumptious cooked all by themselves with a little butter and salt. Try broccoli, beets, turnips, and carrots like that.
- Don’t overcook your vegetables! Overcooking kills enzymes in our food, which we need for proper digestion and assimilating nutrients. Cook your veggies until they’re done, not longer. Eat them raw when you can.
- Juicing vegetables is a powerful way to flood your body with nutrients. Especially if you are very sick, invest in a juicer and consume as many glasses of fresh raw vegetable juices as you can. At least two a day would be perfect.
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Related Links
Backyard Gardener provides gardening plans and plant lists to enhance your gardening knowledge.
Tips on caring for native and non-native plants, flowers, vegetables and fruits in the southwest
Here is a comprehensive list of resources for various organic gardening products.