Watering Plants for Healthy Growth - or what to do if you are not flooding

As I pointed out it rained after I put the plants into the "other Community Garden."  Then it rained the next day and the next, and the next, then on July 15 we received a storm that exceeded the average rainfall for the month.

This week we received 7 to 8 inches of rain.  Five inches fell on June 15.  The locally heavy storm flooded streets where I live so badly it actually made the national news and was mentioned on NPR, most probably because the rain was worst between 4:45 and 5:15 in the midst of rush hour.  Being a Chicago suburb this resulted in stranded motorists on the local freeway.

lots of streets in Elmhurst looked like this.

Last year we had a similar hard rain event, but then it came in late July and was followed by several other heavy rains that eventually resulted in our growing season ending early.

That white sign in the middle  is on the underpass, normally  15 feet from the street, seen here filled with water.

This month at O’Hare Airport  there has been 4.36 inches of rain as of 6/16/15, the average rainfall in the month of June is 3.5 inches, so we are halfway through the month and have exceeded the rainfall for the month and with Tropical storm Bill hitting Texas this week we can expect more rain next week and storms are already predicted for Thursday.

East End Park (near garden plots)

I have not been to the garden.  The roads leading to it were closed this week (Have I mentioned that the City wanted to turn the area around the gardens into flood retention as it already floods terribly?) I suspect there is still some standing water on the gardens, but I guess I do not want to know.  The photo above was taken at the park near the garden plots.

With all this extra water, we have not had to figure out if our hose reaches far enough to allow us to easily water the garden.  We’ve never hooked it up.  But not everyone is having this excess, so I thought I would take a moment to speak about how and when to water your garden. There are a range of factors which determine the best way to water each plant.

Watering your Garden

The Old Farmers Almanac, part of growveg.com, has a short, sweet, informative video on watering your garden. 

Here are the highlights:

You want to encourage plants to produce deeper roots that will seek out water deeper in the soil, however frequent watering causes plants to create shallow roots which are more affected by dry spells. Thorough watering once a week is better than shallow watering every two days.

Seedlings need more water until they can produce their own root systems.

Squashes, cucumbers, beans and peas need a bit more water when they are producing flowers and fruits.

Root vegetable crops like parsnips and carrots need less water as they are the tap root.

Water close to the ground trying to avoid wetting the foliage as this promotes disease.

Never water in the middle of the day as much of the water will quickly evaporate.

Do not be fooled by the dry surface.  Grab a trowel and dig into the soil to see if it is actually wet underneath.  If the soil near the roots still clumps when you squeeze it, put off watering for another day.

Drip irrigation is always best for a garden, but in a community garden this is usually not possible, so instead try deep watering containers

Plastic one pint milk bottles or dry drink mix containers from Aldi make great long time waterers if you poke holes in the bottom and bury them in the ground near plants.  Filled with water, they will slowly drip down into the soil by the roots of plants rather than watering at the surface.

Garden Addition - Another Community

We ran out of room in our Elmhurst Community Patch and after visiting the Community Garden Fest in Berkeley I decided to get a patch there.  The patches are smaller 5 feet by 15 feet and cost less, but the community feel is much larger.  I will share some details of the garden in future posts or you can check out the Garden Fest Post.

I was able to plant the garden on Thursday, June 11 around 4:30.  We went over on Sunday, but the rain the day before made it too muddy, so we did not want to risk compacting the soil. Today we are going to have more heavy rain, so after work I hurried over with a selection of plants and got them into the ground.  When it rains later they will get a nice drink and hopefully will not be beaten into the ground.

not planted

My patch is on the end of a section with about 7 other patches going off to the left.  The water at this location is in rain barrels and I believe the Village of Berkeley takes care of filling them when it doesn't rain.

planted

I did not have room for the three dahlias I got from the Garden Club and last year they did not bloom due to competition, so I brought those over and planted them at the south end of the garden.  I made two hills for squash, then I plated Kohlrabi, broccoli, and a few herbs.

There is really no more room here, but I have one tomato plant left and I may bring that over to try and fit it in.


The soil has a good amount of compost and a nice dark richness, however there is a high concentration of clay.  You can see in the image of the soil by one of the holes for the kohlrabi.

Kohlrabi is a cool season plant and it may bee too late to get a good crop from it as the days have turned rather hot, but I think they will be okay until July and we will see about harvesting the roots (like a turnip) and maybe also the leaves for a salad.

Here are the dahlias, three different varieties three different colors, but they are pinkish, I think.  I have the names but will have to look them up again to know for certain.

I planted an oregano, a common sage, some chives and flat leaf parsley.  I just could not have a garden with no herbs in it, so I chose a few duplicates.

Chives                                                   Oregano                                               Parsley                              

My only fear is that as I pulled up to plant there was a bunny running through the yard toward the back, so I may lose the parsley.

It will be interesting to see how this garden fares versus the one in Elmhurst.  I will continue to post a weekly update and if I need to another day of the week to update the second garden.  However, the second garden is between the Elmhurst garden and my apartment, so I can stop at both on the same day with out too much trouble.

Weekly Update - June 8, 2015

The excessive rain has destroyed the plan.  We did not have the ability to craft the different raised beds we wanted.  We are just trying to get the plants into the ground so they do not get root bound and die on the porch.  When the rain let up for several days this week allowing the soil to dry enough to plan, so we got up early Sunday morning to go out to the Garden and plant the herbs.


We left the south side of the garden for herbs when planting last week. We checked the weather when we got up at 6 am and it said the rain was going in but not until 10 AM, so we loaded up the plants and went over getting to the garden around 6:45 AM.

We had to remove the weeds from the garden space as we did not weed this section previously.  We used the soil twister to pull out the larger weeds and loosen them so they could be easily raked out.  It was not that time consuming.

Since I want to be able to lift out some of herbs from the garden at the end of the season, I decided to bury plastic containers and place the plants inside.  They can grow in the container, yet still be removed at the end of the year, reducing the root shock which killed the herbs I removed from the garden last year.

I used plastic cat litter containers.  They are thin flexible plastic, easily cut with a box cutter.  We made them deep for all but the thyme plants which we cut the container slight more shallow for.  We cut holes in the bottom for drainage.

I then dug out the dirt in various holes slightly larger but not deeper than the containers.

Placing the container in the ground I packed dirt around it, then filled it part way and added the plants.  We added water before and after plating the plants.

The spaces we planted back in May had a fair amount of weeds, that were in some cases taller than the plants.  It had been two weeks since we had been there, so this was to be expected.

The excessive rain was not loved by all the plants and resulted in one plant death. These are the cucumber plants.  I have yet to plant any bean seeds, but I will take care of that this week.

 The peppers are doing okay, but the hot peppers that had a few peppers forming have lost those peppers, probably again a product of the extra rain.

Hot pepper with damaged fruit

Planting Tomatoes and Peppers

We used the same method for planting both the tomatoes and peppers. We did not grow the plants from seed, rather we bought seedlings at a plant sale at the beginning of May.  As someone who lives in an apartment I do not start plants from seed indoors.

The Technique

The best way to plant vegetables is first to lay them out with the proper spacing.  Tomatoes need between 18 ans 24 inches of space.  Peppers need only 18 to 20 inches of space around the plants.

 

A hole is dug twice as large and twice as deep as the root ball of the plant.  I fill the hole with water and allow it to percolate into the soil, This tells me if the soil drains well and also wets the soil so that the root is not dried out when buried.

Before placing the plant in the hole I toss in a handful of compost to give the plant a bit of a boost to off set the shock of being planted.  The finally the plant is placed in the hole and the soil firmed around the plant.  It is then water thoroughly.

Once all the plants were planted I gave them a top dressing of more compost.

We could have waited a couple of weeks to put up the cages, as the plants hardly need them now, but we decided to just stake and cage them now in case we had warm nights that would cause rapid growth.

We would have watered them one more time before leaving the garden, but rain was predicted that night so we did not.  Good thing, as it rained for several hours that night.

The Planted Community Garden - Sunday May 24, 2015

This year we suffered from over-purchase syndrome.  That affliction where you buy more plants than will fit in your space.  That linked with the fact the plot at the end is actually smaller than it is supposed to be, something I had not planned for, made our original plan will not work out quite right.

Here is the plot, a bit weedy due to the fact we did not come out until May 24, due to the days of rain. We first removed the grass and used the hand tiller to break up the soil and remove the large weeds from the garden edge.

You can see the hand tiller to the left in this picture.  It is a pole with three curved claws at the bottom.  You place it in the ground and twist and it brings out weeds and breaks up soil.  You can see the original plan I posted back on May. I put in the paths and measured off the garden and that was when I discovered the the plan was not going to work.

We were not able to put in three long beds and two short, instead we got two long beds on the sides and three short beds down the middle  We planted tomatoes in one long bed as planned but it was shorter than it should have been so all the plants did not fit and we had to put the plants a bit closer together.

We purchased too many peppers and planted them into two beds leaving us with only one small bed for everything else and one long bed for the herbs.  I think I am going to have to sacrifice at least part of the herb bed for more vegetables, as the kohlrabi, broccoli, beans and squash cannot possibly fit in the last bed.  We lost the time for growing lettuce because of the heavy rains in May so we will try that experiment later in the season.

I will be growing some of the herbs in containers and will be planting onions and shallots in between the peppers. I will need to wait until the first week of June as it rained for five days straight starting with the evening of the day we planted these plants.  That rain and the effect of cold weather on the plants will be covered next week.

Why to get or use a Community Garden or a Patio Garden?

This year the drought in California is becoming acute.  80% of the water in California is used for agriculture.  That means if the shortages continue, our food prices for produce, almonds, strawberries, citrus and vegetables will continue to increase.  We cannot do anything about some food which we cannot grow easily in the Midwest, but there is no reason we cannot grow vegetables and herbs for our own use and perhaps enough surplus to can and preserve for winter use.

In fact it is possible that even if we are just buying produce from local farmers at the farmer’s market we can extend our food budget and improve the quality of our daily meals.  This blog will give recipes for using and preserving your produce as well as ideas for growing your own food, even if it is only one plant in a pot on the patio.

Let’s start with patio containers

If you want a quick garden use a container.  You can use any size container and just about anything as the container.  Some people with an outdoor patio use a half barrel.

Herbs in a cement container

Others use a wash tub or terracotta pots or other decorative containers one can get at the hardware store or home center. However you can also use coffee cans, milk cartons, salvaged containers that were never originally intended to be used for gardening.

Strawberry Pot

Washtub

One of the best containers to use for herbs if you are short on space is a strawberry planter.  You can find these at your local gardening center. They are usually made of terra cotta and have many small openings around the sides for your smaller herbs. You can plant the larger herbs at the top.

It is possible to keep an entire culinary herb garden conveniently located right outside your door in one strawberry planter. Some good choices of herbs for this would be: oregano, thyme, curly parsley, lemon verbena, chives, and basil.

The key with any container is a good potting soil and great drainage.  Before adding soil to your chosen container, you will need to provide a layer of rocks, gravel or Styrofoam pellets to the bottom quarter of the container to help with the drainage process. Broken chips from terra cotta pots also work nicely for this. If you are planning on bringing an outdoor container of herbs indoors during the winter months, I would suggest the use of the Styrofoam pellets to keep the weight down.

Use a good quality potting soil mix to fill your container to within two inches from the top to allow plenty of space for watering. Few herbs require a large amount of fertilization, but nearly all vegetables will require some fertilizer during the growing season, especially if kept in pots.

Keep your container garden well-watered, as they will dry out more rapidly than those that have been planted directly into the garden.

raised beds

Having a Garden Plot

Many communities have plots available for rental and sometimes even for free or for volunteer service. Near me there are garden plots available from the Elmhurst Park District, which is where I rent mine.  In nearby Berkeley, IL they just started a Community Garden Club in 2013. They rent plots and offer information for beginning gardeners.  I found a listing on the DuPage County website pulled together for the Cool Cities Initiative that lists all the public gardens and the rent-able plots in the county.  You can find it HERE.

The nice thing about a community plot is you have a set space, prepared soil and access to water most of the time. The bad thing about a community garden is that the soil can be depleted and the instance of diseases can be increased. But for those like me, who live in an apartment or a condo it is a great place to grow vegetables when you only have a small patio space.

In some cases community gardens are just prepared soil and in other cases they are raised beds.

Elmhurst Garden Plots

These are the Elmhurst plots, three rows about 300 feet long, each 20 feet wide with two shorter rows at the far end of this picture about  100 feet long, again 20 feet wide. They have grass inbetween the rows and two well attachment areas.

This is a raised bed garden in Sheboygan, WI built into a small corner lot that has a strong slope.  Populated with several raised beds, it takes advantage of the land in ways not much else could.  They have water and a tool box provided.  There are two compost bins making soil from last years leavings  I was amused, rather than numbering the beds, they named them after flowers, like bluebell, lily, etc.

Raised bed garden

 You can tell they are allowed to keep the same plots year after year and unlike Elmhurst, where nothing can remain from one season to another, they have customized them with art and perennial plantings.  These photos were taken in May so not many new plants have been added as it was too early.

Compost bins

water and tool chest and benches

These small bins no more than 8 feet by 4 feet.  Enough for a a dozen plants which can produce produce for a small family easily and not require too much work.  We also found other rented plots in Sheboygan with slightly larger spaces.  Fenced and also including a compost bin.  That is something lacking at our gardens in Elmhurst.

Garden Help Links

So where do you go for help when the garden is not so perfect?

The first place I always go when there is a problem with the garden is the Master Gardener program.  Almost every state has a program of some sort.  Here in Illinois it is run through the Cooperative Extension agency of the University of Illinois.  No matter what state you are in they are a great resource for home growers, since they are run through a local university they will have nailed down growing issues for your area and some solutions to many garden problems.  They are also great for plant identification, when you do not know if something is a weed or plant to keep.

The Uof I master gardeners has a website that I recommend as a resource.  They had tons of articles on all sorts of topics under Hort links on the webpage. They also produce a digital newsletter for Master Gardeners that you do not have to be a Master Gardener to read.  It has book reviews, articles about various Master Gardener program events and other useful information.  The events link has programs that can be used for Master Gardner Continuing Education, but if you are not a beginning gardener, I suggest checking out a few of these, they have wonderful details.  But if you are new to gardening, you may find them over your head, so start with the Hort Links first.

 

courtesy of mikenowak.net

Also in Chicagoland we have Mike Nowak, a radio personality who is a go-to source for gardening info.  His website also has great information and links to even more!  He is doing his show as a podcast presently and the website has links to listen to a wide assortment of recent shows.  You can also catch him regularly and repeated on the GDGD Radio Network available in an app for your phone.  You can find the link to download the App on his website as well.

Then you can try a local botanical garden or arboretum.  They are always thrilled to help those curious about growing things.  Where I live we have the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Morton Arboretum in Lisle.  

Sensory Garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden

Master gardeners and plant horticulturalists work at the Botanic Garden in the Plant Information Center to help ID plants and insects as well as plant diseases.  You can access them online as well as in person from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Monday – Friday; Noon – 4 p.m. Saturday & Sunday, but they are closed on holidays. 

Children's Garden At Morton Arboretum

At Morton Arboretum they have a Plant Clinic.  They accept walk-in questions April through October, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and November through March, it is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. You can also contact them via email through their website. In addition to identification, the plant clinic staff can help visitors choose landscape plants by directing them to specimens in the Arboretum so they can answer the age old question - how big will this get?

Also if you want to share and learn and search using your phone in a social media setting, I have a wonderful somewhat new app you can download called GrowIt!  You can get this for your android or iPhone.  And it is all about local growing connections.  You can connect with gardeners near you.  What are they growing?  Will it grow at your home? It eliminates that wonderful plant you saw on Pinterest that only grows in a subtropical climate because you know the information you are getting and sharing is local to your area or zone.  

As their website says: "Don’t know what flowers to plant in that container on your patio? GrowIt!™ is here to help you out. Find out what people are planting in your area. GrowIt!™ lets you Garden Socially. Whether you want to show off your plants, or find something that will work in your garden; GrowIt!™ has something for every type of gardener."

This app is new and growing and changing and updating and everytime I use it I like it even more.  So if you are on the app say hello to Backyard Patch Herbs and you will be chatting with me!  This is a great way to share all those great garden photos you take with your phone with people who also love garden plants!

Starting the Community Garden in 2015

Last year the weather and problems in the soil made the success of our garden less than stellar.  We realized that the soil itself has not experienced proper crop rotation which resulted in more diseases in the soil, especially fungus which is not killed by cold weather.  The cold spring slowed plant growth and caused an increase in the bug population resulting in more of the problems associated with those bugs including other diseases.  And then we had heavy rain and flooding late in the season that ended the tomato plants producing the anything,

I also made several mistakes including not removing the lettuce crops once the weather got warm.  They crowded and took over a number of other plants.  And planting a couple of plants too soon or too late exposing them to soil and weather problems. We scouted the community gardens last year and chose this year’s location by the fact no one grew anything in it last year.  It at the end of the garden, farthest from the water source which should be a frustration later, but we think we have a better chance of not exposing ourselves to crop failure like last year.

Mustard seeds

That scruffy patch in the center below the bean trellis is salad greens going to seed.

The plants that did the best last year were the herbs, but when the season ended and I pulled the plants I liked, they were all so entrenched in the soil that the root shock and the quick winter we experienced resulted in them not making it when repotted them.  This year some of them will be planted inside large buried plastic containers to make pulling them out at the end of the season easier.

This year we are also going to experiment with several growing methods that may allow us to work around the fact that the garden spaces have soil issues.  It is possible that this is the last year for this location and that next year the gardens will be relocated salving this problem but if not these experiments may help others grow more here.

The Design

This is the preliminary plan for the garden.  It is on the end so I have three open sides rather than two like last year.  I have decided to place three beds along these edges which will be easy to reach and weed without having to walk or kneel in the paths.

I may change the layout and place the tomatoes on the interior as they are more easily weeded with a hoe and can be reached from narrow paths.

The new experimental methods

Planting in a soil bag

I found this on the internet for people who don’t have time to remove sod or do not have much yard to work with or a very poor soil.  But buy a bag of soil, lay it on the ground and cut a rectangular hole from the top and plant directly into the soil.  It is good for items liking a more shallow planting soil, like lettuce and greens and a couple other plants.

Straw Bale Gardening

Another method I want to try is straw bale gardening.  It is said to work very well for tomatoes and so we are going to try at least two bales and plant tomatoes in them. The bales are set on the ground and you create a soil in a hole in the bale by adding compost and soil.  The straw breaks down adding organic matter to the soil as the plant roots burrow into it.

thyme bed in August 2014

Containers on the soil and raised beds

Last year I experimented with a raised bed in the garden, but I filled it with soil from the garden that I dug out of the paths.  Although it did fine planted with thyme, the thyme did not exactly flourish as it probably should have.  So this year I plan to create at least one raised bed and fill it with sterile soil I bring in. I think I will also experiment with large recycled containers that I am going to get at garage sales and such and place those in the garden.  I plan to look for at least one wash tub deep enough to grow root parsley and carrots and radishes in.

This year it is again cold.  Way too cold to plant even if we could get an early start.  The garden opens on May 1, but I think we may wait until at least the 24^th to plant anything.  The Men’s Garden Club of Villa Park is having their annual plant sale, themed Heirlooms and Herbs, just before Mother’s Day, so we will be getting most of our plants at that sale on May 8 & 9 The following weekend I am in Geneva for Gardenology where I will have my herb creations for sale and will be presenting programs on herbs.

That left May 17 as the soonest day to start planting, however heavy rain on the 16^th and more rain expected on the 17^th made me leery to compress the soil, so I am going to wait until Memorial Day Weekend.  I remember a year we had frost on Memorial Day after I planted all my herbs that Saturday.  Could this year be like that??

Saved Seed

One good thing to come from last year's garden was the bean harvest was not large enough to eat, but the seed harvest from those same beans was good enough to replenish next year's garden.

This is the tray full of seeds and pods that I shelled this week.

I grew a couple of heirloom beans: Christmas Beans and Tiger Stripe Beans.  they are quite lovely to look at.  I am told they make great soup, but that I am hoping will be part of my experiment for this year.

We are getting a new plot, but we are going to try for one that was unused last year so the ground was fallow and the diseases may be less prevalent.  We will have to go through the lottery for this but it will be worth it to move from the patch with too much disease.

The gardens will not be moved this year, probably because the Park District did not vote yet on giving the land to the City of Elmhurst, but I have not followed the papers much this winter and the Website for the Park District is not the easiest to navigate.

In addition to the heirloom beans, I saved herticote vert (thin green bean) seeds as well as sweet pea seeds.  I got the original sweet peas from Seed Savers so I know that I can save the seed and use it this year it was not a hybrid.

I was unable to save melon seed because the plant never gave a viable fruit, but I do have some seed left from last year and I may try to use that and see what happens.  Much seed is only good for a year after harvest and I have to check to see if Melon falls into the category.

It was easy to shell dried beans.  The seed coat split open easily allowing access to the seed.  The hardest to harvest were the green beans as the coat shrank as it dried gripping the seed tightly.  I had to smash the coat between my fingers to extract the seed.

Since all of these beans were harvested in September they were quite dry and most had opened before I even began shelling.

For now I have placed them in seed envelopes I made myself.  I got the seed packet template from a vendor on Etsy.  I just print them in various sizes, cut and glue them.  Then I label and stuff them with seeds.  I use the smallest ones for herb seeds mostly.  The package size is about 1 1/2 inches square and I place them inside greeting cards.

The packet has room on the back for growing info, like sunny and seed depth for growing, etc.  For these I transferred the information from my garden journal from last year.  Now I remember why I kept that journal with all the info about the plan and the planting!  Over the winter months I created my own colorful garden journal filled with pictures from my gardens and you can get a digital copy on Etsy.