180 Plant Dip (Another Do-Over!)

Word to the wise: Never, EVER leave the 180 Plant Dip out in the sun. Ooh, that's ripe!

I had to tie a bandana over my nose and exhale while leaning over the pail. I decided that I didn't want any of the dip left after today, so all the plants (except the peppers) got watered with the plant dip. Now my back yard smells and the flies are busy hanging around the plants.

But I'm sure the smell will be gone by tomorrow... or Monday.

Next time I buy the 180 Plant Dip, I think I'll use it all up that same day!

Do Overs (or More on Watering)

Wetting the Soil

I'm wondering what I did wrong or at least what I could have done better.

One thing I keep thinking about is water. Did I get the soil wet enough before I planted?

When I first mixed the soil (that is, made Mel's Mix), I watered just enough to keep the peat moss and vermiculite from blowing away. I did not want to water too much because then the whole mix gets so heavy that it's hard to move into the boxes.

However, when I had the soil ingredients mixed and in the boxes, I should have completely drenched the soil. Mel says that I can't over-water because the soil drains so well. Remember the analogy of the sponge?

When you take a dry sponge and slowly add water to it, it just keeps soaking up water until it's finally saturated. At that point, any extra water just drains out the bottom. Well, it turns out that two of our ingredients--peat moss and vermiculite--do exactly the same thing. It takes a while to wet them and keep them moist so you have to keep adding water, but finally, when they become saturated, any excess water just drains right out the bottom.

I wonder if the peppers were mad because the soil was not wet enough?

I noticed that the leaves on the peppers were turning yellow, so I pruned them off the plants. No leaves have been lost in the last week, so I'm hoping that they are done being mad at me.

I do have a few squares of soil that do not yet have seeds in them. I'll be planting lettuces in them over the next several weeks (so that I have lettuce ready to harvest over weeks rather than all at once). When I water, I water these empty squares as well so that the soil is ready for the seeds when I am ready to plant.

Soaking Roots

Mel says to soak the roots of transplants before putting them into the soil. Seems that I should have read that before I taught my students how to plant! I had two students who planted plants rather than seeds. One of them planted cherry tomatoes and the other planted peppers.

I should have taught them to soak the root ball in water before putting the plant into the soil.

As for the community garden, I did soak the roots! I soaked the roots in the 180 Plant Dip, remember? (See the post titled "A Vitamin Boost for the Plants.")

The tomatoes seem very happy, so I'm glad I soaked their roots in the 180 Plant Dip.

The peppers had been losing leaves. I'm not sure if they were upset with the plant dip, with being planted earlier than Mel says they should be, or with not having wet enough soil. I guess I'll just have to re-read this blog entry before planting next spring and then watch to see if I have different results.

Soaking Seeds

Mel says to soak the seeds before planting them. I didn't do that. :-(

I did not understand from Mel's book how long I should soak the seeds or exactly how to do it, so I chickened out and didn't soak them at all.

That means that I did not teach my students how to soak seeds, either. Ugh!

Many of the seeds were so small that I could hardly pinch just a couple to get them into the soil, so I can only imagine that I would have lost the seeds in the water if I had soaked them first.

But perhaps I could have put them on paper towel and then got the towel wet?

Mel says that soaking the seeds will result in faster sprouting. He also says to be careful because some seeds will fall apart. Perhaps the boys and I could experiment with the extra seeds... I'll let you know what we learn from our experiments.

Watching 'Em Grow (or Getting Excited about Broccoli)

Building a See-Through Planter

Thermoman and his little brother, Spiderman, did some building. Using a kit from Lowe's, they made a see-through planter. It's cool! The front has plastic so that when you plant the seed up against the plastic, you can watch the roots grow.

(I couldn't find the specific kit on the Lowe's web site, but here's a link to the Build and Grow kits that they do have online. If you're local, look for the planter at Lowe's in Newnan.)

Spiderman chose to plant purple flowers. He chose purple because that's my favorite color. Isn't that sweet?

Of all the flower seeds that I have, he chose Morning Glories. Since these are vines, we will have to transplant them at some point. But in the mean time, we look forward to watching the roots grow as well as the flowers.

Thermoman chose to plant broccoli. He LOVES broccoli. Really, he does! (He is my child, after all! I have also loved broccoli since I was a child. It's a family thing! My siblings and I have loved broccoli and hollandaise sauce since we were kids!)

Thermoman closely watches the broccoli that's planted in the garden. He has a broccoli plant growing in a pail (we had planted the seeds before we decided to have a garden).

And now broccoli in the see-through planter. If he has an opportunity to plant, he plants broccoli!

"Gardening is science?"

When we finished gardening, I told Thermoman that we were done with science for the day. "Gardening is science?" he asked. I chuckled. I guess that in his mind science means chemistry or electricity.

We've been doing kitchen chemistry with a Fizz Wizard and Jammin' Jelly Reaction Kit (only $10). So far, we've been testing pH levels. We've gone beyond what the kit suggests that we test to testing anything that interests us, from Sprite to cream of tartar.

We even made our own "magic color" by boiling red cabbage. The purple cabbage juice can be used to test whether something is an acid or a base. When you add baking soda to cabbage juice, you'll get pink or red, which indicates that the baking soda is a base. When you add vinegar to cabbage juice, you'll get blue or green, which indicates that the vinegar is an acid.

So what about testing soil for pH levels?

Taking Chemistry Out of the Kitchen and Into the Garden (Soil pH)

We decided to learn more about testing pH levels by buying Soil Test kits, also from Lowe's. We bought three kits so that we could test the pH levels of three soils. I honestly don't know about the reliability of the test kits, and we did find them hard to read.

From what Thermoman and I could tell, our red Georgia clay is the most acidic. Not surprising. The organic soil that we bought was on the acidic side--between pH 6 and 7. The Mel's Mix soil that I made was closer to neutral, but still seemed to be a bit acidic. I need to find out why!

The soil kit listed the preferred pH levels of different plants. What we really wanted to know was the preferred pH level of blueberries because we have blueberries planted in Georgia clay. Thankfully, blueberries like acidic soil--which explains why they do so well here!

Watering Mel's Way

Mel wants us to water our plants by hand with sun-warmed water. I know that tomatoes don't much like getting their leaves wet all the time, so I've been diligent about watering them at the base of the plant. (I think that tomatoes are more prone to diseases if their leaves are wet all the time.) I've done the same with the peppers.

The remaining plants were put in the garden as seeds. I don't like the idea of pouring water on them. I want to sprinkle water on them--more like rain. To accomplish this, I have used the watering can that sprinkles, and I have used the hose.

I know! I know! Mel doesn't like the hose. However, I do not yet have enough containers to hold sun-warmed water to match the amount of watering I want to do. Be patient. I'll get there!

In the mean time, I'm filling each of my water cans (even the little kiddie one for the beach) with water each day and letting them sit out overnight. My intention is to let the chlorine evaporate out of the water and to let the water warm up. Mel taught me that plants don't like to be shocked with cold water directly from the spigot.

I'm also teaching my 7 year old how to water the garden. That boy loves water! So, I might as well teach him to use his love of water to make the plants grow. And since he wants to eat all the broccoli (no, really! he does!), he is willing to water all the plants.

I'll call this boy Thermoman. That is his nickname around the house because he rarely gets cold.

Thermoman knows not to water the tomatoes with the hose. He also knows to set the sprayer on sprinkle, not a steady stream that can dig holes in the soil. He has to hold the hose up high so that it is like rain coming down from above, not like rain blowing in from the side.

And he does pretty well! I have to check up on him occasionally, but overall Thermoman is doing a great job!

Pruning for Stronger Stems and More Fruit

The tomato plants have been in the garden for just over a week. This is what the tallest one looked like as of Monday morning. (Today, this plant has tomatoes on it!)

When I bought the plants from Country Gardens, one of the employees taught me about pruning tomatoes. He suggested pruning so that I would have 2 main shoots. He said that having two main shoots will encourage the plant to grow up rather than out. The plant will concentrate on making those two shoots strong rather than spreading the energy among many shoots. That made sense to me, so I pruned!

Here is that same tomato plant after I pruned it Monday morning.

I watered the plants after I pruned them, then that night it rained. Tonight (just one day later), there are several tomatoes on the plant! Woo hoo!

I have read on Web sites that pruning tomatoes results in larger fruit earlier in the season because the plant puts its energy into fruit production. So far, I'd have to say that my plants are proving that point!

To prune the smaller "suckers" (that really is what the branches are called), I just pinched them off the plant. To prune the larger suckers, I used scissors. Evidently, I should have sterilized the scissors between plants so as not to transfer diseases from one plant to another. I guess I'll have to find out how to sterilize scissors!

A Vitamin Boost for the Plants

I want to plant!

I'm actually late in getting plants into the ground. Some plants could've been in the ground weeks ago and some had to wait for the last frost date of April 14th. My work on Saturday was to get something planted!

It was too windy to mix more soil, so I rearranged the soil so that I had sections of the boxes full of soil and ready to plant.

Mom helped me get the garden marked so that I could see the square feet. We used stakes and twine.

If I had it to do over again, I would've put in the stakes before I put down the weed barrier. The weed barrier did not let the stakes through!

After shopping at Country Gardens for plants and seeds, Mom and I went home and planted tomatoes, peppers, chard, lettuces, cabbage, and kale. I also planted a blueberry bush in another place in my yard. (Don't worry, another bush will be planted soon so that the blueberries can cross pollinate.)

I followed Mel's guides on how many plants to put in each square--well, mostly. I did put marigolds in some empty squares even though those squares will likely be filled by the vegetables in a month or so. We'll have to watch and see!

There's another thing that I did that's not in Mel's book. I dipped the plants in 180 Plant Dip before transplanting them into the garden.

What is 180 Plant Dip? It's a boost for the plants. It's like giving the plants vitamins and something to help them absorb those vitamins.

I thought about using the analogy of caffeine--having your morning coffee (or Coca Cola, as is the case for me) to get your day off right--but caffeine is temporary and doesn't provide your body with nutrition. No, 180 Plant Dip is more like taking really good vitamins.

You can read about the 180 Plant Dip on the 180 Degree Farm's blog. Scott of the 180 Degree Farm made a batch for me. (Well, I bought the dip. The farm is a non-profit organization, so I gladly over-paid him.) The Plant Dip contains:

• well water
• fish emulsion
  Fish emulsion is a common fertilizer used in organic gardening. One thing I remember from learning about the first Thanksgiving is that the Native Americans taught the colonists to dig a deep hole to "plant" a fish, cover it with soil, and then plant corn seeds over the fish... Hmm... Seems they knew something that we have forgotten over the years!
• Ocean Trace
  Ocean Trace is an organic fertilizer from the sea, containing all 74 minerals contained in ocean water. When crops get a healthy dose of micro-nutrients, they are more nutritious, generally yield better, and are more resistant to pests. Learn more about Ocean Trace on the AG-USA web site.
• Rhizofuel
  Among Rhizofuel's benefits are Improved nutrient and water uptake and more efficient use of fertilizer and water--reduces need by 1/3. You can learn more about Rhizofuel on their web site. 

I followed Scott's directions. Here's what I did.

1. Wore plastic gloves because the fish emulsion is stinky! My husband gave me a good tip--cuff the gloves so that if I lift my arms, the liquid does not go up my arm and onto my clothes.
2. Stirred the 180 Plant Dip because the ingredients will settle to the bottom.
3. Tipped the plant over and tapped the bottom so that the pot would come off easily.
4. Dipped the roots into the 180 Plant Dip for at least 10 seconds. I have to admit that I usually dipped for 15 seconds, especially for the peppers because their potting soil looked so dry.
   
5. Let the root ball drain for a bit so that I could transfer it into the garden with very little Plant Dip getting on the path where it would be wasted.
   
6. Planted in Mel's Mix. I started using a trowel to make a hole in the soil, but then I realized that Mel's Mix is so light and airy that I didn't need a trowel, so I just used my hands.
   
7. I also "watered" the vegetables with the 180 Plant Dip.

Below is a picture of the tomatoes planted with some marigolds in the back garden.



And the peppers are in the front garden on the west side:

And I planted lettuces, cabbage, kale, and Swish chard (which is like spinach) from seed in the front garden on the east side. In two weeks, I'll plant more lettuces. And two weeks after that, even more lettuces and so on.



Next step? Mix more soil, finish marking square feet, and finish planting!

Mixing Up Golden Soil (or Making Mel's Mix)

"Feed the soil and let the soil feed the plants."

Anything I read about organic gardening talks first about the soil. The better the soil, the better the plants.

My thought is that the better the soil, the better the nutrition. That's what I want. I want nutritious and good-tasting vegetables.

Mel says that he has put together "the very best ingredients for that perfect growing soil." Don't bother with the soil that's in your garden. Don't bother with soil tests. Don't bother with digging. Once you make Mel's Mix, you never have to replace your soil. These are his claims. Since he's been gardening far longer than I have, I'm all for giving his way a try.

Mel's Mix is an investment. But I can already see that it's the most important part of the garden, so I've decided to make the investment. And I'm taking Mel at his word that I won't have to replace this soil in the years to come.

I made a big batch of Mel's Mix this week and put it in the front and back gardens. Here's what I did.

Mel's Mix contains:

• 1/3 vermiculite
• 1/3 peat moss
• 1/3 compost (which itself should include 5 different composts, unless you're using your own)

Mel says that his mix holds moisture yet drains well. I like his analogy, so I'm going to type his paragraph on page 90 just the way he says it:

At first this seemed like an impossible task, but then I thought about sponges. When you take a dry sponge and slowly add water to it, it just keeps soaking up water until it's finally saturated. At that point, any extra water just drains out the bottom. Well, it turns out that two of our ingredients--peat moss and vermiculite--do exactly the same thing. It takes a while to wet them and keep them moist so you have to keep adding water, but finally, when they become saturated, any excess water just drains right out the bottom.

I started by buying the ingredients. As for vermiculite, I found a place that would sell it to me in large quantities--Country Garden Farm & Nursery. I like Country Gardens because they farm as closely to organic as they can without going through the politics of getting certified. They are a locally owned company, and I want to support the "small guys." Also, I've found them to be super friendly and super helpful. And don't worry--despite the "for sale" sign, they are still in business. Perhaps if we all buy from them, they won't go out of business at all!

From Country Gardens, I also bought 4 different composts, including composted cow manure and mushroom compost. I do not have my own compost because we just started composting, so I won't have any quantity for a while.

I bought peat moss from one of the chains because it was considerably cheaper than what Country Gardens had to sell. I hope I don't regret spending less money on that ingredient. By the way, the chains only had small bags of vermiculite.

In the front and back garden boxes, I put down a weed blocker. I happened to purchase mine from a chain, but I've been told that newspaper works, too.

I mixed up the ingredients a little differently than Mel's instructions (see the bottom of page 101). Because my garden is in the retaining wall and elevated, I did the mixing right in my garden space. I chose a day that was NOT windy, and I put the vermiculite right in the box and watered it. I then put the peat moss directly into the box and watered it. The vermiculite and the peat moss are both very light. They need water just so that they don't blow away!

Then I mixed the compost the way that Mel says to do so (see page 102). I added the compost to the garden box and then mixed the three ingredients. Using the garden rake, turned upside down, worked well for mixing the soil. I also got down and mixed by hand. I found that my mom was much better at mixing with the rake than I was!

I was so thrilled to have soil in my boxes! But later that night I realized that the boxes were not full enough. I need the soil to be all the way to the top of the front garden box and nearly to the top of the back garden box. They are not. So, I need to mix more soil.

Thankfully, I have plenty more vermiculite and peat moss. What I need is more compost.

Below are pictures of what the front and back gardens looked like once I put Mel's Mix in them.

The Parable of the Sower

Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown. (Luke 8:8)

(Go to http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%208:5-8,%2011-15&version=NIV for the complete parable.)

Thank You so much, Lord, for the good soil that will yield a crop a hundred times more than was sown in accordance with Your timing. In Jesus' Name, Amen!

Boxes and Soil

Well, we can now easily see where the veggies will grow, and we have a well-designated path. We also have a small amount of soil suitable for growing vegetables, and it's actually in the garden. It's a start.

Before the community gardeners came over Saturday, my husband and I got boxes set up in the main garden and the Georgia clay rearranged. Below are pictures of what the boxes looked like before the gardeners arrived.

The back garden is made of 2"x12"s, so we could fill it with 12" of soil. However, this would be costly, twice as costly than having the 6" of soil that Mel says we need.

Because we planted the root veggies in the strawberry planter, I don't need the back garden for root vegetables. So I filled the back garden half full of Georgia clay. Before putting in the garden soil this week, I'll put down a weed barrier.

Once the community gardeners and I made Mel's Mix (which is 1/3 compost, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 peat moss) we filled a small portion of the front garden.

The next picture shows how little space has gardening soil in it!

This first batch of Mel's Mix was expensive because I only found small 8 oz bags of vermiculite at one store. But today I found a nursery that sells vermiculite in bags of 4 cubic feet, so I'm waiting for the next delivery (the store was out of it) so that I can buy some.

The other option is to have top soil delivered. However, we would still need to add compost because that's the source of nutrition for the plants and ultimately for those of us who eat them. We would also need to add either peat moss or vermiculite or something similar in order to be sure there's plenty of air in the soil as well as drainage.

I could setup an experiment whereby I plant the same things in Mel's Mix as I do in another type of soil. Maybe we'll have a section with purchased organic soil that has compost, vermiculite, perlite, and peat moss (among other things), but I really don't want to invest in top soil.

That's what it is--an investment! With Mel's Mix, I should be able to just add compost from my own composter from now on. At least that's what his book says.

With the increase in gas prices, we may not have the money next year to switch to Mel's Mix if the top soil doesn't work well. I really want to do it right this year.

Somehow I think I'll be making more Mel's Mix later this week...

How Do You Pronounce "Root"?

I live in Georgia, but I'm from Minnesota. My friend Beth, from New York, laughs every time I say "root." She says, "that's the one word that New Yorkers say correctly!"

The 9-10 year old kids in our gardening class laugh, too. "How am I supposed to say it?" I asked. They said, "OO makes the 'ooh' sound." I interpreted this to mean that "root" rhymes with "boot." I always pronounced "root" like it rhymes with "foot." One of the girls gave me the assignment to learn how to pronounce "root" correctly before the next class!

Now with that lesson in pronounciation, let me tell you that the root vegetables are planted! Three of the kids from our homeschool co-op, one of the moms, and I planted onions, carrots, and potatoes. You can plant 16 onions in a square foot, 16 carrots in a square foot, and 4 potatoes in a square foot.

What was surprising for us novice gardeners is that you grow potatoes from potatoes! The eyes of the potato sprouts. Each sprout can be a plant. So, we cut the potatoes so that each section had a sprout on it. We planted the sections with the sprouts facing up about 2" below the soil.

We have 9 square feet in the strawberry planter, containing 3 square feet of onions, 3 square feet of carrots, and 3 square feet of potatoes. Can't wait to see how the garden grows!

Here's a picture of the strawberry planter as of yesterday:

My boy put in the sticks. One of the girls tied twine to the sticks to designate each foot in the length of the planter. The strawberries are trying to grow in the front, outside the square foot.

Joining the Garden Challenge

I remember You Lord, my God, and praise You for the good land that You have given us, for it is You who gives us the ability to produce wealth. (from Deut 8:10, 18)

I am joining the Garden Challenge! Check out The Homeschool Village.

Better Measurements

That curve in my beautiful landscaping is driving me crazy!

The curve makes for nice landscaping but doesn't help with square foot gardening. This is one of the reasons that Mel teaches people to build squares! Sigh.


Remember how I said that I measured wrong? Well, the problem is that I measured along the retaining wall rather in the newly created garden space.


The space that I thought looked like this:

Looks more like this:

When we get this all setup (tomorrow!?!), the back garden will be 36 square feet and the front garden will be about 53 square feet for a total of 89 square feet.


In the back garden, I'd like to plant the climbing veggies: tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, etc. I'd like to put the remaining (non-root) veggies in the front garden. The root veggies will go in the planter with the strawberries, which looks like this:

I Measured Wrong!

I measured wrong. You should've seen the look on my husband's face when he measured the space that I said was 11 feet and found out that it was more like 14 feet. Just goes to show that I shouldn't measure spaces by myself. From now on, someone will be there with me to make sure my brain is working!

Can y'all say "Ugh!" ??

How Many Square Feet?

When I started tilling the soil yesterday, I was working with the garden space that the previous owner had designated. In terms of square feet, it looked something like this:

There are curves in the landscaping, so this representation is not accurate but it's close. If I were gardening all this space, I would have about 84 square feet. However, I don't know how I would reach every square foot. Accessing the garden from the north end would be difficult because of the hill. Take a look again at the landscaping.

Can you see the board and the chicken-wire fence? That's the north side of the garden. The landscaping above there is at a slope. If I decided to put climbing plants on the north side, then I definitely wouldn't be able to access the garden from the north side.

Mel suggests 4 feet wide at the most for a square foot garden because that's the depth that most people can reach into from either side. I had 6 feet with access from one side, maybe two. I wouldn't be able to reach all of the garden, and if I add a path, then I lose square footage.

I talked it over with my husband, and we agreed that I would add more garden space on the north side, so I removed the board and chicken-wire fence and started digging. Now the space looks like this:

And I can add a path and more square feet. When I get the boards in to hold back the hill and designate the path, the garden should look something like this:

The total square footage should be 93 square feet. Did I do the math right?

Now to get the boards in before it rains!

What Kind of Soil?

I wonder if Mel will approve... Mel has a great method for starting Square Foot gardens. I absolutely love his book All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space! And I would love to follow his advice to the letter, but...

Today, another homeschooling mom and I were working in the garden. I rented a tiller to break up the soil, then we weeded.

I know that Mel says not to deal with the existing soil but instead to build up with boxes. But my landscaping is so nice! I don't want to see boxes sitting on top of the retaining wall. I just want to see the retaining wall and my vegetables! And because I live in a neighborhood with a covenant, I really don't have any other place in my yard for a vegetable garden.

The previous owner had a vegetable garden in the spot that we weeded today, and the soil is pretty good--well, at least it is not Georgia clay!

Here are pictures of the garden before we weeded today.

I had considered digging out all the dirt to a depth of 6 inches (I could feel my muscles ache before I even started!) and replacing it with Mel's Mix, but I'm finding that choice to be cost-prohibitive and improbable to accomplish.

Mel's Mix is Mel's suggested soil composition of 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 blended compost. The peat moss and vermiculate make the soil airy, able to drain well, yet able to hold water. The compost provides the nutrients. 

I found peat moss pretty easily. I found at least two kinds of organic compost, and I'm working on making my own. But vermiculite has been difficult to locate. I did finally find some at Lowe's, and bought all they had. Their vermiculite comes in small 8 oz bags for just under $4 per bag.

Frankly, I don't think I have the money or even enough vermiculite to make enough Mel's Mix for the whole garden. So, I decided to weed and then add in Mel's Mix and another organic soil that contains Mel's ingredients.

The down side? I will likely have more weeding to do! And my soil may not be as good as it would be if I started fresh with just Mel's Mix.

Hmm... I guess all I can do is try gardening this way this year and see what happens. As my girlfriend in Minnesota says, "You are thinking too much --- you geek. You should just try it. That's half the fun."

Dirt Dessert

I have a garden space dilemma. While I figure out how to show the problem to you, you can enjoy my dirt dessert recipe. Here is the dirt dessert that my boys and I made for my homeschool co-op class.

When I served this dirt dessert, I wore brand-new gardening gloves, and I used a brand-new trowel to serve it up. I had a couple of the kids going: "Are you really going to make us eat dirt?"

Here's the recipe:

8 oz softened cream cheese

½ cup butter

1 cup powdered sugar

Mix and set aside

2 x 3-1/2 oz packages of vanilla instant pudding (I used chocolate)

3-1/2 cups milk

Mix together and then add the first mixture.

Stir in 13 oz. Cool Whip (what they sell now is a little different quantity)

Crush 20 oz pkg of Oreo cookies. (I used the ones with chocolate cream filling, which they didn’t have back when I got this recipe.) Also, I crushed some of the cookie parts separate from the filling so that I was sure that the top layer looked like dirt.

Alternately layer cookies and pudding mixture in 8” flower pot, making sure to end up with cookie mixture on top. Garnish with gummi worms (which I put into the pudding mixture) and silk flowers—it really was a fake flower! Serve with a garden spade and wearing garden gloves.