Grandpa's Garden: Gardening in the City

It’s now in the fall season here, so I guess you would find this just a little out of date here in the U.S., but I will be posting it in Australia and New Zealand as well, and it is spring time there.  Besides, you can post it for next spring here in the Z.I. and use it then.

Let me start this by making one thing perfectly clear – I am not a farmer, I never even started to raise my first garden until three years ago, and I am 77 years old.  No, I don’t have a kazalian years of experience, just three – BUT - I have done a lot of reading, talked to my neighbors, worked with my son and his

wife, and came up with some pretty interesting pieces of information.  His wife is an excellent source of my knowledge.

Not being a farmer, and not having much room to grow anything as we live on a rather small lot, we have to do everything concentrated.  Our garden consists of one raised bed (built from concrete brick by my lovely wife) and 10 large pots.  Not only do we have to build the soil up with nutrition and compost, but also, we have to be very careful how much water we use.   We live in Arizona and water is ALWAYS a premium.

Actually, we live in Southeastern Arizona, out in the desert.  We are around 35 miles east of Tucson, so – yes - we are isolated.   To give you some idea of how far out we are, I plan on 100 miles driving or more (round trip) for a grocery shopping run.  Oh sure, we have a small town 10 miles (east, by the way), but it really has very little in the interest of shopping. 

The soil here is very poor (or worse) because its almost all sand with a little clay mixed in.  It is very good for raising cacti, mesquite trees, and some range grass, and of course the yucca plant and the ocotillo also do pretty well.  We are just a little high for the Saguaro cactus as they almost stop growing above around 3, 000 feet and we are just a wee bit higher than that.  This does mean that whatever we do, we have to compensate and adjust.  We also have to be pretty careful because of the creepy crawlers and slithery things around, and most of them can ruin your whole day if you are bitten.

I will be chatting about concentrated organic gardening, and also an attempt to guide you through mixing a fertilizer etc that I feel that is best suited for this environment, and what is available.

 

First of all - let’s talk about the soil.  I have talked to some of the local folks, and they all have told me that they have never seen an earthworm here.  That is a real shame because the worm castings are probably the best treatment you can get for poor soil.

 

It is a web on raising earth worms, but it has some very good tips for composting and producing fertilizer.

 

We have the raised garden that is 4’x26’ and 3’ high - and built that way intentionally. Being about 4’ wide (36’ inside dimensions), you can reach ANYWHERE without having to touch the soil.  This way you don’t tamp it down, and the soil will stay somewhat loose for expansion of the root veggies.  Another big benefit for me is I don’t have to bend over very much – getting on my knees is an impossibility.  The 10 pots are behind a large wire fence.  Most animal life will be unique to your area, but here, we have deer, rabbits, and a nasty rodent animal called a Javelina (pronounced Havalina).

 

“Though some people may call them "cute", Javelinas are arguably rather ugly animals and possess a rather unpleasant odor which is why some people refer to them as "musk hogs". They aren't wild pigs but are actually members of the "peccary" family that originated in South America.  They have become accustomed to being in close proximity to humans and will generally ignore people.  If you try and approach them, they will simply leave the area, but if provoked and threatened they've been known to defend themselves with their LONG SHARP TUSKS.”  (Quote from Arizona Leisure Travel Guide).

 

These animals will force you to protect your plants as they will eat (and/or destroy) anything – no plant is safe unless it’s native and has long very sharp thorns – hence the good strong fencing and raised garden.

My wife’s father always gave the advice “use older chicken manure” for your garden, and I must say that he was considered an expert.  He came from an area not far from Paducah, Kentucky – wonderful farm country.  He gained all that experience from his younger days, but he continued to have a large organic garden until in his mid 80’s, living in Sacramento, California.

With that said, I tried to take his advice, but no chicken farms around here, so I did the next best thing. I raided my son’s farm.  They have a couple cows, 4 or 5 goats and other animals, but those two bovines do create lots of falling stuff with the goats giving some very stiff competition.  The kids keep the farm quite clean as all of the droppings are scooped up and put in a pile.  After the chickens get through scratching and breaking it down, they let the sun bake it.  We mixed that mixture into our garden and with some in the pots.  I have to be honest here, and say that I also used a very small amount of commercial potting soil and mixed that in too.  We have had some AMAZING results.  Our son and his family have used the principal very successfully for 4 years now. 

I also want to touch on one facet of our lives in that we eat as much “CERTIFIED ORGANIC” foods as we can find.  We actually will bypass a lot of things that look pretty, but if they aren’t “CERTIFIED ORGANIC”, well – we try to forget it.  Also, fast foods are out.  I am diabetic, and the foods are extremely important.  If it isn’t certified organic, it just doesn’t fit into our health driven diet. 

This brings another facet of this concentrated gardening in that we do not use any form of insecticide or other type of poison.  Maybe we have been lucky so far, but no problem.  I have heard that you can use a light mixture of dish soap with lots of water and spray it on the plants when they show signs of being in jeopardy.  I think the mixture is less than a teaspoon of soap to a gallon of water, and well mixed.  I’ve done it, but find a mixture of dried mustard (teaspoon) and cayenne pepper (teaspoon) mixed in a gallon of water worked just a tad bit better for me..

And here - I also want to chat just a bit about this concentrated idea that I keep talking about.  No, it isn’t my idea, Mel Bartholomew wrote an excellent book on the subject, but I kinda doubt he was really the originator either.  I must admit that I used a lot of his information for my garden.

 

We divided our 4x24 garden into squares, and planted according to the square.  Those squares are around 12’ (and almost) square.  You would be surprised just how many veggies you can plant in a 12’ to 18’ square.  After all, there is just the two of us, and we don’t need a lot where my son has 4 children so naturally, he needs a lot more food, especially with hungry growing mouths to feed.  He and his wife use the principle of row crop growing, and are very successful with it.  They have 10 acres to play with – that helps.  By the way, they have been experimenting with the “up-side-down” pots, and have had some limited success with those.  Me too !!!!!

It is important to note at this point – we use 1 hole in the soil, one seed.  We don’t use the theory of row planting, and then having to thin.  We rotate the timing of our plants, planting about 20 seeds of radishes this week, and in the square next to it next 20 more seeds, but a week later.  We did this throughout the entire garden plan except for the very end where we planned to grow some squash and maybe a watermelon and/or a cantaloupe.

The pots contain many tomatoes – we have 4 pots of various tomato plants. We also use the pots for the green beans.  Green beans grow like magic with this method.  Six pots of green beans gives us not only enough to have for our meals but we have given some away and I have put about a half-dozen quarts in the freezer for winter as well.

 

Just a note about this concentrated idea that I have picked up watching television.  I took a gallon jug for concentrated watering, and cut 2 small holes in the bottom on the outside edge – (important – keep the cap, and use it).  I sink this about 3 inches with most of the top above ground, but right next to the plant I want to water.  I fill the jug, replace the cap, and the plant takes the water it wants.  If it doesn’t need water, the soil stays wet but as soon as it dries and air forms, the air releases the water from the jug to water the plant.  When the soil is wet again, the water flow seems to stop.    There is a scientific explanation for all of this, but I don’t worry about it – I want it to work, and it does.  Using this idea, you can grow your fresh herbs in the house, too, just on a smaller scale.  You probably would have it on the kitchen counter or maybe in a window on the sill.

 

We did save a couple squares for flowers, and we have flowers planted in with the tomatoes.  There is a reason for this. We have heard that bugs and worms do not like the marigold plants; they tend to stay away from the veggies growing around them as well.  It didn’t totally repel them but did cut them back.  The only thing that thought it was a good idea to have flowers for their meals was the grasshoppers.   Be a little careful of the marigold plant, it is rather large and most of the other plants don’t do well if they are close.  Next year I might plant some snap-dragons or maybe a pansy or two.  I like the colors they make.

 

Well, as I said, I am no expert – far from it.  This is just some of what I have found out, and I decided to pass it on.

 

Roy "Grandpa"
October 2009