Posted in 2010 Permaculture Garden Workshop Series, GANG Garden 2010, Green Acres Neighborhood Garden (GANG), Urban Farmstead | August 2nd, 2010 by Ann

Sunday, August 1, 1-5 p.m.

Just as I loved how the blog for the Spring 2010 SPEA sustainability project in the GANG garden began, “This probably sucks. I’ve never blogged before,” so I loved the way this workshop began, with apprentice gardener Susan’s sad tale. This is her garden’s second year, she told us, and she has no green thumb. But she took a chance, and this year felled five large trees in back of her rural home to provide more sun for her nascent garden. “And absolutely nothing is thriving.” I wish I could remember Susan’s devilish details, but I record plenty of details in this blog post re: the weird things happening in the GANG garden, all of which we discovered during yesterday’s four workshop hours.

As the workshop flyer promised: “This is the hay-day of the garden and we will hopefully have yields galore. But, the weeds and insects and drying sun are also trying to make their way, so mulch, shade cloth, row cover and other techniques will be employed as we keep the summer crops vibrant and give our fall crops a running start.”

To all of these topics, we added another, that of seed saving. The question of pests however, proved the most juicy. (To this I might add invasive plants, since we determined, at the very end of the workshop, that the two beautiful centerpiece purple-flowering plants we had placed in pots in the pond last year were purple loosestrife, and not the Indiana native kind.

Though Keith Johnson tells me they attract beneficial insects, we decided to yank them out. Felt awful, and the surface of the pond now looks somewhat battered, but they had already started to sprout elsewhere in the pond.)

Our teachers Nathan Harman and Rhonda Baird (that’s my son Colin in front of them) began by gathering us in the picnic area of the GANG garden, the first time we have sat outside for an entire workshop, and though it was another hot day, the tree shade and flowing breezes, that, combined with the glint of ripening tomatoes, kale reaching for the sun, and gleaming giant blackberry clusters peeping out from under leaves all put us in a sort of reverie as we discussed what can and had gone wrong in various people’s gardens.

Most of the dozen people in this workshop are experienced gardeners, so there was plenty to talk about. One theme emerged that none of us might have known had we not gathered in the garden yesterday: most squash plants, though enormous and bearing blossoms along all their winding stems, are not producing fruit! In the GANG garden, for example, there is one plant producing copious numbers of spaghetti squash, and three watermelon plants that have squash ball sized melons on them, and one tiny butternut squash on another plant, but the rest of the squash plants, though they look magnificent at first glance, aren’t.

The main lesson we gleaned from Nathan and Rhonda about pests on plants: weak plants attract pests. So periodic use of soil amendments is a must. What is the best amendment? Nathan: “Human urine, diluted at least ten times, and sprayed on before a rain.” Why? “Because it contains the right NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) balance.”

In the GANG garden we sprayed urine (with see weed and sea salt) at the beginning of the planting season, but now that we are havesting, we forgo the urine and pour rabbit poop tea on the roots.

We talked a bit about seeds. A few gleanings:

• some grain seeds last thousands of years, some, like parsnips, very short (six to nine months).

• to save tomato seeds: scoop up and put in water for a few days. The viable seeds will drop to the bottom. Place on a paper towel until dry.

• Rhonda: “Start your first year with a few easy to gather seeds, like radishes, and then build up. The way to do this is to sit at a table and do it together while gossiping.” So we did, at workshop’s end, after the garden tour, after yanking out the purple loosestrife, after another talk about how to start plants for the fall season (more details below). We sat around the table and gossiped while we pushed open the dried pods of the plant we had saved for this purpose and popped out its two or three seeds. Got plenty for next year, poured them into an envelope, sealed and labeled it. Felt great, with this one seed, to both complete one growing season and provide for the resurrection of the next.

Nathan, who in his 25 years has been observing and interacting with plants much of that time, shared lots of detailed information (that I didn’t take down, unfortunately) on various plants and what they need.

Then we toured the garden. Here’s where it gets juicy.

Notice the three stems. The middle one is actually a sucker that should have been removed when it was very small. Now that we know what to do, it’s fun to pinch off tiny suckers from between the dual sprouting leaves of tomato plants.

Notice the curled root on this beet, tell-tale sign of a beet that was started in a little pot and transplanted. Beets and carrots like to be seeded in place, where their roots can stretch as they grow.

Okay, here’s the really juicy part (and smelly):

Nathan had asked me to save this cabbage rather than harvest it, as he had wanted to show a way to cut it from the stem that would increase the size of little flowerets (like brussel sprouts) that would grow from the cut plant’s stem. But when he cut it off, yuck! Hollow, with goo!

OOOOOOOO! And it smelled as bad as it looked (Hate to say it, but this is the most interesting photo . . .) Nathan has no idea what caused this, but obviously, we waited far too long to harvest it.

Harlequin bug, a pest. Looks kind of like a large ladybug in shape, also with spots, but a different color. I asked Nathan how you could tell if a bug is a pest. His immediate answer, “Predator bugs move fast.” But then he corrected himself. “At least some do.”

These are probably eggs from a cabbage moth pest (the little white ones that flitter about the garden and make holes in brassica leaves especially). Their “looper” (sp? the worm thing that precedes the moth) is about a half inch long and lime green). In this case, it looks like there is top layer of a different kind of egg, perhaps beneficial wasp eggs, says Nathan, and if so, it’s a good thing!

Okay, back to the shade of the picnic area.

Time to learn about planting the Fall season. Start now. Plant spring stuff again: kale, radishes, lettuces, onions, parsley, peas, beans, broccoli, cilantro, greens, carrots, summer squash, beets, chard.

Were we to replant seedlings, we would have had to have started them earlier. We did not. So, start everything from seed; just be careful to provide for shade from the hot sun, since some seeds will not germinate when it’s too hot. (Spring seeds start in cooler weather and soil.)

To this end, it’s good to plant seeds under other plants (not the same plant), for shade. But you have to know when the top plant is coming out. So it’s an art.

You might grow peas on standing corn stalk trellises.

One detail that I remember from Nathan’s treasure trove: carrots take at least two weeks to germinate, so either plant them under thick tomato plants (for shade) that will be harvested by the time the carrot tips start to show, or place under a board. When the tips start to peek up, then place a little rock under each end of the board for a few more weeks to continue the shade.

Another detail that I loved: water at the first dawn, when the birds start singing. Or, if that’s just too early, then sing to the plants when you water them! Don’t water in the evening, because of mildew. Or if you must water then, then don’t water the leaves.)

One further note. Both Nathan and Rhonda say the garden is too dry and not enough mulch. So I’ve alerted the watering team and will get another bale of straw today.



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