Kitchen Gardeners International: Northerners: now is the time to plan your garden

by Vijai Pandian, published in The Daily Press (Northern Wisconsin), 9 May 2006

A garden plan will save time, space, work and money. Yields will be increased, as will the length of the harvest season. Best of all you will be able to harvest the amount of high quality garden produce you desire at the time you choose.

Begin to plan your next garden by considering your past gardens. What varieties did you like well or not at all? Would you like to extend the harvest season or increase or decrease the amount of your harvest? Would several small staggered plantings be desirable? Did you try something new last year that you want to include again this year? Is there something new that you want to try this year? Do you want to preserve more or less food this year?

Select a Site
The ideal garden soil is deep, fertile, well-drained and medium-textured. Such soils are usually dark colored. Fine-textured, clay soils are difficult to work and frequently form clods or crust as they dry, especially if they were turned while wet. Very sandy soils do not retain moisture or nutrients well. Poorly drained soils may be difficult to plant at recommended planting dates, may be very low in nutrients or high in acidity and may encourage plant diseases.

But there are some ways to amend clayey or sandy soils. For instance adding organic matter helps in improving the water and nutrient holding capacity of coarse-textured sandy soil. On a fine-textured clay soil, the organic matter over time glues the tiny clay particles into larger chunks or aggregates creating large pore space. This improves water infiltration and drainage, air infiltration (often the most limiting aspect of plant growth), and allows for deeper rooting depths (allowing the plant to tap a larger supply of water and nutrients). Some of the organic matter that can be used to amend clayey or sandy soils are sphagnum peat, wood chips, grass clippings, straw, compost, manure, bio-solids, sawdust and wood ash. For more information on sources of organic matter please contact your county extension office.

Full sunlight produces the most productive gardens. Six hours of daily sunlight are probably the minimum for good production. Trees and hedges should be avoided, as they not only reduce sunlight but also compete with vegetables for water and nutrients.

Soil Test
A soil test is the only accurate method of determining how much lime and fertilizer to apply to gardens. If too little fertilizer is applied, plants will be starved and yield and quality of vegetables will be reduced. Too much fertilizer will waste both fertilizer and money, as plants will be unable to fully utilize it. Too much fertilizer can also injure or kill plants. Specific information concerning how to sample soil for a soil test and how to treat the sample after collection is available at Ashland and Bayfield County Extension offices.

Vegetable Selection
After an appropriate site is located and evaluated, decide which vegetables to grow. Consider also the space requirements of the vegetable. Winter squash and pumpkins require considerable space and may not be practical for small gardens. Corn requires quite a bit of space and bears only once. If space is limited, it might be better to plant vegetables such as summer squash, peppers and tomatoes rather than corn. All of these bear large amounts of fruit over an extended harvest period in a small area.

Consider your philosophy about using agricultural chemicals in your garden. Some vegetables such as okra will nearly always produce a crop with or without chemical pest control. Others such as cabbage and broccoli are generally heavily infested by insect pests. Organic gardeners and others who wish to avoid the use of agricultural chemicals may wish to grow more pest-resistant crops and varieties. So when choosing varieties, always look for ones with disease resistance. Although these varieties may cost more than some of the old standards, they more then make up for the cost with improved yields and less reliance on chemical controls.

Plan for rotation
Closely related plants can be grouped into families. Families of plants tend to be susceptible to many of the same insect, disease and nematode problems. For example cucumber, pumpkin, squash, watermelon have similar disease problems such as stem blight, angular leaf spot and fusarium wilt. So by grouping vegetable plants into families and moving each family to a different location within the garden each year, many insect and disease problems can be reduced. Plan to group your vegetables by families and to rotate families to different areas of the garden each year.

Sketch a plan
Finally, if you really want to be organized, make a scale drawing of your garden. This is undoubtedly the greatest planning aid one can have. Begin with a scale drawing of the site. Divide the drawing in to two sections. Plan to plant cool season vegetables in one section and warm-season vegetables in the other. The cool season section will be harvested by mid-summer and can be replanted for a fall garden. Alternate the warm and cool season sections each year to reduce plant disease. Sketch and label rows of each vegetable on your plan using the row spacing.

For warm season vegetables, arrange the tallest growing crops on the north side of the garden so as not to shade lower growing plants. Also allow for good air movement through the garden. This ensures that moisture on plant leaves dries quickly and may lessen disease problems. Write the variety to be planted, planting or transplanting date and amount of seed required on the planting plan. Be sure to plan for staggered plantings to extend the season.

A good garden design will save you time and make the best use of limited garden space. Most importantly, vegetables grown under optimal conditions, along with the use of disease resistant varieties, will result in healthy, high-yielding crops.

Simple tips to protect your plants from late spring frost
Late spring often threatens many of the tender plants we may have placed outdoors in our gardens already. Simple methods of protection include covering the plants with cloth fabric, plastic sheeting, or straw. Be sure to remove the protection once temperatures warm again. If you have an area too large to cover physically, but with a sprinkler available, run the sprinkler continuously throughout the freezing temperatures until the ice melts off the plants naturally. Remember, low areas are more susceptible to freezing and may have a shorter growing season by as much as two weeks on the same property.

Vijai Pandian is the agriculture agent for Bayfield and Ashland Counties.

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Posted by KGI on May 10, 2006 8:23 AM to Kitchen Gardeners International
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