News from the Edible Demo Garden

April 2022: Ready, Set, Spring Forward!

With the onset of spring, the pace of activity in the Edible Demonstration Garden has picked up. It’s time for planning the edibles to grow this spring and summer, preparing the garden beds, and sowing the seeds.  Each year in early spring, the garden team develops a planting plan specifying the plants to go in each garden plot. There are a few perennials like the raspberries and artichokes that stay in one location, but most of the plots, including the raised beds, accommodate a rotating series of edibles.

 

Garden Planning

Noting what worked and didn’t work in last year’s garden is the first consideration in the planning process. Would the tomatoes be more productive in a different location than where they were planted last year? Should the green beans be rotated to a different area? Rotating crops is always good practice in order to minimize the risk of soil borne diseases that affect certain plant families. Then, true to the mission of a demonstration garden, there is the desire to try out new crops or to plant something different than what is growing in the Indian Valley College organic farm. This year, tomatillos will be planted for the first time. Last year an experiment to grow potatoes in straw rather than soil proved successful.

 

Preparing Garden Beds

All the beds require a compost and amendment boost prior to spring planting. Although periodic soil testing can be helpful in determining what specific nutrients are needed, it’s always important to add a source of nitrogen such as feather meal or blood meal. Nitrogen is essential for healthy plants. It is depleted during the growing season and is easily lost in the soil.

 

The addition of rice straw bales expands the available planting space and the opportunity to experiment with different growing conditions in the edible garden. The straw bales serve as a type of raised bed, but they require seasoning with water and amendments before they can support plant growth. The bales break down during the growing season and need to be replaced each year, so installing and preparing the straw bales kept the garden volunteers busy in March. Detailed information on the use of straw bales can be found at https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8559.pdf or on our YouTube video below.

 

Sowing Seeds

While seeds for some plants, such as carrots and radishes, are usually sown directly into the garden soil, many plants benefit from a head start in the greenhouse. There the seeds can germinate, and the plant can grow to a size that is ready for planting when garden conditions are right. In March, the volunteers prepared flats of seeds to start the plants planned for the spring and summer garden. The seeds are planted in a mix of compost, peat moss, vermiculite, perlite, feather meal, kelp meal, and azomite known as the “breakfast mix”. Seeds for summer and winter squash, tomatoes, beans, broccoli, parsnips, turnips, and pak choi were initially planted and others will follow. More information on starting plants as seeds can be found on our webpage.