PLANTING, WATERING, HARVESTING, REPLANTING, AND ONGOING CARE INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUR MICRO INTENSIVE GARDEN

What can be grown in your garden?

     Below is a list of common vegetables and herbs and the seasons in which they can be grown.

Spring:    All types of lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, kale, radishes, carrots, peas, beets, kohlrabi,  mustard      

                greens, collard greens, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, spearmint, and cilantro.

Summer: Tomatoes, peppers, beans (bush and pole varieties), zucchini, squash, cucumbers, onions,

                 potatoes, carrots, cantalope, honeydew, watermelon, and most herbs..

Fall:          Same as listed above for spring.

Winter:    If your garden is in a location that receives full sun for most of the day you should be able to grow

                  most of the vegetables and herbs listed in the spring section. 

Filling garden with soil

     Once your garden is in the location that you want, you can fill it with soil.  I recommend using a combination of Supersoil potting soil and a mixture of different compost products.  All of these products can be purchased at Home Depot or your local garden store.  A mixture of 1 part Supersoil and 1 part compost  mixture will give good tilth and good nutrient availability.  A small amount of peat moss can be mixed into the potting soil and compost mixture for added water retention and anti compaction properties if you desire but it is not required. To make the compost mixture I recommend buying as many different types of compost products as you can find.  Often times "compost"  is a waste product from other agricultural endeavor.  Compost is good but a certain compost might be high in a certain nutrient and low in another nutrient.  By mixing three or four different compost products together you are more likely to get a mixture that is high in all nutrients.  If you make your own compost and use a variety of ingredients it should be fine to use without mixing store compost in.  Fill your garden all the way to the top but be sure that you can see the dividers.  A 4 x 4 garden will need approximately 12 cubic feet of soil.  I recommend mixing 6 cubic feet of Supersoil with 6 cubic feet of your compost mixture. 

Planting

     Plants with edible leaves such as lettuces, spinach, kale, Swiss chard, etc should be planted 1-2 inches apart.  This is very close together but should not be a problem if you follow the continual harvest technique described below.

     Root crops such as beets, radishes, and carrots should be planted 2-3 inches apart in order to leave room for each plant to develop.

     Plants that produce fruit such as tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, melons, etc. need to be allowed to grow to full size.  Therefore these plants should be given much more space per plant.  An example of a good way to plant fruit bearing plants would be to plant one tomato plant in the center of the garden surrounded by beans or peppers.  Vining plants such as pole beans, melons, cucumbers, etc. can be planted on the edges of the garden and allowed to grow out of the garden box.  When these types of plants are initially planted it is recommended that the cover of the garden be closed to give them protection.  But as these plants grow larger and out of the garden, the cover can be left open.  The tomato plant in the center of the garden should be trained to grow up with states or a tomato cage.

     It is recommended that you make a small hole approximately 1/2 inch deep with your finger in the spots that you want to plant your seeds.  After one seed is dropped into each hole lightly push soil over the seed.  There is no need to pack the soil down on top of the seed.

     It is VERY IMPORTANT that you take the time to put only one seed per hole when planting things close together like the edible leaf plants and the root crops.  If 3-4 seeds are dropped into one hole they will crowd each other out and none of them will grow well.

      When you have your garden planted you can water it in.  When you water in your new garden be sure to use enough water so that it seeps down to the lower levels of soil.  After applying water push you finger down 2-3 inches into the soil and make sure that it is wet.  If not you can let the soil sit for 10 minutes and then give it some more water.  It is important on this first watering to saturate the soil all the way to the bottom of your garden.    

 Watering

     Once your garden is planted and thoroughly watered for the first time you can use the following guidelines to ensure excellent growth of your plants.  The most important thing to remember concerning watering your garden is that you want to try to maintain a consistently moist soil.  Moist means that the top of the soil does not dry out between waterings.  It also means that the soil is not soggy nor that water is coming out of the drain holes at the bottom of your garden.  If the top of the soil in your garden dries out between waterings, increase the frequency of waterings.  If you notice that water is coming out of the drain hole, decrease the amount of water that you are putting on the garden at each watering.

     The amount of water required to keep your garden consistantly moist will very according to season, amount of precipitation, and temperatures.  Below are basic guidelines that you can adapt according to the above conditions.

     For the first two weeks after your garden has been planted or replanted, water your garden every day with approximately 3/4 of a watering can for a 4 ft x4 ft or 5 ft x 3 ft garden or 11/2 watering cans for an 8 x 4 garden.  After two weeks you can cut back to watering every other day with the amount listed above.  Your goal is to learn how much water is required to keep your garden consistently moist.

Harvesting

     Instead of letting each plant in your garden reach full maturity before beginning to harvest, I recommend using a continual harvest method which involves cutting the bigger leaves from plants such as lettuces, spinach, kale, and other plants that produce leaves that can be eaten.  The biggest leaves should be cut off using a pair of scissors and the rest of the plant should be left to continue to grow.  This technique will allow you to eat from your garden over a long period of time.  Fruit producing plants such as tomatoes, peppers, squash, etc. obviously need to be allowed to reach full maturity before their fruit is produced and ripens.  Root crops such as carrots, radishes, beets, etc. also need to be allowed to reach full maturity before being harvested.

Replanting

     The ideal micro intensive garden will provide you with produce all year long.  In order to ensure year round production from your garden it is important to replant at appropriate times.  It is possible to replant your garden before the current crop is finished producing.  An example of this is that you can plant a fall/winter crop of lettuce in the late summer underneath tomato plants that are still producing.  The lettuce will germinate and grow in the shade of the tomato plant and then in the fall the tomato plant can be cut off at ground level and the lettuce will continue to grow throughout the fall and winter.  It is best not to pull out the roots of the tomato plant because it will disturb the roots of the lettuce plants.  If the tomato plant is cut off at ground level its roots will die, decay, and renutrify the soil.  Another example of good replanting strategy is when you are planting warm weather plants either from seed or seedling; you can plant them among cool weather plants that are already growing.  Pepper seedlings can be planted in a crop of spinach.  As the weather warms and the spinach begins to go to seed, the spinach can be cut off at ground level and the peppers will grow up and take their place in the garden.

Feed The Soil That Feeds You!

     As plants grow in your garden they take nutrients from the soil and use them to make food that you eat.  These nutrients need to be replaced if your garden is going to remain productive and healthy.  The best way to replace nutrients in your garden is to add compost from time to time.  Adding compost should be done in two ways.  First, each time you replant your garden it is important to loosen the soil as deep as you can and to mix in enough compost to fill the section to the top.  The second way to add compost to your garden is to top dress around your plants.  This is done when your plants have been growing for a month or two and are well established.  You simply place compost on top of the soil around the base of the plant.  Water the compost in and the nutrients will seep down to the plants roots.  Top dressing can be done at anytime to give your plants some extra nutrition but you want to be sure that the compost does not get put on top of young plants and squash them. 

     A second way to put nutrients back into your garden is to add some organic fertilizer once a month.  There are some good powdered formulas available at Veggiegrower Gardens of NM.  If you got the Get-You-Started package when you purchased your garden you receive either Yum Yum organic plant food or Plant Tone organic fertilizer.  These fertilizers are an excellent way to keep your plants healthy and growing well.  Just add a few handfuls of organic fertilizer to your garden once a month.

Organic Pest Control

     The protective covers will provide a strong deterent to harmful pests.  It is recommended that the protective cover be closed at all times except when you are watering, harvesting, or replanting your garden.  Another exception to this advice is in the late summer when the plants in your garden will be too big to allow you to close your cover.  It is recommended that when tomato plants grow high or when melon, cucumber, and pole beans grow out of the garden that the protective cover be left open.  Obviously when the cover is left open it is not able to provide pest control.  Therefore I have three recommendations for alternative pest control.

     A spray can be made from ingredients found around your house.  Here is the recipe:  In a blender combine 1 teaspoon of cooking oil, 1 teaspoon of dish soap, 1 jalapeno pepper, 3 cloves of garlic, 1/2 onion, and approximately 3 cups of water.  Turn the blender on for a couple of minutes so that the mixture is thoroughly liquified.  Strain the liquid through a piece of cheesecloth or an old cotton t-shirt.  The goal of straining is to get all of the little pieces of vegetable separated from the liquid.  After this is complete the liquid can be put into a spray bottle and sprayed directly onto the garden plants.  This spray can be used as a preventative by spraying it lightly onto the plants once a week.  This spray can also be used to combat an infestation of pests by spraying it more heavily onto the plants 2-3 times a day until the infestation is overcome.

     The second option for pest control is to buy a spray found at Home Depot.  It is a spray called "Pest Control for Fruit and Vegetable Spray".  It is made up of canola oil and pyrethrums.  Pyrethrums are derived from plants and therefore are organic.

     A third suggestion for organic pest control is to plant a few marigold, garlic, and basil plants in your garden.  These plants are natural pest deterrents and also provide either beauty or taste to your garden.