I thought maybe we should describe garden chores in a separate thread instead of the doom prep thread in General Discussion. Be sure to note your Zone when you write.
I'm Zone 5, north central Ohio.
Today we did general clean up. Moved the stacked tomato cages out of the garden area. Moved the irrigation hoses and paraphernalia off to the side. Pulled up last year's pepper, kale, and broccoli stalks. Burned off the dry vegetation (we let some weeds grow up and their stalks are too strappy and get wound up in the tiller blades). Burned the grasses around the fence edges. Pulled up the stakes and netting for cucumbers for later use. Cleaned up general clutter.
I mentioned this in doom prep, but I drove north today to get organic fertilizers, fish oil, bug spray and potting soil. We got the spreader out of the shed so that tomorrow evening we can get that spread. On about 1/2 acre I'm putting out (pretty thick) 100 pounds of green sand, 100 pounds of rock phosphate, and 50 pounds of lime. This will get tilled in, weather permitting, in the next few days. The ground should be ready after one more day of sunshine tomorrow. I'll be spreading and Hub will be tilling it in behind me. Wed. it's supposed to rain, so that will work well.
In a week or two, when the ground is dry enough again and the weed seeds have germinated, we'll till it lightly once more. We'll put out the horse manure (well composted) and organic fertilizer (which is as much soil conditioner as anything else). Then we'll make up the beds. I mark the rows with my wheel hoe and Hub will make it 2 ft. wide, then a 12" row for walking, then 2 ft. wide, for a total of 30 2x25-ft. rows across the space. That's the first row across -- but then we will add two more rows of 30 beds, so that they are 30 across and 3 deep. The other big garden bed (we have two) will be 11 rows, 2 deep on half of it (the other half will be long rows of season-long vegetables, so 2x55 feet). So that's a total of about 112 2x25' rows, separated by walkways, plus 14 long rows (not counting the asparagus).
In these 2-foot-wide beds I can plant 4-6 rows of radishes and scallions, 4 rows of cutting lettuces, spinach, spicy greens mix, arugula, baby swiss chard (I cut it before it gets too large), and other like greens. I can plant 3 rows of carrots, two rows of snap beans, collards, kale, broccoli, cabbage, and larger things. One one half of the smaller bed I save for the long rows -- asparagus, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and bush summer squash. These stay all season. If I stagger plant, I can do two rows of peppers in these beds. I plant peppers quite close together, and they seem to do well if the soil is healthy (they don't produce well with too much nitrogen -- they go all leaves and no peppers). I trellis the cucumbers. The tomatoes are caged, except the one-third I do on poles for larger beefsteaks. I can sell those for $1.99 a pound, so it's worth it! I plant caged tomatoes 2 ft. apart and pole tomatoes 18".
Most of my efforts are going into growing for market, so you have to take that into consideration when you read what I'm doing here. If I were purely doom growing, I'd have a lot more potatoes, dry beans, and winter squash going in, among other things. But unless I see a faster collapse, I'm going with the market. It's in Columbus, during the week, to pick up sales made by workers in the area. By definition these people will be employed, so unless Columbus becomes a fedghetto this summer, I'll be okay at least one more year. A year of selling pays for a lot of doom preps.
One more thing, and this can benefit anybody. Take a good look at your seed packets and note the maturity dates. Radishes - 25 days. Scallions - 5 weeks (for the skinny ones), spinach (baby) 40 days, baby kale for cutting -- 25 days; mature kale -- 55-60 days; snap beans -- 55 days. You get the idea. You should be able to plan succession plantings for things. The radishes are among the first to be ready. Pull them and immediately plant some cutting lettuce. It'll be ready in 28 days and you can get many cuttings off of it until it gets too warm for it. Then plant beets for fall or snap beans for later summer, which you can pick for 3-5 weeks. After you pick the scallions, sock in another batch of radishes, at least till it gets too warm. Then transplant your broccoli seedlings for a fall harvest. You can get a TON of production from a 2x25' bed, or a 4x4 bed, or whatever you have.
My goal for market is to make $100 for every 25' bed every time I harvest it. Not every bed will be ready for harvest every week, but I will have a good selection to take for each market day. If you're growing for yourself, you can have your harvests more logically planned and timed not just for eating but for preserving. You don't want ALL your roma tomatoes to come on the same week (they tend to ripen all at once, which is good if you plan the right amount but a crushing burden if you over planted). So plant them three times two to three weeks apart so you can process them in batches. That kind of thing. Same with snap beans or cabbage. Whatever.
If you are a total newb at this, it might sound overwhelming. But if you are new, you are also starting smaller, so you can manage it. Get really good catalogues like Johnny's Selected Seeds or Territorial Seeds. They have FANTASTIC growing instructions on each type of vegetable -- when to plant, when to transplant, when to harvest, sowing rates and depth, maturity rates, seeds per packet, seeds per pound, and I don't know what all.
Johnny's even has a seed calculator:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/CustomerService/InteractiveTools/SeedCalculator.aspxIf I want to direct seed beets for roots in 25 feet of row, it calculates that I need 375 seeds or 15 seeds per foot. That helps me know how much to order. Actually, I use an Earthway Seeder, which has seed plates for each type of seed that does it for me, but if you are hand sowing, as most do, knowing this kind of information is invaluable and saves you money (from buying too much seed) or time (because you run out and have to go buy more).
Read everything you can lay your hands on, but these catalogues are PRIMO.
Well, this has been long, but I had promised that I would lay out what I am doing this year. later I'll post my planting and my harvest schedules. If you have gardening questions, feel free to PM me or ask here. The nice thing about asking on the board is that many others will chime in with more expertise than I have.
