before your LAST frost date in the spring, and your summer garden is planted around your last frost date depending on the weather reports during that time. Your summer crop will be finished with the first frost. Plant
your fall garden about 90 days before your first frost date and your winter garden 60 days before your first frost date. So for a raised bed garden in this area of NC, plant your spring garden seeds on 2/21, your summer seeds and transplants on 4/21, and your fall seeds on 8/15.
4. Planting too close together It seems like no one likes bare soil and no one wants to
thin seedlings. If one plant is good, wouldn’t five plants be five times better? The truth is, plants need room for their roots to spread out. A tiny tomato plant will grow 20 feet tall if you let it. It needs a whiskey-barrel’s worth of soil to grow in – at least. When you crowd your plants you don’t get a better yield,
you actually get less of a harvest and unhealthy plants. Plants that are too close together compete for water, nutrients and sunlight. They are starved for nutrients, poor air circulation makes them susceptible to pests and diseases, and reaching for sunlight makes the growth spindly and weak. Plant your seeds evenly, but make sure you thin them as they grow – saving the best plants for proper spacing. Don’t use the spacing information on the seed package! It is for gardens with “average soil,” which has much less fertility than a raised bed garden using organic fertilizers. Don't plant in rows – instead plant in blocks. So if the package says “plants should be 12” apart in rows 18” apart,” space your plants in blocks 9” apart. In the example below, you get 80% more crops in the same space! Tomatoes should be spaced at least three feet apart, or one
plant for each whiskey barrel sized conta 5. Watering – too much or too little
3x8 Bed -12" apart in rows 18" apart = 10 plants
• • • • • • • • • •
3x8 Bed - 9" in blocks 9" apart = 18 plants
• • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • Most people kill plants with too much water – it waterlogs
the roots so they rot and washes out the nutrients in the soil. The trick is to water seldom and deeply, perhaps once every two or three days depending on weather conditions. This puts the water down in the soil and encourages the plant roots to grow deeply, where water is more abundant. Plants will be able to resist dry spells much more easily. If you water daily, root
Natural Triad Magazine
growth will be in the top inch of soil only and if you miss a day, your plants will be severely impacted. Don’t use an automated watering system. It can be uneven
and encourages you to visit your garden less often. If the system breaks down you may not notice until it’s too late. The best gardens are those visited every day or so, to keep up with grow- ing progress and to watch out for problems. Different plants may need differing amounts of watering in the same garden. One trick is to watch the leaves – if they’re bright green, perky and shiny, then they don’t need much wa- ter. If they’re a bit dull and somewhat droopy, they need a drink. But don’t wait until your plants are dying of thirst before you water them! Water the base of the plants with a watering wand, not
from above. Water early in the day, not late in the afternoon. The enemy of a healthy garden is wet leaves. Keep them dry and most of your disease problems will go away!
Gardening may seem complicated and difficult, but 2/3 of the work in a garden is weeding. The rest is dealing with sick plants, and trying to amend our poor soil, which can take 5-10 years. If you start with raised beds and new, organically fertilized soil, your weeding will be one weed per square foot, instead of a hundred. If you plant the right plants at the right time with proper spacing, and water seldom and deeply, your garden will be healthy, resisting pests and diseases naturally. Best of all, your workload will be reduced - no digging, tilling or weeding!
Bern Beatty, owner, Instant Organic Garden of Winston-Salem. 336-351-4812
bern@instantorganicgarden.com. See ad on page 48.
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