How to Garden and Save Lots of Money

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How to Garden and Save Lots of Money

 

 

BEGINNING YOUR ORGANIC FOOD GARDEN

[Copyright 2000 by Norm Lee. Reprinted with permission.

May be copied for private use, but not sold.]

 

ONE: THE BASICS

Why garden?

 

As the gardener tends his plot and seasons pass, the more benefits he likely

realizes. He or she may begin with the single aim of reducing food bills, then

find the flavors are far superior to the supermarket's. With the extra vitamins

and regular mild exercise comes a gradual improvement in general health and

vigor. News of a trucker's strike brings no stress. The confidence and security

derived from independence from expensive stale produce and killing frosts in

far-off agri-biz fields cannot be estimated in dollar value.

 

As produce ripens so grows the pleasure in sharing lore with other gardeners, as

gardeners have practiced since man evolved from hunter and gatherer to gardener

and home builder. Now the garden begins to be recognized as a quiet and patient

teacher waiting for the gardener to open to its subtle and profound lessons. One

may begin to experience spiritual joys as the garden, once a mere work place for

" digging in the dirt " , evolves into a refuge, a retreat for mindful meditation.

 

Why organic?

 

The home gardener chooses to grow organically so his plants can feed on

nutrient-rich, natural soil instead of artificial fertilizers, and he declines

to play the fool by spraying poison on his food.

 

Site: The plants require a reasonably level site with minimum six hours'

sunshine, access to water, and soil conditions that allow for deep-dug compost

beds. Choose a spot that is protected from strong winds, away from trees and

large sun- and water-hogging bushes. Southeast of the house is best, due south

next best, east is third best; forget west and north. In southern and southwest

areas of the U.S. be sure to provide 50% or so shade protection during summer

months.

 

When the world wearies, and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the

garden. - Minnie Aumonier

 

Soil: Gardening is like good parenting: you think first always in terms of

meeting the needs of the garden. You take care of the soil, the soil provides

for the plants, the plants produce food for you. So the three most important

things in gardening are: Soil; soil, and soil.

 

In most areas there are three types: clay, sand and humus. It is good to have a

mixture favoring humus, but in any case your soil will improve with compost. Be

an extremist here; composting cannot be overdone. No need for home gardeners to

test for pH. As a general rule, whatever the problem or deficiency of your soil,

lots of compost will fix it.

 

Compost: The organic gardener is not troubled with poor soil, because wherever

he is, he makes his own. I've raised gardens in Vermont, three sites in New

York, and three sites in Arizona. In a Mexican fishing village I developed a

deep-compost food garden on the salty, sandy shore of the Sea of Cortez. All

successfully grew abundant food. There is no soil that cannot be improved by

composting.

 

There are many compost " recipes " , but providing your garden with sufficient

compost is not mysterious, complicated, nor work-intensive.

 

Layer a few inches of each: topsoil (humus), greens (grass clippings, raw

vegetable kitchen scraps, leaves), manure (horse, cow, chicken, never dog or

cat). No meat. Keep the pile moist but not wet, and aerate it by mixing

(turning) it every few days. After a few weeks (composting is not an exact

science) it will be ready to spade into your garden soil, or fill up garden

beds, and/or use as mulch.

 

Behold this compost! Behold it well ...! It grows such sweet things out of such

corruptions. - Walt Whitman

 

Mulch: Mulch is compost-type material used to cover the soil's surface after

the plants have started. Other than compost, mulch is by far the best friend and

work saver a gardener ever had, far better than any $1500 tiller. Apply two or

so inches of grass clippings, peat moss, leaves, chipped Xmas trees, bark, pine

needles, the list is nearly endless. People even use newspapers, old carpets and

flagstone, but these do not feed nutrients to the soil as do the above.

 

TWO: THE METHODS

 

Why not combine the best gardening methods known today? You want practices that

(1) produce the most abundant crops in the least space; [2] provide the most

vitamins, flavor and economy; (3) require the least work, water and tools, (4)

most effectively deter harmful insects, plant diseases, and weeds.

 

Organic methods deliver healthiest produce, most economically. The composted

soil produces largest crops, and makes for the strongest plants - which insects

like to avoid.

 

Raised beds, once built, are work-savers in many ways: more efficient use of

compost and mulch, smaller garden to fence and shade, and more production per

plant (because the soil is not compacted by treading between rows).

 

Intensive planting combined with deep mulch raised beds multiply food production

per square foot many times over. The " shade mulch " keeps down weeks, keeps soil

moist, saves water.

 

Companion planting has been proven to discourage predatory insects; basil among

the tomatoes, for example. In fact, scattered plantings of French Marigolds,

onions, radishes and any mint herb will do much to discourage the bad bugs, but

keep good ones like Lady Bug and mantis.

 

Successive plantings can easily double your food production by extending the

growing season alone. Beginning with starting seed flats of tomato and cabbage

family in late winter, you can raise a spring garden, a summer garden, and a

fall garden.

 

Year 'Round Gardening. In the late '70s, early '80s Sherrie and I pioneered a

method of producing vegetables all winter long in the outside garden in northern

climes, eliminating the need for greenhouse, root cellar, freezing, drying or

canning. Our New Years Day vegetarian meal consisted of 20 vegetables bursting

with flavor, fresh-picked from raised

beds under a blanket of dry hay, sheet plastic, and a foot of snow.

 

Natural foods will be the medicine of the future. - Thomas A. Edison

 

See my regular gardening column in back issues of Homesteaders News, and my

article on winter gardening in Feb '85 East West Journal. The feature article in

#45 Homesteaders News describes winter gardening in the North in detail. . Check

out also TMEN's book, A TO Z HOME GARDENER'S HANDBOOK #7. For my planting

instructions for all four seasons, see the color centerfold in The Mother Earth

News #85.

 

THREE: THE PLANNING

First, The Paper Garden

 

Stage (1) of gardening is doing your reading; Stage (2) is creating the plan.

These can be as enjoyable as the stages following: (3) digging in the dirt, and

(4) plucking the harvest. This information below - indeed, for this entire

article - is selected and condensed from Norm Lee's Book of Garden Lists [see

end of article]:

 

The most common mistakes: [List #93]

DON'T use chemical fertilizers or pesticides

DON'T plan a large garden

DON'T plant rows instead of beds

DON'T fail to use compost

DON'T plant too much seed too thickly

DON'T buy more many " work-saving " tools

DON'T plant seed too deep

DON'T fail to apply mulch

 

How To Avoid Work [List #59] The wise (and lazy) gardener plans a small garden,

loads raised beds with deep compost, and plants intensively. This reduces losses

from pests, diseases, and drought. The raised bed intensive planting uses the

compost, water and mulch most efficiently, reduces the stooping and bending, and

virtually eliminates weeds. There is no plowing, tilling, hoeing, cultivating,

weeding, spraying, dusting, etc.

 

You can quickly spend $2,000 on tools, sold to you on the claim that they " save

work " . When you calculate the hours of work required for the money to pay for

them, those expensive tillers and weeders, and sprayers are not so cheap. You

need only four tools [List #67: shovel, rake, trowel, and a four-tine fork. In

hotter climes, a hose for irrigation.

 

Tools that make work [List #68]: roto-tiller, hoe, cultivator, plow, harrow,

seeder, chemical sprayer, sprinkler ...

 

To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves.

- Mahatma Gandhi

 

What to plant

 

1. Easiest to grow [List #101]: radish; leaf lettuce; spinach; tomato; onion

sets; sweet corn; summer squash; beet green; bush bean; turnip; pea

2. Quickest to harvest [List #96]: six weeks: radish; turnip; leaf lettuce;

spinach; bean; beet greens; summer squash, green onion from sets

3. Most popular vegetable in home gardens [List #149]: tomato, leaf lettuce,

onion, cucumber, beans, radish, green pepper, carrot, peas, beet, spinach, corn,

summer squash, cabbage

4. Most nutritious vegetables: [List #24] (in order of food value, fresh & raw);

broccoli, spinach, Brussels sprouts, lima beans, peas, asparagus, artichokes,

cauliflower, sweet potato, carrot

5. Short season crops [List #73A]: bush bean, beet green, cauliflower, cabbage,

carrot, lettuce, radish, pea, early corn, Chinese cabbage

6. Flats to set out a month before average last frost in spring: [List #115]

cabbage; broccoli; cauliflower; onion; lettuce; Swiss chard

7. Flats to set out two weeks after average last frost date [List #115]: tomato;

summer squash; green pepper; cucumber; eggplant, cantaloupe

 

When to plant seeds:

 

1. On Average Last Frost Date [List #36: beans, corn, cucumber, pepper,

cantaloupe, pumpkin, summer squash, winter squash, watermelon

2. Plant at mid-summer [List #36]: Chinese cabbage, parsnip, pea, turnip

 

Space to allow:

 

Minimum space requirements per plant [List #63]:

2 inches: peas, carrot, green onion, beet green

4 inches: bean, dry onion, parsnip, spinach, turnip

6 inches: leaf lettuce, celery, cucumber

9 inches: Swiss chard, potato, spinach

12 in: Chinese cabbage, head lettuce, potato, sum squash, tomato

[see also List #65: plants per square foot.]

 

How Much To Plant Per Person List #98A shows figures for row cropping; for

intensive planting, space allowed must come from experience and personal tastes.

Suggestion is to begin modestly:

 

 

1. Plant per person: 20 radish, carrot, beet, onion, turnip

Plants per person: 3 cantaloupe, summer squash, winter squash

Plants per person: 5 broccoli, Brussels sprout, cauliflower, pepper, tomato,

white cabbage, Chinese cabbage

Plants per person: 10 bush bean, potato, spinach

Plants per person: 20 pea, sweet corn

 

 

2. Normally potatoes, sweet corn, squashes and melons are grown in patches, not

raised beds. See List #65 for plants per square foot.

 

" I consider this collection of vital information one of the few essential tools

for the back yard gardener... [ Norm Lee's Book of Garden Lists ] belongs with

the trowel, the shovel, and the compost fork. "

(Helen Nearing, co-author (with Scott Nearing) of Living the Good Life)

 

NORM LEE'S BOOK OF GARDEN LISTS

Over 2,500 facts distilled from 80+ sources; 300+ lists in 25 categories.

 

Includes sections on: Starting Seed in Flats, Preserving the Harvest, Companion

Planting, Beginner's Garden, Desert Gardening, List Sources, Garden & Health;

Spring, Summer, Fall, & Winter Gardens, Seed Sources, and more.

200 pages, wire-bound ....$17.95 (+$2 shipping). Please send check or M.O. for

$19.95 to Norm Lee, 3364 Frye Creek Rd, Thatcher, AZ 85552.

 

 

Andrew Saul, PhD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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