Take the covers off your bed!

It's a really good idea to grow a "cover" crop in the vegetable beds whenever you decide to let the space go fallow. The idea behind a cover crop is to let something grow that you intend to just fork into the ground. My favorite the cooler months is crimson clover. It's a pretty thing and it's not hard to dig up. I grow it around my fruit trees too because the roots help break up the heavy clay soil. It has an awesome bloom with a fragrance that will knock you out and it's a great honey bee attractor to help with pollination. It doesn't like hot weather though, so I just let it die back and then fork it into the soil.

I really like it in the vegetable garden. I try to use it in rotation on those areas that I previously grew tomatoes, corn, squash, and other vegetables that really deplete the nutrients in the soil. Since we are approaching the last frost date here in Austin, it's time for me to get these covers tilled into the soil. The gardener in me has a hard time with digging up a perfectly good plant. Especially one as pretty as the clover!

But I persevere because I know how much good it will do for my vegetables. Every fork-full of upturned clover reveals a wealth of earthworms, and the soil is in really good shape. I dig up the plants and just leave them on top of the bed to dry out in the sun.

As soon as they are nice and brown, I just turn them into the ground, smooth out the soil, then plant my vegetables seeds right on top.

The dead clover will continue to decompose and enrich the soil as the vegetable seedlings start to take off and grow. The other added benefit to clover is that it is a nitrogen-fixing legume. Legumes are plants that have symbiotic Rhizobium bacteria that attach to the roots and generate nitrogen. The plant itself doesn't use all that is produced, leaving extra nitrogen in the soil. All the stored nitrogen is released into the soil when the clover dies. You can tell your legume has the Rhizobium if you see whitish nodules on the roots. These bacteria occur in the soil naturally, but you can also buy them and coat the seeds prior to planting. They come in a powder form and can be purchased online or at most garden centers. Some farm feed and seed stores have them too.

Now that my beds have their covers off, I can get those cucumbers planted! Try growing crimson clover in your yard and see if you don't become a big fan.

Do I save money by growing my own food?

There are a lot of really good reasons to grow your own food: it's local, it's usually pesticide free, it's food you like, it's good exercise, it's fun, it's often more nutritious, and it can save you money. Does it save me money? I mean really? I am determined to find out.

The gardener in me shouts OF COURSE IT SAVES YOU MONEY. If you grow your own food you aren't purchasing it from the grocery store. However, the farmer in me just laughs. It is extremely difficult to recoup your capital investment, not to mention variable costs, associated with agricultural activities. There is a reason farmers are never in the Forbes list of wealthiest individuals.

I've seen a lot of talk out on the Internet how people are estimating they can save up to $3,000 a year in grocery bills. Many are skeptical about that amount, saying it's probably half that amount. I understand the doubters. If you've ever grown food, you know a lot of it goes to waste. Crops aren't always picked on time (we've all had a 40 pound zucchini) or eaten right away. We gardeners are also overwhelmed with abundance and have to give away a lot of food or just toss it in the compost bin. There is also the problem of how to assign a value to what you grow. How much is one carrot worth anyway?

So here's what I am going to do. I have created a food log where I track everything I harvest. I then go to H.E.B. to see what it would cost to buy it. I am using the prices off of regular produce, not organic, to determine the value, since that mirrors my purchasing habits. I am not sure how I am going to track of food I give to co-workers and the Food Bank, but will probably keep a separate tally.

I am also going to track all my capital and variable costs. I just moved to my house last April, so now is a good time to do it. So far I have costs for soil, soil amendments, hardware for my raised beds, plastic for my cold frames, plant purchases (like my trees and seeds,) and my rainwater capture system. Of course then there are property taxes and utility bills. It will be interesting to see at what point I break even. I suspect I will be much older when that happens.

January was a tough month in the garden. I lost some citrus trees and the vegetables stopped growing in the cold. Luckily I didn't lose any greens, beets, spinach, carrots, or Swiss chard, so we were able to eat yard food in February. I harvested my first radishes and Kale yesterday. Today I am making tortilla soup and I have my eye on some garlic greens that would be yummy in it.

I'll keep you posted as to how I am doing. My cost savings for February totals $16.15. Ha! Take that, H.E.B.! (Okay, work with me here people. You've got to start somewhere!)

Time to get those potatoes off the couch and into the garden!

Now is a great time to plant potatoes in the garden. They are easy to grow and the tubers you'll harvest are delicious!

The first thing to do is to get certified seed potatoes from a nursery. Store-bought potatoes have been treated with a growth retardant to keep them from sprouting, so they are not usually good candidates for the garden. Examine your seed potatoes for "eyes" and then cut into generous 1 to 2-inch pieces. Try to have more than one eye on a piece.

What you see here are Yukon Gold and Red Potatoes. Once they are all cut up they need to be air dried for a few days to heal up the cuts.

The next step is to plant them in a garden. I use a mulching technique that has worked well for me over the years, and I think will be especially important here in the alkaline and heavy clay Central Texas soils. I laid my potato pieces cut side down on the ground and then covered them with some of the leaves I have snagged from the neighbors.

As the potato plant grows, I will mound the leaves around it. This encourages the plant to form tubers that will just lay on top of the ground. All I will have to do this fall is pull away the leaves and harvest the bounty. The added benefit of using leaf mulch is that the decomposing leaves contribute organic matter at a lower pH than the soil beneath it. This makes for a healthier, more vigorous plant that will produce more potatoes. Another good thing about this method is that it doesn't require a lot of soil preparation. This means you can plant even when things are still a little too wet to work your ground. Plant your potato pieces about two feet apart so they have plenty of room to produce tubers.

So go ahead! Get out there and make this your year of the potato!

New Community Garden in San Antonio

If you're in the San Antonio area, my latest post on MySA.com may be of interest to you.

Freeze? What Freeze? Use cold frames to lessen the bite of winter.

This last week was a cold one, that's for sure. Most of my winter vegetables are suffering because I didn't get out and cover them. I should know better because I've lived my whole life in the Pacific Northwest and know what cold can do. I guess living here in the hot Texas south made me a little complacent.

Not all is lost though. My radishes, kale, peas, and cabbage all sprouted last week thanks to the cozy environment I planted them in. I created cold frames over two of my raised beds and they worked like a charm.

Cold frames are essentially unheated big or mini greenhouse like structures. You can make them out of glass, plastic, or fiberglass. They can be covered rows or boxes - whatever works for your situation. My cold frames are PVC pipe bent over my planting boxes, draped with heavy clear plastic.

Here's how I made them.

I made cold frames for two boxes. I purchased six, ten foot 1/2 inch PVC pipes at Lowe's. This size is very flexible and will bend easily. These I made into the hoops. I also purchased two, ten foot 3/4 inch PVC pipes to fashion clips out of, and also to attach to the bottom of my boxes to help keep the plastic contraption from lifting off in the wind.

The first thing I did was pound six rebar stakes into the ground next to my boxes, leaving about six inches exposed. The previous homeowner had left several pieces in the garage, so I used these. I noticed you can buy a bundle of these at Lowe's - which is probably where they came from. Once the stakes were positioned, I simply slipped the 1/2 inch PVC over the top to form the hoop.

I brought some plastic with me from Oregon. It was left over from a greenhouse I had installed back in Springfield. It is 6 mil "white" or clear plastic that I got from our local home center.

In order to keep the plastic from blowing off the hoops, I fashioned clips out of the 3/4 inch PVC pipes. I measured and marked three inch long pieces and cut them off the pipe using a hacksaw.

To make them into a clip, I removed the bottom third of the piece. I just used tin snips for this and it worked really well. I then hand sanded them to remove the burrs that might tear my plastic. I made three clips for each hoop, plus two more for the ends.

Before I got carried away with covering the boxes, I planted my seeds. (I did this a couple of weeks ago before it got really cold, so the soil was still relatively warm.) One box has French Breakfast Radishes and Improved Dwarf Siberian Kale. The other box has Filderkraut Cabbage and Oregon Giant Peas. All of these seeds germinate in temperatures between 40 and 55 degrees.

Now I was ready for plastic.

The roll I have is twenty feet wide, and that turned out to be perfect for this project. I rolled out enough to cover the ends completely, cut it, then unfolded it over the hoops.



Once I had the plastic positioned, I taped some clear duct tape over the area where I was going to put the clip. I didn't want the very act of installing the clip to tear the plastic. I also periodically remove or lift up the plastic in order to water, so I REALLY wanted to make sure I didn't tear the cover. If I'm careful, they might even last another season or two.

I laid some scrap 2x4's on the ends to help keep things from blowing around too much. Both of my cold frames held up well during the wind that brought the arctic temperatures to town. One reason I decided to make hoops is so my plants can grow fairly tall under protection. This allows me to plant earlier and keep the plastic on until night temperatures are over 50 degrees. The head room also keeps the cover from getting too hot in the sun and burning tender leaves.

The clips make it easy to remove the plastic during warm days, or simply to lift it a little so I can irrigate. I'm really glad I reinforced the clip area with duct tape. I tried it without on a leftover piece and, just as I suspected, the plastic tore too easily.

I'll probably leave the hoops up and attach floating row cover to it this spring and summer. The row cover helps keep out pests and can serve as shade cloth if I need it.

It's amazing how cheap and fast this whole thing was to install. The PVC cost less than $1.50 each. The only expensive item is the plastic - and I'm lucky I had some on hand. You can buy it at the home center in different lengths. I had originally bought a 100 foot roll, if I had to buy just enough for one, each of my boxes probably has $20 worth of plastic. That's a big reason why I want to take care of it and use it more than once. You don't need actual boxes to make this work (mine are made from free discarded fence boards.) You can build the same tunnel over vegetables planted in the ground. The advantage of the boxes is that the soil heats up and stays warmer than the surrounding landscape. That means my seeds can sprout even earlier.

Go ahead, laugh at the cold. Mother Nature sending an arctic blast your way? Install a cold frame and have a little piece of spring months ahead of everyone else. Radish anyone?

It's time for some fruiting bodies!

Well, maybe not bodies, but certainly time to plant your fruit trees! Your local nursery should be receiving their annual stock of bare-root fruit trees, if they haven't already, and now is the perfect time to get them planted.

I love having fruit trees in my landscapes and have always tried to incorporate them in every yard I've had. I'm very fortunate this time around because I have a sunny backyard that is devoid of other trees. I've decided to install fruit trees around most of the perimeter which will give me a micro orchard.

I chose the varieties based upon cold tolerance. I've noticed that the northwest corner is the coldest spot in back, so that is where I planted the Granny Smith apple. Next in line is the Shinko Asian pear. After that is the Gala and Mollie's Delicious apple trees. The Celeste fig is in the hot spot. All varieties are recommended for Central Texas.

I've dug berms in front of my fence in preparation for this installation - with a walkway so we can still replace boards and do other maintenance. This also allows us to eventually harvest fruit from all sides of the tree. I'll have to prune the trees so the branches don't grow into the fence, so they will have more of a flattened fan shape. The berms have had organic matter incorporated into them, so the soil is slightly looser than before and makes planting and root growth a little easier.

When you buy trees bare-root, remove them from their bag and soak them in water for a short time to rehydrate the roots. I used a bucket that was deep enough to submerge the roots and would hold the tree while I was digging the hole. That gave them about five minutes of spa time. I only soaked one tree at a time because my bucket wouldn't hold more without damaging the roots.

I dug holes that were only as deep as the root area, but twice as wide. You want to make sure the roots have plenty of room to spread out but not be buried so deep that they can't breathe. Roots need oxygen in order to grow and can actually smother if too much soil is piled on them.

I put the hydrated tree in the planting hole and covered with soil. I gently tamped the earth around the tree into a ring. This will hold water and help soak the trees newly forming roots.

I gave each tree a good watering when I finished. I filled up the well I made about two times. You want the soil to settle around the roots and make good contact. This is vital if the roots are to grow properly.

I also added mulch around the tree to cover the disturbed ground. I have found that our pounding rains really compact these heavy clay soils and turn freshly dug areas into bricks. I spread just enough mulch to cover the ground without mounding it up around the tree. I use leaves I've collected from the neighborhood for the job.

Next came the hard part. I had to prune the heck out of my new babies. These trees had to have their roots cut severely in order to fit it into those little bags they came in. Even balled and burlapped trees have their roots pruned as part of the process of transporting them from field to retail nursery. To give the tree the best possible start, I had to prune the top down to match the root system. It's generally recommended to remove at least a third of the tree and all the side branches. The Texas AgriLife Extension service has a great article on growing fruit trees and how they should be pruned after planting.

I had to be brave. Even though I've been doing this for years it's still really hard to prune my brand new plants into twigs. Whenever I've waffled and not done it, my trees really never produced fruit like they should. Since I'm a greedy girl and like eating fresh fruit off my own trees, I suck it up and make the cuts. I repeat the mantra that the tree will get a much better start by having a more balanced root-to-trunk ratio and new side branches will form in the spring as the tree comes out of dormancy.

Today I stood on my deck and surveyed my line of newly planted "sticks." With some care and a little help from Mother Nature, they should blossom into some awesome trees. I think I'll drag out the cider press and give it a good cleaning!

Blackberries - the perfect backyard snack.

Who needs candy bars when you can go outside and jam plump, ripe and sweet blackberries in your mouth? No one, I say!

Now is a good time to plant some blackberries if you've got room for them in your backyard. I just put mine in today and I can't wait for that first harvest!

Blackberries are one of the few things that are easy to grow here in Central Texas. They don't get a lot of diseases, don't need a lot of water, and with judicious pruning, stay where you want them.

I went ahead and installed a simple trellis to train them to. Forgoing the more elaborate set-ups, I just put in a woven wire fence. My trusty side-kick Ed put the posts in, then helped stretch the wire. We used 8 foot treated 4x4 posts and installed 2x4's for top braces. To stretch the wire, we wrapped one end around a 2x4 and pulled! While Ed did the heavy work, I nailed in fence stapes to keep the wire in place.

I created a raised bed for the berries to grow in. I live on a slight incline so I created a drainage ditch on one side to capture rainwater runoff from my up-slope neighbors. This will help keep my berries from being washed into the next county. I piled the soil into a berm and mixed in some dried leaves (also from the neighbors.) This will give my berries some extra drainage. I'll keep adding compost to improve soil texture and fertility.

I got four bare-root Rosborough blackberries. Whenever you buy plants bare-root (meaning they aren't in a pot) soak them in water first to help rehydrate the roots. You don't need to do it for long - I just put them in a bucket while I dig the holes. I planted the berries about four feet apart. They will spread out and fill in as they age. I will tie the canes to the fence wire for support and for ease of harvest when they start growing. Once planted I gave them a good soaking and then spread leaves over the ground for a mulch. I'll need to keep them watered this first year, but once established they'll only need irrigation once a week or so. I'll install a soaker hose now while the plants are small.

The Texas AgriLIFE Extension service has a great article on blackberries if you are interested in growing some for your family. Berries are a great source of vitamins and are fat-free, guiltless eating pleasure. I always intend to freeze some or make preserves, but somehow they never make it into the house. I blame the birds. Those stains on my hands and mouth? Mind your own business!