Warm Season Garden Planning. Warm Weer Tuin Beplanning

Welcome to my second instalment of fruit and veg garden planning. The last time I blogged about garden planning it was the beginning of our southern autumn and I was very hopeful and excited about the possibilities of my cold season garden. This time around I'm blogging midway through the spring, so therefore this post is about planning for warm planting season.

The success of my winter garden was a mixed bag of welcome delights and bitter disappointments. I can quite happily state though, that the failures in my winter garden was less to do with inadequate planning and more to do with being over-enthusiastic. Yes, once again I made some mistakes in my garden, but I will post on this in future. This post is about informing you on my plans for my three main fruit and veg beds, and the subsequent exertion put into getting ready for the summer season.

Backyard veg patch worked over and ready for compost/Agterplaas groentetuin is omgespit en gereed vir kompos

Calculating how much space you have

This season I spent the least amount of time on this step. You see; I have a mild case of OCD so I spent hours upon hours of measuring, re-measuring, calculating and re-calculating the size of all my beds in March of this year. This time around I just pulled up my Excel spreadsheet... and Bob's your uncle! I will admit that it took some minor fiddling here and there as my calculations were a bit off last time. As I am ever the perfectionist, this minor error had to be fixed. Just Had to!

The total size of my three main beds is 12.84m² of which 7.72m² is usable for fruit and veg production. This is due to certain areas being in the deep shade during certain periods of the day, or simply by perennials taking up the space. I know my space is severely limited, but one has to work with what one has, hey?

Deciding on which veggies or varieties to grow

Which summer fruit and veggies do we like to eat most?

• Apples
• Baby marrows
• Beans
• Butternut
• Cucumbers
• Grapes
• Peppers
• Sweet Potatoes
• Tomatoes

If I go according to that list, my planning measures up in the following way: 

I already have a Granny Smith apple in my fruit bed. It's been in my garden about a year and a half and still going strong, but won't bear fruit for a while yet. I already bought my baby marrow (courgette/zucchini) seed at our local Agri store, but won't do butternuts again as they take up too much space. I also already have my dry beans, ready to be sowed. They're leftovers from last year's planting season. I don't have enough space for either cucumbers or grapes, so will still have to source those from our fantastic local fresh produce store, but the peppers were left in my garden. I treat them as perennials since they die back almost completely in the cold season, but always come back into their own late September. I saved three of the sweet potatoes I harvested from the garden in April to make new slips with. Currently the slips are beautiful, and forming roots in a little plastic tub filled with rain water. Tomatoes? I purchased twelve Moneymaker seedlings and cherry tomato plants from local nurseries. 

Sweet potato slips/Patatranke

Which fruit and vegetables worked in my garden last spring/summer?

• Beans
• Pepinos
• Cocktail Tomatoes (our bigger tomatoes were mostly a dismal failure)
• Nasturtium leaves
• Parsley
• Radish
• Sweet Potatoes

Which plants or vegetables benefit most from each other?

Companion planting is a subject every organic backyard farmer must familiarise him/herself with. This is due to the fact that bugs and pests love fresh veggies just as much as we do, especially in a humid climate like the Garden Route's. I won't spray any (non-organic) pesticides, so the fruit and veggies are even more of a temptation to the little critters. The best way to solve, or at least minimise, this problem is to inter-plant fruit and veggies with beneficial herbs and plants and also plant trap crops like nasturtiums. The former assist and provide nutrition to the fruit and vegetables and the latter draw the pests away from our treasured produce. The idea behind companion planting is to create a small and balanced eco-system in your garden, thereby not providing fodder for bugs by planting a ton of the same plant or species. The best South African advice on companion planting is to be found on Livingseeds' website and another good table can be found here.

Which plants are most suited to my soil type and amount of shade?

This is a question that can only be answered with a great degree of certainty after the third or fourth growing season. Yes, as a gardener you will probably know what kind of soil you're blessed (or cursed with), and therefore which fruit and veggies are best suited to your property, but even this knowledge might be misleading. My blessing is the fact that my parents frequently composted in years gone by. My curse is that our natural soil is rich in clay, but luckily the same parentals sorted most of this out by extensively applying lime. I have never actually done a pH test on my soil so I can't say without doubt whether I have acid or loamy soil, but my bet is on good garden soil (somewhere between the two), as it is rich and black in colour (minus the small bits of clay left in some spots underground).

Drawing up a garden plan

I once again used the fantastic GrowVeg Garden Planner tool to assist in this task. This time around I decided to purchase a year-long membership. This enables me to not only draw up multiple garden plans without deleting and re-doing them one by one, but the tool also remember what I planted in a specific space before. This will help me with the next season's planning and planting, as the tool will give me crop rotation warnings etc. Brilliant hey! 

I've decided to share my Backyard Veg Patch plan with my avid blog readers again, if only to show you how the tool assists in the whole process... and how I've improved in utilising it haha. One thing I realised is that you can select the variety as well as the plant type. Practice makes perfect. Without further ado - here is my plan:

Backyard veg patch plan/Agterplaas tuin plan (copyright www.growveg.com)

At least I can say with all honesty that this phase of my planning took a fraction of the time this season. Thank you GrowVeg!

Preparing the soil

As I like to believe I learn from my mistakes, I decided to delay my summer season planting with a month or so this time year. My region experience most rainfall in Oct/Nov and Mar/Apr, although we do get rain most months of the year. Last year the combination of granny's impatience and my eagerness led us to sow and plant most of our warm season crops late August already. Mistake! Not only did some seeds drown in the heavy October rains, but the tomatoes and beans were more susceptible to blight, as the plants which did make it had to struggle through the whole wet season.

This time I only started to prepare my beds early October, and plan to plant my beans, courgettes, sweet potatoes and tomatoes late October. I can almost hear some readers gasp in horror. Surely one cannot sow tomatoes as late as that?! No dear readers, I've also learned from my second mistake - plant seedlings wherever possible and stay away from seeds. I learned this lesson by comparing my tomato production (dismal) to my best friend's 100m away in the same neighbourhood (bountiful). Yes, sometimes one can learn by observation of others.

As stated in my previous post, the MOST IMPORTANT TASK IN GARDEN PLANNING is soil preparation. I'm using upper-case again to emphasise just how important this step is. The two golden rules I've stayed with this year is composting and fertilising.

Unsatisfactory compost mixed with organic manure/Middelmatige kompos gemeng met organiese hoendermis

At the risk of becoming repetitive, the rule of thumb with composting is to add around 2 bags of good, organic compost to every square meter (roughly the equivalent of 2 inches of compost as a top layer). As I wasn't a hundred percent happy with the quality of the compost I purchased for most of my garden (it didn't have the healthy slight farm stink to it and was also too fine for my liking), I decided to add roughly one part pure organic chicken manure to two parts (unsatisfactory) compost. Problem solved. Unfortunately the organic chicken farm where I usually purchase my manure ran out. After briefly wondering how a chicken farm runs out of chicken poo I decided to stock up at the other organic chicken farm in the vicinity. Tip to future buyers from said farm: ask for chicken compost, as the cashier doesn't know it by any other name... and I mean any other. Luckily I also bought four big bags of great, organic compost for my backyard veg patch elsewhere, so those didn't need added manure.

The good stuff - Grow Green Organics compost/Swart goud - Grow Green Organics kompos

A rule of thumb with fertilising is to add about 150g composted chicken manure to every square meter - around fruit trees especially. 50g equals about a handful. A good organic option is either Bounce Back (around R60.00 for a 5kg bag). A cheaper option is Rescue, which is also pelletised chicken manure, but comes in a less snazzy bag. I opted for the latter and bought 4kg for only R40.00 (a 17% saving) at Norgarivier Nusery on the Old Airport Road.

I did most of the composting about a week ago, and did the fruit tree fertilising a few days ago. Now I just have to wait the required two weeks after composting to get in my selected vegetables for the summer season. What did I choose to plant this time around?

1. Contender bush beans (seed): as they produce quicker than pole beans and don't cast shade on other plants in my very limited gardening space.
2. Caserta courgettes/baby marrows (seed): as they require a fraction of the space gobbled up by butternuts or other pumpkin varieties
3. Cucamelons (seed): as they are simply too adorable to resist
4. Sweet potatoes (slips): after the success of last year I would be crazy not to plant it again!
5. Cherry tomatoes (seedling): as they grow and produce quickly and are more hardy to diseases than big tomatoes.
6. Normal sized Moneymaker tomatoes (seedling): the name convinced me ;-)

And that is my summer season garden planning story... in detail... maybe too much detail

(... but who cares...)

Foreign Friday. Volksvreemde Vrydag

Tomatillos (Physalis philadelphica/Physalis ixocarpa)

When I bought my first tomatillo seeds a year ago (May 2013) I was very hopeful. It was the first seed I bought, and being a naive, first-time veg gardener I thought I would harvest a ton of green and purple tomatillos come summer. By March this year I was ready to pull the whole lot out. One miserable tomatillo. Hopes and dreams dashed.

Middle Feb 2014 - still hoping for any type of harvest

Middle Mar 2014 - hopes dashed...

... one miserable tomatillo harvested by Mid-March 2014

I really don't know what I did wrong with my tomatillos, but I have two theories. One; the sun scorched them, nestled up against the vibracrete wall. Two; the soil wasn't fertile enough. It's difficult to say which one of these theories is the correct one, or if it is a combination of the two. This is because I added tons of compost just as the weather cooled down slightly by the end of March.

In the gentler weather of April I started to notice a difference, and by middle May I had tomatillos everywhere:

15 May 14 - An abundance of green tomatillos!!!

15 Mei 14 - Groen tomatillos in oorvloed!!!

Now I was faced with another problem. You see, after I basically wrote off the tomatillos in March I had set this bed out for brown onions. Only brown onions. The granny told me April is the best month to plant onions in my neck of the woods. April came and went as I waited for the tomatillos to ripen, but by middle May I couldn't delay anymore. Yes, my tomatillos would've been bigger had I harvested them later, but onions are worth more in this household. You see, tomatillos are volksvreemd... onions not. So out went the tomatillos and in went the Texas Granos. 

This is what I harvested:

 

Maybe I should try a simple Salsa Verde recipe now. What do you think?

Botanical Name: PHYSALIS PHILADEPHICA or PHYSALIS IXOCARPA
Common Name: Tomatillo, Mexican tomato, husk tomato
Volksnaam: -
Native to: Mexico
Date planted/sowed: 10 + 18 Oct 2013
Ease to grow: Moderately easy to grow, but I had difficulties getting the plants to fruit
Costs: R11.00 for 35 seeds and about R20.00 for compost
Notes: Compost soil well two weeks before sowing tomatillo seed. Also avoid planting against hot, reflective walls.

The Beds. Die Beddings

Visions of abundant harvests and a lush garden filled me with all kinds of ideas. Getting those ideas implemented was another story entirely. Hours of back-breaking, sweaty work. Taking out old trees and shrubs, cutting back others, composting, removing pesky flower bulbs, working existing beds over... no one ever said gardening was easy work, I guess! And so the real work began...


Task 1: Compost, weed and dig over Vegetable Patch

Backyard Vegetable Patch/Agterplaas Groentetuin

The vegetable patch wasn't as much work as anticipated, as Ouma used it the year before for her tomato and bean crops. It only needed slight weeding, a deep digging and composting. A few Marigolds, or Afrikaners, provided colour and would hopefully deter some pests when the vegetables are established. The only other plants in the veg patch were Curly-leaf Parsley, Italian Parsley and peppers/capsicums that we over-wintered.

Next in the range of exotic edibles to be introduced in my garden were Pepino or Melon Pear (Solanum muricatum) and Tree Tomato (Solanum betaceum). The Pepino has nothing to do with a pear, but tastes like a strange cross between melon and cucumber and resembles a tiny, fleshy melon with greenish to yellow skin and purple stripes. I got three plants as a gift from a kind lady working for the competition hehe. The plants didn't have any soil on the roots, so I was very worried about it's chances, but more on that later.

The Tree Tomato or Tamarillo, isn't a type of tomato but rather an egg-shaped yellow to orange fruit, borne on  a large shrub with big, pungent-smelling leaves. It tastes like pure passion fruit to me. The taste of summer. I can't wait for this baby to start bearing fruit! Both the Tree Tomato and Pepino are natives to Peru, so well suited to my exotic edibles garden.

Task 2:  Prepare spot for Cherry Guava

Out with the old...

It's always sad to see a plant go, especially one that is doing well, but if you're as pressed for space as I am it is a necessary evil. I don't even know what kind of plant it was, but we always just called it a "Vlas" or "Flax". Anyone perhaps know the correct botanical or common name? Luckily the old "Flax" kept the soil friable and moist, so it wasn't such hard or time-consuming work before my Cherry Guava could go in:

... in with the new; my very own Cherry Guava/Die Aarbeikoejawel in sy gatjie

Task 3: Preparing the broad bean bed

Seeing that winter was upon us, I was already behind on getting some winter crops into the ground. Luckily I read on the Adelaide Gardeners blog that if you delay your broad bean sowing until mid-winter they will only start flowering in spring, and therefore set more beans. This is because the warmer weather would encourage flowers all over the plant, and not just on its tip. I was banking on that to be true, since I would have to sow my broad beans well into winter (sometime in July). I decided on a narrow bed previously filled with Inca Lilies and ferns for my broad beans:

Broad bean bed/Boerboon bedding

Boy, oh boy, did that little bed give me problems! Not only did I have to dig out some sizable roots of the Acer Negundo tree in the one corner of it, I also had to battle with countless Inca Lily roots and bulbs. The bloody pests! It seems like the smallest things always give you the most hassles. Die klein jakkalsies nè! The soil was quite friable, but needed extensive digging to remove as many of the lily roots as possible. I also composted heavily, as I wasn't sure to which extent the Acer tree would've depleted the soil. Practice makes perfect I guess.

Task 4: Removing a Yucca and revitalising an old bed

The whole Yucca-debacle started when our next-door neighbours complained about the thorny Yucca near the boundary, before they took matters into own hands. They cut off all the branches facing their way, thereby creating a sad, lop-sided tree. My mother did the rest, and cut the remaining branches off, but now we were faced with the massive task of removing said stump:

Mother helps digging the Yucca out/Ma help om die Yucca recurvifolia uit te grawe

I am not kidding when I say the thing must have weighed half a ton! My brother and I could barely move the stump together, after hours of digging and wriggling it loose from it's hole. In the end the stump had to be removed with a car and steel cable. It just had to go! I had huge plans for this small bed. Something involving a Num-Num perhaps? After two devilishly difficult days this was the end result:

Future Num-Num bed? Toekomstige Noem-Noem bedding?

 Task 5: Creating a Tomatillo and Squash bed

The last sunny position of any note available in my garden was the section between a big Ice Cream bush and our braai area (divided by a rough wooden fence). Here I had to do really deep digging, as the bed also contained a flowering plant propagated by tubers. Tubers I'm fighting to this day! The big Pelargonium bush was moved out front in the bed where the Yucca used to be, and the bed was also heavily composted. I was thinking of doing some companion planting; maybe 3 or 4 tomatillos up against the wall, a few borage plants in front of them to help along pollination, and 2 or 3 butternut squashed crawling over the front section? Is this bed even big enough? We shall see...

Tomatillo and butternut bed/Tomatillo en botterskorsie bedding