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...)

Cold Season Garden Planning. Koue Weer Tuin Beplanning

I started avidly growing veggies in my backyard about 9 months ago, in the depths of 2013's winter. I was so eager to start, that I totally ignored the time of year and therefore got miserable results. Results which should have been expected, but nevertheless disappointing beyond belief. Yes, most new gardens are over-eager and make the fatal mistake of focusing on the vegetables/fruit trees/plants, instead of the soil. All the research I did beforehand warned me of this fact, so I had no excuse.

I won't make the same mistakes again, or I will at least try to improve on what I did wrong last year. Planning is one thing I'm very good at; sometimes so good that I plan and plan and plan, but never really implement. A character flaw I know. This is how the planning for my autumn and winter garden is coming along so far:

Calculating how much space you have

This was the logical first step for me, since the available space (and the type of space) will tell you the type and quantity of vegetables to plant. No simple task for me, as most of my space isn't square or rectangular beds, but have weirdly winding or circular edges. Blame my parents for their creative garden planning! For any other person this wouldn't be such a hassle, but I'm a sucker for precise calculations and mathematical formulae. Yes, I'm not only a garden geek, but a geek geek as well haha. After countless tries with a broken tape measure, pen and paper, and even calling in the help of a genial best friend (those damn formulae!) I had calculated my veg garden size to near precise dimensions. And so the real fun began...
 

Backyard Veg Patch - cold season crops to follow/Lappie vir herfs en winter groente

Deciding on which veggies or varieties to grow

The four factors which influence me on what to grow and where to plant it, are;

• What do I like to eat? More specifically, what does my family like to eat?
• What worked in my (or the granny's) garden before?
• Which plants or vegetables benefit most from each other? (Companion Planting)
• Which plants or vegetables are most suited to my soil type and amount of shade?

Drawing up a Garden Plan

This is one step that small-scale backyard gardeners don't have to spend too much time on. Being the kind of person that I am, I've spent hours and hours planning, calculating, drawing and re-drawing my very first Garden Plan(s).

I only have three spaces suitable to vegetables and the occasional fruit tree; they measure:

• 6.1 sq meter (of which 4.8 sq meter can be used due to perennials)
• 7.8 sq meter (of which 1.4 sq meter can be used due to shade and trees), and
• 1.52 sq meter (all suitable for planting)

This leaves me with only about 15.5 sq meter. Not much by any stretch of the imagination, so therefore pre-planning is vital to optimise my space.

The most wonderful tool I've discovered online is the GrowVeg Garden Planner. Not only is it free for a 30-day period, but all features are available to users of the free trial programme! The first step in the design is to tell the programme the length and width of your bed. Then you simply choose a veg/fruit/flower type and plan out the rows or blocks desired. The nifty little programme will tell you automatically how many of said plant you can chuck into said space. Marvelous!

Here is an example of my backyard vegetable patch:

Backyard Veg Patch Plan/Agterplaas Tuinplan [copyright www.growveg.com]

See the full plan, all suggestions, and how wonderful this site really is at GrowVeg.com

Preparing the soil

As soon as the summer veggies and flowers start looking a bit straggly and production comes to a grinding halt, it is time to pull them out and either compost or destroy them, depending on whether they are still healthy specimens. This normally happens the last month of summer or in early autumn. In areas where chilly weather comes sooner (like the Free State or Gauteng) it would most probably be end Feb, and the Garden Route area where I live it's more likely to be March. There is no hard and fast rule to the month of the year though. 

From Pumpkin Patch to Onion Bed/Toekomstige wit-ui tuiste?

Now comes THE MOST IMPORTANT TASK IN GARDEN PLANNING... Soil preparation. It is very important to spend most of your available finances on preparing the soil well and the smallest amount on buying plants or seed. The type of soil you have is also very important. This is because you will need to add coarse sand to hard, clay soil or huge amounts of compost to loose, sandy soil. I have a mix of good garden soil and heavy, clay soil in my own garden.  

A rule of thumb is to add two bags of good, organic compost to a square meter of your garden. That is roughly equivalent to 2'' of compost (5cm) on top of your bed. It is also a good idea to add a complete fertiliser to your garden. 10-10-10 fertiliser is the best one to go with (equal amounts of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium). Manure is an alternative to compost, but must be well-rotted. A good indication on whether it is suitable for your veg patch is to smell it. If it doesn't reek to high heaven, it apparently is black gold!

A scattering of red onions to follow/'n Paar rooi uie midde-in die vrugte bedding?

All the preparation stuff must be done at least two weeks before any planting. I've just realised it's already March, and I haven't done even a square foot of soil preparation. I will definitely have to order a bakkie-load of compost from Norgarivier Nursery, some fertiliser... and get in my garden, sweating away!

Fruit Trees, Bamboo Battles, etc. Vrugtebome, Rateltaai Bamboes ens.

Identifying a bed for Fruit Trees

My dreams of partial self-sufficiency did not just stretch as far as a small vegetable patch and a few Num-Nums or Natal Plums. Oh no, I wanted two or three, or more, fruit trees as well. Yes, I did plant a Japanese Quince and a Cherry Guava early on, but I wanted less exotic fruit as well. Fruit we ate a lot, like apples. 

Realising this dream proved more difficult than anticipated. The various obstacles to my plan included space, shade and too many other useless trees and shrubs. A plan of action had to be worked out of course, and that would start with the Swamp Cypress...

De-branching the Swamp Cypress

As I discussed in my post on container gardening, I have a bit of a space problem. Not only because I have an urban garden, but also due to the already established trees in it. The biggest thorn in my side is our Swamp Cypress. It is a beautiful tree, but the parents and I receive endless complaints about how it covers a substantial part of our street in a carpet of orange leaves in autumn and winter. The complaints generally come from the very same people who park in its shade in summer. Such is life. The other problem is how massive it is, both in canopy and root size. Therefore a few roots, and all the lower branches had to go. 

1 Sep 2013 - Before picture of the Swamp Cypress/ en die toekomstige vrugteboom bedding

 The first part of this mammoth task was to get rid of the branches. This part wasn't as tough as expected. The next part of the task would prove to be the back-breaker, though.

15 Sep 2013 -New and improved Swamp Cypress

The second part was to remove the biggest cypress roots in the bed I wanted to use for my fruit trees. This had to wait awhile though, since there were some bamboo reeds and ferns to get rid of first. Ai!!!

Getting rid of Bamboo and Ferns

2 Sep 2013 - The bamboo bush in all its glory

Major drama! Sweat, more sweat, and even a little blood was involved, but luckily no tears. A process that started early October...

4 Nov 2013 - Almost done decimating the bamboo

   ... and only finished early November. 7 November 2013 to be exact; a date of celebration...

7 Nov 2013 - The end; just landfill remaining

Needless to say; I will NEVER plant bamboo again. Ever! 

Bamboo/Bamboes? Never again/Nooit weer nie!!!

Composting the Apple and Kumquat Bed

The last part, but by no means the least, was preparing the bed for my fruit trees. A process I only finished with mid-November. I blame those bloody bamboo reeds! Luckily I had a few companions to keep me occupied while doing this. Not only the mom and granny, but also a few Cape Wagtails (Motacilla capensis), or Kwikkies as we know them in Afrikaans:

A Cape Wagtail keeping me company/'n Kwikkie hou my geselskap

 Choosing Fruit Trees for my Urban Garden

What type of fruit? Which cultivar? What size? Questions, questions... Two of my favourite nurseries Norgarivier Kwekery/Nursery and George Kwekery/Nursery convinced me I needed two apple trees for a successful harvest. Hence, I bought two. A Granny Smith and a Golden Delicious. They are apparently excellent cross-pollinators. See, apples are so fussy you can't even plant two of the same type. No sir, you need two different cultivars. 

The other fruit tree I settled on was a kumquat. The granny and I are major fans, although the rest of the family isn't too keen. Well, space being the problem that it is, forced my hand really. I wanted something smallish, hardy and useable. Kumquat it will be. Once again, thanks to the wonderful Norgarivier Nursery on the Airport road near George.

Sep 2013 - The original spot for the Kumquat

The Planting

Unfortunately I've had to make a tough decision. Alas, our garden only has space for one apple tree (barely). Hopefully the Golden Delicious will find a nice spot in a friend's garden. The Granny Smith I'm definitely keeping. Luckily I've read that said apple trees are self-fertile. Yes, it will fruit better with another apple to cross-pollinate with, but I would get to harvest delicious Granny's with one tree as well. The kumquat will maar have to be its neighbour shame.

Oct 2013 - Die Granny Smith Appelboompie

I hope all the hours of back-breaking work and the endless amount of blisters, scrapes and bruises will be worth it. Somehow I think it will. And here are the results of the (semi-) finished bed:

12 Nov 2013 - Fruit bed/Vrugte Bedding

Fltr - Granny Smith, Boysenberry, Kumquat

I decided on chives and lavender as companion plants to my apple, blackberry and kumquat. Apparently most pests detest the strong fragrance of these plants. I planted chives around the apple and kumquat and a row of French lavenders on the edge of the bed. 

Do you believe in Companion Planting, or use it at home?

Foreign Friday. Volksvreemde Vrydag

Strawberry or Cherry Guava/Aarbeikoejawel (Psidium cattleianum)

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of the Cherry Guava tree we had in the backyard. I can remember the sweetly tart strawberry-like taste, the amount the brother and I used to gobble down, and the smell of overripe guavas in the hot South African sun. Unfortunately the tree had to make room for extensions to the house, but the memory is still clear.

When I couldn't seem to find a Chilean Guava anywhere in the country, it was therefore not a giant leap for me to settle on the Cherry Guava as stand-in. I blame James Wong for publishing such a delicious-looking guava and quince Rumtopf recipe on his site, made with the fruit of an impossibly difficult plant to source! 

The folks across the water tend to call our Cherry Guava either a Strawberry Guava or a Cattley Guava, but I'll stick to my Proudly South African roots. The tree grows easily in just about any soil, although some organic material and free-draining soil is a must. It grows into an average sized shrub to small tree, depending of the area you live in and the climatic conditions there. Here, in the Garden Route, they tend to grow to between 2m and 3m tall. The tree fruits heavily, and the fruit itself is very nutritious and low in calories. It contains around 60Kcal per 100g.

As I blogged about before, I decided to plant my Cherry Guava in the front-yard garden. I was quite fortunate to get a tree which already had a few fruit on it from my preferred local nursery. Before you pop one of these little treats in your mouth, just heed my warning about fruit-fly bites. The fruit might look normal from outside, but inside it could well be infested with worms. Unfortunately flies and birds like the little deep-red guavas just as much as we do...

My very first Cherry Guava/My heel eerste Aarbeikoejaweltjie

So in went my little tree, and I couldn't be more happy with the result. It took off like a duck to water.

The granny watering newly planted Psidium cattleianum

Since I knew about, and experienced first-hand, the fly problem with the Cherry Guava, I decided to give companion planting a go. At least, I planted a trap crop of nasturtiums and hoped for the best. Dalk was die kappertjies nie die beste keuse nie? The fact that the trap crop I chose normally traps aphids didn't put me off at that stage. I just wanted some nasturtiums damn it! I will definitely add some chives and the like later to repel the pesky fruit-flies though.

Nasturtium seedling/Kappertjie plantjie

Companion planting at its best??? Aarbeikoejawel + Kappertjie???

Oh, how I can taste Cherry Guava Cordial and Guava Crumble already! The following recipe especially appealed to me when I walked across it on another local blog -

Cherry Guava Apple Crumble:

• Make Cherry Guava pulp by boiling a colander full of guavas, a cup of water and two tablespoons of sugar for 20mins, strain. The mass should be a thick pulp.
• Crumble:
• 300g plain flour
• 175g sugar
• 200g soft butter

•  Filling:
• 450g peeled, cored and sliced apples (tinned apples make a fine substitute)
• 1tb sugar
• 1tb plain flour
• pinch of cinnamon

• Method:
• Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
• Make the crumble by adding the flour and sugar together and rubbing the butter in
• Add all the filling ingredients to a large bowl and stir well
• Grease a 24cm dish and spoon the filling in, then pour Cherry Guava pulp over
• Sprinkle the crumble on top
• Bake for 40-45mins
  

Will you be planting a Cherry Guava in your urban garden?

Botanical Name: PSIDIUM CATTLEIANUM
Common Name: Cherry Guava, Strawberry Guava, Cattley Guava
Volksnaam: Aarbeikoejawel
Native to: Brazil (tropical Amazonian regions)
Date planted/sowed: Planted late June 2013 (winter)
Ease to grow: Very easy to grow
Costs: R45.00 for a small tree
Notes: Tree fruits quickly, but need to guard against fruit-flies and birds