The Green Desk Garden - update 1

So we’re out at sunny bFM acres on the wild West Coast in Piha. There’re a variety of different parts to the ‘estate’ but for now we’ll concentrate on a handy little section that’s ready for some action. We are looking at a raised bed full of lush loose soil, composted, dug over several times in the past few weeks and ready to receive!

Before we get onto the planting side of things here’re some facts about raised beds:

Dimensions:

Width - Ideally you should be able to reach into the middle of the bed from either side without walking on the soil. A good way of working out what dimension might be right for you is to lie on the ground and stretch out your arms. Notice where your finger tips are and use the distance between them as the width of your bed. In my case its 2 metres. As for length – well that’s generally a personal matter but the bed we will be working on is 3 metres long.

Height – The minimum soil depth for lettuces, silverbeet, onions, radishes and spinach is about 20cm whereas the likes of beans, cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes and carrots need 45cm. The great thing about beds that are 45cm tall (standard seat height) is that you can perch your bum on them whilst you are weeding, watering and feeding.

Materials – Avoid treated timber which leaches chromium and arsenic into the soil - although there are those who do use this stuff and line it with heavy duty polythene to keep chemicals away from vegetable roots; far better to use macrocarpa which has natural oils that preserve it in and on the ground without any adverse effects on your veggies. Loads of folks use macrocarpa sleepers which are usually 20cm x 15cm x 2.1m but they can be a bit pricey. In the bFM garden we are using macrocarpa boards 20cm x 5cm bolted to 15cm x 10cm corner posts. Alternatives to macrocarpa are concrete blocks and bricks, old native timber weather boards (with the painted side facing out) – you can even use wine bottles filled with sand and buried neck-down to put some curves onto your veggie patch!

Weed prevention - When you decide where your bed is going to go just cut off any grass and dig up any weeds that are in the way before you put in any soil or compost. If there are persistent weeds in the ground like kikuyu or couch grass and bindweed it can be handy to lay some weed-proof membrane (buy it by the metre from garden centres) - or if you can get your hands on some – old wool carpet in the bottom of the raised bed. This should stop weeds coming up through things and causing hassles.

We will be talking about how to get a good growing medium going in the next show so watch this space…

PLANTING NOW.

Even in the grip of Winter (what Winter?) you can be planting stuff. Right now you can be sowing broad beans, kale, mizuna (mustard greens), peas and radishes as well as planting onions and GARLIC.

GARLIC

I just love this stuff, it is so easy to plant and harvest and it’s almost worth its weight in gold. A kilo –about 8 to 10 fists - of organic garlic is going for around $25 to $27 at the moment so what better incentive to grow your own and save some dough! As a general rule they say that garlic is planted on the shortest day (June 21st) and harvested on the longest day (December 21st) but here in warmish Auckland we can plant garlic any time from now until the end of June.

The right stuff – You need to get your hands on good quality seed garlic from a garden centre or alternatively buy NZ-grown organic garlic. Much of the puny white stuff that many of the supermarkets peddle comes from China and has been chemically treated to stop it from sprouting, it’s not a patch on good fat juicy organic cloves anyway. Plant the biggest, fattest juiciest cloves and in six months’ time you should be rewarded with similarly large, fat, juicy produce.

Action stations – As long as your soil has been dug through so that it runs through your fingers like crumbly chocolate and it has plenty of well-rotted, rich organic matter in it then you are probably ready to take your first step towards the garlic hall of fame. Using a dibber, piece of kindling or – if your soil is really well-dug through – your hand with fingers pointed kung-fu blade style, push down into the soil to make a hole around 10cm deep. The individual garlic cloves should be buried so that the fat rooty bottom bit goes to the bottom of the hole with the pointy bit looking at the sky. There should be about 6cm between the pointy top of the clove and the level of soil in the garden around it. If all is okay and you are happy then gently fold soil back over the clove and move on. There should be 15cm between each clove in the row and 15cm between each row. There you go!

What is also fairly handy is that you can plant garlic in buckets or containers that are bucket-sized or bigger. Make sure there are holes in the bottom for drainage and fill with a good quality potting mix. Plant your garlic as directed above and be sure to monitor watering closely as soil in buckets and pots dries out much quicker than in beds.

Catch you soon – have fun!

Paul

Listen to the Green Desk for 27 May 2008 here