By Malerie Eeds
Gardening for the first time? You
can't go wrong with these time-tested techniques.
It’s Spring Time!
Beautiful weather and beautiful plants and flowers…
- Make Compost
- Use Compost
- Plant Crops in Wide Beds
- Mulch
- Feed the Soil, Not the Plants
- Share Something
- Be There
Short
version: Mother
Nature never throws anything away.
Longer
version: Composting
is the rare silk purse from sow's ear, something for nothing, win-win. You
start out with kitchen, yard and garden debris and wind up with two benefits:
1) a great soil amendment, and 2) many green points for avoiding the landfill.
It's easy to
fall into thinking that compost's last name is bin, and that careful layering
and turning are part of the deal. But piling shredded leaves in a corner counts
too. So does "trench composting," handy for those with little
garden space, and so does bringing your kitchen scraps to a place (try the
nearest community garden) that will compost them if you can't. I have a friend
in Manhattan, for instance, who brings her coffee grounds, orange peels and
such to the Lower East Side Ecology Center at Union Square Greenmarket.
2. Use Compost
Spread it
around plants to ward off disease; put a bit in your potting mix to add
slow-release micronutrients; top-dress beds with it to improve soil structure
no matter what kind
of soil you have; use it to help restore life to soil that's exhausted from
years of chemical abuse. Sprinkle it on the lawn spring and fall to encourage
the shallow grass roots... It's almost impossible to use too much.
3. Plant Crops in Wide Beds
Crops are
anything planted for harvesting: vegetables, cutting flowers, shrubs on hold to
be transplanted... keeping these grouped as tightly as possible in beds that
are not trod upon cuts down on weeding, conserves water, allows the compost to
be concentrated where it will do the most good and improves soil structure year
upon year as the layers of organic matter pile up. These beds are frequently
raised or at least corralled neatly by boards or — I saw it once and am still
impressed all these years later — by long slabs of granite. Aesthetics aside,
the primary virtue of this tidiness is easier path maintenance. From the soil
and plant point of view it's the special treatment that matters.
4. Mulch
Mulch clothes
the soil in a protective barrier that moderates temperature, conserves water,
helps keep soil-borne diseases from splashing up and helps keep soil itself
from splashing up — on your lettuce, for instance. Almost any organic mulch
that will rot down into the soil is almost always preferable to landscape
fabric with some kind of icing, but choosing the right mulch for each job is
worth the extra effort.
Straw for
instance is inexpensive, but it's untidy compared to wood chips and it breaks
down a lot faster. That suits straw to the vegetable patch while the chips win
under shrubs. (The specialized mulches for warming soil and/or reflecting back
just the right light upon your vegetables are seldom biodegradable. My
experiments with them are ongoing so all I can say at this point is: Remember
that they work only when light falls on them; the more your garden resembles a
jungle — no names, please — the less effective they will be.)
5. Feed the Soil, Not the Plants
Short
version: Junk
food, including organic junk food, has plenty of calories and may include added
vitamins. But it's not great long-term nourishment, for many reasons we've
learned and others we can so far only observe. Our bodies know the difference
between eating a carrot and taking a capsule of vitamin A. Same deal with the
soil.
Longer
version: Plant
health depends on healthy roots; healthy roots depend on healthy soil for air,
water and nutrients delivered in forms plants can use. Soil rich in organic
matter — compost! — is generally rich in nutrients and in the teeming life
(fungi, bacteria, worms, etc.) that makes those nutrients available to the
plants.
Ornamental
plants in good soil seldom need added fertilizer, and crop plants that do need
extra food need less of it when it's released slowly by friendly soil from
things like rock powders, kelp and green manures. For an example of how this
works with nitrogen, one of the most important nutrients, here's a Rodale Institute Research Report.
6. Share Something
If you've got
a garden, you're rich.
Got seeds? The Seed
Savers Exchange isn't
just about vegetables; there's an affiliated Flower and Herb exchange, too.
Got flowers?
Hospitals won't take them anymore (allergies), but group homes, soup kitchens
and — why not? — your neighborhood hardware store might be delighted with a bit
of brightening up. Got produce? There's a national umbrella campaign for vegetable gardeners
who want to plant a row for the hungry, and many food banks, farmers' markets
and community gardens have set up organized donations. But there's no law that
says you can't just give your extra beans to anyone who genuinely wants them.
Hunger isn't always physical.
The garden
itself is worth
sharing too. Garden tours are popular fundraisers so if you're up for the
attendant stress, it's likely there's a cause that's looking for locations. In
my experience with these things there's always a lot more preparation than I've
allowed for... but also a lot more given back in new friends, new ideas and
gazillions of pats.
7. Be There
Whether
Lao-Tse actually said it or not, it's true: The best fertilizer is the shadow
of the gardener.
Photo Credits: Leslie Land, Leslie Land
