Easily, Cheaply Maximize Seed Space!

I'm beyond hooked on gardening, I want to plant everything everywhere, but to do that I need to start seeds. And on that front, space tends to be a lot more difficult to find than potting soil, containers, and lights. Here's an easy, cheap, fast way to get all the space you need out of one corner of one room!

Since it's easy to catch dirt and water in a tub, I dedicate the upstairs tub we never use to seed starting. But you can do it anywhere as long as you protect your floor from water. In order for the shelf to fit the tub, and for it to accommodate the 24" lights I have, I made the seed shelf 1.5 feet x 2 feet.

I also made it as tall as would fit because I want to grow as many plants as possible. Something like this can, of course, be made any height, but even at 6 feet it has a small enough footprint to fit easily almost anywhere.

So fast to make out of seven 2x2s. And yes, I take for granted that I have a circular saw and power drill, but if you don't you can borrow mine or I bet one of your friends' dads can let you borrow his.

1. Cut 2' off of four of the 2x2s, giving you four 6-foot pieces and four 2-foot pieces.
2. Cut each of two 2x2s into four 1.5-foot pieces and one 2-foot piece. Out of these two boards you will have eight 1.5-foot pieces and two 2-foot pieces.
3. From the remaining 2x2 cut two 2-foot pieces, leaving a 4-foot piece.
4. From that last 4-foot piece, cut two 1.5-foot pieces. You'll have one unused 1-foot piece left.  

And that's what you need, four 6-footers, eight 2-footers, and ten 1.5-footers. Hope that didn't just make sense to me.

Once your wood is cut, assemble two ladder-like panels from four 2-foot pieces between two 6-foot pieces. Allow a foot of space at the top and bottom, and 16 inches between  each of the 2-foot pieces. 

Then join the two panels with the 1.5-foot sections.

The last two 1.5-foot pieces go on top, and from there you can hang lights to use every shelf, plus the floor.

MDF is super easy to cut to shape, just draw a razor along where you want to cut it and snap to break. Each shelf gets a board, and there you go! Completed seed shelf.

So how much did it cost? More than it should have, since I bought oddly expensive peg board. Don't get that, I guess I had some silly reason for buying it but it's not necessary. The 2x2s were $13.71and  the peg board was $15.94, bringing my total to a meager $29.65!

But even with spending too much on board, thirty bucks and I've tripled my space! Be a smarter shopper than me since lights are still necessary (yes, the whole operation costs more than $30, but all you need are some cheap WalMart grow lights).

Happy planting!

No-Till Gardening!

No-till gardening is so exciting to me because I've seen how effectively it works and because it's something that can absolutely change the face of food production for the better. Particularly for anyone who's been intimidated out of gardening (since maybe you don't have a tiller or don't know where to rent one or you don't have pickaxes and shovels, or you want to garden so small a space that it doesn't warrant renting a tiller), TRY THIS.

I had read about nature farming methods, about Ruth Stout, about reducing the tillage I do in my garden before plowing this year. Then I plowed anyway since it was the way I knew to 'start' the garden every spring. It's easy enough with the roto-tiller we inherited from our grandparents. What really twisted my arm in getting me to adopt some of these techniques was the shoulder surgery I had a bit later, limiting me to the use of solely my left hand. Since I couldn't shovel, rake, start a roto-tiller, barely maneuver a trowel with my bad hand, I had to find an easier way to plant.

So I cut loose a bale of hay, pulled it apart into thick layers and spread them on the ground in a row, and covered the top with some compost. I sprinkled on Belgian endive seeds and watered them in. That was it and it worked. Sooner than I thought the hay began to decompose, worms were working their way up into it, and it maintained consistent moisture.

Such an unassuming pile of hay is all it takes. Since it's softer than dirt weeds come out easily, as do your crops. I was able to gently lift out the grown endives by their roots.

It's just so EASY: 
since you can do it with one hand! No wrestling with a tiller or pickax. Rain moistens the soil and the worms till it under a comfy cushion of hay. You grab a trowel and stick your transplants where you want, or simply pull back the top dry layer of hay and sprinkle on your seeds.

It's just to FAST:
since you certainly won't need to water, weed, or fertilize as often (if...ever?!)! Mulch is incredibly important in all gardens since it suppresses weed growth and  maintains moisture. If there's no system in place to suppress weeds and maintain moisture, YOU get to be the system! You'll be breaking your back weeding and trucking around a hose twice a day everyday in the peak heat of summer. Instead of caving to Home Depot's pressure to futilely spray herbicides (which is simply fucking bad for everything) or to install an expensive irrigation system, just do it the way nature does it. If you check down about two inches into the mulch around the base of your plants and it's moist, your root zone is good to go! If the mulch is thick enough you're blessed with a constantly active layer of decomposing organic matter which rebuilds and fertilizes your soil. So you can focus on things other than the most inane garden tasks.

And it's just to CHEAP: 
since I told you all these things you don't need to buy! No tiller, no repairs to the tiller, no gas, no herbicides, no drip hoses, less water. 

This is the first year I've employed faithfully no-till methods, so I'm hardly an authority, but I truly anticipate greater fertility and moisture retention as the beds area allowed to regenerate and be reused (and rotated!) year after year.

HOW IT'S DONE IN 1, 2, 3!

1. Thickly cover the area in which you wish to plant with hay, leaves, grass, paper bags, or another cheaply-acquired biodegradable substance that can fully cover weeds and grass while letting water and air through.
 

2. Let it sit and break down, for at least a month where you can spare it. Over time the bottommost layer of mulch will become dark, moldy, slimy, and full of little circular black worm turds. ALL GOOD THINGS. Once the grass underneath dies and you notice some worm and bug holes extending directly into the dirt, you are probably ready to plant. 

3. Dig into the supple dirt and plant those transplants, or sprinkle seeds right into this moist mulchy germination matrix!

I'm trying to build up some new areas from my own cornstalks and squash vines, hay, and Starbucks' spent pounds of coffee grounds, layered on top of each other as I get them. These spots are for potatoes, which I can already feel being so easily loosed from their beds rather than arduously dug from the soil.

The more time you can give the mulch or bed-building materials to decompose, the better. You'll be left with more of a more dirt-like substance to plant into. Now is the perfect time to get something started for next year! Though decomposition generally slows in the winter, you're still getting a head start on all that great microbial action.

 

Here's one we can try together. Corral fallen leaves, keep them in place with whatever you can find (some welded wire and metal sheeting, in my case, sticks work, too), and let them hang out. I plan to keep collecting leaves to fill out this space, while shifting the stabilizers from older and mildly decomposed spots onto spots with new leaves. 

Happy mulching!

 

How Time Flies

A month ago, I began but didn't finish a post, and would have titled it "In a frozen hell". A lot has happened since then. 

The first being that my seeds have sprouted and grown up into awesome little baby plants.

And when those little baby plants got their leaves, I put them into the larger pots I've been making from a collection of plastic drink cups. And when they got even bigger, I planted them outside!

So far I have planted, as seedlings:


- Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage
- Buttercrunch and Black-seeded Simpson lettuce
- Borage
- Bloomsdale longstanding spinach
- Red Russian kale
- Rainbow chard

as seed:

- Dill
- Cilantro
- 2 types of carrots, gotta check on those
- Hollow crown parsnips
- strawberry spinach
- peas
- more spinach

and as starts:

- Quinault strawberries
- Jersey Green Giant asparagus
- Mt. Hood, Sterling, and Willamette hops

Not to mention the raspberries, whose leaves are unfurling, the garlic that I started last fall and is well on its way, the mint, sage, rosemary, thyme, and chives which are starting to sprout back, the rye which survived the winter, and the couple of radicchio roots I came across when I was digging spots for strawberries.

Oh, and tomatoes:

Courtesy of Rutgers Gardens, and there's another sale coming up in 2 weekends. Plus all the other seeds that are still in my bathtub.

 What I've Learned (most important part)

1. Start EARLY. With new, cold-weather spring crops, you can start at the end of January. I began my first round of seeds indoors at the end of February, which gave me enough time, but a lot of my seedlings weren't as large or vigorous as I would have liked, or as an extra month would have allowed, when planted outside. The problem here is that to do this, space is necessary, so I need to...

2. Work on space provisions, lighting, and fertilization of seedlings. I'll tell you what I come up with.

3. 2 FULL WEEKS to harden off. Lest your plants get sunburned, which mine did. When they go into the outdoors, for the first day leave them in the shade, then the next day in sun for an hour only. Every day, for 2 weeks, add an hour a day, until you can eventually leave them outside overnight, and in the sun without them crisping up.