The Art of Gardening as The Seasons Turn

The joy of seeing food grow from seed! Each one has all this growth potential for food-a miracle in a package. -Diana Anderson

It was comforting to hear Diana Anderson, University of Minnesota Master Gardener say, "even for Master Gardeners, we're always talking about what didn't work and why." We sat down in June to discuss the upcoming growing season and harvest, and the definition of truly organic home gardening.

For both gardening novices and weather worn veterans of the soil, each season of the year brings new challenges. Soil changes and weather patterns are re-arranged, and just when you thought there were no more surprises in your yard, a Virginia Bluebell springs up out of nowhere. Or your poppies change color.

Home gardeners striving towards a more "organic" garden experience have a lot of thinking to do. There's a difference between organic home gardening and the organic certification process that growers and stores will be required to fulfill as the new USDA rules go into effect. The new standards are going to be a high benchmark. Traditionally "organic" for the gardening world meant the "use of organic materials to grow organic materials." The widespread use of chemical pesticides over the past five decades has given rise to a re-definition of the word "organic". The new rulings evolving now under the auspices of the USDA do offer a blueprint though, and the place to start is with the soil. Organic certification standards have mandated for years that soil is certifiably "organic" only if the land lies fallow for one year after pesticide use, and is for two years thereafter free from applications of pesticide.

This mix that creates the organic garden includes certified organic seeds (available at your co-op!), compost from organic produce, manure from certified organic farms and plants from garden centers that specialize in certified organic plants. It's also important to consider the effects of landscaping materials in your garden. For example, railroad ties are chemically treated. If the previous resident of your home thought of worms, ladybugs and bees as invasive pests, you will be joining the ranks of those of us in the process of "transitional" organic gardening.

A firm believer in letting worms do the work, Diana Anderson says that the first year or two of working with brand new soil (to you) means that in spring it's a good idea to roto-till the soil six inches deep. After two or three years, when the texture of the soil is good (like moist chocolate cake) you can do less roto-tilling. In her article "It's in the Bag," (reprinted with courtesy from Northern Gardener magazine) Diana says, "As a first step, especially if your gardening area is in awful shape, do a soil test to determine which nutrients are missing and what the soil's PH level is. While your soil may appear fine, in time your flowers, shrubs, or vegetables will tell you whether or not the soil pleases them." (For more information on $10 soil tests contact the University of Minnesota Yard and Garden Line.)

"What about depletion of the soil during the growing season?" I asked. Diana replied, "Plants don't hurt the soil structure, but adding organic materials feeds the worms and soil microbes-keeps them healthy. They break down these organic materials and enrich the soil. Good reasons not to apply pesticides and insecticides!"

What does nurture the soil throughout the year? Because soil should not have too much of one nutrient, after soil testing you'll know which amendments are best for your garden. Is your soil sandy, clay, or rich looking loam? Soil varies from one area of the city to another and even from yard to yard. Achieving a balance of the macronutrient building blocks of soil- nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium, can be done with manure, home compost, and organic fertilizers. (See Jackie Hunt Christiensen's article "Getting the Dirt on Fertilizer" this issue.)

Diana states, "Interestingly, plants don't discriminate between using nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium that come from fast acting synthetic fertilizers or slow release organic fertilizers. But the soil around their roots and the organisms in the soil do know the difference. Because synthetic fertilizers are highly concentrated, using too much or applying them too often burns plant roots and leaves behind a toxic buildup of salts in the soil. This buildup can lead to the death of beneficial organisms living in the soil, both large (worms) and small ones (microscopic bacteria). One common mistake that new gardeners make is thinking that applying more is better. Not so with synthetics."

You can begin composting any time of the year. This is one step in gaining control over the evolution of an organic garden, as the contents of the compost heap are dependent on your food and plant choices. The basic rule of using the "greens" and "browns" in compost keeps the nutrient balance for phosphorous, potassium, nitrogen, calcium, and magnesium. Browns are the dried leaves and branches, and greens are grass clippings, plant stalks, leftover celery stalks and vegetable trimmings from your kitchen-no meat or dairy. You can toss in egg shells, but not the egg. Avoid other protein sources such as milk and cheeses. Over time this mixture heats up and helps incubate bacteria that can be beneficial to your garden-food for the worms and microbes. If you want to speed up this "cooking" process of the compost, turn it once in a while. You can also add a little water and manure. If you don't want to use a composting bin or cannister (found at garden centers), you can make a pile in a good spot in your yard and surround it with a mesh wire, or not, and watch it break down, decompose and turn into a loamy looking mixture some call "black gold."

The compost can be applied as a nutrient source throughout the growing season. It's also an effective mulch, keeping plants cool during the summer. In the fall apply it as a top dressing to begin the process of building the soil over the winter.

By August we've seen the result of our own soil preparation as well as the tumult of our weather cycles. Tomatoes are temperature sensitive- too much rain or cold or heat at night impacts our harvest. If tomatoes have cracks on them, it is the result of inconsistent watering.

Diana says, "Don't fertilize after early to mid August. In August plants respond to an innate signal which stops their growth as the days get shorter. Earlier in the season you can fertilize your cool weather vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and spinach before they flower a couple of times. Fertilize warm weather vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant, just after they flower. Jalapeno peppers love the heat, so you can start harvesting them in August. You can watch them mature into a red color as well. You can fertilize pumpkins and squashes until the end of August. The more you harvest from your vegetable plants (harvest the vegetables as they mature), the more they will produce."

If you'd like to save seeds from your harvest, there are the two types of seeds to consider - hybrid seeds (seeds or plants that don't pollinate) and heirloom seeds (which are open pollinated by bees.) Diana says, "Our pollinators are diminishing" (possibly because of climate or pesticide use). You can hand pollinate sometimes by simply shaking a plant and sometimes by gently touching one flower after another with a tiny paint brush. Most seed packets will tell you on the package if they're an heirloom variety. Heirloom seeds are "true seeds." Like the parent plant, when you replant the seeds, they will look like the parent plants. When you save hybrid seeds, the outcome is often a surprise - the plant could be a different color, for instance, or even a different variety.

To save Morning Glory seeds, you can let the seeds dry right on the vine, then pick and store. Marigolds have a bulbous part of the flower that can be picked after the plant has dried. To save tomato seeds, gut the tomato pulp- squeeze it out and put it in a jar of water. Let it sit for one day. The seeds fall to the bottom. Strain and separate the seeds from the pulp, then take the seeds out to dry. When dry, store in labeled envelopes in the refrigerator until ready to sow in the spring.

Yellow, green, bush and pole beans should be allowed to dry on the vine, then just pop open and save. (Some beans are hybrids, so you might get a different variety when you plant them again.)

When taking down your summer garden, remove all the vegetable plants to reduce the chance of spreading disease. Some disease problems spread from soil to soil but some are air or insect borne and can happen in the best cared for gardens. It's important to remove any diseased plant material before chopping up material for mulch. (Diana suggests if nothing seems to work to rid your soil of problems, you can sink tomato pots, for example right into the soil to help protect the plants from contagions in the surrounding soil. Put mulch up against the pot.) Chop up non-diseased plants, add manure, leaves and straw and roto till them into the soil as these things take a while to break down. You can shred whole leaves (when completely dry) with a lawn mower. Maples leaves really mat down, and oak leaves are acidic (good for raspberries and blueberries) and tend to curl up. Avoid hay as a mulch because it's full of seeds and will re-seed into your garden. Start collecting things before they become diseased. You can use stalks, foliage and spent blooms from flowers and even tomatoes (if not diseased). Chop them up and mix them with leaves before turning them back into the soil.

It's okay to leave up the stalks of perennial and annual flowers if you like the foliage. The birds like this and it also has nice aesthetic appeal throughout the long winter. If you're concerned however, about re-seeding plants that have expanded their welcome into other areas of your garden, you might want to remove them and discard.

Using mulch throughout the growing season can keep the weed population from exploding in your garden.

A "no work" gardening method is currently under lively discussion among Master Gardeners: in the fall you can get a head start on the spring weed season by applying a wet, thick layer of black and white newspaper along with a 6-inch layer of straw. This buries the weed seeds. (Although the Mpls. StarTribune uses a soy based ink, the process of paper milling still uses chemicals.) Two weeks before planting tomatoes or peppers in the spring, pull straw and paper away to let the soil get warm, then dig in some homemade compost. In the spring if you apply manure, it's important to do so early, after the ground has thawed and dried out a little. If applied late in the spring, it can burn the roots of your tender young plants.

Enjoy your tomatoes! If you'd like to learn more about any of the plants in your garden, compost or gardening in general, check out the University of Minnesota Yard and Garden Line at 612-624-4771; www.extension.umn.edu; soiltest@soils.umn.edu or go to www.organicgardening.com