Tool of the Trade

I was sitting and flipping through a gardening magazine the other day and realized that I never did a blog on tool and equipment! One of the nice things about container gardening is that you really, honestly do not need a lot of tools.

When I started container gardening the book I had purchased said, “All you need is a trowel and a cultivator.” I was so naive to believe that was all I really needed as far as tools and equipment went, but you don’t need too much more than that.

I think you can do just fine with just eight items:

1.       Gloves

2.       Trowel aka Hand Shovel, Soil Scoop

3.       Cultivator aka a garden fork

4.       Floral Scissors

5.       Serrated knife

6.       Pruning Shears

7.       Watering can

8.       String

Most people could care less about using gloves, but for me it’s a must. I have very sensitive finger tips and I need the little added protection. Not only do they protect you from those few times that you might touch a plant that bites back, but it also protects your fingers and nails from getting stained. There are 100’s of different kinds of gardening gloves from very thin to very thick. I use a light weight glove that doesn’t keep out water and doesn’t keep out all dirt either, but I like them because my hands don’t get sweaty. A lot of gloves can be purchased for less than $10 and most for under $5!

A trowel is needed to mix, scoop and dig dirt. Some sites and books recommend that you have a trowel and a soil scoop, but I am cheap and if I don’t have to buy it I’m not going too! I purchased a trowel that was long and wide so that I didn’t need a scoop. Later when I started planting larger containers I realized that a scoop would be easier than the trowel, but I still didn’t purchase one. I took an old milk jug and cut myself a scoop.

A cultivator is used to aerate the soil and loosen it. I do use it a lot and didn’t think I would. I use mine in my square and rectangle containers to make rows to plant seeds in. Most stores sell trowels and cultivators together, so you might as well get it.

I am going to lump floral scissors, serrated knife and pruning shears all together because I personally don’t use all three. I have all three, but I don’t use all three. Floral scissors are used to snip off a spare plant as most of the time you are going to plant two seeds per whole and then cut off one plant if they both grow. It’s also used for plants like tomatoes that grow off shoots at the crook of a branch that will need to be removed. Again I am cheap, so I didn’t go out and purchase floral scissors. I had a two pairs of cuticle scissors and so I use one of them, but most of the time I used my finger nail pressed against my thumb to remove the extra seedling and the extra shoot on plants. I don’t have a special serrated knife in which to harvest with either. When something needs cut or harvested I grab my knife from my butcher block and use it. I do however have a pair of pruning shears. I have them because they came in a pre-packaged kit that I bought. I do use them, but only if my nail doesn’t work or if I don’t feel like walking back into the house to get a knife. Did I mention I am lazy as well? J

The last two items I think are the ones that I would say you cannot do without. A good watering can that had a nice flow of water, but not too fast that it will damage a young plant is essential because really who wants to drag around a hose? Plus, the stream from a hose can be harsh at times and you can over water quickly with a hose.

Finally, the string; if I put in order how much I used each one of these items string would be my number one. I use it to divide space, I use it to restrain plants and I use it to support plants. You will need it more than you can imagine, so don’t go cheap on this and make sure you buy some.

The nice thing about having a garden plot is that it is much like container gardening and I don’t really need any additional tool. The community garden association had compost and soil already in the plot when I rented it, I did add some additional items to the soil but I was able to mix all that in with my trowel and my milk carton scoop.

As a matter of fact there are only three things I added to my tools and equipment after getting my garden plots and those are a basket, garden labels, and a tool organizer. The basket was needed to put my harvested food or my non-compostable material in to take home.

Garden labels so that I knew what I planted and where. Now I didn’t spend any money on garden labels and simply stapled an index card to the end of a bamboo stick and wrote what the plant was on that. Many people in the community garden use paint sticks or painted rocks.

The last item I purchased was a tool organizer. I did this because I found myself putting my tools in my harvest basket, then not having room for my food items and my tools. The organizer that I purchased Velcro’s around a tall pickle bucket. Choose one that meets your needs.

Happy Gardening!

Dianna

Is Crop Rotation Making You Dizzy?

I know I have posted about this subject already, but I have been doing some good reading and wanted to share a few things about rotating crops. This can apply to container gardening as well as garden plots.

Planning, planting and growing vegetable garden does not require that you know everything there is to know about veggies, but it does help to know the plant families and groups of veggies as there are some general rules which apply.

Crop rotation is something that dates back centuries and unfortunately has not been kept up with this ancient practice. Once you know the veggie families it’s much like knowing how to ride a bicycle or at least that’s what everyone keeps saying as I keep reading.

There are three reasons to rotate vegetable crops:

1     .       Reduction of harmful insects and plant diseases by rotating the location of plants from the same families on a piece of ground.

2   .      Better plant nutrition by rotating location of plants that make the same nutritional demands on the soil on a piece of ground.

3    .      Improvement of soil structure by rotating plants that have roots at various depths and that are cultivated with different techniques.

Vegetables fit into eight family groups and one miscellaneous group for a total of nine groups. There are some sites and books that I have read that have nine families with a miscellaneous group for a total of ten groups. In the ten family grouping grass is its own category, but most of what I have read has grasses lumped with miscellaneous. I am going with the majority and doing eight families and one miscellaneous.

The vegetable family groups are: 1. Beetroot family; 2. Cabbage family; 3. Carrot family; 4. Daisy family; 5. Marrow family; 6. Onion family; 7. Pea and Bean family; 8. Potato family and 9. Miscellaneous.

Some examples of each family:

1   .       Beetroot family: amaranth, beet, beetroot, chard, good king henry, goosefoot, lamb’s quarters, pigweed, quinoa, spinach, sugar beet, Swiss chard (spinach beet).

2   .      Cabbage family: bok choi, broccoli, broccoli raab, brussels sprouts, cabbage, calabrese, cauliflower, chinese cabbage, collards, cress, daikon, horseradish, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, radish, rutabaga, swede, tatsoi, turnip, wasabi, watercress.

3   .      Carrot family: caraway, carrot, celery, celeriac, chervil, coriander/cilantro, cumin, dill, fennel, parsley, parsnip, root parsley.

4   .      Daisy family: artemisia, cardoon, chamomile, chicory, chrysanthemums dandelion, endive, escarole, globe artichoke, jerusalem artichoke, lettuce, marigolds, safflower, salsify, scorzonera, shungiku (edible chrysanthemum), sunflower, tarragon.

5   .      Marrow family: cucumber, gourds (angled luffa, bitter gourd (balsam pear, bitter melon), hardshelled gourd, smooth luffa, snake gourd), melons (cantaloupe/muskmelon, casaba, honeydew melon, water melon), squash/marrow (acorn, banana, buttercup, butternut, cheese, crookneck, delicata, golden cushaw, hubbard, kabocha, pumpkin, scallop, spaghetti, zucchini/courgette), west indian gherkin.

6   .      Onion family: chives, garlic, garlic chives, elephant garlic, leeks, onion, scallions, shallot.

7   .      Pea and Bean family: alfalfa, beans (adzuki bean, broad bean, chickpea/garbanzo bean, fava bean, french bean, hyacinth bean, lima bean, mung bean, rice bean, runner bean, soybean, vigna mungo), clover, cowpea, fenugreek, lentil, lupin, peas, peanuts, tares/vetches, trefoil.

8  .     Potato family: eggplant (aubergine), garden huckleberry, peppers (caribbean red hot peppers, chili pepper, habanero, hot paper lantern, sweet pepper), paprika, potato, tobacco, tomato, tomatillo/husk cherry.

9   .      Miscellaneous: barley, corn/maize, mallet, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, sugarcane, wheat, lambs lettuce (Valerianaceae); new zealand spinach (Aizoaceae); purslane, portulaca, miners lettuce (Portulacaceae); rhubarb, buckwheat (Polgonaceae); Okra (Mallow family, Malvaceae, cacao is also in this family); phacelia; grazing rye.

Now that we know the families we need to know how to rotate. This seems to be the simple part of it. Most sources say it is ideal to allow three years between the planting of same families in the same garden area. If a family likes to plant (A) tomatoes (B) beans and (C) squash, the garden is divided up into three equal parts. The following shows the three year rotation:

Year One:

A

B

C

Year Two:

C

A

B

Year Three:

B

C

A

Year four would return back to the first years plan and go on and on and on. Since I have two garden plots that are 4’ X 8’ each and I want to plant from 8 of the family groups I need to divide each plot into 4 even sections and plant as follows:

Year One:

1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8

Year Two:

2	3	4	1
6	7	8	5

Year three:

3	4	1	2
7	8	5	6

So on and so forth as the years move on and on. Now if you are a container gardener you would apply this method the same way. If you have eight containers and plant a vegetable from each family group, then you would rotate them as explained above.

The question that I got from a friend who I was discussing this topic with was does this mean that the soil doesn't need anything other than the rotation. The answer is no, all soil regardless of it being in a container or in a garden plot needs to be fortified. You should always add the appropriate plant feeds to the soil and you need to always add additional compost as it will wash and blow away.

I hope this topic has been interesting and helpful. I am going to sit down tomorrow and plan out what I am planting where in my community garden plots as well as my containers for the next three years!

Happy Gardening,

Dianna