Organic Gardening - Don't Turn The Soil

Conventional practice is that a gardener turns his soil each season in preparation for the next planting. For the organic gardener, this is a practice to avoid. Soil researchers have demonstrated that it takes years to develop a healthy biological layer of microbes and tilling the soil collapses these bio processes and 'resets' them. Chemical farmers don't worry about this because their plants aren't fed by the soil - they feed them with synthetic fertilizers. For the organic farmer, the soil feeds his garden plants. Or more accurately, the worms and micro life feed his plants the gardener feeds the worms and the worms feed the plants. This is how the earth woks in it's natural cycle.

If you don't put chemicals in your garden soil, and you don't walk on it, you should never have to till your dirt. It can be composted over the top and fertilized organically with each seedling you plant.

Garden Soil

How Is The Soil At Your House? Awful! Who Cares - Make Your Own
The native dirt in your yard is 55% rock, 35% silt, 10 % sand, & no organic matter. It’s made of eroded debris from the limestone mountains to the west. It’s got a high ph, it's loaded with salts and it's completely devoid of organic material and microbes. It will not grow a garden no matter how much you wish it would.

This is how ideal soil is made.

Custom Making Your Own Garden Soil

"If you're garden budget is $100.00, spend $90.00 of it on your soil"Don Fabbi - Las Vegas Master Gardener.

You have three options here to get a usable garden soil.

Work on Your Native Soil. I don't recommend this unless your planning on spending huge amounts of time bringing in amendments and have machines capable of turning the heavy dirt, plus separating and hauling off the rocks. Your results will be poor and your back will be shot.

Bring In A Sand Based Soil. This will be better than working your awful native dirt, but will still be a fair amount of hard work. An inexpensive source for your base material is Vista Landscape Supply 565-6611 Their garden blend is 1/3 natural sand, 1/3 washed sand and 1/3 compost. It’s $25 per ton and delivery is a flat fee of $50.You will need to amend this product with the soil nutrients: bone meal, blood meal, sulfur and compost. Follow the package instructions on the first three items. For the compost you will need to mix in a 6" layer into your new soil. It's important that this compost be a true composted product and not a young wood product like sawdust or wood mulch. Those wood products will steal nitrogen and other nutrients from the soil as they decompose and break down. A composted product has already transformed from what it was into a material called humus (compost).Once you have mixed in your ingredients, the soil should 'mellow' for a few weeks before planting and adding worms.

Bring In Tomato Lady Garden Compost Soil. I saved the best for last. If you want a fantastic garden you need to start with fantastic soil. It's always the difference between success and failure in Las Vegas gardens. The best dirt available in this valley comes from Gro-Well (formerly Western Organics) 639-0370‎ and it's called tomato lady soil. The recipe was created by the famous local gardener Leslie Doyle, and it's 95% aged compost, 1% sand, and the remainder is kelp meal, humic acid, ammonium phosphate, potassium sulphate, iron sulfate, manganese oxide, and zinc oxide. It's $48.00 a yard. Here are your options for getting some. Gro-Well will charge you a $100.00 delivery fee with a 5 yard minimum order. Arrange with gardening friends to share a delivery. You could also haul it in your truck bed to avoid the delivery charge (cover the load or it might all blow out). The problem with picking it up from them is location - they are at the far east end of Craig Road, at Nellis AFB. Your other source is Plant World Nursery. They sell a yard cube bag that will fit in the back of a truck for $60.00, or call me - I can get a discount, and often have it being delivered someplace so you can share with me. This is the soil I use in my garden and NOTHING beats it. This soil sounds like it might be too expensive for your little garden right? The key thing to consider here is that this soil needs nothing for you to plant your garden. Put in your worms and your seedlings and your farming. Get good dirt and you'll get good veggies. Let me make one last case for this soil. If you use the sand based dirt, you will need a raised bed of about 12-16 inches, if you use the tomato soil, you only need 6-8 inches of it in your bed because it's nutritional density is so much better. Less work, less material, better results. It's a no brainier as far as I'm concerned.

Friendly Bugs

Green Lacewings are laying their eggs right now. You might have seen their strings of egg towers on leaves or stems in your yard. The lacewing larvae prey on aphids and other soft-bodied insects and will work hard in your garden to rid it of pests like whiteflies, thrips, mealybugs, mites, small caterpillars, leafhoppers and moth eggs. Lacewing larvae can eat up to 60 aphids an hour. friendly

Your Fall Garden - What to Plant?

What Are The Benefits of a Fall Garden?
Most experienced local gardeners will tell you their favorite gardening season is in the fall. It's so nice to be outside in the cool weather after being locked inside all summer, and pests will be minimal as they are preparing to over winter.


Where Should I Get My Seeds?
Your seeds can come from a number of sources: nursery, on line retailers, seed catalogues, even the grocery store check out line. My favorite place is Plant World Nursery. They have three times the selection as Star and will have many unique varieties that are typically only found in a catalog or on line. The people there are way more experienced and knowledgeable than other retailers and they have a mindset more in line with an organic gardener than any other place.

How Long Will It Take To Harvest My Vegetables?
The days from seedling to harvest for each vegetable is shown in brackets ( ). For example you can expect to begin harvesting carrots in 60 days and radishes in 20. Always plant radishes, they are the sprinters of the garden. They are fast and rewarding to grow. Herbs are ready to pick when you think your ready to use them. They are weed like and will give you more growth after cutting. Greens like lettuce are similar and will respond well to the cut / grow / cut cycle.

What Are The Best Varieties?

Ask 5 gardeners get 6 answers. The store might have 4 varieties of spinach, the seed catalog might have 10 and no one will agree which is the best to grow here? My advise is plant what you like to eat, and don't be afraid to experiment. Staple all your empty seed packages together, record the year you planted them and save them. Try a different variety of something next year if you feel like you didn't have as much success as you had hoped. Seed producers are constantly developing new varieties and hybridizing existing varieties. If your goal is to have a salad garden, then plant all the varieties you can get your hands on and see how it goes. Keep a page of note paper somewhere to record what your impressions are with different ones. My suggestion is don't get too hung up over varieties and experiment.

GREENS
Lettuce (45)
Spinach (35)
Swiss Chard (60)
Mustard (50)

ROOTS
Beets (50)
Carrots (60)
Radishes (20!)
Turnips (30)
Parsnips (90)
Chives (50)
COLES
Cabbage (60)
Broccoli (60)
Cauliflower (60)

Brussell sprout (60)
Kohlrabi (60)
Collard (60)
Kale (50)
Rutabaga (90)

BULBS
Onions (100)
Garlic (100)
Shallots (90)
POD / STEM
Peas (60)
Beans (70)
HERBS
Mint
Parsley
Basil
Cilantro
Rosemary
Thyme
Parsley

Build A Raised Bed Garden

Why Build A Raised Bed?
Most experienced local gardeners will tell you that the preferred way to begin a garden here is to construct a raised bed planter. You should be gardening in imported soil, and the easiest way to get into farming is to build a raised bed.

Where Should It Go In My Yard?
Your going to want a spot that gives you 4-6 hours of sunlight each day. Besides the soil, the placement of your raised bed will be your most important item of preparation. Look at your yard at different times during the day and see where your sunny and shady spots are. Remember that the sun fall angle is different in the summer than the winter. You might consider removing some non productive ornamentals to put your garden in the ideal spot of your yard. Those shrubs in the best part of your yard sure look nice, but you can't eat them.

What Should I Build It Out Of?
The two things to consider are materials and size.
Materials - pine boards are the most economical option. They will last about 7-10 years and are just fine for lots of people. Red wood boards are more costly but will last half again as long as pine. Bricks will not deteriorate, are more expensive and will have a nice finished look. PVC lumber is a material growing in popularity. It comes in white or wood grain, lasts forever and insulates the soil better than the others.
Size - Your bed should be narrow enough to reach into the middle from both sides, the typical width is 4 feet, and as long as you think is appropriate for your space. Avoid a square bed that requires you to walk on the soil to get to the center. How high you build it depends on the soil that you use. The better the soil the shorter the walls. If you are going to use the tomato soil profiled above, then you only need 6-8 inches of soil. You will need 16" for any other type of soil.

Lets Look At Three Options.
A simplest and quick method of building your bed is to order a bracket kit. You'll assemble the walls with your own boards, screw everything together and your done. The mail order brackets are

$85.00 + shipping, and the pine for a 4'x8' bed should be about $125.00


The plans for this bed are easy to follow. For a 4'x8' bed 10" high expect to spend $15.00 for the hardware, $150.00 for pine, or $250.00 for redwood.

This last one is vinyl lumber. The material can be white or wood grain. I can build you one of these and have it delivered with the irrigation system installed in the bed. A 4'x8' 10" is about $180.00

Other Ideas

A Few Videos On Building A Raised Bed
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPrMvItUIuQ
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGcGNa5LnZo

Resources For Gardeners

Radio
Don Davis's 20-year-old gardening radio show. The Davis family has been involved in horticulture in Southern Nevada for two generations, and Don's highly regarded radio program is on Saturday morning from 9 to 11 a.m. on KDOX-AM, 1280. His question line is 395-1280. He also has a web site. www.outwestgardening.com

Desert Bloom Radio Program plays on KNPR, 88.9 FM Tuesdays 5:33 a.m. & 7:33 a.m., Saturdays 8:35 a.m.It's one of the best and shortest gardening radio programs. www.knpr.org/dbloom/listNEW.cfm


Cooperative Extension Office

The extension office is the field research and teaching program of UNR and is staffed by master gardeners and professors in the field of horticulture. They a great resource for information on gardening in Southern Nevada.
Cooperative Extension's ask a 'Master Gardener'

Dr. Angela O`Callaghan, Horticulture Specialist
ocallaghana@unce.unr.edu
222-3130
Robert Morris, Horticulture Specialist
morrisr@unce.unr.edu
257-5509

Vegetable Gardening in Moapa and Virgin Valleys
This is a 60 page book written by Dr. Sylvan Wittwer, the definitive document of gardening in Southern Nevada. It's a multi-year study of methods and techniques proven to work locally.

Home Vegetable Production in Southern Nevada
A PDF of a 4 page booklet written by Angela O`Callaghan

Linn Mills

Linn is the voice of gardening in Las Vegas. He works for the Springs Preserve and writes the weekly horticulture column in the RJ.
www.lvrj.com/columnists/Linn_Mills.html
His book is called Nevada Gardener's Guide
linn.mills@springspreserve.org
822-7713

Plant Sales
Numerous are held in the spring around the valley, the best way to find out about them is in Linn Mills column.

Springs Preserve

They present classes and seminars on landscaping and gardening. In the spring, they also host a very good plant sale. Linn Mills always does a column announcing it in the early spring.
www.springspreserve.org/html/educ_adult.html
www.youtube.com/user/SpringsPreserve

Vermicomposting - Setting Up A Worm Bin

Promote Global Worming

What Is Worm Composting?
vermicomposting) is using red wiggler worms (Eisenia fetida) to eat your kitchen scraps to give you worm castings, the most desirable and nutrient dense of all organic fertilizers.

How Do I Make A Worm Bin
Setting up a bin is really simple.
Here is a pretty straight forward video on setting up your bin system. This video shows Rubbermaid bins being used. You might also consider 5 gallon buckets, kitty litter containers. Anything similar will do, as long as it's not clear. Your worms need 100% darkness to be content.
Set Up A Bin Video 1
Set Up A Bin Video 2
Transferring Worms



Where Do I Keep My Bin?
It's too hot and too cold here to keep your bin outside, so you have two options - the garage or the house. GASP! Yep, the house. The most common locations for a Las Vegas worm bin in the summer is the laundry room, and the garage in the winter. The ideal temperature for a bin is less than 90F. A healthy bin has no odor, and won't be taking up too much space. Your little kids in the house are going to love having a bin, and I have heard of them ending up in the closet of the boys room! Any inconvenience in all of this this should be more than worth it considering the free fertilizer your getting. Besides, think of how blown away your friends will be when they find out your a worm rancher.

What Do You Feed Your Composting Worms?
All fruits and vegetables. Cooked, raw, frozen, old, spoiled - no problem. Crushed egg shells are also great for your wigglers.
AVOID meat, dairy, bread, corn. The first two seem pretty obvious. The last two will spike the ph and may 'sour' the bin. Give the worms the veg and the bread to your chickens. Also avoid citrus, coffee grounds, filters, tea bags. Go easy with them in the bin, but load em up in your compost pile.

Julia Roberts is a worm rancher?!
What the what?
Hard to believe but she was on Oprah once preaching her worm bins.
Worm Bins On Oprah



Where To Buy Your Worms
Woms are shipped by growers when they are confident that the inside of the UPS truck will be bellow 90F. Red Wigglers are $20-$30 a pound delivered, and a pound of worms will contain about 1000 worms.They will multiply amazingly fast, and you might consider partnering with someone and spitting up a purchase. You can start up a new bin on half a pound of worms, let them build up a population and start splitting those off to your garden friends.

Red Wiggler Worm Trivia
2000 worms will eat one pound of garbage per week. A red wiggler will eat half of it's weight per day. The life span of a red wiggler is 2-3 years. 1000 worms will yield 4 egg cocoons per week. 3 worms will hatch from each cocoon creating 12,000 worms per week. 48,000 worms will be created a month in a well cared for bed. In 6 weeks the 12,000 freshly hatched worms will begin breeding, and so on. You can see how quickly 1000 worms will soon be hundreds of thousands. Tell your friends to get ready for some worms.

What Are The Two Kinds Of Worms Gardeners Need?
This post has focused only the compost worm. These guys are adapted to live in 100% organic material and are perfect for compost making, but the don't do well in dirt here. The soil building worms you need for the garden and turf are earth worms. The most productive of those are the Belgian or Europoean earth worms (Eisenia hortensis). I'll talk more about the earth worms in another post. You might want to consider combining your order of earth and red wigglers to save shipping.

If you want to super nerd out on worms, here are a few lenghty in depht articles on vermicomposting and worms
ARTICLE
ARTICLE
THE ULTIMATE WORM FACT SHEET
A TERRIFIC WORM COMPOSTING SITE