garden news-planting before the rains

GARDEN NEWS-PLANTING BEFORE THE RAINS

thats my wife she in the straw hat watching mr hudson who is digging in a bag of potting soil and ms b who is filling a pot with potting soil
thats called indoctrination making them organic green grandkids


this is a finished bed 
it was covered with a layer of compost we made here in our garden
a sprinkling of an organic fertilizer was applied
this was forked in with our broadfork which is about 32 inches wide 
this is then raked into a bed with a rake that is 36 inches wide
thats the width of our beds
then new drip tape is laid down which has drippers that are 6 inches apart

this approximately 30 foot bed is now ready for planting our dixondale onions
texas supersweet and texas 1015 onions
the kind you can bite into like an apple
if all goes well they will get bulbs that are up to 6 inches wide


we planted about 300 plus onions in this bed and other beds
all will be donated to food shelters soup kitchens food kitchens etc

the onions are planted about an inch deep and at 6 inches apart
you can do 4 inches if you are going to be harvesting some for green onions during the growing season
i planted them 5 across the bed
if you are good at math that will calculate to 300 onions in this bed

we will pull some green onions for donations also doing the growing season
we harvest usually in mayish based on the weather and when the plants start falling over

the organic soup kitchen loves our onions for their organic soups


the next bed we prepped the same
we planted cabbage in this bed
this is our second planting of cabbage
the other one is almost ready for harvesting and donating
we have over 60 cabbages for donating
minus of course the four the gophers ate


here is a bed of broccoli that was planted
it will be donated also 
we will harvest the heads and the off shoots in the late winter
we also have over 60 broccolis and for some reason the gophers havent eaten any
 

several weeks ago we planted fava beans in this bed
they are being used as a cover crop since they will fix nitrogen in the soil

when it was time to plant the dinosaur kale we cleared out some of the kava beans to plant the kale
the kava plants are laid on top of the soil as mulch and to also breakdown as a green compost
the roots are left in the ground also to breakdown
this all increasing the life in the soil

a few kava beans are left standing
the flowers are harvested for salads
some folks eat the leaves
some cook the beans 
we are mainly using it as a cover crop

we have around 30 dino kale planted here and have about 60 curly leaf kale planted also in other beds
kale is one our popular plants we donate year round

we did all this bed prepping since we were about to get a good rain
we have had less than 2 inches of rain since last march
the soil away from the beds is dry as a bone

this will be all of our winter plantings except for our leeks which will be planted in january
we will plant about 300 of those
they can be harvested at anytime during the year so they remain in the ground for months

we got over 4.5 inches of rain in 24 hours this week
it was slow enough it seemed to soak well into the ground
we expect the newly planted veggies and the other ones to explode with growth
and
of course 
the weeds will too

the overflow from our rainwater tanks flows into my garden walkways to act as a holding tank for moisture
i have 1 foot deep and 1 foot wide trenches filled in with mulch in my walkways and around my 400 square foot garden
thats moisture that would be flowing into the creeks and would now be in the ocean
instead it sits in my garden walkways
about 500 gallons worth if you do the calculations

we also heavily mulched or main walkways in the garden which also holds a lot of water
small swells in these pathways also slow down the water as it flows across our garden towards a nearby creek

thats free moisture that will stay in our garden

water is getting expensive here in calfornia

ill obtain the total pounds of produce we produce in our gardens for donations
its alway impressive

next
we are getting prepared for spring plantings by selecting our veggie seeds 

i look forward to seeing this garden explode in growth in the next few weeks

the organicgreen doctor