Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces

1. Gardening in Small andElevated Spaces 2009 Fall Lawn & Garden Extravaganza Jack E. Smith, CMG Master Gardeners of Rutherford County

2. GARDENING is the number one activity in America, with 84% of households involved in at least one form of gardening. As we become older, and others due to physical problems, find it more difficult to garden the traditional way because of the bending and stooping required. To over come some of these physical problems, lets limit the bending and stooping by raising the planting media. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces

3. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • How? By planting in containers and raised beds! • Why Containers? The larger containers planting area is elevated above ground level benefitting the elderly and those with limited mobility as well as disabled gardeners. • How else do containers help? Those with problem soils; those with limited space; gourmet cooks; specialty plant lovers; those with no soil available.

4. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Other reasons for using containers: • Less time needed due to less space and less maintenance required. • Convenience – Containers are mobile. • Cost – Initial cost may be more, but later on cost is less due to fewer plants, fewer seeds, less water needed, and less nutrients required. • Limited growing space – apartments, condos, etc.

5. Gardening in Small and Elevated Containers • What kind of containers? Any container large enough to hold a planting medium and support the plant can be used! • A hollow log may have been the first container. • But, they must provide adequate drainage; the size of the plants to be grown will limit size of container; must be non-toxic if a food product is to be grown in the container.

6. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Types of containers: • Tubs • Boxes • ½ Barrels • Glazed & unglazed pots • Concrete containers • Self Watering* containers

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8. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Soil or medium- • Much controversy exist on the proper medium. Garden soil may contain too much clay, which retains excessive moisture. • Make your own using 1 part peat moss, 1 part compost, 1 part builders sand and a slow release fertilizer. • Discount store brands of potting soil. • Don’t use soil-less mixes because they are too light. • Fill containers within 1 or 1 ½ inches of the top of the container. • Replace medium every 3 years.

9. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Planting – • When planting seed observe the same rules as if planting in the garden. • Do not remove excess plants by pulling them out but cut out with scissors. • When planting plants make sure they are healthy and not root bound. • Labels help in determining what to plant or not to plant next year. • Consider how large plants will be when mature.

10. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Watering – • It may be necessary to water containers twice a day. • DO NOT allow water to become hot before watering. • Moisture may be retained with a layer of mulch. • A plastic sheet over the container with holes for plants also controls moisture. • Unglazed pots will dry out quicker than most other pots. • Because roots require air, or oxygen, it is better to allow media to become slightly dry before adding water.

11. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • What to grow? • That all depends on what you want to grow! • Flowers? Vegetables? Herbs? • Shrubs? Trees? Trees! Ever heard of Bonsai and those 200 year old trees?

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13. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • We’ve talked about “Small Elevated Spaces” let’s discuss some larger and less elevated spaces called “Raised Beds”. • What are Raised Beds? • The “raised” part means that the soil level in the bed is higher than the surrounding soil. • The “bed” implies a size small enough to work without actually stepping into the bed. • Gardening in raised beds was a common practice before colonial times.

14. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Planting in “rows” started when a mule was used to cultivate the garden and large areas of land became available. • In parts of the world with great population densities, or lack of tillable land, gardening in beds is still the preferred practice. • For centuries, crops in many parts of the world have been produced in modified soils in elevated growing areas between walkways.

15. Gardening in Small and elevated Spaces • Advantages of Raised Beds: • They can be located in areas where conventional gardens are unsuited. • They are helpful to gardeners with limited space. • Studies indicate production over doubles in raised beds. • Soil compaction, which can reduce yields by 50% is limited. • Plants may be planted at higher densities. • Beds are easy to prepare for planting and care for.

16. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Advantages of Raised Beds – Cont. • Raised beds warm up earlier in the spring. • Raised beds are more easily worked by the elderly and people with physical handicaps. • Raised beds elevated 2 feet or more allow gardening without bending over.

17. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Some disadvantages are: • They make it difficult if not impossible to use mechanical equipment. • They are not well suited to sprawling plants. • Close spacing may encourage diseases. • Because they drain quickly, during periods of drought, plants may suffer more rapidly from lack of moisture requiring irrigation.

18. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • A raised bed may be no more than temporary beds formed by raking freshly worked soil into ridges. • Or, they may be edged with many materials ranging from old lumber, railroad ties, stone, brick, concrete blocks, etc. • If accessible from both sided the beds should be no more than 4 feet across. • If from only one side preferably 2 feet across but no more than 3 feet across.

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20. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Bed lengths may be any length but shorter beds save steps walking from side to the other side. • Pathways between beds should be wide enough for easy access to beds. • To make beds wheelchair accessible construct walls about 2 feet high and limit bed widths to about 3 feet. • Whatever design you choose, work it out on paper first.

21. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Another type of raised bed gardening that may be more interesting and applicable is called “Square Foot Gardening”. • This method was developed by a retired civil engineer in 1976 when he sold his consulting engineering business. • He became interested in gardening and started asking questions like why do many gardens wind up looking like weed patches?

22. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Why spread fertilizer over the entire garden including the walkways? • Why plant rows 3 feet apart? • Why plant a package of 1,000 lettuce seeds in a 30 foot row and then thin the seedlings to 1 in every 4 to 6 inches? • The answer to most of these questions he found out was “because that’s the way it has always been done”.

23. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • He determined what was needed was a simple system to produce a large harvest in a small space. • Square Foot Gardening allows the gardener to grow a good harvest with less work on 75% to 80% less gardening space, time and money. • Old gardening habits die slowly so it may be advisable to start slowly. • These procedures work on both vegetables and flowers and a combination of both.

24. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Square Foot Gardening is easy to maintain because it sets limits. • Limits in size, seed used, nutrients needed, work required and water needed. • If no limits are set it is too easy to lose control of the garden through the growing season. • The Square Foot Garden is divided into a size and shape gardeners of all ages and experience can understand and work in.

25. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Square Foot Gardening is based on a series of squares, 12 inches by 12 inches. • Each square may contain a different vegetable, herb or flower. • The number of plants per square will depend on the mature size of the plant planted or seed sown, and the recommended plant spacing. • A mature pepper plant may require a 12 inch square of space, but leaf lettuce may require only a 3 inch square of space.

26. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • You would have 1 pepper plant in a 12 inch square, but 16 lettuce plants. • These 12-inch squares are grouped together in blocks of 16 or a “garden” 4 feet by 4 feet. • Groups of these “gardens” can be grouped together, leaving space between each set of 16 blocks for working and walking space. • What you grow in your Square Foot Garden is strictly up to you and what you like to eat and flowers you would like to see.

27. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • For Example: • One garden plot 4 feet by 4 feet will produce 1 head of cabbage, 1 head of broccoli, 1 head of cauliflower, 4 heads of Romaine lettuce, 4 heads of red lettuce, 4 heads of salad lettuce, 5 pounds of sugar snap peas, 16 beets plus beet greens, 16 carrots, 32 radishes 1 pepper plant and 4 marigolds.

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30. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Assembling a Square Foot Garden section: • Build a bottomless box using 4 pieces of 2”x6” to 12”x4’ boards; 6 - 4’ lath strips; a 4’x4’ section of landscape fabric and nails or screws for assembly. • Assemble the “box” then decide where it is to be located, place the landscape fabric on the ground and fill the box with a growing medium. Do NOT use garden soil.

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32. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • IF you have a compost pile, you may use your own in the medium mix using compost, peat moss and vermiculite, or perlite, in equal parts. • If compost must be purchased, buy 4 or 5 different brands and mix together to get a more balanced blend. • Tools needed for Square Foot Gardening are: a small hand trowel, a 5-gallon bucket, pencil and scissors.

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38. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • This raised bed is 20 inches high and each section 7 feet in length. Reduced price is $699.00!!! • They may not look as professional but you can make 10 gallon containers for about $6.99 each

39. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Watering This can be accomplished using a hose, drip irrigation or a bucket and cup • Plant Nutrients If, during the growing season, plants need added plant food there are two recommendations: If using organic practices use a compost tea by dissolving compost in water. Or, use some type of commercial fertilizer at its recommended rate.

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41. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Special Raised Beds – Bale growing • (Mississippi State University) • Quick raised beds may be made using hay or straw square bales. The bales hold water and nutrients. • Bale selection is important – wheat, rice and barley straw make the best because they drain well. • Straw bales tend to have fewer seeds than hay, but fescue ryegrass and native hay bales also work. • DO NOT use bales where clopyralid or copyralid herbicides were used, since these may remain in the hay and influence plant growth.

42. Growing in Small and Elevated Spaces • Place bales where the sunlight strikes the area for as much of the day as possible. • Place a sheet of plastic a foot wider and longer than the bale under the bale to keep water from soaking into the ground. • Place bale so the hay’s grain is perpendicular to the surface of the ground. • DO NOT CUT THE BAILING TWINE! • Soak the bale with water (most 50 lb. bales will retain about 15 gallons of water).

43. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Add ¾ to 1 lb. of limestone to the bale and mix it in as well as possible. • The bale must now be “composted” using 1/3 lb. ammonium nitrate followed by a supplemental application of up to 2/3 of a lb. of ammonium nitrate 2/3 of a lb. of potassium sulfate. • Proper fertilizers and water will make the bale warm to more than 100d. F. If the bale is not warm by the third day, add more fertilizer and water. • After two weeks time, composting should slow and the temperature should drop, and it is time to plant.

44. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • To help retain moisture in the bale, you may “top” the bale with soil or sand or drape with a sheet of plastic. • You can push a hole in the bale and set the plant or sow the seed. • Almost any vegetable can be grown in bales except corn or okra as they make the bale top heavy and easily blown over. • Keep bales watered and gather your crop. • After harvest, remove old plants and start new ones and add needed fertilizer. • Bales may last for as long as two years.

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46. Gardening in Small and Elevated Spaces • Thanks everyone! I appreciate your being here and your attention!! Any Questions?