Tips and Techniques
Edible gardens are a world unto themselves in the landscape. There are many strategies unique to vegetable gardens that extend growing times, keep the garden healthy, and maximize crop yields. Here's a cheat sheet of common edible garden lingo and strategies.
Succession garden
Think of a succession garden as a master plan for the garden from season to season. For instance, in June, you can plan to clear some spring vegetables and plant summer crops. Or you can sow and transplant alongside waning spring vegetables with a view to next season's produce.
Succession planting
The primary purpose of succession planting is to provide continuous crop output within the season by sowing seed of a given crop at 1 to 2 week intervals. For instance, you can stagger corn production by making a subsequent planting when the first is 1 to 2 inches tall. Beans, turnips, seasonal lettuce, and beets are well-suited to this practice.
Companion planting
Companion plants like aromatic herbs or flowers are purported to repel pests in the vegetable garden. Although there is a lack of science behind companion planting, growing a wide variety of pollinator-friendly herbs alongside edible crops does help attract beneficial insects and natural enemies.
Intercropping
This involves planting early maturing crops between rows of late maturing crops to increase production in a small area. For example, beans, radishes, green onions, or seasonal leaf lettuce may be planted between rows of tomatoes, peppers or corn. The quicker-maturing plants will be harvested before the others become large.
Crop rotation
Crop rotation is the practice of changing the location of edible crops from year to year. Rotating crops in the garden enhances soil fertility and lowers risk of pests and diseases. Backyard gardeners with limited space should at least avoid planting exactly the same crop or crops from the same plant family year after year in the same part of the garden. For example, do not follow melons with cucumbers or squash, and do not plant peppers, eggplant, or potatoes where tomatoes grew the year before.
Cold frames
Like mini-greenhouses, cold frames are structures that create a stable environment for frost-tender seedlings by protecting them from big temperature swings. Keeping delicate seedlings in cold frames helps them thrive until winter temperatures stabilize. Cold frames also work to protect seedlings from pests, including birds, cutworms, earwigs, slugs, and snails. Cold frames are easy to assemble and can be made from inexpensive or recycled materials. Because they are better acclimated from the outset, plants that start life in cold frames often do not experience the transplant shock that many plants face. Among the most transplant-vulnerable seedlings are basil, beans, cabbage-family plants, lettuce and peas.
To make a standalone cold frame:
• Place an old window pane or a rigid sheet of plastic on top of a four-sided box filled with soil.
• Be sure that the box receives plenty of sunlight.
• The box can be made out of any material that holds the soil in place, including wood, straw bales, metal, cinder block, or brick.
• If you want to reuse your cold frame every winter, consider adding a hinge to one side so you can easily open and close it.
Floating row covers
Floating row cover is a white, lightweight, synthetic fabric with a gauze-like appearance. Air, sunlight, and water can penetrate the material. Vegetable gardeners drape it over and enclose individual plants or groups of plants and secure it to the ground with pins, bricks, rocks, soil, etc. The cover “floats” directly on top of the growing crop. Some gardeners install simple frames to support floating row covers, creating a dome effect. Row covers are often used in the winter to protect plants from frost, and in summer to provide some shade.
Floating row covers provide many benefits:
• Provides frost protection in early spring and late fall/early winter
• Encourages faster plant growth due to increased temperature and humidity under the cover
• Prevents insects, deer, birds, and other pests from eating your plants
• Inexpensive
• Reusable: can be re-used for two to three years
BACK TO EDIBLES
> What Edible Gardens Need
> Best Choices for Marin
> How to Prepare
> How to Plant
> Edibles in Containers
> Planting Calendar
> Grow & Care Sheets for Vegetables, Herbs & Fruits
> Tips & Techniques
> How to Maintain
> Fruit Trees
> Top 20 Edible Garden Problems
> Cover Crops & Soil Enhancements in the Off-season
> Conserving Water
•••••••••
Visit our EDIBLE DEMO GARDEN at IVC Organic Farm & Garden
February 2025: Choosing the Right Garden Tools
In January, the 2025 Marin Master Gardener training class was welcomed into the Edible Demonstration Garden for a discussion and demonstration on the use and care of garden tools. The right tools make the difference between gardening that is pleasurable and gardening that is a struggle. Your first experience with a garden tool might have been that pointed stick you used when digging in the dirt as a child. Now as a gardener, you are presented with an array of better tool choices, some essential for basic garden work and some designed for specific tasks. There are tools for pruning, tools for digging, tools for raking, and tools to make gardening easier. Here are some of the more popular tools in those categories.
Pruning Tools
Hand pruners are the favorite tool for most home gardeners. They are the tools used most often for cutting and thinning small branches to maintain plant health and appearance. They are also used for cutting flowers and harvesting vegetables. By-pass pruners, which work like scissors, are best for making clean cuts on living plants. Anvil pruners crush branch tissue and are good for removing and cutting up dead branches.
- Pruning saws are used to remove branches larger than what hand pruners can remove. They can have a fixed or folding blade.
- Loppers are long-handled by-pass pruners that can help access higher and hard to reach branches. The long handles also provide leverage to enable pruning thicker branches.
Digging Tools
Trowels are essential for digging, planting, potting, and weeding. A trowel is a spade-shaped hand tool with a slightly scooped blade.
- Garden knives are a type of trowel with a sharp narrow blade and a pointed end. One blade edge is usually serrated. Hori-Hori garden knives are a Japanese design that has proven to be so useful for digging and weeding that the name is often applied to any type of garden knife.
- Shovels and spades are long-handled digging and soil lifting tools with the shape of blade and the length of the handle determining their particular uses.
Raking Tools
- Rakes are useful for cleaning up leaves, removing debris, and spreading out soil amendments like compost and mulch. Hand rakes are great for getting into small spaces. Rakes with flexible, fan-shaped tines work well for cleaning up lighter debris and are sometimes called leaf rakes. Garden rakes have larger stiff metal tines and are intended for heavier use in soil or larger debris.
- Forks are used for raking out stones and weeds. Like a dinner fork, a garden fork has four strong tines which can push easily into the ground and enable it to double as a digging tool for loosening and turning over the soil.
Gardening Comfort Tools
Gloves provide the hand protection every gardener needs. They are a barrier against pricks, cuts, abrasions, blisters, insect bites, and other skin irritations. While most gardeners don’t mind getting their hands dirty, getting jabbed with a nasty thorn is not only painful, but it can also lead to serious infections. There are many types of gloves to choose from depending on the type of protection required. Most important is that they fit well and are comfortable to wear.
- Kneelers cushions protect the knees when planting, weeding, and performing other low to ground garden tasks. Kneelers made of rectangular shaped heavy foam are the simplest type. However, kneelers with handles that are lightweight and easy to fold up can make the up and down movements around the garden easier. Some even flip over to form a bench.
- Ergonomically modified tools can help gardeners get more done with less effort by enabling good body alignment and reducing joint strain. Grips should be comfortable to hold and keep hands and wrists in natural positions. Handles should be the right length to enable good posture without excessive bending and twisting.
Tool Care
Tools need to be kept clean, sharpened, in good repair, and organized to keep them working well. Surface dirt and dried sap should be brushed or washed off after each use. Periodically applying a light layer of oil will reduce rust. Pruners need regular sharpening and should be sanitized with a 10% bleach solution following contact with diseased plant material. Storing tools in dry place where they can be easily accessed will ensure they are ready for work when you are.
Click here to learn more about choosing and caring for garden tools.
December 2024: Giving the Garden a Rest
Planting cover crops
There are many advantages to planting cover crops. Cover crops, sometimes referred to as “green manure”, are an excellent way to protect and improve soil. They increase organic matter, suppress weeds, prevent damage from wind and water erosion, and support beneficial insects and earthworms. Plus, they can look attractive while nurturing the garden.
Two different cover crops were chosen for the Edible Demo Garden. Fava beans were planted in several of the garden beds and in the straw bales used for the summer crops. The latter is an experiment to determine if there is sufficient residual fertility in the straw bales to support another crop. In order to aid in germination and enhance their nitrogen fixing effects, the fava bean seeds were soaked in an inoculant containing rhizobacteria prior to planting. As an alternative cover crop, a green manure mix of bell beans, field peas, and purple/hairy vetch was planted in some of the raised beds. Past experience with crows eating the sprouting seeds necessitated the use of compost, straw, and protective netting to give the cover crop seedlings a fighting chance. The effectiveness of the different cover crops will be tested in spring when it is time to plant again.
Allowing beds to remain fallow
Click here for more information on cover crops and soil enhancement in the off-season.
