Planting Party!

Garden Cat Mango on Patrol

The warm spring temperatures have finally arrived. The wet winter weather is finally behind us. The soil is now prepared is ready. It's time to plant the 2024 Summer Garden!

This is the start of a summer season that means overwhelming abundance in terms of bright and tasy heirloom tomatoes, the crisp crunch of heirloom variety cucumbers, green and yellow squash sliced lengthwise, drowned in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and browned on a flaming summer grill.

But that's just the start! Yes, there's more! The summer garden also means a wide variety of bush beans, multiple varieties of basil, gigantic sweet bell peppers, an eye-popping assortment of hot peppers like the time honored jalapeno and a vast number of home-canning projects such as tomato sauces, tomato soups, plus tomato and hot pepper salsas.

2024 Summer Garden (Partial)

That doesn't even count the bags of home grown garden goodies that will be be packed up and delivered to neighbors near and far. A summer vegetable garden can provide that and more. It doesn't feed the needs of just one household. It can provide summer sustenance for many. This includes a never-ending supply of sweet, multi-colored cherry tomatoes. Summer gardens are the bomb. Every last morsel that springs forth from that summer soil is 100-percent good for the body and soul.

That's why I love summer gardens. How about you?

Preparing a backyard soil that consists of sticky, heavy clay was the first step. That preparation, outlined in previous posts called The Method Part I and The Method Part II, has created the perfect area for planting efforts. BUT, the job isn't quite done yet. The job leaves you with a large patch of soil that is perfect for planting. But still need to take steps to ensure that every inch of that soil is put to good use.

First Garden Trail

All gardens need access. Cutting yourself off from one side of a productive tomato plant, for example, is no good. A good garden needs narrow trails and lots of them so that every section can be reached in multiple ways. However, the last thing you want to do is create trails out of that great soil that has been created with amendments, rototilling and other garden preparation efforts.

So, my method of madness works in the following way: I create my first of many rows for the garden by laying out a series of markers, In my case? I use pieces of PVC cage parts that I created years ago and continue to put to work in the garden. These cage parts make for perfectly straight garden rows, and also play a role as a planting guide. But the first step is to cut an access trail right next to that first row.

Cutting a six-inch deep access trail next to that first and second row that will hold dozens of tomato plants creates piles of nicely amended soil. Instead of 18-inches of loose soil, each row set aside for growing efforts will have two feet or more. I'm certainly not going to walk all over that nice garden soil that I've taken multiple steps to create. I'm going to move it to where it's needed.

Garden Layout in Progress

Is this extra work? Extra stress on the legs? A workout for a cranky back? You bet it is. But the payoffs are what I like to call "layer cakes" of amended garden soils that will eventually hold starter plants OR rows of seeds. The mounds of really good soil that I will create with my pathway creation efforts still need to be raked level.

The entire garden resembles high and low sections by the time I'm finished. There are narrow access rows and trails cut into every section of the garden. The planting areas receive several extra inches of great soil, and both the dog and cat have trails to run up and down as they scare away rats and other garden thieves throughout the summer months. There's no place for the garden thieves to hide out. They either stay out of the garden, or risk the consquences.

Once this work is done, it's time to start the planting process. I learned many years ago that using a post-hole digging tool that is normally employed for fence posts is the best tool for planting tomatoes. The PVC pieces that I put into place earlier during the trail creation phase also serve as planting guides. The holes for each tomato starter plant are dug in the center of each PVC frame. A month later I will need to remove that frame to actually build the cage that will support monster plants later that summer. But, that job can wait for a little while.

Digging Plant Holes

There was a day and age when I once utilized fish heads and other parts of fish that had been cleaned and thrown away to place at the bottom of those planting holes. But that practice ended a few years for me due to recycling efforts that made this once easily accessible and desired garden amendment very hard to come by. So, the only thing that goes into that two-foot deep hole that I've created with the post-hole digger is the rootball of the tomato plant that I will place there. Everything is then covered with heavily amended soil, and it's time to move to the next hole.

The same system works just as well with the garden pepper starter plants, but the holes for those are not cut nearly as deep. That process moves quite a bit faster because there's not as much soil to cut through. It can take a day or more to dig the 45-50 planting holes I will need for each starter plant, but it saves a lot of bending and stress on the knees.

Cherry Tomato Plant Row

After planting every transplant that the garden will hold, the next step is cutting long rows in the soil layer cake of amended soil for seeds. Long rows are set aside for an heirloom cucumber called Sumter. Additional rows are created for heirloom bush bean plants that carry the time honored names of Blue Lake, Kentucky Wonder and Pencil Pod.

Bush beans grow well here. The Sumter Cucumber, which I discovered by complete accident a few years ago, also grows extremely well in this climate. What doesn't grow well in California? I've really yet to find any garden vegetable that does not flourish in this climate. I suppose it's the reason why I've stayed, while so many of my counterparts have run off to other areas of the country.

So you have it! I'm still working on other sections of the garden. There's always something to do. The garden effort really doesn't end. Because, by the time planting efforts end, it's nearly time to start enjoying the harvest. Then, the period of over-production starts. That's the signal to start providing to others, or multiple canning projects to save chunks of that summer garden for winter use.

As you might imagine, I enjoy this type of work very much.