Helpful Hints from Al Kirchhoff

Welcome gardeners,

You all worked hard this past season growing a productive garden while overcoming several tough obstacles --- Soil conditions, drainage problems and lots of rain to name a few. With the new
raised beds and planting soil in place, compost "working" in the bins and soon to be, if not yet completed, aisles refreshed with wood chips, you should all be excited about the next growing season.

A sample of our "ready to plant" soil mix was sent to the Texas A&M soil labs to be analyzed. We have the result and recommendations back. Not surprising it is devoid of nitrogen and needs some phosphorus but less than a pound of each for the size plots we have. The soil also tested a pH of 7.2 which is slightly alkaline, desired is 6.5. The soil delivered to us is largely sand and not as much fertile top soil we had expected. That being the case we will be adding organic matter and fertilizer according to the soil test results/ recommendations. Don't worry, Gary and Al will be available to interpret the test results and answer any questions. There are a number of simple ways to amend and rapidly improve the soil. You will have a very good growing soil and with the help of Mother Nature a very productive garden.

For now here are several things you can look at and think about for next year’s garden.

HELPFUL HINTS:

Now is the time to gather ideas for the garden next year.

• planting space allotment per crop
• direction of rows, i.e. N and S or E and W
• interplanting of crops, planting early maturing crops between rows of longer maturing crops
• sequence of planting for dates of planting different crops

Seed selections

• gather seed catalogs from suppliers such as Burpee, Gurney, Park. Just Google "vegetable garden seed catalogs" or the "' company name' seed catalog" to order.
  - Use the catalogs to help plan what you want to plant and chose varieties
• Don't rush the planting season. Remember the average date of last freeze in our area is March 18, we are in growth zone 8.
• Garlic is one of the few crops you can plant now, in fact, garlic needs 30 days of 32-50˚ temps to induce bulbing so winter or early spring planting is desired. Most other crops, however, are adversely affected if not killed by too early planting.

A very good source of information is the web site of Texas A&M. The sequence I suggest is www.aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu then click in sequence in succeeding windows "gardening", "home gardening", "tx extension vegetable publications", "vegetable resources", "vegetable crop guides". Select the vegetable of choice and educate yourself about the plant.

That should keep you occupied for a month or two. There is a multitude of resources available to help you plan your garden. Have fun. After all that is what this is all about. FUN!

We'll give you a new list of HELPFUL HINTS in January. For the immediate future have a Merry Christmas and Blessed New Year!

Al