Weekly Garden Thread - July 23-29, 2022

My only real advice I have is to learn from this, and stock up on shade cloth and other items needed for future HOT growing seasons in the off-season when you see them at a good price. Or, consider yourself in the next higher growing Zone and plant in a different time frame than on a ‘normal’ year for you.

Definitely am learning and will be adding infrastructure. If I had that high tunnel up and had shade cloth for it, that would have helped a lot. The high tunnel is already a structure so you just toss the shade cloth over it and tie it down. I also could have started things much earlier. The cold crops could have produced before it hit 96 for quite a few days in May. I could also do the smaller tunnels like Pete has and they would serve the same purpose. It adds a month or so on either end of the season which gives you some cushion for weather variables. Row covers inside a tunnel give you even more time on the ends of the season.

I also want to get more heat mats and grow lights. I ended up stealing a couple of shop lights when I potted up and everything took up more space. A small lean to greenhouse on the South side of the house would help with that. Those mini-greenhouses that hand on the outside of the house's windows would work too.

Mulch has been a big water saver and since we don't have a well, water is a big deal. I'm up to four tanks now for a total of 1,200 gallons. We use a 225 gallon tank for household water and I'm also using that for the little garden right now because it's 10 feet from the tank. I have two 265 gallon tanks that will be for the bigger garden area out back and ideally, they would get filled by harvesting water from the high tunnel. By August, I'd likely have to fill them with Spring water which is what I use for the household tank. It's on a trailer and I go 1/4 mile down the road to fill it.

We have a 55 gallon drum I fill from the neighbor's 300+ foot well to use for drinking/cooking. I have it mounted to a pallet and have forks for the back of the little tractor. It lays sideways and has a spigot on it so we fill gallon jugs or our drinking water bottles from it. When it's below freezing, I buy bottled water. There's a tank heater in the household tank and the RV hose that goes from that to the house goes through flexible insulated duct and I have a computer fan that blows air from the house out the duct that keeps the hose and spigot from freezing. It's MacGyver-ized.

I'm not putting in a $10,000.00 well until the property is paid off.

We actually got some measurable rain last night ... shock, surprise ... but welcome!

Weather forecast, as it often does, calls for “isolated” T-storms and we rarely get them. Our yard ‘grass’ is literally “crunchy” & browning it’s been so dry. I’ve been watering most of the garden plants daily (or they wilt) & the tomatoes every 4-5 days. I just did a “heavy” watering yesterday.

Anyway, I had looked at the radar earlier .... nothing. Around 9:30 - 10:00, I thought I heard a rumble ... then there was a BIG rumble. Checking the radar, there was a fairly small patch of storm showing yellow/orange that looked like the edge might cross our place. The next radar run showed an expanded area & we were definitely going to get something. What we got was at least a 1/4 of an inch in the rain gauge. The grass is not quite as crunchy this morning; however, we need 2-3 days of steady, soaking rain for the crunch to totally disappear & ‘green’ to return, but in this heat/dry spell, we’ll take whatever we can get!

Bon; Organza bags.... Use Army Green to sort of match the leaf color and use at least 4" x 5".

Amazon Organza bags green 4x6

Videos on Green Fig Beetles.

Fig-Eater Beetles Arizona Public Media

Fig Beetle control

Good Luck!

Good Morning

They are in the ground. Sorry for not adding that in the post.

Thank you for the reply.

Just went to store and picked up some miracle gro for vegtables and am watering it a bunch. I will just see what happens.

There was a lot of info from posters past my question that I could glean a little from.

Happy Sunday!

Someone put a lot of work into that!

Mr. mm made some turkey wire tunnels like the ones you did.

I originally staked them down but now just set them on the ground.

I have floating row covers that I use for shade when it’s really hot and pull it back when we are expecting rain. I use clothespins to hold them on.

Possible Tomato staking for indeterminate varieties. Use paracord suspended from metal 3/4 electrical conduit cross pieces. I use a 5' fence stake at the ends and attach 3/4 " uprights with a plastic pipe "Tee" at the top. I take them down at year end and store them from year to year. I wrap the hanging paracord around the tomato leader and clip it at the top.

(Thorburns Terracotta Tomatos suspended with paracord.) Yes, I painted the conduit blue. They are pushed down in the ground, but I need to go secure the uprights to the green Fence posts. I secure the paracord at the base of the tomato with a stake, I leave about 30" of extra paracord hanging over crossbar, wrap it around twice, and use a taut line hitch so I can adjust the slack as I wrap around the tomato leader.

(Also note the irrigation. I got tired of spending 2 hours standing in the sun watering and decided to use timed irrigation so I could do other things.)

Ok gardening pals! Important gardening questions here for you review.

It seems the hard, solid caliche, rock below the area I am planning on putting my raised beds over is about 2.5 feet deep.

Caliche is essentially all the I gradients to make Portland cement and as rainwater seeps through the soil over the years....whammo...a layer of concrete with unknown thickness.

Now if I am to avoid a shit ton of jackhammering....how deep (or more accurately, how high do I need to make my raised beds to avoid issues with plants such as tomatoes and peppers?

My initial idea was to bulldoze up 4 foot wide swaths of the soil to sift out the rocks then drop it back into the hole....followed by taking up the adjacent 3 feet of soil, sifting the rocks, the pouring it on top of the raid bed area.

If ai do that on both sides of the raised bed (topping the bed with soil from each sode...I can get the raised bed up to about 5-6 feet of soil above the caliche layer.

I think that will be enough for the plants with the longest taproots roots that I grow (tomatoes and peppers.)

Anybody have ideas suggestions or a spare jackhammer?

Are the leaves yellowing FROM THE BOTTOM? Are there brown spots or are the leaves getting ‘crunchy?’ If so, you probably have some sort of blight. Very common. Remove those bottom leaves, and give the rest of the plant a spray with a copper spray. It’s organic - kills all kinds of diseases.

If the leaves are just yellowing, with no die off or brown spotting, you may just be over watering.

Plants can be planted right next to one another and one is sitting in a pocket of clay, holding more water, while the other is not.

Every plant needs 1” of water a week. That’s it. If your plant is heavily mulched, and you think you may be over-watering, pull back some of the mulch and let it dry out for a number of days before watering again.

Good luck! :)

That’s MORE than deep enough! I hit clay and rock under my beds, and they are just the standard 6”-8” deep - not six FEET deep!

I think you’re making a lot of work for yourself - but Pollard and Pete will have opinions, too. ;)

We ended up with an inch and a quarter. My garden is SMILING, today!

And, dummy me! I left a rear car window open, so I also got 1.25” of rain - in my car!

So, the doors are all opened up and everything is unloaded from the back seat and drying out - the blanket and sheet I keep over the seat (dogs!) needed washing, anyway.

Adding just one more chore to today’s long list. ;)

What? No “day of rest” on Sunday? LOL!

1.25 inches is great (except for in the car)! Maybe that rain is moving our way. Waching the last stage of the Tour de France & it’s about over .... need to go see the garden the first time today. I’ve already chased the crow family off the fence (walked out on the porch & ‘clapped’ at them - they left) so I’m curious what they were up to.

Just came in from checking the garden ... couple of things:

The crows were checking out their opportunities to raid the tomatoes because I had left the gates partially open on the tomato patch last night! I don’t think they ever made it in there since the openings were still pretty small and they would not have had a lot of space to operate. I didn’t notice any damage either.

The jalapenos are looking great, even after pretty much a full day of sun yesterday in the heat. They got some extra water and I took the sun shades away.

My bell peppers are starting to fall over so I had to stake them up.

It is 97° with a heat index of 102 at present. The heat advisory is for an index of 102 to 106°, so I think it will be going up as the afternoon progresses. I am now inside drinking iced tea, in front of a fan, and I had to use a cold wet washcloth on my face and neck because my face is bright red after only 20 minutes in the garden!

Caliche beds can cause problems for agriculture. First, an impermeable caliche layer prevents water from draining properly, which can keep roots from getting enough oxygen. Salts can also build up in the soil due to the lack of drainage. Both of these situations are detrimental to plant growth. Second, the impermeable nature of caliche beds prevents plant roots from penetrating the bed, which limits the supply of nutrients, water, and space so they cannot develop normally. Third, caliche beds can also cause the surrounding soil to be basic. The basic soil, along with calcium carbonate from the caliche, can prevent plants from getting enough nutrients, especially iron. An iron deficiency makes the youngest leaves turn yellow. Soil saturation above the caliche bed can make the condition worse.[21]

My initial idea was to bulldoze up 4 foot wide swaths of the soil to sift out the rocks then drop it back into the hole....followed by taking up the adjacent 3 feet of soil, sifting the rocks, the pouring it on top of the raid bed area.

If ai do that on both sides of the raised bed (topping the bed with soil from each sode...I can get the raised bed up to about 5-6 feet of soil above the caliche layer.

Keep in mind that above that caliche, you may still have two layers, a top soil and a subsoil and you don't want to mix those together. I don't think any veggies really require 5-6 foot. Even tomatoes should be fine with 2 feet or even 1 foot.

Mel of Square Foot Gardening used to dig up 6 inches of top soil and mix 6 inches worth of compost in to give him 1 foot of good soil and his raised beds were 6 inches tall to hold that 6 inches of compost added. In the second edition of his book, he changed to just using the 6 inches of compost without disturbing the top soil. I like his first method better.

According to wikipedia article quoted above, the top soil may be "basic" (reference - Managing Caliche in the Home Yard UofAZ - https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/144769/az1281-2002.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

What grows in your yard or on your property now? Grass, weeds, shrubs, trees, nothing? If there's stuff growing, I wouldn't worry too much about that "basic" thing but you might want to get a soil test to make sure it's not way out of whack.

I would go for 1-2 feet deep loosened soil and permanent raised beds as tall as you can get them, maybe 6-8 inches tall. Can't find a good pic but something in between these two examples.

Have the low spots wide enough to use as walkways, 45 degree slope on edges of beds because anything steeper will just fall apart. Beds as wide as you like and add all the compost you can afford to the bed areas. Most market gardeners are doing 30 inch beds and there's a lot of tools and equipment sized for 30 inch and the beds can be straddled by most people. I don't know what your drainage is like and don't know how hard packed the soil is above the caliche. You could just till it and then form beds. With a good sized tractor, you could run a single tine chisel plow every foot or two, then till, then form beds.

Depending on how big it will be, you could double dig it. I've done that a couple of times. Dig off top soil to the depth of a shovel and set aside. Stick a fork down in where you dug and rock back and forth to crack the lower soil, fill back in. If you look up double digging, there's a madness to the method. That first dig is brought to the other side of the garden. Second dig fills the first dig after the first has been cracked with fork. Then you crack the second dig, dig third and dump into second, crack third etc etc. That last dig dirt is tossed into second to last, last is cracked and the first soil you dug and brought to the other side of garden is right there to dump in that last dig.

We have hard pan here in Missouri and it's a little like concrete. Grey, dead, gravel mixed in. I hand dug all my fence post holes and some took most of a day of slamming a chipping bar down in the hole to break the stuff up, take a scoop with digger, repeat. I've seen a 1 inch hole in my garden area out back that bubbled up water for over a week after we had days of rain. Had no place to go but up I guess. I've done raised beds with sides using various things. Wood works well but rots quick around here. Everything else like rocks or blocks take up space and you end up kneeling on them which hurts the knees. I just do like the pic above on the right anymore. One of these days I'll make a bed former for my little tractor.

I think you’re making a lot of work for yourself - but Pollard and Pete will have opinions, too. ;)

Translation: Pollard and Pete like looking things up and typing a lot. :~)

See Pollard's post. My yard is mostly clay on top of broken limestone. I had one area that had a lot of humus so I used that to garden.

I would say yes, If you get 5-6 feet of soil that would be enough provided the water gets down there.

Some ideas:

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Here is a discussion of Caliche.

https://permies.com/t/74432/Sunken-beds-hardpan-caliche

Vinegar apparently dissolves Caliche, if you dig down to that level. Not sure much you need, but I would assume a lot. Drill some hole in the caliche and and fill them with vinegar to erode the imperiable layer. -----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you decide to use a dozer try to maintain your soil horizons. Move off the Clay, Break up the caliche, maybe spray it with some vinegar to dissolve it a bit, put it back, cover it back up, build your new topsoil with old or ruined straw of hay, manure, plant first year buckwheat or besseme clover and till it under.

See if Augie has any thoughts. He has experience with farming and heavy equipment operation.

--------------------------------------------------------- Plant on top of the soil in straw bales. Might be temporary solution that would leave a good pile of staw to help create humus.

https://www.organicgardener.com.au/blogs/how-make-straw-bale-gardens

https://gardeningvlogs.com/tag/straw-bale-gardening-australia/

I have not viewed either of these, but California and Australia are dry and have hard soils and this is one of ignoring the hard pan and planting above it.

Good Luck with your raised beds!

:O

My cousin dries her figs. Says it works great.

We have two new Celeste fig trees and they’re hanging in there during this horrible central Texas heat. Biggest problem is the grasshopper infestation.

Keeping netting on the fig trees works well as long as the netting doesn’t work loose but it does and the grasshoppers get in.

We’ve got a flock of guineas ready to let loose once the garden deer fence is finished (hopefully this week) and I can’t tell you how much I’ll enjoy watching them go after the grasshoppers.

:-D

Thank you again for that information.

FRgards☺

Biggest problem is the grasshopper infestation.

Haven't you heard? Grasshoppers are said to be the next food fad.