Green Gardening Column from Renewable Power – Intelligent Choice

Written by Jacqueline Swiderski

Part A – Getting Started

I have always been acutely conscious of trying to make as small an imprint on the earth as possible. But, in these times of high gas prices, galloping food prices, global warming with accompanying natural disasters, the nuclear disaster in Japan; it is a more pressing issue than ever before. I need something I can do that is real, immediate, and gives short term results. My gardening is just that!

I grow most of our vegetables and flowers with minimal energy input beyond my own labour. I supply my home and the local restaurant with fresh cut flower arrangements from late spring to freeze.

I amend my soil with composted barnyard manure from my close neighbor and peat mined on this quarter section. Sometimes I amend the whole garden but more often I give extra nutrients by digging a hole or a trench, adding compost and planting heaver feeders like garlic, squash, tomatoes and dahlias. Corn and sunflowers sometimes get compost mulch after they grow a bit

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I till only when I am ready to plant to retain moisture. I used to rototill in the fall but that is unnecessary if I remove the trash from plants that harbor disease, fungus and insects. Such plants are tomatoes, corn, cabbage family, peas, beans, nasturtiums, dahlias and sunflowers.

When the domestic plants touch at maturity, they inhibit weeds. I, therefore, space rows according to the size of the plants at full growth. I put carrot rows in multiples of 3, spacing them 4”-5” apart. Radishes are planted 4” from the lettuce, knowing they will be eaten before they crowd the lettuce. Cucumbers or squashes can be under-planted in corn rows. The shade provided by the cucurbits helps the corn and the corn trellises the cucurbits. Never crowd beans or tomatoes or you will regret it. Blight will rob you of your harvest. Mix onions into your carrot rows to foil onion maggots and the tiny insect that spreads aster yellows in your carrots.

More about non-poisonous insecticides in Part B.