Your Small Kitchen Garden |

My last post provided rationale for working the soil in your small kitchen garden. Sure, you can dig a hole and drop in a seed, and a plant will probably grow. However, conditioning the soil to improve drainage, PH balance, and nutrition significantly increases your chances of success. It also improves the yields of your vegetable plants.

That said, I’m lazy. I’m not excited about spreading manure and I don’t have a power tiller, so my soil preparation has evolved into a minimalist procedure. My raised vegetable bed is large enough that I must walk in it to prepare it, plant it, weed it, and harvest from it.

Extracting a dandelion from your walk-in garden bed employs the same technique you’d use to turn soil: Push the garden fork in to the full depth of its tines, pry the soil out of the ground, and turn it over. When I remove dendelions, I sometimes insert the fork on four sides of the dandelion before prying the plant out of the ground. This loosens the soil and decreases the chance of breaking off the tap root deep underground. After lawnmower noise, my least favorite sound in the garden is the dull thud of a snapping dandelion tap root that runs deeper than my garden fork can reach.

Low-Till Planting

Here are the steps I follow to prepare my raised vegetable bed for spring planting. This approach has been very effective, and it’s most appropriate for modest gardens in which the soil gets compacted from foot traffic through the growing season:

This year I’m using apple sticks (the bounty of pruning season) and pink yarn to mark rows in my garden. I tie the yarn three or four inches above the ground so I can easily work under it with a hoe.

1. Decide where to run a planting row.

2. Turn the row of soil over. I prefer to use a garden fork. I dig a fork’s width swath from one end of the row to the other, plunging the fork in to the full depth of its tines, prying the fork-full of soil out of the ground, and turning that fork-full over so the soil that was on the surface ends up at the bottom of the hole from which I removed it.

3. Remove all weeds and their roots from the soil you turn over, and excavate all other weeds from either side of the row you’re working.

4. Break up soil clumps with a garden rake, and smooth over the surface within the fork-width row.

5. Set a stake at each end of the row, and stretch twine between the stakes. This provides a guide to ensure a straight row so you can accurately match your planting to your plan for the year’s garden.

6. If your garden bed tends to collect rain water, mound soil from between the rows onto the rows, creating six-to-nine-inch berms. By mounding the soil you turn each row into a raised bed that will reduce the chance of excess moisture damaging your crops.

If your garden is on high ground that drains quickly, don’t mound the soil; step 7 will result in depressed planting rows that catch and hold rain water; an advantage especially in a dry year.

Using a low-till method, I’ve turned and raked the soil (top-left) before I cut a furrow about six inches deep and as wide as the hoe. From years of gardening, the soil is in decent shape, but the mature compost on the shovel looks obviously more organic than the soil. Whether using compost or manure, I use a hoe to mix it with soil that I scrape off the bottom of the trench (bottom-left). I’d plant directly in this compost/soil mix (bottom-center), but if it were a manure/soil mix, I’d cover it lightly with soil (bottom-right) before planting.

7. For seeds, hoe the rows into trenches to receive the seeds. For seedlings, dig slightly-larger-than-root-ball-sized holes along the rows in which to set the plants. For seeds or seedlings, dig at least three inches deeper than you intend to plant the seeds or the seedlings; this leaves room to add compost or other humus.

Because the dimensions of trenches and holes vary depending on the types of vegetables you’re planting and—for seedlings—on the condition they’re in, step seven is where planting instructions begin in upcoming posts.

8. Dump three inches of compost, manure, or mushroom soil into the trench or into each hole. If you’re adding sulfur or crushed limestone to adjust the PH for a particular type of plant, do so at this point.

9. Mix the organic stuff with the soil that’s in the bottom of the trench or hole.

Being in a slightly raised planting bed, my garden soil drains quickly. So, I deliberately finish planting rows and holes to be two to three inches below the normal soil level. A plant’s-eye view shows a finished row with young spinach plants just poking through. If my planting bed drained slowly, I’d mound the soil before cutting planting rows or digging holes. Each row would sit above the natural soil level, turning a row into its own raised bed garden.

10. If you’ve used raw organic stuff such as horse or cow manure or mushroom soil (which is partially composted), sprinkle a half inch to an inch of soil over the compost layer; you’ll plant seeds or seedlings on this layer of untreated soil. Providing the cushion gives the roots a chance to get established before coming in contact with rich, possibly acidic humus. Also, heavy watering you’ll do to start seeds and seedlings will leach salts out of raw humus before the roots reach it.

If you’ve used mature compost as the organic matter, plant directly in the mixed soil and compost. The mixture will be equivalent to that of a fine potting soil; a great medium to get new roots growing quickly.

Concerning Raised Planting Beds

What distinguishes the classic raised vegetable bed is that you can work the bed without ever setting foot in it. A traditional raised bed is no more than four feet across so you can reach to the middle from either side. You needn’t build retaining walls to get some of the benefits of a raised bed. If you limit your in-ground beds to four feet across (any length is fine as long as you can walk along both sides of the bed), you’ll be able to work them without walking in them, just as you would raised beds.

Preparing soil in such narrow beds and laying out crops in them allows very different strategies than you’re likely to use in a traditional walk-in garden bed. In an upcoming post, we’ll talk about how to get narrow beds ready for planting, and explore ways you might lay out your vegetables in them.

Technorati Tags: compost, mushroom soil, plant vegetables, planting, planting bed, soil preparation, tilling

I’ll be carting many garbage cans full of horse manure from the stable where my daughter rides to the kids’ abandoned sandbox. Tomatoes will thrive on a rich mixture of fresh manure and sand.

It’s planting time in my small kitchen garden! Actually, the weather this year is not in any hurry for my garden to get started. By mid March, the soil was thawed and workable, but there have been many nights with the temperature as low as 24F degrees. Cold weather crops such as peas, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, and onions, could all have gone in in March.

But immediately after the soil thaws, it’s usually quite wet. I get no joy from working in mud. To boot, seeds planted in mid-march may get a head start if the weather cooperates, but they may also languish until April before putting on serious growth. Peas planted here in mid March (hardiness zone 5b or 6a, depending on who you ask), may mature only a week earlier than peas planted in mid April. So, I say, “don’t rush.” Plant cold weather crops when you can work the soil, when it’s dried out a bit, and when it’s not unbearably cold. Oh, and if you wait a few weeks, you give weeds a chance to show themselves so you’re more likely to remove them when you finally do start working the soil.

Basic Soil Preparation

I’m about to post a series about planting various types of vegetables. The procedures for planting any one type are remarkably similar to those for planting other types. In fact, preparing the soil for planting is a sequence of steps that you’ll repeat for everything you plant.

Different types of planting beds allow different styles of soil preparation. As well, a gardener’s experience, enthusiasm, and influences lead to unique preferences. With that in mind, please consider what I say to be suggestions rather than rules. The methods I describe have been effective in my experiences. After that, you’ll have to decide which are right for you.

My next few posts will outline soil-preparation in three scenarios:

1. Traditional in-ground planting beds using traditional methods

2. Low-till planting in traditional in-ground planting beds

3. Planting in narrow beds including raised vegetable gardens

In the meantime, a few thoughts about soil composition:

Soil for Your Small Kitchen Garden

I once heard a master gardener admonish readers never to amend clay-heavy soil with sand. He encouraged people always to add only organic matter to break up clay. I argue that you should cut clay by adding sand. True: humus will help retain moisture, break up clay, and provide nutrition. On the other hand, humus breaks down in time and may leave no trace; in the next season you could be right back where you started.

If I were building a garden bed from scratch and filling it with soil of my design, I’d get a mixture of 40% sand, 20% clay, and 40% silt. I’d layer this soil with organic stuff—ideally, mature compost—but I’d be happy using raw horse manure or mushroom soil (see box).

If I excavated a garden bed, expecting to plant vegetables in my lawn, and I discovered clay, I’d add sand. Sand helps prevent the clay from clumping and improves drainage. I’d also add humus to improve nutrition and keep the worms happy.

However you start out, to keep a planting bed productive you need to add humus each growing season. If your humus-free soil naturally remains loose because it includes a generous percentage of sand, then adding humus is light work compared to that of working in a clay-rich garden bed.

This season, I’ll be reclaiming my kids’ childhood sandbox. The box itself has rotted and collapsed, and the sand has supported an assortment of weeds for the past few years. I plan to cover the sand with six inches of horse manure and blend it as well as I can by hand. Then, I’m planting tomatoes.

Technorati Tags: compost, mushroom soil, plant vegetables, planting, planting bed, soil preparation, tilling

Ideally, you can use a straight-edged spade to cut the sod away for a garden bed. I’ve used an edging tool, and even a round-point spade… though the extreme curvature of the blade makes it hard to create a straight edge with a round-point shovel.

I hope your small kitchen garden plan is starting to take shape in your mind. So far, you’ve figured out where to put your planting beds, and you’ve thought hard about how big to make them: will you need to walk in your planting beds to work them, or will you be able to work them from the sides? The next decision is a biggie: Will you plant directly in the ground, or will you raise your planting beds above ground level?

Start by setting pins at the corners of the new garden bed, and stretch twine between them to mark the perimeter. If you’re cutting a bed with curved edges, use a bunch of pins to define the curves… or eyeball it if you’re not concerned about precision.

Your yard may impose an answer to that question; if the soil is rocky, constantly wet, or unworkable, you may need to build raised beds on the yard rather than cutting planting beds into the yard. If you’re lucky enough to have soil you can work relatively easily-and that will support plant life-you need to choose between in-ground and raised beds.

Making the choice might be easiest when you’re familiar with the steps involved in building each type of planting bed. This post examines steps to take when preparing a new traditional-style planting bed in an established lawn.

A Planting Bed in the Lawn

The least expensive planting bed you can create is one that you pay for with sweat equity. For such a bed, you mark the perimeter of the new garden area, and then remove the sod from within that space. Sod includes all the grass and a few inches of soil (bound together by roots of the grass). So, when you cut in a new planting bed this way, the remaining lawn sits a few inches above your small kitchen garden.

There’s nothing wrong with a recessed planting bed as long as the soil drains efficiently, though there are a few other liabilities:

• The lower your planting bed, the farther you need to bend down to work in it.
• It’s tough to mow grass along a drop-off.


Set the shovel blade against the turf, aligned with the twine along one edge of the new planting bed. Aim the shovel blade straight into the turf. This may mean angling the handle well forward (away from you). Then push down firmly with the ball of your foot. You may need to stomp on the shovel several times to get it to cut into the soil. (Hold the top of the handle firmly in position while you’re pushing the shovel into the ground with your foot.) Cut along the entire length of one side of the new bed—or cut all the way around the perimeter since you’re going to do that eventually anyway.



Step into the garden bed, turn around, and cut a line parallel to and about a foot away from the first line you cut. Each time you cut the blade into the turf, lower the shovel’s handle (pull it toward you and down) so that it pries the turf up off of the underlying soil. If the sod doesn’t come up easily, you may need to cut the shovel in deeper and pry again.

Notice how the existing lawn acts as a fulcrum, turning the shovel’s blade into a lever. Exploit this by working your way backward across the planting bed you’re creating.

• The edge of the lawn along the garden bed will break down as you step and kneel on it.
• Being a low spot in the yard, an in-ground planting bed may collect water during heavy rain; a wet season could result in failed crops.
• Weeds and other plants that propagate through stolons and rhizomes can easily cross the line between an in-ground planting bed and the adjacent lawn.

Peel the sod off of the soil. This may be easiest if you cut perpendicular lines between the parallel cuts you’ve already made… but if you start at the side border of the new planting bed where you’ve already made a cut, the sod should come up in large pieces that tear away from each other easily. There’s a lot of nutrition in the sod, so add it to your compost pile… preferably grass-side-down.

As you work the soil and amend it (add stuff to improve the soil’s characteristics) in a new planting bed, it’ll mound up a bit and be nearly even with the soil supporting the lawn. However, the planting bed will settle in time, and stepping in the bed will compact it; it will never be even with the lawn until you add back as much soil as you removed.

Raised Planting Beds

An in-ground planting bed is simple to describe and easy to create. The alternative raised bed is only a little trickier. A raised bed offers several advantages over a traditional in-ground planting bed… but it also introduces some minor challenges. We’ll explore raised bed gardens in the next post, and look at at least one technique you can use to build your own raised planting beds. In later posts we’ll talk about amending soil and otherwise preparing a new bed so it’ll be ready to go in the spring.

When you finish one pass across the planting bed, make a second pass, cutting a line parallel to the first swath, prying the sod away from the soil, and peeling the sod out. Eventually, you’ll have a hole in your lawn that provides stark contrast to the green grass (and dandelions).

Technorati Tags: cutting sod, design, layout, plan, planning, planting bed

Perrenials fill two traditional farmyard planting beds: asparagus on the left and raspberries on the right.

I can’t tell you exactly how to build your small kitchen garden. That’s because I don’t know exactly what conditions you face as you make your plan. There are a few design considerations to have in mind as you make decisions about how to build your own planting beds.

How Big Your Bed?

Forget, for the moment, the soil conditions at the location you’ve chosen for your new planting bed. More importantly: how much space are you going to convert into a small kitchen garden?

A square that is 10 feet by 10 feet can hold 7 crowded rows of vegetables with 18 inches between rows. For plants that require little space—radishes, beets, carrots, lettuce, spinach, peppers, and beans, for example—you can get away with such crowding… but you’ll be wiggling between rows when the plants are full-grown.

You might crowd larger plants such as tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, to two feet… but again, you’ll be hard-pressed to find places for your feet when you’re in the garden.

Do You Need to be In Your Garden?

Here’s the key question in choosing a layout for a small kitchen garden: Do you need to be in your planting beds? A traditional vegetable garden on a country farm is a ploughed area in the yard. If it runs 100 feet by 30 feet (modest for someone to live off of year-round), then someone needs to walk in it to till it, plant it, weed it, and harvest from it. But, if you’re going small, perhaps you should design a garden with planting beds in which you never walk.

Walk Versus No-Walk Planting Beds

Here are characteristics of planting beds whose management requires that you walk in them. I’ve color-coded the characteristics where green=advantage, yellow=neutral, and red=disadvantage:

• They are generally more than three or four feet across at their shortest dimension
• You can easily use a power-tiller to turn the soil and mix in amendments.
• The soil gets compacted from regular traffic
• You must reserve tilled areas between planting areas where you can stand and walk while working the garden. This significantly reduces yield per square foot of tilled earth.
• You must manage the open spaces to keep down weeds
• There is enormous flexibility for how you arrange crops in the garden and for how you rotate crops from year-to-year.
• For the same total square footage of planting beds, it takes less fencing to protect a single large bed than to protect multiple smaller beds

Here are characteristics of planting beds you can manage without ever walking in them:

• Beds are no more than three to four feet across—two feet across if you can access them from only one side.
• A small kitchen garden of no-walk beds typically has several adjacent planting beds with room to walk between them and work them from all sides. If multiple beds aren’t an option, then a long, narrow bed provides the most versatility for rotating crops from season-to-season.
• For equal areas of tilled soil, you need far more space for no-walk planting beds than for planting beds in which you walk… but remember: you can grow far more per square foot in a no-walk planting bed than in one where you must walk to work the garden.
• Without someone pressing down on it, the soil doesn’t get compacted quickly. That makes it easier to work when you’re amending, planting, and weeding.
• Areas between planting beds can be lawn, permanent mulch, paving, or other easily-maintained surfaces.
• A no-walk bed can support far more plants per square foot than a large planting bed can. Consider: In a bed that’s only 18 inches wide, you can plant a row of vegetables near each boundary of the bed—you don’t need to get between the rows.

In a traditional in-ground planting bed, it can be difficult to distinguish where the yard ends and the garden begins.

Cutting-in a Planting Bed

I’m sure I’ve overlooked several notable characteristics of both walk- and no-walk planting beds. Please chime in if you want to share pet peeves about your planting beds, or identify advantages I’ve missed.

My next post will explain (with photos) how to lay out and cut-in a traditional farmer’s-style planting bed in your yard. In later posts, we’ll talk about differences between these traditional in-ground planting beds and the somewhat more European raised beds.

Technorati Tags: design, layout, plan, planning, planting bed, planting beds, raised bed