Dear
Gardeners,
We had a really wonderful “class”
with an amazing amount of great information on all the essentials of gardening with our own very experienced gardener and
world traveled teacher, Tarn Taran Kaur last Saturday, Nov. 4, 2006—along with her gracious serving of Yogi Tea! This write up is now posted at www.sirigian.com/tarntaran.html
Here are the main resources that
she uses and highly recommended:
BOOKS
Rainwater Harvesting from Drylands, by Brad Lancaster, Rainwater Press, Tucson, 2006. This
describes how to best preserve and use the little rainwater that we have by molding the earth around your plants, terracing,
creating runoff waterways, etc. to capture and hold the water—also called permaculture, dry farming, or non-irrigated
gardening. http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/
Lasagna Gardening, by Patricia Lanza, Rodale Press, Emmaus,
PA, 1998. Ingenious and easy method
of layering in organic material to create great soil! http://www.amazon.com/Lasagna-Gardening-Layering-Bountiful-Digging/dp/0875969623/sr=8-1/qid=1162767722/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4866474-8403038?ie=UTF8&s=books
Planning Your Garden: A Practical Guide to Designing and Planting Your Garden, by Peter McHoy, Hermes House, Anness Publishing, Inc., NYC, 2002. Sensible, beautiful and practical approach to designing your garden.
http://www.amazon.com/Planning-Your-Garden-Practical-Designing/dp/0754801187/sr=1-8/qid=1162767838/ref=sr_1_8/103-4866474-8403038?ie=UTF8&s=books
OTHER
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Tarn Taran Kaur, 747-7411, ttkkhalsa@kiit.com
www.Gardeners.com All kinds of useful stuff for
the garden such as solar pumps for your water feature, compost containers, and so much more.
Although their full name is “Gardeners Supply,” this is the site that Tarn Taran so whole heartedly uses!
Garcia Landscape Materials in Velarde, 505-852-2569. They deliver
topsoil, which is rich in mushroom compost (full truckload of 6 cubic yards, $230), plus many other ground materials such
as gravel, stone, manure, etc. You can split a truckload, which would split the
cost of delivery—about $40, or get a partial truckload and pay full delivery.
High Country Gardens (with catalog) which is
part of Santa Fe Greenhouses for xeriscape plants, garden material and knowledge. 505-473-2700
Plants of the Southwest on Agua Fria is probably the best source of native plants,
and may send us speakers. 505-538-8888
Ecoversity on Agua Fria may come to give us presentations, and can tell us about
creating permaculture with cisterns, swells, terraces, etc.
Seeds of Change—local grower of organic seeds. Ravi Kaur, teacher
may be able to arrange a visit there for us in the future!
The Viga making place near the DreamCatcher Cinema—free wood shaving mulch, and perhaps sawdust for composting.
Tarn Taran Kaur’s Gardening Class!
The first thing she asked us
was “Why do we garden?” What a revelation!
We answered things such as, we
enjoy being in the garden, exercise, beauty, get good things to eat and save $$, shade, grounding, be in the earth, get dirty,
touch the Earth, give back to Earth by creating a place for more living things—plants, birds and animals, improves your
property value, etc.
Tarn Taran Kaur emphasized that
having a passion for gardening is really a wonderful part of her life, and she has been at it since she was a child. It seems to be in her nature! She said
that the most important thing is to LOVE gardening! She has been working her
current amazing garden for 6 years now, and started from scratch!
PLANNING YOUR GARDEN. You don’t have to complete every project
all at once, but it is good to make a basic plan before you start.
Each of these aspects becomes
a foundation for your garden.
When planning your garden,
imagine all the ways that you want to use it, e.g. to sit in, for beauty, get things to eat, make it take care of itself,
children playing in your garden, entertain in it, privacy, and consider your physical limitations (bad back, etc.). This is your first basic step! What do you want your garden
to provide for you and your family?
- Where
do you like to stand, sit or read in your yard/garden, and work that into your plan.
- Views!
Plan
your garden so that your views from your house are great—go to each window and imagine what you want to see there. And so you might not plant a tree in front of a window. Also plan the views in and from your garden.
Allergies to anything you
grow, neighbors—hide their eyesores or open to their gardens, street, cars, electrical lines, open to vistas, etc.
- Do
you own or rent? How much money and labor you are willing to put into your
garden. If you rent, can you do “take it with you” projects?
- Visualize
and feel yourself in your proposed garden: manifest your dream!
Get a Garden Notebook to
sketch your proposed garden, collect ideas, pricing, etc.
Collect pictures of things
you like from magazines, etc. and paste them in your notebook, or use an expandable file to sort and save them.
Get ideas from other people’s
gardens, from nurseries—staff and plants, public gardens, design and how-to books and magazines, etc.
Plant your garden in your
mind FIRST!
Plan your hardscape (patio,
walls, arbors, gates, paths, ponds, major water features, built in benches, etc.) in your mind. Her walls cut down on the drying wind, keep the tumbleweed out, and keep out nibbling rabbits.
Draw up your vision again
and again.
- Draw
up your basic layout but allow for organic development and spontaneous creativity.
- Investigate
plants that thrive in our alkaline soil and harsh weather. When digging in
our soil, you might like to use a bandana over your nose and mouth.
- Make
notes in your notebook through the seasons—how the light and shade falls, what the winds are, how cold or hot it
gets, what your existing trees and plants are doing, how the water flows through your property, etc.
- Be
aware of the microclimates on your property—different areas with their own unique characteristics, such as sunnier,
windy, wet/dry, shady, cold, etc. and plan your gardens with plants that would thrive in each condition. Consider that we are in the USDA designated Zone 5 that generally describes the conditions in this part
of the country. Plants and seeds are usually rated according to those zones for
best outcomes.
Where is it?
You may want plumbing to
water hydrants laid around your garden so that you don’t have to drag your hoses.
Plan your irrigation system
before you put in your garden. And group plants with similar water needs together. Plants with more water needs should be planted near the house.
Where is it?
Do you need to put in new
outlets in your garden for lights, fountains, etc? Or you may use solar pumps
and lights that don’t need an electric supply. (Solar lights are usually
dimmer than electric lights.)
- Consider
different approaches to gardening, even in different areas, such a Lasagna Gardening (coming up next!) or permaculture—see
the book listed at the beginning, “Harvesting Rainwater from Drylands.”
- Prepare
the Earth as described in the following sections.
- Then
comes the fun of welcoming plants into your garden!
- Maintain
a plan or schedule for watering. Continue to review your plan as conditions
change.
- Enjoy!!
LASAGNA GARDENING—so named because it is layered with different organic materials—creating compost
in place, which does not have to be turned over. Compost is all important when
trying to grow things in our alkaline, organic poor soil because organic material provides nutrients and holds water. And since this lasagna gardening puts the organic material on top of the ground, you
only have to dig when you are planting, eliminating the heavy digging part of preparing the soil. What a concept!
You don’t have to be a
fanatic to get this lasagna gardening just right. The object is to feed the soil
which feeds your plants!
Raised Beds
This layering works very well
especially with small area raised beds, which are actually easier on your back when working them. She has beds that are contained by very attractive short adobe walls, and she was creating some new raised
beds bordered with railroad ties. This creates pathways between the raised beds.
Organic Material/Composting
Plants need food—organic
material, light and heat from the sun, plus adequate regular watering in order to thrive!
They also need sunlight and heat. Healthy plants are more resistant to
disease, grow stronger, and can handle the environmental stress of heat and cold better.
In addition to composting providing
valuable organic material for the garden, it also gives back to the Earth and reduces the garbage in land fills.
Tarn Taran Kaur gets a load of
topsoil from Garcia Landscape Materials every spring, plus she makes compost piles.
She especially enjoys the drawer compost container, and another member really liked their rotating drum composter. Other ways to compost are in a container without a drawer and an old fashioned pile.
She suggested that we get really
creative about getting organic material to compost, such as kitchen scraps from our home, restaurants, and lungar—but
no oil, protein, tofu, cooked food or dairy. These draw rats and other animals.
You can even use leaves, paper
(not shiny coated), etc., and a load of leaves was delivered while we were there! You
can put heavier carbons (mulch, sticks, bark, newspaper, etc.) at the bottom of your compost pile.
At www.Gardeners.com, you can get kitchen scrap bags that look and act like plastic, but they are
made from vegetable starch and eventually decompose in your compost.
Don’t put weeds or other
plants with seeds on them in your compost pile. If you do, they may sprout wherever
you put the compost. Instead, burn them.
You need a burn permit to do this, which you can get from your county fire marshal’s office. And only use straw that specifically has no seeds for mulch, etc. for the same reason. Hay is animal food and has seeds in it.
Raghurai Kaur told us about her
“vermaculture,” working with worms!
She keeps boxes in the house for kitchen scraps that the worms eat, and their casings (poop) are really high in nutrients. It doesn’t smell a bit and creates great dirt!
Worms in the garden also aerate the soil, providing oxygen and loosen it, making it easier for roots to grow and get
water. Tarn Taran Kaur said that worms just show up in her garden!
Lasagna Layering in the
Fall.
- First
thoroughly soak the ground with water.
- Then
lay down a barrier layer with things such as uncoated paper (newspaper)—worms love it, flattened cardboard boxes, paper
bags that will keep down the weeds and eventually disintegrate.
- Next
lay down sticks, small branches, thick stalks such as sunflower stems—nothing is wasted!
- Then
begin laying down several layers alternating between “brown” and “green” organic material that will
decay. You can do this for as many layers as you want, but a total of about 4
layers of each may be optimum.
BROWN—carbon such
as dried leaves, manure, composted material, sawdust, uncoated paper, napkins, toilet paper rolls, etc. Mulch and bark are harder to break down, so this is not the best choice here.
GREEN—nitrogen such
as kitchen scraps, grass clippings, etc.
- Completely
water the pile.
- Cover
the whole thing with black plastic.
During the winter, occasionally
pull the plastic back and water down the whole pile, perhaps with a sprinkler, and this also lets in air. Both are essential to decomposition. Then the whole pile gets
cooked down by the sun. Worms are drawn to the pile, and by spring, you are ready
to plant in good organic earth. In the spring, if you find that some thick things
have not decomposed, such as a corn cob, then just throw it away.
Kartar Singh (Gurbani Kaur) has
micro-organisms for sale that accelerate the composting process.
WATERING METHODS—the varieties are:
- Sprinkler—not
effective for here because it evaporates so much. But they are good for some
things.
- Soaker
hose—porous black hose, made from recycled tires. Water seeps out of
the hose all along its surface. They look like rough, black garden hoses. She uses them for her vegetable gardens and flower beds.
She puts them about 2”
under the ground to give water to plants’ root systems, and to reduce evaporations—a real challenge here. Be careful not to accidentally cut or puncture these underground hoses when working
with tools in your garden.
And when creating your
lasagna garden that is in the compost stage, you can put soaker hoses on top of the pile.
In the spring, she takes
them out of the soil, runs water through them to clean them and check for damage so she can replace what needs it. But she has used these for 5 years, and she never digs up some of them. They seem to be fine.
To place them in her vegetable
garden, she lays the soaker hoses along the rows on each side of her plants—about 6” away. These rows and hoses are parallel.
Then to feed water to the
parallel soaker hoses, she uses a solid irrigation hose that is perpendicular to the same end of all the soakers. This is jointed with the soaker hoses at the intervals where they intersect with special 3 way outlet hose
joints.
- Rainwater—she
collects it as it falls off the house in a system of underground pipes. She will
eventually store it in cisterns when she gets them, but they are expensive.
- Drip
irrigation uses special irrigation hoses that are laid in place on or under the ground.
These hoses may be solid or have small holes in them to allow water to flow out.
Then you can puncture that feeder hose and insert smaller hoses off that line to water individual plants a number of
feet away from the main hose. You can also put “emitters” at the
ends of these small hoses that control the flow of water. This system is especially
good for plants that are further apart.
Smaller plants can be on
drip with a regulator, but trees need more water, so do not use a regulator.
Parts are available at
Hacienda, (Lowe’s), or www.Gardeners.com .
Tarn Taran Kaur showed us one
of her water sources—a handle-hydrant in the garden that has attachments that form multiple faucets from the main hydrant
so that she can attach a number of different hoses to the same main water outlet.
Then all of her watering attachments
are on timers where she can stagger the timing and as well as the length and time of day that various things are watered. Each outlet gets its own timer and turn off valve.
The timers are battery operated. But you still have to keep watch to be
sure that your plants are getting the right amounts of water, e.g. when it rains, is very hot or windy, etc. She takes these timers inside during the winter.
Water your garden in the mornings
rather than the evenings because that is the time that the plants are cool and open to the dew. Later they close up so that they don’t loose so much moisture to the sun. It may be better to water lawns in the evening.
Water for about 30 minutes at
a time. In the winter, water every 2 to 3 weeks, especially if we don’t
get sufficient snow or rain. Monthly, give everything a good soaking.
In summer, water 1 to 2 times
per week, and more often if it is hot and/or windy.
PLANNING
HOW TO PLANT
Review your plan, and know what
you want your garden to provide for you and your family. Look at your drawings
and fully considered ideas. Layout your garden, build your hardscape, lay your
water and electricity lines, and create your lasagna gardens. Do just one portion
at a time so that you don’t get overwhelmed. Then choose your plants carefully
to fit the plan.
Please be compassionate with
yourself, you will lose some plants. The universe is also changing—living
and dying.
In deciding on where to place
your plants, consider its needs. Where is the water source, sun, wind, animals
(rabbits, ground squirrels, dogs, cats)?
When planting fruit trees, you
can choose a variety of trees that will give fruit at various times during the year—spread your fruit out so that you
don’t have lots of fruit all at once, and none at other times. (The same
goes for keeping some flowering plants blooming all season.)
Plant Propagation
Save your seeds for next year! It is cheaper, and you can repeat your joy!
She gave us seeds from her garden—marigolds, yellow bushy flowers from France, etc. Other seeds that are
easily collected are sunflowers and zinnias.
In the fall, when plants dry
out and they make a seed head, put your dried seeds in baggies and save them for next spring.
Or you can take nearly dry pods in the house to finish drying. It is good
to collect these seed heads before the seeds drop to the ground, because in the spring you will have lots of little plants
coming up in one place rather than where you want them. Although you can transplant
these little guys as they come up.
Also, you can take the seeds
out of your tomatoes or squash, put them on a paper towel, let them dry and then plant the seeds along with the towel that
they are stuck to in the spring. These seeds will be good to plant for several
years, although the number of seeds that will germinate diminishes over time.
Then, with annuals, you don’t
have to pull them all up in the fall. You can cut the plant off and compost it,
while leaving the roots in the ground to decay there.
To propagate sage, you can “bend
and bury” it. While it is growing, you can take a long stem and bend it
over so that part of the stem lies on the ground (without breaking the stem). Then
with a big hairpin, bent wire or irrigation hose pin, you pin the stem on the ground.
That part of the stem will then grow its own roots and create its own plant!
With that, you can sever the original stem from the mother plant and transplant the new plant anywhere you want it.
Lambs ear has light green, fuzzy
lambs’ ear shaped leaves that grow close to the ground. It is quite hardy
here and spreads easily. You can dig up extra plants, divide them and transplant
or share them with others.
When planting, don’t forget
that everything gets bigger! So, follow planting directions for distance apart
so that they are not crowded when mature, even though they may look sparse in your garden when young.
Planting
Dig your hole in a place that
will work for that plant—does it thrive in sunny, shady, windy, etc. Then
water your hole thoroughly! For flowers, fill the hole once and let the water
soak out, then plant. For trees, fill your hole twice and let it soak out each
time.
Next step is to amend your pile
of dirt that you took out of the hole. You can mix in gypsum or pearlite to hold
water and to keep the soil softened. Then mix in nutrients such as compost, topsoil,
“yum yum mix” from Santa Fe Greenhouses, or other fertilizers. Put
this amended soil in the hole around the roots of your plant to half fill up the hole.
At this point, soak the dirt
and roots thoroughly. The dirt will sink down.
Then fill up the remainder of the hole with the rest of the dirt. On the
surface, you may form the dirt into a basin (with a hilled up dam around the edge of the circle) to hold water better (permaculture). And then thoroughly water the dirt again to “settle” it—sink the
dirt in around the roots of your plant.
GARDENING
SEASON BY SEASON
Fall
- Enjoy
the harvest
- Plant
for winter vegetables
- Plant
trees and perennials
- Clear
up from summer growth
- Prepare
garden beds for fall. COMPOST!
- Collect
seeds for next planting and store in a dry, cool location
- Plant
bulbs for spring color and enjoyment.
Winter
- Walk
your garden and turn into the winter manifestation
- Plan
your garden: order seeds, draw up beds
- Decide
what trees, plants you will plant
- Water
every 2-3 weeks trees and new planted trees and perennials
Spring
- Trim
trees and bushes
- Start
seedlings indoors
- Prepare
beds for planting
- Plant
with frost timing (May 15 is generally the last time it frosts here)
Summer
- Water
- Shade
required
- Continue
to reseed greens, some herbs and vegetables
WALKING
TOUR OF HER GARDEN!
Tarn Taran Kaur took us outside
and showed us all kinds of ingenious things!
The beautiful hardscape that
she designed includes areas of paths, steps, beds raised inside lovely adobe walls, an all around the perimeter taller protective
wall with handsome gates, terraced vegetable beds and patios with tables and seating.
In the vegetable garden, she
has made a creative “cold frame,” which is something to keep the frost off small plants while letting in light
and heat. This one was fabricated from a wood palate with some cross bars removed,
and clear plastic wrapped around it. This structure was then leaned against a
garden wall to provide a triangle of space under it. Here she had planted some
young winter hardy vegetables.
Also, she had ordered a pre-manufactured
thigh-high “green house’ from www.Gardeners.com. It is made with metal framing
holding 8 mm polycarbonate (cell-like structure) walls and sliding roof to regulate heat, air circulation, and to give access. Thinner walls disintegrate too quickly. And,
of course since she does this because she wants fresh veggies all year round, she has planted cool loving short crops such
as lettuce, potent arugala and chard.
For additional help to keep her
plants from freezing, she may put in a heater, put in Christmas lights that give a little heat, or stones or straw that will
retain heat from the sun during the freezing night. You can also put Christmas
lights in your fruit trees, so that when they start to bloom, you can provide a little heat to ward off untimely frost that
would destroy the flowers and leave you with no fruit for the season.
