NakedCity Wichita

mothering earth

Posted on 02. Apr, 2010 by Seth in op-ed

words > CRAIG AINSWORTH

portrait > DUSTIN CRAIG

Green is the color of Wichita. Blooming flowers, singing birds, warm days and stormy nights… the time has come to slide into flip-flops and play in the dirt. With spoon, shovel, finger, or foot, we must now plunge into the earth and leave our seed. Like the children of today must do for the children of tomorrow, our turn has come to prepare the legacy that was left to us from our forefathers.

April is a time of sunny days and extreme weather. The warm sunny days in early April are a wonderful time to finish the preparation of your vegetable beds. Last month the spots for new gardens were chosen and the area was tilled for the first time. Cole Crops were planted in existing beds, and soil samples were extracted from new and old gardens. These samples were then taken to the Sedgwick County Extension Office for analyzation. Based on the report you received from the Extension Office, you should know what organic materials are needed to enrich your soil; add the recommended amount of materials to your beds, then till your garden a second time so that you can equally distribute the organics throughout your garden. As the chance of frost dissipates toward the end of the month, we will begin seeding and planting our vegetables. We will also keep a close eye on the weather to prepare for spring showers and late frosts.

For more information on picking a spot, soil care, or Cole plants, search “Gardening” at nakedcitywichita.com.

Wichita gardens typically shouldn’t be planted until the end of April, unless special precautions are taken to accommodate for the probability of frost. I typically sow my seed and plant seedlings within a day or two of my birthday (or around Tax day, April 15th). However, the chance of frost in our area can linger until after the 20th of April and freezing temperatures will quickly kill plants. Last year we had a late frost that happened just as the Redbud and Dogwood trees were blooming, which killed all of the buds and new leaves. Thankfully, about a month later, they decided to bloom again.

When the chance of frost is gone it is time to plant. At this point organization and understanding are very important. Even small spaces can produce impressive yields of crops if cultivated properly. When you are deciding where to put your plants, first learn about what you are going to grow. The simplest and easiest way to begin learning about the plants is to read the package that they come in. The size and amount of foliage should be taken into account, as well as the seed depth and suggested space between plants. Learning if
the plant

will self-pollinate or cross-pollinate will also come in handy. Tomato plants will do fine if single plants are left to grow by themselves, whereas plants like corn, squash, and zucchini need to be grown in a cluster so that the pollen can be mixed and each plant can be seeded by the other plants around them. Be aware that squash and zucchini will cross-pollinate with cucumbers and other plants in the same family; cross-pollination will result in an unintended hybrid crop that can sometimes be difficult to use. Organizing your plants by height is also very important. Remember that the sun will come in from the south, so plant your taller crops to the north end of your garden. An example of this would be to plant your tomatoes behind the squash, as I have grown tomato plants that were over 10ft tall (Celebrity variety) and my squash plants normally don’t normally reach more than 2-3ft. Sometimes measuring the dimensions of your garden and then drawing them out on a piece of graph paper can help you visualize the space you are working with.

Once your space is planted, you need to water. When watering your new plants, make sure you are aware of how much water you use – too much water and your plants will drown, too little and your plants will dry up. The trick is to think about brownies. Think about a hot, fresh, perfectly baked pan of brownies just coming out of the oven. When you stick a toothpick into the pan the top does not crumble, and when you pull it out there is no batter stuck to it. The same is true for perfectly watered soil: when you stick your finger in, it should feel soft and moist but it should not stick when you pull out.

If you would like to plant your garden a little early to get a jump on the growing season, like I do, make sure you pay close attention to weather reports. Local meteorologists are pretty good about warning gardeners and farmers when there is a chance of frost. Garden thermometers are also wonderful tools for evaluating local temperatures. Wait until you have about a week of warm days and nights so your plants can get acclimated to their new environment. If there is chance of frost, creating a mini-greenhouse effect around your young plants can help protect them from the cold. You can buy various styles of water filled insulators at your local garden center. However, when I was young, we used to cut the top off of a two or three liter bottle, then slip the bottom over the small plants. (These can be saved and used for container gardening later.) Sheets of plastic, old plastic bags, five gallon buckets, or camping tarps can create the same desired effect for larger areas or bigger plants.  Just cover the plants, make sure there is no draft, and simply hold the plastic down with rocks or bricks so it does not blow away. This works because you are capturing the released heat that was stored in the earth from the sunlight during the day, and then using it to maintain temperatures above freezing at night. Another potential threat to your garden in the springtime can be hail. After frost, hail can be one of the most destructive forces to your garden. But like frost, hail has an easy and similar remedy. All that is needed is to keep the hail from reaching the plants. You can cover your plants and prevent damage by using blankets, tarps, or sheets of plastic that are supported from within by shovels, tomato cages, or any other make shift frame. The frame for the covering is used so that the material is not laid directly on the plants. The space between the covering and the plants allows your plants to keep from becoming indirectly battered and bruised. However, if you’re short on time, throwing a blanket directly on your tomato plant will save more of your crop than nothing at all.

What you want to grow and how many plants you need are also good things to consider. Plants sometimes die, or are eaten by local wild life; sometimes plants are accidentally broken or just don’t want to grow. To be sure that you will have an adequate harvest, make sure you plant a few extra. For example: for every plant that you want to harvest plant three. “The first plant is for the wild life, the second plant is for the weather, and the third plant is for you,” is something my father would say. I have always followed this formula and every year I have ended up with an adequate harvest. When you are choosing plants to grow, try to talk with your neighbors and see what they are growing. Maybe even discuss sharing produce (if they are growing zucchini, you could plant cucumbers), as this will allow you to both have a higher yield and use a smaller space, as well as allowing for a more diverse variety of crops at everyone’s disposal.

Another idea to consider is to try to get your entire neighborhood involved in gardening. Pass out flyers and knock on doors, inviting everyone to a local meeting place so that they can discuss gardening strategies for your whole neighborhood. Allow the neighborhood to choose what they want to grow by brainstorming and then voting on it. Discuss the gardening methods that the community wants to engage in (i.e. with or without pesticides or petrol chemicals), and then have volunteers choose which plants they want to propagate. Encourage everyone to grow one garden for themselves and one for the neighborhood. Neighborhood gardeners could also have weekly meetings to discuss progress and address potential gardening concerns, as well as share tips and tricks. When neighbors work together in their local community, the amount of produce that can be grown can be much more than what is needed for everyone that participated in gardening. This allows extra veggies for those who might not have had the opportunity to grow their own. Another option for extra produce is preservation by pickling, canning, drying, or freezing. Produce preservation will be discussed in future issues.

With the amount of land that every neighborhood has in Wichita, there is no reason why any of us should need to go to the grocery store for produce in the summertime. If we garden our land instead of growing grass and shrubs, we can save money while creating stronger communities, maintaining a cleaner environment, and living healthier lives.

April is truly the green month. The fresh of breath air, which all the new foliage provides, is a welcome relief from the cool, dry air of winter. This is also the time of singing birds and beautiful flowers. It is the month of the Dogwood and Redbud tree, as well as wild storms and flashing lightning. Placing a seed into the ground and imagining what it will look like, what the fruit will taste like, or what the flower will smell like, is one of the most magical experiences a gardener can have. However, keep in mind that this is also the time of caution. Your young plants are at their most vulnerable during this time of their lives and must be taken care of like a child. Being a responsible and patient gardener now will be greatly satisfying and rewarding in the year to come.

If you have gardened before and have any tips, tricks or experiences that you would like to share with other gardeners, please check out nakedcitywichita.com and give us your thoughts.

Tags: garden, gardening, mother earth, plants, vegetables