Here we go! Life with the Shibaguyz…

Let the tours begin!  Here is our first photo tour of our shiny new P-Patch.  After a year and a half on the wait list, we were finally given our own little 10×10 plot to call our own.  How exciting!!  In addition, we will sharing the garden manager position with one of our fellow P-Patchers this year helping to build our little gardening community.

So, without further delay…  here we go…

This is a long shot of part of our P-Patch.  That’s me there standing by the wall where our plot is located.  I’m talking to Atlas who just leapt up on the wall…

… like this… He just had to be in charge.  Actually, what he’s doing is watching the other gardener down at another plot.  Every vigilant!

Apollo, on the other hand, was having none of this.  He kept looking at me like he was wondering why we were here when we could be up the street at our own home basking in the sun.  Can’t say I blame him.  This was one of the warmest days we’ve had in a month.

Before.  Even though our plot looked a little rough, at least the former gardener was gracious enough to clean out the bed and put down cardboard to keep down weeds over the winter.  Not IDEAL for cultivating proper microbes in the soil but it was better than the one you can see to the left that was buried DEEP in weeds.  Thank you whoever you were!!

After!  TAADAA!! Mind you, this was a couple of hours later as you can tell from the long shadows.  The Shibaboyz were MOSTLY content to lay in the sun on the leaf mulch in the bed next to ours while we worked.

What we did is a different version of our usual biointensive gardening that involves trenches to create an in-ground raised bed.  The method you have seen us use in The Jungle is biotintensive gardening where we double dig and turn organic compost into the layers of the soil to build a healthier growing layer and promote DEEP root development.  The result is about two feet of light, airy soil perfect for planting.

In this case, our soil was in GREAT shape with a perfect amount of topsoil, sand and organic material to make an urban farmer’s dream.  One gardener we spoke to on this day said lettuce and tomatoes just seemed to jump up out of the ground once planted to the point where every bed was heavy with produce with plenty to share… that’s what we’re looking for!!  WOOHOO!!

With such good soil, we decided to just loosen it up with a fork and see how far down this wonder soil extended… a little over a foot was the limit.  The under soil was an odd mix of gray clay and sand.  It looked like someone had designed the beds with the idea of breaking up the clay using sand worked into it.  With this reality facing us, we knew this shallow soil would not support good root crops and would certainly not produce the giants of The Jungle’s tomato specimens.  We quickly came up with a plan.

Utilizing our combined brain trust on different gardening techniques, we decided raised beds would be one way to go but then we’d have to truck in compost… nope!  Not the frugal option we were looking for.  As inexpensive as bulk compost can be, why bother if you can do without.  Instead, what we decided to do was use the topsoil we already had available and dig trenches around and through our plot ala the French Intensive school of thought.

Since we were going to have to create paths to walk into the plot anyway, we figured why cover up perfectly good soil with stones?  Instead, we dug the topsoil from the paths we were planning on making and created trenches.  What this resulted in was raising our beds by a little over six inches giving us a total depth of two feed of light, rich soil to plant in.  WOOHOO!!

What we ended up with were these GREAT raised beds with deep trenches for working in.  The bonus here: less bending and stooping while gardening AND we have a very well defined plot that folks are not likely to trample on.  Jason is six feet tall and the section he is standing is in the most shallow part to allow us to reach more of the middle and corners.  Even in this shallow section, the trench is up to his knees.

Sitting here thinking about it, I’m sure we will go back (tomorrow!) and put a little fence around it.  Jason made the horrid observation just as we were leaving that it looked like a couple of burial plots!!  GOOD GRIEF!!  Okay… I’ll admit… it was funny… just don’t tell him I thought it was funny or he’ll run with it for MONTHS!!  LOL

Our trench is dug in the shape of an “E” with no meaning to it… that’s just what turned out after we laid out the best access route.  The resulting arch shape of our bed is how we’ll guide you through the planting plan here.  Starting at the far left side of the picture at the bottom of the arch (or the top of the “E”… whatever you see first) you can see little indentations in the soil made by laying out our shovel handles to denote our planting areas.

Starting at the first of these over there is an area of loose leaf lettuce green.

Next is Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach then more lettuce followed by another spinach.

At the very top next to the wall is Purple Curly Basil.

At the top of the arch next to the wall is a bed of yellow onions.

The top of the right side of the arch is a planting of wide leaf basil.

Not pictured here because we transplanted them today – Monday (these pictures are from Sunday), are four Early Dividend Broccoli we overwintered in a four gallon pot.  They were starting to break their dormancy so I wanted to get them in the ground quickly to prevent any shock to the roots.

Moving down the right side of the arch are a WHOLE BUNCH of sugar snap peas.  YUMMY!!  We’re not certain yet if we’ll be using these as stir fry and salad greens with another planting after or if we’ll just let ‘em grow up to full size and put branches between them to trellis themselves… decisions… decisions…

Finally, at the bottom right of the arch is another bed of loose leaf lettuce greens.

In the top left corner of the picture are a stand of raspberries.  We have no idea what type they are or what cycle they fruit on but we decided to keep a few of them.  The hardest work we did this whole day was digging out all those little primocanes.  The raspberries were allowed to grow unchecked for what looked like a few years (at least four from what we could read of the cuttings) and have pretty much taken over most of the plots around us.  As long as they don’t mind… we don’t mind.  We figure they will make a nice snack while we are working.

Yes, Atlas, we can go home now...

We know, Apollo, you're MORE THAN ready to go home...

What a great first planting day!  If you don’t have a space of your own or if you need to supplement your space to grow more food to keep you further away from the commercial food grid, a P-Patch is the way to go.  That shed you see in the background is a FULLY stocked tool shed with compost, organic fertilizers, gloves, every tool known to humans, wheelbarrows and a cool bulletin board system on the inside of the doors to keep track of announcements, work party sheets and inventory.  We didn’t have to bring a thing but our coffee, our favorite gloves, seeds and the Shibaboyz.

This is definitely a luxury for us and we feel very fortunate our city has such an extensive P-Patch gardening program for our neighborhoods.  Be sure to click on the links throughout this post to see information on our plot as well as the impressive map of plots all around the area.  If you have a program in your area, check ‘em out and get on the list… whattaya got to loose?  This is small-space gardening in a fun, community-based setting.  They even have potlucks and parties at the garden in the great sheltered area on the edge of the trail along Longfellow Creek.

We were both a little sore today and a little tired last night… but MAN it is worth it!

This is the first tour of our new urban farming spaces.  The plan is by the end of the week to have visited them all and at least gotten them cleared off and ready for planting this weekend.  We’ll see how it goes and we’ll keep you posted every shovel and seed along the way.

It’s off to bed for this Shibaguy as tomorrow is my last Master Gardener class and our graduation!!  WOOHOO!!  Next up… I start Master Recycling Composting classes near the end of April for a month.  More fun in the dirt!!  Well… more fun making soil!!

talk to you soon…
The Shibaguyz