Lawn > Water-wise meadow

The drought's no secret, folks. 

I'm not going to sit here and impress upon you all of the details, because I know you've heard them before (and if not, go here), instead I'm going to show you one way to save water while getting some money back for your efforts.

The only catch is that it does not involve vegetables. Read about saving water in the vegetable garden here.

It does, however, involve trading in your water-sucking lawn for a beautiful, serene and xeric meadow AFTER doing a few things with the county so that you can cash in on the rebates.

1. Check eligibility
Make sure that you're eligible for the rebates through Santa Clara County by looking through the details here. 

2. Call the county
Call Santa Clara County's Water Conservation Hotline (408-630-2554) and tell them that you want to participate in the Landscape Conversion Rebate Program.

3.  Get started with your design! 
The county has a list of approved plants so that you can find ones that work with your design. 

4. Gather your goods
Fall is the best time to do the planting so that fall rains (fingers crossed) can establish your new meadow, but you can do the lawn destruction this summer and get all of your materials chosen and on order or stockpiled between now and then.  

The installation process takes about four separate days (preferably spaced out across weekends with breaks in between to heal sore muscles - there's lots of hands on work here) and the following materials:

Sod cutter or flat blade shovel for removing sod
Weed blocking or tougher landscaping fabric
Fabric staples
Gorilla hair mulch
Rake
Grass plugs
Root dip
Bucket
Bulb tool
Wildflower seeds
Trowel
Carpet knife 

5. Use your lawn for mulch

 
For the first step, either rent a sod cutter or use a flat blade shovel to scrape your lawn into strips. Water the area well 12 hours before you start so it's soft enough for your shovel or sod cutter to cut easily. If you're using a sod cutter, be sure you're strong enough to handle the monster.

Once you've cut your grass away from the soil in strips, flip it over and lay grass side down on the soil to be used as planting material for the plugs.

6. Put down weed blocking fabric

 
For this step, you'll need enough rolls of weed blocking or landscaping fabric to cover your space and fabric staples to hold it down. To be eligible for the rebates, this material must be air and water permeable, so no solid plastic mulch or anything like that.

Roll out fabric over your overturned lawn or newly bare soil, cut to cover and staple down as you go. Don't be stingy with the staples, either, you want this fabric to stay down.

7. Lay mulch

 
For this step, you'll need bark mulch (gorilla hair is good) in an amount equal to the cubic yardage of your space and allowing for at least a 2 inch depth.

Flip your rake over so that it's flat side down (no, really) and rake the mulch to an even layer over your weed blocking fabric. This will keep you from snagging holes in the fabric. Landscaping fabric is a bit tougher than weed blocking fabric, so this is a good choice if you're not usually gentle with the rake.

8. Plant grass plugs

 
For this step, you'll need enough grass plugs to cover your space based on 70 plugs for every 18 feet, root dip for the plugs, bulb tool or a trowel and a carpet knife or box cutter.

About 30 minutes before you begin planting, dissolve root dip in a bucket of water until it's the consistency of soupy oatmeal.

While the dip dissolves, lay the grass plugs evenly over the space to be planted, avoiding straight lines for a natural effect and scoring the plugs' root balls with your box cutter as you go, which will allow their roots to establish faster.

Once the dip dissolves, start at one corner of your space, move the grass plug aside, dig a small hole through the mulch and fabric to the depth of the plug, dip the plug in the solution coating it completely (this will help it retain water until it's established) and plant in the hole, compacting the surrounding soil lightly.

Repeat this until you've planted all the plugs and then water in all of your new plugs. Make sure to give them a good soak by watering thoroughly three times in the first day.

9. Plant wildflower seeds or other drought-tolerant plants

 
For this step, you'll need wildflower seeds in adequate amounts to cover your space, depending on how dense you want the flower coverage to be.

For a natural meadow effect, evenly spread wildflower seeds by the handful and water the entire space.

10. Water until it rains
Make sure to keep the soil from drying out by watering about once a week until the winter rains begin.

Come springtime, your plugs will put on new growth, early spring wildflowers will bloom and by summer you'll have a meadow where your lawn used to be. Water it if there's a hot spell, but otherwise it's fine without. You can give it a high mow before winter.

 
Maintenance
Even a meadow needs some maintenance, but it's far less than the weekly mowing and trimming you're used to with a lawn. In late spring, pull out spent wildflowers. In the fall, prune back overgrown meadow grasses or give them a high mow before winter. Prune and care for your non-meadow grass plants according to their needs.

SAVE SOME WATER, NOW. FOR REALS.

 

Remember when we were all, "Save some water, already"?

 

Yeah - well, now we're more like, "SAVE SOME WATER, NOW. FOR REALS."

 

You know about the drought. It's no secret. But what about your summer garden? Can you still grow food while conserving water? 

 

But, of course.

 

Here's our shortlist of water saving techniques for the vegetable garden. If you, say, also get rid of a water sucking lawn in the process, though, that wouldn't hurt.

 

*Excerpt from our coaching update*

#0 MULCH

Yeah, so there's not usually a #0, but what we're trying to say here is that

if you only do one thing to save water this summer, this is the thing - MULCH.

 

A 2" layer of bark or straw, black or green plastic, a single layer of cardboard, a few layers of newspaper, dense shade from low growing companion plants (nasturtium are totally pros at this) or densely spaced main crops (see #3 below) are the way to go. 

 

I'm naming the next farm dog, Mulch.

 

No sun on bare soil! For reals, now.

#1 Water smart

Install drip irrigation
This is one of the most effective ways to conserve water AND the best way to water your vegetable plants. Here's an all-in-one kit that will drip irrigate a 75 square foot garden area. Get nuts.

Check all of your irrigation and fix the broken bits
Test your system for leaks, clogged drip emitters, calcium encrusted manifolds (the big main head that all of your drip lines connect to) and missing bits and pieces that the naughty squirrels made off with during the winter. Then fix it and get to growing while saving water, already.

 

Plant in raised beds

Whether you construct raised garden beds from boards (just not treated railroad ties, please), concrete blocks, scrap metal or hay bales or just mound up soil a foot or two deep, raised beds help promote drainage, warm the soil faster, avoid compaction (you won't be as likely to walk on the raised part of the bed) and focus water at your plants' roots rather than indiscriminately *around* the plants. 

 

 

#2 Water like you mean it

Know your plants' water needs and then don't overdo it

Know what kind of watering condition your different vegetables like and go with that instead of blanket watering everything. Seriously. For instance, tomatoes like infrequent deep watering (think 3 days a week for 10-15 minutes) and lettuce likes consistent shallow watering (think daily or every other day for 5-10 minutes). 

If you can't provide specific watering conditions for each type of vegetable (I get it - we have automatic drip irrigation, too, and lots of different stuff planted together in the Test Garden), follow these four rules that will, generally, appeal to most of your warm weather crops:

1. Water deeply - This encourages deep root development.
2. Water infrequently -This keeps the soil from leaching nutrients below the plants' roots.
3. Water in the morning - This gives the plants a fighting chance of being able to take up the water before it evaporates in the hot sun and gives them the turgidity (upright strength) to power through the hottest parts of the day without flagging (falling the hell over).
4. Water at the roots and not on the leaves -This discourages disease and gets water to where the plant can use it. 

 

#3 Plant wisely

More IS better...in this case anyway

Sure, there are spacing requirements listed on your seed packets and seedling starts and such, and these are good guidelines for most situations, but when we're in a bind for water, resources and space, these requirements can be overly conservative. Instead, look for the "spread" or "width" size for the plants you're growing and plant to the edges of that area rather than including extra space. 

So, for example, tomato spacing is usually recommended at 30 inches (2 1/2 feet) between plants, but if your tomato plant's spread is 3 1/2 feet (or 1 3/4 feet on center), you can plant your tomato plants at 1 3/4' apart so that when the plants reach maturity, their leaves and branches will touch/overlap a bit and there'll hardly be a flicker of sunshine that hits that soil to dry up any moisture that exists.  

Cover seeds

Loosely cover germinating seeds with a floating row cover to keep the soil mo-ist enough for the seeds to germinate without risking them drying out.  Plus, it'll keep marauding birds from eating all your seed. Bonus!

No sun on bare soil! For reals, now.

The deal with companion planting

So, good call all you Facebooking Indie Farmers, on picking companion planting for today's blog post.

Cucumbers and nasturtium - they make the cutest couple

Companion planting is one of those topics that gets tossed around in gardeny circles and, like one of you said, brings with it some measure of "wizardry". And while wizardry is cool because it implies that there are awesome results involved, it also comes with a heavy dose of mystery and mystery is not helpful when you're trying to do something that produces an actual result.

We want to dispel mystery when it comes to vegetable gardening because we want you to grow lots of food and mystery does not put tomatoes on the vine, so to speak. So, let's keep the awesome results of companion planting and ditch the mysterious whimsy that can plague this useful practice.

We're not really into whimsy, is what I'm saying, but we are REALLY into growing food. So, there you go.

Why are we even doing this?
It's not because we like to make our lives complicated, that's for sure. It's also not because we think the vegetable garden needs prettying up. It's because we want to grow a lot of food and this is one thing we can do to help that along.

We use companion planting for a few main reasons:

1. To repel insect pests
2. To attract beneficials
3. To create some kind of helpful environment for your crops to grow

The most famous beneficial insect - The Aphid Monster, aka - ladybeetle.

You'll get other benefits from companion planting, like pretty scenery or cut flowers for bouquets, but if you want to focus on prettying up a space or filling your fancy vases, take your butt over to the perennial landscaping and wave your herbaceous paintbrush around where it'll be most useful. The vegetable garden is for growing vegetables.

How do we even do this?
One way to approach companion planting, and the way we do it, is to look at the crops we're growing and figure out what those crops need that a companion plant can give them.

So, in the case of cucumbers and other cucurbits, for example, we want to repel the marauding advances of the sap sucking cucumber beetle. You can use a row cover over the plants to keep the beetles from connecting with the plants until they start to flower and/or you can plant nasturtium which grow a lofty semi-dense cover of foliage and flowers around your cucumbers.

Nasturtium and cucumbers - the early days

The nasturtium flowers look a lot like cucurbit flowers (particularly the yellow ones), which is one reason this may be effective, but the plants give shelter to beneficial spiders and other predators, keep the plants from stressing due to excessive heat and evaporation, and create a physical obstacle for cucumber beetles, which may be other reasons for its awesomeness.

Bonus - Nasturtium just happens to have edible flowers and look great in cut flower bouquets, so...score.

What about tomatoes? Don't we all want as many tomatoes as possible? Yes. The answer is yes. This is one reason that we plant basil around our tomatoes. Some studies show that when basil is planted around tomatoes to the tune of one basil plant every 10 inches or so, you can increase tomato yields by up to 20%, but you still need to water, feed and care for your tomato plants to keep them healthy.

Tomatoes and basil (...and nasturtium because it goes everywhere. In a good way.)

If you want to repel the monstrous chewing power of the tomato hornworm, marigolds can attract the small but mighty brachonid wasp that will parasitize and kill tomato hornworms. Which makes up for the fact that marigolds are hideous.

That's right - I just came right out and said it - they're ugly. I wouldn't plant marigolds unless I knew they did good things in the garden, which they do A LOT, so there.

The kids used to beat me up in school, but now they're all jealous of my celebrity.

Does your lettuce always bolt before you have other gardeny stuff to make salad? That's because it doesn't like the heat that your other salad crops might like and it would appreciate some shade, already. So give it some.

Plant a trellis or tepee of pole beans over your lettuce to shade it from the afternoon sun's scorchy rays. The lettuce is a light feeder, so won't deplete the soil's nutrients and beans are a nitrogen fixer, so a pairing like this actually leaves your soil in better condition than it was in to begin with. Good times.

Pole beans and lettuce - a power couple.

So, when you're looking for good companions for your vegetable crops, figure out what you're trying to repel, attract or create with your companion planting and then find a companion plant that does that thing.

No whimsical planting because oh that looks pretty there or oh I've run out of places to plant cut flowers so I'll just stick them right here oh yes that's fine, OK?

Now, go grow some food.

Make a seed bank. An awesome awesome seed bank.

I know that we're not the only ones with seed organizing skeletons in our closet.

Like, someone calling us seed hoarders might not be 100% off the mark. What with the half used packets of seeds peaking out of shoeboxes and potting bench drawers and such with incoherent scribbles attempting to convey planting dates or planting conditions or...well we don't really know what.

I think you know what we're talking about here.

But we're on the straight and narrow these days and it has made seed starting and saving SO much easier. And faster. And less fraught with self-reflection and wasted money. I mean, how many times have you bought more seeds just to realize later that WHOOPS! Already had those. when you were rifling through a drawer in your potting shed?

Yeah. Us too.

Then we got organized. And you can, too.

Here's how:

Gather your materials

• Rectangular plastic box with sealing lid (we like this one with dividers, but use anything that you already have or that you like)
• Small plastic zipper bags that will fit inside your box when filled
• Colored paper about the same size as your bags
• Blank address labels that will fit on your bags
• Something to write with
• Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll of your seed packets 

Make your seed bank
Firstly, take your shoeboxes and drawers and flower pots and back pockets and empty them of all of your seed packets.

1. Sort your packets
Trash:

• Empty packets
  Don't get all sentimental over the pretty photos or hieroglyphics you've drawn on there. Toss! Cleanse!
• Expired packets 
  Take a look at this chart for seed viability dates and toss any seeds you have that are expired. Especially if the seeds have been stored in...ahem...less than ideal conditions. (A hot garage is no place to store seeds if you want to extend their shelf life. We learned this the hard way.)
• Unknown seeds 
  Anything rolling around in dust at the bottom of your shoebox gets tossed. Be strong - it needs to happen.

Save:

• Any packet that is younger than its expiration date with at least a few seeds left
  

2. Label your new seed packets
Next, sit down with your now vetted seed collection and fill out a label for each packet of seeds with the plant type (Pepper, Hot), variety (Padron), Year (2013), Lot # (if available) and source (Johnny's).

Then apply the labels to bags, orienting the labels the same way on each bag so that they'll be easy to read when being rifled through.

3. Fill your new packets
Go back to your pile of dirty and worn seed packets and empty the seeds from each packet into its corresponding labeled bag. Zip them closed, pressing the air out of the bag as you go.

Now create your alphabetized dividers using different colored paper for vegetables, flowers, herbs and cover crops. You can use different categories, too, this is just how we've sorted things out and we like it, so maybe you will too. We can't be sure. We're not you.

For each of your categories, create alphabetized dividers for each so that you have, for example, a green vegetable divider with an A on it and one with a B on it and so on.

4. Fill up your seed bank
Sort your bagged seeds into their alphabetized and categorized spot, pop the lid on and, if you're a spreadsheet dork like we are, make for the computer.

4+. Dork out
The final step here, if you really want to keep a handle on your seeds, is to keep a running inventory of your stock so that when you sit down to order seeds next season you don't have to manually rifle through your now organized seed storage to know what you have and don't have.

We use a Google Spreadsheet to keep track of our seed inventory and update it as we add and use seeds from our stash. Feel free to make a copy of the template and use it for your garden.

When that's all done, pop your boxed seeds into the freezer or just tuck into a cool, dark place until next season.

And, of course, breathe a big fat sigh of satisfaction at the super organized seed collection you have.

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh...that's better.