Table of Contents Even when in the same Zone, one garden may do better than another. Depends on the microclimate!
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TECHNIQUES & METHODS
DIY PROJECTS
6 Cover Crops on Urban Farms
27 Rig Up a Rainwater Catchment System
Cover cropping isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. These city farmers have adapted the practice to suit their unique challenges.
Profit from rainy days with a system that’ll collect and store your rainwater for future use.
32 Hanging Herb Plant
10 Manipulate Your Microclimate
Grow parsley, basil and more in small spaces with this vertical plant hanger.
Shrug off those Zone limitations and find areas in your garden where traditional growing advice doesn’t apply.
34 Hill Farm’s High Tunnels
16 Garden with Success in a Changing Climate
These shelters offer year-round protection to Hill Farm’s ‘vintage vegetables,’ defending them from record rainfalls and bitter winds.
Prepare for increasingly variable weather patterns with resilient garden plans.
COVER PHOTOGRAPH: STEVE TERRILL
Organic Gardening • Collector Series
20 ‘Container’ Gardening
36 DIY Two-Wheel Garden Cart
22 Life Cycle Gardening
40 Grow a Green Roof
From the confined space of a shipping container, military college cadets grow and harvest hundreds of heads of lettuce per week for staff and students. From colorful cut flowers to edible shoots, roots, and more, maximize your garden’s yield by harvesting during different stages of the plants’ lives.
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Build this one-sheet wonder for hauling, planting, and cleaning up, and enjoy the stability a garden cart offers over a wheelbarrow. Turn your roof into a canopy of lovely plants that will keep your house comfortable year-round.
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44 Build a Garden Fence on a Budget
74 Start a Quick and Easy Food Garden
Add beauty and functionality to your growing space with a durable wooden fence that won’t break the bank.
This season-by-season planting plan for a no-dig, easy-care bag garden features 25 favorite crops.
47 DIY Produce Storage Bins
PLANTING & SAVING SEEDS
Make a set of stackable vegetable crates out of cedar fence boards to create storage containers that move easily from garden to pantry or basement.
78 Plant Breeding for Gardeners
Use proper hybridization to preserve the unique traits found in your favorite garden plants.
PREPARING THE SOIL
84 Saving Our Seeds, Saving Ourselves
50 The Secret to Healthy Soil
One gardener reflects on the importance of saving seeds, and how closely connected humankind’s existence is with the plants we cultivate.
Clever gardeners work in concert with billions of microscopic helpers to improve the health of their soil.
88 Saving Seeds, Saving Cultures
54 Build a Backyard Edible Ecosystem
Use compost, yard waste, and recycled paper to construct a small permaculture ecosystem that supports your food garden.
This seed-keeping company doesn’t just keep heirloom plants safe from hybridization, it brings ancestral crops back to the people whose cultures kept them alive.
58 Homegrown Garden Amendments
94 Start Seeds with Soil Blocks
Use these amendment strategies throughout your plant’s growth cycle to promote healthy development.
Skip the seed-starting pots this spring, and instead plant your seeds directly in compressed blocks of soil that you can move easily from grow lights to garden.
64 Grow a Bee-Friendly Organic Garden
Learn four ways to attract pollinators to your garden and help them flourish.
CULTIVARS 99 Delightful Dill
68 Soil Analysis for Gardeners
From simple DIY tests to more extensive soil analysis, a multitude of resources exist that will boost your vegetable garden’s bounty from one year to the next.
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A versatile, aromatic herb for the garden and kitchen.
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102 Grow Great Carrots
124 Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening
106 Asparagus: Early, Easy, & Excellent
128 All About Growing Cucumbers
Simple soil amendments and careful cultivar selection will boost your roots to their finest form.
Use this unique technique to grow greens in a limited space, even in winter.
Seven steps to growing superior spears, year after year.
Cucumbers were likely one of the first vegetables to be preserved by pickling.
110 The Tips You Need to Grow Great Garlic
130 Grow Squash and Pumpkins
Use this season-by-season guide to cultivate a treasure trove of fat, flavor-packed cloves.
Tips and techniques to prevent the dropping of fruit on your favorite vine crops.
112 Fall in Love with Spinach
133 Cool Kohlrabi
Had little luck with spring-sown spinach? Bust the slump by instead planting this brilliantly green, nutrition-packed vegetable at summer’s end.
Cabbage’s crazy cousin is a fun and tasty addition to your fall vegetable garden.
115 Heat-Tolerant Eggplant Trials
136 5 Short-Season Tomatoes
Years of experimenting have shown an experienced gardener the best cultivars to grow in her steaming climate.
Gardeners burdened with less than 90 frost-free days, take note: These productive cultivars offer up the fruit and flavor you crave.
118 All About Growing Melons
HARVEST
Delicious and packed with nutrition, melons have delighted gardeners for about 2,500 years.
139 Drying the Harvest
Keep your pantry well-stocked with a variety of dehydrated fruits and vegetables.
120 Purple Sweet Potatoes:
The Ancient Superfood
142 Harvest Like a Pro:
These richly colored tubers shouldn’t be underestimated. Learn about their growing reputation, health benefits, and global history.
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More Produce, Longer Storage
Make the most of these summer garden favorites with expert tips for harvesting, storing, and preserving.
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MOTHER EARTH NEWS DIGITAL
Mother Earth News Videos Visit www.MotherEarthNews.com/videos or YouTube.com/motherearthnewsmag to find more sustainable lifestyle videos to help you on your homesteading journey, and be sure to subscribe to receive updates on additions to the channel.
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Fall Gardening It may be early to be planning a garden for the fall, particularly in the humidity and heat of mid-summer. Using burlap and row covers, Rebecca has some tips to help you prepare the soil and planting seedlings in time for an autumn harvest. Watch the video at www. MotherEarthNews.com/Fall-Garden.
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Seed Saving 101
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Thinking of next year’s garden? Join Bevin Cohen as he gives us the details of harvesting, processing, and drying seeds to save for future gardens in his online Seed Saving 101 Course. You’ll find this course and more at www.MotherEarthNewsFair.com. For a preview video of this particular course, click on www. MotherEarthNews.com/Saving-Seeds-101.
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What is Soil Health? From the Real Organic Project Symposium and MOTHER EARTH NEWS, catch a glimpse of ways that farmers can mimic nature and avoid harmful additives and chemicals in the soil. Your crops and your customers will thank you. Watch a preview video at www. MotherEarthNews.com/Soil-Health.
Seed Starting Caitlin demonstrates her methods of starting seeds for her vegetable and flower gardens. Seedlings that may be touchy about repotting are started in toilet paper rolls, egg cartons are perfect for seeds that need a higher temperature of soil to germinate, and reusing pots is just common sense. Check the video at www. MotherEarthNews.com/Starting-Seeds.
Gardening in Containers If you don’t have much space for a garden, consider gardening in containers. Jessica provides some insights on what to do and what to avoid. Place the containers at a front window, on a balcony, or on a patio. Then sit back and enjoy the beauty and bounty of your garden. Watch at www. MotherEarthNews.com/Small-Spaces.
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Cover Crops Cover cropping isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. These city farmers have adapted the practice to suit their unique challenges. By Brian Allnutt
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on Miller is a retired union representative for city workers who’s in his second career as an urban farmer in Detroit. Like a lot of growers, he’s excited about the possibilities of cover crops for regenerating soil and reducing his reliance on more cumbersome off-farm inputs, such as compost and fertilizer. However, as Miller says, “This whole field of cover crops doesn’t address urban farming,” and he’s had trouble delivering on the promise of cover crops on his farm. Cover crops — also known as “green manures” — are plants that aren’t grown
for harvest, but instead for a number of other benefits, including fixing nitrogen, controlling weeds, adding organic matter, attracting pollinators, and feeding soil organisms, which, along with plant roots, emit various substances that help bind soil particles together to build good structure. Miller’s primary attempt at using them in his own growing spaces — which are 4,000 and 11,000 square feet in size — involved seeding low-growing white clovers in the pathways between beds. Unfortunately, the clover invaded his planting beds and turned into a weed problem. And yet, compost has been unable to provide the soil improvement he needs on degraded urban soil.
“I’ve laid down 20 to 30 yards of it a year,” he says. “But you look a couple years later, and it hardly looks like you put anything down.” Miller’s predicament — desperately needing to improve his soil, but being unable to incorporate cover crops into a highly intensive system — is common on urban farms. Growers struggle with space constraints, lack of large equipment to efficiently manage covers, and the need to grow crops, such as salad mix and spinach, that aren’t easy to grow with cover crops. However, covers offer obvious benefits for urban farmers. Naim Edwards, a Michigan State University researcher beginning a project on urban soils in Detroit, says urban farmers are dealing with compacted soils that contain high levels of debris and low organic matter. There’s also the expense — sometimes thousands of dollars a year — and the logistical difficulty of bringing in compost or manure.
Bee-friendly nitrogenfixing clover grows in the pathways of Fisheye Farms’ garden beds.
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TOP RIGHT: ANDY CHAE; BOTTOM LEFT AND RIGHT: BRIAN ALLNUT
on Urban Farms
TOP RIGHT: ANDY CHAE; BOTTOM LEFT AND RIGHT: BRIAN ALLNUT
Cover crop management can include irrigating, mowing, weeding plants from areas where they’re not wanted, and then killing and incorporating them into the soil. “For some folks, it’s just too daunting of a mental task to try to coordinate any energy around that,” Edwards says. “And for others, there’s some skepticism around scale.” Many of these farmers handle complex operations that may also involve a second job. No wonder some decide cover crops aren’t worth the trouble and instead call in another load of compost. Andy Chae has both delivered pizzas and washed dishes in addition to running Fisheye Farms with his partner, Amy Eckert, who works a side job as a waitress. Like Miller, they’re trying to use clover in the pathways of their main field, which measures about 7,600 square feet. Using low-growing Dutch or New Zealand white clovers in pathways is an entry point for many growers. These bee-friendly, nitrogenfixing plants can provide a reservoir of moisture, nitrogen-enriched soil, fungi, and other soil biota that crops can potentially tap into from the surrounding beds. Farmers can also under-sow them beneath taller plants, such as brassicas and solanums, or simply allow them to invade beds where it’s not a problem.
Amy Eckert of Fisheye Farms pulls weeds out of salad beds. The pathways are cover cropped in clover and ryegrass, but the former overcame the latter after repeated cuttings.
Originally, Chae and Eckert tried using a mix of clover and ryegrass, but the rye simply lost out to the clover after repeated cuttings. Cutting the clover down with a weed wacker was also a problem, because it broadcast the trimmings onto the surrounding beds. This addition of
nitrogen-rich material could be great for other applications. However, like many urban farms, Fisheye grows a lot of highvalue salad mix that’s in demand at both farmers markets and restaurants. “It does slow down the washing of the salad, because of all the clover in there,” Chae says.
Inside the Fisheye Farms’ hoop house, peas and oats prepare the soil for spring
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Manipulate Your
Microclimate
Shrug off those Zone limitations and find areas in your garden where traditional growing advice doesn’t apply. By Ann Marie Hendry
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hen I worked as a commercial gardener, one of the most interesting things I learned about was the influence of microclimates. Even though all the gardens I maintained were within 30 miles of each other, I soon discovered that what grew well in one garden was no sure indicator of what could be persuaded to thrive in another — even when the other garden was right next door! Conventional wisdom states that what a gardener can grow is limited by the USDA Hardiness Zone they’re gardening in, but I’ve found that isn’t the whole truth. Another important factor should also be taken into consideration: every garden’s unique microclimates. Season extenders, such as row covers, are invaluable for warming up soil and protecting crops from the elements, but smart gardeners can deploy many more powerful techniques. By becoming aware of and manipulating the microclimates that make up your plot, you can improve yields and successfully grow crops that are on the borderline of what’s feasible in your region.
1 Where is heat stored in my garden? Heat doesn’t just disappear when the sun goes down. Stone, brick, concrete, and even water absorb heat during the day and release it at night, a phenomenon known as “thermal mass.” 2 Which areas are exposed? Strong winds can chill tender seedlings, flatten plants, snap plant supports, and dry out soil. Wind tunnels — areas where wind is forced between solid objects, effec-
tively increasing wind speed — can be particularly destructive. 3 Which areas of my garden receive the most sunlight, and how does this vary throughout the seasons? Shadows cast by trees, buildings, and other structures are short in summer and long in winter. What may seem like an unpromising spot in winter can be sun-soaked in summer, and vice versa. 4 Where does water pool when
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Identify Your Microclimates To exploit the microclimates in any garden, you’ll first need to learn exactly what they are. This often-overlooked task should not be rushed; it’s best done at several different points during the year to gain a complete picture of how your garden changes throughout the seasons. First, ask yourself four questions:
A fan-trained fruit tree grows against a wall, a heat sink that provides additional warmth. TECHNIQUES/METHODS • www.MOTHErEarTHNEwS.COM 11
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‘Container’ Gardening
More than 4,400 plants, including collards, lettuce, spinach, and herbs, grow in the container.
Story by Jennifer Albert and Dalia Martinez
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nside three shipping containers on the campus of The Citadel, a militar y college in South Carolina, cadets are learning how to grow lettuce crops in a controlled indoor “farm” setting, producing organic produce in an environment that can withstand unpredictable weather conditions and disease. The cadets’ hands-on education comes from The Citadel Sustainability Project, in which the first container functions as a hydroponic cultivation system for lettuce crops, the second container is a testing ground for various growing systems, and the third container will be outfitted by cadets who design and build the growing equipment as part of a corresponding independent study. The Citadel STEM Center of Excellence initiated the project in 2016 as an interdisciplinary collaboration. Of the 20 or so students who are members of the Sustainability Club, several are STEM Scholars. We also have electrical engineers who are completing a design project on hydroponics. We’ve had students from almost every campus department — engineering, biology, business — who have worked with the project. Prior to their graduation, Alex Richardson, who studied engineering, and Cameron Brown, who studied business, managed the growing container with the help of other students motivated by a passion and love for the environment. “Cadets are excited about The Citadel Sustainability Project because
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FROM LEFT: STEFANIE SWACKHAMMER; THE CITADEL (2)
From the confined space of a shipping container, military college cadets grow and harvest hundreds of heads of lettuce per week for staff and students.
it incorporates biology, chemistry, computer science, business, engineering, and community outreach. It gives us the opportunity to collaborate with students outside of our own programs on a project focused on global population needs,” Richardson says. “And seeing people on campus eat and enjoy our crops is gratifying.”
FROM LEFT: STEFANIE SWACKHAMMER; THE CITADEL (2)
A Sustainable Food Source We’re currently working on growing more than 4,400 plants in the containers, including collards, lettuce, spinach, and herbs. The nutrients used to grow the crops are recycled within the system’s 100-gallon reservoir and are managed through a smartphone application. The app tracks the metallic minerals in the water and sends nutrients to the plants every 10 minutes. It also displays the water’s temperature and the container’s carbon dioxide and pH levels. The transformation from seed to harvest inside the container farm occurs in five weeks, compared with the 10 weeks the crops would need in an outdoor environment. Thanks to high-density crop production, the cadets harvest more than 800 heads of lettuce per week for the campus restaurant’s salad bar as well as events. Additionally, the cadets get to eat the fresh lettuce in the student mess hall. If the growing container is running at full capacity, the 320-square-foot space can yield about 40,000 heads of lettuce per year. Each container is valued at $115,000 after it’s outfitted. The cadets intend to make the project sustainable by putting profits from the crops toward the purchase of more containers. “Our self-propagating irrigation system uses up to 98 percent less water than conventional industrial farming does,” says Brown, who wrote the project’s business plan. “We want to expand, grow more, and sustain this Earth-friendly initiative, making our healthy produce available to more members of our community.” In addition to providing a sustainable food source, the goal of the project
FROM TOP: The container farm is installed in a corner of campus, leaving room for expansion. The project helps cadets gain hands-on experience in business, chemistry, engineering, and growing food.
is to help young entrepreneurs and members of other disciplines gain hands-on experience. We also try to bring in high school students. Last spring, students from Burke High School, which is next door to our campus, incorporated the farm into one of their projects. Then, a 10th-grade economics class wrote business plans for the container with data we provided, and followed up with two field trips to the container. The container farm is located in a back corner of campus near the marsh, with plenty of room for expansion. We’ve submitted a National Science Foundation grant application with The GEL Group, AmplifiedAg, and SuperGreen Solutions to design a system that would filter excess nutrients
out of treated wastewater and incorporate sustainable energy so the system could be viable anywhere. Ultimately, we’d like to expand the project to be able to produce more fresh food for the South Carolina Corps of Cadets, which comprises the college’s undergraduate population. Our advice for other schools thinking about starting a small, sustainable farm like ours: Include a faculty member who’s invested in the success of the project and understands that student interest will wax and wane depending on schedules. It’s also important to have a succession and mentoring plan for students who are learning. Seniors mentor juniors; juniors work with underclassmen. That will keep the farm going strong. TECHNIQUES/METHODS • www.MOTHErEarTHNEwS.COM 21
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