Checkbooks, Stools and the Three Bears

Growing Vegetables is like:

Maintaining a healthy checking account

A 3 legged stool – all legs have to be in balance to stay up right

Using the 3 Bears scale

Out of balance means unhappy and unproductive plants

Remember we talked about the Three Bears Scale previously when it came to the soil level in the garden beds? Well, the Three Bears scale applies to all aspects of gardening.

  Too much       –       Too little         –             Just right 

 



 Too much or too little water. Too much or too little fertilizer. Too much or too little sun.  To achieve that Happy Medium (as in getting the scales to balance to Just Right) think of your bed as a checking account.

 

  You have to make regular deposits because the soil only holds a finite amount of water and fertilizer. When the plant uses fertilizer and water (makes withdrawals) you need to make deposits again.  When the plant has a negative balance in the account….it suffers, quits producing fruit and ultimately dies if no deposits are made. Even if deposits are made to prevent death, the health of the plant has been harmed.

Besides watering and fertilizing, there is a 3rd component to a happy garden. Mulching.

                                                                 photo by Bob Myers

 Gardening is a never ending cycle of adding water, fertilizer and mulch to maintain the health and productivity of the plants we are growing. There is one more aspect you could add to this so that instead of a 3 legged stool it is a 4 legged table - amending the soil.

To amend your soil properly every year, work in 1 – 2 inches of organic matter into the top 6-8 inches of soil. Adding organic amendments increases moisture holding capacity in sandy soils and drainage in clay soils. It also breaks down further to stabilize soil structure and feed microorganisms and add micro nutrients. Denise talked about her favorite method of amending her soil a couple of days ago in her post on Prepping Garden Beds.

Amy Whitney at the Cobb County Extension Office made a post on her blog about Plant Health Management. It is really excellent reading about how important it is to prevent problems from occurring in the first place.

If we water, fertilize, mulch and choose the right plants for the right time of year, we can prevent many of our problems. 

Tomatoes - to Plant or Not to Plant

That is the question. In our zone (7b) it is generally advised to wait until April 15th before planting out tomato plants. Soil and air temperatures aren't dependably warm until then and even then  it can be iffy.

If you do decide to go for it and risk it, read these two articles to make an educated decision.
Cold weather effects on Tomatoes
Cold Damage to Tomato Plants

If cold weather does move back in you really DO need to cover any warm weather crops with row covers and anchor the cover completely to the ground so that no air gets in. You want to trap the radiant heat energy coming up from the ground and not let in any cold drafts.  Just like you wrap a scarf around your neck tightly to keep drafts from going down your back.

I found a really interesting article Temps for tomatoes and peppers that details what various low temperatures do at various stages of the life cycle of tomato and pepper plants.  The article mostly has temperatures in C versus F degrees but it does show enough F degree temps to use it. To convert any temperature from C to F - here is a Temperature Converter.