The Vegetable Garden, Part 1

The vegetable garden has been a struggle -- eight inches of solid clay, covered by rampant African star grass, and rain averaging over 20 inches a month, oh my! And we are bracing for the invasion of the gophers (it is only a matter of time before they discover the veggies) and winds in December and January are expected to be in excess of 70 mph, oh my, oh my, oh myyyy!!!

The vegetable garden has been on my mind since we arrived in July of 2009. It was, of course, just a concept at the time, and even though I couldn't wait to get started, it had to remain a concept for quite some time. First, we had to finish the construction of the house, then we had to deal with soil erosion, establish a lawn, landscape the entrance, build a sidewalk, and begin planting trees and shrubs. The vegetable garden always seemed to take last place.

It finally got underway in February 2010 when I marked off a 30 X 25-foot section of ground, and covered it with two layers of black plastic, weighted down with stones. I waited patiently for three months, and in May pulled back the plastic. Voila, the star grass was gone. My gardener and I spent two hours digging it up to remove any remaining star grass roots. The soil was hard, red clay. I trenched it to about a foot deep, buried fresh compost, and waited another month. During the trenching process I came across the original topsoil, about 8 inches down. What a pity! I then covered another section of grass and clay with black plastic, so the garden would eventually be 60 X 25 feet in size.

Red clay is about 8 inches deep.

In June I planted a row of sunflowers. I knew they would do well, even in the clay, and hopefully their roots would get down as far as the compost and old topsoil. Also, when they finished blooming I could dig them under to help build up the soil.

In July a started forming the first rows for planting, digging in compost, sand, rice hulls, topsoil, and lime. I didn't add nearly enough soil amendments, but I was anxious to get started. I only spaded up about the top four inches of soil (back in South Carolina I always went down at least a foot). I planted radishes, cilantro, corn, okra, beets, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peanuts. This was all experimental, of course, and my expectations were low. I wanted to see how different crops dealt with the soil and climate.

Garden at an early stage. Sunflowers on the right, corn on the left. Arbor in the background was for chayote, which got torn up by 70+ mph winds in December and January.

In August I pulled back the covering of plastic over the new section, only to discover that the plastic had not killed the star grass nearly as well as the first time.

Black plastic covering the new section.

Back in the original section, the sunflowers did extremely well. The peanuts did surprisingly well too, given the conditions. The corn started out well, but the stalks began to die one by one. I discovered they had a bad infestation of grubs. The okra and tomatoes fizzled. Being charitable, I'd say the other things did so-so.

Heavy rains began in mid-July and the garden became a swamp, even though it was on a slight slope. I dug a ditch around the edge and began creating raised beds. My first set of raised beds is complete and I have added a lot more soil amendments. My second round of plantings are doing much better than the first. These include corn, cilantro, lettuce, sweet peppers, okra, sweet potatoes, and mustard greens. I treated the corn for grubs and stalk borers, which seem to be a big problem here. We just harvested our first crop of mustard greens and they did just as well as in South Carolina. The second corn planting looks good and is tasseling.

Two weeks ago the gardener and his helper dug up the new section. I knew the top six-to-eight inches was solid clay, so I had them remove it. My helpers were a little dubious at first, but pretty soon they came to the dark topsoil underneath and began to get excited. Last week I finished the first of four raised beds in the new section and planted it in peanuts and radishes. The second raised bed is now complete and ready for planting. I have been looking for seed potatoes and flats of onions, but have yet to be able to locate any.

Raised beds -- mustard, sweet potatoes, & cilantro on the left, corn in the middle, one hot pepper plant on the right.

The raised beds are approximately six inches high (just high enough so they will not flood) and about 30 inches wide. Due to the heavy rains here, I have used wooden boards along the sides of the beds to reduce soil erosion. The boards are held in place by rebar cut to lengths of 16 inches and driven straight into the ground. For the high winds, expected to arrive in December, I have put up a wind barrier on the east side made out of wooden posts with corrugated metal siding. All of these materials -- boards, posts, and rebar -- were  left over from the house construction.

Removing the red clay from the new section.

For the gophers, I have gopher traps ready for use. I have tried the traps once before, without success. Gophers are wily creatures. It's going to be warfare, I am sure.

The new section is ready for raised beds.

I also constructed a three-foot high wire fence around the entire garden, to keep the dogs out. So, the garden is now dog-proof, flood-proof, and wind-proof. The gophers, I think, will be the ultimate challenge.

First crop of mustard greens (with some ñame in the foreground).

Happy gardening!