friday, 2.15.13 4b homestyle p d - yankton press &...

Friday, 2.15.13ON THE WEB: www.yankton.net

NEWS DEPARTMENT: news@yankton.net4B PRESS DAKOTANhomestyle

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THRU FRIDAY Yankton’s Home Team!

Plant Exchange:

Garden As You Like It

Plant Exchange: Blog With Us!Plant Exchange: Blog with us!This blog is an interactive site for people of our USDA Zone 4-5a region to exchange ideas

about plants. Want to read some past Plant Exchange features you missed? Want to share acomment about plants?

• Can spinach be grown locally in-ground most of the year? Some vegetable and fruitgrowers learn about high tunnels for extending seasons.

• With the skills of local artisans and businesses, how does a Yankton homeowner createcustom hardscape for his yard?

• Want to read a bit about Thomas Jefferson the gardener?• How does a Yankton couple solve backyard hillside landscape issues with persistence,

skills, and belay for safety?• What differences has the drought made so far in Yankton parks and green spaces? What

annuals withstood heat and drought the best?• Want to see and read about what’s growing and blooming around the United States and

elsewhere? “Garden Bloggers Bloom Day” link will show you selections from January 15,2013.

Check us out at the web address: brendakjohnsonplantexchange.wordpress.com

Share tips from your plant experi-ence, give us a tour of your plant site, orsend your questions related to outdooror indoor plants to news@yankton.netAttn: Brenda Johnson or write to P&D,319 Walnut St, Yankton, SD 57078, Attn:Brenda Johnson.

———BY BRENDA K. JOHNSONP&D Correspondent

Not everyone wants to garden conven-tionally or has a suitable site. Here’s an op-tion.

Q: How do you garden so it works foryou?

A: “You see the white sand right here?That’s our soil,” Loretta Sorensen says. Sheand her husband Alan live on an acreageeast of Yankton. We stand in her yard in midJune. “(Our soil is) like beach sand. I triedcontainer gardening for potatoes and toma-toes. They dried out when it was hot. I got ahandful of potatoes and no tomatoes.”

Loretta says that her father is a success-ful traditional gardener. “He does the tilling,everything in nice even rows. I tried that outthere by the barn a couple of years. Wehave an artesian well nearby. As soon as itgot dry and hot, those plants withered.Weeds were a constant problem. Bugs wereterrible! Yield was never very much and itwas a lot of work to keep it up. In spite ofthat, I never gave up on the idea of freshvegetables. I have this space. Somehowthere has to be a way!”

Loretta is the owner and publisher forPrairie Hearth Publishing, LLC on West 23rdStreet in Yankton. She’s also a freelancewriter and has written many articles for theYankton Press & Dakotan and regional andnational farm magazines.

“I write stories about farmers who use‘no-dig’ and ‘no-till’ methods for theircrops,” she says. When researching the In-ternet for her stories, she also reads aboutsheet mulching for the home garden or“lasagna gardening.”

“You put layers of materials on top ofthe ground and plant in it,” Loretta says. “AYouTube video showed how to do this no-dig method at home. The more I learned,the more I thought that this is my answer.”

She and Alan stack cardboard, newspa-per, mulch, potting soil, mulch, potting soil,and mulch in a 4 ft. x 8 ft. bed, wetting eachlayer before adding the next. She uses oldbarn hay or bagged soybean residue asmulch. “The bed is about 1.5 ft. high to startand now (mid June) it’s 1 ft. high.”

Decrease in height of the “lasagna gar-den” stack is not due to gravity or settling ofthe layers. It’s due to the compostingprocess. Soil microbes feed on materialsand give off nutrients that take up less vol-ume while they change materials into formsthat plants can easily use.

“Stacking the materials (for the plants togrow in) this way is a completely foreignidea to my husband and to most people. Idon’t know anyone personally who is doingthis. It was quite a bit of work.” Plants growatop a composting pile of cardboard, news-paper and soil.

“My husband had the concern thatplant roots might not have enough mate-rial in which to grow,” she says. But thisis her learning experience, a new way togrow vegetables.

STACKING BEGINSThey layer three “lasagna garden” beds.

Loretta begins planting with potatoes. “Iplanted two days after Easter. Friendsplanted their potatoes (with traditionalmethods) two weeks later. Theirs came upand ours didn’t. I thought that the beginningof this experiment failed. But then all of asudden, these potatoes popped up. I sup-pose this material takes longer to warm inspring than (ground) soil.”

She incorporates more Internet informa-tion on intensive gardening and companionplanting into her plan. “Deep feeders suchas potatoes and sunflowers and corn get afoot of space around them in the garden.”She plants them first. “Onions can goaround them because they don’t requiremuch room. Beans have a symbiotic rela-tionship with corn. With carrots, kale andchard I can put the seed in a spice shakerand sprinkle them around.” She says thatwhen plants cover the surface of the bed, itholds moisture like a cover crop. She readsthat insects may become confused with themixture of plants in a bed (instead of amonoculture) and cause less damage.

She lists the plants she likes to eat andwants to grow. “I drew sketches of the seedand transplant beds so I can see what goeshere and there when planting. I used spac-ing recommendations on the seed pack-ages. I could tell how many hills of beans orother plants I’d have. Then I knew howmany seeds or transplants I needed to buy.Diagrams took about two hours.”

“For everything I planted as seed exceptfor the shaker seed, I used a Styrofoam cup.I filled the cup with potting soil andpunched a hole in the bottom for drainage. Iput the seed in the cup and added a littlemulch. It was easy to keep moist, and thecup was easy to see down in the in the lay-ered materials. Only one didn’t germinate.As the plant grew, if needed, I could cut thecup away from the plant and re-plant it.”

As for all new methods, Sorensen maymodify the plan next time. “It could bethere’s too many plants in a small space.From my research for writing, if the rightplants are together, you’ll do fine.”

PLAN HITS HITCHLoretta and Allen install fencing to frame

the beds and keep the materials stacked

properly, and place plastic pavers she findsat Menards, all around the perimeter of thebeds for tidy maintenance. But nowSorensen faces an insect dilemma.

“I don’t want to use chemicals on myvegetables,” she says. “The idea is to havenaturally grown vegetables. But (withgrasshoppers showing up), I could see that Icould lose the whole thing.”

“My dad said Sevin dust will take care ofany bugs, so that’s what I tried. I sprinkled a3-foot barrier of the dust around the beds.On the plants in the beds I used diatoma-ceous earth.” Now in mid June plant leavesare whole and dark green and tomatoes areas large as tennis balls.

GARDENING EXPANDSMotivated by these early steps of veg-

etable growing success, Loretta expandsher efforts. “I’ve not been able to growplants around the yard because of the poorsoil quality.” Now she plants cannas, castorbeans, moonflowers, and coleuses inflowerbeds and containers. New methodsshe tries related to “lasagna gardening” in-clude adding potting soil to native soil, cov-ering beds with soybean residue mulch forholding moisture, companion planting,planting in Styrofoam cups, and vigilance inmaintaining soil moisture.

“If we were home all the time, findingmulch materials around the yard mightwork, but we’re not, and a bag of mulchhelps.” She found the soybean residue inconvenient, easy to lift bags at Fensel’sGreenhouse in Freeman. “I love, love, lovemy garden but I have lots of other thingsthat I’m doing.”

Setup of the materials required extratime, but she is surprised how little othergarden tasks require. “There have beenvery few weeds. Between March and midJune, I have spent about twenty minutesweeding so far. That is cool. If I do have toweed, I’m not down on the ground (becauseof the raised beds).

Watering takes time, but she notes thatmulch really holds moisture. Now she canthink about lawn and garden décor. “I lovelandscaping,” she says.

“This is a way to express creativity. I likelearning new things and doing new things,especially when it is productive. I canhardly wait for this flowerbed to startblooming.”

“I could take this whole lawn and turn itinto garden. I don’t have that much time forgarden, but I could see a flagstone path andbenches. Then I could walk around the yardand my feet won’t get muddy.”

“I told my husband that if I prove to be ahorrible vegetable gardener, there will stillbe pretty flowerbeds from this idea, ”Sorensen says. We all want a little successin what we love.

———DID LASAGNA GARDEN METHOD WORK?

“I’ll do it again,” Sorensen said after theseason. “Good way for me to garden insandy soil, but I’ll make some changes. NoStyrofoam cups to plant seed in. Thoughthe bottom of the cup was removed, plantroots stayed confined to the cup. Instead I’llcreate a nest in mulch with a little pottingsoil for each seed, with maybe a twig formarker. I had great germination last sum-mer.”

“I need to discuss how many kinds ofplants in one bed with my husband,” shesaid. “In one bed I had beans, cantaloupe,squash, corn, and pumpkins. Maybe fewerkinds of vegetables in the same bed. But, inanother bed I may try the many companionplants again because the Styrofoam cupsheld them back. Some farmers use covercrops or densely planted plants that com-panion well together. I have a lot to learnabout what works for me to get best re-sults.”

“Lasagna garden” beds worked well inother ways. “Beds held moisture well,” shesaid. By July we used soakers and wateredevery other day and every day when in-tensely hot. Water penetrated into bed well.This garden was easy outside of having towater. I might have spent two hours weed-ing the entire summer. Zucchini did quitewell; I had trouble finding them in the jungleof plants.”

“I am happy with my effort. I learned alot,” Sorensen said. “Setting up the gardenwas intimidating—Am I wasting my time?Am I doing this correctly? But it was worthit and won’t be hard to replicate. It’s thebest gardening experience I’ve ever had,though it wasn’t perfect. It was a tough sea-son for trials, but this is a cheap and easyway to garden.”

GardenerTo Gardener

Share what you find useful for garden-ing.

Muriel Sorbel of Yankton is a retirednurse. She has gardened about thirtyyears, but grew up gardening with hermom and grandma. She is an activemember of Mis-souri Valley MasterGardeners. “Al-ways willing tohelp,” Sorbel said.“I am like most gar-deners this time ofyear, lookingthrough seed cata-logs and planningwhere and what I will plant.”

• Due to the dry weather issues lastyear, I do plan on prepping my gardenbetter for dry weather. I always haveused soaker hoses wound around mygarden rows to water if needed. Thisyear I plan on using the hoses, but willmake sure they are buried right next tomy seedlings. I also will cover thehoses with some sort paper and grassclippings for mulch to hold in moistureand prevent weeds.

• For watering, I have a 650-gallonfarm water tank that receives andholds rainwater from my roof. If we getan inch of rain, it fills the tank. A tankwaters my garden three times. It drainsby gravity to water.

• For gardening convenience, I havea mailbox mounted next to my gardengate. It holds gloves and garden tools.Seems I always walk out to the gardenand don't bring what I need. So left inthe mailbox, they are handy and al-ways dry.

• To avoid using a lot of insecticidesand protect my Brussel sprouts andbroccoli from cabbage moths layingtheir eggs on my plants, I use a screen.My husband helped me build a frameout of (straight and elbow) PVC pipefrom the hardware store. The light-weight screen covers all sides, ends,and top of the framework and is placedover the plants. It remains over theplants all season. It works great. Theframe and screen can be taken apartand used again. The screen slightlyshades the plants, which helps preventsunburn.

FebruaryPlant Tips

Korey Mensch of Mensch Green-house, INC of Avon is a commercialgrower of annuals, perennials, shrubs,and vegetables serving South Dakota,North Dakota, NW Iowa, and SW Min-nesota. Mensch Retail Greenhouse andFlower Shop is located on Hwy 50 atPine St. in Avon. (605) 286-3638

Thanks to Korey Mensch for tips onplant selection and care for our dry con-ditions. “Drought conditions thatstarted last winter and still persist makethe upcoming planting season some-what of a challenge to predict for me asa grower,” Mensch said. “Relentless heatand constant winds fried up many annu-als and perennials last summer eventhough they were getting regular care.Trees, shrubbery, and lawns had theirfair share of suffering too. Don’t be toodiscouraged.”

• You will have to assess your owngardens and yards as they start to flushwith life. Lawns in our area may havetaken the most abuse we will hopefullyever see. My own lawn crackled undermy feet from not being watered. I did,however, keep my pots looking fine withdaily watering and weekly feedings (lastseason).

• The more heat and sun, the morefertilizer you will need for a gorgeousdisplay. That goes for everything in yourgarden.

• Annuals: My superstars for hot &dry conditions are Angelonia, Gazania,Petunia, Portulaca, Vinca, and Zinnia. Allof these are great for that constantlycolorful display to last the season.These are my first choices for all-aroundtenacity.

• Perennials: Many modern cultivarsof native species have lost some of theirdrought resistance for the sake of theflower or habit in the selection process.However, natives should still be some ofyour first considerations when choosingplants for perennial gardening. Echi-nacea, Gaillardia, Penstemon, Rud-beckia, Salvia, and any kind of Sedumwould be ready to fight our most ruggedof heat waves.

• Watering deeper and less often is agreat weapon when you are in a battlewith the combination of sun, heat, andwind, this will encourage the root sys-tems to get larger and go deeper.

PHOTO: BRENDA K. JOHNSON

Sorensen expanded the new methods for vegetables into her flowerbeds and containers around the yard. “I can hardly wait for this flowerbed to start blooming,” she said.

Dibbles& Bits

• Presenters Mary Klimczyk andBetts Pulkrabek of the Missouri ValleyMaster Gardeners will discuss “Read-ing Labels for Healthy Eating,” at theHealthy Yankton Winter Festival, Satur-day, Feb. 16, at 10-11 a.m. at YanktonActivities Center on Summit Ave. Thepresentation will be held in the Yank-ton High School Commons.Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) as afood additive will be discussed. Mastergardeners will have a booth in SummitActivities Center Saturday, Feb. 15,from 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

• Master Gardener Training 2013will be offered by South Dakota StateUniversity Extension staff with Yank-ton as a regional site for three hands-on learning days in May. This year,online learning will be combinedwith the three sessions at the Yank-ton County Extension Office on Whit-ing Drive. Topics include care andselection of trees and shrubs, lawncare, vegetable and flower gardeningand more. Application and fee dead-line is March 27. Details on website:http://www.sdstate.edu/sdces/re-sources/lawn/master-gardeners/

Contact: Mary Roduner, MasterGardener SD Coordinator at (605)394-1722

Sorensen LasagnaGarden Notes

• Measure with an empty 2 cu. ft. pot-ting soil bag.

• For a 4 ft. x 8 ft. bed, use about 8 cu.ft. of potting soil.

• Use about 12 cu. ft. of old hay or soy-bean residue per bed.

• As each layer is applied, soak withwater.

• First lay cardboard, then newspaper,mulch, potting soil, mulch, potting soil, andend with mulch on the garden bed.

• Use seed package for distance be-tween plants. Plant ones with widest dis-tance first.

• If companion planting, see the Inter-net for plants that work well together. Avoidputting plants of the same family by eachother such as tomatoes and peppers.

• Mixture of kinds of plants in bed mayattract fewer pests than monoculture.

PHOTO: BRENDA K. JOHNSON

Sorensen planted seeds in potting soil in a Styrofoam cup with a hole in the bottomfor drainage. She watered the seeds and added mulch to the cup for moisture reten-tion. The cup was then pushed down into the mulch/soil layers as shown. Cups alsohelped her see the exact location of the seeds for care.