Organic Vegetable Gardening Talks

Hi Again,
I'm doing lots of talks in January about how to make organic vegetable gardening so easy that anyone can do it. If you're interested, perhaps I can set up a talk for SFC members, or I can just post all the talks I'm doing here and invite you to attend.

Tags: gardening, organic, vegetables

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Permalink Reply by Susan on January 31, 2010 at 10:45am
Susanne, perhaps we can join efforts in gathering a group for Don to speak to. (I took a cooking class of yours at Cooking Uptown, and I believe you know my friend, Michelle Thompson.) We are starting a community garden in plaza-midwood, and would like to get Don to speak to us. It would be good to get some more people to attend. Let me know if you are interested. I would love to hear what your garden plan is. Thanks, Susan
Permalink Reply by Susanne Dillingham on January 31, 2010 at 10:57am
Hey Susan- sounds great! What dates were you looking at?
Permalink Reply by Susan on March 17, 2010 at 2:44pm
We have squirrel infiltration in our newly sowed garden. What is the best way to keep the little buggers from eating all our seeds and young plants?
Permalink Reply by Don Rosenberg on March 17, 2010 at 2:59pm
A tiny little shotgun, or www.imustgarden.com - organic pest repellent that's quite pleasant to use - clove oil, peppermint oil, lemon grass oil, and such in the ingredients.
Permalink Reply by Susan on April 23, 2010 at 3:51pm
Don,

We have used the city compost for our garden and none of our plants are growing. Someone made a comment that the city compost has chemicals in it that are preventing our plants from growing.

Can you speak to this. Could you also see about visiting our community garden?

I can be reached on susan.seiden@gmail.com

Thanks
Permalink Reply by Don Rosenberg on April 23, 2010 at 8:33pm
Hi Susan,
I doubt that seriously. The City does a good job with their compost.

When you say they're not growing did you plant seeds and they didn't sprout, or transplants and they sat there, or seeds that started to grow or plants that were alive and now are dead?

What exactly is your soil composed of? 100% compost, or a blend of something?

Don.
Permalink Reply by Susan on April 25, 2010 at 10:09pm
We used 100% compost and did not blend it.

We planted transplants of cabbage and broccoli and they have hardly grown at all since the first week of march, and some of the broccoli has died.

From seed, we planted carrots, radishes, brussel sprouts, parsnips, turnips, lettuces, beets. They have sprouted, but that's about it, they aren't hardly growing since being planted on 3/20. The sprouts are about 1/2 inch high. We planted peas from seeds and they are growing well (sugar snaps, snow peas).

Since nothing has hardly grown, we are now worried about not being able to plant our summer crops for some time, unless we pull everything up. Some of the seeds we used were older. How many seasons can you keep seeds around before they are no longer good? Should we be fertilizing the little sprouts? Should we mulch?

The beds get great sunlight, so that's not a problem.

Help!
Permalink Reply by Don Rosenberg on April 25, 2010 at 11:24pm
Hi Susan,
Plants don't grow in 100% compost. It doesn't have the proper structure - it isn't a soil. I use a blend of 75% compost and 25% river sand. I suggest you add some sand and see what happens. You could add some organic fertilizer such as Plant-Tone or worm castings, too. There's also a bio-activator I can recommend, depending on which side of town you live on.

Feel free to call 704-910-6498.

Don.

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