Sage Gardens

As I’ve mentioned before, I prefer to let the gardens go wild during the winter months. This makes it easy for me when the weather is cold and ugly (and so are the plants), but it means everything looks like a battle field (which it pretty much is–me vs. weeds) when it comes time to plant.

The Vegetable garden after sitting all winter (facing north)

The Vegetable garden after sitting all winter (facing south)

It’s weedy, it’s ugly. What it needs is a good tilling.

The garden is a little over 3,000 square feet (not counting the herb beds in between), so I like to tackle it with what I affectionately refer to as my “Samurai” Hoe and Shovel (both made from Japanese rolled steel), and my trusty 6hp Craftsman Rototiller.

A couple of tiller runs and a heaping helping of compost later

Goodbye weeds, hello rich loamy soil! (although my cat obviously thinks “hello litterbox!”)

An hour or so of dirt and weed wrestling later, and I’ve got beautifully turned planting beds.

After that I add about 300 pounds of compost brewed from chicken manure, goat berries and last fall’s plant cuttings (we’re an organic operation - compost is like gold) and make another pass with the tiller.

After tilling in the compost I line up the beds and lay down the drip irrigation (a must here in dry Southern California). I like to use bulk 1/2 soaker hose– the kind made from recycled tires– connected to standard PVC sprinker pipe.

My nextdoor neighbor, an irrigation consultant for the big avocado groves in the area, thinks that this is way too low tech, but I think it’s the best thing for smaller gardens with raised beds. I’ve tried spot drippers, drip tape and overhead sprinkler systems, and soaker hose is by far the cheapest and most efficient. It costs only about $10 for 100 feet, and it provides nice even watering directly to the soil along the entire length of the beds. Plus, it think spreading out the watering (as opposed to merely watering at the plant’s base) encourages plant roots to branch out making the plant grow faster.

Bulk soaker drip lines are laid down on the beds

Yes, every couple of years you do have to replace the lines because the get clogged with dirt and minerals. And gophers will chew through it given the chance. But over all, the cost savings more than makes up for the inconvenience. I can replace soaker hose lines four or five times and still only spend half what I would on other irrigation systems.

Almost ready for planting

Once the irrigation is in place I’ll run the water for a short time a) to make sure there’s no leaks, and b) to help settle the soil some before plants go into it.

With this done, I’ll be ready to plant next week.