Comparison of different garden beds

Update on garden beds:

From an earlier post, I explained that I had three different styles of garden vegetable beds this year: conventional raised beds, which I developed a few years ago using sheet composting; a commercial garden table (raised table, 4 ft by 4 ft, 18 inches deep at center), and some straw bales. The raised beds and bales got lots of direct sun, while the garden table was usually somewhat shaded, at least early in the day.  The raised beds were on automatic drip irrigation, the other two were watered by hand.  here are pics taken towards the end of July:

Garden Table:

The plants you see are eggplant, cucumber, some kind of cabbage, basil, and some peppers.  these did very well, very happy.

This is the straw bale.  Not so impressive, although even in our exceedingly hot summer, this thing held on to water like nobody's business. I think my mistake was mostly just not fertilizing it enough. AS my husband said, this is really hydroponic gardening.

Didn't get a  July picture of the raised beds, but not much was going on there.  My theory is that the 6 inches of improved soil isn't enough; the garden is otherwise on bedrock, a shale, so I think those beds need to be deeper to be really successful.  I do have this one picture of a black raspberry I planted a few years ago; it's doing very well in the raised bed garden, but the bed it's in is much deeper than the others, probably 10 inches. 

 

Conclusion?  The garden table is a great thing, although you need a lot of soil to fill it. 

 

Early October update

I haven't posted anything about this garden in quite a while. Before I get into the success (or not!) of my vegetable gardening, I want to say something about Orchard or Mason Bees, which I took an interest in a few years ago, and which have amply paid me back for that interest.  Orchard bees are native bees, active generally in the spring, and primarily pollinators of fruit trees.  they are incredibly efficient at this, much more so than honey bees. These bees can actually be purchased, believe it or not, but I was fortunate that they showed up and started using my nests all on their own.  here are some pictures: 

This is a nest that is readily available on-line (I got mine from Gardeners Supply), and is good looking to boot. The wire basket with mesh is there to protect the nest from scrub jays, who like to try and pry the unhatched bees out of the nest. Good mid-winer snack.

This nest came from a local provider,  Utah Native Bees.  The gentleman who owns this business also sells bees, and was kind enough to look at my pictures and tell me what species he thinks I have. Before i get to that, here's the third nest: 

This one came from a local garden shop.

These bees are solitary bees, and hence are not aggressive.  I believe they could sting you, but that would be quite unusual.

Taken/quoted from Mr Clark's email:

• 10–12 convex, rough mud plugs of Osmia lignaria (what I sell and what has the most commercial value)=roughly 60–72 bees

This species is excellent for fruit trees, specifically apple, cherry, almond, plum and some cane fruit. It can also benefit apricot, peach and nectarine trees, although it prefers the fruit within the previous sentence. These bees sell for upwards of $1 per cocoon.

They emerge in mid-March and April, die off in late May, early June

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• About 150 masticated leaf plugs of Osmia ribifloris (what I will sell next year, unknown commercial value)=roughly 900 bees

It is said that this species is difficult to manage as there are high rates of absconding females. That may be true if their adult cocoons are pulled from the cavities, but I have yet to try what is called "loose cell management" with this species. These species appear to be vigorously returning each year for me when the cocoons are not harvested. I did see one bee of this type pollinate an Asian Pear this last spring, but I was unable to see what else it was pollinating. USDA scientists say they are excellent in blueberries and other cane fruit. I believe it, but I think there is something else they are loving. It wasn't in a lot of the trees I would suspect, but it is obviously finding pollen somewhere, or else it wouldn't have so many plugs.

These bees are not sold commercially anywhere that I know of, except for one guy up in Washington/Oregon area. He has a limited quantity, however. These bees are a mystery to me. I think they can prove useful somewhere, somehow. It is a matter of time.

Like O. lignaria, They emerge in mid-March and April, die off in early June. I've noticed them remaining slightly longer than O. lignaria. It is quite possible their brighter green color is less of a heat attractant than their cousins, O. lignaria (and possibly the reason for their longer life)…Still my hypothesis.

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• Possibly 1 or 2 recessed and smooth mud plugs of Megachile pugnata (what I sell and has some commercial value)=roughly 12–15 bees

These bees are known as "sunflower bees." They love sunflower-type flowers and are probably better for smaller row crops in gardens. Like Osmia lignaria, they are also "mason bees" because they use mud for plugs. It is said that this species is difficult to manage as there are high rates of absconding females. That may be true if their cocoons are pulled from the cavities, but I have yet to try what is called "loose cell management" with this species. These species appear to be returning each year for me when the cocoons are not harvested (but not as vigorous as the prior two species).

They emerge in late June–early July, and die off in August.

This has been a fun hobby for me, and if you're interested in the fate of pollinators, the supplies are easy to come by, and who knows?  You may already have a few in your yard that are just looking for a nice place to set up a  nest.

Garden experiment

Part of this blog will include my musings about garden plantings that have a whiff of the experimental about them. This year, more or less accidentally, we have three separate vegetable garden plots going. One is the conventional "raised bed",  which is located high up on our hill, in an area constructed into the hillside,.  The bedrock is a clayey-limey shale.  About three years ago I did some sheet composting, and gleaned about six inches of improved soil from that effort.  here's what that area looked like in May or thereabouts.

This upper garden is watered through a  drip system every day.  It gets a lot of direct sun, and we've had a hot summer, so these plants need every drop.  WE've had great success up here with onion family plantings, and have some success with strawberries and also some raspberries (pretty new planting). You can probably see the cold frame (there are two, both made by Juwel), and we have had lovely success with spring and winter gardening there, lots of nice lettuce, arugula, kale, and so on.

We also tried some straw bale gardening this year... a NYT article got me quite excited about this idea, especially since I just happened to have a couple of bales.  here's what that looked like in May:

It's planted with a couple of tomatoes in this picture, and also what I think is a cucumber (so I was told)

And, finally, we purchased a garden table last year, and planted it for the first time this spring.  It has only potting soil in it, which was lightly fertilized in the bag:

here it is in May.  The two things planted are a cucumber (towards the middle), and a basil plant (at the near end).

It wasn't my intention to compare each of these... I fully expected them all to be successful. But we do have a clear winner..... more to follow...

Catching up.....

First, some wildlife that has visited our yard recently..... we keep a large patch of milkweed around, only in the hopes of seeing the occasional monarch butterfly.  We've been rarely rewarded for this, but this summer has been different, and I managed to catch a  few photos....

 There's a monarch in each of these pictures, sometimes a little hard to see, but the orange will jump out at you eventually.  In the second picture, you can see her kind of edge-on; she is laying eggs in this photo.

and here we have a lovely Western Tanager visiting our "pond" (an inverted garbage can lid).  They like the water source being close to the ground... it's easy to see from our windows also.  Other creatures seen here include Sharp-shinned Hawks, quail, the list is endless....

My introduction and gardening interests

My first post as a blogger!  Please forgive me if I am not very polished, I hope and intend to hone my skills as time goes by.

First, since this blog is meant to be about my backyard and gardening intersts, a little background. I live on the east bench in Salt Lake City, Utah.  The climate here is pretty dry, and during the summer months it is also pretty hot.  It's early June, and we've already had our first day at 100 degrees F.  That's already challenging for plants, but to add to the challenge, we are on a  fairly steep hillside, and the soil is quite clayey.  In reality, it's more of a shale bedrock.  So water (or the lack) is a challenge, as is soil composition, and heat. What I plan to do in this blag is explore some of those challenges, and techniques and/or plants I've found to be helpful in surmounting those challenges.  And, I promise ot to leave out the failures.

The steepness of the slope provides a particular challenge for vegetable gardening.  And, with the many trees, it's also pretty shady, and that does nothing for most vegetables.  There are a few ways around that, some of which are new to me this year, so we'll explore how those work out over the summer.

First, our old and established beds. Here's a picture:

This is a bed high on our hill, carved out of the hillside by a previous owner.  The castle block wall on the left gives you an idea of the steepness. Here we have six raised beds, four that are four ft sq, two that are three feet by 18 inches.  I put some effort a few years ago into sheet composting this area, basically on top of the bedrock, and it's showing a big improvement in plant growth.  Shallots are in the foreground, and further back are strawberries, garlic, a raspberry plant, and a few other things. I use drip irrigation here and supplement with hand watering.

This is an experiment back down the hill a  little closer to the house.  I bought this garden table last fall, and we set it up this spring.

It's mulched with a product used for establishing seeds on slopes (which I am also playing around with), this was an extra piece.  This pic is from a bout a month ago, and I'll update it soon.  the plants are getting quite large now, and include basil, eggplant, two peppers, broccoli, a volunteer tomato (no idea where that came from), and a mystery plant that someone gave me.  This I already count as a success, and it's also kind of cool. Watering this by hand so far.

Finally, we have my straw bale experiment.  Theoretically, you can plant directly into these with great results.  They need a lot of fertilizer.  I am watering these by hand so far.  Have two tomatoes here, and also a  cucumber.  they are making it, but not thriving.

I also love the more decorative parts of the garden, here are a few examples:

 can't remember the name of the first flower, honeysuckle, a path in te garden, and a tropical visitor from a few weeks ago, a Western Tanager.

Thanks for stopping by, I'll be back all summer posting my garden's progress!