This past weekend was a busy one for me. After a week of working on landscape art projects for the Presidio, I was ready to get down to business in the garden. My focus was to begin the spring planting with the long-term goal of diversifying our crops. When I arrived at the garden I was pleased to see that our potato towers have sprouted and are now covered in new growth.
Also, the fava beans were starting to flower and green garlic is plentiful.
After this bit of garden porn it was time to get to work. I started by mapping out the garden and loosely planning our crop rotation. I say loosely because we have some big changes coming in the near future for our first garden, but more on that in later posts. After that I dug into the seed box and realized we desperately need some seed. It was then that I realized that we should start a CSA (community supported agriculture) to provide us with some income at the start of the season. It always seems to be the time of year that farms need the most and are the most broke due to the winter. The good news is that it is early enough in the season to put in seed orders. Also I was able to plant some early and hardy crops such as radish and collard.
I decided that I would try using straw mulch when planting. The mulch will serve to keep the soil slightly warmer and suppress the early weeds. Mulch has the added benefit of breaking down over time and providing the soil with nutrients and humus. As the temperature starts to rise and rain fall lessens a mulch layer also helps to keep moisture in the soil and evenly distributed.
As Sunday came to a close I realized how much there is left to do. I made a lot of progress, but really only scratched the surface as we have two other gardens that are ready to be jump started into spring. I would like to put out a call for volunteers. If anybody would like to get involved and get dirty I will be coordinating work parties primarily on weekends as that is the only time I really have free. Also I would like to put out a request for old windows that can be donated to build a cold frame for vegetable starts. I can be reached at eben.bell81@gmail.com and would love to hear from readers who would like to volunteer their time, money, or materials as well as anyone who just wants to say what’s up. I’ll leave you with a photo of the garden as she stands.
-Eben
Though the San Francisco summer fog has slowed down plant production at Amyitis, we not letting it slow us down! It is true; we’ve noticed a marked stunt in growth and production across the board since the 2nd week in July. The fog brings 50* temperatures with it each day when it arrives at around 4:30pm. Like an old friend who’s overstayed his welcome, I was happy with the fog at first but then things turned sour. What once provided cool relief from the intense heat of a California summer has become a nearly icy relationship. Generally speaking, if the fog decides to burn off at all, most days it won’t do that until at least 10:30am. That leaves very little time for our plants to take full advantage of the sun’s offerings. Even though we are relatively shielded here in the Mission, this July the fog has been pervasive. We’ve taken advantage of the time off from harvesting and weeding to get to some projects. 
At Amyitis’ central location we’ve lacked the time and resources to deal with our compost situation appropriately. Until now we’ve had an open-air compost pile. Frankly, it is a heap. And while some of our organic waste IS composting, most of it is not. After some thought around the matter and a little research, Eben and I decided that Vermaculture (composting with live worms) was what we really wanted to do. 
I guess that I kind of goofed. Sometime last month I realized that our lettuce crop (which had been providing for us nicely since early April) was quite literally at the bitter end. We plant the seeds very close together and cut them often. This gives us a baby variety of many types of lettuce. Since the plant is never allowed to fully mature it continues to sprout, giving us ample harvests. Our lettuce had been going strong for a while. In a panic a few weeks ago, I planted more lettuce in spaces I had availablele; they didn’t germinate properly. It wasn’t until my third attempt at seeding new lettuce that the seedlings finally took. We finally pulled up the remaining lettuce beds that had sustained us for so long and started anew. In order to really have super-productive gardens, it appears as though managing planting schedules is more important than I had ever realized. I waited too long relying too heavily on a single planting. As hard as it is to turn over a bed that is still productive, sometimes you have to in order to keep things healthy. Lesson learned. More lettuce in late August. 
