 ello fellow Earthlings and welcome
to the designer salad hotline. This is the first of a three part series
on growing and caring for your winter vegetable garden.
 But first a little information on organic
foods.
In this era of genetic engineering,
Dr. Frankenstein and his cronies provided with enormous grants by big chemical
companies are working to engineer hybrid plants that will grow and produce
food under less than ideal conditions. These less than ideal conditions
include growing food on soils that have been rendered toxic to most plants
by excessive use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.
This Garden Goddess has some scary concerns
about food crops grown in toxic environments. What kind of nutrition will
foods that are grown on toxic soils give to the animals that consume them?
Since most of these "Frankencrops" are used for feeding livestock,
how healthy is the meat that comes form these animals? I eat meat and enjoy
it. However, I'm frightened by the mentality of making crops that grow in
toxic environments instead of healing the soils that were poisoned. At what
point does the food that is produced under these conditions become toxic
just from being grown under these less than ideal conditions?
Enough rhetoric... Support your local
organic farmer and visit a farmers market in your area. The food is top
quality and very good for you and your family. The alternative is to produce
some of that food right there on your property, so let's go gardening...
 inter in Southern California is a time
when we can grow some really great vegetables. It is also when some of our
citrus and other fruits are getting ripe. There is practically no limit
to the variety of food crops that you can grow in a winter vegetable garden.
But first, that winter garden needs a location.
Citing your winter veggie plot is a
very simple process. Just find an area of the yard that has good sun exposure,
just like the summer garden, and ample available water close by. In the
winter, the sun is quite low at our latitude, so it is advised that you
grow your taller crops such as pole beans and peas at the northern edge
of the garden plot and your really short crops close to the southern edge
of the space to minimize shading of the garden. The next step is to prepare
your soil for production of good, nutritious food.
The single most influential component
of a successful vegetable garden is healthy soil. I know that a lot of you
don't have the most fertile growing conditions on Earth, but we're about
to change that. The following soil amending program for vegetable gardens
is set up for a 10 foot by 10 foot space. If the size of your space is larger
or smaller just do the math. 10'x10' is 100 square feet, if your site is
150 sq ft., just add one and a half times this recipe.
- Site the garden as discussed above.
- Choose the size of your future vegetable plot (for purposes
of this article, mine is 10' x 10').
- If you don't have a rototiller, you can rent one at a
local equipment rental yard. Make two passes on the vegetable garden site
with the rototiller in a cross-wise pattern.
- Add the following soil amendments to the vegetable garden
area by broadcasting the materials evenly over the entire garden space:
10 pounds hoof and horn meal, 15 pounds cottonseed meal, 10 pounds seabird
guano or bat guano, 20 pounds bone meal and 50 pounds of fossilized kelp
"Kelzyme" or 25 pounds of kelp meal and 50 pounds of gypsum.
- Add 20 cubic feet of and organic compost (I like Whitney
Farms Superb Blend).
- Make two more passes with the rototiller.
- It is now time to water the soil thoroughly and then
relax, giving your muscles time to heal and the soil time to digest. While
you are healing, begin to make a list of your favorite veggies and see
if they are in my column next month when we will be choosing our crops
and planting them in our newly prepared garden. All of the materials that
you have read about in this column are available at Grangetto's Farm and
Garden Supply in Encinitas, Escondido, Fallbrook and Valley Center. Kelzyme
is available from Environmental Health Sciences (619) 338-9230, ask for
Doug.
Next time we begin the planting phase
of our garden. Let's make this a family project and get the kids involved.
It's educational and organic gardening is the easiest way to raise environmental
awareness . Come up and see me sometime!  | 
mill.net The Garden Goddess is a trademark of The Organic Gardener's Resource and Design Centre of Encinitas. D.W. Trotter is a consulting horticulturist and an award winning garden designer.