The October 2011 column from Oak Park Community Garden, sumitted to oakparknow.com. and oakparkupdate.com

Garden Dirt

FOR CARROT LOVERS (AND OTHERS, TOO.)

October is almost always one of the most pleasant months of the year. Although we sometimes get our first rains this month, the rainy season doesn't officially begin until next month. For the most part it's generally clear and sunny, and cool enough to work in the garden in the middle of the day; greata news for gardeners!

FOR STARTERS. If you started planting last month, keep on keepin' on. First, pull up and throw out or compost the remains of your summer garden. A good cleanup now pays off in fewer bugs and diseases later. Dig the soil deeply with a spade, turning it over, aerating it, and breaking up the clods as you do.

Use a garden fork to mix in organic amendments like steer manure, chicken manure, seaweed, homemade or commercial compost, and whatever source of humus you've got. Many gardeners, including vegans, mulch with compost, seed meals, manure from known sources, fish meal, and organic products that come from the ground, like mined minerals. They avoid using by-products of factory farms and crowded feedlots such as blood meal, steamed bone meal. It is possible, however, to grow healthy vegetables in full sun by fertilizing the soil exclusively with manure.

Failure of winter vegetables to thrive sometimes happens because the gardener didn't realize that a heavy shadow falls across their vegetable garden in winter when the sun moves south. If this is the case in your garden, then it's even more important to fertilize winter vegetables to keep them growing until the sun moves north again.

If you choose to add fertilizer, either choose an organic product recommended for vegetables and apply it according to package directions or mix your own. (Refer to the box above.) Then use a garden rake to level the ground. Use a hoe to make furrows between rows in heavy soils.

Two Homemade Organic Fertilizers for Western Soils Wear gloves when mixing, and irrigate thoroughly after use. For light feeders such as carrots, apply 4 quarts of either mix to100 square feet and work into the top 6 inches of ground prior to planting. For heavy feeders, like corn, apply 6 quarts per 100 square feet. (These mixes can also be used to side-dress rows, but caution; the meals and pellets may attract critters when left lying on top of the ground and not dug into the soil.) Pre-Plant Vegetable or All-Purpose Fertilizer 2 cups blood meal or 4 cups alfalfa pellets, feather meal, or seed meal* 2 cups fishbone meal, setamed bone meal, soft rock phosphate, or high-phospate guano 1 cup naturally mined gypsum 1 cup kelp meal 1/2 cup Sul-Po-Mag (0-0-22) 1 cup humic acid or pellets High-Nitrogen Mix 1 cup alfalfa meal 1 cup cottonseed meal or soy meal (or other seed meal)* 1 cup feather meal 2 cups fish meal 2 cups fishbone meal 2 cups kelp meal (or Kelzyme) 1 cup Sul-Po-Mag (0-0-22) 1 cup humic acid powder or pellets *Note: Seed meals are available at animal feed stores and pet stores.

Plant tall crops to the north and short crops to the south. Full sun is needed for all winter vegetables.

CARROTS AND BEYOND. Plants that can be put in from seeds now include beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, fava beans, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, mustard greens, parsnips, green peas, snap and other edible-pod peas (see September's Garden Dirt about peas), radishes, rutabagas, spinach, Swiss chard, and turnips. Though all of the above technically can be planted from seed, it's better to put in celery and most cole crops, including broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower and collards, from transplants instead of seed. (It's a little late to plant these vegetables from seed.) Also plant lettuce from transplants for an early harvest; plant it from seed for later crops.

Parsley grows well from seed, but is slow to germinate. Keep it damp for twenty days, or plant from transplants. Better yet, germinate the seeds in three days or less using the method described in the box below. Put it in a row now, feed it well, and you'll have masses of parsley all winter—so convenient for stuffing turkey and garnishing your holiday dishes.

Plant curly cress, cilantro (coriander), and arugula (rocket) from seeds. All three grow rapidly, love cool weather, and are expensive to buy in markets. Garden cress tastes like watercress. Cilantro and arugula are unique, acquired tastes but delightfully addictive. Both seed themselves if you let them.

You can now also plant potatoes from seed potatoes, raspberries (although not at our community garden), choosing mild-winter varieties, from plants or bare roots, globe artichokes from seedlings or bare roots, and horseradish and rhubarb from bare roots. ("They" say rhubarb doesn't grow well here and is not recommended, but I'd love to try it anyway!) Onions can be put in from sets and you'll get scallions.

Confine horseradish in its own bed; it's an invasive though culinarily useful weed. (Hmm... also maybe not so good for our community garden.) If you've been growing it, now's the time to dig up the large roots. Peel the root, grind it in a food processor, and then puree it with a little water and a splash of vinegar. Wear gloves, and don't get fumes up your nose. Hand-mix a portion of the pure with sour cream and sugar to use right away, and freeze the rest in ice cube trays to use as needed.

Wait until early November to plant strawberries and globe onions. Look for seeds of short-day onion varieties, including 'Grano', 'Granex', or 'Crystal Wax', now if you didn't do it in September, so you'll have them on hand.

Thanks to Pat Welch's Southern California Organic Gardening, from which comes much of my information.

See you next month.
—Vicki Rankin, Oak Park Community Garden