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Enabling Technique for Raised Bed Gardens

Enabling Technique for Raised Bed Gardens

Now is the time to start planning for a spring garden! There are many different methods of successful gardening but here I’d like to discuss raised bed gardening.

A few advantages of raised beds:

  • Raised bed gardens provide an opportunity to bring the family together for some quality time. Add ways that you can enjoy the time with your spouse, child or grandchild. This gives you a chance to see the wonder on their faces as the plants sprout and flourish.
  • Share the joy as you smell the flowers and pick the fruit.
  • Provide a bouquet for the table as you add an item from the garden to your family meal.

A special kind of raised bed garden, known as an enabling garden, provides individuals needing assistance a way to garden with ease. Many have the impression that building such a garden is expensive, but it is not much more expensive or difficult than building a raised bed garden on the ground. First, begin by trimming and framing a raised bed garden just as you would for a ground level raised bed.

Materials

  • 2 – (2X8) boards 14 foot long (treated or cedar)
  • 2 – 2 ½ foot end pieces trimmed from a 2×8 board (treated or cedar)
  • Central brace board trimmed to fit the inside of the bed
  • 16 – 3 inch screws
  • Table Saw
  • Drill
  • Extension Cord
  • Durable base such as metal screening, lined with permeable weed barrier, attached to the frame securely.

Once it is made, raise it to the desired level by placing it on cinder blocks. Add enough soil or compost to mound slightly higher than the lumber. Make sure the compost is well rotted, or use sterile potting soil. Don’t use soil from the garden since it may contain root diseases. Smooth out media evenly. Purchase a drip hose or line and run back and forth over the center area. Young plants will not have a large root so make sure the irrigation delivers adequate water to the entire bed.

Many different vegetables herbs can be grown in raised beds but peppers, squash, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, basil, thyme, oregano and mint make excellent choices for a spring raised bed. Happy Gardening !

 

 

 

 

 

An Important Tip When Installing Sod

An Important Tip When Installing Sod

It won’t be long before homeowners start thinking about sodding a new lawn or renovating areas of their existing turf. Although sodding when turf is dormant is acceptable, it is best to install sod that is green. One reason is that you can see if any sod pieces are infested with weeds such as bermudagrass . This perennial grass is very difficult to manage once it becomes established in centipede, St. Augustine, or zoysiagrass. Always remove turf pieces with bermudagrass during the installation process to prevent it from taking over a patch of your new lawn.

Bermudagrass growing in a piece of centipede sod. This piece should have been removed during installation to prevent the bermudagrass from taking over a patch of new centipede lawn. Photo by Beth Bolles, UFAS IFAS Escambia County Extension

If you have a piece of turf or a small area where common bermudagrass has emerged in your desirable grass, take care of the issue as soon as it is seen.  The best option is dig out the infested area making sure that you get the underground runners of the bermudagrass. Smooth out the bare soil and then install new sod pieces.  You may have to hand water these pieces as needed since the surrounding turf will already be established.

 

What Plant is This?

What Plant is This?

Winter flowers and small leaves with serrated edges lead to identification as Camellia sasanqua. Photo: J_McConnell, UF/IFAS

A common diagnostic service offered at your local UF/IFAS Extension office is plant identification. Whether you need a persistent weed identified so you can implement a management program or you need to identify an ornamental plant and get care recommendations, we can help!

In the past, we were reliant on people to bring a sample to the office or schedule a site visit, neither of which is very practical in today’s busy world. With the recent widespread availability of digital photography, even the least technology savvy person can usually email photos themselves or they have a friend or family member who can assist.

If you need to send pictures to a volunteer or extension agent it’s important that you are able to capture the features that are key to proper identification. Here are some guidelines you can use to ensure you gather the information we need to help you.

Entire plant – seeing the size, shape, and growth habit (upright, trailing, vining, etc.) is a great place to begin. This will help us eliminate whole categories of plants and know where to start.

Stems/trunks – to many observers stems all look the same, but to someone familiar with plant anatomy telltale features such as raised lenticels, thorns, wings, or exfoliating bark can be very useful. Even if it doesn’t look unique to you, please be sure to send a picture of stems and the trunk.

Leaves – leaf color, size and shape is important, but also how the leaves are attached to the stem is a critical identification feature. There are many plants that have ½ inch long dark green leaves, but the way they are arranged, leaf margin (edges), and vein patterns are all used to confirm identification. Take several leaf photos including at least one with some type of item for scale such as a small ruler or a common object like a coin or ballpoint pen; this helps us determine size. Take a picture that shows how leaves are attached to stems – being able to see if leaves are in pairs, staggered, or whorled around a stem is also important. Flip the leaf over and take a picture of the underside, some plants have distinctive veins or hairs on the bottom surface that may not be visible in a picture taken from above.

Flowers – if flowers are present, include overall picture so the viewer can see where it is located within the plant canopy along with a picture close enough to show structure.

Fruit – fruit are also good identification pictures and these should accompany something for scale to help estimate size.

Any additional information you are able to provide can help – if the plant is not flowering but you remember that it has white, fragrant flowers in June, make sure to include that in your description.

Learning what plants you have in your landscape will help you use your time and resources more efficiently in caring for you yard. Contact your local UF/IFAS Extension office to find out who to send requests for plant id.

Arbor Day: An American-born Celebration

Arbor Day: An American-born Celebration

Arbor Day has a 145-year history, started in Nebraska by a nature-loving newspaper editor named J. Sterling Morton who recognized the many valuable services trees provide. The first Arbor Day was such a big success that Mr. Morton’s idea quickly spread nationwide–particularly with children planting trees on school grounds and caring for them throughout the year. Now, Arbor Day is celebrated around the world in more than 30 countries, including every continent but Antarctica. We humans often form emotional attachments to trees, planting them at the beginning of a marriage, birth of a child, or death of a loved one. Trees have tremendous symbolic value within cultures and religions worldwide, so it only makes sense that people around the world have embraced the idea of celebrating a holiday focused solely on trees.

Ancient trees like this live oak have an important place in our cultural history. Photo credit: Carrie Stevenson

In addition to their aesthetic beauty and valuable shade in the hot summers, trees provide countless benefits: wood and paper products, nut and fruit production, wildlife habitat, stormwater uptake, soil stabilization, carbon dioxide intake, and oxygen production.  New research is even showing that trees can communicate throughout a forest, sharing “information” and nutrients through a deeply connected network of roots and fungi that can increase the resiliency of an entire forest population. And if you’re curious of the actual dollar value of a single tree, the handy online calculator at TreeBenefits.com can give you an approximate lifetime value of a one growing in your own backyard.

While national Arbor Day is held the last Friday in April, Arbor Day in Florida is always the third Friday of January. Due to our geographical location further south than most of the country, our primary planting season is during our relatively mild winters. Trees have the opportunity during cooler months to establish roots without the high demands of the warm growing season in spring and summer.

To commemorate Arbor Day, many local communities will host tree giveaways, plantings, and public ceremonies. In the western Panhandle, the Florida Forest Service, UF/IFAS Extension, and local municipalities have partnered for several events, listed here. As the Chinese proverb goes, “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”

For more information on local Arbor Day events and tree giveaways in your area, contact your local Extension Office or County Forester!