Posted: Monday, February 11, 2013 9:15 am
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Updated: 1:02 pm, Fri Feb 8, 2013.
aconews.com
Even though it is the middle of winter and thoughts of gardening are not on most gardener’s minds, it is an important time for planning and preparing your garden and landscaping.
First and a very important problem for planning gardens and landscaping is to know the location of your utilities. Utility location services are free by calling 811. This is particularly true if your vegetable garden is in the front or side yards. This would be also true for planting bushes, trees and flower beds. TV and Internet cables may be very shallow, often within 6 inches of the surface. Water, underground electric lines, natural gas and sewer lines may be damaged when planting bushes and trees. Be sure to make a map of your lot showing where the utilities are for future reference.
The most difficult problem for gardening and landscaping in the upland areas of the Piedmont and mountain regions of North Carolina is poor shallow topsoils. The primary cause of these poor shallow soils is heavy cropping and poor land management of the region for the past 200 years.
Some of these upland soils in this area are relatively shallow and underlain by yellowish to reddish dense subsoils, which dry out in the summer and become very hard and droughty. Some describe these subsoils as clay, but in reality they have a wide range of textures from sandy, silty to some with clay subsoils. Many are eroded and have dense and often weakly structured to massive medium textured hard silty, clay loam to silty clay subsoils. Only some soils, particularly in parts of central and southern Orange County, have clay subsoils.
Some upland soils in Orange County have weathered bedrock within 12 to 24 inches of the surface, which are even more infertile and resistant to root penetration. Worms cannot easily utilize these soils for nutrients and protection from the cold in the winter.
When choosing a garden location around your house, carefully consider the problem of which areas have the best sunlight exposure. Many backyards are too shady for productive gardens. Careful planning can incorporate vegetable gardens in with the landscaping of front yards.
Because of the poor soil conditions, I recommend in-ground composting instead of using separate composting bins for your kitchen vegetable waste and some of the safe vegetable waste from your garden. In-ground composting involves digging small holes in your garden all year about 12 to 18 inches deep and mixing the compost materials in the hole with the top soil then fill the hole. Avoid waste from meat and vegetables like tomatoes and peppers because of plant disease problems.
Over time, this process increases the worm population in your garden and increases the depth worms can penetrate in the soil.
In this area, planting can easily begin in late February with peas, spinach, tuber plants like turnips, and other greens. Contact the Orange County Extension Service for more information on planting recommendations and varieties to plant in Orange County.
Frank Doonan grew up on a farm in Maryland and is a retired soil scientist and environmental geologist. He is currently employed as a part-time garden manager for the Fairview Community Garden.
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Monday, February 11, 2013 9:15 am.
Updated: 1:02 pm.
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