Big thank you to Kyoko, Dave & Esra and other members of the Los Prados Community Garden for hosting a Master Gardener talk by Neil Heckman this morning. There's been a lot of talk lately about how to bring more community into the San Mateo community gardens and this was a great example. An informal count of 25 participants were on-hand to get practical advice from Neil. There seem to be more improvements happening at Los Prados between every visit - and GROW San Mateo will soon be leading the project to install a 3 bin compost setup at the garden (hopefully soon - stay tuned!).
Here are a few of Neil's tips from my notebook:
- Important to think about crop rotation by dividing your plot into 3 different zones and planning ahead
- Planting a cover crop in the fall helps to ready the soil for next year's garden
- Try not to water in the sun, as the water droplets act as tiny magnifying glasses that can burn leaves
- For fertilizer, try an emulsion of fish & bat guano (sold in most home improvement stores) by adding into a water can
- Spring = nitrogen for leaf growth; Fall = potassium for fruit yield. Phosphorus for roots.
- Good source of nitrogen: alfalfa pellets (sold at feed stores)
- Yellow leaves: whole leaf yellow = needs nitrogen; tips yellow = not enough potassium
- Plants bolt when they don't have enough water
- For Cilantro, let it go to flower, then simply shake the plant once the seeds have dried - yielding self-seeding plants next year
- Best to transplant: tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi
- Use Easter as a milestone to start growing transplants to be ready once the soil warms up enough
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