Justin Haggard (he/him): Okay, so yeah welcome to the vegetable gardening workshop, we have an acknowledgement first so as an organization within a land grant institution dig the campus starting position at UCLA acknowledges that godliness fun with people's as the traditional and caretakers of Obama.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And we encourage you to look up whose native endure.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So, first I kind of wanted to talk about planting seasons and climate zones, because this is really important, especially as some of you are like moving to new locations and stuff this is definitely kind of the place to start and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So there's there's obviously I mean I think most people know that there's kind of cool season crops and warm season crops.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And the time when you would start your one season crops depends on the last frost date so it's really important that you know what that is and in La it's kind of weird because we don't really have frost dates so like we don't really need to care as much about that.
Justin Haggard (he/him): But I do have a link for you, where you can look up what your last frost date is and i'll put that in the chat right now, and maybe everyone can just kind of.
Justin Haggard (he/him): look it up, I think it's just users so maybe just look up your last frost date, but in the chat just so you can kind of see.
Justin Haggard (he/him): The differences, rather than.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And, like, I said that last frost date really.
Justin Haggard (he/him): is important for when you're starting seeds, or even starting seeds indoors to be transplanted later because we need to know like when when to start them so they don't get too big inside and then kind of get stuck to that goal, so.
Justin Haggard (he/him): let's see march 31.
Justin Haggard (he/him): In La it kind of I think in La it just says like we don't really have, but I can show for la right here.
Justin Haggard (he/him): This is westwood.
Justin Haggard (he/him): It kind of just says infrequent yeah so.
Justin Haggard (he/him): If you are in West what you like about.
Justin Haggard (he/him): and
Justin Haggard (he/him): There are ways to extend the warm season so for people living in name, maybe.
Justin Haggard (he/him): You can kind of like row covers or like builds these kind of plastic tunnels, or something like that to keep keep and but.
Justin Haggard (he/him): it's it's kind of tricky and I don't have a lot of experience with growing and super cold weather so i'm sure that if you are living somewhere where it's colder you can ask neighbors and stuff and i'll have a much better shift and I will about extending the one season.
Justin Haggard (he/him): and
Justin Haggard (he/him): Once you know your frost date, you can look up a planting calendar which we'll talk about on the next slide but it's it's just really good to know what your last festivals.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And then you can also find your climate zone, so this is, this is a little more.
Justin Haggard (he/him): it's a little more detailed than just your last frost date and there's it's kind of confusing in the garden Community there's two different ones that are frequently us so there's the US.
Justin Haggard (he/him): usda party miss and the sunset sound so i'll put both of those in the chat as well, and you can kind of look up with us are.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So there are different numbers and you kind of just need to like remember what these numbers are it's really helpful, especially for fruit trees and, but it also comes in handy when you are planting vegetables.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So you use those climate zones when you're at the store to kind of or when you're shopping online it's actually more helpful when you're shopping online because.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Then they'll have all the seeds available, whereas like your neighborhood garden store they'll probably stock plants that are more adopted for your area and yeah, it is good, just to know what those are, and so you might want to save those those links for later or check it out right now.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And I know you can look at this map here and UCLA falls in the 22 so.
Justin Haggard (he/him): that's what we use for our garden that's the sunset.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So, like I said then you can use these prostates to find planting calendars and this is really helpful just to kind of plan out your gardening.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And one disclaimer about this is very few people actually use these plant calendars life gets busy, and a lot of people just start seeds late, including myself.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Or you just have other stuff to do before you can start seeds and so these are kind of actually most of this presentation is kind of like the ideal vegetable gardening manual but.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Very few people follow all of these schools so definitely don't feel overwhelmed or like you need to follow all of these.
Justin Haggard (he/him): These rules or advice or anything because it's very flexible, especially in La you can start stuff late and because it's warm so late into the year into the fall and the the summer crops do just fine.
Justin Haggard (he/him): But I do have a link here, where you can, I think it just uses your zip code and you don't have to play your last frost date but it's really helpful because you can find a planting calendar kind of tailored to your region.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So if you all want to check that out for a second can.
Justin Haggard (he/him): I can show you the one for westwood here and and you'll see that some of the plants don't have.
Justin Haggard (he/him): They don't have a date for starting seeds indoors and this is just because their best started outdoors in the ground.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And we will kind of talk about that a little later you'll also see that there's moon dates so some farmers.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And gardeners plant based off of the moon, rather than the last frost and most people still take into account the last frost date because you don't want to start stuff too soon and then have it freeze and the moon dates are a lot less specific and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): But here's a little more.
Justin Haggard (he/him): About kind of moon planting and yeah I think if especially like biodynamic farmers and stuff will use moon dates and it's just kind of personal preference and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): yeah kind of how you were taught I guess.
Justin Haggard (he/him): um so yeah like I was saying, some some stuff you want to start early indoors and I kind of included a list here so that's best for your first crops of the year, especially.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Like you can start Greens tomatoes etc inside So when I say Greens, I mean more like Chard and, like the bigger leafy greens and tomatoes, especially you want to start pretty early because we want them pretty big by the time you can plant outside, so it will fruit on time.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And the ones that are better served directly in the garden or more of like the root vegetables, where, if you mess up the restructure, it will kind of mess up your.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Your harvest and larger seeds that are just going to help grow their container right away those are usually better started directly in the garden, but you can also certain doors and that's kind of a personal preference there as well.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Are there any questions so far.
Justin Haggard (he/him): I don't want to overwhelm people with this, so if there's questions put in the chat.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Again this is kind of like ideal garden requirements and as you'll probably notice as we're going through this those those of you that have been to the garden will know that.
Justin Haggard (he/him): The garden doesn't have all of these, so it is a very idealized version, and you can definitely still garden, even if you don't have all of these things and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): But, in general, you want about six hours per day of sunlight, there are certain crops that can tolerate more shade and there's usually include leafy greens and stuff.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Because if they get too much sun, they can actually burn and kind of get brown leaves.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And or both so like lettuce if it if it's grown into hot of the climate will just bolt and go to see before you can even get a nice head of lettuce.
Justin Haggard (he/him): But, in general, you want to find somewhere with six to eight hours of sunlight per day and that also, in addition to just being like good growing conditions, and it also is helpful for like.
Justin Haggard (he/him): preventing disease, so that that kind of helps with powdery mildew and all that if you have adequate someone.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And you also want to make sure that you have water nearby This is something that is kind of overlooked, sometimes, so you might start like a.
Justin Haggard (he/him): A container vegetable garden or something, but if it's not in your water it's going to be really annoying so like water it every day from a watering can and you definitely can but.
Justin Haggard (he/him): I would recommend putting it somewhere near a hose or spirit or sing or something just to kind of make it a lot easier for you, and it also.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Will we'll talk about water and kind of towards the end of this, but it also makes it easier to set up your nation and which makes it a lot more efficient.
Justin Haggard (he/him): As I mean yeah if you've been to the garden, you know that we don't have irrigation so like I said it's it's very idealized version.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And the amount you water depends on each crop to so make sure that you're planting certain crops with similar water needs next to each other.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And so stuff like onions and garlic eventually and winter squash eventually need to actually be cut off water and you don't want to water them before you harvest them.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So, making sure that you don't have crops planted right next to them that do you need water, while you're trying to kind of water from this others crops is really important.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And then obviously a big part of gardening is soil and I kind of have as a texture triangle is what's called right here.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And most gardeners for vegetable gardening you kind of want like alone or maybe.
Justin Haggard (he/him): i'm kind of a sandy loam that you don't want too much play, because then it gets really difficult to water, you want enough drain engineer soil.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And, and you can test for this using a really simple test, where you put soil into a jar and a little bit of borax and and water and you shake it out.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And then you just let it sit for hours, most people like to like sit for about a day actually.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And then you kind of measure each component there's really easy directions for this online it's a little hard to kind of describe right now in a workshop.
Justin Haggard (he/him): But there's videos on YouTube and stuff where you can kind of learn how to do this and it's very easy not super intimidating and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): yeah I think this will probably be something that we cover in like an in person chocolate, but the soil kind of effects water retention.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And so, then you're going to have to water differently depending on what soil, you have, so it is really nice just know what kind of soil, you have and then we'll talk about kind of amendments and stuff later, but.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Depending on what soil you'll kind of need to add different things to that so.
Justin Haggard (he/him): You also want to make sure that your garden is protected from pests so especially.
Justin Haggard (he/him): If you're living where there's like deer or habits or something you definitely want to make sure there's a fence around it, so those can't get in.
Justin Haggard (he/him): But there's other pests as well, like lauren was talking about squirrels and so just I mean it's not super easy to protect from all pests, but you might want to just consider.
Justin Haggard (he/him): If there are ways to kind of protect it then maybe like come up with a list of possible ways, or if there you're kind of like deciding between different garden sites consider what side might be more protective.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And then the space also you want to make sure that it's easily accessible if you're gardening and containers which we'll talk about in the next slide.
Justin Haggard (he/him): You want to make sure that you can kind of REACH, all the way across the container some people will build like these huge massive.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Raised beds, but then can't reach all of it, so you end up having a stand in it, and then I kind of compresses the soil and it kind of defeats the purpose of having a respect so definitely take that into consideration as well.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Okay, and here we have different styles of garden So if you don't have a ton of space don't be worried because there are a lot of different ways that you can garden, so the.
Justin Haggard (he/him): The I guess probably like the least expensive to set up if you have land already is in ground and that can be row crops like you'd see at a farm or something.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Or it can be more informal and here's kind of a picture of a more informal underground garden, where they have you know little plots based not in rows are super neat or anything and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): i'm more of a proponent for informal gardening in general, just because I think it looks more interesting, but there are people that really prefer the more formal, it is a lot easier to kind of keep track of how much you have if it's more formal but.
Justin Haggard (he/him): it's I guess it's just personal preference.
Justin Haggard (he/him): there's also.
Justin Haggard (he/him): I put a note here that you really want to do, soil testing if you're doing in ground gardening this is less of like a need if you're living.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Somewhere further out, but if you're in an urban area, especially if you're living in La or like a big city you definitely want to do, soil testing just to make sure there aren't like.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Their own chemicals in there from building sites or something especially I think in La you want to make sure that there is a lead from old lead pain.
Justin Haggard (he/him): In your soil, so you can find soil testing places where you send a sample in for as little as $14, I think, and it just you want to do that, to make sure that the stuff you're growing is filthy and you know doesn't have weird stuff in it.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And if you do find that you have weird stuff you can always do raised bed gardening or if you just want.
Justin Haggard (he/him): You know, an easier time if you don't want to amend your soil over many years to get it ready for planting you can always do raised bed.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And square foot gardening has been really popular in the last few years, it is important that the square foot gardening technique kind of requires.
Justin Haggard (he/him): A really nice soil, so if you want to do that method, make sure that you have that nutrient rich very frustrating square foot gardening so that's kind of outlined in that method.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Because if you were to just get like regular raised bed gardening soil and cram the plants that close together it won't really give you the results are looking for.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And it's really square foot gardening it is really difficult to get like those promised results so just know that going into it, it takes a few years to kind of get used to it, but you can it's a very intensive method for growing stuff and I actually I have.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Some resources i'm talking about that i'm going to share this folder with you that has some square foot gardening and information and there's a PowerPoint and some other stuff in here where it kind of talks about.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Like spacing for plants in the square foot gardening method so we'll send these out later, I think, just because they're kind of larger folders.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And you can also do informal gardening and raised bed that's kind of what the garden does we don't really cram stuff together in the square foot gardening method, just because.
Justin Haggard (he/him): I think it matches our mission, a little more to kind of have an informal.
Justin Haggard (he/him): and
Justin Haggard (he/him): If you don't have space for raised beds, or if you don't have you know land where you can put these are doing ground gardening you can always do containers and I also have a different folder i'm going to share with all of you i'm kind of talking about container gardening.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So this handout is especially useful because it kind of talks about each.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Other it talks about each different crop and then whether you can do it in a small, large or even larger container and it kind of talks about the yield and all of that so.
Justin Haggard (he/him): These are really nice to resources, a lot of these are from the master gardener program and these folders are actually from the grow la victory garden class that we did last year at UCLA that I will send these to slack so you have all those resources.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And there's also vertical gardening and that can mean a lot of different things, it can mean hydroponics and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): It also can mean like making tunnels or trellis is like this, where stuff is growing up right, rather than taking you know horizontal gardening space so definitely kind of try different things work with the space, you have and yeah.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And then choosing what to plant, this seems like a really easy.
Justin Haggard (he/him): decision to make and maybe it is for some people, but I think a lot of the time, I know I always struggle with like planting way too much of certain things.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So definitely just keep in mind is eating the produce and what their preferences are and you should also be realistic, with skills so don't spend way too much stuff and then just have it all for the waist or you don't want to.
Justin Haggard (he/him): You know, have an abundance and like after frantically find people to.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And also keep in mind how much each plant will produce, so I put two pictures here of very different yielding plans, so one writer seat is going to make one little goddess you're going to need a lot of rather seeds to kind of get.
Justin Haggard (he/him): A crop that's good enough for like even a meal and then one zucchini plan is going to give you a few zucchini every every day, every other day in the summer.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And as you can eat plants are so prolific that there's actually a national day for it August 8 is national sneak some zucchini on your neighbor's porch day and so that should give you an idea of how prolific these plants can be.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So yeah definitely keep that in mind as you're kind of planting some people also care about appearance.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So you might want to choose varieties that you know are different colors or that won't I think there's certain like cucumber plants and stuff that are more resistant to like.
Justin Haggard (he/him): powdery mildew So if you just care about Hollywood maybe look into different varieties, I always recommend using heirloom varieties just because they're really pretty and usually the produce is different colors and stuff too so definitely look into heirloom plants.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And then you also want to keep in mind the difficulty growing the plants, so in certain regions, depending on your climate so.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Certain things can be harder or easier to grow, so I know in my hometown cilantro is really hard to grow, because it just bolts right away, it gets too hot in the summer.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So if you know that going into it it's just going to cause a lot less agony later in the season, none of your crops are working so yeah definitely look into that as well and, for some of these things I would kind of recommend looking into a nearby.
Justin Haggard (he/him): master gardener site, you can find them I think they're in most States and they definitely have a wide coverage of regions so kind of looking at your local master gardener program from give you better insight into a few of these things.
Justin Haggard (he/him): yeah in Spanish, is also really hard one to grow in some areas.
Justin Haggard (he/him): and
Justin Haggard (he/him): You also want to make a plan, this is again very ideal, we should probably be doing this in the garden we usually don't.
Justin Haggard (he/him): I usually don't do this, what is good, is to make a diagram after you've planted just so you can remember what was there, each year, because you do want to kind of rotate your props and stuff.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And I think we have more information in our archives about properties than it was in one of the workshops from lunch reporting.
Justin Haggard (he/him): But you do just kind of want to like map everything out, and this is also really good so there's some programs that.
Justin Haggard (he/him): kind of help you with spacing, so this is an example of that where you can kind of play around with different layouts and stuff So you can see that.
Justin Haggard (he/him): You know the leafy Greens here can be planted way closer to each other in the strawberries need more space, so the artichokes need a lot of space because they're really big plans so coming up with a plan definitely helps with like making sure there's enough space for each plan.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And if you cram plan switching close to each other they're not going to yield as much stuff and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So it's it's basically not going to work as well if you Kremlin to close and if you went too far apart, then you're going to waste space and not get as much as you could, so it is kind of important at least when you're planting to consider the spacing for each.
Justin Haggard (he/him): way I kind of wanted to show these two different types of plans, because this is like very ideal version, where you can go in and kind of make a diagram online, and this is more of like quit what most gardeners I talked to do cleaning myself it's more just like a.
Justin Haggard (he/him): rough outline on a piece of paper.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And before you plant, you also want to make sure that you prepare the soil, so if you have a space chosen out and kind of make a plan you know.
Justin Haggard (he/him): What you're going to plant and everything you do want to make sure that the soil can support your crops and this you need to do and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Some people do it in the fall, but, most people I talked to do it in the spring and there's a lot of reasons why you should do it in the spring, first of all there's usually nothing in the ground because of the winter and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): It also you kind of want to do it before the rainy season, because if you do it right before the rainy season fall and it like the nutrients and stuff can reach out and you don't really want that happen so.
Justin Haggard (he/him): You, you should consider amending your garden and some places, you don't have to do this every year, especially depending on what props you've grown.
Justin Haggard (he/him): But you do want to make sure this kind of like depends on your solo texture but compost always is a great thing to add for so little texture just getting it kind of lighter and for fear again.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And, and it also helps the drainage a lot and water retention so it's kind of accomplished is just a good go to enlightenment for every year, and you also might consider fertilizing there's lots of different organic fertilizers out there.
Justin Haggard (he/him): I don't.
Justin Haggard (he/him): I don't recommend using synthetic or chemical fertilizers, it is up to you.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So you can do as you want, but manure, is a great fertilizer and make sure that it's composted, especially if you're.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Like planting vegetables in it, because otherwise there can be pathogens so most hardware stores or garden centers so composted manure.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And it also helps with water retention, I believe, so it's, it is a good fertilizer and kind of an amendment as well, and the did garden we use fish emulsion and sometimes BAT guano, and these are kind of Nice ones for strawberries and tomatoes and stuff like that.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And you do want to kind of look at the crops are growing and figure out if they need a lot of nutrients or not, because some crops don't really need a lot of nutrients opening excess nutrients is kind of a waste.
Justin Haggard (he/him): whereas others really do need a lot, a lot of extra support in this whole.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And then you also as you're adding stuff and that would be the time to kind of mix up your soil, I recommend that you only mix when adding amendments there's some people that never mix.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And I think it kind of just depends what soil, you have over mixing can a kind of can deteriorate, the gardens the nonpartisan structure the soil structure and make it worse and worse over years so definitely don't overmix your soil, and I think that's more hoops that's more for.
Justin Haggard (he/him): The times when it will you know affect your soil negatively, as more if you're using machinery for the tillers and stuff.
Justin Haggard (he/him): But just be conscientious that, as you mix the mix and mix, it will kind of break down the soil over time.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And then you want to kind of break it out and make the slow even and that's just so that water can penetrate the soil, even.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Okay, and then after all of that it's time to plan, so this is the fun part now um so like I said, you can you can do seeds, or if you started seeds indoors you can transplant.
Justin Haggard (he/him): One note is that you should plant tomatoes deep, so you want to take off the first couple leaves starting from the bottom and plant them.
Justin Haggard (he/him): You want to bury a part of the stem and that's just so that they have a larger root structure and all other crops you kind of want to plan, even with the soil line from the transplant container.
Justin Haggard (he/him): and proceed starting we have other resources in our archive folder we have a demonstration for seeds starting and all of that so definitely read the seed packets and stuff as you're doing that, so that you have success.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And as you're transplanting you also want to break up the roots and if, especially if they're rebound certain crops are a little more delicate to this, but in general it's okay to kind of break up the roots and encourage them to you know grow and a larger space.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And then I also put one more time remember to leave space between what your plan so you can look up really quickly online like the spacing for each type of plan and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): You know, some plants are grown really close together and some plants like tomatoes, you want to leave like 18 inches between them and that's just so that you can get the maximum yield from each student.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And then, lastly, I kind of wanted to talk about water a little more and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So there's a lot of different ways to water, the garden uses hand watering that's not very ideal, but it does it does work and it kind of depends on your soil to if you have like a.
Justin Haggard (he/him): slower draining soil or one that's tougher for water to get in you definitely want to look into drip irrigation just because you can leave it on for a longer period of time at a lower flow rate by if it's quick training or something it's it is okay to hand water and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): One thing that I feel like causes problems and gardens is that people over water, so the water each day when.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Really, vegetables, need to be watered every two to seven days, depending on the crop tomatoes, are at the kind of the more extreme side, especially as they get larger.
Justin Haggard (he/him): So when they're small you can start them out it like every other day, every three days, but as they get bigger you actually want to cut back the water, otherwise it can lead to the tomatoes splitting.
Justin Haggard (he/him): or just getting it affects the tomato of the effects the texture of the team so definitely be careful about overwatering and kind of look up water needs for each thing, taking into consideration, your soil texture.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And, in general, you kind of want to do, deep watering to for how this kind of depends on the route depth and I think in some of the.
Justin Haggard (he/him): The resources i'm sharing with you.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And one of these there's like a route depth chart so yeah like here, and so, when you look at this, you can kind of.
Justin Haggard (he/him): See if it's.
Justin Haggard (he/him): shallow medium or deep rooted and all of that will affect how long and how frequently you want to water that certain products.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And like I said, you can do hand watering you can also set a drip closes.
Justin Haggard (he/him): soaker hoses if you're doing drip or soccer I would also recommend just putting it on the automatic timer so that even the summer.
Justin Haggard (he/him): or go on vacation or just get busy with life and your garden still gets watered that's really that really does help quite a bit like coupling asst successful garden is automatic irrigation, and this is kind of like a simple.
Justin Haggard (he/him): method for your gating it's just you know you connected to your hose and then you could set a timer for 20 minutes or something will come back and switch it to another place.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Ideally, you want to water in the morning that's also been some of those problems that we're talking about with like.
Justin Haggard (he/him): powdery mildew and stuff and it just helps prevent disease, but I know that a lot of places, you know you might be busy in the morning and have time in the afternoon or evening so just water when you can and.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Like I said it's all dependent on your soil siblings season that john method, I was talking about, and really helps with understanding how water, you know entries and leads are full.
Justin Haggard (he/him): OK, and now I want to open it up for Q amp a and like I said this is kind of a good time to ask about specific questions.
Justin Haggard (he/him): And I also will be sending out a resource with those other folders it's a gardening handbook vegetable gardening handbook this is from the classes.
Justin Haggard (he/him): But you can see, it covers a wide range of things and I feel like it's just a good resource to have so i'll be sending the PDF for this out on slack as well.
Justin Haggard (he/him): Let me on to the.