5 Mistakes I made the 1st year growing produce.

My wife and I purchased an acre of formerly irrigated farmland east of Pueblo, Colorado, to build a retirement home and to grow fruit and vegetables, which we want to sell to supplement our retirement income. Gardening had been my hobby for years, but I had never really grown much that you could eat. The first year on the new property I planted 43 dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees of all kinds, and rows of blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. In another area several varieties of melons and many types of vegetables were planted. While most of the attempts were met with success, with hindsight, I realize that I made at least five "mistakes" during my first year's effort. Perhaps you can learn from them!

Get information from your county Extension office While I did a lot of reading and looked at a lot of plant and tree catalogs in planning my "farm," I realize now that I missed a great source of local information by not utilizing the services of the county Extension office. With a phone call or visit I could have found out about the best varieties of fruit and vegetables to grow in my area, the amount of "chill hours" needed by various types of fruit trees, the frost-free dates for planting a garden, taken advantage of the free information they have on many topics, and checked out the classes that they offer at a modest fee. You can find their phone number and location in the blue "government" pages of most phone books. Knowledgeable and friendly people will help you.

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Get a soil test Get soil tests on various parts of your property where you want to plant trees and grow a garden. I didn't until after everything was planted. The Extension office can give you the names of some reputable soil testing services or you can Google soil testing and get a list. Soil tests run around $25 for each sample. I found out that my soil had an alkaline range of up to 8.0 pH which is pretty high, but fairly typical of soil in drier areas such as the southwest. It could also use more organic matter. The test report indicated the existing levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash, and how much to add per square foot if needed, plus a lot of additional information. I learned that the pH in my garden would be problematic for the blueberries unless additional steps were taken--steps that would have been easier to take if I had done them before the original planting of the bushes. A high pH can also increase the chances of plants and trees having iron chlorosis, which causes the yellowing of plant leaves. Additional phosphorus was needed in one of my garden areas to encourage greater flowering and fruiting in plants.

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Learn about growing sweet corn

On the west side of our property a farmer leases land to grow corn and other farm produce. As it turned out, he planted maize, or animal corn, right up to the edge of our property. Less than four feet away I planted sweet corn. With cross-pollination of the two types of corn, my corn wasn't that great for eating. I learned later that corn has a rather small number of days when pollination occurs. If I had planted my sweet corn before he did, or after his corn was up six to eight inches, I could have avoided most of the problem. Through an extension class I learned that I would have a higher pollination rate if my 80--foot single row of corn was planted instead in four or five shorter rows in a block pattern.

Gray landscape fabric doesn't solve everything

I tried putting down landscape fabric between the rows of melons, thinking that it would provide a good surface to keep the melons clean as they grew and help keep down weeds. I quickly learned that fabric only works well if you put something on top of it such as gravel, bark, etc. since light can penetrate the bare fabric. I had weeds that pushed the fabric up 6-10 inches in no time. I had to remove it and pull the weeds. Fabric is useful for many tasks, but not this one!

Don't over rototill your garden area

After my first year of "farming," I learned through the extension office that it is easy to over till a garden area, especially if you have clay soil like I have. Over rototilling can negatively affect the worm population and the tilth of claye soil. As organic matter such as compost, grass clippings, straw, peat moss, etc. are added to the garden, the small clay particles begin to clump together around the new amendments creating additional little spaces for air and water movement. Rototilling more than necessary destroys those new spaces that are so helpful to plants growing in clayey soil.

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Be careful how you plant trees In one of the extension classes I learned that the latest research contradicts some of our long-held ideas on how to plant trees. For instance, community tree surveys have shown that 80% of the trees were planted too deep for good tree health. Most tree varieties have roots that grow more horizontally, than down. When you dig a hole deeper than the tree's root ball, it can affect the long-term survival of the tree since there can be oxygen deprivation and the "drowning" of the roots when there's too much moisture. Here are two other ideas that I learned:

1. Dig the hole three times larger than the root ball instead of the usual two times. Give it sloping sides. A smaller hole with straight sides causes roots to circle the hole instead of growing outward from the tree. The smaller the hole, the greater the tendency for this root girdling. The tree may grow okay the first couple of years in a small hole, but a larger hole grows stronger trees over time.

2. Adding a lot of amendments to the tree hole backfill dirt can cause a similar root girdling effect. The roots tend to stay within the diameters of the hole were the "good dirt" is located instead of growing outward for a stronger tree. If amendments are added, be sure to mix them well with the both the backfill material and with the sloping sides of the tree hole to break up the hole's interface making it easier for the roots to grow out from the original hole. It is probably best to use less than 20% of added amendments.

As I continue my "farm project," I'm sure that there will be more lessons along the way, but I hope the lessons I learned this first year might be helpful for you as you start your own projects.

BY BURT CARNEY 

PUEBLO, COLORADO

ZONE 5/6