It is all about the dirt.

For years I’ve kept a big garden, and supplied family members as well as neighbors with assorted fresh and tasty veggies. Last year, one thing and another, I scaled way back to just tomatoes and cucumbers and in consequence my brother decided to put in a vegetable garden of his own.

Things went OK for his tomatoes but not for anything else, and so I’ve offered to work with him and start over this spring – a twofer, teaching little brother while scratching my gardening jones in some one else’s yard and on someone else’s dime.

After last season brother and his wife just left the garden to its own devices, not bothering to pull up the old tomatoes or remove their cages which had fallen over and become entangled in weeds. This was the view in early March:

The white picket fenced plot from last year was 8' x 16' but further back along the neighbor’s fence was an additional space that we decided to incorporate, also covered in worn grass and weeds along with a dying potato vine:

Sarah and hipparchia suggested cutting down the weeds and then covering them with cardboard, but poking at the ground revealed that it needed some serious work to make it fertile.

This part of the SF Bay Area is old bay flood plain, with fine clay down all the way to the water table. Times past, the local clay was perfectly suited to making adobe for building bricks and roof tiles. Once dry, it becomes nearly impermeable to water and even damp it is so dense that soft-rooted vegetables have a difficult time making any penetration. This clay was so hard a rototiller simply bounced up and down, the result of brother having added manure last year – clay plus manure, the classical recipe for adobe brick.

Different soils need different kinds of amendment; sandy soils, where water drains too quickly, need organic matter added to provide nutrients and help hold water. Clay soils like ours have plenty of nutrients, especially trace elements, but are low in calcium and high in sodium from the time they were formed at the bottom of a then-larger estuary.

One method of treating salty soils is with gypsum, calcium sulfate, which is also supposed to be useful in loosening clay soils when applied in conjunction with organic matter. Calcium in the gypsum displaces sodium from clay particles (like a water softener, but in reverse) and that reduces the tendency of tender plants to burn. The calcium then is released slowly, making for healthy green growing things.

So that became the plan, plus turning over the soil by hand to break it up enough to allow use of some power equipment to save my aged back. Here is the same area from the first two pictures after removing the weeds, extending the picket fence and turning over the soil to a depth of 12 inches with a spade:

The yard slopes slightly up towards the far end of the plot. We wanted to put in an asparagus bed, but digging down into clay only makes for a bathtub effect as all the irrigation and rainwater will drain into the hole and drown the plants. Instead we used, ahem, scavenged railroad ties (Thanks, Southern Pacific!) to build a raised bed and filled it with soil removed in leveling the plot:

Total area of the new garden is about 250 square feet. As seen below we applied ten cubic feet of composted steer manure (Home Depot, buck a bag, a very good deal) and 120 pounds of powdered gypsum, then rototilled three times throughout to break up the clay clods and thoroughly mix the components:

Among the weeds in this yard is an invasive African wildflower called Yellow Oxalis ( Oxalis stricta). Horrible stuff from a management standpoint, it forms a hardy tuber deep in the ground from which it sends out underground tendrils that form corms (like bulbs) which in turn form new plants.

They also spread by seed-like capsules, and the combination makes them nearly impossible to eradicate. If it didn’t crowd out everything else Yellow Oxalis would be a charming addition to any garden, but it does and that’s part of the reason we turned over and tilled the soil. We found hundreds of corms and tubers and doubtless missed hundreds more, so we’ll be covering the soil with cardboard and mulch from composted lawn cuttings and kitchen scraps in hopes of smothering whatever we missed.

Every garden should be a mix of reliable plants and new specimens, a work in constant progress, a never-ending experiment. For novice gardeners there should be some plants that are near certain to take and prosper, to give a positive affirmation for the work involved. There should also be some plants that are new to the gardener and the garden; if they work out they can be repeated next year, and if not then they can be abandoned with never a backwards glance.

This spring we’ll be planting two kinds of carrots, the reliable Danvers and a new variant supposedly very high in lycopene called Nutri-Red. Other root vegetables will include French Breakfast radish and Early Wonder beets. The root vegetables will be planted in the raised bed area, available now because asparagus starts will not be planted until the late fall.

Fresh leafy greens will include collards, Ruby and Fordham swiss chard, and a mesclun of six lettuces. We’ll try four different legumes; Burgundy bush beans grown in wire tomato cages, and on a string trellis built on the side fence will be edible pod peas, Scarlett Runner beans and Kentucky Wonder green beans.

For tomatoes there will be three heirlooms, Cherokee Purple, Evergreen (a sort of Beefsteak), and Yellow Pear 1805 and two hybrids called Marzano roma and Sungold cherry. Being a native Californiano, I’m putting in six kinds of peppers because life can’t ever be too spicy: Anaheim, Serrano, Yolo Bell, Fresno, Jalapeño, and Italian Long.

Herbs will include Italian parsley, cilantro and basil as annuals, along with an upright rosemary bush that hopefully will endure. Next year perhaps we’ll add more herbs in a separate planter along the outer edge of an existing patio.

At the base of the picket fence I’ve planted trailing nasturtiums, which will hopefully climb along the fence and turn trite into gorgeous. Nasturtiums are supposed to repel pest species, which I doubt, but they are edible and the spicy flavor is delightful in salads and a treat to serve to the unsuspecting. I’ll also scatter a few marigolds around in hopes that their reputed pest-repellant properties will help with the bugs.

Some gardeners are comfortable with vegetables coming up willy-nilly, running rampant and out of control, but I am much happier knowing that they are kept in their place with regimented rows and assigned spots in which to grow. I simply couldn’t sleep at night knowing that some random vegetable might just show up out of place, and so a plan is needed. Here’s what the garden will look like, from a bird’s-eye view:

This garden site gets plenty of light, and the six-foot property line fence will provide a sturdy backing for the pole beans and peas. Challenges will include regular delivery of water, since summerrain is rare and there is no existing water system in place. I’m a big advocate of drip irrigation on timers, so perhaps I can persuade my brother to spring for a system if I do the labor.

I’m a bit skeptical of the cardboard+mulch approach but the theory seems to make sense so in it goes and we’ll see. The soil may or may not stay friendly; if it ends up rock-hard again I’ll be rototilling that cardboard right into the ground come fall. And the damn oxalis will be a real challenge; the plants are very robust, and it wouldn’t surprise me to have the cardboard heaved up all over the place.

Planting a garden is a leap of faith, requiring a fair amount of energy and a great deal of optimism. It is also one of the most rewarding things that a human can do and as either a hobby or a real source of food it is about as inexpensive as things get. I find great tranquility in working the soil, tending the plants and keeping the weeds at bay. Whether you have a big yard, a small patio or balcony, or access to a community garden, I highly recommend the experience.