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Overview

The McClellan Ranch Community Gardens are bounded by oak woodland and riparian habitat.  Gardeners have challenges to successfully grow crops.  The alluvial soil is extremely fertile.  However, vagaries in the microclimate occur because of its location at the base of a canyon.  Wildlife abound, especially gophers, squirrels, rats, and rabbits.  Deer are often present in the park but the garden perimeter is fenced to keep them out. 

Our garden plot was surrounded by other garden plots before the realignment of the gardens and the 4H facilities to accommodate a new hiking and biking trail.  The surrounding plots insulated ours from major pest damage.  Now the south and west sides of our plot are bordered by 4H livestock enclosures.  This provides easy access to garden pests which attributed to the 2008 crop failure.

The goal this year was to plant a variety of soy beans (edamame) that local gardeners could grow in their home gardens or in their community garden plots.  We could then have a tasting so the public could determine which varieties suited their specific palate.

Executive Summary

The McClellan Ranch Project is located in the community gardens of the City of Cupertino at McClellan Ranch Park.  The team members interface with community gardeners there on a regular basis and discuss any problems presented during work days.  The objective of the project is to do trials of vegetables that the local gardeners might be able to grow.  At an appropriate time during the growing cycle, the team puts on a tasting of the vegetable(s) of the year and invites the public to the tasting.  The team thus provides input to the community to help them with their gardening activities.  However, this year we had major problems with critters in the garden and had no soy beans available for tasting.  After rabbits chewed the leaves from the plants we put row covers over the chewed plants.  Then squirrels went under the row covers and ate the pods. We had planted 14 varieties, some were planted twice, and for a third try on some varieties we transplanted from 4 inch pots.  After discussing the problems with the naturalist who is in charge of the community gardens and the park, it was decided that we would not have a public field day this year because there were no edamame to display or taste.

Description of Trial

Fourteen varieties of soy beans (edamame) which could be grown by the home gardener were planted.  Plant characteristics along with pest, disease, and critter problems were observed and recorded.  Our major critter problem was rabbits coming through the fence.  After the initial damage was done we attached two feet of small chicken wire to the bottom of two sides of the fence around the plot.  At that point we assumed that the new fence installed by the 4H group would keep rabbits from entering through their fence.  We were wrong.  One of the gardeners had, by 30 Sept., caught 22 rabbits.  With each rabbit caught, he checked to see if it would fit through the 4H fence.  As of 19 July only one rabbit had been too big to get through the 4H fence. 

A public field day was not held since the critters left nothing edible in the plot.  Many visitors to the gardens stopped by to ask about our project.  We explained to them what we were trying to do (or had tried to do) and why progress was not being made.  They were impressed by all the badly chewed plants in our plot.

The public would find that many soy beans are easy to grow after the soil has been properly prepared, if there are no rabbits to eat the plants.

Soil Preparation and Planting

The McClellan Ranch team uses organic gardening methods for the vegetable trials. Preparations for 2008 started with planting a cover crop of fava beans on Saturday, October 13.  We decided not to rototill the plot prior to planting the fava beans since the 4H construction crew had not completed their project and had not installed a fence.  We did not know exactly where the fence would be located.

By 21 January the fava bean plants were from 2 inches (a late sprouter) to above knee high and some plants were starting to bloom.

Tom, Fran, Opal and Ed in the Fava patch next to construction fence and equipment

The favas were chopped down on 8 March and the beds were rototilled.  The favas were then chopped more finely and distributed over the beds.  No goat manure was available due to the relocation of various parts of the 4H project.  So the beds were thoroughly watered to await rotilling on 29 March. 

By 3 May the 4H fence had been installed and the team was able to move the compost bins, lay out soaker hoses, bring in mulch for the paths, mark the rows, plant the soy bean seeds, cover the seeds and water the area.  Fourteen varieties of soy beans were planted.  Of those, Kitazawa Seeds donated 5 varieties and Park Seeds donated2 varieties.  Formal thank you letters were sent to both companies.

As of 23 May there were no surviving Lucky Lion, Beer Friend, or Tankuro and only 1 Kouri and 1 Tamba Kurio versus 30 Misono Green and 29 Black Pearl. 

Lucky Lion seeds were planted twice in the ground and once in 4 inch pots.  Of   On the back of the Lucky Lion seed packet it says that optimum temperatures for germination range from 80 – 90 degrees F.  This may explain why we did not see any seeds sprouting with the first and second plantings since the nights were down in the 50s or below.  Of the seeds planted in 4 inch pots, only 5 of 32 seeds sprouted and developed.  It would seem that it may be necessary to treat Lucky Lion seeds as though they were pepper seeds and have them on a heating pad to assist with germination.

Pest and Disease Problems

Rabbits were a major problem this year.  After we first discovered the damage, we scheduled a work day on 28 June to install small chicken wire around the two sides of the plot that did not have the new 4H fencing.  We erroneously assumed that the rabbits could not get through the 4H fencing.  (As of 11 October one of the community gardeners had caught 25 rabbits in his garden plot.  Only one of those was too large to get through the 4H fence.)  On 19 July we added small chicken wire fencing along most of the 4H fence.  On 31 July wire was added to the rest of the 4H fence.

A couple of gophers were caught in the plot but it looked like they only killed a couple of soy plants.  We don’t know how much damage was done by birds but it is possible that they ate plants as they emerged from the soil because, when we went to replant some varieties where we had left over seeds, it was evident that the original seeds had sprouted. 

Lesson learned:  put row covers over the rows before the seeds sprout – we had not had this problem in previous years when our plot was surrounded by other garden plots.

Looking east across field of soybeans

Squirrels were also a major problem after we had the rabbit problem solved.  The squirrels came in and ate the soy beans from the remaining plants even though we had row covers over the plants and had most of them anchored down with boards.  A gardener across from our plot told us about the squirrels and they were observed by our watering crew on several occasions.  The squirrels were getting under the row covers to eat the beans.  As a result we had no beans available to harvest.  We did not have any disease problems on the remains of the soy plants.

Looking east across the soybean field after the major invasion of the rabbits	Beer Friend before the invasion of the squirrels