Posts tagged ‘square foot gardening’
dried beans: We conducted the ceremonial harvesting of the dried beans yesterday – above are speckled bays, below black turtle beans. These just dried right on the plant, and it seemed time to pick them before the moldy rains set in permanently. I had visions of making spicy chilis and steaming stews all winter long with the harvest. I probably had about 6 plants of each type. My total yield? 2/3 cup. Yup. Enough for one batch of soup.
Part of the problem was that i was under the false impression that these would be enormous, twining, pole-type vines, which is why I planted them at the base of trellises along the fence. They never did get any higher than about 12″.
Note to self: research first (it didn’t say anything about height on the seed package).
Next year: plant scads of them in the flower beds towards the front.
beans: I planted purple, yellow wax and green beans of varying types. I tried a “two sisters” approach, growing them among the miscellaneous squash vines along the fence. This worked well to start with, but the beans were thwarted by the giant squash leaves that formed in August. If I had just let the squash sprawl, all would have been well, but I was training it upwards in an effort to save some space and the beans got crowded out. Also, picking beans isn’t much fun when prickly squash stems are right in your face. Bean yield was okay, but I will try stand-alone teepees next year, away from the squashes. Or else let the squash spread out at ground level.
peas: I tried a variety of peas – the tall ones (Alderman) did the best – Oregon Trail and Karina did okay. I did two plantings in spring, but could have crammed in at least another round – maybe a fourth if it had been in a shady spot. Still not sure if it’s best to plant among the old plants or start a new round. Will add wood ash to the soil over the winter.
beets: Had some beets (enough to pickle a few jars), but find that a lot start flowering before they get to be of edible size. Must be doing something wrong here…
melons: Threw some seeds in when planting squash – nothing happened. Summer wasn’t very sunny and hot, but perhaps should have been more nurturing. Will start indoors next year.
artichokes: These are a two-year project, and the ones I planted this year came along very well – one plant even has two buds on it! The foliage is so pretty (saw-toothed leaves and all), that I would plant more of these in prominent flowerbeds (after the house is reno’ed). Then I need to figure out how to cook them…
lettuce, spinach, swiss chard: All of these went on like gangbusters – especially in the spring, when we were desperate for green things. Just got tired of picking and washing, and that was before the invasion of the (ugh) slugs. Must be more ruthless!
potatoes: Just starting to harvest these. Should have planted earlier. Russian Blue are incredibly purple! They look amazing.
fruit trees: planted three frankenfruit trees – none of them died (success!), and the plum flowered (success!), so we’re in wait and see mode. The pear tree formed a lot of strange-looking red bumps on the leaves, but nothing seemed to happen after that, so I’m not sure if it’s an infestation or a leaf disease. This tree will probably have to be transplanted over the winter due to construction.
and finally (drum roll please) – the big successes of the year!
strawberry patch: the 5’x10′ raised bed strawberry patch was filled with 80 plants and did smashingly well. Lots of berries, the kids loved it, low-maintenance. I will mulch well this fall and hope they all survive the winter.
cauliflower and broccoli: apart from the romanesco (which declined an invite), the graffiti cauliflower and the broccoli grew very well and were much appreciated. Will grow more and try to stagger plantings slightly next year.
herb garden: location is key! i relocated this to just outside of the back door (off the kitchen), and as a result used tons more fresh herbs in cooking than ever before. Apart from the aforementioned basil disaster, all of the transplants (lemon balm, chives, thyme, oregano) did very well, and the dill, sage, mints and chamomiles grew like gangbusters. The fennel showed up unannounced, but I really liked the gigantic nature of the plant, and the bees/wasps didn’t complain either. Next year: grow basil in pots, plant three times as much dill, add more rosemary and a bay leaf tree, and be more diligent about harvesting (especially the chamomile) while it’s in season instead of just admiring the pretty flowers.
I feel the need to start sketching out next year’s plot…
When I came into the house yesterday with my haul (see above), I felt like a walking Lady Bountiful! This was the first year I really tried to garden, what with the raised beds and the trellis and everything and it worked! Things grew!
I’m still very far away from my goal of trying to grow most of the produce we eat in a summer season, but this is all a process and I’m figuring things out as I go. Some notes for next year:
tomatoes: I’ve already gone on about these in another post, but I forgot to account for the heavy feeding of tomato plants (and didn’t). I also followed the spacing recommendations for square-foot gardening, and I think the plants were a bit squished (and stunted) as a result. Even with these issues, the tomato cages I bought were too small for most of the plants – I think i’ll repurpose them as pepper cages or something.
peppers: I love peppers and would eat them all the time. Four plants. My yield? One small sad little green pepper about the size of a plum that got eaten, and 1 jalapeno pepper. Transplanting them from one bed to another in June probably didn’t help either. They’re flowering now, so obviously there is some confusion going on. I will give them their own dedicated patch next year, with some marigolds for moral support.
basil: I have never been lucky with basil, but this got devoured by slugs before it even cleared the sides of the raised beds. The seed tape basil seeds that I planted threw some attitude and refused to even show up. Next year? Pots all the way.
brussel sprouts: these grew like crazy (see above – bigger than your average 5-year-old), but were real estate hogs and got infested with some nasty moldy thing towards the end of the season. Probably not a repeater.
cucumbers: these need a lot more water than I gave them, and suffered as a result. There was also plant confusion between the pickling cukes and the slicing cukes. Next year, plant them closer to water in two entirely separate patches.
squashes: i finally overcame the curse of the zucchini and managed to grow a few past puberty and into zucchini bread! yay! Five spaghetti squash off of two plants doesn’t seem like a great yield to me, but i’ll take it. The mystery squash was yummy, even if I don’t know what it was. Next year, I probably wouldn’t give up raised bed space to squashes, but would dig a giant pit in the middle of a flower bed, fill it with compost and create a squash patch where they could sprawl with abandon. Perhaps more diligence against slugs too…
onions: I don’t know that it would be worth growing regular onions, given my limited gardening space, but I do think it’s worth it for their more expensive relatives – spanish onions and shallots. These grew early and quickly and came out very well, considering how little space and attention I gave them.
carrots: These did better than ever before, even though I should have thinned them out even more. I must be more ruthless!
Next up: beans, peas, artichokes, strawberries, fruit…
The tomato harvest is coming in droves as summer winds down around here – it’s back to school and rainy with it. I had big plans for tomato planting this year – I was going to grow a number of heirloom tomatoes (black krim, amish paste, etc.) from seed, as well as plant some robust starter plants to get me going.
Fast forward a few months – starting tomatoes from seed is harder than i thought (who knew?), and a late frost killed off my first 20 plants. I restocked with the pickings of a big box garden centre, and I’m making notes for next year.
Sungold cherry: These are the most fabulous orange-yellow cherry tomatoes I have ever tasted – sweet, juicy and slow to split. If only I had planted more than one of these puppies!
Sweet millions cherry: Dependable and bountiful. The kids eat them like candy.
Yellow pear: They look really cute – and that’s the best thing i can say about them. The taste is mealy and mushy and they split very easily – before even ripening fully. Yuck.
Roma: Beautiful strong tomatoes, great for cooking with. A bit boring on sandwiches, but i already knew that.
Big Boy: A cliché tomato. Round, red – you know the drill.
Cherokee Purple: I loved the name (exotic – colourful), and bought about 5 of these plants with great hopes. What a disaster! They attract insects like nobody’s business – slugs, pillbugs, etc., find easy access through all of the furrowed lobes of these tomatoes. They drop off the vine before ripening fully, they don’t seem to ripen on the counter, and the taste is nothing special – hardly worth depriving my garden pests of their new homes. Never again.
Next year: Find an Italian neighbour to beg some seeds off of. Plant indoors early. Harden them off before transplanting outside, sometime around mid-May. Compost those babies like there is no tomorrow. Lessons learned…
we had a locavorious dinner last night – fresh peas and broccoli from the garden to go with barbecued salmon and yams, and then 47 strawberries and 8 raspberries for dessert. it has become obvious that i really like to count things. the salmon was a whole chinook (minus the guts), and my husband had great fun making it talk to the kids before i slathered the inside with pesto, wrapped it in foil and threw it on the grill.
now that we’re well into the growing season, i’m revisiting my garden goals and results.
1. Peas: of the four varieties i planted, the Alderman are producing the best and the earliest so far and they’re up over the top of the fence already. We’re eating them as fast as they grow, so i will plant some more now in a cooler area of the yard to produce more for later. i can’t imagine how many i would need to grow to have enough to freeze for the winter – maybe an entire 4′ x 8′ garden box? maybe more?
2. Beans: these (purple, yellow, green) are coming along and halfway up the netting towards the top of the fence. I was most excited about the edamame at the base of the trellis, but these seem to have been mysteriously swallowed up by something. Will replant in a different location. The dry beans (speckled bay, black turtle) are short but leafy.
3. Gourds: I may have gone a bit nuts on the gourds. i have zucchini, various squashes, and three pumpkin plants growing like crazy in relatively confined spaces. They are now long enough that i can try to train them upwards. I looked at building the upright frame outlined by Mel Bartholomew in Square-Foot Gardening (rebar, pipe conduit), but it seemed expensive and complicated. Plastic is strong (right?), so i’m going to try growing them on the same nylon netting i’m using for everything else (it’s attached to the wooden fence). I think i also need to fertilize to sustain their growth.
4. Herbs: my herb bed rocks – i think this is the most successful thing i’ve done this year. The chamomile is flowering, so it’s time to start harvesting for tea.
5. Cucumbers: Part of my master plan was to grow cucumbers and dill for making pickles. The dill in the herb bed is coming along well, but only one sad little cucumber sprout came up and then quickly expired. i made a quick trip to the gardening store to buy some seedlings (twist my arm) and i’m going to plant these today.
6. Carrots: i finally grew some carrots! at least, i can see them lurking – i’m waiting to pick them for a few more weeks. in the past, i have tried and failed miserably at growing carrots (thankfully, my in-laws grow oodles of them every year without any problems and come to visit us with bags of carrot contraband tucked into their luggage). because i was feeling pessimistic, i only planted a few short rows, and now i think the harvest will last us about a week. too late to plant more?
7. Broccoli: planted 6 plants, but should have planted more (we eat a lot of broccoli) and staggered yield times.
8. Cauliflower: is really purple and should be ready to eat in a few more weeks.
9. Greens: spinach, lettuce, etc. are producing consistently. The spinach grows super fast (it’s an italian variety), so i need to remember to plant less of it, but more frequently.
10. Beets, Turnips, Artichokes, Brussel Sprouts: too soon to tell, but growing.
11. Swiss Chard: coming along. must remember to water. the mutant swiss chard is now taller than i am.
12. Tomatoes: after early casualties due to a late snowfall (April! in B.C.!), i replanted and these are growing nicely – especially after i cleared out the potato foliage that was blocking the sunlight from reaching them.
13. Potatoes: i’m still planting them in random spots around the garden.
14. Asparagus: I planted 10 plants far too late in the spring, and then (to add insult to injury), moved the bed a few weeks later. A few straggly shoots came up (and they look so pretty and feathery now), but won’t expect much of anything for a few years.
15. Strawberries: the yield is up to 1 strawberry per plant now (80 plants). These are doing great and i would highly recommend a strawberry patch to anyone trying to get kids excited about gardening. We’re also heading out to a U-pick this week to get a whole bunch for jam and freezing.
16. Fruit: i planted this year for future yields from apple, plum, and pear trees, and a kiwi vine. They all seem to be doing well, except for the pear tree, which has developed raised orange blotches on most leaves. Of the two new rhubarb plants, one is doing well, the other not so much. No sign of the melon seedlings I transplanted. Either they’re hiding or dead.
All four blueberry bushes are bearing fruit, but i think i would need about 20 bushes to meet our snacking needs. The raspberry (2 years old) has lots of berries forming on last year’s canes, and the blackberry (running rampant through the camellias – i keep hacking it back) has lots of blossoms.
And that’s my gardening report for today…
i’ll admit to being a skeptic. i really thought that the little picture on the stick that came with the seedling had been seriously doctored in Photoshop to enhance the purpleosity of the documented cauliflower. i planted a bunch of these guys back in april and i’ve been waiting and waiting for something to show up. so far, we’ve had lots of leaves (note to self: cauliflower takes longer than broccoli). but i peeked this evening, and this is what i saw:
it really is purple. some of the other ones are even more purple! and they’re all about the size of a really small plum at the moment.
as it turns out, broccoli does grow in heads (even ones grown by me), but some random broccolis (broccolae?) prefer to send out shoots. i don’t know why this is.
the first ripe raspberry on the bush.
the blueberries are coming along – this is a second year bush – the two first year bushes that i planted earlier this spring have only formed a few berries each.
and finally, once you’re done with your blogging, check out typeracer for your chance to triumph in a typing throwdown. good times.
i’ve had to be a bit cold-hearted lately. i was thrilled that so many things were growing and doing well that i was cheering them all on – Grow! Grow! – except for the weeds of course. All the stuff I planted on purpose is chugging along, and then i have these renegade potatoes coming up everywhere.
I must have overlooked some wee little potatoes in the soil from last year, or else they may have been incorporated into the compost that I so lovingly layered underneath my topsoil. Anyways, potatoes were running amok through my raised beds. They were doing so well, in fact, that they were overshadowing the growth of everything else, with a giant canopy of potato leaves blocking the sun from reaching all of my other seedlings.
So i had to be ruthless. I yanked them all out. And then I took a closer look at some of the beds. Things have gotten a bit chaotic in the back garden as there has been a lot of spring showers and everything sort of got all swollen overnight (over week?). Even my second batch of spinach has already gone to seed. The peppers were struggling under shelter of the giant brassica leaves of the brussel sprouts (how tall do these things get before they start to grow sprouts?).
So then i had to be ruthless again. I composted all that gone-to-seed spinach, and used the space for the struggling pepper plants and moved a few other things around as well (note to future self: don’t try to transplant beet seedlings). It feels bad ripping out flourishing plants, but it is necessary. And it did result in a nice early harvest of baby potatoes with dinner this week.
The difference in the vegetables planted in the raised beds versus the regular beds is amazing. The swiss chard in the raised bed is ready to eat (and my mutant chard from last year is now taller than my 5-year-old) while the seedlings I plopped in regular soil are still wee and spindly.
The broccoli is infested with green caterpillars that are chewing giant holes into the leaves. I’m a bit squeamish about them, so i’m getting my daughter to be ruthless, picking them off and dropping them in a pail of water. I harvested some broccoli for the first time (it doesn’t really grow in a giant head like in the supermarket, but rather a bunch of long stalks with buds on the end – who knew?) and washed it and steamed it (it was really delicious). I was somewhat dismayed to discover that i had missed a few of the creatures in my rinsing, and they too had been steamed. But – what my family doesn’t know, won’t hurt them, right? I guess i’m a ruthless cook too.
i meant to take pictures of everything i harvested this year, but i’ve already missed a few, except for this one.
I’ve left it a bit late, but i plan to de-grass a portion of the front yard this weekend and plant some potatoes (at least). Let’s hope the rain holds off long enough…
i love to wander around the garden in the morning with a cup of coffee and check to see how everything is growing. this morning, this lovely little bird serenaded me from the telephone wire overhead.
with the rain and then the sunny day yesterday, everything is exploding with hope and possibility. if everything that has sprouted bears fruit, i may be selling squash and melons from my front steps.
the strawberries have jumped up and the pear tree has a few tentative white blooms showing.
i have trouble restraining myself when i see empty soil, so i end up tucking random seedlings into beds here and there. the half-digested compost that i used as a bottom layer in building my square-foot beds must have had some potatoes in it, because i have renegade potatoes popping up in most of my beds. i have almost totally disregarded spacing recommendations in the hopes that the extra-rich soil in the raised beds will compensate.
the herb garden by the back door is working out great, although i think the lemon balm is trying to take over the world. i am going to look up tea recipes and cut some for drying.
gardening is full of these small triumphs and discoveries that i crow over to myself and point out to the munchkins (whether they are interested or not!) and any one that happens across my blog. first-time visitors to my house are pretty much forced to tour the garden and observe the growing, although i try to restrain myself in mixed company (gardener/non-gardener) because i have noticed a certain glazed look that sets in if i really let myself go.
kate wrote quite the loveliest post the other day about some gardening blogs, including gardenopolis, and it was just so nice to feel that someone else not only got what i was talking about but was trying to do the same thing . blotanical has also been great for finding a community of like-minded folks. we are occasionally ill-informed, but never afraid to get our fingers dirty. gardening is optimism – you plant in the hopes that it will all pan out – that sun and soil and water will come together to create wonderful things from a seed. neat, eh?
you know how sometimes gardening books will tell you one thing, and you think – well, that may be the case for most people, but i happen to be a very lucky gardener, so i’ll just play the odds on planting early and hope for no late april frosts? or maybe you’ve been reading about global warming and assume that things will have heated up in your neck of the woods (at least a few degrees) since whenever the book was published? or maybe you just go forth and plant in blind ignorance – other things seem to be blooming and growing so it seems like a good time?
pretty much all three apply to me and i am sad to report that there were heavy casualties from the snow of last saturday. all the tomato plants and all the pepper plants perished. we ceremoniously composted them today (after waiting a week for signs of life). it’s also looking bad for the camellia that was transplanted.
but then…i spotted something small and red bulging out of the ground from under a small clump of leaves. my first radish of the year. hope has bloomed anew.
if you woke up this morning and heard the sound of someone moaning piteously somewhere off in the distance, that was me. because when i got up and opened the blinds in the kitchen (just to make sure the backyard hadn’t wandered off while i was sleeping), this is what greeted me:
why? why is it snowing here in april? this just isn’t right.
we need to sacrifice something to appease the weather gods. maybe if we all voluntarily didn’t drive for a week, or refused plastic bags at the grocery store for a month, or forever gave up our consumption of factory-made (although strangely delicious) fruit cremes – you know those cookies with a circle of red jelly dotted with sugar on one side and yellow icing creme between the two halves? i’m willing to do whatever it takes…
and yesterday was fairly productive out in the garden. a bit of clean-up and tidying. everything from seed that was planted seems to be up (even though i need a magnifying glass to spot the carrots and marigolds). i transplanted the cauliflower sprouts from my starter flat to a raised bed. planted a second round of lettuce and spinach seeds in another bed, as well as a second row of peas.
my 5-year-old and i deliberated and then decided to plant a row of beans – goldmarie, purple peacock and kentucky wonder (i think) along the fence. she tried very hard to drum up some excitement among the troops playing in the backyard (my two + two more), “Boys! Boys, we’re gardening now! Come on! It’ll be fun!”, but to no avail. She’s such a sweetie. Whenever she has a chance to make wishes at a fountain or by blowing dandelion seeds, she always wishes for a beautiful garden (and a pony).
the frankenfruit trees have finally shown signs of life. the plum sat in its pot for a month and then started blooming, just to taunt me. the apple and the pear (which i had dutifully planted and fed and watered) showed no activity for ages and just this past week started sprouting little leaves at the tips of their branches. the strawberries are roaring along. the rhubarb from last year is already a good-sized clump, and the two new rhubarbs have shown themselves (you can play spot-the-rhubarb in the picture below).
is this the fate of an overeager gardener?
it was a beautiful sunny day on saturday and my seed trays were still showing no signs of life. A random trip to the hardware store (i’ve been reading up on basement renos) and before i knew it, i walked out with 20 tomato plants. it’s like they beckoned me with their awesome tomatoeness – you know that tomato leaf smell? one sniff and i was transported to the possibility of bushels of yummy salad possibilities.
i picked up a mix of cherry, yellow pear, best boy and some other random plants. i also got some purple cauliflower (i’m convinced that the plant tag image must have been colour-edited, because there is no way that a vegetable could be that purple), various peppers (including jalapeno) and a few small swiss chard plants. all planted and filling up one of my lovely raised beds (below on the right).
I’m still trying with the seed trays, but it seems so complicated – strong lights 5 inches away, fans to prevent spindliness, hardening off… i gave up before i started and just planted the seeds in trays, popped the lids on and left them outside to fend for themselves. i also have the sneaking suspicion that i should have started the whole process a little earlier.
the bed that was planted in late February/early March (below on the left) is coming along – the peas are about 4 inches high, the spinach is almost to the baby leaf salad stage, and the scallions, beets and mixed lettuce have shown themselves. carrots and marigolds have yet to make an appearance.
i finished construction of the last bed measuring 4’x4′ up against the trellis. This is where the camellia tree used to be. it’s a bit shady, but i think it will be great for more lettuce and spinach over the next few months, and then beans during the heat of summer. i did plant sweet peas against the trellis on the sunny side, along with two clematis vines from last year, but they haven’t shown up yet.
i cleared out a bed closest to the back steps off the kitchen and made a herb garden next to the existing rosemary. First, I relocated the herbs that made it through the winter unscathed (chives, garlic chives, lemon balm, oregano, greek oregano, thyme, fennel, and i think marjoram), and then i added purple sage and dill. I’ve also begun my herbal tea garden in the same spot – three kinds of chamomile, lemon verbena, mint, and spearmint.
the chives have been going into salads already.
gardenopolis 