square foot gardening

my friend had told me about another gardening method to try. read the book in the second half of the summer and decided to give it a try. square foot gardening by mel bartholomew. retired engineer. http://www.squarefootgardening.org/. i built two 4'x4' boxes out of 2x8 pine untreated. made the mix - 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 compost (that we made ourselves!). very loose stuff once we got it all mixed. they key is supposed to be the soil mix, the fact that you never walk on it, and the grid -- you divided th 4x4 box up in to 16 one-foot squares. i used twine strung between nails to grid off one box and went ahead and planted some lettuce 2 weekends ago to try and get a fall crop in. starting to sprout already. the soil mix seems to really hold moisture well. given how loose it is though, i wonder how it will do with larger plants like tomatoes.

2010 in review

progress this summer, but still not what i was hoping for in terms of yield. definitely got more tomatoes, but nowhere near what i had in mind. probably got 30 or 40 total good size ones, and 50-100 cherries. a few carrots, two handfuls of potatoes (grown from 1 handful of potato seed, so not the best return, but very fun to dig up), a bunch of lettuce, one watermelon (picture above), a few 'volunteer' decorator pumpkins (that matured in july and are now rotten!), 10 or so good cucumbers, some excellent snap peas, basil and mint.

must have been a great year for apples, though, as our 2 apple trees produced a ton of apples. we made a batch of applesauce and borrowed a friend's cider press to make some delicious cider! the bees found us halfway through that process and were going nuts. also did a big batch of grape jelly. i thought we may have lost our 1 remaining concord grape vines in the blizzard of 2009 last Christmas, but it hung in there and provided a great harvest, and this year, the jelly actually set up unlike last years runny jelly which we ended up using as syrup. here's the bountiful grape harvest:

not sure if i mentioned it in the past, but we got 5 chickens this spring. already laying, almost a year old. i've been adding the poop to the compost pile - hopefully that will mean good things for the next batch of compost!

first of july

hasn't rained in quite a while - weeks. rain barrel is empty. been watering every 2-3 days. have gotten 5-10 cucumbers, snap peas were a huge hit but not a huge yield and have started to dry up. got first few tomatoes - very good. found huge caterpillar on potatoes that has eaten off much of the leaves - will be interesting to see how those turn out if at all. got 2 acorn squash. should plant regular squash next year. watermelons are staring to show up - 2 or 3 about the size of baseballs right now. wild vines turned out to be mini-pumpkins! both eggplants died early on. 1 of 2 peppers survives, but not thriving and no fruit yet.

back from the beach

this year, the garden survived our trip to the beach. i had the gate up for one, which obviously helps. we also had a fair amount of rain that week, which also helps. got the first few snap peas which are awesome. several green tomatoes now. can see some squash and cukes started. potatoes are close to blooming. a few of the random wild squash/pumpkins have some small fruits on them. anxious to see what they are and if they are any good. pinched back some of the tomatoes too. no sign of the marigolds i planted several weeks ago.

good growth

more rain, sun, and pretty warm temps over the last few weeks. things are really starting to take off. no-one liked the radishes, so won't do those again next year even though they grew very well. the mesculun lettuce seems to get bitter very quickly, but the bibb lettuce has hung in there much better so will do more of that (in stages of planting!) next year. other people's beans look much much bigger, so wondering if they started much earlier. tomatoes doing well -lots of blooms. both eggplants died, one pepper has hung in. also planted a basil plant. i think my vine plants are too close. squash is in the lead and is already crowding out the beans. also planted some marigolds last saturday to try to get some more flowers in the garden.

tomatoes taking off

saw my first tomato blooms yesterday. been raining last few days so things are taking off...

first salads

been doing well. no rain in may until today, and way off in april too. been watering every 2-3 nights. carrots never came up so put in potatoes instead a few weeks ago. a couple of tomatoes died, so I've replaced those over the last few weeks with my backups. Same with a pepper. Neighbor told us some people don't even plant things until first of May or even mid-May. Was 32 in the morning just this past Sunday. I've had 3 or 4 salads already from the lettuce and the radishes. those came in really nicely. watermelon are taking off as well. need to get some netting in for the peas and beans to climb on. these pics are from 5/6/10

April 23

shot from above the garden. rained some this week on tuesday/wednesday. have fencing totally up now. has been down towards 32 or at least 40 most nights for the last 2 weeks, so nothing is growing too quickly yet. wondering if putting things in early in April ends up hurting them in the long run due to too many cold nights. carrots have not come up at all - i think i used last year's seeds. i may replace that patch with my potatoes once they sprout to 1", which is what i read they should do. in the front bed, from left to right, we have beans, peas, squash, cucumber, watermelon, broccoli, radish, lettuce, and the carrots. in the back, eggplant, pepper, and many tomatoes.

sprouts

the first seedlings are up - this is a bean rocketing up through the dirt.

compost in, beds ready

added the compost a few weeks ago. got it all turned by hand now with the compost mixed in really well and all of the clay clumps broken up as much a possible (front bed is better than the back, so we'll see - i was learning as I went). after this photo last night, i got the posts in (cut to 6 feet and set 1' deep, so 5' tall) and got all of the seeds planted in the front bed. carrots, radishes, 2 types of lettuce, watermelon, cucumber, squash, peas, and bean. tonight i'll work on the back bed with tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and potatoes.

also, we did end up getting the chickens. we picked them up on March 14, 2010. 2 barred rocks, 2 golden comets, and 1 welsummer. they have been great. they are 10 months to 1 year old. we are getting about 3 to 4 eggs per day. here they are roaming about the back yard:

coop

coop is almost ready. built the run today. hope to get some chickens tomorrow. that is the nesting box on the left - that will go inside the coop. check it out...

transplanted

transplanted everything to larger 3" peat pots on thursday night. also moved them under a flourescent light instead of the incandescent I had started with. a friend (with a 1 acre! garden) game me that advice. sunk the tomato plants in much deeper when i re-potted. some of them were 2 or 3" tall and getting pretty floppy, which is what my friend said the incandescent would do to them.

also, construction of the chicken coop is nearing completion. the coop/house is done and in position, and this weekend i'll be working on the run. we hope to pick up some chickens tomorrow!

come on peppers!

you can see the peppers starting to sprout right in the front. eggplants are rolling along on the front left. bought some larger containers yesterday and need to transplant some of these guys. also bought some mesclun mix seed. also found a friend with a pickup truck and need to schedule some time to go to panorama pay dirt to pick up a yard or so of compost. yesterday the temp hit 63! spring is around the corner

Sunlight!

First sign of eggplant and peppers in the back as of yesterday.

what a difference a week makes

on monday this week, only a few seedlings were up. now on friday, we are off to the races. almost all of the tomato seedlings are up. no sign of the peppers or eggplants at this point. and at least one of the tomato varieties has not sprouted yet- those seeds may be over a year old so they may be dead. exciting to see this sort of progress though. it hasn't even been 2 weeks since i've planted these yet!

Seedlings!

First seedlings are up - mortgage lifter tomatoes. You can almost see them over on the right. You'll have to take my word for it for now!

seeds planted!

I got my seeds planted last night. My mom got me a bunch of seeds from Burpee for my birthday and I planted the early starters last night. 5 types of tomato, eggplant, and a few peppers. I have the seedling tray set up in the heated basement this year instead of the considerably colder garage. Hopefully that helps.

2009 in review

Ok, so last year ended up being a total bust. No tomatoes, save a few cherries that the kids ate right off the plant, a few carrots, and a few early cucumbers. That was about it. I think the problems were:

a) I did not get the fence door on soon enough and I think something got in there while we were out of town and mowed things down

b) our soil quality is horrible. Basically 100% red clay.

c) I also think that the plants I started from seed last year did not get far enough along because I started them in the garage where I bet the temps get down to 40 or 50 at night. Not freezing, but probably not warm enough.

So, this year, I think we can address those issues by getting the gate up sooner (duh), adding compost, and starting the seeds somewhere in the main part of the house where temps stay closer to 70. We've been composting for the last year and a half, but the amount of compost that you get is surprisingly small. I'm planning to by a few yards of compost from Panorama Pay Dirt this spring.