sept 14 2011

bought some broccoli and cauliflower seedlings a few weeks ago and planted them in bed 1. we'll see how they do - only one has died so far. also planted some spinach and carrots from seed at the same time. still lots of green tomatoes (did i scare the squirrel off?) but they seem to rot before they ripen.

august 15

back from beach last week. hasn't rained in 3 weeks (until last night) maybe didn't water enough. pulled out everything but tomatoes. tried some new squash plants a few weeks ago - they aren't doing too hot. i think i need more good soil/compost in all beds. tomatoes haven't done that well either. yesterday watched a squirrel climb up one of the 6' fence posts, jump on the tomato trellis, grab a green tomato and make a quick get-away to the apple tree. ugg.

back from beach

at the beach last week. think we got some good rain, and my neighbor watered for me as well.

-brocolloi was a total bust

-potatoe plants (above ground portion) totally died, and dug up one square of the potatoes yesterday and there were only 3. i think that is how many i planted - yield = 1:1.

-onions also died above ground. dug them all up yesterday. none bigger than a small plum.

-tomatoes in beds 3 and 4 look ok, but not awesome. sevearl green fruit

-squash bugs out in force - haven't eaten much, but i had to squash tons and there are still unhatched eggs. picked 2 more huge squash - total now at 3

-surprisingly no cucumbers to be picked yet.

-watermelon plant has no flowers yet.

this has not gone as well as i would have hoped. is my mel's mix soil no good? storebought compost seems to be doing better than mine. too much green stuff going in to my compost? not deep enough? not sure what the problem is.

june 13

after 2+ weeks of no rain, finally got a few storms this weekend on saturday and sunday afternoon. actually pretty huge downpours both times. refilled the rain barrel which was almost empty.

-broccoli continues to look weak and produce nothing. i am becoming convinced that either a) i started the plants too early and they were too leggy when i put them out or b) the nutrients in those first 2 boxes are not right for plant growth - i did those with all of my own compost and maybe there wasn't enough good stuff in there. those tomatoes also continue to putter along.

- some fruit on the tomatoes in box 3 - those are the steak sandwich and super beefsteaks.

-plenty of squash growing. found some tiny orange eggs under a few leaves and on the stems this weekend.

-cucs starting to grow too.

-watermelon plants have not really taken off

-large volunteer something in the compost bin - either a squash or pumpkin i think.

-harvested a bunch of lettuce this weekend

-pulled a few carrots - the are tiny - 3 or 4" long and smaller than your pinky

-potato plants are all starting to yellow and die back. is that bad, or does that mean they are done and ready for harvest??

-onions had started to die back, but perked up with the rains - maybe i hadn't been watering them enough. generally, i had been watering everything ever 2 days, but focusing on the bigger plants.

june 6

here is an aerial shot from this morning. harvested a ton of lettuce yesterday. spinach has not done as well. DO NOT plant radishes next year. no one ever eats these. plant a TON more snap peas - maybe 4 or more squares. tomatoes in boxes 1 and 2 continue to languish - these are the boxes where i used my homemade compost - that is really the only difference vs. boxes 3 and 4. the broccoli in box 1 is doing pretty bad - big plants, but not much broccoli to eat. tomatoes in boxes 3 and 4 are doing awesome. tons of flowers. squash and cucumbers are also doing great and have set a bunch of fruit. watermelon vine in box 4 doing ok, box 3 not as good.

may 20 update

here is an aerial shot from 5/20/11

things are looking pretty good

-replace a few tomatoes on mothers day with 2 cherry tomatoes in box 1 and replaced all in box 2 with new mortgage lifters same day

-had to re-replace the mortgage lifters (2 of the 4) this past weekend -weren't looking good - just got some better boys from kmart

-we've had 5 inches of rain over the last 2 weeks - crazy

-picked a bunch of super camouflaged green worms off of the broccoli - they were having a field day with the leaves

-put the snap pees up - tied to the post t-pee.

-ate some lettuce last weekend - need to harvest another round

-radishes look totally ready

-tomatoes in boxes 3 and 4 are doing awesome

-squash and cucumbers are taking off

-watermelons are sort of just sitting there at seedling stage

-potatoes look great

-spinach hasn't done very well. first batch looks better than second batch, but haven't harvested any yet

More Tomatoes

Tomatoes were looking rough -some of them anyway. Bought a four pack
of sweet 100s and a four pack of mortgage lifters. Put in all mortgage lifters and
two of the cherries to replace six of the yellowed looking ones. So
two cherries left over. broccoli looks good, lettuce almost ready to harvest. other tomatoes also looking really good - oxhart, steak sandwich and super beefsteak.

may 4

here's a shot of the garden this morning, may 4. raining all last night. got down to about 48 or so. i had heard you shouldn't plant tomatoes until temp stays above 50. everything is planted now. i added 2 new tomato plants that a neighbor gave us - one is cherry and the other i don't know. i put them in squares with 2 of the weakest looking of my original tomatoes - the early harvests. we'll see which does better over the next week or so then i'll pull the worse one.

weekend's work

got a lot accomplished this weekend. on saturd

ay, put in the 2 new sf boxes, mixed all of the ingredients with my sons' help, and got the square foot string in place and planted most of the tomatoes. this morning i finished transplanting the last few tomatoes. had to move some things around in the back rows to make room - some of the spinach and the snap peas got relocated.

for the 2 new boxes, mixed up 4 bags of compost (2 from southern states and 2 from lowes), and one bag each of vermiculite and peat moss. the 2 boxes do not look as full as the first 2 i did last fall, so i want to get some more compost from a third store to add to them. otherwise, the look great.

also did some odds and ends repair work on the fencing and fence posts. still need to plant the rest of the beds and transplant the squash and cucumber seedlings i bought last weekend at southern states.

april 21

started building 2 more sf boxes last night. still need to level out a space for them, then mix up the mel's mix. have all the materials though.

transplanted 4 tomatoes out this morning - the 3 early harvests and one mortgage lifter. set the remainder outside to harden off for a while. here's how the back bed looks now:

april 18

started to harden off the tomatoes this weekend. torrential downpours on saturday, beautiful and sunny on sunday. bought materials sunday for a new pair of 4x4 sq ft gardens. rained too much saturday to work much outside, but i did get the compost turned. potatoes are starting to peak through the soil, so i'll add another inch of soil soon. plan to build the 2 new boxes and put the tomatoes out this week.

tomatoes re-potted

got the tomatoes re-potted. ox-heart, super beefsteak, early harvest, and mortgage lifter. i'm especially excited about the oxhearts. those heirloom seeds are from my wife's aunt in Pennsylvania from 2008, but they sprouted and the plants are looking great. i re-potted from the seed-starter soil pucks that came with the sprouting kit in to the mel's mix that i had pulled from the garden last week when i planted my potato spuds. the sfg instructions for the potatoes said to plant them 5" deep but only cover with an inch of soil, then every week or so as the sprout through the soil, add another inch of soil. so the soil i took of the top i had in a bucket and used some of that to re-pot the tomatoes. hope that works. my only concerns are a) that the main nutrients in that soil are from my own compost (pressure!) and b) that mel's mix is so light and fluffy, i hope it can support the tomato plants. we'll see...

before re-potting:

after:

April 8

so the cauliflower died with the frost - i left the best looking one in to see if it could survive. i lost 2 rounds of broccoli as well - the first round the chickens ate. the second round got frost bitten. so i have my third round out there and hopefully it can survive. we had a freezing night earlier this week, but i had covered the broccoli with a plastic sheet so i thought i was in good shape, but in the morning before work when i removed the sheet, the broccoli leaves had frost on them! but a few days later and they looked pretty much fine (the back box in the picture below). everything in the other box is doing well - onions are good and also up are the beans, peas, lettuce, and spinach. very excited for that! need to repot the tomatoes today - they are about 3 or 4 inches tall and looking good!

broccoli and cauliflower in

put 4 broccoli plants from the first set of seed planting out in the garden this morning, along with the 4 cauliflower plants i bought a few weeks ago. still need to get the fence up, so hopefully they don't get eaten before i can get to that point. not much coming up in the other sfg bed - some signs of some lettuce sprouting, but no peas or anything. i would have thought i would have seen them by now - about 10 days out. we'll see.

spring is here

this weekend, i got the garden going. we had tried to put 2 broccoli plants out last weekend without hardening off, but they didn't take and we had several frosts. this weekend, set out about 50 onion plants in 3 of my squares plus in the old garden, then also did 2 squares each of mesclun mix lettuce, bibb lettuce, spinach, carrots, and a bunch of snap peas and one square of flowers. that pretty much filled up one of the 2 boxes. i need to get a fence up or put a cover on pretty quickly before the chickens and other animals find everything. been hardening off the broccoli and the cauliflower plants i bought. should set those out pretty soon. and the tomatoes from seed are all coming up pretty well. a few didn't sprout, but some of the seeds were 2 or 3 years old, so not terribly surprising. i'm excited that some of the ox-heart heirloom tomatoes seeds that i got from my wife's aunt in Pennsylvania have come up. those were from 2008!

first sf box planted

planted the first square foot box. onion plants and then from see flowers, mesclun mix, bibb lettuce, spinach, sugar snap peas, carrots, and green beans. i want those back spaces back for tomatoes as i want as many tomato plants as possible, so i may have to reclaim them later.

re-potted broccoli

as usual, i'm probably a week or 2 behind on this. re-potted all of the broccoli this morning in to 3 inch square pots from souther states. the first planting of broccoli definitely should have been re-potted a few weeks ago, but the second wave was probably just about right on time.

the square-foot-garden schedule says i should have planted the peppers last weekend, and the tomatoes in another week, but i'll probably plant some of both this weekend. i've never had good luck with the peppers from seed, so i may end up buying plants in a month or so.

i've been trying to keep my light closer to the seedlings this year - read something about 3" away being ideal.

broccoli at 2 weeks

just planted a second round of broccoli at 2 weeks. look how well the original batch is doing. i thinned it out today as well and tried to transplant a few - we'll see how those do.

broccoli sprouts are up

planted the broccoli last weekend - 1/23/11. started seeing sprouts wed/thurs this week and most are up now after a week. will probably start another row of them next weekened - spaced out by 2 weeks. snow on the ground and already plantings seeds. amazing.

fire, nfl playoffs, and the new burpee catalog. doesn't get much better than this.