Category Archives: Square Foot Gardening – Raised Beds

May 26, 2018 · 11:02 am

Weekend of Playing in the Dirt

stayathomeeducator.com via sites.psu.edu

 

This weekend we’ll be in and out, trying to get as much accomplished in the yard as we can – while living to tell the tale.

The weather looks like typical July or August for us – lots of bright sun, 90’s – 100+ temperatures and little, if any, chance of rain. The problem is that it’s only May!  We have doors and windows open most of the morning and then have to close up to run a/c for the afternoon and early evening, opening up again when if/when possible.

  • The bright sunshine after rain last week is causing our grass to grow as we watch, so mowing and weed-whacking will be one thing we need to do this weekend.
  • I need to scrub out and refill Amber’s kiddie pool. She doesn’t ‘swim’ in it a whole lot, but she rarely goes out during the day without running through it, drinking a bit of it, and maybe lying down in it enough to cool herself off a bit. (She is 14 months old now and weighs 93 lbs. To say it’s a ‘challenge’ for us to keep up with her is a laughable understatement. :0)
  • The rain and sunshine are causing the trees – and other ‘stuff’ on both sides of our long, steep driveway – to attempt to grow together, blocking anyone from coming up or going down. I’ll drive the truck slowly up and down the driveway – my husband with loppers and a ladder in the back – cutting things back. We’ll need to do this several times before it will be reasonable again. We also need to cut down things at the bottom of the driveway. Our robot is almost surrounded by greenery!
  • My raised bed square foot garden needs a lot of work. Yesterday we got some lettucy-type plants, broccoli ‘stir-fry’ plants, and some cantaloupe plants at the co-op. I got them planted, but need to harvest, prune, pull-up, and otherwise get the garden under better control. My bolted lettuce plants need to be pulled, chopped up, and added to our compost barrel.

And the list goes on. We’ll do as much as we can – resting between sessions and drinking boatloads of water.  Assuming we can do most of this by the end of the weekend, we’ll go to our local nursery next week to find some flowers for the deck and yard.

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

 

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May 25, 2018 · 1:55 pm

A Bit of New Life for the Garden

Today after a nice time at Lunch Bunch, we stopped at the co-op on the off chance that they might have a few plants for our garden. I found a couple of lettucy type plants that I hope will fill in where my romaine is bolting and not long for this world. I also found a plant called, “broccoli stir-fry.” Since I’ve harvested the majority of the main part of the broccoli plants and I’m not sure if I’ll get more from any of these, I’m happy that I may have another chance for more broccoli this season.

The fact that we’ve gone directly from winter to summer this year is hard on the garden, particularly for the cool-weather plants like broccoli, spinach, and lettuce.

 

 

This is one of the lettucy plants and two cantaloupe plants at which my husband was looking longingly. Since it looks like a lot of the rest of my plants have a very short life span remaining, I’m happy to try these. (The last melon type plant I tried took over the whole 4’x4′ box, so I’m going to plan for this.)

It’s WAY too hot right now to be trying to work in the garden, so I’m doing other stuff while waiting for the sun to tone it down a bit. (We’re having a high of around 90 with humidity at 61% right now – way too hot for this old lady.) I’ll try to take some pics to share later.

 

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May 23, 2018 · 12:55 pm

Yesterday’s Harvest

I’m grateful for the harvest yesterday. In the picture above you can see that my spinach plants are not enjoying the heat. Lettuce and spinach are cool weather plants and I usually enjoy quite a harvest before the too-hot begins. I’ll harvest as much spinach as possible because I can freeze it.

 

The head lettuce leaves are still okay, but looking a bit stressed. These plants are happier than anything else, with the exception of the radishes, in the square foot garden right now.

 

I’m sad because the really hot-too-soon in the season weather we’ve been having is causing the romaine lettuce to bolt. I’m not sure how much more I can harvest before the leaves taste bitter and I have to compost the plants.

 

We’ll enjoy the fresh lettuce and spinach for salad each day for as long as possible. I’m not sure whether I’ll get more broccoli, but the hope is that I’ll get more from the shoots from the main plant after the center has been harvested. The radishes and onions are doing fine, although some of the green tops of the onions are shooting up and trying to make seeds. The tomato plants on the other side of the house are growing rapidly. They like the heat. I have a few blossoms, so I’m hopeful we’ll enjoy a nice crop this year.

 

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May 22, 2018 · 11:14 am

Playing in the Dirt

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I’m trying to spend a bit of time each day in either my veggie garden or my flower planters. Yesterday I didn’t do anything heavy, recuperating from earlier endeavors, so today I’m redoubling my efforts to get outside.

We’re having way-too-soon hot weather here, so my romaine lettuce plants are bolting. :0(    We’ve been able to harvest a couple of times, and I’ll try to save as much as I can in the few days we have left before the plants soar to the sky, getting several feet high – I guess in their efforts to live a bit longer and make seed.

My husband wanted to go today to get flowers for the deck, but I’m so behind in my garden and my flower planters I asked him to wait until tomorrow or Thursday. I usually jump at the chance to get more flowers, but I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, particularly since I can’t work very long in this heat and don’t get as much accomplished as I would like.

I love spending time playing in the dirt. I’m concentrating my efforts in the morning and then in the evening, when the sun isn’t as strong. I work a bit, come in and rest and gulp water, then go out again, over and over. I love watching my plants thrive!

I’ll try to get some pictures to share with you later.

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May 16, 2018 · 1:14 pm

Garden Harvest – May, 2018

broccoli

I harvested this yesterday when it was super hot. I didn’t harvest any romaine because I just got too hot out there. I’ll do that later today.

 

head lettuce

 

Spinach

I also wanted to show you our tomato plants in the two planters we converted to square foot gardening on the east side of the house.

 

The first tomato blossom of the season!

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May 14, 2018 · 1:24 pm

Ready for Another Harvest!

Our raised bed square foot garden is doing well so far this year. We have six 4’x4′ boxes on metal ‘tables’ at about my chest level. I can just walk up to them, planting, weeding, or harvesting without having to get up and down from my knees or bend over double – a thing I can’t tell you how very MUCH I appreciate!

 

We are growing iceberg head lettuce, romaine lettuce, sweet onions, radishes, spinach and broccoli. We have two converted planters on the east side of the house with tomato plants.

 

I’m going to go out and harvest some things today, but I wanted to show you how nice the plants look before I do.

 

 

 

I have some celery started in the kitchen that I’m hoping I can transplant to these empty squares soon.

 

 

On the lower right, you can see the start of radishes in the square.

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May 7, 2018 · 5:56 pm

Garden Update – May 7, 2018

This afternoon we went out to check on the garden – weeding, harvesting, and taking pictures. I got hot and tired, so I didn’t do any harvesting today, but will tomorrow. We got the weeds taken care of, and everything seems to be very happy.

 

I was surprised to see how the broccoli has grown! Last week I had to look really carefully to see any sign at all of the broccoli head. I’ll harvest some of this tomorrow. I learned last year that the broccoli goes from this to really spread out like a bouquet and not good to eat fast. I’m hoping that I can encourage shoots off the main plant to produce more.

 

I lost one lettuce plant, and I have no clue what happened, since all the rest looked like this. We have romaine and iceberg head lettuce.

 

The onion plants are tall and strong looking. The spinach is still looking happy, although it prefers the cooler temperatures.

 

 

I planted several squares of radishes last week, and you can see them here.

I decided to spread my plants out a lot more this year. I think that the square foot garden guy, Mel Bartholomew, gets a lot more involved with his garden than we do. My plants grew into each other last year and where the plants met, they seemed to smother. Everything seems happier this year, so far, with my idea of more air circulation around each plant.

I didn’t get pictures today of the two tomato planters on the other side of the house, but I’ll try to get some soon. They seem to be happy right now.

We turned on the irrigation system for the planters in the front yard and found where we had a blow-out. My husband said it looked like a ‘critter’ had been chewing on the pvc pipe that runs across the front of the yard, down over the edge between the ‘civilized’ and ‘woody’ parts. He had ordered a special repair tape a couple of years ago. This seemed a perfect time to try it. He wrapped the pvc pipe where the chew marks were and we’ll test it tomorrow, after it has time to adhere to itself fully.

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April 26, 2018 · 10:36 am

Square Foot Garden Progress – April

 

Yesterday I showed you the first harvest from our spring veggie garden. I’m delighted that everything seems to be happy so far.

The raised bed square foot garden consists of six 4’x4′ wooden boxes about my chest level filled with Mel’s Mix (a combination of peat moss, vermiculite, and three or more kinds of compost.) The boxes are divided into ‘squares’ by stretched string. I have opted to space things out a lot more this year because I lost a lot of produce by having the plants growing into each other. I decided to opt for a lot more air and space for each plant and see what happens.

We also have tomato plants in two converted brick planters on the other side of the house. We’ll plant another group of tomato plants soon so that we can space out our harvest and extend it as much as possible.

In the picture above you can see broccoli plants, spinach, iceberg head lettuce, romaine lettuce, and onions. I’ll add some radish seeds soon (as soon as I get the squares weeded) and also celery (when the ones I started in the house are large enough.)

Each box has a sprinkler in the center that are connected by pieces of hose. These are all tied to a main hose that connects to a rural type outside faucet. We put a timer on it so that the garden is irrigated each morning.

I’m going to wash spinach, romaine, and iceberg lettuce for our salad today harvested yesterday from the garden. I hope that one day we can eat our own broccoli!

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April 25, 2018 · 10:23 am

1st Harvest – 2018

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We’re having scattered showers today. I decided to go out to the garden and bring in some produce for the salad we’ll enjoy tomorrow. Of course, the rain started when I was just starting to snip…

PurifyouPremiumReusableMesh

Since Nutrisystem suggests that you NOT wash produce until just before you eat it, and also suggested that produce will last longer in these mesh bags, I took three of the bags out to the garden with me and harvested the produce right into the bags: one for spinach, one for iceberg lettuce, and one for romaine lettuce.

 

1st Harvest – Spinach

 

1st Harvest – Iceberg Lettuce

 

1st Harvest – Romaine Lettuce

Even though my efforts at growing a garden don’t save us money, the produce we get is so fresh, and it’s so much fun to go out and snip the ingredients for salad from your own garden!

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April 15, 2018 · 10:02 am

Square Foot Garden After Storm

We had bad storms with a strong cold front Friday afternoon and evening – including tornadoes, damaging winds, rain, hail, and flying hair balls. I was worried that my fledgling square foot garden plants would get battered.  Yesterday and today we’ve had cold temperatures for April in Arkansas – barely 40 and gusty north winds.

As you can see, the garden is doing fine. WHEW!  Thank  goodness these are all cool weather plants!  I may lose some of my tomato plants, but the rest of the garden is good.

 

 

Broccoli

 

Iceberg Head Lettuce

 

Romaine Lettuce

 

Spinach

It’s almost time to start snipping!  I can gather the outer, larger leaves of the lettuces and the spinach soon. As soon as it warms up a bit, I’ll get some radishes started.

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April 4, 2018 · 9:17 am

Good Morning!

IncredibleSayings

I just took the doggies out, walking straight out to the garden to see if our plants made it through the night. It was due to get close to freezing this morning, and I debated whether to try to cover things up. I finally decided I had too many things to cover and would just hope for the best.

It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if the plants had frozen, but they were doing really well and I would have been very disappointed if Mother Nature had zapped everything.

Everything is good!

I hope that the weather is good where you are this morning. I wonder what the day will bring?

 

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April 3, 2018 · 11:46 am

I’ve Definitely Quit Dancing!

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Okay. We were in the middle of a drought and it even caused bad problems with our water supply, making the turnovers in the lakes cause our water to have a bad odor and taste.  Wildfire danger was high. Warm, windy days were worrisome.  I started doing mental and physical rain dances, trying to get our area over the problem.

Mother Nature listened. I’m not sure if she saw and heard ME, or if a whole lot of people were also doing rain dances, but she delivered. Big Time. We’ve had rain, rain showers, heavy rain, storms, sleet, and more rain. I’ve definitely STOPPED even thinking about rain dances, but now I’m thinking Mother Nature is saying, “You wanted rain. Okay. Here it is!”

Today we’re due for MORE storms, particularly between 11:00 and 3 this afternoon with possible severe weather.  We did a group of errands this morning, paring our list down to one appt this afternoon, in an effort to be ONLY blown away, rather than blown away and DROWNED trying to get our stuff done.

The doggies came and demanded that I take them out a couple of minutes ago, insisting they would blow up if I didn’t take them out NOW. I complied, then came back for my camera, to record some of the beauty I found while walking around the yard. The storm today might wreak havoc with our yard, so I wanted to try to catch Mother Nature at her BEST – first.

Every day the wisteria gets more lush and more purple.

It SMELLS wonderful, too!

We have purple iris blooming in planters, in clusters around the yard, even off the edge of the civilized part of our yard, plus down our driveway.

 

We have buds on the three new Rio Samba rose bushes, and now some of the buds are starting to open up!

 

A knock out rose bush is starting to have blooms.

 

This is the north side of our square foot garden.

And the south side.

The winds really picked up while I took pics and walked the dogs. We’ll probably be right in the heart of the thunderstorms this afternoon, since we have to be out at 1:30. It’s a good thing we don’t melt in the rain. We’re thankful for our warm, dry home. Our doggies have already snuggled down for a nap, and even the two cats came in with us.

Have a wonderful day. Stay warm and dry!

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March 30, 2018 · 3:07 pm

Between Deluges

The Nourished Soul

I almost didn’t recognize the huge orb in the sky this morning. It’s been at least a week since we’ve seen it, and it was truly a glorious sight. On one of the many ‘walk-the-doggies’ trips I’ve taken today, I took some pictures of my veggie garden.

 

We built our raised bed veggie boxes with drain holes, but we’ve been getting SO much rain relentlessly, I was afraid I would find the boxes washed out and the veggies on the ground. Happily, everything seems to be doing well.

 

Here is iceberg lettuce and some onions.

 

This is the north side of the garden. You can see broccoli, spinach, onions, iceburg lettuce, and romaine lettuce.

 

Here’s a better pic of some spinach and some romaine lettuce, plus some onions.

 

This is the south side of the garden.

And here is the first group of tomato plants. I plan to plant more in a couple of weeks to extend our harvesting season.

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March 26, 2018 · 10:03 am

Believing in Tomorrow

Audrey Hepburn via GrowingBolder.com via Cathy Ruggiero

 

tomato plants

“It was such a pleasure to sink one’s hands into the warm earth, to feel at one’s fingertips the possibilities of the new season.” ~ Kate Morton

Raised Bed Planters – Row 1

“My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant’s point of view. ” ~ H. Fred Dale

 

Raised Bed Planters – Row 2

“In every gardener there is a child who believes in The Seed Fairy.” ~Robert Brault

We’re due for rain starting this afternoon – going from “Thunderstorms,” to “Heavy Rain,” to “Showers,” to “A.M. Showers,” to “Thunderstorms” through Monday of NEXT WEEK! My biggest concern now is that my sweet plants will come up out of the ground and flow out of the squares and boxes and end up on the ground below…

“You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt.” ~ Author Unknown

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March 24, 2018 · 11:10 am

Happy Saturday

Trendzified

Good morning!

I’m feeling happy and grateful this morning.

We’re having a nice weekend weather-wise here in Greenwood, Arkansas. The highs will be in the 70’s and no rain until tomorrow evening (although it LOOKS like it could rain today). Because rain is forecast for every day from Sunday evening through Thursday next week, I’m trying to get as much accomplished in the yard as possible. Yesterday I planted tomato plants in one of the brick planters beside the house. The wind was gusting so hard I began to wonder if I was going to be able to plant!  I did finish, though, and will check on the plants again this morning.

_______________________

Things got busy around here, so an hour or so has passed.

The doggies demanded I take them out, so we walked all over the yard. We saw the veggie garden with its automatic watering –

 

 

 

 

we checked on the new tomato plants –

 

we took pictures, and played a bit while enjoying the really nice morning.

Just a few minutes ago my husband suggested we drive down to see if the mail had been delivered. We also took the “Rabbit and Easter Egg” mailbox decoration when we went, exchanging it for the leprechaun for St. Pat’s Day.

We drove down to the church at the end of the street to turn the truck around and met our good friend Carla, who was walking her two doggies, Nikki and Rubie. Thank goodness I still had a couple of dog treats in my pocket so we could greet them properly. (Carla said she didn’t care for one.) :0)

Today’s big project is filling the wheelbarrow with top soil and trying to fill up all the holes (or as many as I can find) that the moles, voles, and other ‘ole’s’ underneath the surface caused our doggies to dig to try to get them. We only actually saw one ‘victory’ so far. We’re not sure WHO got the ‘critter’ we found, but SOMEONE had given it a very hard time.  Anyway, between the underworld critters and ours, the yard almost looks like something from a bad horror movie. I’ll try to get them filled so that the rain can make the soil sink down and stay put, and then maybe we can mow without falling into a hole or twisting an ankle.

I hope your morning has been a fun one!

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March 22, 2018 · 12:04 pm

Young Veggie Garden

Our spring raised bed square foot garden is off to a good start. We have six 4’x4’x8″ boxes at about my chest level in our vegetable garden. (We also have two brick planters on the other side of the house we use for our tomato plants.)

 

You can see the sprinklers and hoses that run over the top of the boxes on either side, making up the irrigation system. I added the timer a few days ago to the outdoor faucet, so the garden gets watered for 10 minutes each morning. There are drain holes in each box so that excess water runs out freely.  I’ve planted onion sets, iceberg head lettuce, romaine lettuce, broccoli, and spinach so far. I’ll plant some radishes later, plus bring out starts of celery from the house.

This year, except for the onion sets and radishes, I decided to only plant one plant in each square. There are only two of us eating salad in our household, so 4 lettuce plants to a square is too much for us to eat and the plants grow rapidly, crowding each other. I’m experimenting to see if this spread out version works better for us.

 

The spindly plants around this lettuce plant are onion sets. The tops of the onions don’t look great, but I’m hoping that the actual onions are doing well. I won’t know for a long time.

 

Here you can see broccoli in the foreground, a spinach plant in the middle, and lettuce toward the back.  I’m planning to start the tomato plants we bought very soon.

 

 

This is

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March 16, 2018 · 9:14 am

Working on the Greenhouse

When we return from Lunch Bunch, my plan is to start actually getting my greenhouse more organized. These pictures are from when we just finished it, when all was clean, pristine, and the weed barrier on the floor was in one piece.

Over the months since we finished building it, I’ve transferred lots of things into it, just  moving things from our garage, the garden area, etc., so that it was at least in the greenhouse. I’ve been in and out on almost a daily basis, putting plants in there that I bought from one place or another and holding them until I could get them into the garden. A six-pack of tomatoes is in there now, but everything else has been planted in the raised bed square foot garden. I’m getting some good exercise because the only place we had to build the greenhouse is on the opposite side of our property from the shop and the garden.

Now is the time to at least start getting organized. I want to create an area for starting seeds. I want to consolidate a bunch of supplies, taking up as little table space as possible because I’ll need to bring more plants in when we demolish the two brick planters that have cracked, and in the future will want space for growing seeds, and staged growing plants as I try to get them ready to plant outside. I’ll have to be careful what I store on the floor under the tables on each side because water collects there when it rains. It’s exciting to finally start scheming and planning how I want things to work!

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March 13, 2018 · 6:57 pm

The Spring Garden is Started!

I got my plants in this afternoon. This picture gives you an idea of where the garden is in relation to our shop.

 

We have six 4’x4’x8″ raised bed boxes in our garden. It is surrounded by fencing, with chicken wire also around the bottom. I’ll run some bright surveyor’s tape around the perimeter about chest high and also down each of the guy wires at the corners to warn critters that there is a structure here.

 

I’m planting fewer things this year, with wider spacing. I planted 12 broccoli plants, 12 romaine plants, 12 spinach plants, and 12 iceburg lettuce plants. I had already planted two bunches of onion sets. I have several empty squares. I’ll plant some radishes, plus celery transplanted from plants started in the house later.  I’m going to play with growing some gourds because my friend Kay brought some seeds to Lunch Bunch recently. :0) I also have a six pack of tomato plants still in the greenhouse. I’ll wait a couple of weeks to plant them.

 

Last year I  lost some produce because the plants got too large and crowded each other out in the squares. This year I’m only planting one plant per square (other than the onions) and we’ll see how that works.

 

In this picture you can see the line of trash cans along the back of the shop, plus the blue tarp, etc. The light gray trash cans are filled with the components of Mel’s Mix (peat moss, vermiculite, mushroom compost, barnyard compost, and cotton burr compost.) I have our personal composter toward the house. The darker gray trash cans hold supplies for planting.

I had some trouble with the end of one of the irrigation hoses being messed up. My good husband came out and replaced the messed up end of hose with a new end and then we could water the garden! We won’t put the system on a timer until we’re sure all chance of frost and  freezing are past.

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March 13, 2018 · 11:11 am

Taking the Plunge

Belgian Nursery

My husband goes outside when the weather forecasters tell him it’s raining in Greenwood – on the Lewis’ house – right now.  I have a bit more faith in their abilities, though we both realize that trying to forecast the weather is a complicated task. I just looked up the 10-day forecast for Greenwood on the net and see that today was the last forecast freeze through the 23rd. I’ve decided to go ahead and take the plunge, planting the veggies we are holding in the greenhouse.

 

Gardening Know How

I have iceburg lettuce, spinach, romaine, and broccoli plants, two six-packs of each.

I have my raised bed planters filled with Mel’s Mix and the string stretched across in two directions, creating the squares for planting. My planters are at about chest level so I can just walk up and plant things without having to bend over, get down on my knees or back up again.

I planted Texas Sweet Onion sets a couple of days ago. It’s such a pleasure! I’ll take pictures when I get the plants in. I’m excited to be starting a brand new spring crop!

I’ll watch the weather carefully, leaping up to put sheets over the plants if they say it’s going to get near freezing for the rest of the month.

 

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March 10, 2018 · 10:07 am

1st Planting Lesson of the Year

The Rusted Vegetable Garden

Well, shoot!

I was looking for a photo of onion sets and came upon their suggestion for giving your onions a good start when you plant them: Soak the sets in water for 15-30 minutes to make them easier to pull apart and prepare the roots for planting.

The sad part is that I planted yesterday and just found the photo and suggestion above today –

I feel good. My husband and I mixed enough Mel’s Mix yesterday to finish topping off the two brick tomato planters on the east side of the house. All the veggie planters are now ready for planting. As I said, I planted the two onion sets we bought. I planted 4 in each of 30 squares in the raised bed square foot garden. I need to make markers now to stick in each of the planters, but the onions are in!

The forecast is for scattered showers during the day and heavier showers this evening, so hopefully they’ll get a good, thorough watering. We won’t hook up our irrigation system until all chance of frost is past, March 30th or so.

Monday I hope to get more plants. (I’m hoping to get spinach and broccoli). I’ll probably keep them in the greenhouse until it’s time to plant. I found a nice guide to planting today –

The plan this year is to grow fewer things, but try to do succession planting so that we have a longer harvest.

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March 8, 2018 · 7:06 pm

Ready to Plant

This afternoon I stretched string across in two directions to create the ‘squares’ of the square foot garden in the six raised boxes. I’m now ready to plant! I’ll go get some onion sets because they can go into the garden directly. I also have some iceberg head lettuce plants, but I need to wait to plant them until all danger of frost is past.

Tomorrow I’ll mix up some more Mel’s Mix to top off the two brick planters on the other side of the house that we converted to square foot planters for our tomatoes. It’s supposed to be a beautiful day tomorrow, so I’m anxious to get this part finished before we get rain Saturday.

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March 6, 2018 · 12:19 pm

Mel’s Mix – Day Two

This is a much grander version of what I’m going to be doing this afternoon, but it gives you the idea.

We were able to get the components of Mel’s Mix (a ground soil alternative made from 2 parts peat moss, 2 parts vermiculite, 1 part each as many different kinds of compost as you can find – I use mushroom, cotton burr, and barnyard, plus our own homemade, when we have it.)  Recently we tried the very used cement mixer we bought to mix the components together before putting them in our raised bed garden boxes. The mixer is GREAT. I’m using a small bucket, but I can mix TWO batches of Mel’s Mix in the mixer at one time, then dump some out into a plastic yard basket for transport to the garden and into a box.  Now that I know how to move the mixer up and down and what to expect, I can do this any time I would like. I love feeling empowered!

We added a bunch of Mel’s Mix to three of the six 4’x4’x8″ raised wooden boxes that make up our vegetable garden. I may need to add more, but I’ll decide that later. Today I’m concentrating on the rest of the boxes. Once I get the Mel’s Mix into the boxes, I’ll stretch string between nails on the edges of the boxes in both directions to create ‘squares’ for planting. (In square foot gardening, you plant different numbers of plants in the squares depending on the plant. (For broccoli and cauliflower, for example, you plant one plant in a square. For lettuce, you can plant 4 plants in a square. For radishes, you can plant 16…) You spread out the planting so that you’re not planting the same thing in two squares right next to each other. This cuts way down on any insects or disease.

I’m not going to even think about getting plants until the boxes are filled and the squares are marked and the irrigation system is set up. The first thing I’ll plant is onion sets. I may bring home other plants to put in my new greenhouse, even though it’s not organized yet.

I’m excited to start another year of raised bed square foot gardening. I learn a TON every year – mostly things NOT to do next time, so far :0) – and I have SUCH a good time watching things grow. I’ll post pics from time to time to share how things are going.

Have a wonderful day!

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March 5, 2018 · 1:33 pm

A Good Monday

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We have had a wonderful Monday.

First thing this morning we filled up the back of the truck with another donation to Veteran’s Thrift Store.  We stopped at our veterinary clinic when we got to Greenwood to replenish our dog food supply, putting the bags in the back seat. We dropped off the donation, then drove back to the co-op in Greenwood, filling up the back of the truck with all we needed to replenish our supply of the components of Mel’s Mix for the garden except for one more bag of mushroom compost, which the nice man at the counter is ordering for us. It amazes me that the man remembers my name! He’ll call us when he has the bag we need in stock. We grabbed lunch at the deli at CVs on the way to the house.

After lunch my husband backed the truck to the garden (not a chore for the faint of heart) and we unloaded the back of the truck, opening the bags and filling up the trash bins behind the shop, beside the garden.) When we got back to the garage, we unloaded the dog food from the back seat and stored the two bags in the bin we keep for that purpose.

We’re going to go bowling with friends tonight. Since Amber has been in the back seat of the truck, we needed to vacuum the seats, getting rid of all the dog hair we can. It was my husband’s turn, so I left him doing that while I gathered trash in the house. We put the bowling balls in the trunk of the truck and I just put the bags of trash into the back so that we can leave them at the bottom of the driveway when we leave tonight to pick up our friends.

Even the weather is wonderful – sunny and 68 degrees right now.

I’m probably going to do some other things this afternoon, like the elliptical and my yoga, but the biggest thing will be to spread out under a throw in my recliner and take a good nap after our morning’s work. :0)

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March 3, 2018 · 5:52 pm

Mel’s Mix 2.0

This is a picture of two of my six 4’x4’x8″ raised bed square foot garden boxes. We had an absolutely perfect day to work outside (sunny with a high of 68) so I threw my plans for the day up in the air and decided to start topping off the Mel’s Mix in the garden boxes in preparation for planting our spring garden.  (The mix settles during the winter. I can’t figure out where it ‘goes,’ but about half of the mix is gone.)  My husband came along to give me moral support – and to insult me while I learned how to use our new-to-us cement mixer. Our 91 pound puppy, Amber, came with us just because she likes to be with us and loves being outside.

Last year we bought the mixer, thinking it would help me get the components of Mel’s Mix combined better. (The components of Mel’s Mix are peat moss, vermiculite, and as many different kinds of compost as you can find. I use cotton burr, mushroom, and barnyard, with a bit of homemade thrown in. ) I used to dip out the components into a wheelbarrow, then use a shovel to mix it up as well as I could and then fight to get the wheelbarrow through the door of the garden fencing, shoveling out the Mel’s Mix into one of the boxes, scoop by scoop. It was a huge job.

 

My husband made a nice handle for moving the cement mixer around, if necessary, and we put the mixer behind the shop, next to the square foot garden, in the row of trash cans I use for all the Mel’s Mix stuff.  We put a tarp over the mixer and the long extension cord for it for the winter.

 

Today I put together one batch of Mel’s Mix, putting each measure into the cement mixer for the first time.  I saw that it would hold a lot more, so I added the components for a second batch. We plugged the mixer in and mixed the stuff for about 3 or 4 minutes. It was mixed SO much better than I could do with the shovel! We poured some of the mix into a large plastic yard basket with handles (about half full so I could lift it) and then I took it over and dumped it into a garden box.( It took 2 cement mixer loads to top off one of the raised bed boxes.) We kept mixing and dumping until we ran out of some of the components of the Mel’s Mix. (We topped off 3 of the boxes.)  Then, because my energy had run out before we used up the components, we went ahead and covered up the cement mixer again and put the tops on all the trash cans holding the compost, etc., before going to town.

The co-op apparently closes at noon on Saturday, so replenishing our supplies will have to wait until at least Monday. They usually don’t have the vermiculite I need and have to order it, but we’ll can get what we can and order the rest to pick up later in the week.

The mixer helps a LOT, but doesn’t make it so it isn’t really physical work for this old broad. It does a MUCH better job of mixing the components. I now know how to move the mixer bowl up and down, so I’ll be able to do that now any time I want to.

We finished enough garden boxes so that if we find good onion sets at the co-op Monday, I can go ahead and get them. We already have some string for marking the garden ‘squares’ that will weather being out in the sun better than the stretchy nylon string we used last year. (That was nice to use, but deteriorated quickly.)

The season is almost starting – at least for onions! I’m determined to get the beds ready for planting BEFORE I actually get the plants this year. Trying to do the prep AND the planting in one day is too much!

After eating some late lunch mid afternoon, this lady crashed in her recliner…

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January 28, 2018 · 12:04 pm

Shhhhh!

I saw a set up for selling plants at the co-op as we drove by last week. I did some research and discovered that February is a good months to start onion sets in Arkansas.  We’ll check there tomorrow and see what’s what.  We had such good luck last year that I’ve been enjoying them since harvest and still have two nice hanging mesh bags of onions in the pantry. :0)

 

We have six 4’x4′ raised bed planters like this in our square foot garden. If we DO get onion sets, I’ll first have to mix some Mel’s Mix to top off a couple of the planters. We don’t have string strung yet to create the ‘square feet’ for the garden, either.  I’m not really in planting mode yet. I’m still thinking about how I’m going to set up my greenhouse so that I can get seeds growing. And I really wasn’t planning to start THAT until March….

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I’m still in cleaning out mode, feeling better and better as I get areas around the house finally cleaned out and decluttered.

I’m working upstairs today – the second day of working on my bookshelves on my side of the bedroom, plus the shelves in the guest room. I’m hoping to finish that today.  During this process, I found a bunch of books that I no longer need, so I brought them downstairs to the office. About a third of them were saleable on Amazon, and the rest I listed to donate to our local library.  I have to concentrate on the ‘cleaning’ part of this because I see a book on art, want to sit right down and look at it, drooling over the pictures…

My goal this year is to continually gather donations for our local library fundraisers and the Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith. I would like to be able to make a donation each month this year. I’m also trying to gather an extra large bag of trash each week. This week I’ll be putting out TWO extra bags!

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I hope you’re having a nice Sunday,too.

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January 13, 2018 · 11:35 am

Sow What?

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I’m gathering suggestions as to what to start when – and a bit on how – in my new greenhouse!  My goal is to be ready to start some plants the middle of March. I’ll have to see what the temperature is in the greenhouse, since I don’t have heat out there, but if it’s too cold, I can start the seeds in the house and move them out there later.

 

Our greenhouse is 10×14. It is not heated or cooled with electricity because it would cost us a fortune. We do have the ability to have lights, and we do have an automatic venting system tied to the thermostat, so we can get reasonable ventilation in there, particularly when I leave the door open at the opposite end of the greenhouse.

So far I just moved things out there and stashed them somewhere. I’m giving some thought now to storage and work areas.

 

I would like to keep as much table area as possible for either planting seeds or staging the plants I’ve started. If we have some warmer days (like in the 40s or so) I’ll try to start moving things around, trying to get organized for the initial planting. I’ll take pics as I make some progress and share them with you. I’m hoping that I can stretch my growing season, growing my own plants to transplant out to the square foot garden when they’re ready and the danger of frost is past.

 

Our square foot garden used to look like this, with two rows of boxes on the ground.

 

Now we have six 4’x4′ boxes at chest level so I can replenish the Mel’s Mix in the boxes, mark the squares with string, plant, weed, and harvest without having to bend over or kneel down on the ground.  The boxes have a fence all the way around them, reinforced with chicken wire to keep critters out. We have an automatic irrigation system set up.

I’m dreaming about plants, greenhouses, and glorious harvests this spring!

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December 21, 2017 · 12:05 pm

Organizing My Greenhouse

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I wish that my greenhouse looked like this. Maybe one day…

Right now it looks like big piles of ‘stuff’ on the floor, on the tables, all over the place.

I’m starting to find some ideas, though.

I’ve got a couple of things that take priority right now, but very soon I’m going to start trying to move things so that I have a good place to plant my seeds in March.

I’ve already learned from the beginner’s book I got on greenhouses a whole different way to start my seeds. I may be able to lose my “Serial Seed Killer” moniker, after all!

Meanwhile, the elephant ear and purple passion roots are safe in the garage, packed in peat moss for the winter. I learned that the greenhouse will definitely get below freezing without a heater. That’s okay. One lesson learned of many to come.

What I CAN do is –

  • create an initial set up for planting seeds
  • figure out which seeds I’ll plant and when in order to have the best chance of having good transplants to put out in the square foot garden when the threat of frost is past
  • decide if I have all the tools I’ll need to get started
  • cut my seed trays to fit into the turkey basting trays (explanation later)
  • clean up the floor out there (the water from rains comes in underneath and pools in places on the weed barrier for a few days. When the weed barrier is dry, there is dirt left there. There is also a place where Amber tried to dig, right in the middle of the greenhouse. I need to either put down another layer of weed barrier secured with duct tape or put rubber mats out there, or something to protect the floor from further rips.

I’ll take pics as I go. If you have suggestions, I’d be delighted if you’d write and tell me.

Have a wonderful Thursday!

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December 12, 2017 · 10:42 am

Cleaning Up

Our raised bed square foot garden is now completely cleaned out. I was hoping the lettuces would survive, but the recent week of hard freezes did them in. All is now ready for more Mel’s Mix in the spring.

I’m reading the new book I got about using my greenhouse most effectively. Since it’s WAAAAAY too expensive to provide heat or cooling to the greenhouse, I’m concentrating on extending my spring planting season, figuring out when the best time is to start seeds so that I’ll have good plants to put out in the garden when danger of frost is past. Since I’m new at this, I’m making lots of notes, trying to get my act together.

In the meantime, I’ll start getting my greenhouse better organized. Right now I just have things ‘in’ the greenhouse with no particular thought to where and how I’ll start seeds later. I’m going to see if I can find some information on the net and will start moving things around.

The only plants I have in the greenhouse right now are the elephant ear plant and the purple passion plant I dug up before all the hard freezes started. Of course, NOW it’s getting up into the 50s in the afternoon, so with my luck, they’ll probably die in there from getting too hot! :0(

I found some old pictures of the greenhouse as we built it –

The dimensions are about 10 x 14.  It has a dirt floor covered with two layers of weed barrier. The corners have steel rod welded to plates that we drilled holes and pounded into the ground with a sledge hammer. The plates were screwed into the wood. The ribs are pvc pipe. At first we held them to the wood with plastic pieces, but we’ve replaced several that couldn’t handle the strain with metal ones.

 

You’re looking at the north end of the greenhouse from the inside. We made tables from plywood and they go around both sides and across the north end. We left a spot in the northwest corner to hold a trash can filled with Mel’s Mix, plus brooms, and other tall stuff.

 

This is still the north end of the greenhouse, with the addition of an exhaust fan. When it’s hooked up to electricity, it opens when the temperature reaches a preset mark to draw air through the greenhouse for cooling.

 

This is the inside of the east side of the greenhouse. It will hold lots of supplies, though I’ll store as much of this as possible off the tables to give myself as much room to spread out planting trays and pots as possible.

 

Outside of the north end of the greenhouse. If you’ve been following the blog, you know that we had a break in the pvc pipe right at the top where it was attached to the wood. We ended up screwing large screws with rings onto the upright pieces of wood and arranging for guy wires to pull the end out, attached to a stake in the ground.

 

This seems like a really old picture, since there is now a 45 foot ham radio tower very close to the door on the south end of the greenhouse. You can see pieces of it in the left front of the picture.

 

This is the inside west side of the greenhouse. I’ll show you more pics as I get the greenhouse in some kind of order (I hope).  I’m hoping I can find good ideas for how to arrange things. Wish me luck?

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December 9, 2017 · 11:49 am

Last Harvest of 2017

Yesterday I had to wait half the day for the temperatures to get above freezing. When I looked at my lettuce at the end of the afternoon, it was clear that I should harvest what I could and call the end of the season.  We got a nice harvest of bibb lettuce, and we’ll enjoy that in a salad tonight.  This afternoon, when it warms up a bit more, I’ll go out and clean out the remainder of the lettuce from my square foot garden.

The only ‘garden’ I have right now is the tomato plant and the celery plants on my window sill in the dining area. I’m hoping that the elephant ear and purple passion plants will stay alive in the greenhouse.

Soon I’ll start planning what seeds to plant and when in my new greenhouse!

 

 

 

 

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December 3, 2017 · 2:21 pm

Composter

We built a composter a couple of years ago. I finally made a good batch of compost this year!

I say this as if I won the lottery because even though I followed directions I found in books and on the net, I ended up with the wrong combination of ingredients and ended up dumping it out (holding my nose) and washing out the inside of the composter with a hose.

I’ve finally learned to add a whole lot more yard waste and much less food waste in order to come up with something that I hope will be a good addition to the composts for the square foot garden.

I cleaned it out today because I don’t want to leave it in there for the winter. In the picture above, you can see that we used a plastic food container type barrel we bought from the hardware store. We poured a concrete pad for the composter to sit on, with stakes coming up out of the concrete. We pounded the legs onto the stakes to make a good, sturdy support for the composter. We cut the opening in the front, making it so it opens wide enough to put new items in easily or use the tool my husband made for scooping the compost out. The barrel is on rollers. We attached handles on three spots around the barrel so you can pull the barrel, rolling it over and mixing the ingredients inside. This way you can be sure everything is mixed well.

This is the tool my husband made. It’s rounded to conform to the inside of the barrel, making emptying it really easy. It has a rubber grip, and the tool is plenty long enough to reach all areas on the inside of the barrel. The tool “lives’ on its side beside the composter.

You can see one of the three handles on the top of the composter. The metal ‘wand’ keeps the latches shut and the door firmly closed. My husband made the handle for it on the mill. The end slides through the parts of the latches, or pulls out if you’re opening it up. The end also helps pry the ends of the latches up.

After cleaning out the composter today, the trash can under it is a little over 1/3 full. We can mix up Mel’s Mix behind the shop, and then wheelbarrow some out to add our own compost to the mix next spring.

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December 3, 2017 · 2:06 pm

Ready for Winter?

We’re pretty much ready for winter now.

I finished mulching the flower planters yesterday – finally.

We cleaned out two square planters in order to plant new Rio Samba rose bushes in the spring. We converted two brick planters to be square foot planters for tomatoes, so four of our brick planters didn’t need mulch. The other 10 did. I feel good that things are cleaned out and protected now.

I dug up the elephant ear plant, potted it, and put it in the greenhouse.

 

Same for the Purple Passion plant. (I put two starter plants in water beside the big one. It would be fun if I could get those to grow. )

The jugs of water are an attempt to keep the plants warm in the greenhouse during the winter. I’m hoping the water will warm up during the day and keep the plants warm at night.

The Bibb lettuce is still doing well in my square foot garden.

 

Here is the Simpson lettuce. Both are in the same raised bed box, so when we have a freeze coming, I just have to cover one box with a sheet and clothespins. I’m hoping I can keep these alive for at least another month, if not more, depending on Mother Nature.

I’ve started two celery plants in pots on the window sill. I’ve never tried this before, so it should be fun.

 

This tomato plant is also on the window sill. I’m hoping I can keep it alive for the winter and replant it in the spring. Fingers crossed!

I still need to clean out the plants on the deck, but these are much easier to handle. They can wait for another day.

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