The plants are looking healthy. If they spill out in the way of the lawn mower, I’ll trim them, but other than that, I’ll just let them do what they want this year. Last year I trimmed them pretty severely, following some directions I found on the net that was supposed to increase our yield. I think I’ll just let them do their thing this year and see what happens. I’ll fertilize again next week.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Phase 1 (of 3) is done!
I just came in from weeding the garden boxes. (Phase 1)
I will harvest the head lettuce over the next week or so, depending on the weather. (Phase 2)
The last phase is finishing cleaning out the 2nd of the two boxes whose bottoms gave up so that we can rebuild them when the time seems right.
Since my spinach and head lettuce crop has gone so fast due to Mother Nature sending way too much rain, yo-yo temps and premature summer temperatures now, I’m going to think about whether I want to replant with whatever is available that looks good at the sources in town.
I brought in 3 heads of lettuce that are soaking in the sink now. I’ll clean them up in a few minutes. I’ll take two of them to give to our terrific hair stylist when we go for my husband’s haircut tomorrow. Guess who will be having some salad tonight!
Tomorrow I’ll check on the tomatoes on the opposite end of our yard and take some pics to share with you.
Hope you’re having a nice Tuesday.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Rick Gebhardt
I’ve only done one session of weeding in the garden and I’m already hot and tired. I’m going to rest a bit, drink a bunch of water, put on a sweatband and then go out for a 2nd session. I have finished one garden box so far.
I have a mixed bag on veggie results this time. My spinach apparently didn’t like all the changes in temperature plus the constant rain. It was already bolting, so I pulled up the plants. :0(
My head lettuce is looking pretty good, though, so I’m weeding around the plants. I’m not sure when I’m supposed to harvest this. I’ll see if I can find some information on the net.
I’m hoping that I can finish the weeding today. I would also like to start digging the Mel’s Mix out of the 2nd planter whose bottom gave up the ghost, sagged, and broke. The first ruined planter is free of the soil alternative now, but the bottom is only sagging in the second, so the soil is in there much more securely.
The concentration is weeding today and figuring out when I harvest.
________________________
The information I found says that the lettuce will start to bolt when the daytime temperatures exceed 70 degrees. That’s NOW. When I finish weeding, I’ll look carefully at each of the plants and decide if I should harvest them. This has been a really weird spring planting.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
4Knines
It’s overcast and only 75 degrees outside – perfect for working, BUT it doesn’t make the work any easier.
I’ve just finished session # 1 (of several planned for today – weather permitting). I took a bunch of the worm castings fertilizer I’m using for the first time this year and spread it on the veggies in my square foot garden boxes. Then I started trying to empty the Mel’s Mix from the veggie box whose bottom finally gave up after several years and fell through, dumping about half of the Mel’s Mix in it on the ground below.
I decided the first thing to do on repairing the box is to get the rest of the Mel’s Mix out. I’m putting it in large trash cans. One half of the plywood sheet that made up the bottom of the box gave out, so I’m emptying the mix from the remaining intact bottom. I got one side emptied. I moved another trash can to the other side for another session later today. It looks like it might take 3 large trash cans to hold all the mix. I’m NOT looking forward to getting the stuff up that’s on the ground. We have a flat-bottomed shovel that should help with that after I’ve finished emptying the rest of the box.
I discovered that we have ANOTHER box that is READY to lose its bottom, so I’ll empty that one out, as well, and we’ll repair both of the boxes at the same time. Luckily, these were the two boxes that I had not planted this year, so we’re not under the gun to get them fixed quickly.
This is a large project for me, so I’m trying to pace myself and not ‘hurt anything’ in the process. :0)
Also, later today, I’ll spread the fertilizer in the tomato planters, but those are on the other side of the house. I’ll do that, and then head out to do session 2 in the garden.
The super rainy, colder-than-usual weather has brought very mixed results thus far in my garden. In my survey a few minutes ago, the first thing was that I need to do some serious weeding in my veggie garden.
This is one of the head lettuce plants. It’s doing GREAT. I should be able to harvest very soon and give my friends a nice addition to their salads or sandwiches.
The spinach is looking ‘pale,’ not the deep green I think it should. I’m not sure if fertilizing it at this point would do any good, but I’ll try that. I’m also not sure if the paleness will affect the taste. I’ll see what information I can find.
Here’s the large tomato planter. The plants have exploded and there are lots of yellow blossoms showing. At this point, I’m not sure if I can handle the branches much, and may just need to try to contain them a bit, giving them as much support as I can.
This is the second tomato planter. You can barely see the green metal supports at the top of the plants now. I was going to try to tie the branches to the supports, but they have exploded now, so I’ll just try to do what I can to keep the plant inside the boundaries of the planter.
The bad news is that after several years now, one of the wooden bottoms to the veggie planters has given way. We knew it would happen one day, but it’s sad anyway. I hadn’t planted this planter yet, so we can leave it and decide how we’ll tackle making a new bottom for the planter, save as much of the Mel’s Mix as possible, and rebuild it.
Here is the part of the bottom that completely gave way and fell down.
To round out our tour of the yard, here is one of the healthier weeds I encountered. I’m not sure right now if I’ll pull it or celebrate its health…
And finally, here is some clematis that we have growing in a pot behind the large tomato planter. The picture doesn’t show how glorious the color is. It’s a real explosion of dark purple. Makes my heart happy.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
VEGGIES
The veggies are doing great, except that they really need to have the weeds around them taken out. As soon as I feel 100%, it’s on my list.
TOMATOES
The tomato plants seem to be doing fine, too. I’m scheduled to add the worm castings fertilizer to them Thursday (I’m doing this once a month) I just made it around the yard, taking quick pictures before my energy left, but I’ll look more carefully in the next day or two.
FLOWERS
ROSES
STELLA DE ORO LILIES
Husband’s PERIWINKLES by the shop door
You can’t tell it much in this picture, but the group on the left has a slight pink cast and the ones on the right are plain white.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
These photos are from yesterday. Things are going quite well so far. The plants seem to be thriving, and there are not a whole lot of weeds right now.
If you look closely, there are leaves toward the center of the plant curling up together. The ‘head’ lettuce will form in there.
My spinach leaves are being eaten by ‘something,’ but I can’t find any bugs. I’ll go ahead and spray with Eight to see if I can discourage whatever is chomping down.
The tomato plants are growing a lot each day. We’re trying to get the irrigation system for the flower planters (which includes the tomato planters) to work.
The plants are almost covering the whole surface of the planter now. I only have one plant, though, that has yellow blossoms at this point.
I haven’t planted anything else in the main square foot garden. We’re going one day at a time around here lately, so I haven’t pushed seeing what other plants are available in town.
I’ll be working to see if I can get the two timers in the well house working today. We’ll have a test run later today, though starting Wednesday of next week, we’re supposed to get a LOT of rain.
Do you have a garden this year?
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
teamjimmyjoe.com
Today is the coronation of King Charles III. I’ve looked at some pictures on my computer, but I’m not going to follow the whole process. I’ve never been ‘excited’ about Britain’s monarchy. I hope it all goes as planned with no problems of any kind.
Our weather continues to surprise me. (We’re just southeast of Fort Smith). While hoping for some sunshine, I wasn’t expecting a high temperature of high 80’s or low 90’s today. I guess we can turn off the heat inside? :0)
I will get outside later and see what’s happening with our plant life. I may do harvest #2 from the garden.
Magic Nature
Hoping for a calm, quiet day. Happy Saturday.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
The tomato plants are looking healthy and are more than twice the size they were when I first planted them. They needed some rearrangement of young branches for better support, but I decided to wait a bit longer on watering them.
This shows you that the plants are now about 1/4 the way up the supports. I brought out some bamboo stakes to add to the mix for the best support possible. No blossoms on these yet.
This is the 8-foot-long planter, and the plants are thriving right now. I rearranged branches here, too. There are three small yellow blossoms on one of the plants. I’ll see what other supports I have in the garage and bring them out for next time.
Just wanted to share my joy on this one. One of the buds started to bloom! Hooray!
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
hayneedle.com
Thankfully, the veggie garden box plants are doing well, too. I have lettuce and spinach planted so far. If my husband feels up to it tomorrow, we may go look for something else interesting to plant.
You can see a few small weeds in the spaces around the plants, but it shouldn’t take long to take care of that.
I will also do another harvest in the next day or two. We haven’t finished eating what I gathered the first time yet. :0) I harvest the outer leaves of each of the lettuce plants for harvests, leaving the center leaves to form around the ‘head’.
The spinach is looking good, although ‘something’ is eating holes in some of the leaves. I love the fact that we can eat the leaves fresh from the garden in salads. I can also saute the leaves in olive oil, adding bacon bits for additional flavor. And, finally, I can freeze what we can’t eat right away.
If things continue as they are now, I’ll be able to take fresh lettuce and spinach to my friends soon. Such a FUN thing to be able to do.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Little Pine Learners
The tomatoes seem to be doing fine. We have this square planter with 4 plants and then a 2nd, 8-foot-long brick planter of tomatoes this year.
This is the same planter as above, farther away so you can see how much taller the plants are than the last pics I took.
This is the 8 foot planter. There are 6 plants in this one.
This close up shows we have some blossoms on one plant!
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Spinach
Head Lettuce Leaves
Full Harvest – I’ll fix a ‘main meal salad’ this evening. :0)
I finished weeding the veggie boxes this morning before the harvest. This shows you the huge amount of little bitty weeds that I’ve been working on.
There is an equal amount of spinach and head lettuce plants in the garden so far. The tomato plants are in two brick planters on the other side of the house.
I have four of the six planter boxes planted so far. I’m hoping to get more plants in the coming week. Not sure what will be available, but I’m looking forward to it.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Just Energy
I’m planning to prune and weed my veggie boxes and tomatoes today. I hope your weather is such that you can enjoy being outside, too.
Happy Earth Day!
Filed under Gardening, holidays, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
1st tomato blossom
Spinach and Lettuce
Head Lettuce
Spinach
I’ll try to get out in the next few days and get the weeds under control and the wilted/dead parts pruned, but things are looking good so far.
I think the severe weather is JUST supposed to be wind and rain tomorrow. One can hope.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
We were due for severe weather with large hail yesterday afternoon through the evening. I debated how best to try to protect my young plants and decided clothes-pinning sheets above and around the plants was best, though if we did, indeed, get baseball-sized hail as one of the forecasts said, nothing would save them.
I found some plastic deep trays in the shop and put them on top of each of the sprinklers in the planter boxes here. Then I spread the sheet and clothes-pinned them around the legs of the box supports.
The plants came through fine. My husband estimated that the hail we received was about 1/2 inch – 5/8 inch. It was making so much noise during the worst of it that we couldn’t hear each other talk. We were standing together with the back door open, looking out through the screened porch. It was pretty impressive.
Above is one of the best head lettuce plants we have. Isn’t it pretty?
And this is one of the best spinach plants. I need to get out and trim off some broken or dead plant parts, plus do a bit of weeding, but I’m SO happy that they came through what could have been devastation just fine.
The tomato plants made it through, too. I wrapped the sheets around the supports and clothes-pinned the sheets as tightly as possible. This is the smaller, square planter. There are four tomato plants here. They should perk up a bit more now that the sheet is off and they can be in the sunshine.
This is the second tomato planter. There are six plants here. I clothes-pinned one king-sized sheet over the whole support system here and then tightened the edges around the bottom as much as I could.
Here’s a close up of one of the tomato plants. I can’t wait until we have ripe tomatoes to cut up for lunches and dinners!
It’ll take quite a bit of the day to get the 6 sheets washed, dried, and stored in the bag in the shop waiting for next time.
Health Shots
We have a cold front coming through this afternoon, with accompanying strong wind gusts and large hail.
The colorful blogs on the far left are zeroing in on us, the threat lasting from about 2pm to 8pm tonight.
I’m really delighted because I JUST finished putting in an entire flat of head lettuce, another flat of spinach, and 10 beautiful tomato plants. Even regular hail is deadly to new plants, and LARGE hail will be hard to deal with.
My plan is to cover my two planters of tomato plants with sheets. I have support things around the tomato plants, so hopefully those plus the sheets will keep the hail from battering them.
In the square foot garden, I have four of six boxes full of plants. I’m planning to find something to put on top of the sprinkler at the center of each of the boxes and then to put tarps over each box, held down by bungee cords. Not sure of the details of all this.
I’ll go out after lunch and see what I can do. One of the things I read talked about ‘baseball-sized hail.’ If THAT happens, NOTHING will help. I hope whoever said that is wrong, wrong, WRONG!
Fingers crossed.
123RF
DIY Value Picture
I had to leave my husband home, since his back is still hurting a lot. He says it’s better, and he looks a bit more perky, but he still needs recovery time.
Today Lunch Bunch was especially fun. When I got to Lunch Bunch, Kay and Bud had brought a neighbor couple, Willie and Cheryl. We mainly talked gardening, and then were surprised when Patty and Linda came late! So almost the whole gang was there. The conversation was lively and fun, with a lot of laughing.
I brought home good wishes from everyone plus a bacon cheeseburger for my husband.
On the way down the driveway, I saw a package was sitting on the ground behind the trash can. (UPS has started leaving stuff down there, rather than trying to drive up our driveway.) It was the bag of Worm Castings I ordered from which I’ll make “tea” for the garden. It’s supposed to be an organic fertilizer and disease prevention for all garden plants and flowers, etc. I’ll start the process of ‘steeping’ it this weekend.
I’m going to rest a bit and then water my tomatoes and check on the main garden. We’re due for possible large hail tomorrow afternoon and evening, so I’m thinking of a method to try to protect my plants as much as possible.
I hope you’re enjoying your day.
Filed under Friendship, fun, Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I found some really nice “Super Girl” tomato plants yesterday. I planted them yesterday afternoon. There are six plants in this brick planter.
Here’s a closer look at some of these.
There are 4 plants in this planter. I’m going to try to keep an eye on these and keep them as tied up as possible. They tend to be calm for awhile and then they ‘spurt’ in growth, seemingly all of a sudden spreading out over everything with the limbs too large to move without breaking them, yet really needing more support. I’ll try to do a better job of getting outside each day or so and giving them as much support as I can this year.
We also got the irrigation system controller installed on the faucet that goes to the garden. It’s set to start at 3pm today. I have a timer set so I can get out there and make sure the sprinklers are working and that the flow of water is good for watering my sweet plants well in the 10 minutes I have the controller set to now.
Later on, we’ll set the irrigation system for the yard. For now, I’ll just water the tomatoes with a hand held hose.
I’ll try to check next week to see what other plants I can add to the main garden.
We’ve started!
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
When I was out cleaning up the mangled chair, I decided to come back, get my camera, and see if my new veggie plants were still there.
They seem to have come through the storms so far, and I’m delighted/relieved/grinning from ear to ear.
It’s COOL, though – 52 degrees right now after 80’s yesterday. Quite a change. Even with my hoodie on, I was chilly.
Things are lightening up outside now. I don’t know if the weather threat has officially passed now, but I’m hopeful.
Hope everything is good for you, too.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Sorry I’m late getting to my blog today. We just now came in from working in the yard a bit. My husband used the chain saw to cut down some really big evergreen branches that were hanging down between the house and the shop. So our trash pile (to be burned when safe) grows again.
We gathered our trash and also put the metal we needed to get rid of in the back of the truck. We drove it all down to the bottom of the driveway and got the trash can set up for emptying tomorrow. Then we drove to the recycling place and a nice man helped us empty the truck. Amber was flirting with him, trying to get him to come pet her. He finally did that, laughing. The way he easily threw the metal way up to the other end of the metal bin there, “I” told him we would really appreciate him on the OTHER end of our trip. At least we made him smile.
I wanted to go to the Co-Op to see what plants they had and we hit the jackpot. My husband’s favorite lettuce is head lettuce. Usually we MIGHT find one small 6-pack. This time we got an entire FLAT. The spinach was also looking stellar, so we got an entire FLAT of that, as well. I’ve JUST now come in from getting what we bought planted. I’ll take some pics to share later. Right now I’m breathing a bit hard and over-heated, so I’m relaxing, writing this, and drinking a big bottle of water.
Later my husband wants to change the truck tires. I know I told you we were planning to do that yesterday, but we got distracted, and ‘somehow’ I forgot to remind him. :0) So, now I’ve said that we can do it after lunch and after we’re rested.
Since we were BOTH looking pretty bedraggled on the way back to the house after our yard work, I took the opportunity to remind him that we’re not 30 anymore and that we both need to keep our work sessions short with lots of rest and water in-between. He seemed to listen and agree…
I just came in from prepping the raised bed square foot garden for spring planting. My husband came out with a roll of wire and cutters, so we replaced the wires that were broken that criss-cross over the planter boxes, marking the ‘squares’ for planting. The irrigation system is ready to turn on and I’ll install the timer soon.
We’ll plan to go to town Monday to see what is available for planting. I would do it tomorrow, but my husband wants for us to change the snow tires on the truck for its regular ones tomorrow.
The weed barrier cloths cut to fit and held down in the corners with bricks are a definite success. They didn’t blow off. There was nothing to hold water, so we didn’t have to worry about “pools” in the center of each box. Nothing rotted or degraded. In fact, I folded up the cloths and put them in the shop so I can use them at the end of the season to winter over for next time.
All I needed to do today was use the small ‘fork’ to go back and forth over the surface of each planter, picking out the tufts of weeds. They were right at the surface, not “dug in. ” It was quick and easy. HOORAY! :0)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
All About Gardening
I’ve just come in from STEP 1 of prepping our square foot garden for planting.
This is the garden, minus the two brick planters on the other side of the house that we use for tomatoes. There are six 4′ x 4′ wooden planter boxes. You can see that the neon tape I strung to let the deer see there is fencing here need repair.
Here’s a view from one side.
This shows the weed barrier cloth I put in each planter box, held down by a brick in each corner. You can also see the irrigation system for these three boxes, with the pieces of hose strung together running along a piece of wood and the sprinkler in the center of each box. The six boxes are all irrigated with one timer on an agricultural faucet.
I removed the bricks and stored them in two corners of the garden, pulled the weed barrier cloths off, folded them up and stored them.
The results of the weed barrier cloth vary. This is the worst, but it’s still much better than if I hadn’t shielded the Mel’s Mix. As you can see, weeds love this soil alternative just as much, if not more, than the veggies I want to grow!
All the planter boxes were prepped the same way, and yet each is different on how many weeds were prevented.
I’m going to call this experiment a success because, though there are weeds, there aren’t NEAR as many as there were when I just left them from the fall to the spring uncovered.
My experiment with tarps wasn’t as good as this, either, because the tarps didn’t stand up well with the temperature differences, the wind, the snow and ice, etc. I had put buckets in the center of each box to try to keep water from pooling, but that had varying success. The tarps also tore and the bungee cords I used didn’t hold the tarps on as well as I had hoped.
I think that when we finish in the fall and are getting the boxes ready for the winter again, we’ll put TWO layers of the weed barrier cloth in each box.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
This afternoon I’m planning (again) to uncover my gardening boxes in preparation for starting my spring garden. (I got snafued by the weather once and was just plain lazy after doing other things yesterday). I’m hoping that today is the day I can prep to get spring plants going. I just checked the forecast and it looks like we won’t have any freezes in the next 10 days, so maybe it’ll be safe to get things started.
I’m hoping to find several different types of lettuce, plus spinach, and sweet onions to start tomorrow. We’ll plant tomatoes, of course – in fact, we devote two brick planters to those. Otherwise, I’ll plant broccoli maybe, squash, and radish seeds. I’m thinking of playing with some herbs in the kitchen this year just for fun. I’ll plant celery bottoms from the ones I buy at the grocery store.
Everything will depend on what I can find, and I’m excited to get started now that the weather is getting more cooperative.
I’ll take some pictures to share with you.
Enjoy your day – play in the dirt!
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
ClassroomClipart.com
It has now warmed up to 27 degrees F. here. The sun is shining, but that isn’t helping much. The forecast says, “A cold final day of winter before a spring warm up.”
I really hope the weather folks are right because I’ve had my fill of cold and am itching to play in the dirt of my garden. I’m planning to prep the garden and get some things planted next week, unless the forecast changes.
Right now I have weed barrier cloth cut to size in each of our six 4′ x 4′ wooden planters. The cloth has been held down by bricks, hoping to keep the weed growth to a minimum this year. I’ll take pics when I start prepping the boxes so you can see if it worked or not.
This is an old pic, showing when we used string to mark the planting ‘squares.’ Now I use wire because it is much more sturdy. You can see the irrigation system. We strung pieces of hose together between sprinklers in the center of each box, attached to a piece of wood that runs between 3 boxes in a row. There are two rows of planters. We have the whole thing on a timer so things are watered daily automatically.
We built the boxes in the shop, then hauled them out to the garden area. We welded angle iron together to make the supports for the boxes. We put them at my chest level so that I don’t have to bend over double or get down on my hands and knees to plant, weed, or harvest. My body really appreciates that.
The six planter boxes are surrounded by fencing to keep the deer out. We also put chicken wire around the bottom to keep rabbits and other critters out. We have a ‘door’ to close off the area. I put neon tape around the perimeter of the fence to give a heads up to the deer so they don’t run into it.
Since we live on top of a ridge line, we have no soil. Everything up here that isn’t rock was trucked in – some to be able to have a ‘yard’ around the house. All else is rock and woods.
We fill the planter boxes with “Mel’s Mix” (Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Garden) – a combination of peat moss, Vermiculite, and as many different kinds of compost as we can find or create. I use mushroom, barnyard, and cotton, plus we try to make our own.
I can’t wait to get started this year!
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
“Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle … a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream.” ~ Barbara Winkler
This won’t happen for awhile, but I’m enjoying dreaming about it. Each year I try to get head lettuce and then several other leaf lettuces to add variety to our salads. I also try to get spinach plants, and of course, tomato plants. Otherwise, I experiment. I grow radishes from seed, celery from cutting off the bottoms of celery I buy at the store and then replant when they sprout in water. I like to grow some sweet onions. My cauliflower and broccoli grow lots of leaves, but I haven’t had much success in growing the edible parts yet. I’ve had mixed results on squash. Maybe I’ll try some herbs on my kitchen counter this year, as well.
A little at a time, I’m thinking about what I want to start with this spring. I would love to be able to supply all of our friends with nice veggies straight from the garden.
I’m thinking about all this now because we can finally negotiate our driveway, and the ice is almost completely gone. We still have areas that could use more chain-saw work, but we’re able to drive up and down without a problem now.
I’ll get out my last planning sheets and see if I can figure out the best places to put the new spring plants. It seems funny to talk about ‘crop rotation’ in chest-high 4’x4′ wooden planters, but it’s just as important here as in humongous commercial farms.
I hope you’re enjoying a beautiful day.
Filed under Gardening, Seasons, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Josephine Neuse – University of Illinois Extension
I have a wonderful square foot garden that my husband and I created several years ago to enable me to enjoy gardening even as I get “more mature” and less able to get down and up again from my hands and knees and do heavy lifting.
We built SIX 4′ x4′ wooden ‘tables’ up on top of iron supports. We surrounded the six tables with fencing, then added chicken wire around the bottom to keep small critters out. We threaded neon tape through the fencing to make it VISABLE to the deer who come through from time to time. We added a screen door so there is a definite ‘inside-the-garden’ and ‘outside.
The tables are about my chest height and filled with “Mel’s Mix,” a soil substitute mixture of peat moss, vermiculite, and at least three different kinds of compost. We filled the boxes with the mix, after making the mixture in a used cement mixer. That’s the heaviest part of the gardening I do now. :0)
We marked the ‘squares’ of the square foot garden using wire criss-crossed over the tops of the boxes. We mounted a sprinkler head in the center of each box, tied together with hose, for daily irrigation.
We used to have a greenhouse that we built from a kit on the other side of our property, but since we couldn’t afford air conditioning and heating for it, it was truly a dream and wasn’t really useful to our efforts. We finally took it down when it was heavily damaged by a storm a few years ago. Now I buy plants from town.
I can just walk into my garden area, taking my spreadsheet diagram of where I want to plant things, move a bit of soft Mel’s Mix, and plant. My plan enables me to rotate my plants, avoiding disease and increasing yield. I also have not followed what I COULD do with my square foot garden, and spread my plants out a bunch for easier care.
Right now I have the boxes weeded and covered with weed cloth held in place by bricks. We’ve had several big storms and so far, the cloths are staying in place. That will hopefully enable me to plant without a lot of weeding first in the spring. :0)
I’m going to concentrate on lettuces, since I plan for us to eat a lot of salad, growing several kinds. My husband likes me to plant head lettuce, so I do, if we can find the plants. Otherwise, I try to plant three or four different kinds. I also want to plant a lot of spinach so I can use it in our salads, plus freeze some. I’ll grown radishes, sweet onions, and of course, I’ll use the two brick planters on the other side of the house for tomatoes. I’m at the dreaming stage now, so I’ll peruse lots of veggie magazines to see what else I might plant.
I WISH I were a good cook. I love the idea of growing herbs and spices, but I don’t tend to USE the fresh stuff much. I buy a bunch or two at the store, use a bit and end up tossing the rest when I haven’t used it fast enough. Maybe I’ll try a couple of the ones I use most often, trying to grow them in the kitchen, rather than in the garden….
It’s FUN to dream – especially while we’re expecting snow any minute here.
The Indian Express
Filed under Dreams, Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
This part of the project is now complete. Today I added the tomato supports and then ran wire around them in four places securing the supports to the center pole and each other. I’ll see if anything else is needed in the spring as the tomato plants grow.
I now have this square planter and this eight foot x one foot planter I’ll use for our tomato plants.
The next part of the project will be to replant some of the iris in the niche (old tomato) planter (beside the porch and behind the house.)
I also brought in the harvested onions that have been drying on the trailer bed for several weeks now. I’ll put some in our fridges and some in the mesh bags I have to hang in the pantry.
That’s it for outside today. I’ll rest a bit and then do my yoga session for the day. (DAY 96)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I just came in from my second session trying to clean out the iris planter. I spent an hour and a half the first session, starting with a small rake-type garden tool and quickly going back to get a shovel. The second session was an hour. I’m pooped now, and I need to rest and hydrate before I do my yoga for the day, so I’ll do more tomorrow.
So far, I got the iris I could find easily out and put into a big outside type trash can. I also got most of the Bermuda grass that was on the surface of the planter out.
Tomorrow I’ll get more serious with the shovel, digging down as deeply as I can, turning the soil, and gathering more iris rhizomes, pulling more Bermuda grass roots, etc.
I feel good about my progress today. The weather cooling off and the rain last night really helped with the project. My husband said my project to clean out the planter was ‘impossible.’ It was just ‘too far gone.’ I’m going to prove him wrong. :0)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I worked for about an hour and a half on our two tomato planters that are close to the house.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I’m pretty much finished with the weed whacking in the garden area now. I have some ‘before’ and ‘after’ pics to show you. I plan to mix up KILLZALL today and spray all around the garden area.
Area in front of garden, beside our shop –
Behind the shop/Beside the garden –
Around the shop propane tank –
Around the Mel’s Mix Bins, etc –
Now I’m thinking about painting the propane tank to look like our larger one.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
This is what I look like right now, except that I’m nearly as cute or sweet.
I just finished today’s weed whacking. I got the area behind the shop and beside the garden done. Tomorrow or the next day I’ll mix up some KILLZALL to spray all over the areas I’ve cut down, plus areas that are too close to the fence to weed whack, hoping to keep things at bay, at least for awhile. When you live on a rural acreage, the wild stuff tries to take back what you’ve tried to ‘civilize’ much faster than humans can work.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
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