Tag Archives: carrots

November 15, 2017 · 11:31 am

November 14, 2017 Harvest

Isn’t this carrot cute?  It’s about an inch and a half long. I pulled it up to see what the status was of the carrot seeds I sprinkled in the garden several weeks ago. I don’t know if I can keep the garden alive long enough to grow reasonable sized carrots, but these are the first I’ve tried to grow in a long time. I’ll definitely try to get some started in the greenhouse in February or so.

 

I have so much lettuce We probably won’t be able to eat it all. I’ll give some to my friends as I can. This is Simpson lettuce. The Bibb lettuce is also doing really well, but I’ll wait a bit longer to harvest some of that.

 

This is from the sole spinach plant I have in the garden. It makes a nice addition to salads. I’m looking forward to trying to get a bunch of spinach started in the greenhouse in late winter, along with lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, and onions.

I have one tomato plant still alive on the window sill in the house. I don’t know if it will live or not, but I’m hopeful.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

Tagged as , , , ,

October 6, 2017 · 4:01 pm

Mary, Mary…

30seconds.com

 

This is the view as you walk toward my square foot garden. You’d think I was specializing in marigolds! I planted them in several squares in each box, hoping they would help keep the insects down. I don’t see that they helped much, but they made the garden look happy. When the spring crops finished, the marigolds were still going strong, so I just left them. Now they’re overflowing.

The parts of the boxes not overflowing with marigolds look like this. My strings that we strung to demarcate the squares in each box were killed by the combination of water and sun. I’ll use a different kind in the spring. I just went out and sprinkled seeds for the fall garden and hoped for the best.

I also started a seed starter tray with peat pellets in the house. They sprouted, but were looking anemic, while the seeds in the garden were looking better. I decided to try putting the tray out on the deck where the seedlings could get more sun and maybe some rain. That turned out to be a mistake. The seedlings croaked, so I cleaned out the planter tray and put it back in the greenhouse.

The greenhouse, by the way, is still showing 120 degrees inside today, so it’ll be awhile before I try starting anything in there.

The raised bed square foot garden box above shows one single spinach plant, radishes, and two types of lettuce.

Only one plant resulted from the spinach seeds, but it looks good. I’ll try to plant some more around it, just to see if they’ll come up and produce, now that the weather people are saying we’re due for cooler weather next week.

 

This is a closeup of the Simpson Lettuce.

 

Radishes

 

New celery plants

 

Celery plants that grew more celery after I chopped the whole top off out in the garden!

 

Carrots

Bibb Lettuce

The only other veggies I have going for the fall garden thus far are two tomato plants offered several weeks ago. They still seem to be doing fine.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Arkansas, Gardening, Greenwood, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 30, 2017 · 4:27 pm

A Little Bit of a Fall Garden

chriscornish.info

 

Today I went out to what I hope will be my fall square foot garden. I haven’t been out there since I planted some seeds about three weeks ago.

The ones I planted in the plant starter tray are still looking really fragile. I guess I’ll move them outside on the deck where they can get more sun and hope for the best.

There were a LOT of weeds in the garden. I made a first pass on the weeding and will spend a lot more time out there later. I wanted to take some celery plants I started in the kitchen out there and basically see if ANY of the seeds had sprouted.

I’m going to stop here and go take some pics so that you can see what’s happening so far.

______________________

I’m back.

I planted things fast, and not how I’m supposed to in a square foot garden because I really didn’t expect anything to come up. We had no rain – not even a drop – in September, confirmed by our weather people. We also had hotter and more humid weather than usual for the month. Not a great combination. I’m encouraged that I have ANYTHING growing at this point, particularly after getting rid of a gazillion weeds today.  This is Bibb Lettuce.

 

Carrot sprouts.

 

Celery. One neat thing I learned this year is that you can continue cutting stalks off, even to the point of getting pretty ruthless, leaving very little, and the stalks will start growing again!

 

The most successful plant in the garden this year was marigolds. They didn’t do much of a job of keeping insects away, but they look nice.

Two different ages of celery plants.

 

Radishes.

Simpson Lettuce.

One lonely spinach plant.

I’m going to do another round of planting seeds directly in the garden, since they did better than the ones in the planter starter tray. I’ll keep working with the ones in the tray to see if they will get large and strong enough for transplanting. If they’re still slow, they may be the first things I try to grow in the greenhouse!

I also have two tomato plants that are about a month old now. One has some blossoms. I don’t know if they’ll do anything before the first frost. If not, I’ll put them in the greenhouse, too.

I was a bit disappointed to find that no one was carrying the plants I wanted for a fall garden this year. Now it’s turned into a really fun experiment, where if I get anything at all to work, it will be more than I expected. :0)

Leave a comment

Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 12, 2017 · 12:07 pm

Serial Seed Killer Tries Again

Since I wasn’t able to find plants that I wanted for my fall garden, I planted some seeds and will hope for the best.

I planted some inside in a big planter starter thingie with a plastic top and it’s living on one end of our dining area table where it can get some sun. The others I planted directly in the garden, again hoping for the best.

I planted Bibb Lettuce, Simpson Lettuce, and Spinach inside, and planted those, plus radishes, carrots, and 4 celery plants I started inside. There isn’t anything to see yet, so no pics.

Since I’m aptly named the ‘Serial Seed Killer,” I may not get much, or anything, but I’m hopeful that ONE of the methods I used will be successful. Here’s hoping!

2 Comments

Filed under Arkansas, Challenges, Gardening, Greenwood, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 2, 2017 · 1:06 pm

Cleaning Out the Garden for the Fall

The Best Years in Life

This weekend I’m cleaning out our raised bed, square foot garden planters, getting ready for the fall garden. I harvested some more spaghetti squash, and I’ll show you pics of those later.

Amber went out with me to ‘help.’ We discovered she likes to play with grape tomatoes! I would throw one to her every once in a while, and she would happily treat it as if it were a toy. But then, after half an hour, she got bored and started to dig under the planters. I couldn’t allow that, so we came in.

I’ll cool off for a bit, drink some cold water, and then head out there again. I want to be ready in case we find some lettuce and spinach plants in Fort Smith when we go on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, if I can get the garden cleared out, I’m planning to set out 4 new celery plants, and plant some carrot and radish seeds. I’m pretty sure the radishes will do well, but I haven’t had any good looking carrots yet.  I’m not going to plant a lot this year. I told you recently I started two new tomato plants, in the hope that they’ll produce before it freezes. If I can get those, and some spinach or lettuce and radishes, I would be happy.

We’ve just had too many projects, plus trying to spend lots and lots of time with Amber, to try to do a large garden.

Are YOU growing a fall garden?

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Arkansas, Gardening, Greenwood, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 10, 2016 · 2:37 pm

Planted and UnPlanted

gardeningkiwi.wordpress.com

gardeningkiwi.wordpress.com

We had a good storm overnight. We awoke to low 80’s and MUCH less humidity!  Hooray!!!

I had gotten two 6-packs of head lettuce yesterday, so I got those planted today, finishing up my fall garden planting in my new raised bed planters. I have broccoli, cauliflower, celery, carrots, radishes, and two kinds of lettuce: ‘salad blend’ and ‘head lettuce.’

I used this opportunity to go ahead and dismantle the north side of the garden. I harvested what I could – one small tomato and some cucumbers – and then laboriously pulled out all the plants, small tomato cages, large tomato cages, etc. Since we’re replacing the ground square foot planters with three more raised bed planters, I also dismantled that side of the irrigation system, then unscrewed the wooden and pvc pipe dividers. I had to work hard to get the small fence down that we had put up for climbing plants, but I got it unhooked and rolled it up and took it out of the garden.

The next step – NOT TODAY! – will be to start carefully digging up the Mel’s Mix from the planting squares so we can use it as part of the filling for the new planters once we get them up.

I’ll take pics as we go. We don’t need the new planters up until spring, so we’ll try to choose the nicest days we can find. Meanwhile, I’ll try to get some pics of the fall garden to show you.

I worked outside for over 3 hours today, so this old lady is more than ready for some lunch, another bottle of water, and some serious relaxing!

Hope your day is going well, too!

2 Comments

Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

September 2, 2016 · 3:14 pm

Eureka!

GreenlaneGardens

GreenlaneGardens

I was starting to lose hope on finding salad plants for my fall garden. My husband said he wanted to go to north Fort Smith after Lunch Bunch today, so suggested I call Neumeier Nursery & Florist to see if they had lettuce. (I had gone to, or called everyone else, including Sutherlands in Fort Smith, who said they MIGHT get some in the next few weeks, but they didn’t know for sure.)

We got the supplies my husband wanted and then made our way to the far side of Fort Smith to Neumeier’s. This is such a wonderful place. I’m very thankful we don’t live close to them, or my husband would be VERY upset at all the money I would spend. Not only did they have lettuce plants for me, they also have a wonderful shop with all KINDS of wonderful, useless things I WANT. Even my husband saw a ceramic painted and glazed tree frog on the wall he wanted. When we discovered the price, we decided we could live without him…

I got ten ‘salad blend’ plants. The lady told me to wait a week before planting them to give them time to grow better roots. My husband suggested that I put the whole flat of plants on top of the free raised bed planter. This way they’ll get sun and be watered each day while they continue growing their roots.

I’ll try to get them planted Thursday or Friday of next week. When I get these in the ground, my fall garden will be complete, except that I’ll start another square of radishes, and have one remaining square to try to grow celery from the bottoms I’m cutting and sprouting from my grocery store celery. I’m excited. Last fall was the first time I’ve ever tried to have a fall garden. We had fresh lettuce and spinach through January!

I also harvested yesterday. Here’s a picture –

 

cucumbers

I think these are the weirdest cucumbers I’ve ever had. The dark green one in the middle MIGHT be Zucchini, but I’m not sure. Things are really winding down in the main garden now, even though we still have a lot of greenery. I’m going to start pulling things up and cleaning things out in preparation for transitioning the north side of the garden into the rest of the raised bed garden. We have three 4’x4′ boxes and the metal support supplies ready whenever the garden is over and I get things cleaned out. Happy gardening!

Leave a comment

Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

August 31, 2016 · 11:54 am

Fall Garden Begun!

fallgarden8

It was super hot and muggy here yesterday afternoon (heat index 100 degrees +), but we had found cauliflower and broccoli plants at Sutherlands. I got two 9 packs of each. The picture above shows our new raised bed planters for the fall garden. There are three 4 foot x 4 foot raised planters in a row with sprinklers attached for irrigation. This is a picture of what they looked like when we started.

 

fallgarden6

We used really stretchy nylon string to mark the squares, anchoring the string on short screws I put in a 1 foot intervals around the planter edge.

 

 

 

fallgarden1

In a square foot garden, broccoli and cauliflower plants are planted one per square foot. You can see the markers in this picture. I was careful to plant broccoli in every other square so no two broccoli plants were planted side by side in either direction. According to Mel, this helps keep diseases down. I’ll take careful pictures of where things were planted in each raised bed so that I plant different kinds of plants in each square next time. This is for crop rotation.

 

fallgarden3

The plants I had filled two of the planters. Today I’ll plant some celery I started from ends of stalks bought at the grocery store, putting the ends in water and letting them sprout, plus carrots and radishes. I’m waiting for lettuce and spinach to be available at the co-op or Sutherlands to complete the fall garden.

  • Note 1: My moniker “Serial Seed Killer” is still sadly intact.  The broccoli was sprouting, and some of the lettuce. My husband thought the tray needed more sun, so we took it out and put it on the porch. A storm suddenly blew up and blew the top off the tray. We replaced it, but the damage was done. The sweet little sprouts lay dead the next morning. :0(
  • Note 2: Even though it took me two sessions to get things planted – due to my getting over-heated and needing to drink water, cool off, and rest after the first session, the raised planters we installed are WONDERFUL. We made sure that I can get in-between each planter easily, so I’m not having to do a balancing act to reach each of the squares. I didn’t have to bend over double or get up and down on my knees over and over to get the planting done!
  • Note 3: I harvested a few tomatoes yesterday, but the north side of the garden is almost done – even though we still have a lot of greenery. When things are finished for the year, I’ll carefully pull the plants and we’ll dismantle the planters on the ground, one at a time, replacing them with the remaining three raised bed planters. They are ready to install. We’ll wait until the weather cools off, too, so we’ll have an easier time with the install than we did with the south side.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

Tagged as , , , , ,