Monthly Archives: November 2011

How to make the perfect soil..for next years SFG

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Here it is the last week of November and Im still doing things out in the garden.  I will have a nice picture of a portion of the last of the ’11 SFG season.  It really turned out to be another bumper crop year for us.  As time goes on, I am always hoping to give some little tips that I have used in my square foot garden.  I know there are many people who have had the total opposite experience that I have had with a SFG.  As I make my way to other gardens and teach classes, this usually boils down to two basic and correctable mistakes folks make when attempting to grow a SFG.  I spend time talking about this in my new ebook which should be available in about another week.  Boy, this whole website, ebook, WordPress, e-commerce thing sure has a serious learning curve!  Its been hard for me but I’m starting to get little pieces of it.  The first thing I do at the end of the season is to remove about half the soil and put it in a plastic tub as shown.  With my pitchfork, I loosen up the existing soil in the box, making sure I get all the corners.I then dump a lot of composted material in the box.  This is made up of all the things in my compost pile(about 20 different items), shredded twigs and leaves, and horse manure.  That’s quite a bit of organic material to add.  I will spread this around evenly.  Believe it or not, this really smells good.  When this is done, I then take the left over soil that I removed earlier, and top the garden off.  All that is left to do is to make sure its leveled-out and let it sit for a few months.  This particular garden had 3 growing seasons-produce in the spring, carrots, beets, cucumbers,  and squash in the summer, and more lettuce in the fall.  As much as I like the looks of the vinyl box, I still think I prefer the wood.  This was given to me by Mel many years ago as a leftover because he was working on a new box design to sell that’s easier to put together.  And, he figured it out.  The vinyl boxes sold by the foundation are great-but a little expensive.  Then again, you never have to treat or stain them, so maybe its a pretty good trade off.

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Winterized square foot gardens

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It’s pretty normal to now have hard freezes every night.  For the most part, my work is done for this year.  The square foot garden boxes have all been amended with a blend of compost, leaves, and a light horse manure mixture.  This past weekend found me raking and gathering the leaves in our yard.  I think its safe to say that most folks probably don’t like this work-but, I absolutely love it.  I know what I am doing now will pay off big next year with my 12 or more bags of leaves.  What I really love is the smell of those leaves in the black plastic bags.  I cant explain it in words very well, but those of you who know what I’m talking about can relate to that smell.  I also painted all of my boxes before the real heavy snowfall will hit.  I could have done it in the spring, but then I would lose 3 or 4 months of it getting hammered by our winter season.  I kind of like to think of my raised boxes as an investment.  I want them to last as long as possible.  This is my way of doing just that.  These boxes are now about 12 years old and still holding up very well-with the exception of a couple of corners where I didnt follow the rules for building the boxes.

You know what they say about not following the rules-if it doesn’t work, you cant complain.  So, I’m not complaining, I’m just doing all I can to make it last.  When I amend my soil for winterizing, I try to empty both of my compost units into the boxes.  I then will top that off with leaves-not even leaves that have been run through the shredder or lawn mower-just plain old leaves.  Whats next is a mixture that I have always used successfully.  With all of our shrubs, trees, etc. that we have in our yard, we get a lot of things that I can run through my shredder.  I will put all of those items through, and I will then start to shred some of my leaves.  I mix in about half of one of these blue Rubbermaid tubs with horse manure and then toss everything together.  You can imagine what this looks like when I come back and heat my gardens up in the spring.  Its perfect soil.  All those regular leaves?  Gone!  Earthworms to the rescue and now ready to plant in a great growing medium.  You don’t need to wait years for the perfect soil…this system shows you how to do it the first year….[ois skin=”below post”]

Memories of summer…

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I am still getting used to this whole blog thing. I read this past week that if you want to be a serious blogger that generates a lot of traffic, you have to be blogging 2 or 3 times a day! I don’t ever think I will get to that point. As it is, I am having a hard time trying to get everything on this site up and running. Bear with me…it might take a little time. I’m new to WordPress so things have been a little slow. I thought that I might put up these two pictures to remind me of summer. We had our 3rd snowfall of the season last night and my garden is pretty much done for the year. I do have a small box still going which I wanted to empty and prep for next spring, but I never got around to it. The first picture is one of a san marzano tomato. I think its the best paste tomato around. They are bigger than a lot of the varieties of paste tomatoes and they really taste good-especially on summertime margherita pizza-also known as fresh tomato pizza. Our family looks forward to summer so much because we know its pizza time. More on this later…..the next picture is of Tropicana lettuce. Its a cross between the taste and texture of a cos(romaine)and loose leaf. But, it has grown well for us right through the hot summer, which is another reason why we like it so much. You can see how dense the growth is-this is one of the reasons why I love the SFG method. There is not much of a chance that a weed seed will find its way into that square. In addition to the regular Ranch dressing in our refrigerator, we will usually have a homemade Caesars dressing and a balsamic vinaigrette waiting for us to use at any time of the spring, summer, or fall. It doesn’t take us long to put together a great tasting salad for the family with all that produce out there….

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The last of the lettuce

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Here is a nice picture showing what is left of my last 4X4 box.  I will pull the carrots soon, and the lettuce will probably all be pulled in a week.  This Prizehead lettuce is one of our favorites.  It can grow right through the heat of the summer with protection, and it is easy to grow in the spring and fall.  The prices for lettuce in the stores right now is high, and will get higher as the winter approaches.  I’m sure I could grow salad greens all winter if I had to because I have already done it.  This method of gardening really provides you with the assurance of being self-sufficient.  I have an ebook that I have written and in it I did take some time to talk about the cost-savings of food being produced in your own garden.  Being toward the end of the season, my posts will probably be fairly light for the next little while.  My blog is new-I should have started it months ago, but never got around to it.  Besides that, it is hard for me to learn.  As you can see, its still a work in progress but it’s starting to take some shape.  This past week I have received some different things from Mel Bartholomew for a trial that I will be posting about soon.  It all looks pretty fun.  One of the things I received was a special new grow light for a square foot garden.  Its Mel’s thought that we need to take our gardens indoors for the fall and winter months!  It sure sounds like a good idea, but I don’t know where I’m going to put a SFG in our home.  Besides, I don’t know about you, but I need a break for a few months from gardening.  I have received a few other things that I will talk about later…..[ois skin=”below post”]

Square foot garden clean up

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I  saw on the weather report that we were due for our first major snow storm.  The gardens were pretty much put away for the winter, but there was 2 that were not.  I pulled a couple squares of carrots which you can easily see on the dirt, but there are more in the black basket.  I think I learned one thing about carrots this year.  Our family has always loved the thumbelina variety.  They look and taste great.  But, it is a lot of work to get those types of carrots ready to eat.  They are hard to peel because they are so small.  They sure look nice though, and I guess that was the initial reason why I started to grow them.  I think from here on out I will be just growing the standard varieties.  They taste just as good, and they aren’t near as hard to prepare.  I was able to finish these 2 beds in enough time before the snow hit.  I pulled up some gladiola bulbs that I have had for years, divided them, and then replanted these in a different part of the garden for next year.  These are my favorite perennial flowers to have in the garden.  With my soil now amended with leaves, compost, and shredded twigs and branches, I am ready to plant next year.  I still have 1-4X4 box growing greens which I will probably post about next.  It sure has been a fun year….  [ois skin=”below post”]