Monthly Archives: September 2012

Helping things to finish ripening

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I’ve had 3 plants of butternut squash that were planted this year taking up 4 square feet. When they all ripen, I’ll have harvested 10-12 butternut squashes. This is a picture showing two of them at the top of my 7′ vertical grow towers. You’ll notice that I’ve cut back most of the leaves. Keeping the fruit on the vine with everything else being cut back will enable all the energy to go into the fruit to finish ripening. I had 3 or 4 squashes that were just starting to grow but there’s no way they would have enough time to fully ripen, so I had to cut those off. We’ve still got several weeks of mild weather so the rest of my garden is still growing pretty well actually. This year I’ll be growing a single 4X4 garden through the entire winter. My plan is to give people the know-how and the confidence to do the same thing-even in a place like Utah where we can have some pretty harsh weather. So be sure to visit my blog in the winter months if you’d like to follow along. I’ll be posting a little less frequently, but enough to give you some glimpses of what’s going on. There’s plenty for me to do right now though-I still have 3 more weeks of delivering freshly pulled garden produce to customers. This has, without a doubt, been the busiest September I’ve ever had with gardening. I finished my last teaching project in a place called Duchesne, Utah. It’s a 2 hour drive but they had a bunch of people ready to put in fall gardens in anticipation of some rather difficult days to come. So I’ll be taking a couple of months off instructing before the teaching begins again. I guess I shouldn’t say it’s over because I’ve been invited by Mel Bartholomew to help in the upcoming SFG symposium being held in San Diego. If you’re interested in becoming a certified SFG instructor, I hope you consider joining us. It will be the best money you’ve ever spent. You can read all about it here.  You’ll walk away after these 3 days never having to ask for advice from anyone on the Internet again.  It’s all so easy that you’ll be amazed at the simplicity and the genius behind the method.  Just one more quick thing about squash and getting back to the original topic-If you’re planning on eating them right now, that’s fine.  But if you’re planning on storing your harvest of winter squash there’s a few things to keep in mind.  First-be sure to cut your squash from the vines before the first freeze hits.  Second, cut the vines leaving about 2″.  Third-let them sit outside in a warm location for about 10 days to harden off the skins and make them more resistant to decay.  Last-add 1/4 cup of bleach in a gallon of cool water.  Then with a small brush clean the entire surface of the squash.  Dry it off and store it in a place where it’s cool and out of direct sunlight.  This is a great trick to prevent bacterial growth during the storage months.  Till next time….

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What I’m doing now

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This week I’ll start to clear out squares in planning for a full fall garden. I also have a workshop coming up this weekend so I want to make sure everything is ready to replant. I love the workshops-it gives people all the hands on experience they need to learn all they can about square foot gardening.  They learn all the basic and general principles in the first class.  The workshop then helps them to really learn it.   We do all sorts of things-make Mel’s mix, build a box, make a grid, go over the spacing and how to do it, etc. We also spend time on learning how to custom make the vertical towers-where they’re placed and why. We spend time on showing how to attach the nylon netting-the most difficult part of square foot gardening, composting know-how, protection, and other nifty little tricks. Since I’ll have about 6-8 more weeks of growing(maybe more)I’ll want to make sure my compost bins are full. This will give me the time needed to use all the compost that I can make right now to eventually be used in my boxes at the close of the season.  Hopefully, you’re doing the same.  If you do it right, you should be able to produce compost in that amount of time.  I detailed this-with pictures-in my photo gallery if you’d like to see it.   I’m trimming back all the squash leaves and non-productive vines to help them finish ripening. I’m harvesting all I can to open up squares and pulling all my flowers at the same time. I’ll leave the potatoes in the ground for now because they haven’t turned brown and died off yet. The same is true for my onions which are looking fabulous this year. By the way-I know of a great deal for you. A local seed company here in Utah-Mountain Valley Seeds-is selling 14 packs of heirloom and USDA certified organic seeds. This normally would go for $30 plus shipping. Now they’re selling it for not $20 but for $10-and there is free shipping!  You can’t beat that!   Click here for more information. I’m going to buy mine tomorrow.  You won’t find deals like this around very often and it’s from the nicest people around.  I’m beginning to watch the weekly weather so I don’t get surprised by an early frost.  I still have basil that I want to protect, and a bunch of tomatoes.  Did I mention my plans to garden through the winter this year?  I think I’m doing it-I’ve done it before.  It was more work, but it wasn’t that much.  I also might be growing things for several folks as well and this will give me the chance to keep things going.  They won’t have all the fancy summer things like tomatoes and squash, but they’ll have some great tasting lettuce and other produce that’s harvested and picked within a couple of hours.[ois skin=”below post”]

Time for a change

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The Labor Day weekend is here and summer comes to an official close tomorrow.  Here in zone 6 we’ll be having a change in the weather-matter of fact, we already have had one.  The nights have a definite chill in the air and the days are not quite so hot.  This is the weekend many people start to pull up their gardens in preparation to shut them down for the remainder of the year.  And if you’re a square foot gardener that’s certainly an option for you too.  For me, it’s time to make a change in my thinking.  We’ll have at least 6 good weeks of mild temperatures before the harder weather comes to town.  We’ve had years in the past where it’s been mild until the second week of December.  Though that’s a bit unusual, we certainly have a good 8 weeks, maybe a little more.  I’ll begin to pull up some things to open up some squares.  I’ll take my scissors and start cutting back the extra leaves on my squash plants.  You’ll want your squash harvested before the first freeze.  We might have a freeze in as little as 2 or 3 weeks from now but then the weather warms up again-the Indian Summer will then have arrived.  So I want to make sure all my squash plants get a chance to fully ripen.  This pictures gives you an idea of what’s been growing in my 1X4′ box-banana squash.  I’ve already pulled 2-9 pounders off the vines and you can see at least 3 still up and growing.  There’s one more growing in the back that you can’t see.  So before I pulled off that 9 pounder, there was at least 35+ pounds of squash being grown vertically on that nylon netting.  You can imagine how strong it must be to do that.  You also might notice some powdery mildew on the leaves.  That happens often with squashes.  I will cut all those leaves off so that everything remaining on the vines can continue finishing to ripen.  I will also start to clear out my flowers to open up some additional squares.  This is the time to replant everything!  All those fun things you were able to grow in the spring are back in style.  I’ll start a whole new batch of lettuces, spinach and radishes.  This will be perfect for all the tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, etc. that I now have.  I’ll have to cover my gardens at night in a few weeks, but I don’t mind.  That’s easy work for me.  And since I’m growing items for several local people in my gardens, this will give me the chance to offer them the option of extending the season if they wish.  I’ve had more come out of my garden this year than I’ve ever had.  I’ll be able to give you an idea of what I was able to do this year in a future post.[ois skin=”below post”]