Monthly Archives: March 2014

Red Cross lettuce after one week

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Red cross after 1 week of sprouting 32914Remember these from last week? After placing the sprouted lettuce seeds in potting soil, this is what they look like after one week. There are huge advantages to this method. If I had attempted to direct seed this in the garden a week ago, nothing would have come up this quickly with the temperatures we’ve had. I will plant these in the garden in 1 week and they will be fine. It will be April 1st in just a couple of days. In zone 6B this means you can have your spring gardens planted with just a layer of plastic protection. This way you’ll have things in the ground, planted and harvested just in time for your summer gardens to be put in-about the 3rd week of May. In about 2 weeks from today my first delivery of baskets to 5 customers will start. It’s been very little effort. Here’s the goodies they will receive and an example of what you can also consider doing in a couple of days: Mizuna, Toykoy Bekana, 4 different kinds of lettuce, poc choi, swiss chard, tatsoi, radicchio, spinach, cilantro, carrots, arugula, claytonia, and minutina. I also have 3 Sakura tomato plants that are 2 feet tall and are now showing blossoms. These are special “greenhouse” cherry tomatoes that are just excellent. I’ll end up using these for my early summer delivery baskets and will probably have some available for the last week or two of the spring baskets. On April 1st I will start my regular tomatoes inside-San Marzano and other cherry varieties. This will give me 6 weeks of growth by the time late May gets here-perfect timing for them to go out. I’ll also start my cucumbers and basil inside as well.

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Lettuce sprouting in 2 days

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red cross sprouted lettuce in 2 daysThis is for those who attended the SFG workshop at Thanksgiving Point this past Saturday. As an example of one way to get seeds started, I had one of the participants wet a paper towel, add a few seeds, place it on the paper plate, and then close it up. I kept this upstairs on a counter and by Sunday night, a few had already sprouted. By Monday, they all had. These have all been gently lifted out and placed in potmakers where they will continue to grow. In 3 weeks they will be ready to go outside in the garden. Pretty good way to plant. Hope it gives you some ideas.[ois skin=”below post”]

A great question

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simpson and leeks 032214One of the participants in our SFG workshop today asked about putting together a SFG garden box that will be placed on cement. We talked about how to put plywood on the bottom of the box and then to screw(not nail)it down. Then fill it with soil,add a grid and start planting. “What about earthworms? How will I get earthworms in my box if it’s got a bottom and its on cement?” It’s a good question. Regardless of folks claiming that yard worms are different than garden worms, or that red worms are different that brown worms, the thing to look at is this: what’s the purpose of earthworms? Easy-they do two things that are important. First, they aerate the soil. Second, they leave behind their castings which act as a fertilizer. When this new box is built, there will certainly be no earthworms in the soil. However, the benefits of earthworms are already met with Mel’s mix. We already have a light and very fluffy soil(takes care of issue one), and we have 33% or organic growing medium(takes care of issue two.) Earthworms aren’t a necessary part of a SFG because of these two points. But, as you add your own homemade compost when amending soil throughout the year, you’ll end up with earthworms in your Mel’s mix anyway. It will just take some time. This is an example of how simple and easy the SFG system is. You don’t need to know the first thing about gardening to make it work. No need to make thing complex, after all, it’s soil, a seed, water, and sun. Build a box, fill it with soil, add a grid, start planting. Spacing is 1, 4, 9, 16. Rotation is any combination of fruit/root/leaf crops. How simple can it get? Anybody can do it when it’s this easy. Picture is megaton leeks and black seeded simpson lettuce. All looking good and getting close to harvest….yum, yum.

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You should taste this little gem

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buckshorn plantain 31514I’ve learned a lot this winter about many crops that I’ve never had before. They continue to surprise me and our dinner guests that have a chance to have one of our “artisan” salads. If I had to list the biggest surprise I would list claytonia as the top. After that I experimented with 10 new crop varieties. It would be difficult to prioritize them after claytonia. They were all exceptional, but claytonia was just unbelievably delicious. This is a picture of buckshorn plantain. It’s crunchy with a little zest to it and adds a wonderful texture and taste to whatever salad mix your putting together. You won’t be buying this in any stores or any farmers markets this time of year. If you want it, you’ll have to grow it yourself. And it’s virtually unscathed in my protected square foot garden. You should give it a try. If you’re interested in buying some seeds(they can be hard to find)of this particular variety, I sell and ship them for $4.25 per pack. But if you wait too long it won’t be good. This is a cool/cold weather crop that does well with a lack of heat.

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Poc choi

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poc choi

It’s the 1st week of March and I’ve got hardly any room left to plant. I’m hoping to have my first full harvest by the 1st week of April-for sure by the second week. This is Win-Win poc choi-one of 3 different varieties that I grow throughout the year. This particular cultivar produces a very large and open plant. It’s exceptionally good in stir-fry’s. On the left is Clayton-which I’ve previously posted about. It’s been the surprise of the winter garden in zone 6 for me. On the right is Fordhook chard. I like this variety but I think I’m a bigger fan of rainbow chard, which has been planted in other squares of the garden. We’re still eating out of the garden from the winter harvest with much left of spinach, minutina, mache, tatsoi, mizuna, and mache. With several local customers to grow for I’ll be spending a little more time in the gardens. With the mild weather we’ve had so far I’m taking a chance that it’s OK to begin teaching garden classes. For the local folks interested in learning how to have a successful square foot garden, you can reach me through the “contact” page. Or, you can just check out the schedule on the right hand side of my blog. It’s a lot of fun and you won’t be sorry you attended. Gardening season is here and you can be direct seeding many things right now for an earlier harvest.

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