Tag Archives: arugula

Harvest basket from the square foot gardens

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Just a sampling of what my neighbor customers get every Saturday morning. Not much work really, just several washes of the greens and off they go. The one item that’s been very surprising is the small yellow squash in front. Angel hair spaghetti squash. This was my first year growing it, and it’s just delicious. You can read all about it here. Give it a go next year, you won’t be disappointed.

Chard, arugula, zucchini, basil, cherry tomatoes, golden egg squash, green onions, cucumber, kale, lettuce and carrots.[ois skin=”1″]

No thinning in the square foot gardens

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One of the many great spring crops to grow is arugula. Until recently, I’ve never been a fan. The reason? Too spicy!

I just happen to be out to dinner a couple of years ago at a nice restaurant. The salad was particularly delicious so I asked the server what the mixed greens were and where they got them. Turns out it was arugula. I was sure he must have been mistaken because there was no edge to it. Sure enough, thats what it was, mixed in with 2 or three other salad greens. I tracked down the farm where it came from(California) in an effort to find the variety. I was told they couldn’t tell me because of “proprietary reasons.” What? It took me a couple of weeks but I did find out the variety. In the meantime I learned a good lesson.

Arugula grown in warm weather and then harvested at something less than the baby leaf stage will always be more spicy. Grow it in cool weather and harvest it when young, and the taste is drastically different. This is how I’ve become an arugula fan.

Since arugula spacing says “thin to 4 inches” on the back of the packet, you would plant 9 of them in a square. By only adding one or two seeds per hole, you end up not hardly ever thinning. This is a picture of that: I might have to thin 1 plant. Look hard enough and you might see some claytonia that has overwintered and is trying to grow[ois skin=”1″]

Spring planting with vertical gardening in mind

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In years past I’ve planted my spring garden and put things wherever I wanted. When it became time to put in my summer vertical crops I often had to either wait for the existing squares to finish, which meant putting my tomatoes in a little late, or pull the plants which were in the square which hadn’t finished yet. For many years I’ve learned to put in the earliest crops where my vertical summer crops will grow.

What do you grow right now so your squares will be ready for summer vertical crops? All the cool weather crops: lettuce, spinach, chard, endive, kohlrabi, arugula, bok choi, mizuna, kale, even radicchio. etc. Radishes can go in later because they only take about 30 days. I know there will be 7 weeks until the summer crops go in, so this leaves me with time to grow all the things that love spring. Mel always taught to think one season ahead[ois skin=”1″]

Baby arugula coming up

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Now is the time in zone 6! There’s no thinning in the square foot gardening system, and this is an example of that. Nine baby arugula plants up and going planted 10 days ago! I like to package these up to customers separately so they can choose whether to use them in a salad green mix, or if they want to use it by itself. This variety is milder than many others, especially when picked small, and especially when grown in cooler weather.

And now for my new ebook. You’ve seen it on my blog. Releasing a book about growing lettuce in warm weather during January didnt make much sense. But it was finished and I wanted to get it out. Don’t wait too long to buy it if you’re interested! If you do, by the time summer gets here you’ll find yourself hunting around for certain varieties of lettuce seeds that will have been sold out[ois skin=”3″]

Early square foot garden planting

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early spring planting of arugula and lettuceI know it’s probably way too early to start but I like to experiment on cheating the seasons. I’ve still got 2 layers of protection over my square foot garden main beds and feel pretty confident that I can get these two crops to germinate and grow.

I decided to give this an attempt because I looked at the weather report and saw low’s in the mid-20’s, highs in the upper-30’s to low-40’s and some sunshine. That should be good enough to start a few things. The real issue is bang-for-the buck.

This will successfully grow(hopefully)and be done in about 80 days. If I wait another 3 weeks and began planting lettuce then, it would be ready in 55-60 days. So, why start early? Because I’m bored. We hit the 10 hours of sunlight later this week which is another early sign that spring is close.

To learn more about the two crops planted click here and here. I love this variety of arugula. It’s milder than any I’ve had before, and it’e even more so when harvested in the baby stages.

By clicking on any of my Burpee links, you get free shipping for online orders of any size by entering “B1FA” into the promotion code box when checking out. Its a great time to start ordering your seeds[ois skin=”1″]