Tag Archives: chard

Square foot gardening-Winter planning

arugulaWith day length shortening, temperatures beginning to cool, and precipitation shortly to follow now is the perfect time to plan your winter garden. It’s a lot easier if you live in zones 8 and higher, but for zone 6 and below, we have some thinking to do.

The first step that I like to take is to simply list the items I want to grow. There’s information floating around on the internet that show 30+ different crops that can be grown in our zones and lower during winter. I’ve tried virtually all of them over that past 5 years and have had a great experience. But I’ve also found that many of those crops were things we didn’t enjoy eating. Maybe I should say we didn’t enjoy eating them as much as other tested and tried things. It’s a thrill to know that you’re able to go out and harvest minutina, but it didn’t do much for out taste buds.

Here’s a short list of things that I’ll be getting ready very soon. Spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, mache, beet greens, radishes, tatsoi, carrots, claytonia, and mizuna. We love simple salads just harvested in January from the garden. There’s other items that I may grow if I decide I want to stir-fry a few dishes. Things like bok choi, mustards, turnips, and leeks would be good choices.

I came across a really fun blog a year ago. I’m not a subscriber but I check in every once in a while to see what she’s doing. And, she’s doing the same thing as I am! But she’s much better at showing it. Take a look at her winter garden-you can find it here.  I love what she does.  You’ll also notice that’s she’s kept a record of the amount of produce and veggies harvested during the winter months.  Think about that quantity.  Although there’s a lot of money to be saved-for sure-the real reason to winter garden is the taste!  And with virtually no work, it’s the most enjoyable of all gardening season.  Or, at least it can be.

Square Foot Gardening Harvest

TWE Summer basket #4This time of year is a lot of fun. All the planning put into the garden are paying off by way of large harvests. Lettuce, carrots, basil, cherry tomatoes, squash, zucchini, chard, cucumbers, melons of various varieties, corn, etc. The most enjoyable part for me has been the summer lettuces. We’ve had a pretty hot summer and I’ve been able to grow the specialty lettuces right through the season. And we’ve got more hot weather coming in the next week. Once you hit that 85+ degree mark it’s very difficult to grow lettuce without having it bolt and go to seed.

I’ve been able to grow vegetables and produce for 8 families this summer. I think I’ll keep all those customers for the fall season as well. I love the idea and concept of CSA’s. When I think of CSA’s this is what comes to mind: lot of work requiring time that I don’t have. If you know neighbors or friends who belong to CSA’s they love them but are always a little perplexed by some of the items they get in their baskets. It’s been estimated that 15-20% of CSA items are thrown away because customers don’t know what to do with that kohlrabi-or whatever different thing they might have in their basket. To compensate for this CSA’s will add a recipe card for ideas of how to use unknown or unfamiliar things.

My baskets have no recipe cards because they contain items that everyone knows what to do with. There’s no recipe cards needed for the items you see in this basket. You may think it’s boring but my customers are always getting organic produce and veggies that have been harvested just a few hours earlier. I’ve had comments saying that nobody can beat the taste of these lettuce, cucumber, or cherry tomato varieties. And the squash/zucchini varieties are very popular as well. I do vary the varieties and color of the lettuces throughout the 6 week period. Either way, I think it’s tough to beat the taste of my salad greens and veggies.

If you haven’t gotten the harvest you expected or things don’t seem to do grow well, you might want to consider learning the square foot gardening method. The backbone of the system is the soil-which is perfect for anything you’d like to grow. There is the upfront cost of putting it together, but how much does it cost you in terms of money and frustration to have those same old tiny tomatoes that don’t grow to full size-and it’s been going on for years? Or carrots that don’t come up? Or, how about the critters that attack your garden every year? And we haven’t even mentioned the weeding! The square foot gardening system is so easy to learn. You’ll have 100% of the harvest in 20% of the space of that old traditional row garden.

Labor day will be here in a week. This spells the end or the beginning of the end of the gardening season for the year. I don’t know about you but I’m getting ready for my fall crop. And since I haven’t spent a lot of time weeding and watering I have a lot of energy left to devote to that.[ois skin=”1″]

A Summer Square Foot Garden Example

Summer square foot garden planI’m often asked what to plant during certain times of the season. This is my attempt to do that with an example of what a summer square foot garden might look like. Actually, this is similar to one of my gardens.

This is obviously one-4X4′ box. The north is on the right hand side of the card. This is where your vertical towers will be placed. That way you don’t have to worry about anything getting shaded during the summer. If you place it in any other location you’ll notice the plants behind the vertical tower getting long and leggy because they’re searching for sunlight.

Starting from the upper right hand corner and working down you’ll notice a cherry tomato plant. This will be grown vertically. Make sure you buy indeterminant tomato plants. These varieties will get to be 7-10′ tall by summers end if you pinching back the suckers that come off the main stem. Butternut squash will form a solid wall of green in about 2 months and 1 plant will take up 2 square feet. You can plant sets of green onions right now. That way you can begin to harvest them(cuttings for salads)in as little as 4 weeks. Your cherry tomato plant will be enough to feed 3-4 people all summer and into the fall. The squash and onions will take up their respective squares until the end of summer and into early fall.

The next row includes peppers, basil, a cut-and-come again lettuce variety, and bush beans. By putting the pepper plant against the back of the box you’ll be able to prevent shading that you’ll see if you put it somewhere in the middle of the box. Most bush bean varieties will have a very heavy first harvest and then a weaker second harvest. After that, the square should be emptied. If you wanted to grow and harvest beans for an extended period of time you’d have to think about growing pole beans. Basil is a classic summer herb to grow. It lasts until the first frost when it then turns black overnight and dies.

The next row includes carrots, both a cut-and-come again and regular lettuce(Romaine type), and swiss chard. By cutting the base of cut-and-come lettuce varieties(two inches above the soil line)you’ll be able to get one full harvest and then another harvest in 2-3 weeks. I know some who will cut it a second time for yet a third harvest. Your choice, but my experience is quality begins to suffer after the second cutting. Swiss chard is a great addition to your summer salads and will last well into fall. I like to cut my chard leaves while they are still small. Once they get to be more than 5-6 inches tall they get to be too chewy for our liking.

The last row has zucchini growing on a single t-post that takes up one square. I’ve been doing this for years and I’ve never had a failure doing it this way. There’s two more square of lettuce and then finally a square of beets. These lettuce varieties can be anything you like to eat. Maybe this is a spot where you want to experiment with one of the designer lettuces such as Salanova. The beets will pay off in fall. In the meantime you can enjoy the beet leaves in salads or in the “green smoothies” that everyone is drinking these days. Beet leaves in salads look nice and are exceptionally healthy.

If it were me I would plant everything at once with the exception of lettuce which I would plant every week. If it were my first square foot garden I would buy all transplants for a quick start. Eleven crops taking up 16 square feet. In another 4X4′ box you can add more peppers, lettuces, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, potatoes, and spaghetti squash. And because we don’t thin or weed in the square foot gardening system, by the time summer ends you’ll know you haven’t worked very hard. You’ll then a lot of extra energy to then plant a fall garden.[ois skin=”1″]

Do I really need a grid?

swiss chard 60314You sure do! If you’ve ever seen a raised bed without a grid it’s really nothing more than just that-a raised bed. Nothing sets it apart from the neighbor who also has a raised bed. But if you put a grid, all of a sudden you have to think differently. Instead of planting in rows like you’re used to doing, now you’re forced to plant something different in each 1 foot square. That’s the first reason you need a grid. The second reason-if you’re trying to imagine or come close to planting in squares by just eye-balling it, you’ll never get it right. You’ll be disappointed by the results. Third-it really does set your garden apart from just a raised bed. If you’ve ever seen a successful SFG, one of the first things you notice is the grid-“Oh, here’s a square foot gardener!” The last reason is something that many don’t even consider. It’s this: the grid is the gauge on how much compost you need to add when amending your soil whenever you change a crop. As an example, after pulling your spring crop of chard, you throw the wasted leaves in the compost pile. You then add not just 2 or 3 trowels full of compost, but rather enough until it reaches to top of the grid. This might be 5 or 6 trowels full of compost. Adding just 2 or 3 may not be enough. You can never get enough compost.

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Much planted, much to go

51914 gardenAfter tomorrow I’ll have a lot of newly emptied squares. To date I have a lot of the summer crops in and growing. Tomatoes, cucumbers, summer lettuce varieties, chives, carrots, chard, scallions, potatoes, nasturtium, peppers, basil, and bush beans are all in. In the next day I’ll finish planting all the rest-zucchini, patty pan and banana/butternut squash, beets, scallions, and maybe some thyme. I’ll continue to plant lettuce all summer long to make sure I have a large enough harvest by the time the tomatoes ripen. If you’re looking for a nifty little gadget to tell you what to plant and when, you ought to check this out. It’s free and easy to use. You’ll get an email periodically to remind you what to plant next. Read about it here.  Hope this helps out.

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