Tag Archives: kale

My square foot garden coming out of winter

It’s about time to start planting some things directly into the garden now. This is a picture of what mine looks like under cover. The empty spaces have been the latest things that I’ve been having for lunches and salads, and even a few things for breakfast(baby arugula in scrambled eggs?) Some have been replanted, and some I’ll hold off on to put transplants in the next several days. I’ve still got a lot of good eating under there. Claytonia, spinach, cilantro, onions, carrots, lettuce, tokyo bekana,  bok choi, and some green onions.

Today I direct seeded kale, more spinach, french breakfast radish, and some turnips. With the exception of kale, these will be up quickly and harvested long before the summer garden gets here. 

A quick start for spring gardens

I don’t have a soil block so I put together a homemade version. And it works perfectly. In 17 days, or sooner, these will be ready to plant right into my sun box. After about 10 days they go right into the garden, where they will grow very quickly. What the difference between a sun box and a cold frame? A lot. I’ll be teaching a class on how to have the earliest spring garden possible in zone 6.

Spring planting with vertical gardening in mind

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″]

Kale in the summer garden

Kale is thought of as a cool weather crop, and it is. Kale wouldn’t normally do very well given our very, very hot summer temperatures we’ve experienced this summer. Aphid infestations are common in our geography this time of year, and it begins to not even look good. We’ve had a scorching summer: 95+ for over a month, with several days in the low 100’s.

I’ve kept this plant covered and watered it more than I normally would have. Its looks great and we’re almost getting ready to say good-bye to these high temperatures, which will make my job easier. The goal was to have great tasting kale in the summer and then have it last throughout the entire fall, where it gets sweeter after the first frost.

And for the local folks wanting to know what those kale plants I sold a couple of months ago should look like, this is it. This is the same crop you bought and it was planted on the same weekend you received yours. Keep it well watered and cooled down if you can, and you’ll be rewarded with a great tasting fall crop of kale.

In just a few weeks it’ll be time to planning a winter garden. I’m teaching a class on how to do just that. If you’re local and are interested in learning how to do it, click here for more information. I’ll probably only be doing one of these.[ois skin=”3″]

Late Fall Square Foot Garden

winter protectionI looked out the window this morning to see that we had our first hard frost.  Last night I was able to cover everything just in time to protect what I have growing.  This is at the lower end of the temperature spectrum that I can expect protection.  The floating row cover is good to about 27 or 28 degrees-which is just right for what we had.  Any colder and it will be time to add the plastic.  Or, if snow is expected you’ll want to cover with plastic because row cover can’t withstand any accumulation of snow.

Right now is a great time to dry out any leftover grass clipping and to collect bags of leaves.  If you make your own compost you’ll find that leaves and things coming out of your kitchen and yard will make the perfect blended compost for next years gardening needs.  I’ll bag up as many leaves as I can and then cover them with plastic to make sure no moisture gets in to them.  That way when I need to start using them when making compost in the spring I won’t have to work with matted, soggy leaves.  After sitting under plastic for the entire winter the leaves become very brittle and breakdown easily and quickly in the compost bin.  I’ll have to collect about 8 bags of leaves to take me through the next year.

I did learn a very important lesson about composting this year.  At one point in later summer I ran out of compost.  I had some that I was waiting to finish but it was taking a lot longer than I’m used to.  From start to finish I’ve been able to produce a quality compost in 6 weeks.  Seven at the most.  But this particular batch was taking upwards of 10 and it still isn’t that close to being done.  What did I do wrong?  I’ll talk about that in my next post.  Thanks for visiting.[ois skin=”1″]