Tag Archives: lettuce

Mass planting your square foot garden box

This year I did a little experiment. I took one of those Costco rotisserie chicken containers, cleaned it out, and poked two holes in the top of the plastic dome. This was done by heating up a screwdriver over a gas flame of the stove and then I simply pushed it through the plastic.  I then sprinkled quit a few lettuce seeds in some potting soil that I placed in the bottom container, watered in, and then put the top on. It was then placed under covers of a square foot garden box. I literally did nothing. I didn’t add water, I didn’t vent, nothing. After a few weeks it all germinated. This is what it now looks like after I have been separating into individual little plugs and placing them in a square. So far, i think I’ve added 20 heads of lettuce, with at least that many more still to plant. 

For those interested in learning how to compost, I now have a recored 75 minute class available on my blog. You can learn more about it here: https://thewealthyearth.store/products/3

 

 

Winter planting the square foot gardening

Winter gardening in northern Utah isn’t really gardening. It’s all harvesting. That means a little extra planning. The important point isn’t really the average first frost date but rather the first day we go under 10 hours of sunlight. For us, thats around November 14th. This is just one of my 4X4 SFG boxes planted for the winter. So far, the timing looks good. What’s in there? Lots. Three different kinds of lettuces, green onions, arugula, minutina, claytonia, spinach, turnips, mache, red pontiac potatoes, and tatsoi. They all love the cold and even freezing weather, except the lettuces. The baby leaf lettuces will easily make it right through the winter months. Get those gardens planted!!! 

Little gem for us square foot gardeners

I’ve been growing zucchini vertically for years in my square foot garden. All vining crops are grown on trellises to save room, and to also provide better air circulation and sunlight. You know that zucchini leaves can get very large. As long as you have things that can get some sunlight you can use those larger leaves as a shade cover to cool down the soil for crops that don’t normally like the extreme temperatures we get. I’m able to get good morning sun on this lettuce, and then the larger leaves shade it for the hottest part of the afternoon, Combined with 3 or 4 other tricks, you can grow lettuce all summer long no matter where you live. We have temperatures in the high 90’s and even low 100’s every year. My ebook is right over there on the blog if you want to learn more about growing lettuce in the hot summer months. 

Square Foot Gardening-the only way to go

No wasted space, no wasted seed, hardly any work, no thinning, and no weeds! Here’s an example of growing what you actually eat. There’s really no sense in planting your entire gardens at once. Why do that? All that means is it will come up at once. At some point these 12 squares will be all lettuces. You can see its a shaded area so I use this bed a lot in the summer to especially grow salad greens. By not planting it all at once, you can see how I’ll have a steady supply of salad greens for a while. Each square is at a slightly different stage, a few haven’t even been planted yet. You can also see the very last of my carrots that over-wintered in this box. I had over 200 of them in there.

Speaking of lettuces, my favorite thing to grow, warm weather is just around the corner. Once outside temperatures go beyond 75-80, it becomes next to impossible to even have lettuce germinate in the garden. We have temperatures in the high 90’s and even a few days of triple digits, yet I’m able to easily grow lettuces right through the summer. I wrote an ebook about how to successfully do this. Check it out.

All ready for a small winter garden

This is just one small area where I use a sunbox to grow winter salad greens. It’s less than 2 feet deep and just short of four feet wide. This uses very inexpensive wood(2X4’s laying around the house), and a window frame that cost me $5 at Restore for the top. I’ve got two different kinds of lettuces, arugula, and spinach. I’ll wait until it gets a little deeper into the fall season before adding another layer of wood. If I put it on now it casts too big of a shadow at the front edge of the box. Maybe in 3 weeks it’ll be a better time. I usually end up leaving a small opening in the box by simply moving the glass cover back about 2 inches. I don’t every really worry about closing it all winter unless we have single digit temperatures at night, which we have on occasion.