Tag Archives: tatsoi

In 148 square feet?

TWE-getting it ready for winter3We’ve had 3 or 4 significant frosts already.  I’m getting ready to cover this structure with greenhouse plastic.  I’ll only then be using a weighted floating row cover to put over the crops.  As we head into winter, this is what’s growing in just 148 square feet of garden space: 20 pounds of potatoes, 108 heads of lettuce, 8 arugula plants, 320 carrots, 117 spinach plants, 36 mizuna plants, 45 claytonia plants, 4 minutina, 24 komatsuna, 27 mache, 80 radishes, 36 beets, 48 turnips, 44 Swissl chard, 9 onions, 36 chives, 16 radicchio, 63 leeks, 2 kale plants, 20 poc choi, 2 parsley plants, 1 rosemary plant, 45 tatsoi, 36 kohlrabi, and 4 plants of cilantro.  We’re ready.

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April 14th square foot garden

sfg 041413It’s hard to believe that this was all planted in the coldest part of the year. In just a few short weeks this will all be emptied out and an entirely brand new set of crops will take their place. I’ve really enjoyed-and so has our family-eating some different tasting(and sounding)greens that I’ve never grown before. This upcoming fall, I’ll be able to share specific information about 15 different cold weather crops that I’ve had experience with. Many of these are items that many might not have tasted much less grown, but are easy to plant. Done right, you should be able to harvest right through the winter in zones 3-6 with just a little extra effort. I don’t mind doing the extra work because the quality and taste of the food is so superior compared to store bought during these months. I’ll be able to share how each of these crops fit into the 1, 4, 9, and 16 spacings. This square foot gardening stuff-it sure is a lot of fun-and a whole lot less work.[ois skin=”below post”]

Salad in a glass

salad in a glassAnybody ever seen one of these before? We’ve had it for a few years because our daughter refused to eat the garbage being served in high school. She wanted something fresh and nutritious. She came home one day with one of these gadgets. It’s a plastic glass that holds the salad greens and then the dressing is stored in the top of the cap. I was on my way to one of my SFG classes last week and didn’t want to stop anywhere for fast food. I went and found this and put it to use. All I needed to do now was go out into my square foot garden, pick some tasty salad greens and head off. I snipped some mizuna, spinach, some tatsoi, arugula, and 1 radish. I cleaned it all off, cut it up and put it all in this nifty little cup. I filled the top of the cap with poppy seed dressing, topped the whole thing off with a small amount of mozzarella cheese and croutons, and off I went. About 30 minutes up the street I pushed the top cap which releases all the dressing into the container, shook it a bit, and then went to eating. Clean, healthy, fresh, and some of the best tasting salad greens you’ll ever have-right at your fingertips. Who cares if I was eating it while driving?

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The seasons first SFG workshop

sfg workshop prep 330It’s always a little tricky to see how early you can be ready to pull off one of these square foot garden workshops. Today was perfect-about 60 degrees, even warmer as we finished, and sunny. To fit one in by the end of March is pretty good for us. I spend 3 hours on this workshop and by the time we’re done, people leave with a small gift, and they know everything to have a great square foot garden. All the advanced techniques are discussed and shown, along with a few “tasty” treats along the way. I was lucky enough to have 3 suckers from a tomato plant that I’m growing. I simply cut it out and rooted it in one of my potmaker cups and gave them away. This was a Sun Gold cherry tomato plant-one of the sweetest tomatoes you’ll ever taste. I think they all got to taste arugula, mizuna, tatsoi, and minutina. Some of them were pleasantly surprised by the flavor of these lesser known salad greens. We also had someone who wasn’t ready for the arugula pepper taste-when you grow it in cooler weather it tastes strikingly different that those varieties that have been grown in warmer soil. If you’re interested in learning more about these workshops, feel free to contact me. All participants have already attended a 90-120 minute introductory class so we don’t have to waste a lot of time answering questions about content that they’ve already learned. I was able to have an unbelievably great garden last year. I think this year it will be even better-you never stop learning how to do things.

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Fun stuff in the garden

tatsoi and eliteWent out earlier this morning, pulled off the floating row cover and looked at my plants after a 12 degree low last night.  I wasn’t sure what kind of damage I would find to my plants but everything looks really good.  That’s tatsoi on the left-a great tasting Asian leaf for salads or even better for stir-fries.  On the right is Simpson Elite-a standard lettuce we enjoy growing because of its taste and simpleness to grow.  After this evening we will have low temperatures in the mid 20’s for the next 10 days.  It looks like spring is on it’s way.  And by the time my friendly neighbors have their gardens dry enough to rototill-which I never have to do-we’ll be well into eating what we’ve been growing.  Lots of fun-the easy way-square foot gardening.

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