Monthly Archives: March 2012

My square foot garden in early March…

Many years ago when I was doing an internship with Mel he said to me: “what if you have a vegetable garden that is protected from wind, rain, snow and other bad weather?  All of a sudden, you have a different garden!”  And that’s the truth.  Today it’s been warm-about 60-but it’s been very windy.  I have now planted 2 complete boxes in the 2X16′ garden(16 squares.)  First, if I had a traditional garden I wouldn’t be able to plant yet.  The ground would still be frozen solid.  But then even if it were ready to go it would dry out quickly because of the windy conditions.  Because I cover my garden with plastic-making sure it’s vented so as to not get too hot-I can create an ideal growing environment for the items I’ve planted.  As others are attempting to get their gardens ready and getting out those tillers-do you notice the soil after their done?  It’s all in clumps!  That’s because the ground is not ready to be rototilled yet-it’s too early for those gardens.  Not so for the SFGer.  While your friendly neighbors are out there tilling away, we now have possible rain and snow in the forecast for this weekend.  That’s an easy thing for all SFGer to handle, but it’s not such an easy thing for a traditional row gardener.  So far I have now planted 8 squares of a variety of lettuce, 5 squares of spinach, 1 square of radishes, 1 square of carrots, and 1 square of walla-walla onions…..

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Look at this square foot garden….

While I was looking for a new camera card at Costco today I came across this little nifty item. When you read that Mel Bartholomew is the father of raised beds this is proof. This unit is composed of 2-4X4′ boxes that have been placed on top of each other for display purposes. It’s made out of some kind of plastic or vinyl and as it shows comes with a slick cover to protect your gardens for early/late gardening. The price? It’s $99. So for this you end up getting 2 boxes. That’s a fantastic deal! It’s made by a company called Lifetime. You know the return policy of Costco-it’s great. Although these are not like the white ones you can buy through the SFG foundation, this does give you a great and very affordable option. I actually like the colors. If I had room in my backyard I would buy them. On the personal garden front, today I planted 4 more squares of lettuce(2 Romaine and 2 Red Cross)along with 4 squares(36 plants) of space spinach. I say plants but they are started from seed. When they grow it will be 36 plants. The soil took me about 5 minutes to turn over with my trowel-1 of only the 3 tools you will need in a square foot garden. It was watered in and then covered. I have some great things that are going to be presented in the “members only” section portion of my site. I have had a lot of questions lately about how I cover my gardens without using the “wagon-cover” method. While I am certain these work fine, they do take a lot of extra work on your part. I will be detailing and showing-with pictures-the method that I use with my gardens. It’s very simple and fairly inexpensive. In time I have discovered an even better way to cover your gardens that’s every bit as effective, but costs even less money….more to come later

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Mel’s Book Review: The Wealthy Earth-check this one out!

This Book is for Beginners and Experts ONLY!

The Wealthy Earth by Jim TeahanHere’s a new book for you to take a look at.  I think it’s very worthy of your consideration if you meet the above qualifications.  Take a look and wee what you think.

BEGINNERS

If you’re just starting Square Foot Gardening, The Wealthy Earth is for you. Jim tells you all the things that you shouldn’t do and why you shouldn’t. He’s learned this from years of experience in getting people out of trouble that try the Square Foot System but didn’t follow it correctly and then got in trouble by trying to substitute or change it just a little bit. He knows the subject well, and if you read this book, it will keep you from all those pitfalls, so this book is definitely for BEGINNERS.

SFG EXPERTS

This book is also for the SFG experts for one major reason: you’re going to get a lot of people that come to you and say, “I tried the Square Foot System but it didn’t work.” Jim’s done extensive research on those kinds of statements, and he found out not only what they did and didn’t do, but then why it didn’t work, and he shows the solution.

So, Jim’s book has all the answers that you’re going to need if people ask you that question over the fence or in one of your talks, lectures or workshops. This book is for you if you’re a SFG expert and especially if you’re a certified SFG instructor. You’ll get a lot out of this book and you’ll learn how to get people back on the right track when they say, “Oh, I tried it, it didn’t work.” Jim was always able to find out the reason it didn’t work, most often they didn’t follow the system correctly and properly, and that’s so important. It is so easy and simple a system of gardening, we often wonder how anyone can go wrong. But they occasionally do and it’s important for you to figure out why and how to help them back on the road again.

So I hope you’ll buy this book and give it a review and let’s see what you think. I’ve known Jim for many, many years. I met him first in the Salt Lake City area when I first moved there 12 years ago, and he’s not only been a good friend but this guy really knows Square Foot Gardening. He probably knows more than I do, and he’s always coming up with new interesting ideas. I love his book and I highly recommend it.  You can purchase it for only $6.99 in our store.

Book Description:

Jim’s initial thought behind this book was simple:  to help fellow Square Foot Gardeners overcome the two main failures of a successful garden.

Originally he planned on writing only a small pamphlet, but says one idea led to another and resulted in a 60+ page book that “not only addresses why people have the challenges they do in this gardening system, but at the same time gives many other helpful suggestions.  This book is directed to those who have had experience with the Square Foot Gardening method, but could easily apply to other intensive gardening methods”.

Along with a wealth of Square Foot Gardening observations and advice, the author has included some of his family’s favorite recipes, as well as a “rough cost breakdown” on the savings of growing food in your own Square Foot Garden.

The Wealthy Earth addresses two of the biggest mistakes that get in the way of a Square Foot Garden. Frustrated by seeing bad advice on blog sites and in discussions with practicing Square Foot Gardeners, Jim set out to dispel these misnomers in a pamphlet! This eBook is the result of that effort. In this book, not only will you learn the top 10 square foot gardening mistakes; Jim also shares his 30 years experience on matters such as what to do with left over produce and how he and his family saved around $2,000 last year alone and that in Northern Utah! Imagine the possibilities!

About the Author:

Jim Teahan is a Certified Square Foot Gardening Instructor as well as having been apprenticed by Mel Bartholomew.  He is an ex-professional athlete with many varied interests including a love of gardening, coaching football, cooking, playing guitar, mountain biking, card magic and trying to stay in shape. A happily married health care professional with three wonderful children, Jim is ready to share his 30 years of gardening and health experience with everyone. Because he has lived in several different climates from New Hampshire, California, to Utah, he brings a wealth of diverse information to the Square Foot Gardening arena. You can follow Jim’s blog at The Wealthy Earth.[ois skin=”below post”]

Planting sugar snap peas in your SFG….

From the previous picture you can see that I have repositioned the vertical grow tower.  Now I can cover everything perfectly.  But since sugar snaps are a cold weather crop I won’t need to cover them-unless we get a lot of snow.  In past years I have planted these only to have them sit under 6-8 inches of snow for an extended length of time.  Even though they’re a cold crop, if they’re exposed to this much water for this long without any sun or the chance to dry out, they will end up rotting in the ground.  These seeds have been soaked in water for 20 minutes.  You can also see that I only put 2 seeds per hole.  This is a new variety that I’m trying from Johnny’s.  I liked the other variety that we’ve always grown but when I read that this was more prolific and sweeter I had to go with it.  Let’s see how long these take to come up and let’s see how much we get.  Today I’m starting my 2012 SFG diary.  Us square foot gardeners aren’t used to keeping charts because it’s such a simpe method of gardening without all the fan-fare.  I will be logging everything I do in the garden and keeping track of the yields.  Along with these sugar snaps I also planted 16 heads of lettuce in my 1X4′ box.  We should have another great year in the garden.  By the way-has anyone seen the price of loose-leaf lettuce lately?…..

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My first square foot gardening mistake this year….

is this.  I hope I can explain it clearly.  This is a portion of my 2X16′ bed thats been covered with 6-mil plastic in preparaton for heating up the soil.  As you can see from this picture the plastic can’t cover the last 4′ of my box completely.  The reason-and this is the mistake-is that I put my tomato tower in the wrong place.  This was used last year to grow sugar snap peas.  It will be used again for them in the next few days.  My mistake was that I put the tower to much in the center of these squares instead of the back of the box.  Things grew great on the tower last year but because I didn’t move the tower toward the back of the box, now when I cover it with plastic I can’t cover it entirely.  The tower is in the way.  It’s an easy enough fix though.  As soon as the soil heats up I will pull off the tower, remove the 2 pieces of rebar which reinforce the tower and then move everything back to the edge of the box.  I will then be able to completely enclose my 2X16′ square foot garden.  I hope you can see the advantages with limiting the size of your garden.  In a traditional single row garden you couldn’t do this.  First, your soil is nowhere near being ready.  You’re neighbors are at least 2 months away from rototilling their garden area.  Second, how do can you protect those kinds of gardens?  Maybe there’s a way but it’s got to be a huge thing to figure out.  There’s lots of huge things about traditional single row gardens…including the huge amount of time you spend pulling weeds while us SFGers are out enjoying and harvesting our organic veggies and produce….

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