Author Archives: Jim

About Jim

I'm a certified square foot gardening instructor that enjoys teaching others how to grow their own great, healthy, organic food. I also enjoy cooking, biking, playing my guitar, reading, and card magic.

Square foot gardening in the winter

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january 31, 2015 winter gardenAlthough we’ve had a milder winter, we’ve still had a few significant snow storms this year. One delivered 8 inches of snow and then one a week later we got 4 or 5 additional inches. Today it’s forecast to be in the high 40’s to low 50’s.

I’ve kept a close eye on the evening temperatures with my high/low digital thermometer under the covers. I know there are expert farmers/gardeners who claim that for every layer of protection you move your garden a USDA zone and a half or 500 miles to the south . Since I’m in zone 6B, that would make my gardens the equivalent of zone 9 with my double coverage. That would put me on par with the thermal belt of California’s central valley. Click here to see what folks in zone 9 are growing at this time of the year. There is no way I can come close to what they’re doing. Not right now.

What I think is most important is the “Sunset Zone Considerations” list. As this article explains, the difference between USDA and Sunset zones are very important. While the USDA categorizes zones by the winter low temperatures, the Sunset zones take into consideration many other important factors. The influences listed-altitude, mountains, hills, wind,continental influence, ocean influence(vastly different from east coast), etc. can have a significant effect on winter gardens. If you’d like to grow something through the 6B winter and are of the thought that a simple double cover of plastic and floating row will take you to zone 9-give it a try! You’ll be sadly disappointed.

I did find, however, that my cold frame covered with a simple glass window did a much better job of keeping warm than my double covered square foot garden beds. The challenge with the cold frame is you’ve got to have many of them to take you through the winter. And you must remember to vent them if it’s sunny and gets past 45 degrees.

If you live in a climate where the winter temperature gets below 15 degrees or colder-the lower limit for quality winter salad crops-it becomes even more important to choose the proper things to grow. By minimizing the size of your garden as we do in the square foot gardening system, you can have a different garden by protecting it from the real destroyers of crops-wind and the continual freezing/thawing of crops. With the ability to do just that with your square foot garden, it then becomes a simple matter of crop selection.[ois skin=”1″]

Sprouting carrots

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minicor carrot sproutingI’ve got to get some carrots in the ground pretty soon or they won’t be ready when I need them. You can direct seed them in the soil right now and because of the cold weather some of them won’t come up. This seed pack is 5 years old. Maybe some of the seeds are no longer viable. The ones that aren’t certainly wouldn’t grow, but how do you know what seeds are good and which aren’t?

Sprouting is one of the easiest ways to figure that out. Just take your seeds and place them on a dampened paper towel. Lightly spray the seeds, close them up in a zip lock bag and place it in a room. Some will put them in the furnace room. I just put them in an upstairs bedroom. In the case of these carrots you can see they germinated in 4 days. However, one of them didn’t. Whichever seeds sprout are the ones that are good seeds. These then go into a growing medium where they will sit for the next 80-90 days. By that time they’ll be delicious mini-carrots that are full of flavor. If I had planted these directly it would have taken 3-4 weeks before they emerged in the garden soil.

I just cut off about 25 days by doing it this way. And I know what seeds are good to be transplanted to individual cells. And since I know I need about 100 carrots, I’ll sprout 115 on paper towels. This gives me some wiggle room. Then at a certain point they will go into the garden and take up a measly 4 squares. No wasting time, money, space, or seeds in the square foot gardening system. You only plant what you eat.

For the local folks, in a matter of a couple of weeks I’ll be posting dates for SFG classes. Some are free, some aren’t. The free classes cover the basics of the SFG system. The paid version($25 per person)teach not only the basics but also the advanced techniques of the system.[ois skin=”1″]

My season has begun

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sprouting chive and scallions seeds on January 3, 2015. Square foot gardening planning for the spring season has begun. I recently had a note from someone informing me this method simply doesn’t work as a way of sprouting seeds.  I’ve had nothing but success doing it this way for a decade.  What could be easier?  If you were to put these seeds in the ground right now who knows how many would come up?  Freezing temperatures, snow, wind, etc.  makes this difficult to pull off by planting outside if you live in a northern climate.

Seeds only need two things to germinate-warmth and moisture.  By putting only a small number of seeds on a paper towel, spraying them lightly with water, and then placing them in a closed ziplock bag, you’ve provided them with one of the essentials-moisture.  All you have left to provide is the warmth.  I just place this on top of a filing cabinet in one of the bedrooms and wait.  In a matter of a few days(depending on the crop)you’ll see them swell and then start to grow a small “tail.”  I’ve posted pictures of what this looks like previously.

Once that happens you now have to provide the last thing for them to start growing-light.  Use a pencil or tweezers to lift your seedlings off the paper towel and into growing cells.  I don’t handle them with my fingers because their too fragile.  Cover them with a fine layer of soil, drop the light source about an inch over the height of the plants and keep the soil moist.  Because there’s no top over the soil it can dry out quicker than you might expect.

The reason I prefer this method is twofold.  First, whatever sprouts will grow.  Planting seeds directly into outside soil at this time is risky.  This takes all the guesswork out of the equation.  The other reason is time.  Depending on what you’re planting outside it might take 3-4 weeks to germinate. With few exceptions, the items I grow germinate in a week or less.  It’s a great shortcut.

My focus now is past the four season garden.  Winter has been a lot of fun but it’s now time to plan my square foot garden.  I’ve got plenty of finished compost left over(and covered)from last year to start doing things outside.  And there are several crops that will germinate even during this part of the year.[ois skin=”1″]

Lots more winter coming

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square foot garden with four season protection

What a mess!  The days get longer, the snow is coming and it’s just freezing out there!  We awoke to a white Christmas with 5 inches of new snow!  We’ve got more on the way and we’ve also got a few nights dipping into the single digits!  The seed catalogs have arrived and I’ve been marking up every single one of them with all the fancy new things I want to try this upcoming year.

By the way-do you get Johnny’s catalog?  There’s this new item they have-Mexican Sour Gherkins.  They look so cool!  They’re miniature cucumbers that you harvest when 1″ long.  They taste like cucumbers with a citrus and tangy overtone.  Anyone ever tried them?  I noticed Niki Jabbour has talked about them on her Facebook site.  I’m not sure I’ll be growing them but they do look interesting.  I don’t know any neighbor gardeners who’ve grown them and I don’t know any square foot gardeners who’ve tried them.  I’d be interested to know if any of you have?  If so, let me know what you think.  I’m always up for trying new things but they have to be productive. The square foot gardener might not have a lot of room so space is at a premium-at least it is for me.

But the fun can begin right now if you’re ready!  If you’ve got your four season garden protection up there are things that you can plant-right now.  It’s true that many things are impossible to germinate in the winter, but there are 7 crops I’ve been successful with in the winter.  And with the empty spaces that are appearing in the garden because we’ve been eating out of it all winter, it’s time to replant.  And that’s exactly what I did this afternoon.

Don’t let the winter blues get you down.  There’s still much you can do!  Plantings of cold weather crops, collecting material to add to your compost bins,  and gathering seeds for the spring season are all fun activities to get you through the depressing winter months.

And even more, use the winter months to learn all you can about how to be a better gardener.  I ran across this nifty piece on twitter that I thought was informative.  Reading things like this all winter long will do nothing but add to your garden knowledge.  Hope you like it.  Cheers! [ois skin=”1″]

4 Season gardening at it’s best

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corn salad or mache in the four season garden

compost, 4 season gardening

Things doing well in my winter garden right now.  If you’ve never tried to have a 4 season garden you should reconsider-especially you northern climate gardeners.  It’s one of the most enjoyable times of all.  You end up harvesting crops that you can’t grow in the summer months because it’s too warm for them.  It forces you to eat seasonally.  This is mache, or corn salad depending on where you’re from.  The winter garden-no work.  I’ve begun harvesting this square which will last for a week.  I’ll snip some of this, and maybe some radicchio, and a little tatsoi for a delicious salad.  To increase your chances for success for the winter garden it’s important get the soil right by amending with quality compost and the right crop selection to match the season.[ois skin=”1″]