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.

Some of the greatest tasting lettuce ever

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skyphos nateOn the recommendation from the folks at Johnny’s Selected Seeds, I was convinced to try this variety of lettuce 2 or 3 years ago. They commented that this was one of their most popular and best tasting lettuces they sold, so I tried it. Our family loved it, and so did those customers I grew it for. In fact, it’s become my most requested lettuce of the growing season. It’s a variety called Skyphos. It’s not a warm-weather lettuce so it won’t do well in the middle of summer. But it’s easily grown in spring and fall. As is typical with the square foot gardening method, there will be four heads of lettuce per square. This was not planted with transplants or sprouted seeds. This was part of the original test to see if I could grow this in what has now been described as the coldest January in Salt Lake City in 50+ years. It was directly-seeded right into the soil. It’s grown a little slower than I would’ve liked, but that’s to be expected with hot cold it’s been. Six weeks away for this to be ready. JSS has a brand new variety of lettuce this year that’s supposed to be even better-something called Salanova. I’ve got my seeds ready to plant with that go for in a few days.[ois skin=”below post”]

Transplanting a few things

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tatsoi nateI’m now getting ready to plant these 2 squares-one with tatsoi and another with lettuce-Simpson elite. Tatsoi is a very good tasting Asian green that’s easy to grow in low temperatures. Mixing it with other salad greens adds  great variety. Because of the ease in growing these, I’ve now grown 3 or 4 different varieties of Asian greens. (Does that need to be capitalized? It’s not a city) There’s no use in trying to grow summer things in winter, even if you have a heated greenhouse. You could if you wanted to, but it’s a lot of extra work(and money) for something that might not work anyway. I’m not one to fight the seasons-with the exception of lettuces. I will grow those through the dog-days of the summer heat. It’s more work, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to enjoy the produce and vegetables that I’m buying from even the best produce stores. Simpson elite is a new variety for me-I’ve always grown Simpson, but I think I read that elite does better in warmer weather so I’m giving it a shot. Using my trusted trowel-1 of only 3 tools you’ll ever need in a square foot garden-I’ll just drop each of these potmaker cups into the soil, give it a light water, cover with row cover, and away we go. Four-five weeks away from our first harvest of the season. And I can’t wait.

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More experimenting

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sprouted carrotscarrot boxI’m having so much fun this year and it’s just beginning. I hope you’re not getting tired of these pictures of sprouting seeds because it’s been a great experiment for me. This is what I’ve got going. I only have 148 square feet in our yard. I grow veggies and produce for 5 people that lasts almost the entire year. You’ve got to plan it out, but it’s got to be a lot easier using a SFG than it might be for a single row garden/farmer. The process of sprouting truly means you have no thinning at all because you’re planting only those seeds that you know will continue to grow-those that have sprouted. Well, I just realized that I’m a little behind for my carrots to come out at the right time. I’ve got several squares planted outside in the gardens right now, but none have broken ground. I’ve got to get going! With our weather it’s usually about 3 weeks or so before carrots break ground in these temperatures. I got to thinking-could I speed it up a bit?  Can you sprout carrot seeds?  These sprouted in 3 days instead of 3 weeks, so I think I successfully shaved off 2+ weeks of time. I then had some leftover wood that I hastily put together for my carrot box. These will be grown in my garage starting tonight and they will pass up what’s planted in the garden. Nifty little trick. This particular variety is Mokum-an absolutely delicious carrot from Johnny’s that’s short and early.

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Over and under

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over 020213under 020213It was about 38-40 today. With my plastic over the boxes today it was probably mid-60’s to 70 degrees under the cover. This picture is a different SFG box then the previous post shows. In this one, you can see a few things up and growing: win-win bok choy, winter density lettuce, beets, 2 star lettuce, kohlrabi, etc. There’s a few open squares but that will probably change in the next week. It’s about time for me to place an ad in the local newspaper to see if anyone is interested in buying what this box will be producing. Last time I counted I’ve got about 14 different items that will come out of this particular SFG box. This list includes lettuce(4 varieties), greenhouse tomatoes, spinach, kale, bok choy, mizuna, tatsoi, arugula, mache, kohlrabi, radishes, carrots, beets(and greens), and cilantro. While at Sprouts the other day, I noticed the price for a head of loose-leaf organic red lettuce-$1.99. It was really small. I also saw the price of an organic kohlrabi-$2.99 each! Holy smoke. When folks buy from me they get at least 4 heads of lettuce that are bigger and better tasting than what you buy at any store-easily worth $2.50 each. They get a small container of tomatoes, and a combination of at least 5 other things from the list mentioned above. I deliver and it only costs them $20 a week. I think that’s a great deal-what do you think? Some of these Asian greens-man, are they good. Especially for stir-fries.[ois skin=”below post”]

The SFG as of February 1st

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20113 sfgI love all folks who garden-especially those who grow our food-the farmers. But for me, the traditional row garden is too much work and farming is too big for my taste. We’re just a family of 3 now, so this 148 square foot garden is enough for us and 5 other families. It takes some planning to be as efficient as you possibly can be, but it’s pretty easily done. Take this picture for example. Even though our temperatures have been single digits for almost the entire winter at night, when I lifted up the low tunnel today my soil was perfectly loose and warm. If you can see the trowel off to the left side of the picture, you’ll notice it’s sitting a lot higher than the prepared bed. If you’ve been following this blog for any period of time, you’ll remember that I build my boxes up more towards the middle at the end of the growing season. That way, when it’s time to plant, I have 100% pure compost(which is where it came from)sitting in a square foot bed. I can move this extra dirt over to an empty SFG bed, and then start planting. When all these SFG beds are planted, I’ll have a fair amount of excess compost-always a good problem to have. I’ll place the extra compost in a large pot somewhere in the garden and when it’s time to amend a new square foot, I’ll have perfect soil to do it with. At that early of a date my compost is not even close to being done. Think of this as preserving compost. It’s in perfect condition just waiting to be used, and when you need it early in the season, your main compost pile isn’t ready. This is the perfect fix. It’s been protected all winter from water, snow, and ice. It took me about 5 minutes to prepare this bed. That’s my kind of gardening.[ois skin=”below post”]