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.

Potato winter storage

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I thought I’d leave a quick note on how I store my potatoes to last through the winter months. We always finish them off before the end of winter, but it’s a real bummer to go through your potato bin only to find soft, diseased and ruined potatoes. My method is like everything else I try to do with gardening-quick and simple with a minimum of work. After pulling potatoes from the ground, try to store them at room temperature for 10 days or so to let the skins dry out enough to prevent moisture loss. Your storage area should be protected from light as much as possible or they will develop solanine. You’ll know this by the green coloring on the surface of the potatoes. If you see this be sure to throw the effected potatoes away as they can cause illness. If you’re lucky enough to have a root cellar you can store your potatoes in any crate, bin, or open box not exposed to sun. If not, store potatoes in a cool, dry room where the temperature doesn’t get below 35 degrees. Storing potatoes in cooler temperatures than this increases their sugar and decreases in starch which take away from their storage and cooking qualities. All I use to store my potatoes are a large enough bin to hold them all and shredded paper. I start with paper on the bottom, than add a layer of potatoes, then another layer of shredded paper, then potatoes, etc. I’ll do this until I reach the top of my container and all the potatoes are covered. This works great because they are protected from any sunlight and any excess moisture is absorbed by the shredded paper. I then keep them in our garage. Whenever we need potatoes, it’s an easy thing to go out, dig through the paper, and gather your potatoes. In the square foot garden system, I’ve been able to expect 5 pounds of potatoes per square. Growing 8 squares gives us 40 pounds of them to last-well, as long as we can get them to last. In my next post, I’ll be taking some time to talk about something that I’m getting a lot of mail about-preparing the soil in fall for the spring gardens. It’s what I’ve done for years and it’s worked perfectly. Stayed tuned.[ois skin=”below post”]

Halloween SFG

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We had our first snow last night. Whatever has been in the garden up until this point is now done except for a brussel sprout plant and a couple squares of lettuce. The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is take a quick peek at my garden-I even do it in the dead of winter-I don’t even know why I do it. Since it’s the Halloween season, I thought I would put a little holiday decorations in the garden to match the season. It’s not a lot, but it’s fun. My wife says “but nobody will see your garden!” Maybe-but I will. It was quick, cheap and easy to do. In a couple of weeks, I think I’ll decorate with a Thanksgiving theme followed by a Christmas theme shortly after. That way when I look at the gardens in snow, it wont’ be so boring. I don’t know if I will be gardening all winter now-I need a break from the season. Maybe I will only do 1 small SFG box, we’ll see. My squashes are hardening up in a dry place, as are my onions for winter storage. I will be digging up my potatoes in the next 4 or 5 days and putting those away for the winter. I’ll talk about how I store my potatoes in the next post. It’s important if you don’t want them to rot over the winter. My carrots and beans have been blanched and put in the freezer, along with my whole red tomatoes. Maybe I’ll include what I do with my tomatoes at the end of the season to preserve them. I can’t take the time to process all of them so I take the easy route.[ois skin=”below post”]

Why we have so little pest problems with a SFG

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Several weeks ago at a local library introductory class I had a question. It was a question that I couldn’t answer. This was the question:”How do you stop spider mites?” It was a little embarrassing to admit “I don’t know.” But it was the truth. I haven’t had spider mites or hornworms-another pest that I just learned about in the past couple of days. Why have I never had any of these? I think the answer is in the simpleness of the SFG system. By not planting any one thing in mass quantities in close proximity to one another we’re able to control or not have any spider mites. I try to remember where I’ve planted my big items in the garden from the previous year. I’ll rotate the location for squash, potatoes, pole beans, tomatoes, etc. It’s an easy task. I don’t know all the scientific answers to why we have so little pest/bug problems in a square foot garden. I’m guessing that it has something to do with rotation, and I’m also guessing that it might have something to do with the fact that I plant a different thing in each of my 16 squares of a 4X4′ garden box. There won’t be many who understand this one because you had to be there to experience it. I just returned from the SFG 3-day symposium in San Diego. Besides meeting 10 unbelievably great folks who are so passionate about the cause, I got to hear from Mel himself. He had the class stand up and spread their hands in front of them-palms facing each other. He then told them to raise their hands so that their hands were above their heads, and had them close their eyes. Then he asked them to slowly bring their hands together-with their eyes closed until they felt their hands touch each other. Then he asked them to interlock all their fingers-eyes closed. Then he says “raise your trigger finger of there right hand,” which represented “build a box.” Then he asked them to raise their other trigger finger, which represented filling a box with Mel’s mix. He’d have them raise one pinkie and that might represent “a different crop in each square.” The other pinkie might represent “build a grid.” He did this for 10 different things, then asked the class to close their their hands again in the original interlocking grasp. He then asked them to try to separate their hands, which they couldn’t. He finally asked them to lower their hands in front of them and to open their eyes. He explained to the whole class that square foot gardening is exactly like their interlocking fingers. Everything meshes together perfectly in a square foot garden. He said “I don’t even know why it works, but it does.” And he’s right. Having a square foot garden is so simple that any person desiring to garden can have one-and a very successful one without any experience. The concepts are perfectly aligned with one another so well that is just seems to work. To all the folks that just left San Diego, you know what I mean. It was great meeting everyone and I wish you all the best of luck. If you don’t have a square foot garden yet, come on over and join us.

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Tomatoes, garlic, and basil

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We’ve had a ton of tomatoes this year-probably more than we’ve ever had in the past. It’s a simple task to just go out to the garden, pull a few tomatoes, garlic and basil, and then start cooking. This is a family favorite-margherita pizza. It’s really just a fresh tomato pizza, but it’s one of the reasons we’re so anxious for summer to get here. If you’re interested, I’ve got a great recipe for it. We make ours outside so we don’t even have to heat up the kitchen. You’ll have to buy my ebook to get it, but it you do, you’ll walk away with a lot more than just a great pizza recipe. You’ll learn a lot of tidbits about square foot gardening. You’ll also learn about the two most frequent causes of failure in the square foot garden along with how to make your own 100% organic solutions to eliminate bugs and pests. You probably have most of these items in your home right now. All I can tell you is that these work exceptionally well. In Mel’s first book he says that these homemade remedies “work for some of the plants some of the time for some of the people.” These work. However, I do have to say that I rarely have had any kind of bug/pest problems in my garden. This point will lead me to my next post where I’ll explain why that’s the case with a lot of square foot gardeners. I’m finishing up with my final week of veggie/produce deliveries. It’s a good thing because it’s really slowing down. I do have plans on gardening all winter long. I just want to show that this can be done-pretty easily too! Stay tuned-I’ve been experimenting and learning about a new type of fertilizer-one that you make yourself in your own backyard. It’s really good-I think you’re going to like this.[ois skin=”below post”]

Helping things to finish ripening

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I’ve had 3 plants of butternut squash that were planted this year taking up 4 square feet. When they all ripen, I’ll have harvested 10-12 butternut squashes. This is a picture showing two of them at the top of my 7′ vertical grow towers. You’ll notice that I’ve cut back most of the leaves. Keeping the fruit on the vine with everything else being cut back will enable all the energy to go into the fruit to finish ripening. I had 3 or 4 squashes that were just starting to grow but there’s no way they would have enough time to fully ripen, so I had to cut those off. We’ve still got several weeks of mild weather so the rest of my garden is still growing pretty well actually. This year I’ll be growing a single 4X4 garden through the entire winter. My plan is to give people the know-how and the confidence to do the same thing-even in a place like Utah where we can have some pretty harsh weather. So be sure to visit my blog in the winter months if you’d like to follow along. I’ll be posting a little less frequently, but enough to give you some glimpses of what’s going on. There’s plenty for me to do right now though-I still have 3 more weeks of delivering freshly pulled garden produce to customers. This has, without a doubt, been the busiest September I’ve ever had with gardening. I finished my last teaching project in a place called Duchesne, Utah. It’s a 2 hour drive but they had a bunch of people ready to put in fall gardens in anticipation of some rather difficult days to come. So I’ll be taking a couple of months off instructing before the teaching begins again. I guess I shouldn’t say it’s over because I’ve been invited by Mel Bartholomew to help in the upcoming SFG symposium being held in San Diego. If you’re interested in becoming a certified SFG instructor, I hope you consider joining us. It will be the best money you’ve ever spent. You can read all about it here.  You’ll walk away after these 3 days never having to ask for advice from anyone on the Internet again.  It’s all so easy that you’ll be amazed at the simplicity and the genius behind the method.  Just one more quick thing about squash and getting back to the original topic-If you’re planning on eating them right now, that’s fine.  But if you’re planning on storing your harvest of winter squash there’s a few things to keep in mind.  First-be sure to cut your squash from the vines before the first freeze hits.  Second, cut the vines leaving about 2″.  Third-let them sit outside in a warm location for about 10 days to harden off the skins and make them more resistant to decay.  Last-add 1/4 cup of bleach in a gallon of cool water.  Then with a small brush clean the entire surface of the squash.  Dry it off and store it in a place where it’s cool and out of direct sunlight.  This is a great trick to prevent bacterial growth during the storage months.  Till next time….

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