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.

Now that you harvested a lot of squares, what’s next?

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No doubt you’ve already had a pretty good harvest from the spring season.  And right now you’re probably emptying out squares from that harvest.  All those early spring squares will now be empty and ready to be re-planted.  But just think, a lot of the nutrients that were in the soil to begin with during the spring season have been depleted a bit.  Now it’s time to replant that square with something entirely different.  If you end up putting the same kind of item in that square, it may work.  But chances are also good that it may not work because all those critters that loved what was in that particular square will now be very happy with you.  By planting the same thing you’ve made it easy for them to find their food.  Make them work for it.  Plant something different in those squares.  Before you do, you’ll need to amend your soil with some new fertilizer.  I’m speaking about compost that you’ve been making over the last several weeks.  All you need to do is add enough trowels(1 of the 3 tools you’ll ever need in a square foot garden) full of compost until you’ve replenished the overall volume-to the very top of the square.  Then just mix it all in and you’re ready to replant.  By doing this in the spring, summer, and later in the fall, you’ll be able to amend your growing soil perfectly throughout the course of the year.  That’s how simple it is.  I’ve got some newly uploaded pictures of a compost operation that I’ve been doing this year.  I’ve tried to show-in pictures-how simple it is to make your own compost.  You’ll find them in the photo gallery on the main page.  I hope it helps those who are wanting to make their own compost but feel a little intimidated by the thought of it.[ois skin=”below post”]

A look at corn in a square foot garden

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I haven’t grown corn in a few years only because it takes up an entire 4X4′ box and it’s pretty cheap during the summer months.  The first year I grew corn I had over 100 ears in this same box.  While it’s true the second ears were a bit smaller it was still a lot of corn grown in a very small area.  This has a while to go, but I’m beginning to see some tasseling.  You’ll also notice the different sizes of stalks.  I planted 4 squares of corn every 5 days to avoid the all-at-once harvest.  This particular variety is Spring Treat-available everywhere.  I picked this variety because of it’s shorter time to harvest, its ability to germinate in cooler temperatures, the shorter stalk, and the sweetness of the corn.  It’s been planted 4 per square.  Given the right conditions, this should produce at least 64 heads of corn.  That’s only counting 1 corn per stalk, and I think I’ll get more than that.  This was also a weaker attempt at the 3 sisters method.  I will do this again next year, but I’ll be sure to do it correctly.  You can see the butternut squash beginning to grow in front, and the pole beans beginning to climb the tower in the back.  I’ll have a post on the 3 sisters later, but it should have been done differently.  In theory, this isn’t the 3 sisters method at all.  I had already begun growing my pole beans before I had put corn in as closely as it needs to be.  Pole beans in the back, corn in the middle, and butternut squash in the front.  What you can’t see as easily in this picture is more squash-which I will not grow vertically-and bush beans scattered among the corn.  This will add the needed (hopefully)nitrogen that corn requires.  It’s my idea of a middle ground technique for the 3 sisters method given the fact that I didn’t start out planning it correctly.  But it will produce a lot of goodies for us by the time it’s all done.  Total square footage used for this project of at least 64 ears of corn, a summers load of pole beans, a harvest of butternut squash, and a summers growth of bush beans: 24.[ois skin=”below post”]

Holy Smoke!

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Just when I thought SFG teaching was done for the year something strange happened.  I’ve had up on the site a SFG Workshop that’s to be held in September.  It was billed as “Fall Crop” because we’re closing down some of the garden but then planting several 4X4′ boxes for the last 5-7 weeks of the year.  We’re also doing some things on advanced composting, prepping your soil for next year, and some other very cool things.  Your neighbors have had their gardens pulled up since Labor Day at this point and want nothing to do with gardening until next year.  The only real requirement I had for this workshop was that you had to have taken the introductory class.  Well, the interest was so heavy with so many folks that didn’t take the introductory class that I’ve now had to schedule 7 additional classes to be held at various locations throughout the valley.  That gives you some idea of the number of people interested in planting at this great time of year.  After all, because of the cooler temperatures the water requirements are lower, all your lettuces, spinach, radishes, etc. can easily be grown, and the bugs are gone.  To all my fellow SFG instructors-we’ve always taught about how easy it is to extend the season with a SFG.  We’ve taught about being able to start a SFG at any time of the year.  Now it’s time to show it.  I hope you don’t let this chance pass you by.  By doing these in the fall, you’ll have a new core of people ready to go in the spring as well.  Give it some thought and see if it doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.

We have a winner

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Congratulations goes out to our friend John who knew the right answer.  You had to know the spacing of the SFG system to get it right though.  We had lots of participants and some pretty good answers-some things that I’ve never even thought of or heard before!  I’ll have some more ninja-type contests in the future to keep things fun and interesting.  Looking for a great tasting lettuce?  Here’s one for you.  It’s called Barbados which I bought from Johnny’s.  It’s got great flavor and it’s got a lot of “crunch.”  Sometimes the loose leaf lettuce gets a little soft so you need to spice it up with some crunchy textured greens.  Even though it’s beginning to approach the hottest time of year you should still be planting and growing lettuce. You’ll have to cover it and water it a little more, but the result is certainly worth it.  So far this year I think I’ve harvested over 100 heads of lettuce.  The trick is keeping it going for the next 8 weeks when everything in the garden starts to produce.  For more on how to protect from the heat see some of the previous posts I’ve put up.  The other trick is how to properly store lettuce.  How many times have you harvested lettuce from your garden only to have it last in the refrigerator for a couple of days before it turns brown and mushy?  Now, that’s discouraging.  All that work and you don’t even get to enjoy the fruits of your labor.  There are some tricks to this and if you’re interested in learning how to do it, you really ought to consider my ebook.  Besides addressing the 2 most common problems that get in the way of a successful square foot garden, you’ll learn all kinds of tips and tricks.  There’s things in there like homemade remedies for pests, a few great recipes using garden items, composting, etc.  It’s 60+ pages long and it’s a great deal.  And by the way, I wanted to say a huge thank you for all those who have purchased the ebook.  It’s been a fun endeavor and it’s spurred me into writing another one which I’ll be working on this fall.[ois skin=”below post”]

Win a Wealthy Earth ebook

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You can win a free copy of my ebook if you can identify the ninja secret in one of these squares.  The only dis-qualifier is if you’ve attended one of my workshops where we’ve discussed this, along with many other “ninja” secrets of the square foot garden.  You will have to know the system to find it though.  The first one who gets it right will receive my ebook.  I will provide the answer as soon as a winner is named.  It’s a tricky one!  By the way, if you haven’t read my ebook, I think you’re missing out.  You can read more about it on this site, or you can read the review by the inventor of the square foot garden-Mel Bartholomew himself.  You can read it here.  There’s all kinds of nifty things in it that will augment your skills in the SFG system.  It’s also great for instructors because these are the questions you’re going to hear when you’re teaching.  Right now in my garden, I’m making sure there are fewer and fewer empty squares.  You have to time things out a little bit.  Making sure you have lettuce when all those tomatoes are ripe is a trick in itself.  Anybody can grow lettuce in the spring when it’s cool, but it’s more difficult in the hotter weather.  It takes more work, but you’ll be glad you did.  I had a friend of mine who recently told me that  their lettuce grew very well last year, but it ended up tasting bitter.  When I asked a few more question, I think the answer to her dilemma was that she needed to cover her lettuce.  After your seeds have sprouted and then begin to grow, the best thing you can do is to shade your lettuce.  If you don’t it will continue to grow and you may even have a nicely formed head of lettuce-of whatever variety.  But the sun will beat down on that and ruin the taste.  By covering your lettuce, you’ll have some of the tastiest salad greens around.  If you’ve planted spinach in the spring, it’s time to replant those squares with something else.  Carrots, beets, onions, herbs, bush beans, or flowers, etc.  Be sure to amend your newly planted square with several trowels full of compost and your ready to go.  If you’re thinking of flowers, keep nice looking ones in mind that can also be used in salads.  The first flower that comes to mind for that is nasturtium.  Maybe you want a scented flower?  You decide what you like but I’ve got nicotiana and angels trumpet in mine.  The smell of those two are fantastic later in the summer.  You’ll have to buy transplants at this stage though-unless you’re in a climate where you have a much longer season than we have here in the mountain west.[ois skin=”below post”]