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.

The smells of summer

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In a few short weeks we’ll all miss the smell of freshly snipped basil on our hands.  Right now my time is taken up with pretty much harvesting-and having a hard time keeping up with some of the things.  Keep harvesting those pole beans while they’re still a decent size.  If you don’t, you’ll end up with these pithy tasting beans, which you’ll end up throwing away.  By keeping them harvested, the plant knows it needs to still produce more.  If you stop harvesting, the plant believes it’s time to start shutting down for the season.  Keep the top of your basil plants pinched off.  I also end up cutting off any brown or yellowing leaves on all my squash plants.  Keep your lettuce well watered and shaded.  In about another 2 weeks it’s time to put in your fall-Labor Day gardens.  That’s for those who want to get one more harvest out of the season.  It’s the best time to do it.  All the things you grew so well in the spring can successfully be planted again-without the snails and slugs.  I’ve still been planting squares of lettuce-right through the summer-so that we have some available to enjoy with the other salad fixings from the garden.  Maybe start thinking of your compost right now.  You should have a bunch ready to go on Labor Day.  If not, you’ll need to start hunting around for places that carry a good quality compost.  I’ve already mentioned what I believe is the best commercial compost available in a previous post.  If you’ve made no compost, this is the stuff you want to buy.  I can’t believe summer is almost over but it’s time to think about either extending the season or shutting down the gardens for the remainder of the year.  Keep in mind that in many areas where the first frost hits, there is usually another 4-6 weeks of cooler weather to still plant for those who still want to.

The looks of summer

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It’s sure been a great year in the square foot gardens.  We’ve had 64 ears of corn in a 4X4 box.  We’re just now getting a lot of Roma and other types of tomatoes.  The lettuce and radishes have and continue to grow and do very well-even in the heat of summer.  That’s a little tougher to do and I’ve talked about how to do that in previous posts.  The squashes, cucumbers and herbs are all doing good.  And, with only 150 square feet of garden space I’m able to not only grow this produce for our family but also 4 other people.  They have gladly paid me for it-$125 for a 6 week period.  Sure it’s a way to make extra money, but the real fun of it is that you get to see the look on people’s faces when they get that newly harvested box of organic produce that you were able to grow.  I actually think I’ve saved them a few bucks along the way because I have ended up delivering the items.  The price is the same as you would find at places like Whole Foods, but the items they’re receiving has been delivered within 2 hours of harvest.  It’s a very easy thing to do on a Saturday morning.  This picture shows just a small sampling of things that I pulled the other day.  Zucchini, carrots, green and yellow beans, basil, and Swiss chard.  Right now it’s hard to keep up with all the beans.  What do you do with all of them anyway?  That will be a topic in a new ebook that I will be working on in the near future-harvesting and storage.  Don’t forget to try and plant all those fall crops if you can.  If you plan it right, you’ll have some great and tasty things back there when all of your friendly neighbor gardeners are done for the year.  And you can do it so easily with no pests around to speak of at this time of year.[ois skin=”below post”]

It’s time to start thinking about your fall gardens

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The summer has been slipping past us.  We only have a few more weeks of true summer growing and now is the time to start thinking and planning your fall gardens.  Of course, if you’ve had enough for one year than it’s simple.  You can begin to start closing your gardens down.  I will talk about this at a later date with the things that I do to prepare my gardens for the next growing season.  But since SFG’ers haven’t worked all that hard in the garden, we usually have plenty of energy to extend the season.  Right now is the time to plan and order things like garlic and scallions.  This will go directly into the ground and will grow throughout the winter to be harvested in the springtime.  In addition to feeding my family I now have the extra work of feeding 3 other people.  If you saw my previous post I described a way to make some extra money from your SFG’s.  And it’s put me to work.  I had already decided what I was going to grow(seeds that I already had)and what varieties I would offer(also things I already had.)  Talk about no start up costs!  Picture your fall gardens when the weather has significantly cooled, the days are shorter, and the pests are gone.  This is the perfect time to re-plant-from seed if you’d like-things like sugar snap peas, all varieties of lettuce, scallions, kale, Swiss chard, radishes, carrots, beets, spinach, etc.  Now is also the time to start-from seed-items that grow well in cold weather that you’ll have time to harvest.  This would include things like the cabbage(don’t plant them near your tomatoes!), brussel sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower.  The timing would be pretty good.  If you plant them now, by Labor day weekend you’ll have 30 days of growth already under way.  Add another 30 days until October 1st, and your not at 60 days.  Depending on when your real hard winter starts,  Here in zone 6 we have an additional 30 days after that-adding up to 90 days of growth-where you can continue to grow.  Many of these items don’t have to even be covered as they do very well in cold weather and even snow.  All your produce items may have to be covered up if a hard freeze is the weather.  But if you plant those things right now-from seed-you’ll have plenty of time to grow and harvest as they will be done in about 6 weeks time.  The picture showing is of 8 tomato plants taking up 8 square feet.  You can see that they are different heights-reflecting when I put them in the round.  The ones on the right hand of the picture were put in the ground about 3 weeks earlier than the 4 plants on the left side.  Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t plant that many tomato plants successfully that close together.  This picture is about 2 weeks old and right now there are tons of blossoms on each of them.[ois skin=”below post”]

Zucchini in 1 square foot

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There’s always lots of discussion about zucchini being able to be grown in the square foot garden-most notably in only 1 square foot. I’ve grown it this way for years because I didn’t like the way zucchini(and other squash)can take over so much of the garden. I’ve changed my methods though and for the most part it looks like it might work. I used to use a jump-rope to tie the zucchini stem up to the t-post. But this year I’ve used Velcro-which as you can see, appears to be holding things up and together pretty well. This was about 2 weeks ago so the plant is bigger now, and I’m getting at least one zucchini every other day. In about another week, I think I will be getting one per day. I like to pick them when they taste the best-about 8 inches. The other day we had a kind neighbor deliver us a zucchini that was about 2 1/2 feet long. They simply don’t taste as good as the smaller ones. As you Velcro up your zucchini, do it at intervals that keep the stem vertical without any drooping. This will reward you with a zucchini plant that is neat, tidy, and only takes up 1 square foot of space. Your zucchini will be growing vertically as you can see in the picture. It’s always fun to watch people as they see zucchini being grown this way. Then we go to another spot in the garden where the real big squash-banana-is starting to grow. It’s about 6 feet in the air right now and it will be a while before all of those are ready. Right now they’re just back there gaining weight! It’s been a great summer for our square foot gardens. In another few days I will be posting about something that you’ll need to start thinking about if you want a fall garden.[ois skin=”below post”]z

The corn is starting to produce in the square foot gardens

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That’s our great daughter who went out to find some corn in the garden.  Things are growing well back there-including the spring treat corn.  I planted 4 seeds per square and we’ve been able to harvest about 12 ears of corn over the course of a few days.  This works out perfectly because I planted a row of 4 squares about every 5th day so we get things that come in smaller, shorter waves.  The corn is good, but I think I’ll go for the sweeter variety next year that produces a bigger ear of corn.  These ears are only 7-81/2 long.  They taste very good, but we just want bigger.  I’ve had no problems in my corn with bugs or anything else.  There’s tons of bees back there doing their thing, along with their presence on squash plants, sunflowers, and bachelor buttons.  I forgot that bachelor buttons were pollinators so that worked out pretty well.  Tonight we grabbed some ears of corn along with a zucchini(grown in 1 square foot)and 2 carrots.  We steamed the corn and sauteed the carrots and zucchini and was it ever good.  This is summertime-my most favorite time for eating.  All fresh and all just harvested within just a few minutes, and boy can you ever tell.  There have been no pole beans yet but those should be coming up very shortly.  This square foot garden stuff-it’s just the best.[ois skin=”below post”]