Category Archives: Fall gardening

The efficiency of a square foot garden

Leave a reply

This might look like a boring picture but there’s a lot too see. The pole coming out of the ground was once a  very thriving cherry tomato plant growing vertically in only 1 square. That’s it. Our evening temperatures have been mid- low 50’s and that marks a change with tomatoes. It changes the  quality of the taste and they become mushy and begin to fall off. There were still a lot of green cherry tomatoes on the plant but there’s not enough time for them to ripen. 

Looking more closely, you’ll notice 3 areas of lettuce coming up in the front of the square. I planted this a couple of weeks ago so that it will be perfectly timed to grow before the freeze hits. It’ll only be baby lettuce leaves, but these hold up much better than their more mature lettuces which turn soupy after a couple of freezes. 

I want to make sure my new lettuces get all the sun possible at this time of year. If I pulled up the entire tomato plant it would uproot the lettuces which you see growing. So, I will simply cut off the branches and the lower stem and now I have a square that will grow into winter. I’ll leave the stem in the ground until the lettuces are harvested. 

Beginning in January, this single square housed 25 carrots, 9 spinach plants, an 8′ cherry tomato plant, and now 3 heads of leaf lettuce which will remain until late December or early January. 

Not bad for one square foot. I’ve got 174 of them. 🙂

An arugula story

Leave a reply

I’ve never liked arugula. It was always to spicy, too hot. I could pick it out of a mixed salad right away without even seeing it. 

One evening I was at a really nice restaurant where they had a set menu for the event I was attending. When I got there the salad dish had already been placed on the table. It was very good. I heard the server (old school = waiter) tell the person next to me we were eating a mixed arugula salad. What? I couldn’t taste that edgy salad green at all!

Sure enough, as I looked closer I could spot the arugula. I asked the server where they got it and he told me it was a commercial greenhouse operation about 20 miles to our west. I got the name of the business and gave them a call. While they did confirm they do service the restaurant I was at, they also told me they don’t grow the arugula-the get it from a farm in California. After pestering the person on the phone, she finally gave me the name of the farm-Earthbound. We all know Earthbound. 

I then called Earthbound Farms. I told them of my experience eating a salad I thought I would never like and how I was able to trace the product to them. I’m leaving out a lot of the story but this took a lot of detective work. I explained to Earthbound that I simply wanted to find out what variety of arugula they grew. “I’m sorry but that is proprietary information and we don’t give that out.” 

I told her I wasn’t a competitor and that I’m a simple home gardener living 800 miles away and am no business threat to them. It did no good. 

So I began trialing lots of different kinds of arugula over the years. After much time, I think I found the variety. If I didn’t, I can at least grow an arugula that I like which adds a nice touch to my mixed salad greens. 

It’s Astro arugula. But I still had some work to do as it still ended up with too much edge for me. Thinking back to my dining experience, this was during the holiday season. Cold. Chilly. Snow. The breakthrough was discovering that if you grow arugula in cooler weather and harvest it as a baby green, it looses a lot of the edge. That’s the secret to those who don’t like arugula because of it’s spice. Try growing Astro in the early spring and then again for a fall harvest. It really makes a big difference when grown in cooler temperatures. 

How to grow great leeks

Leave a reply

If you want to grow really awesome leeks this is the way to do it. Because you typically won’t find them (or anything else if you’re a northern gardener) in nurseries it’s important to learn how to do it yourself. 

Start these inside in early summer. Mine were started on June 11th. You’ll want to plant them in a container that’s deep as the picture shows. If you start them in something that’s too short, you wont’ be able to do the next step. It’s now time to plant them outside. All you do is pull the entire soil block out of the metal container and begin to separate into individual leeks. Then, and this is the important part, drop them into a hole thats 6-8 inches deep. A small amount of leek will be above the soil. At this point, don’t fill the holes with soil. Water in immediately. After a weeks time your leeks will be fully covered naturally with soil. 

When it’s time to harvest you’ll pull your leeks out to discover a white shank that’s 6-8 inches long instead of the normal 2-3 inch leeks you buy at the grocery store. It makes a huge difference. 

Square Foot Gardening: planting garlic

2 Replies

Garlic is a crop that takes a long time to grow for us northern gardeners. When grown at home and harvested, garlic is milder and sweeter than what you get at the store. There’s no need to get fancy starts-just buy a clove of garlic at the market, separate into individual cloves, and then peel off the paper. 

In the square foot gardening system, you’ll plant 9 per square. Need more? Then plant another square. Even more? Then plant a third square to give you 27 heads of the best tasting garlic you’ve ever had. When I peel off the paper and place in the garden, I push each clove down about 2 inches and then cover with soil. 

It get’s a good start before the harsh weather gets here and then in early spring you’ll see the greens start to break the surface. Maybe even sooner if it’s a mild winter. 

And now harvesting leeks

Leave a reply

It’s been another bumper crop season for me and also time to learn more. The biggest lesson this year? I’ve been overwatering my tomato plants for decades! I’m putting in a pool this summer and the workers have destroyed about a third of my garden. They also broke all the water lines going to the garden so it was all manual watering this summer. I watered less than I ever have and had the biggest tomato crop ever! 

 

Take a look at these leeks. Notice the 6-7 inches of white on them. All easy to do and you won’t usually find this amount of white on leeks at the store. But, that is the most prized part of the leek for chefs. These happen to be king Richard leeks and I wish I had grown more of them. You really need to plan for these and plant early in the year. For the winter I’ve got Megaton starts all ready to go into the garden this weekend. These are so good. If you’ve never had homemade leeks, you’re really missing out. Give this one a try: they are classic to put into something like clam chowder.