Category Archives: Fall gardening

Planting leeks in your square foot gardens

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Leeks are a winter and early spring favorite in our home. They aren’t particularly hard to grow, but it is difficult to buy them with the white stem portions any bigger than 2 inches. I’ve learned how to make that white section 8 inches tall to give you a lot more to use in those delicious soups. 

I like to start my leeks in a container where they will grow until the size of skinny pencils. I then use the end of a  cut off piece of push broom at about 12 inches. I’ll mark the end of the broom at 8 inches, push that into the SFG soil until the top of the soil is equal to the 8″ mark, and then I drop an individual transplant of leek into that hole. I don’e even worry about covering them with soil. I just let the water fill in the hole over the course of a few days. When these are harvested, you’ll have the biggest white portion of leeks you’ve ever seen. Give it a try. 

 

Thinking about the winter square foot garden

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Here it is-almost the second week into July and we’r already talking winter. Though lots of fun summer harvesting is still ahead, it’s time to think about what needs to go into the winter garden. In a few weeks it’ll be too late to think about crops such as leeks, and green onions. You certainly won’t be able to find them in the nurseries around here. And what ever happened to parsnips? Nobody grows them anymore! If you’ve not tried them you should. They are so good in the winter garden as the colder temperatures make them very sweet. I’ve always started these three crops this way. The reason? I’m not telling yet. But you’ll see when they are harvested. You can grow them better than anything you’ll find at the market.

I’ll have a few gardening classes coming up for those interested. The first couple will be the fall square foot gardening class. Immediately after that will be the square foot garden winter classes, complete with how to build protection, what crops do well here, and when to plant. These are both done at my home in a very comfortable setting where you learn how to do it. 

Come Labor day when most people start thinking it’s time to close the garden, yours will be up and producing a huge harvest. Stay tuned. 

Reds onions in the square foot garden

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Its been another really fun year. I’ve been able to begin growing and selling some of my crops to local restaurants who appreciate organic growing. It’s seasonal, which they know about in advance. This is a nice picture of 9 red onions. They’re very sweet and taste much better than anything you’ll find in the market. They are planted 9 to a square and I’ve got 3 full squares right now. Twenty seven fresh red onions to take me through the winter. Or, sell to a restaurant. 

 

My site will be undergoing some significant changes in the near future. I’m sure it will be much improved. The new items included will be videos, an easy to find class events calendar, available ebooks, and recipes. There will also be a place to enter your email address in order to receive season updates on square foot gardening,  or what I may be doing during any particular time of year. 

All ready for a small winter garden

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This is just one small area where I use a sunbox to grow winter salad greens. It’s less than 2 feet deep and just short of four feet wide. This uses very inexpensive wood(2X4’s laying around the house), and a window frame that cost me $5 at Restore for the top. I’ve got two different kinds of lettuces, arugula, and spinach. I’ll wait until it gets a little deeper into the fall season before adding another layer of wood. If I put it on now it casts too big of a shadow at the front edge of the box. Maybe in 3 weeks it’ll be a better time. I usually end up leaving a small opening in the box by simply moving the glass cover back about 2 inches. I don’t every really worry about closing it all winter unless we have single digit temperatures at night, which we have on occasion.

Finishing up the regular season-compost bin

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This is a picture of my fully packed in compost bin on October 10th. I’ve got about 6-7 weeks of time before the weather gets really cold. I’ll work this bin every day, mixing it, mashing the ingredients, keeping it moist, and continually moving it. My thought is to get one more batch of compost before the bad weather gets here. As of the time of this post, I’ve lost almost half of the original mass. Free ingredients make up this compost bin. And if it seems a little too moist, or if I can smell something that I can identify, I’ll add leaves to balance things out.

Compost bin should smell earthy after a couple of weeks. Done correctly, you can produce an excellent quality of compost in as little as 6 weeks. The benefits of making your own compost can be seen here. While some experts will say you need 18-24 months to make a quality compost, that is true only if you don’t work you compost. If you do nothing and just let the contents sit, you’ll certainly get compost in this time frame. But by working it every day, you can speed up the process substantially.

Quick tip: this is the time to gather and save your leaves? You don’t have to rake them up and send them to the dump. Save and cover them for use in next year garden. It makes an excellent mulch and also a great compost ingredient to add-in to balance the green or kitchen items you’re using. Click here to learn more about composting leaves. My experience is that you don’t really need to shred them. If you feel like you want to and don’t have a shredder, use your lawnmower. [ois skin=”1″]