Category Archives: square foot gardening

Spring planting with vertical gardening in mind

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In years past I’ve planted my spring garden and put things wherever I wanted. When it became time to put in my summer vertical crops I often had to either wait for the existing squares to finish, which meant putting my tomatoes in a little late, or pull the plants which were in the square which hadn’t finished yet. For many years I’ve learned to put in the earliest crops where my vertical summer crops will grow.

What do you grow right now so your squares will be ready for summer vertical crops? All the cool weather crops: lettuce, spinach, chard, endive, kohlrabi, arugula, bok choi, mizuna, kale, even radicchio. etc. Radishes can go in later because they only take about 30 days. I know there will be 7 weeks until the summer crops go in, so this leaves me with time to grow all the things that love spring. Mel always taught to think one season ahead[ois skin=”1″]

Winter garden makes it through

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This will be a short post about the tasks I’m doing now. Really, its all just preparation. This is the time to order seeds and to warm up your soil. We can still count on some snow and freezing temperatures but spring time is a couple weeks away.

For our climate, there is little advantage in planting before April 1st. I’ve done the experiments of planting on January and February 1st, Presidents day weekend, and the first week or two in March. When I compare that to what I plant the first week of April, it’s obvious that the extra work doesn’t get you much. Many of the crops don’t make it, and the ones planted in March easily catch up to those planted earlier.

I like to plant, spinach, chard, radish, bok choi, and some different kinds of Asian greens such as tatsoi and tokyo bekana. These are easy to grow and are direct seeded. April 1st marks the time for me to begin the summer crops: tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, and peppers.

The picture you see is the winter garden. I planted that in late summer, covered it, and did virtually no work. I don’t think I even looked underneath the cover for 2 months! Its loaded with claytonia, corn salad, green onions, rosemary, spinach, lettuces, etc. I’ll post this later in the summer time for those who want to learn how to do it, the timing, and the crops to grow successfully[ois skin=”1″]

Preparing for spring

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A little hard to believe-tomorrow we begin the first day of 10 hours of sunlight. This means we’ve come out of the Persephone period and plants will now begin to grow. It will be slow at first but will pick up as spring approaches. There’s still a lot of winter weather to deal with but the garden is ready to be warmed up. Some of the garden has been over-wintered and looks very good.

I usually begin covering my garden with plastic the first week of February so the soil will be ready to plant by February 17th. This year I’ll wait until the first week of March. The reason? I don’t seem to get ahead by the earlier starting date but it does add to my workload.

The next couple of weeks I’ll be selecting and ordering seeds. If you’ve been on my site much, you’ll already know my favorite places to buy. Johhny’s, Burpee, Jungs, and Territorial Seed. There’s a local place I like to buy from-Mountain Valley Seeds.

Crops I’ll be planting will be my regular early spring crops: several varieties of lettuce, spinach, claytonia, beet greens, tokyo bekana, corn salad, chard, bok choi, and maybe radicchio. My cool weather herbs have always been cilantro and chives[ois skin=”3″]

Spinach in the winter garden

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Its hard to believe that the days are now getting longer-slightly. This is spinach, something that was planted many weeks ago and which does exceptionally well in our winters. Its ready to be harvested now and I’ll probably begin to do just that. And with the longer days and approaching spring, many of the winter crops that were planted in early fall will begin to start growing again.

We’ve had unseasonably warm weather this winter. At night its been cold but the day temperatures have been in the high 40’s or even low 50’s. It has been very dry with very little snow. Though it seems counter-intuitive, it’s still important to keep your winter gardens from drying out. How do you know if it needs watering? By a simple visual check-they’ll begin to wilt and look like they are struggling, just like they would do in the summertime when they don’t get enough water.

With the water shut off for the winer, I use an empty plastic bottle of Oceanspray to water things. I’ve drilled holes in the top of the white cap. Its an easy chore to bring the bottle inside, fill it with tap water, and then water the crops. I don’t have to do it often, even in drier winters-once every other week? But let your eyes be the judge for sure.[ois skin=”1″]

Kale in the summer garden

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Kale is thought of as a cool weather crop, and it is. Kale wouldn’t normally do very well given our very, very hot summer temperatures we’ve experienced this summer. Aphid infestations are common in our geography this time of year, and it begins to not even look good. We’ve had a scorching summer: 95+ for over a month, with several days in the low 100’s.

I’ve kept this plant covered and watered it more than I normally would have. Its looks great and we’re almost getting ready to say good-bye to these high temperatures, which will make my job easier. The goal was to have great tasting kale in the summer and then have it last throughout the entire fall, where it gets sweeter after the first frost.

And for the local folks wanting to know what those kale plants I sold a couple of months ago should look like, this is it. This is the same crop you bought and it was planted on the same weekend you received yours. Keep it well watered and cooled down if you can, and you’ll be rewarded with a great tasting fall crop of kale.

In just a few weeks it’ll be time to planning a winter garden. I’m teaching a class on how to do just that. If you’re local and are interested in learning how to do it, click here for more information. I’ll probably only be doing one of these.[ois skin=”3″]