Category Archives: Summer gardening

Peppers in the SFG

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Peppers have always been good in my square foot gardens, but they just come on so late in the season. I began sprouting these on March 1st. Eight days later they were ready to be put into pot maker containers where they grew for 6 weeks. I probably should have only left them in there for 5 weeks. They’ve now been put in their final bigger pot maker container where they will grow for 3 more weeks before being ready to plant outside. Maybe 4 weeks depending on the weather. It’s been a very roller coaster spring here in northern Utah. 

Peppers are slow growers. You can certainly buy them at the nurseries and skip all the work you’ve done inside for months. I do it because I can’t find this variety anywhere in the garden shops, and we love them. These lunchbox peppers start to really produce toward the end of summer. And when they do, it’s prolific. I first discovered these peppers at Costco many years ago where you can buy them pretty cheap. But, who knows how they’ve been cared for? Plus, they’ve been on a truck from a location that’s probably 1,000 miles away. We’d rather eat them fresh right out of the garden. Nothing matches the taste of home grown. 

An experiment with green beans in the square foot garden

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I’ve always grown beans, lots of them. You name the variety and I’ve probably tried them. Blue lake, Fortex, Provider, Kentucky blue, slenderettes, tenderettes, both pole and bush varieties. 

The thing I don’t like about each of these is you have to stay on top of them. Wait a week too long and you end up with tough, fat pods that don’t taste very good. And it’s easy to do because they grow so fast. Even still, if you don’t harvest in time the plant begins to shut down production. 

This year I found the bean I will grow from here on out. They are French filet beans. Smaller yes, but more forgiving, and even better, they taste fantastic. You can harvest these beans smaller. And if you miss it by a week they don’t get fat and tough. These are the baby gourmet green beans that come out of the fanciest restaurants.  

 

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. 

 

Let’s cook

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I don’t think I’ve ever posted a recipe on my site. Maybe I should start? This is my angel hair spaghetti squash. I’ve already had about 12 of them, and there’s 30 out there ripening as we speak. Just from 3 plants! I hate heating up the kitchen in the summertime. And, we’ve had a solid month of temperatures in the high 90’s to low 100’s. So, I try to grill as much as possible when I can. Pizza (that’s right-on the grill), veggies, and things like this.

What I like to do with angle hair is simple. I cut squash in half first (from north to south, not east to west), then scoop out seeds. I then coat the entire cavity with olive oil,  sprinkle with salt, and then fresh ground pepper. I put it on the grill over indirect heat face down for 15-20 minutes. You’ll know its done if you can take a sharp knife and easily pierce the skin. Yes, you will char some of the outer portion but it’s very delish! I take it off the heat, start shredding the squash, and then load with unsalted butter! It’s so good. I might add a small amount of salt again, or I might just sprinkle my recipe of blackening spices over it. Of course, you can always just add your own favorite marinara sauce. I eat mine right in the shell. No clean up. 

Square foot gardening: potatoes

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The normal spacing of 1,4, 9, 16 is a little different for potatoes. I’ve been asked how much to expect from a single square of potatoes. This is what I got when I harvested last week. Eight pounds! For the past 3 years I’ve tried without much success to plant these in grow bags. Much has been written about how to do this, and some have reported much success. I’ve never been able to do it. I have, however, always been able to grow potatoes in my SFG soil. Because they take 3-1/2 months from seed to harvest, I thought switching to grow bags would give me the same yield and save room in the SFG beds. It didn’t. I don’t even hill the potato seed. I simply put them in the soil about 6 inches deep, cover with soil, and start watering. Red pontiac’s. They are so good. I’m going to attempt growing some right now in the hope that I can have baby new potatoes for the winter.