Category Archives: Summer 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. 

 

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. 

Summer lettuces in the square foot garden

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I wrote an ebook on this and how to do it. We’ve had over 2 solid weeks of mid to hight 90 degree weather. How do you grow lettuce in that kind of heat? With just a few tricks anyone can do it. This is a fun and tasty salad green. When you learn how to do this you’ll never really want to buy the lettuce greens at the store. Like a customer said to me many years ago: “I learned that lettuce actually has a taste.”

I have one of two winter garden classes coming up this weekend. Most in our area have never done it. But once you have you always will. There’s nothing like the winter garden. It’s practically no work. For me, its a matter of better tasting food that you grew yourself. And with this virus thing going on, who knows what will happen? Being prepared for any kind of potential food shortages won’t affect me this winter.

Crop rotation in the square foot garden

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There’s very few pest problems in the square foot garden. I do have issues with snails and slugs because of the many greens I grow year round. I have methods to take care of those and they work, but it does take a little bit of time. Truth be told, I spend more time controlling slugs than I do weeding. The basic rotation of root/fruit/leaf is not only a good way to get lots of variety, but its a great way to cut down or eliminate garden pests. I had radishes (root) in the front squares during the early spring, followed immediately by transplanted lettuce(leaf), and now beans(fruit). No bug issues here! Growing in the back of the box is my favorite variety of spaghetti squash. And there’s lots of them!