Category Archives: Summer gardening

Square Foot Gardening Harvest

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TWE Summer basket #4This time of year is a lot of fun. All the planning put into the garden are paying off by way of large harvests. Lettuce, carrots, basil, cherry tomatoes, squash, zucchini, chard, cucumbers, melons of various varieties, corn, etc. The most enjoyable part for me has been the summer lettuces. We’ve had a pretty hot summer and I’ve been able to grow the specialty lettuces right through the season. And we’ve got more hot weather coming in the next week. Once you hit that 85+ degree mark it’s very difficult to grow lettuce without having it bolt and go to seed.

I’ve been able to grow vegetables and produce for 8 families this summer. I think I’ll keep all those customers for the fall season as well. I love the idea and concept of CSA’s. When I think of CSA’s this is what comes to mind: lot of work requiring time that I don’t have. If you know neighbors or friends who belong to CSA’s they love them but are always a little perplexed by some of the items they get in their baskets. It’s been estimated that 15-20% of CSA items are thrown away because customers don’t know what to do with that kohlrabi-or whatever different thing they might have in their basket. To compensate for this CSA’s will add a recipe card for ideas of how to use unknown or unfamiliar things.

My baskets have no recipe cards because they contain items that everyone knows what to do with. There’s no recipe cards needed for the items you see in this basket. You may think it’s boring but my customers are always getting organic produce and veggies that have been harvested just a few hours earlier. I’ve had comments saying that nobody can beat the taste of these lettuce, cucumber, or cherry tomato varieties. And the squash/zucchini varieties are very popular as well. I do vary the varieties and color of the lettuces throughout the 6 week period. Either way, I think it’s tough to beat the taste of my salad greens and veggies.

If you haven’t gotten the harvest you expected or things don’t seem to do grow well, you might want to consider learning the square foot gardening method. The backbone of the system is the soil-which is perfect for anything you’d like to grow. There is the upfront cost of putting it together, but how much does it cost you in terms of money and frustration to have those same old tiny tomatoes that don’t grow to full size-and it’s been going on for years? Or carrots that don’t come up? Or, how about the critters that attack your garden every year? And we haven’t even mentioned the weeding! The square foot gardening system is so easy to learn. You’ll have 100% of the harvest in 20% of the space of that old traditional row garden.

Labor day will be here in a week. This spells the end or the beginning of the end of the gardening season for the year. I don’t know about you but I’m getting ready for my fall crop. And since I haven’t spent a lot of time weeding and watering I have a lot of energy left to devote to that.[ois skin=”1″]

Square foot gardening cucumbers

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delicious gourmet cucumbdrsI’ve always grown Marketmore 76 cucumbers and they’ve been good. The taste is, well, exactly like any other cucumber, and the yield has been reliable too. But this year I decided to try something new, and I’m glad I did. This variety of cucumber is from Germany. It’s called Iznik and I found them at Cooks Garden. I’ve been very impressed so far. The yield has been good, but the taste!

As I’ve delivered these to the small group of folks that I grow for you can see the surprise on their faces when I tell them about this cuke.  Originating from Germany is a pretty neat thing, but they look like a small, gourmet type of cucumber if you can imagine that.  I’ve heard of gourmet carrots and other things but never cucumbers.  They taste best when only about 4 or 5 inches long are and sold as a container variety. Since I’ve always grown cukes vertically and I knew these would vine, I decided to continue growing them like I always have.

They are very fresh and crisp tasting-much more so than the Marketmore variety.  The other desirable thing about them is their very thin skin.  I’ve had many cucumbers that are to chewy because of their outer skins.  It almost gets in the way of the taste.  Or, you get a mouthful of seeds.  Not so with Iznik.  These are really, really tasty.  For zone 6 or less it’s too late for growing this year, but buy some for next year.  For you other gardeners who don’t have weather to worry about, you should get some now.  You won’t be disappointed[ois skin=”1″]

A summer square foot garden

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summer green onionsWith some advanced planning you can have delicious scallions to go along with your other salad greens.  Scallions, or green onions, that have been just pulled, like everything else, have an exceptional taste compared to what you’re used to from the store.

I like to grow everything from seed.  There’s  several reasons why I do that. First, I know how they have been taken care of.  Proper growing conditions, consistent watering, and a true organic environment are things you don’t know about when purchasing transplants.  Second, the price of seeds vs. transplants.  I can spend $3 on a packet of scallions and I”ll have enough to grow for 2 years.  For that same price you’ll get 15-20 scallions starts.  The satisfaction of being able to start your own crops and then have them go from garden to table is very rewarding.  The third reason is taste.  These homegrown scallions are much milder and sweeter than store bought.  One other advantage is you can use a dibble to plant your newly starts of scallions a lot deeper than you would by just planting 16 seeds per square foot.  This means that the white part of the scallion can be much taller, which is a good thing.  There’s nothing like having a green onion with a white stem thats 6 plus inches tall rather than the 1 inch ones you buy at the store.

In terms of timing, scallions will take 100 days from seed to harvest.  These were started long ago and are ready for harvest.  Right now is the perfect time to sprout scallions for your fall/winter harvest.  The timing will be perfect.  They will be large enough to either harvest or to keep in the ground to last throughout the winter season.  Give them a try, you’ll be glad you did[ois skin=”1″]

Cucumbers in your square foot garden

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Iznik cucumberI pulled my first cucumber last week-the earliest I’ve ever done it. It’s been late summer in past years that I’ve been able to begin harvesting my cuc’s. I did change varieties and that might be the biggest reason for the earlier harvest. In recent years I’ve always grown Marketmore, but this year I went with the Iznik cuc’s after reading very positive reviews.

This particular cucumber tasted really good. The flavor was perfect and the skin was very thin, which is something that’s important to me. I don’t like chewing into a thick skinned cucumber at restaurants. The other thing I dislike is a heavily seeded cuc. These were not issues at all with this particular variety.

The other fun thing to mention about growing cucumbers in the square foot gardening system is the small amount of space you need. In this system all vining crops are grown vertically, and with cucumbers you can grow 2 per square. My needs only require me to use 2 square feet, which means I have 4 cucumber plants growing vertically. You’ll have better air circulation, the fruit is kept off the ground, and it just looks a lot cleaner. This one is laying on the ground but that only because it’s the first one. All others will be up off the soil.

You can find Iznik cucumbers at Cook’s Garden Seed-another one of my favorite places to buy great tasting things[ois skin=”1″]

Square foot gardening-No Weeds!

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lettuce-no weeding with square foot gardening

lettuce-no weeding with square foot gardening

Summer has just begun and I’ve heard so many folks already complaining about two things. First-many of their crops aren’t doing very well. Two: the weeding has started! Over time the summer will take care of the crops not growing well-usually. Most of them bounce back pretty well. But the weeding-it will be with them for the rest of the growing season. And people hate to weed! It’s the number one reason people don’t like to garden.

There is no weeding in the square foot gardening system. Why? It’s simple. It starts with the growing medium. Not only is it a perfect mix of ingredients, it also has no weed seed in it. Vermiculite is rock-no weed seed. Finished compost-shouldn’t be any weed seed if done correctly. Peat moss-it’s been sterilized so there shouldn’t be any in that. The only weeds that will end up in a square foot garden are those that have been blown in and found a place to settle down. If you do see a weed the soil is so loose it comes out very quickly. I might weed a total of 20-30 minutes for the entire year. I suppose the other way you may have some weed seed is if your homemade compost wasn’t finished. When compost piles heat up to 140 degrees and higher it kills the weed seed in the unit. If you’re amending your soil with homemade compost and you notice weeds growing after some time, the compost didn’t finish heating up.

The other main reason weeds aren’t a big issue in a square foot garden is the intensive nature of spacing. When items are planted as close as they are in the SFG system it’s difficult for any weed seed to be blown in. This square of lettuce is a good example of that. There is just no room for a weed seed to take root. And by the way, this lettuce is excellent! It’s surprisingly holding up very well in high 90’s to 100 degree temperatures.

Still working on the eBook-how to successfully grow lettuce in warm weather. It’s close. It’ll discuss the techniques that I’ve learned over 15 years that have enables us to enjoy lettuce all year long-even in the hot summers of northern Utah. Nothing like a fresh head of lettuce to go along with vine-ripened tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, carrots, and swiss chard.[ois skin=”1″]