Category Archives: Vertical gardening

Trick to growing massive amounts of anything

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I’ve been a little slow this summer with the blog. But it’s been a great year. We’ve had another record breaking summer of heat which is good for some things but not for others. My favorite-lettuce-is tough when it’s that hot. I’ve written an ebook that teaches you how to successfully do that. 

Now it’s fall and I’m wanting to have lots of salad greens into the deep winter season. The picture says it all. Put some potting mix in a small container. This one is 4X7″. Heavily sow your lettuce (or whatever you’re growing) seeds and cover lightly with soil. Do all the right things-water, providing light, proper temperature, etc. These were started indoors 5 weeks ago. When it’s time to plant outside, start breaking them up into pieces or “plugs” to drop in your squares. While I normally plant 4 lettuce plants per square, this method amplifies that. The end result is a square with a huge amount of lettuce in it. This is a new technique that I’ve started doing the past two season. I’ve planted 98 “plugs” from this one container.

For color, taste, and texture I’ve planted a few lettuce mixes that were just fabulous. All star gourmet, gourmet mix, tried and true heirloom mix,(huge surprise-buying lots more now) and lofty salad mix. I can’t put into words how wonderful they’ve tasted. 

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. 

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!

Growing zucchini vertically in 1 square foot

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We all know how much space one zucchini plant can take up. Ive been growing mine vertically with a t-post and a jumprope for years. If you’ve been to even my beginners square foot gardening classes you know how it’s done. It also helps you to harvest zucchini at the proper stage by not letting it get too big. This is sandwiched next to 2 tomato plants, a cantaloupe plant, basil, parsley, potatoes and beans. Everything grows in the square foot garden while being really efficient.

Vertical growing in the square foot garden

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All vining crops in the square foot gardening system are grown vertically. This includes squashes, melons, tomatoes, pole beans, pumpkins, gourds, etc. The thinking is crops get better air circulation and better sunlight. Another benefit is that it keeps things off the ground making it more difficult for pests to ruin your crop. You also don’t have to worry about turning an ankle because you didn’t see one as you moved through the large leaves they have. 

I’ve posted before on growing zucchini vertically in one square foot. It works and I’ve been doing it for years. This is a picture of angel hair spaghetti squash. Right now there are 6 growing, with one ready to harvest in about a week in the lower left hand corner. There’s probably only 10 pounds of squash growing at this time but in several weeks, this will be a wall of green filled with a lot of squash. And all it took up was 2 square feet.