Do I really need a grid?

swiss chard 60314You sure do! If you’ve ever seen a raised bed without a grid it’s really nothing more than just that-a raised bed. Nothing sets it apart from the neighbor who also has a raised bed. But if you put a grid, all of a sudden you have to think differently. Instead of planting in rows like you’re used to doing, now you’re forced to plant something different in each 1 foot square. That’s the first reason you need a grid. The second reason-if you’re trying to imagine or come close to planting in squares by just eye-balling it, you’ll never get it right. You’ll be disappointed by the results. Third-it really does set your garden apart from just a raised bed. If you’ve ever seen a successful SFG, one of the first things you notice is the grid-“Oh, here’s a square foot gardener!” The last reason is something that many don’t even consider. It’s this: the grid is the gauge on how much compost you need to add when amending your soil whenever you change a crop. As an example, after pulling your spring crop of chard, you throw the wasted leaves in the compost pile. You then add not just 2 or 3 trowels full of compost, but rather enough until it reaches to top of the grid. This might be 5 or 6 trowels full of compost. Adding just 2 or 3 may not be enough. You can never get enough compost.

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Tonights dinner

A great mesclun mixIt’s a great mesclun mix of red sails and allstar lettuce, radicchio, butter chard, and spinach. I’m a little surprised at the spinach this late in the season after two harvests already. It’s grown back very nicely and we’ve got at least enough for another week. Top it off with some minicor carrots, mozzarella cheese, freshly grated pepper, and then a nice vinaigrette. My entire summer garden is almost completely planted. I’ve left a few squares open for a second planting of zucchini and for summer lettuce. But I’ll soon be emptying out squares of red ace beets, spinach, radicchio, and carrots. This should leave me plenty of open squares for my summer lettuce-which are the greatest to go along with those vine-ripened tomatoes. All my herbs are in-rosemary, cilantro, chives, parsley, garlic, and basil. And I’ve just planted 2 additional squares of red pontiac potatoes. Now’s the time to put your entire summer garden in for zone 6. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini, corn, all your herbs, chard, lettuce varieties, beets, beans, scallions. And then get ready for a great harvest in a few weeks.[ois skin=”below post”]

Much planted, much to go

51914 gardenAfter tomorrow I’ll have a lot of newly emptied squares. To date I have a lot of the summer crops in and growing. Tomatoes, cucumbers, summer lettuce varieties, chives, carrots, chard, scallions, potatoes, nasturtium, peppers, basil, and bush beans are all in. In the next day I’ll finish planting all the rest-zucchini, patty pan and banana/butternut squash, beets, scallions, and maybe some thyme. I’ll continue to plant lettuce all summer long to make sure I have a large enough harvest by the time the tomatoes ripen. If you’re looking for a nifty little gadget to tell you what to plant and when, you ought to check this out. It’s free and easy to use. You’ll get an email periodically to remind you what to plant next. Read about it here.  Hope this helps out.

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Cut-and-come again lettuce

re-cut red sails lettuce 51214I have a new ebook coming out soon about lettuce and how to grow it in warm weather. I talk about using several techniques to be successful in doing so. One of those techniques is to use a cut-and-come again or loose leaf lettuce variety. Granted this isn’t the hot part of the season but your lettuce should behave just like this picture. Tomorrow I will be cutting this for the 3rd time. I started it in the winter and it’s still going. So far it’s grown back to this size in 3 weeks. I have many squares of this type of lettuce growing right now in my garden but this will become increasingly important in the next 8 weeks. Just cut it right above the crown of the plant and you’ll harvest it two more times after the initial cut. This is Red Sails-a readily available variety. Keep an eye out for my ebook-it will hopefully get here before the hot weather. It will be available on Amazon, my blog, and possibly the Square Foot Gardening Foundation as well.

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Summer time is about here

poc choi 50814It got here quick. Right now I’m in the process of cleaning out many squares to put in all the fun summer stuff: tomatoes(6 kinds), peppers(4 kinds), more lettuce, more leeks, more poc choi, cucumbers, beans, basil, parsley, and cantalope. By Sunday the temperature is slated to be 34 at night so I’m holding off until Monday evening to plant. I’ve got everything started and ready to be transplanted. This is Joy Choi-another delicious variety of poc choi. Not quit as big as varieties I’ve grown before but equally delicious. Watch that weather forecast. Two big news items-first: my ebook on lettuce should be out in several weeks. It’s how to grow it during the hot summer months-virtually impossible. Second: I will be writing a biography on the inventor of the square foot garden system-Mel Bartholomew. A weekend trip to San Diego is coming up for me to get this started. From the looks of it this should be a fairly good sized book. I’m thinking a year to finish it but I could be wrong. I’ve never done something like this before. What do you think about that? Let me know….

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