No square foot gardening work but still staying busy

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With a couple of snow storms under our belt and some colder weather there’s really not a lot for me to do. I’ve ordered some brand new seeds from Burpee’ which look like a lot of fun. I’ve also had my eye on some great new things coming from Johnny’s seeds. In particular this new salad mix called “Salanova.” If anyone has had experience with the taste of it please get back to me. It’s some sort of European mix so we might not have a lot of experience with it here in the States. I’ve got 5 people that I grow for in my 148 square foot garden and I’m looking for some really great new things. This might be one of them. A few weeks ago I raked up all my leaves and ended up with about 30 bags. I’ve got a couple of new things I’m experimenting with back in the garden which I’ll talk about later-I just need some time to see how or if it will work. I’ve also got a new growing pattern that you might find interesting-a way to get even more out of 1 square foot. I’m documenting everything and taking lots of pictures to show what it all looks like and will post as soon as I get some results. It shouldn’t be too much longer. But what am I going to be doing with 30 bags of leaves? I’ll use about 3 or 4 of them for my spring/summer/fall needs. The rest? You might not believe this but I have folks who are going to pay me for all those bagged leaves! They want to make compost beginning next spring, and all the local leaves are now long gone to the city dump. I don’t know if I should sell them as just bagged leaves or make compost out of them myself and then sell it? Either way, did you ever think that someone would pay for a bag of leaves? It was a new one for me. But it is one of the greatest things you can add to your compost. I ran some stats on my website the past week and discovered that the 3rd most frequent visitors are from the land “down under”-Australia! I know you’re just starting your summer season down there and I hope you all have great success with your square foot gardens. And if your not a square foot gardener I hope you’ll give it some thought. It’s the best way to garden! Maybe there’s a thing or two here that will give you some additional ideas.

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Square foot garden breakfast potatoes

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I woke up this morning and wanted to go out for breakfast but didn’t have the energy to fight off the crowds. I had a few things around the kitchen like eggs, leftover turkey and cheese. But what about some hash browns? Well, I just went out to my garden and snipped off a sprig of rosemary. I’ve got onions and 40 pounds of red Pontiac potatoes stored in the garage. Within 30 minutes I had an omelet with turkey and cheese and these tasty little breakfast potatoes. Yum…roasted potatoes from the garden with onions, rosemary and freshly ground pepper. It doesn’t get any better than this. And I probably saved $10. I’m good with that, how about you? Square foot gardening-the only way to go.

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Preparing your soil for spring-part 2

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This is just another look at how I prep my soil for the next year. As mentioned in the previous post, I only use 3 things: leaves, manure, and my homemade compost. After removing the plants and roots, I make sure to really clean out the entire box-especially all the corners as this is where little critters love to hid for the winter. Then I remove several inches of Mel’s mix to make room for the amending ingredients. This picture is the first thing I add and it’s a pretty heavy layer. I then add a thick layer of horse manure followed by compost. All the leftover soil I have is then piled up in the box so that it’s actually higher than the box in the middle. After warming the soil and fluffing it up in the spring, I’ll have a fair bit of extra soil because of this. I’ll store this soil in a protected and covered bucket. This then becomes my soil amendment after my first harvest in early spring-which is too early for me to produce compost in Utah. I’ll still have several weeks to go before I can make a good batch of compost during this early part of the season.  It works out perfectly. Just some ideas for you.[ois skin=”below post”]

Preparing the soil for spring

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This is the method I’ve used for 13 years in my square foot gardens.  It’s worked perfectly every single year and one of the greatest things is that it’s all free!  At the end of the season you’ll notice that you lose volume in your SFG boxes.  This is because the soil in a SFG is made up of at least 33% compost.  It continues to decompose and breakdown over the course of the summer and your job at the end of the season is to build it back up again.  I’ll post a couple more pictures in the coming days so you can get a look at how the process looks but it’s all very simple.  The first thing I do is empty as much of my finished compost as I can and put this in a container(bottom item in picture.)  I’ll then get my bucket of horse manure and a bag of leaves and put them right next to the SFG box that I’m preparing for spring.  I empty my garden box of all garden waste and put it in my compost unit.  I then loosen up the existing soil, level it all out, add a big layer of leaves followed by a thick layer of manure.  It’s true that this manure is not finished, but that doesn’t matter so much in the winter when your not going to be growing anything for several months.  That would not be the case in the growing season though as you’d want to avoid using unfinished compost.  This unfinished compost would heat up too much and burn whatever you’re trying to grow.  After that I add my last layer of compost.  I’ll add enough of all these ingredients so that it will be 4 or 5 inches higher than the box in the middle of the box.  Through the winter it will rain, snow, hail, sleet, and freeze.  It will also get sunlight.  It depends on how I feel, but I generally start to warm my boxes up by the first week of March.  Covering my boxes with plastic will have them ready in about 4 or 5 days.  At that time I’ll go and uncover the boxes, fluff everything up, and virtually all those leave will be gone.  My soil is now perfect to grow whatever I want to grow.  It’s been given everything it needs from leaves(carbon), manure(nitrogen), and compost(a rich mix of nutrients made of both nitrogen and carbon.)  This is a great and simple way to prep your SFG boxes.  Your soil is now on high dose steroids!  Not really but you get the point.  If you’re not making your own compost, you really should give it a try.  It’s doing a lot more than just reducing landfill.  Compost done right in your backyard will be superior to any commercially purchased bag of compost.

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Potato winter storage

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I thought I’d leave a quick note on how I store my potatoes to last through the winter months. We always finish them off before the end of winter, but it’s a real bummer to go through your potato bin only to find soft, diseased and ruined potatoes. My method is like everything else I try to do with gardening-quick and simple with a minimum of work. After pulling potatoes from the ground, try to store them at room temperature for 10 days or so to let the skins dry out enough to prevent moisture loss. Your storage area should be protected from light as much as possible or they will develop solanine. You’ll know this by the green coloring on the surface of the potatoes. If you see this be sure to throw the effected potatoes away as they can cause illness. If you’re lucky enough to have a root cellar you can store your potatoes in any crate, bin, or open box not exposed to sun. If not, store potatoes in a cool, dry room where the temperature doesn’t get below 35 degrees. Storing potatoes in cooler temperatures than this increases their sugar and decreases in starch which take away from their storage and cooking qualities. All I use to store my potatoes are a large enough bin to hold them all and shredded paper. I start with paper on the bottom, than add a layer of potatoes, then another layer of shredded paper, then potatoes, etc. I’ll do this until I reach the top of my container and all the potatoes are covered. This works great because they are protected from any sunlight and any excess moisture is absorbed by the shredded paper. I then keep them in our garage. Whenever we need potatoes, it’s an easy thing to go out, dig through the paper, and gather your potatoes. In the square foot garden system, I’ve been able to expect 5 pounds of potatoes per square. Growing 8 squares gives us 40 pounds of them to last-well, as long as we can get them to last. In my next post, I’ll be taking some time to talk about something that I’m getting a lot of mail about-preparing the soil in fall for the spring gardens. It’s what I’ve done for years and it’s worked perfectly. Stayed tuned.[ois skin=”below post”]