A great little article just showing up in one of the local papers. I was aware that pictures were being taken during one of the SFG workshop classes and I even had a 10 minute interview after class was over. But a week later, I was told that it didn’t turn out so I thought this was a bust. Earlier tonight I got a message from a friend telling me that it was out. Anyway, you can find it here…..[ois skin=”below post”]
a square foot garden? This will give you an idea. I’ve already harvested this once for several family spinach salads. Now it’s time to cut it again for the second pass. This is just in one square! You will notice how tight and full the space is-which is one of the main reasons why we don’t have any weeding issues in a square foot garden. There is no room for weeds to get a foothold. Here in northern Utah, it’s time to plant corn. Corn should be planted 4 per square. It’s always a good idea to space it out a little bit. Realizing you’re going to get at least one good ear from each stalk, if you plant 4-1 foot squares, that’s going to give you at least 16 ears of corn. If you planted an entire 4X4 square foot garden at once with corn you would get 64 ears at the same time. You’ll want to stretch it out if you can. I will plant my second group of 4 squares in a week. Since I use an entire 4X4 box I will be planting corn for 4 weeks. That way I don’t get the all at once harvest. Then all you do is water and sit back and watch it grow. “Knee-high by 4th of July” is the quote we hear often. And it’s a pretty good gauge. In a couple of weeks it’s Mother’s Day and that’s the time to really start packing things in your square foot garden….[ois skin=”below post”]
wheat grass! I’ve never done this before and I’ve never known anybody to grow it. I didn’t follow any of the 1,4,9,16 spacing rules for planting either. I just sprinkled it over the square, covered it my homemade compost and watered it in. I think you can see the label-it must grow pretty quick because it’s supposed to be 4″ tall in a week. I’m growing this for two reasons. First, we’ve got a couple of people in our family who juice the stuff. Not me-I wouldn’t want anything to do with it. Second, when it’s done I will turn it over and will effectively compost this square with a cover crop. This will add a significant amount of nitrogen. I’m telling you, this soil is just loaded with all kinds of good stuff. No wonder why everything grows so well and so easily! If it does grow that fast I suspect I’ll be growing a square every other week. Today the weather was sunny, a little cool with a light breeze. I’ve been experimenting with a new technique that I will be sharing with those attending my workshops. It makes your square foot garden more productive in terms of time and yield. I think I can say it works because I’ve duplicated it three times now. Things in your SFG should be coming along pretty well if you’re in zone 6. You’ll have about 3 more weeks before you can begin to really load up your gardens with all the fun summer things-like squash, zucchini, pole beans and tomatoes. Do you know how to grow zucchini in 1 square foot? If you’re not then it’s taking up 9 spaces. Come to one of my workshops….I will show you how to only use 1 square for zucchini and all the other ninja secrets, and there’s quit a few of them..and by the way-that thing below the post asking for your email if you like this blog? It’s not quit ready to go yet That’s the other project I’m working on and I’ll have that fixed very shortly. Pretty slick though, isn’t it?…..[ois skin=”below post”]
this time of year in your square foot garden. It’s hard spending all this time planning, planting, watering, and caring for your gardens ony to come out one morning to discovered it’s all been killed off by an unexpected frost. I think it’s a good idea to get in the easy habit of looking at the weather forecast. When I looked today I saw the following projected evening low temperatures: 51/41/32/35/40/42. We are usually colder in our neighborhood than they are where they record the official temperatures. Of course, by limiting the size of our gardens, it’s a simple matter of protecting them with plastic. There is no way you’re going to be able to do that with a traditional garden. Well, not easily anyway. So knowing this, I won’t cover my gardens tonight, but I will for the next several days. That way I won’t have to worry about anything I’ve grown being ruined by a frost. This picture shows my sugar snap peas. These are planted 8 per square, and you plant them just as they’re shown-at the back of the box. You will find some bad advice about how to grow sugar snaps in the SFG method on the internet. This way they grow right on up the strings. If you look closely you will see that I use tent posts to push into the ground to make the string taut. If you’re string/nylon is not tight, things will start to droop instead of climb. I should have my first batch of sugar snaps in about 10 days. One last thing-you will notice some empty space in front of the sugar snaps. This can be used to plant more letuce, spinach, carrots, onions, etc…..t [ois skin=”below post”]
with your square foot garden. We received a potted plant of this romaine lettuce from our good friend Ann Bowen. The event was a wedding shower. What I should have done was take a picture of how nicely this was put together in a small pot. At this time of year people are giving away all sorts of things. Wedding showers, Mother’s day, baby showers, etc. If you’re lucky enough to get flowers, herbs ,or in this case romaine, don’t just set it on the counter top or windowsill. Water it well and then place them in your square foot garden. You’ll be the recipient of that small gift all summer and fall. As you go out to harvest throughout the growing season, your mind will be taken back to great memories of whatever event was responsible for this gift. I can’t think of a better way to keep memories alive with family and friends. Oh yes, and good luck to Britney and Rich…..[ois skin=”below post”]
7-8 lbs. of potatoes per square!
Minimize the effect of inflation on your food dollars
