“Because I have been given much….

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I too must give-I cannot see another’s lack and I not share-My glowing fire, my loaf of bread, my roof’s safe shelter over head-That he too may be comforted.”  One of my favorite church hymns written by Phillip Landgrave in 1935.  I was sitting there tonight looking at all the wealthy earth I call my garden in our backyard.  I knew I had a lot of squares not being used until about the middle of May.  All of a sudden I had the idea of planting a whole 4 X 4′ box with nothing but lettuce that I could just give away to someone.  I called one of the local churches and they can’t take it.  Turns out they can’t because of the litigious culture we live in today.  It’s hard to imagine that someone could turn down food, but that’s the way it is.  So, I think this will probably be donated to the local food bank.  I haven’t called them yet but I’m hoping they will take what I have.  This 4 X 4′  will be done in about 5-6 weeks and will hold 64 heads of lettuce.  The two varieties are Black Seeded Simpson and Red Sails.  It took me about 5 minutes to turn the soil over with my trowel, 5 minutes to plant 64 heads of lettuce, and less than 5 minutes to water it in.  The inventor of square foot gardening-Mel Bartholomew- has a goal of curing world hunger with this gardening system.  While I completely agree with the purpose and desire, I don’t ever think we will be able to do that for a variety of reasons.  But for those wanting to help themselves we can try to convert every gardener or non-gardener-one square foot garden at a time….think about the implications of this much food in such a very small plot of land and what could happen if we all truly desired to help struggling neighbors, friends, and family.  And regardless of the small sacrifice we might put in, nothing feels better than helping those around you…..

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Square foot garden soil mix….

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There are some questions as to what the square foot gardener needs for success by way of soil.  As the book says, you’re not going to need or worry about your existing soil because you’re going to make your own.  By the time you’re done mixing it all in, you will have a perfect soil to plant just about anything you want.  No more worry about pH, soil structure, clay soil, loam soil, fertilizer, etc.  This picture shows what you’ll need to effectively grow your first SFG immediately.  First-peat moss.  This helps with keeping a nice, loose, and friable mix.  It also has some water retention properties.  Cost-about $7.  Second, coarse vermiculite.  This is mica rock that has been heated to a certain temperature until it explodes.  This is what helps hold water more than any other ingredient in your SFG.  You should always try to get the “course” variety instead of medium or fine vermiculite.  The finer you end up buying, the less effective it will be at holding water.  This is the most expensive component-about $25.  Third-a blended compost.  If you visit my gallery you will see the individual items that make up this great compost.  I think it’s the best commercially available compost available.  So, if you can’t find Garden and Bloome soil building compost, try to get something that approximates this.  Cost-$8.  This will be all you will need to fill one 4X4′ SFG at a depth of 6 inches.  If you want to go a foot deep then you will have to double this amount.  For the most part though, 6 inches will be all you’ll need for most things.  Do not cheat on making the soil.  This is a one time expense and you’ll end up regretting it later on if you’re getting the growing medium from the landfill or just buying horse/cow/chicken manure, etc.  It is not worth the few dollars you think you will be saving.  If you cheat on the soil and when you have limited success you can’t come back and tell all your friends “that square foot garden stuff doesn’t work.”  One of the worst things you can do is to fill your boxes with potting soil.  Why?  Potting soil is specially made to get new starts off quickly with a very small amount of fertilizer, peat moss, and some perlite.  It’s only made to be short term.  If you were to fill your beds with this your garden would be out of the necessary fertilizer for what you want to grow in about 4 weeks.  Be smart.  Stick with this triple combination and you can’t go wrong…

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What should you be doing in your SFG now?…

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That’s an easy one-planting! It’s the 3rd week of March and your soil should be loose, prepped from last fall and now ready to plant. Give it a quick turn with your trowel-one of only 3 tools you will need in the SFG system. Right now you should be planting all the cool weather crops. Things such as lettuce, swiss chard, radishes and spinach should be directly planted in the soil. There’s no need to start these items from seed indoors. If you’ve done it right and taken care of your soil you should have things coming up in 7-10 days. That’s if your weather is mild. If you are able to cover and protect your gardens, then you should still have things coming up in 7-10 days. That’s just how it is with us SFGers. Here you can see that I have thinned out my square so that it now holds 16 radishes. Now I just water, sit back and watch it grow. They’ll be ready in about 3 weeks. Just in time for my lettuce and spinach to be ready. When that happens I shouldn’t have to buy any produce or veggies from the store for at least 6, maybe even 7 months. How would you like to save that kind of money? Anybody can do it…join us at the several free lectures in town and then learn all of it at the workshops….

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New spring spinach

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This is a look at my newest spring spinach.  It’s about 2 weeks old right now and it’s looking good.  In the SFG fashion you will plant 9 seeds per square.  And that’s exactly what you’ll see in this square.  I’m trying to make a better effort this year at spreading things out a little longer than I usually have in the past.  I think I’m a lot like most of you-when it’s time to start planting you just want to plant everything all at once.  That’s the old single row garden mentality.  One of the keys to square foot gardening is to pace yourself.  If you plant 8 squares of lettuce at once and they all come up, what are you going to do with 32 heads of lettuce?  Now I’ll start to plant just a couple of squares at a time and separate my plantings by about 5 days.  Once again this is Space-our favorite variety from Johnny’s select seeds.  It’s very easy to grow, comes up quickly, and tastes good.  I also bought a new variety from Johnny’s this year that I’ve never tried before.  It’s call Tyee and it’s a variety of spinach that you can grow in the summer.  This will probably take the place of our New Zealand spinach which we normally grow in the summertime.  That’s OK by me-I think New Zealand is hard to grow and doesn’t taste that great.  It’s also not even a member of the spinach family but of the mustard family.  As I looked around the garden today I noticed that my sugar snaps have just started to break ground.  We’ve had some snow and cold weather so I’ve been covering up my beds.  Maybe I should have left the sugar snaps uncovered as they do well in cold.  But I’m sure it will all turn out well in the end.  None of the neighbors are able to start any gardens yet because their soil is too wet.  I will be planted for about a month before they get to theirs.  By the way-if you look very closely at this picture you can see a lady bug in the lower left hand section of the square(around 7 o’clock)….things are starting to look good…

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Starting seeds in vermiculite….

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I was reading on the SFGF official forum earlier today.  There was a post from someone who was disappointed when they tried to start their seeds early in vermiculite.  The comment was that only 50% of them actually came up.  Well, this is precisely why you want to start in vermiculite.  If you would have started those seeds in flats (or worse yet in the garden) and nothing came up you would’ve felt like you wasted a lot of time-and money.  And maybe even some of those plants that came up in the vermiculite to begin with wouldn’t have come up at all in the garden because of the weather.  But if you would have started them in vermiculite you end up only planting seeds that you know are good-because they have been sprouted in vermiculite.  This is a great trick to do when you have saved seeds from years past.  Over time these seeds lose more and more germination so you don’t really know which seeds are good and which aren’t.  By using vermiculite you only find out which are the good ones.  I’ve highlighted how to do this by pictures in the gallery.  This kind of information is what my “members only” page will consist of.  It’s going to show a lot of “how-to” and a lot of little tips and tricks of a successful square foot garden.  It’s not ready to go yet, but it will be shortly.  Hopefully….

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