Look at that butternut squash standing 5 feet in the air! This is the first week of October and the garden is showing signs of slowing down. This is also the very first post on my new website! Its going to take me some time to get this whole thing up and running the way I would like, so I hope you’re patient. Its going to have some working and non-working parts for a bit until I can figure it out. Its been a great year with a harvest that has been second to none. A friend of mine commented a few weeks ago that I seem to “have this whole SFG thing down.” Not really-I continue to learn new and different things all the time. I am always making minor adjustments in my garden. One of the things I wanted to do this year, after hearing that it couldn’t be done, was to grow 8 tomato plants in 8 adjacent squares. I can report that it was a smashing success. I also had a goal to grow lettuce-a lot of it-right through the dead of summer. That was a success as well, but, I had to work at it a little harder by keeping things covered and watered a little more. This was the year I wanted to see how much we could eliminate from buying fresh vegetables and produce at the grocery store. In the end, I found out that we could cut out and save a lot. We bought no vegetables or produce beginning the first week of April until at least the date of this posting. There are still things growing back there right now, and I suspect we will go until the first or second week of November. Although this season hasn’t ended yet, I am already thinking about some fun things for next year. I’m going to attempt selling some “shares” of my SFG like you would for a CSA. There are several friends that I know who purchased CSA shares this year, and they thought it was a bit of a rip-off(but at least healthy!) with the small amounts that they received each week. Yes-I’m going to figure out a way to make some extra money doing this. It will take some planning and organization but I am going to give it a shot. Looking out at my garden now, there are still many things that are growing and continuing to ripen. Squash, onions, carrots being finished off, the harvesting of pole beans, and of course, that lettuce and spinach. I may still have about a month of gardening left for the year. After my first successful SFG in the spring of ’99 I knew that I discovered a far better way to garden than what I was currently doing. I have never looked back. These gardens really produce an enormous amount of food in a very small amount of space. What better way is there to say I love you to your family than growing, storing, and feeding them with delicious home-grown fruits, vegetables, and produce? Better yet-all without chemicals or pesticides!
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We have had our first snow and our first light frost. Right now I am pulling all flowers and cutting back any perennials that I have. This weekend I pulled my ripe tomatoes and covered the rest with plastic so that they can continue to ripen. This little trick can heat up your boxes by at least 30 degrees, maybe more in the warmer months of the year. In essence, this is a micro-greenhouse that I have made for our gardens. Sure, you can go out and spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a fancy greenhouse bought at the store or mail-order catalogs, but it’s not going to work any better than what I have right here. If you are looking to extend your season on the cheap, this is the way to do it. I also processed all my basil in preparation to make a lot of pesto for the winter. This upcoming week I will be harvesting beans and pulling my onions to let them dry for a couple of weeks. But, I still have quite a bit of lettuce still left growing. In another 3 or 4 weeks we should be able to harvest most of that, at which time it will be time to put the gardens away for the winter.
