Tag Archives: banana squash

Planning your square foot garden

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braising greens: red and green mustard, hon sai tai, kale, and tatsBeing deep into the spring months, it’s time to now focus on what and when to plant for your summer garden. Choosing to not worry about wide swings in weather in certain locations leads some people to only have a summer/early fall garden. There’s certainly merit to that thinking. In the next several weeks the weather in our zone will start to really heat up. By then many will be done with all the tradition cool spring crops-spinach, lettuce, varieties of Asian greens, swiss chard, mizuna, etc.<br><br>
What to plant for summer? The first thing you’ll need to think about is the space needed for vertical gardening. In the square foot gardening system all vining crops are grown up on a trellis made out of 1/2″ electrical conduit. It’s virtually indestructible and will last a long time. This means crops like indeterminate tomatoes, squashes, pole beans, and melons will be growing up, not out. This method is highly efficient. By keeping your crops off the ground you minimize the damage by certain garden pests but also give your plants better air-circulation and exposure to the sun.

By knowing the food needs of your household you can plan for the quantities of each crop. Cherry tomato plants can bring 10-12 pounds of fruit throughout the growing season. Can you use that much? Can you use more? If so, how much more? Lets say your family will consume in the area of 35-40 pounds of cherry tomatoes this summer. That means you’ll plant 4 cherry tomatoes using just 4 square feet. And yes, you only need 1 square foot to grow a tomato plant that will be 7-8 feet tall by the end of summer. Just make sure you’re growing indeterminate plants, not determinant and keep those “suckers’ pinched back. You’ll do this for all your vining crops.

Along with these items you’ll need to plan all the other things you want to grow. Beets, carrots, beans, certain types of lettuce, basil, etc. Once you’ve figured that out you’ll arrive at the number of squares needed for this summer. If you’ve planned it out and find that you don’t have enough squares, you need more square foot garden boxes. If you’ve got a lot of squares left over, you’re garden is too big. We like to minimize the size of our gardens in the SFG system. We grow only what we need and what we love to eat. Our goal is to have each family member enjoy a fresh, just harvested salad every night of the growing season and nothing more. This eliminates the all-at-once harvest that’s come to be associated from most home gardens.

I’m beginning to empty out squares that have previously been filled with spring crops. I’ve got transplants of certain things ready to go right now. A typical summer garden for me might include the following: zucchini, bush beans, pole beans, cherry tomatoes, many squares of selected lettuce varieties, basil, peppers, spaghetti squash, green onions, carrots, swiss chard, and cucumbers. That will be the content of a single 4X4′ box. In another box I’ll have lettuce, melons, banana squash, New Zealand spinach, kohlrabi, pole beans, beets, and a transplanted rosemary plant. And what about corn? In my mind corn is a huge nitrogen and space hog. It takes up valuable space for too long and it’s dirt cheap in the summer. For those reasons I’ll let the farmers take care of the corn[ois skin=”1”]

First squash of the season

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golden egg squash 71514I can’t tell if I’m a little late on the first squash or not. Some of my neighbors have already been pulling zucchini, but that’s only been for the last 2 weeks. We love this squash-it’s from Burpee’s and it’s called Golden Egg. It’s a heavy producer and I’ve got 3 of them growing. It’s growing vertically on a tower and this saves a lot of room. Also notice that great looking basil just in front of it. Looks like it’s time to start having our famous fresh tomato pizza for the summer!

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Time for a change

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The Labor Day weekend is here and summer comes to an official close tomorrow.  Here in zone 6 we’ll be having a change in the weather-matter of fact, we already have had one.  The nights have a definite chill in the air and the days are not quite so hot.  This is the weekend many people start to pull up their gardens in preparation to shut them down for the remainder of the year.  And if you’re a square foot gardener that’s certainly an option for you too.  For me, it’s time to make a change in my thinking.  We’ll have at least 6 good weeks of mild temperatures before the harder weather comes to town.  We’ve had years in the past where it’s been mild until the second week of December.  Though that’s a bit unusual, we certainly have a good 8 weeks, maybe a little more.  I’ll begin to pull up some things to open up some squares.  I’ll take my scissors and start cutting back the extra leaves on my squash plants.  You’ll want your squash harvested before the first freeze.  We might have a freeze in as little as 2 or 3 weeks from now but then the weather warms up again-the Indian Summer will then have arrived.  So I want to make sure all my squash plants get a chance to fully ripen.  This pictures gives you an idea of what’s been growing in my 1X4′ box-banana squash.  I’ve already pulled 2-9 pounders off the vines and you can see at least 3 still up and growing.  There’s one more growing in the back that you can’t see.  So before I pulled off that 9 pounder, there was at least 35+ pounds of squash being grown vertically on that nylon netting.  You can imagine how strong it must be to do that.  You also might notice some powdery mildew on the leaves.  That happens often with squashes.  I will cut all those leaves off so that everything remaining on the vines can continue finishing to ripen.  I will also start to clear out my flowers to open up some additional squares.  This is the time to replant everything!  All those fun things you were able to grow in the spring are back in style.  I’ll start a whole new batch of lettuces, spinach and radishes.  This will be perfect for all the tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, etc. that I now have.  I’ll have to cover my gardens at night in a few weeks, but I don’t mind.  That’s easy work for me.  And since I’m growing items for several local people in my gardens, this will give me the chance to offer them the option of extending the season if they wish.  I’ve had more come out of my garden this year than I’ve ever had.  I’ll be able to give you an idea of what I was able to do this year in a future post.[ois skin=”below post”]