Tag Archives: chard

How does your cold frame grow?

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Here’s something fun to see. First picture(top)is October 15, 2016, second is 1/1/17, last one is 2/21/17. A simple sun box, not a cold frame, can do this for you as well. Nothing wrong with the cold frame, its just more work, more expensive, and fairly permanent. I’ve taken off the top sun box level for the last picture so you can see whats happened over the winter. Now I’ll begin to harvest whats in it. Good eating tonight!

I encourage everyone to grow their own food, even those in harsher climates that experience snow, below zero temperatures, wind chill, etc. It’s a rewarding feeling to come out after a hard winter, pull back the top and see whats underneath. I just began watering this box last week-thats 3 full months of no work! those wanting to see how easy a sun box is to assemble(and take apart), see my earlier post. So easy, and all made with wood material thats laying around the house.
Crops in this box are spinach, chard,and the lettuces of sweet repeat, allstar, and black seeded simpson.

One of the keys to growing is the soil. As I’ve said before, if the soil isn’t right, nothing else will really matter. If you live in the area and are interested in learning how to have really rich, fertile soil, I’ll be teaching class this upcoming Saturday. Composting is the answer. Once you learn the proper way to do it, you’ll ask yourself why you haven’t been doing it all along[ois skin=”3″]

My very small cold frame winter garden

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This is supposed to be a cold frame but it really isn’t.  I learned this idea from Mel Bartholomew many years ago, and he writes about it in his first book, which is a condensed version of what he wrote earlier in the publication of The Avant Gardener in 1978.  The article is long out of print so you wont be able to find it easily.  This is called a sun box.  A google search for sun box will give you nothing close to what this is.

What’s the difference between a cold frame and a sun box?  A cold frame is something that is usually fairly permanent, and usually fairly good sized.  It’s usually dig into the ground and placed at a low angle on the southern side of a yard to get as much of the sun as possible, especially in the winter months.  The back of traditional cold frames are much higher than the front and they can be pretty heavy and bulky.  It’s covered with a variety of things ranging from expensive, self venting tops to cheap things such as wood with plastic stapled to it to act as a protective covering over the top.  Cold frames can be very expensive or pretty cheap.

A sun box is different.  It is not dug into the ground.  It is not permanent.  The back is the same height as the front.  In fact, its nothing more than portable wood boxes that have been placed on top of each other.  Thats it.  They can be moved around, taken apart, added upon, etc. in about a minutes time.  They are great for last spring and summer.  When you tomatoes(or anything else) need to be hardened off and they begin to outgrow your cold frame, you’re almost forced to plant them in the garden.  All you need to do with a sun box is add another portably wood box on top of what you already have.  Then all I did was buy a $5 glass window at the Re-Store to place on top for protection.  We’ve had a tough winter so far with more coming.  As you can see, the salad greens have done amazingly well.  And I just had a small salad-it was wonderful.[ois skin=”3″]

Spring square foot gardening

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spring square foot gardenLay down a weed barrier, build a box and put it right on top of it. Fill it with the perfect growing soil, add a grid, and start planting. That’s the beginning of a basic square foot garden. With the perfect mix put together in about 10 minutes, you don’t need to know anything about soil composition, pH, or NPK! Zero. As I’ve always said, if you don’t get the soil right nothing else will really matter. There are some who try to convince others that there’s nothing wrong with native soil. Not unless you don’t mind weeding! Let’s face it, native soil is one of the things that cause a lot of the trouble. Don’t skimp on the SFG soil-set yourself up for success by using the recipe of equal parts of peat moss, course vermiculite, and a good, blended compost.  Though we’ll still have some weather issues to deal with, now is the time that I direct seed lettuces, spinach, poc choi, arugula, and a few other things. These are cold weather crops that do just fine in our USDA growing zone of 6B. If you don’t trust the weather you can always start them inside under a grow light. If I do that, I always keep my shop-light about 2 inches above the plants. This assures that I’ll get no long, spindly looking plants. If you’re looking for a nice tutorial on seed starting click here.  You can also get there from the links on my page.

Here’s the lettuce varieties I direct planted today.  Prize head, Little Caeser, and finally this Gourmet Blend.  Only 3 squares of lettuce, each one holding 4 heads.  I finished by direct seeding this delicious swiss chard, and then 1 square of beets that I usually grow for the greens only.

In about another week it will be time to start tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage, and peppers indoors.  The timing usually works out pretty well, and it’s even better if you’re prepared to quickly protect your garden if you have to.

Burpee is having quite a few specials this month.  They are linked on the left hand side of my blog.  If you’re going to spend $45 on seeds, you might as well spend another $5 and get the free 72 cell watering kit.  And until the last day of March, shipping is only .99 for any size order.  Details are in the links.[ois skin=”1″]

The Winter garden, part 3

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winter garden of goodies under the coversAnd that’s what underneath. Lots of snow with a lot still to come. Wish I would have planned a little better for the winter. I waited just a tad too long to plant because I was too busy growing for customers. I might have enough to take us through January but that might be about it. Since many of the seed catalogs have arrived I’ve begun to plan for the early spring. Nothing better than sitting inside in the dead of winter with a good seed catalog to look over.

This will be a very short post. I wanted to put something on before the big day got here. With that I wanted to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. I’ll be taking some time off until after the first of the year.[ois skin=”1″]

My newly planted fall square foot garden

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fall garden 091315I’ve finished planting this 4X8′ square foot garden about 10 days ago. I can find seeds emerging in every square and in 6 weeks this will look very similar to my spring gardens. This particular box was planted to feed 4 people for a 6 week block of time. You can see that lettuce will be the first crop to be harvested. At about the same time will be spinach, chard, and mizuna. These are all easy to grow, they come up quickly, and they taste great. I think I’ve added some arugula in there. I found a variety that’s advertised as “much milder” than regular arugula so I’m giving it a try. All these make for a perfect mix-and-match mesclun salad. Add to this the cherry tomatoes that are still very productive and cucumbers and you’ve got something really good.

This weekend I continued planting for the winter garden. Over the course of the next 6 weeks I’ll be done with that. It takes a bit of planning but with the right crops, the right planting dates, and a layer of plastic and floating row cover you can easily enjoy fresh produce and veggies all winter long. At least, that’s the goal. We’ve got a few extra people living with us so we might run out a little earlier than we have in the past. Thats okay, it will be deep into the winter months if/when that happens. [ois skin=”1″]