Tag Archives: lettuce

It begins

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johnnys seeds2Opened up the mail today to find my Johnny’s seeds had arrived.  It’s my favorite place to order because of their variety, track record, customer service and it’s money back guarantee.  This is a small sample of the items I ordered.  I got so pumped when I got them that I’ve already started some indoors.  It’s going to be zero tonight but the forecast shows things will warm up at night in about a week.  So, I’ve begun-in anticipation of selling some pretty cool things to a small number of customers.  Right now I’m planning on the first delivery of crops by the second week of March.  It takes a little planning but it’s pretty easy to do.  I know how many squares of each item that I need to grow and how long it’ll take to grow them.  I usually add another 7-10 days just to give myself a little leeway.  Some of the things I’m growing right now are very different from what I sell during the regular spring season.  And that little thing in the upper left hand corner?  That’s my PotMaker that I bought from Burpee’s last year.  I no longer have to go out and buy plastic cells and trays to grow.  I use plain old newspaper.  When it’s time for these crops to go into the garden I just place the newspaper cup right in the ground.  It completely decomposes in about 8 weeks.  If you’re anything like me these seed catalogs are like candy-you always bite off more than you can chew.  Well, I probably did buy more than I needed, but with the square foot gardening method, some of these will last me for 6-8 years.  With a SFG you never have to worry about all that heavy thinning-you just plant what you want to harvest.  You need 8 heads of lettuce?  All you need to do is to use 2-1 foot squares.  Each square can grow 4 full heads of lettuce.  You simply put a pinch-2 or 3 seeds-into each hole, cover, water, and sit back.  You’ll have to snip off the extra seedlings that grow with a scissors(1 of only 3 tools that you’ll ever need.)  In six weeks you should have 8 perfectly formed heads of lettuce that have only taken up 2 square feet.  This is a great system.

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It’s growing!

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experiment boxI can’t believe this-it’s been below zero(with windchill factor)for more than a week now. Today was the first day we’ve had that reached a high of 30. It’s been dark and gloomy. This is my experiment box that I’ll talk about at a later date. With it I do all kinds of things that show how easy and efficient it is to have a square foot garden. I’ve got 13(hate that number)radishes growing and 4 heads of lettuce. I’ve peeled back the protection to snap the picture but it’s been covered first with floating row cover, and then plastic. I lightly water it once a week and that seems fine. I’m not completely surprised that it’s growing because I’ve done similar things in the past. But it hasn’t been this cold for this long before. This was planted a little earlier than my regular gardens-which have nothing growing in them that I can see. At least not yet. Maybe that experiment won’t work. But I did receive my new seed packets from Johnny’s and I’m getting very anxious to start planting. In four weeks I’ll begin-President’s Day weekend. I won’t do hardly any work to have my soil ready to plant-one of the beauties of the square foot gardening method. It’ll be in perfect shape by then. The only work I’ll do is to cover my gardens with plastic and let the sun do its magic. In a about 5 days-bingo! If you’re interested in putting in a square foot garden(hope you are), now is the perfect time to start gathering materials-wood, soil components, nylon netting, grid material, and electrical conduit. It’s a one time expense that will serve you well over the years. If you live in Utah and would like a SFG but don’t want to put the whole thing together yourself, my good friend Belinda has a great business that will do it for you. She’s the best.  Her business is called Gardens to Go and you can read all about it here. Spring is getting closer and I can’t wait. I’ve got some terrific new things I’ll be growing for our family and others. Thanks for coming by….

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No square foot gardening work but still staying busy

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With a couple of snow storms under our belt and some colder weather there’s really not a lot for me to do. I’ve ordered some brand new seeds from Burpee’ which look like a lot of fun. I’ve also had my eye on some great new things coming from Johnny’s seeds. In particular this new salad mix called “Salanova.” If anyone has had experience with the taste of it please get back to me. It’s some sort of European mix so we might not have a lot of experience with it here in the States. I’ve got 5 people that I grow for in my 148 square foot garden and I’m looking for some really great new things. This might be one of them. A few weeks ago I raked up all my leaves and ended up with about 30 bags. I’ve got a couple of new things I’m experimenting with back in the garden which I’ll talk about later-I just need some time to see how or if it will work. I’ve also got a new growing pattern that you might find interesting-a way to get even more out of 1 square foot. I’m documenting everything and taking lots of pictures to show what it all looks like and will post as soon as I get some results. It shouldn’t be too much longer. But what am I going to be doing with 30 bags of leaves? I’ll use about 3 or 4 of them for my spring/summer/fall needs. The rest? You might not believe this but I have folks who are going to pay me for all those bagged leaves! They want to make compost beginning next spring, and all the local leaves are now long gone to the city dump. I don’t know if I should sell them as just bagged leaves or make compost out of them myself and then sell it? Either way, did you ever think that someone would pay for a bag of leaves? It was a new one for me. But it is one of the greatest things you can add to your compost. I ran some stats on my website the past week and discovered that the 3rd most frequent visitors are from the land “down under”-Australia! I know you’re just starting your summer season down there and I hope you all have great success with your square foot gardens. And if your not a square foot gardener I hope you’ll give it some thought. It’s the best way to garden! Maybe there’s a thing or two here that will give you some additional ideas.

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What I’m doing now

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This week I’ll start to clear out squares in planning for a full fall garden. I also have a workshop coming up this weekend so I want to make sure everything is ready to replant. I love the workshops-it gives people all the hands on experience they need to learn all they can about square foot gardening.  They learn all the basic and general principles in the first class.  The workshop then helps them to really learn it.   We do all sorts of things-make Mel’s mix, build a box, make a grid, go over the spacing and how to do it, etc. We also spend time on learning how to custom make the vertical towers-where they’re placed and why. We spend time on showing how to attach the nylon netting-the most difficult part of square foot gardening, composting know-how, protection, and other nifty little tricks. Since I’ll have about 6-8 more weeks of growing(maybe more)I’ll want to make sure my compost bins are full. This will give me the time needed to use all the compost that I can make right now to eventually be used in my boxes at the close of the season.  Hopefully, you’re doing the same.  If you do it right, you should be able to produce compost in that amount of time.  I detailed this-with pictures-in my photo gallery if you’d like to see it.   I’m trimming back all the squash leaves and non-productive vines to help them finish ripening. I’m harvesting all I can to open up squares and pulling all my flowers at the same time. I’ll leave the potatoes in the ground for now because they haven’t turned brown and died off yet. The same is true for my onions which are looking fabulous this year. By the way-I know of a great deal for you. A local seed company here in Utah-Mountain Valley Seeds-is selling 14 packs of heirloom and USDA certified organic seeds. This normally would go for $30 plus shipping. Now they’re selling it for not $20 but for $10-and there is free shipping!  You can’t beat that!   Click here for more information. I’m going to buy mine tomorrow.  You won’t find deals like this around very often and it’s from the nicest people around.  I’m beginning to watch the weekly weather so I don’t get surprised by an early frost.  I still have basil that I want to protect, and a bunch of tomatoes.  Did I mention my plans to garden through the winter this year?  I think I’m doing it-I’ve done it before.  It was more work, but it wasn’t that much.  I also might be growing things for several folks as well and this will give me the chance to keep things going.  They won’t have all the fancy summer things like tomatoes and squash, but they’ll have some great tasting lettuce and other produce that’s harvested and picked within a couple of hours.[ois skin=”below post”]

Mid July activities in the square foot garden

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If you’re anything like me your probably spending just a little less time in your garden at this time of the year because of the heat. This is a good time to plan what you want in your garden as those tomatoes start to produce and ripen. If you can shade your garden at this time of year, you’ll be able to still grown lettuce and radishes. I was surprised that I was able to still grow radishes in temperatures in the high to upper 90’s. Just make sure you water and shade them more and you should be able to successfully grow them. And when those tomatoes come pouring on in a matter of a couple of weeks, will you have any lettuce ready to harvest? Sure you can just purchase store bought lettuce, but you can still grow your own. And it’s better than anything you can buy at the store. When the weather gets this hot, germinating lettuce seeds is the biggest challenge. Once again, shade and extra water will get you what you’re after. Once the lettuce seeds germinate and break the soil, a lot of your hard work is done. It will grow quickly in this kind of weather but you should still keep the sun off it if you can. At least the hot afternoon sun. You’ll keep your lettuce from tasting bitter and will reap the rewards of great home tasting lettuce. The other fun thing that might be showing now in your gardens are flowers. I don’t grow many, but most of the ones I do all have a specific function. Nasturtiums-edible, nicotiana-fragrance, daisy, bachelor buttons, and sunflower seeds-attracts bees(pollinators), and finally celosia. The reason I like celosia is it’s brilliant red color later in the fall. I’m partial to reds and whites, so I place white alyssum at the base of my celosia. They’re all easy to grow and will reward you with great color as we get into the fall season. Come to think of it, we’re not that far off from that. Keep those compost units working so that you’ll be ready to harvest and amend squares as you pull from your garden. And the timing is such that if you’ve worked your compost correctly, you’ll be just in time to prepare for your fall gardens with finished composted material.[ois skin=”below post”]