Tag Archives: peppers

Early start on peppers with a pot maker form

The pot maker is a great gardening tool to have at your disposal. For those who have taken my seed starting class, you know what these are and how they work. I bought mine 20 years ago from Burpee and it will out live me! You’ll not be needing to buy any more of those plastic cells that crack after the first year of use. These are made with only newspaper.

While this technique is something that a farmer couldn’t do because of the overwhelming amount of work it would take, it’s perfect for the small grower at home. It’s really a good way to do it if you’re growing just a few crops of something. I’ll only be growing 5 pepper plants this year, so I’ve put them all in pot makers and will start them inside until it’s safe for them to be transplanted into the garden. You can see that I’ve got 8 pepper plants in pot makers-just to give myself some wiggle room because the seeds are several years old. However, I did sprout all of them using the paper towel method. Those who have taken the seed starting class also know how to do this. 

Another advantage of planting right into the garden with the pot maker is that it minimizes transplant shock, which slows plant growth down by about 2 weeks. Sink these right into your soil-paper and all, and within a few weeks, you’ll not even be able to spot the newspaper. It’s really a good way to get things going for a quick start in spring. The wet paper towel over the pepper plants are used to keep the tops moist.

 

A Summer Square Foot Garden Example

Summer square foot garden planI’m often asked what to plant during certain times of the season. This is my attempt to do that with an example of what a summer square foot garden might look like. Actually, this is similar to one of my gardens.

This is obviously one-4X4′ box. The north is on the right hand side of the card. This is where your vertical towers will be placed. That way you don’t have to worry about anything getting shaded during the summer. If you place it in any other location you’ll notice the plants behind the vertical tower getting long and leggy because they’re searching for sunlight.

Starting from the upper right hand corner and working down you’ll notice a cherry tomato plant. This will be grown vertically. Make sure you buy indeterminant tomato plants. These varieties will get to be 7-10′ tall by summers end if you pinching back the suckers that come off the main stem. Butternut squash will form a solid wall of green in about 2 months and 1 plant will take up 2 square feet. You can plant sets of green onions right now. That way you can begin to harvest them(cuttings for salads)in as little as 4 weeks. Your cherry tomato plant will be enough to feed 3-4 people all summer and into the fall. The squash and onions will take up their respective squares until the end of summer and into early fall.

The next row includes peppers, basil, a cut-and-come again lettuce variety, and bush beans. By putting the pepper plant against the back of the box you’ll be able to prevent shading that you’ll see if you put it somewhere in the middle of the box. Most bush bean varieties will have a very heavy first harvest and then a weaker second harvest. After that, the square should be emptied. If you wanted to grow and harvest beans for an extended period of time you’d have to think about growing pole beans. Basil is a classic summer herb to grow. It lasts until the first frost when it then turns black overnight and dies.

The next row includes carrots, both a cut-and-come again and regular lettuce(Romaine type), and swiss chard. By cutting the base of cut-and-come lettuce varieties(two inches above the soil line)you’ll be able to get one full harvest and then another harvest in 2-3 weeks. I know some who will cut it a second time for yet a third harvest. Your choice, but my experience is quality begins to suffer after the second cutting. Swiss chard is a great addition to your summer salads and will last well into fall. I like to cut my chard leaves while they are still small. Once they get to be more than 5-6 inches tall they get to be too chewy for our liking.

The last row has zucchini growing on a single t-post that takes up one square. I’ve been doing this for years and I’ve never had a failure doing it this way. There’s two more square of lettuce and then finally a square of beets. These lettuce varieties can be anything you like to eat. Maybe this is a spot where you want to experiment with one of the designer lettuces such as Salanova. The beets will pay off in fall. In the meantime you can enjoy the beet leaves in salads or in the “green smoothies” that everyone is drinking these days. Beet leaves in salads look nice and are exceptionally healthy.

If it were me I would plant everything at once with the exception of lettuce which I would plant every week. If it were my first square foot garden I would buy all transplants for a quick start. Eleven crops taking up 16 square feet. In another 4X4′ box you can add more peppers, lettuces, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, potatoes, and spaghetti squash. And because we don’t thin or weed in the square foot gardening system, by the time summer ends you’ll know you haven’t worked very hard. You’ll then a lot of extra energy to then plant a fall garden.[ois skin=”1″]

Much planted, much to go

51914 gardenAfter tomorrow I’ll have a lot of newly emptied squares. To date I have a lot of the summer crops in and growing. Tomatoes, cucumbers, summer lettuce varieties, chives, carrots, chard, scallions, potatoes, nasturtium, peppers, basil, and bush beans are all in. In the next day I’ll finish planting all the rest-zucchini, patty pan and banana/butternut squash, beets, scallions, and maybe some thyme. I’ll continue to plant lettuce all summer long to make sure I have a large enough harvest by the time the tomatoes ripen. If you’re looking for a nifty little gadget to tell you what to plant and when, you ought to check this out. It’s free and easy to use. You’ll get an email periodically to remind you what to plant next. Read about it here.  Hope this helps out.

[ois skin=”below post”]

Summer time is about here

poc choi 50814It got here quick. Right now I’m in the process of cleaning out many squares to put in all the fun summer stuff: tomatoes(6 kinds), peppers(4 kinds), more lettuce, more leeks, more poc choi, cucumbers, beans, basil, parsley, and cantalope. By Sunday the temperature is slated to be 34 at night so I’m holding off until Monday evening to plant. I’ve got everything started and ready to be transplanted. This is Joy Choi-another delicious variety of poc choi. Not quit as big as varieties I’ve grown before but equally delicious. Watch that weather forecast. Two big news items-first: my ebook on lettuce should be out in several weeks. It’s how to grow it during the hot summer months-virtually impossible. Second: I will be writing a biography on the inventor of the square foot garden system-Mel Bartholomew. A weekend trip to San Diego is coming up for me to get this started. From the looks of it this should be a fairly good sized book. I’m thinking a year to finish it but I could be wrong. I’ve never done something like this before. What do you think about that? Let me know….

[ois skin=”below post”]

Making great compost-it’s easy and free!

spaghetti squash 080413Sorry if this picture looks a little dark-I snapped it this evening and should probably have taken it tomorrow morning in sun.  But it’s been over a week since my last post.  I’ve had a lot of friends and neighbors who have struggled with their gardens this year.  Even SFGers.  Of all the basics of the SFG, getting the soil right is probably the most important.  After the initial purchase of the mix ingredients you won’t ever have to buy them again-if you make your own compost.  Besides being a great medium to grow in(actually the best), a good blended and finished compost also helps you to control other things like bugs and critters.  It’s not the total answer but it’s just another resource of things you can do to help in that area.  Making compost properly at home will be better than anything you’ll ever buy in a store.  It won’t even be close.  You can notice the rich black soil that I’ve just added to this box.  You can see why they call it “black gold.”  It hasn’t been watered at all in this picture.  Even though the pepper plant(left hand corner)and the spaghetti squash plants are doing fine, this added boost of fertilizer will make it grow even bigger and stronger.  There’s not one tablespoon of dirt in this soil.  It’s all kitchen scraps, straw, horse manure, spent garden produce, and leaves left over from fall.  If you’d like to learn more of the specifics of my compost operation, I cover this topic in my ebook which you can find on my site.  I think my results speak for themselves.

[ois skin=”below post”]