Tag Archives: radishes

Holy Smoke!

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Just when I thought SFG teaching was done for the year something strange happened.  I’ve had up on the site a SFG Workshop that’s to be held in September.  It was billed as “Fall Crop” because we’re closing down some of the garden but then planting several 4X4′ boxes for the last 5-7 weeks of the year.  We’re also doing some things on advanced composting, prepping your soil for next year, and some other very cool things.  Your neighbors have had their gardens pulled up since Labor Day at this point and want nothing to do with gardening until next year.  The only real requirement I had for this workshop was that you had to have taken the introductory class.  Well, the interest was so heavy with so many folks that didn’t take the introductory class that I’ve now had to schedule 7 additional classes to be held at various locations throughout the valley.  That gives you some idea of the number of people interested in planting at this great time of year.  After all, because of the cooler temperatures the water requirements are lower, all your lettuces, spinach, radishes, etc. can easily be grown, and the bugs are gone.  To all my fellow SFG instructors-we’ve always taught about how easy it is to extend the season with a SFG.  We’ve taught about being able to start a SFG at any time of the year.  Now it’s time to show it.  I hope you don’t let this chance pass you by.  By doing these in the fall, you’ll have a new core of people ready to go in the spring as well.  Give it some thought and see if it doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.

Win a Wealthy Earth ebook

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You can win a free copy of my ebook if you can identify the ninja secret in one of these squares.  The only dis-qualifier is if you’ve attended one of my workshops where we’ve discussed this, along with many other “ninja” secrets of the square foot garden.  You will have to know the system to find it though.  The first one who gets it right will receive my ebook.  I will provide the answer as soon as a winner is named.  It’s a tricky one!  By the way, if you haven’t read my ebook, I think you’re missing out.  You can read more about it on this site, or you can read the review by the inventor of the square foot garden-Mel Bartholomew himself.  You can read it here.  There’s all kinds of nifty things in it that will augment your skills in the SFG system.  It’s also great for instructors because these are the questions you’re going to hear when you’re teaching.  Right now in my garden, I’m making sure there are fewer and fewer empty squares.  You have to time things out a little bit.  Making sure you have lettuce when all those tomatoes are ripe is a trick in itself.  Anybody can grow lettuce in the spring when it’s cool, but it’s more difficult in the hotter weather.  It takes more work, but you’ll be glad you did.  I had a friend of mine who recently told me that  their lettuce grew very well last year, but it ended up tasting bitter.  When I asked a few more question, I think the answer to her dilemma was that she needed to cover her lettuce.  After your seeds have sprouted and then begin to grow, the best thing you can do is to shade your lettuce.  If you don’t it will continue to grow and you may even have a nicely formed head of lettuce-of whatever variety.  But the sun will beat down on that and ruin the taste.  By covering your lettuce, you’ll have some of the tastiest salad greens around.  If you’ve planted spinach in the spring, it’s time to replant those squares with something else.  Carrots, beets, onions, herbs, bush beans, or flowers, etc.  Be sure to amend your newly planted square with several trowels full of compost and your ready to go.  If you’re thinking of flowers, keep nice looking ones in mind that can also be used in salads.  The first flower that comes to mind for that is nasturtium.  Maybe you want a scented flower?  You decide what you like but I’ve got nicotiana and angels trumpet in mine.  The smell of those two are fantastic later in the summer.  You’ll have to buy transplants at this stage though-unless you’re in a climate where you have a much longer season than we have here in the mountain west.[ois skin=”below post”]

How do you know when radishes are done?

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I was surfing the internet a few weeks ago and ended up back at the square foot garden foundation website in the forum area. I don’t mean to be critical but there is some really bad advice given to other square foot gardeners. I think that poor information will lead to poor results. I’ve been following a couple of conversations-without comment-to see how some of this advice would pan out. And it’s been met with a brand new SFGer who is now frustrated because things don’t seem to be working very well. It’s difficult to sit by and watch as this develops. One of the questions this 1st year SFGer asked was:”how do you know when radishes are done?” The answer she got was: “you harvest radishes in 30 days or when the leaves are big.” That was it. So, since the radishes had been in the ground for the allotted time and also seeing big leaves, she pulled out her radishes. You should’ve seen them. The radishes were the size of skinny little pencils. This is not the way to harvest radishes in a square foot garden. I would say a beginning point is 30 days but then you have to look at them. It might be 40 days depending on water and weather. These aren’t like potatoes when you really don’t know what root crops looks like below the soil. There should be no guesses with radishes. The first picture shown is radishes-with big leaves. If I were to have pulled all of these I would’ve been disappointed. How do I know? If you look at the second picture, I’ve lightly scratched back some soil to see how big the radish is. You can see that it’s small. This was the size of the radish this new SFGer pulled out of the garden. If you look at the 3rd picture you’ll notice a different sized radish. You’ll also notice the size of the radish right next to the perfect one. Now I know I can harvest this radish and leave the others in the ground for another several days when I can look again. This square foot gardening really isn’t meant to be difficult. But because it’s do different than traditional single row gardens, some of the basic rules change. That brings me to another point. I found this really cool website a few months ago from a guy who is a homesteader. You know-basically living/growing off the land.  Last year was his first attempt at a square foot garden.  It looked pretty good to me. You can find him here.  You’ll find all sorts of great info at his site, including this experiment he did with a square foot garden…[ois skin=”below post”]

What should you be doing in your SFG now?…

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That’s an easy one-planting! It’s the 3rd week of March and your soil should be loose, prepped from last fall and now ready to plant. Give it a quick turn with your trowel-one of only 3 tools you will need in the SFG system. Right now you should be planting all the cool weather crops. Things such as lettuce, swiss chard, radishes and spinach should be directly planted in the soil. There’s no need to start these items from seed indoors. If you’ve done it right and taken care of your soil you should have things coming up in 7-10 days. That’s if your weather is mild. If you are able to cover and protect your gardens, then you should still have things coming up in 7-10 days. That’s just how it is with us SFGers. Here you can see that I have thinned out my square so that it now holds 16 radishes. Now I just water, sit back and watch it grow. They’ll be ready in about 3 weeks. Just in time for my lettuce and spinach to be ready. When that happens I shouldn’t have to buy any produce or veggies from the store for at least 6, maybe even 7 months. How would you like to save that kind of money? Anybody can do it…join us at the several free lectures in town and then learn all of it at the workshops….

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