Tag Archives: spinach

Salad in a glass

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salad in a glassAnybody ever seen one of these before? We’ve had it for a few years because our daughter refused to eat the garbage being served in high school. She wanted something fresh and nutritious. She came home one day with one of these gadgets. It’s a plastic glass that holds the salad greens and then the dressing is stored in the top of the cap. I was on my way to one of my SFG classes last week and didn’t want to stop anywhere for fast food. I went and found this and put it to use. All I needed to do now was go out into my square foot garden, pick some tasty salad greens and head off. I snipped some mizuna, spinach, some tatsoi, arugula, and 1 radish. I cleaned it all off, cut it up and put it all in this nifty little cup. I filled the top of the cap with poppy seed dressing, topped the whole thing off with a small amount of mozzarella cheese and croutons, and off I went. About 30 minutes up the street I pushed the top cap which releases all the dressing into the container, shook it a bit, and then went to eating. Clean, healthy, fresh, and some of the best tasting salad greens you’ll ever have-right at your fingertips. Who cares if I was eating it while driving?

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The seasons first SFG workshop

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sfg workshop prep 330It’s always a little tricky to see how early you can be ready to pull off one of these square foot garden workshops. Today was perfect-about 60 degrees, even warmer as we finished, and sunny. To fit one in by the end of March is pretty good for us. I spend 3 hours on this workshop and by the time we’re done, people leave with a small gift, and they know everything to have a great square foot garden. All the advanced techniques are discussed and shown, along with a few “tasty” treats along the way. I was lucky enough to have 3 suckers from a tomato plant that I’m growing. I simply cut it out and rooted it in one of my potmaker cups and gave them away. This was a Sun Gold cherry tomato plant-one of the sweetest tomatoes you’ll ever taste. I think they all got to taste arugula, mizuna, tatsoi, and minutina. Some of them were pleasantly surprised by the flavor of these lesser known salad greens. We also had someone who wasn’t ready for the arugula pepper taste-when you grow it in cooler weather it tastes strikingly different that those varieties that have been grown in warmer soil. If you’re interested in learning more about these workshops, feel free to contact me. All participants have already attended a 90-120 minute introductory class so we don’t have to waste a lot of time answering questions about content that they’ve already learned. I was able to have an unbelievably great garden last year. I think this year it will be even better-you never stop learning how to do things.

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Revving up your square foot gardens

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space 0313We had our 2nd day over 60 today and my garden is really starting to grow. I got home from work today and inspected my gardens. It was dry-even though it got a good watering this morning. This happened because of the wind-which really dries your soil out. I’ve come to learn just by looking at the color of the soil if it needs more watering. I think I’ll take a video of this so that I can show you what I mean. So I re-watered and planted a few things. Here’s a list of the items I’ve got growing at this time: 6 different kinds of lettuce, radicchio, arugula, spinach, swiss chard, radishes, pac choi, carrots, kale, mache, cilantro, parsley, tomatoes, brussel sprouts, mizuna, kohlrabi, and tatsoi. Everything is looking very good at this point. I’ve tasted the baby leaves of mizuna, arugula, and tatsoi and they are outstanding. It’s a lot different than lettuce, but it adds quite a bit of texture and flavor. You can see how nicely things are starting to fill in by this picture. This is spinach-and everybody discovers what variety is their favorite. “Space” is ours-the taste is excellent and like all spinach, is easy to grow. I’m still amazed at the prices some of these organic stores are charging for produce and veggies. Learn how to do it for yourself and save the big bucks at the checkout stand. You can learn how to grow a great garden with many different methods, but you won’t find one as simple as the square foot garden method.

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Over and under

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over 020213under 020213It was about 38-40 today. With my plastic over the boxes today it was probably mid-60’s to 70 degrees under the cover. This picture is a different SFG box then the previous post shows. In this one, you can see a few things up and growing: win-win bok choy, winter density lettuce, beets, 2 star lettuce, kohlrabi, etc. There’s a few open squares but that will probably change in the next week. It’s about time for me to place an ad in the local newspaper to see if anyone is interested in buying what this box will be producing. Last time I counted I’ve got about 14 different items that will come out of this particular SFG box. This list includes lettuce(4 varieties), greenhouse tomatoes, spinach, kale, bok choy, mizuna, tatsoi, arugula, mache, kohlrabi, radishes, carrots, beets(and greens), and cilantro. While at Sprouts the other day, I noticed the price for a head of loose-leaf organic red lettuce-$1.99. It was really small. I also saw the price of an organic kohlrabi-$2.99 each! Holy smoke. When folks buy from me they get at least 4 heads of lettuce that are bigger and better tasting than what you buy at any store-easily worth $2.50 each. They get a small container of tomatoes, and a combination of at least 5 other things from the list mentioned above. I deliver and it only costs them $20 a week. I think that’s a great deal-what do you think? Some of these Asian greens-man, are they good. Especially for stir-fries.[ois skin=”below post”]

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.