Tag Archives: spinach

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.

Two of four cartons of lettuce

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One of the main missions of the Square Foot Gardening Foundation is to eliminate world hunger.  I don’t believe we will ever get there for a variety of reasons.  While driving to work last week I heard of a nearby city putting flags in the ground for “homelessness awareness.”  I wasn’t sure what that would do to help the homeless.  It’s become a sensitive subject for me for personal reasons.  This picture shows 2 of the 4 banana cartons that I was able to fill up with 64 heads of lettuce and 1-1/2 pounds of spinach.  I don’t mention this for any accolades at all-none.  It’s nothing to brag about and that’s not why I did it.  It was a desire of mine to show what a simple little plot of land-in this case a 4X4′ square foot garden box-could produce without much effort.  And it was done very cheaply.  The seeds were maybe 4 or 5 years old and I used very little-2 or 3 seeds per hole.  I think the packet were somewhere around $2 each.  The only real cost was watering, and since I started this in early spring, I was able to let Mother Nature do the majority of the early watering.  After that I hand watered, and if you’ve been following this blog,  you’ll know how much less water a square foot garden takes than a single row garden.  When it was time to harvest, I simply filled my trusty blue Rubbermaid tub(I have these all over the garden for little things like this), snipped the lettuce, gave it a quick rinse, drained them, then placed them in the boxes.  I don’t know how many families it was able to feed but I’m sure it was a fair amount.  My whole point was to show how easy it would be to truly make an impact on feeding the homeless.  This was so easy to do and it cost very little.  Fresh, totally organic, and delicious salad greens!  How can you help?  Would you consider taking a small area of your garden and dedicating that portion to grow food to make a donation to the local Food Bank?  This was just one box!  What if you had 3 or 4 boxes?  Or what if you had a single 4X8′ box?  That would give you 128 heads of lettuce in just 32 square feet! They sure were appreciative too-which is not the reason to do it.  While others are sticking flags in the ground(which would have cost a whole lot more money than this did)you could actually be growing food to feed the hungry.  Give it some thought.  It really was simple.[ois skin=”below post”]

Remember that food bank lettuce?…

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Well here it’s all ready to be harvested, cleaned, and then delivered to the food bank.  This simple 4X4 box just grew 64 heads of lettuce.  I thought it would be a good idea to alternate the varieties to give it some color.  This is made up of 2 varieties: black seeded Simpson and red sails.  I’ve also got a ton of spinach ready to harvest so I’ll throw that in the mix along with 32 radishes.  The lettuce has now been growing for about 5 weeks.  This is perfect timing-well, almost perfect timing.  I would’ve liked to have everything in this box harvested and replanted by last Sunday, but it wasn’t quite ready.  By this time next week I’ll have all vertical plants in place along with all my flowers, herbs, onions, garlic, cabbage, and beets.  I’ll keep several squares open so that I can plant new lettuce seeds every 5 days or so.  That way I will keep the produce growing throughout the entire summer season.  Next up-shading your garden so that you can continue to grow radishes and lettuce through the hottest part of the year.[ois skin=”below post”]