Tag Archives: tomatoes

Utilizing all the space in a square foot garden

Leave a reply

 

efficiency tomato and barbados 060213Here’s a little something-this particular square has already been harvested. It held four-2 star lettuce heads of lettuce. Delicious stuff. I added several trowels full of compost, mixed it up a little, and then replanted. Since it previously held a leaf crop(lettuce), it was time to use either a root or fruit crop. I chose to put in a tomato plant-a fruit category. Knowing that it will take 4 weeks to get large enough to trellis up the vertical grow, I took advantage of the space in front of the tomato plant to grow two mini-heads of lettuce. This particular variety is called Dacine. It will be done in about 25 days. That’s good news too because it’s going to be hot here, and lettuce is hard to sprout and grow in weather that warm. I think you can see that they’ve already come up, and now I just have to keep it well watered and covered and it will be perfect. When the first frost hits sometime in September or early October, the tomato plant will be done and it will then be time for me to replant with a cool crop-another 4 heads of lettuce. By the end of the year, this one square foot will have produced 10 heads of lettuce and probably 10 pounds of cherry tomatoes.

[ois skin=”below post”]

Gardening transition

2 Replies

TWE garden transition5 -52613As I put my gardens away at the end of fall, I always get a little sad. It’s the end of something I really enjoy doing. I talked a lot about how much easier it is to garden a lot longer into the fall and even into the winter, but the change of gardening season is still a little bit of a bummer for me. As I get my summer gardens up and planted, I feel the same sadness about the departing spring. We’ve been eating mighty well around here all winter, and the spring has been equally as good. All those things that love warm weather are now in-at least a lot of them are. Gone are spinach, radishes, tatsoi, mizuna, and minutina. I’ve got a last harvest of arugula and 2 or 3 squares of bok choi left which will be gone in less than a week. I’ve still got a good supply of lettuce-after all, what good is it if you’ve got all those great tasting summer tomatoes and no lettuce? I’ll grow lettuce all summer, but it’s a lot more work to do that. I don’t mind because the quality of the food is just not equal with anything you can buy. So, it’s good-bye to spring and hello to summer. Tomatoes, lettuce, onions, carrots, peppers,, cucumbers, beans, chard, scallions, basil, cilantro, rosemary, chives, parsley, potatoes, squash, and zucchini are all in now. And more will be planted in the coming two weeks. Big news coming soon for me with my little side business.

[ois skin=”below post”]

Tomato suckers

5 Replies

sungold sucker 330By making sure you buy the right kind of tomato plants(indeterminant)you’ll be able to grow them until they get to be 7 feet tall or even higher. The second trick for growing vertical tomatoes is to pinch back the suckers. Many folks might ask: “what’s a sucker? How do I know if I’m pinching back the right thing? The sucker is coming right out of the middle of the joint that’s pictured. I’ve also heard it referred to as that which is growing “in the crotch.” It might be an odd saying but it seems to help folks understand what to pinch back. In longer growing seasons you can actually take this “sucker” and plant it somewhere else in your garden and it’ll grow an entirely new tomato plant all by itself. This is the key to grow your plants really tall by the end of the season. This particular tomato plant is from Johnny’s. The variety is Sun Gold, and it’s said to be the sweetest cherry tomato available-even sweeter than Sweet 100’s. Unfortunately, I put them out a little too soon and didn’t cover on a freeze and now they’re gone. I’ve got others growing that are close to the taste, but not quit. I hope the information/picture on the sucker helps out…

[ois skin=”below post”]

April 14th square foot garden

4 Replies

sfg 041413It’s hard to believe that this was all planted in the coldest part of the year. In just a few short weeks this will all be emptied out and an entirely brand new set of crops will take their place. I’ve really enjoyed-and so has our family-eating some different tasting(and sounding)greens that I’ve never grown before. This upcoming fall, I’ll be able to share specific information about 15 different cold weather crops that I’ve had experience with. Many of these are items that many might not have tasted much less grown, but are easy to plant. Done right, you should be able to harvest right through the winter in zones 3-6 with just a little extra effort. I don’t mind doing the extra work because the quality and taste of the food is so superior compared to store bought during these months. I’ll be able to share how each of these crops fit into the 1, 4, 9, and 16 spacings. This square foot gardening stuff-it sure is a lot of fun-and a whole lot less work.[ois skin=”below post”]

Why we have so little pest problems with a SFG

1 Reply

Several weeks ago at a local library introductory class I had a question. It was a question that I couldn’t answer. This was the question:”How do you stop spider mites?” It was a little embarrassing to admit “I don’t know.” But it was the truth. I haven’t had spider mites or hornworms-another pest that I just learned about in the past couple of days. Why have I never had any of these? I think the answer is in the simpleness of the SFG system. By not planting any one thing in mass quantities in close proximity to one another we’re able to control or not have any spider mites. I try to remember where I’ve planted my big items in the garden from the previous year. I’ll rotate the location for squash, potatoes, pole beans, tomatoes, etc. It’s an easy task. I don’t know all the scientific answers to why we have so little pest/bug problems in a square foot garden. I’m guessing that it has something to do with rotation, and I’m also guessing that it might have something to do with the fact that I plant a different thing in each of my 16 squares of a 4X4′ garden box. There won’t be many who understand this one because you had to be there to experience it. I just returned from the SFG 3-day symposium in San Diego. Besides meeting 10 unbelievably great folks who are so passionate about the cause, I got to hear from Mel himself. He had the class stand up and spread their hands in front of them-palms facing each other. He then told them to raise their hands so that their hands were above their heads, and had them close their eyes. Then he asked them to slowly bring their hands together-with their eyes closed until they felt their hands touch each other. Then he asked them to interlock all their fingers-eyes closed. Then he says “raise your trigger finger of there right hand,” which represented “build a box.” Then he asked them to raise their other trigger finger, which represented filling a box with Mel’s mix. He’d have them raise one pinkie and that might represent “a different crop in each square.” The other pinkie might represent “build a grid.” He did this for 10 different things, then asked the class to close their their hands again in the original interlocking grasp. He then asked them to try to separate their hands, which they couldn’t. He finally asked them to lower their hands in front of them and to open their eyes. He explained to the whole class that square foot gardening is exactly like their interlocking fingers. Everything meshes together perfectly in a square foot garden. He said “I don’t even know why it works, but it does.” And he’s right. Having a square foot garden is so simple that any person desiring to garden can have one-and a very successful one without any experience. The concepts are perfectly aligned with one another so well that is just seems to work. To all the folks that just left San Diego, you know what I mean. It was great meeting everyone and I wish you all the best of luck. If you don’t have a square foot garden yet, come on over and join us.

[ois skin=”below post”]