Tag Archives: turnips

Delicious food out of the square foot garden

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If you’ve never had the experience of growing and eating your own food, you’re missing out. The taste is better. The quality is better. It’s healthier. In the SFG the soil reigns supreme, which greatly affects the taste of the food. And it’s also more economical. Growing your own food is like printing your own money.

This past week I harvested some leeks and turnips. The recipe I was making-a leek/turnip soup, called for more turnips than I had, so I made up the difference with a few radishes. I’ve not grown this radish variety before but it was outstanding. It’s Red Head from Territorial. And the soup-it was outrageously delicious. 

One of these days I’m going to have a SFG class at my home and combine it with a lunch, where others can taste what things are like coming out of the garden. All I have to do is serve a salad and you’ll be hooked. Fresh off the vine cherry tomatoes, a few slices of a European cucumber, candied nuts, a thin slice of red onion, and some homemade croutons to go along with one of the 28 different varieties of lettuce that I grow. It doesn’t get any better than this. Coming soon. 

This past week I upped an order from Johnnys which include 3 different types of salanova lettuce. It holds up very well in our hot summers once you know the 5 tricks to have lettuce available during July and August. And, now is the time to think about summer lettuces. Give salanova a try. 

My square foot garden coming out of winter

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It’s about time to start planting some things directly into the garden now. This is a picture of what mine looks like under cover. The empty spaces have been the latest things that I’ve been having for lunches and salads, and even a few things for breakfast(baby arugula in scrambled eggs?) Some have been replanted, and some I’ll hold off on to put transplants in the next several days. I’ve still got a lot of good eating under there. Claytonia, spinach, cilantro, onions, carrots, lettuce, tokyo bekana,  bok choi, and some green onions.

Today I direct seeded kale, more spinach, french breakfast radish, and some turnips. With the exception of kale, these will be up quickly and harvested long before the summer garden gets here. 

Winterized garden box

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winter garden 110104This bed has been amended with horse manure, leaves, and then topped with compost.  By February 12th this will be perfect to start planting in-and that’s about the date I begin.  The horse manure isn’t even aged-it’s about 2-3 weeks old.  I’ll remove any pieces I can identify in February and move it into the compost bin.  You can see garlic(top) and turnips(bottom) growing, along with a brussel sprout plant.   I don’t know what to do with it and will probably leave it alone to see what becomes of it.  However, that cold frame?  That’s loaded with little finger carrots that will be ready late March/early April.  And they’ll be sweet as candy.  By the way, I want to invite you over to my Facebook page.  You can find me under the same name-the wealthy earth-where I have different content than my blog.  I hope you enjoy it and can give me a “like” if you do.  Thanks to everyone…Jim

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In 148 square feet?

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TWE-getting it ready for winter3We’ve had 3 or 4 significant frosts already.  I’m getting ready to cover this structure with greenhouse plastic.  I’ll only then be using a weighted floating row cover to put over the crops.  As we head into winter, this is what’s growing in just 148 square feet of garden space: 20 pounds of potatoes, 108 heads of lettuce, 8 arugula plants, 320 carrots, 117 spinach plants, 36 mizuna plants, 45 claytonia plants, 4 minutina, 24 komatsuna, 27 mache, 80 radishes, 36 beets, 48 turnips, 44 Swissl chard, 9 onions, 36 chives, 16 radicchio, 63 leeks, 2 kale plants, 20 poc choi, 2 parsley plants, 1 rosemary plant, 45 tatsoi, 36 kohlrabi, and 4 plants of cilantro.  We’re ready.

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