Saturday, July 24, 2010
176/365: Pea Pods
Harvested a bunch of peas from the garden. In past years, I only planted a few peas, and was disappointed with the results. This year, I built proper trellisis out of the bamboo that fell during the blizzards of the winter, and was rewarded! After shelling, I had about a quart of the tastiest peas I've ever eaten.Labels: Project 365, square foot gardening, The Garden
Monday, June 07, 2010
128/365: Wilt
Not sure what happened to my Italian pole beans! Luckily, they grow fast, so I replanted.Labels: Project 365, square foot gardening, The Garden
Thursday, May 27, 2010
120/365: Salad Starter
I have seven 4'x4' Square Foot Gardening boxes. This one is just outside the kitchen, and contains turnips, beets, cabbage, broccoli, four different kinds of lettuce, basil, bok choy, rosemary and sage. The removable cage means I'm no longer sharing with the groundhogs.Labels: Project 365, square foot gardening, The Garden
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
42/365: Seed Starting
I plant a fairly large garden every spring. I usually start getting excited in February, and wind up starting my seeds so early that I have to pot up twice before setting the seedlings out. This year, I curbed my enthusiasm and waited until March, so hopefully, I'll only have to pot up once.Labels: gardening, Project 365, square foot gardening, The Garden
Friday, March 27, 2009
ASPARAGUS!
Spent much of the morning weeding the asparagus bed, and I was very pleased to see the spring's first spears starting to push through. An excellent sign that the morel season will soon start!Labels: gardening, square foot gardening, The Yard
Boxes Rising
Finally! Some nice weather. I have four of the six boxes nearly finished. Just have to wait for the linseed oil to dry. then I can staple on the weed blocker cloth and place them. Two more to make, but my little household strength cordless screwdriver only has enough oomph to drive about 16 2.5" screws before ir needs a recharge.Labels: gardening, square foot gardening, The Yard
Thursday, March 26, 2009
And Spring Means...
Time to get working on the new gardens! Since the hurrican remnants destroyed the swimming pool, I'm going to use that space for an expanded Square Foot Garden. The lumber will become 6 4x4 garden boxes, an the steel tubing is for three 6' high trellises. I got three boxes made this morning, but I'm going to have to wait for it to dry out a bit to place them. This year, we're putting in an extra box for the food bank. I figure between five boxes and our CSA farm, we'll have plenty of fresh veggies this year, and enough for canning to tide us through the winter.Labels: CSA, gardening, square foot gardening
Monday, March 23, 2009
Adventures In Fungiculture!
Wel, I decided to try my hand at growing morels, which is notoriously difficult. I spent much of the past month preparing the bed for the mushrooms, and I've now inoculated it with morel spawn. We now wait a year to see if it works.Labels: gardening, morels, mushrooms, square foot gardening
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
...and we have plenty of lettuce in the garden to make some nice salads. The radishes are just about ready too! I might have to buy some fresh mozzarella cheese to go with the fresh basil and tomatoes!
Labels: gardening, square foot gardening, The Yard
Monday, May 12, 2008
Gardening Time!
I've been using Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening technique since 1993. I have four 4'x4' squares up by the pool, that have yielded quite a bit of veggies (that usually get shared with various groundhogs).This year, I planted the entire garden with asparagus and garlic, meaning I needed more garden space. I was going to dig up another section of yard, but I noticed that Uncle Mel had a new edition of Square Foot Gardening out, and so I gave it a read.
He's now advocating raised beds filled with Mel's Mix potting soil with a semi-permanently attached grid, so I decided to give it a whirl.
The new 4'x4' box took me about two hours to construct and fill. The only annoying part was that I couldn't find vermiculite anywhere locally, so I had to substitute perlite in the potting mix. But it doesn't look too bad, and is right outside the kitchen window where we can keep an eye out for thieving groundhogs. I'll probably make a critter cage this weekend to permanently exclude freeloading rodents.
Right now, I just have some lettuce and broccoli transplants in, but it will soon sport cabbage, chard, radishes, bush beans, eggplant, beets, cilantro, basil, oregano and peppers. Tomatoes are going in patio containers this year. So we'll keep you posted on the results.
If anyone knows a local source for vermiculite, please let me know.
Labels: gardening, groundhogs, spring, square foot gardening, vegetables
