Butterbush squash

These squash are supposed to be Burpee’s “Butterbush” and the squash I can see around the edges are smallish and the correct shape. The raised beds are 20” high but the vines in front of the beds are maintaining the same height as the ones in the bed. We have had a lot of rain this year and the last year that we had so much, the squash did not keep well. I will post the other beds tomorrow.

Advertisement

Paper Mache soil blocks

I thought about this early winter but got side tracked.  I will try Iceberg lettuce and Black beauty eggplant. It won’t be a big deal if it doesn’t workout because my son started plants for me and there are big box stores and lawn and garden centers near by.

I shredded 5 pages double page width of newspaper and folded them to fit in the shredder opening.

The shredded newspaper was covered with water and left to set over night.

The next morning I put the paper through a blender and strainer and I had my paper Mache slurry.

I was able to make eight blocks out of this batch of slurry and will plant Iceberg lettuce in these. My next batch, I want to make extra slurry to have blocks to dry out and test them for rehydration.

The new garden is nearly complete

My oldest son John came in from PSU yesterday and built the first half of my accessible garden. Just finished the first box in the first photo and a final inspection in the second photo. The third photo he is building the top half of the second box and you can see some of the remnants of the old garden to his back. The fourth photo just finishing the third and forth boxes. And the last photo is an overall view of the garden. In case you are wondering what my job was , it was staying the He** out of the way, sit in the shade and drink beer. So I did and a good job also. There will be more to come.   John M.

 

 

Planned garden modifications

My planned modifications will not be made until after the current season. This is a sketch up of the garden as it is today except for the weather buffer room on the end of the GH..

This is a sketch up of the intended  modified garden. Eight beds will be reduced to three beds app. 16 1/2″ deep/tall.

This part of the garden is some 30′ away from the above garden and will be treated the same way.

The beds in the center that form the figure E will be removed to form a figure C.

The remaining beds will also be app. 16 1/2″ deep/tall. There are several photos of the current garden through out my journal and I will post a follow up with photos of the modified garden.

Modular Raised Bed Prototype

It’s been my goal to tidy up the garden and eventually move to a raided bed system.   I’d independently slated a deck for demolition, and put two and two together.  The main problems which I’ve tackled are, forst, the pressure treated wood from the deck is not to be used without a little research and planning.  It contains ‘CCA’, which is Copper Chromate Arsenic.   The second aspect of this raised bed design was to come up with something that was flexible enough to let my garden continue to evolve.  By that, I mean the garden is forever changing, and I wanted a raised bed system that gives me options.

First, on that CCA issue, and whether I should even go ahead with the pressure treated lumber.  This link was probably the most cautionary.  http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalker-scott/horticultural%20myths_files/Myths/CCA%20wood.pdf  She has some other good ‘horticultural myths’ sorts of information, here:http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%20Chalker-Scott/

Some other sites mentioned that diffusion of the CCA goes mostly straight down, not lateral across the bed, and that most of the free CCA will come out in the first year.  Without getting into the details you can read at the site, I am going ahead with using the pressure treated lumber with the following precautions:

• Wood stain on the inside, and/or heavy plastic.
• No cabbage family, as they concentrate arsenic,
• no root crops within 6″ or so from the edge,
• No tilling after initial planting, till only in fall.

My research was not comprehensive, and I welcome comments and new information, but I did not find an overwhelming amount of ‘negative’ data on the topic, so I’m going ahead thinking it’s not completely safe, but manageable.  Certainly, I’m glad the timber I have is from a 20 year old porch that should be somewhat leached out.

Well, on to the second aspect of this, the design of the prototype.  Here’s a picture of the deck in dissassembly to show what I’m working with:

Above I’m just tearing up the old deck surface, and removing the nails.  Still have to fabricate the building blocks.

Below, I’ve built two pieces, the first two, in order to se how it works.

The base unit is 12′ 1″ long, and 4′ wide.  The top unit, sitting at the back there with the little pink flag,  is 4′ square.  In the corners, I nailed (ring nails using a framing nailer) a block 5 1/2″ long, which is the same height as the 2×6’s on the frame.  The trick is the corner blocks are secured 1 1/2″ lower than the frame, so they form little guides that sit into the frame below.

With this system, I can stack the 4′ squares on the base frame and increase the height of the frame as compost is added, or as I switch from one crop to the next.  For instance, I have onions in the lower 8′ x 4′ long section of the 12′ bed.  The upper section, contains lettuce, which is a bit of a waste, as I have a foot of soil below the lettuce.  But, that part of the frame would work very nicely for carrots or some other root crop.

With the base frame at 12′ 1″, I can stack 3 sets of the 4′ squares, one set might be two high, for a total of 18″.  If I put another 4′ section on, it goes to 24″ of height.  I reckon in the fall, if I want to pull a top frame off, and refresh a bed, I can do so and not have to dig down in alongside the frame.

I ‘secured’ the 12′ base frame with a couple bits of re-bar along the side, and at the lower end, I used some PT lumber to keep the soil in the frame.  Those I call ‘dirt skirts, and they also help hold the base frame level, (at least till the frost?).

My plan is to build more of the 4′ frames and have them at the ready as new crops go in, and to install more of the 12’ 1″ ‘base frames’.  I might put those base frames at various angles to the first one to make the garden interesting, and I might make some really long ones, perhaps 16′ 2″ or thereabouts.  The extra 1″ and 2″ is so I can have a little wiggle room to stack either 3 or 4 of the 4′ frames along the length of a longer ‘base frame’, and not have them fail to seat properly due to small inaccuracies in my framing, or the squaring of the base frames.

I hope the pictures post OK…..I’ll take a detailed construction picture next weekend.   Happy gardening all.

2010/11 winter garden and 2011 summer garden

I am only a Month late but that was unavoidable. Every thing is planted except two tomatoes that I am waiting for the second set of leaves. There is a total of 18.7 sq ft under irrigation with an automatic fertilizer injector. The injector is set for a weak solution of 20-20-20 every time the system comes on which is one min every two days.

The container closest to the camera has Romaine lettuce planted. The second container has Iceberg lettuce Planted. And the third and fourth containers will be used for the second planting. Later the first and second container will be used for the third planting and so on until the end of season.

The first and second from the left are carrots, the third is celery and the fourth is parsnips. I have never grown these in the GH before so this is pretty much an experiment but I hope they do well.

The container closest to the camera is red radishes.  The second container is white radishes. The third container is basil and the fourth is dill. The buckets on the floor are for the tomatoes.

I guess this is the start of my 2011 garden. In total there are 70 cloves of garlic planted. The ones in front of the telephone pole are soft neck and the ones behind the pole are stiff neck. I was a little concerned about the continuous open space on the outside row but the cloves are well rooted and the sprout is about to break through the surface.

A vacation in the hospital

http://www.jbest123.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Ernest-Tubb-In-The-Jailhouse-Now.mp3

What caused my trip to the hospital were heart arrhythmias. The symptoms can be a fluttering in your chest, a racing heartbeat, a slow heartbeat, chest pain, shortness of breath, lightheadedness, dizziness or fainting or near fainting and I have every damn one of them. Along with heart arrhythmias comes an increased chance of blood clots so the Doc put me on Coumadin (rat poison). As a result of that most of my other meds have to be changed and fine tuned which requires weekly blood tests, med adjustment and retesting. I feel like a porcupine turned inside out. I have to eat the same amount of vitamin K every day as it affects the Coumadin and could have very bad results. The table below shows various vegetable and the vitamin K they contain. Keeping track of my diet past and planning future diets for the amounts of vitamin K would be a hassle so I plan to avoid vegetables with high levels of vitamin K. As a result I will be giving many veggies away this year.

 

I have started planning next year’s garden as to what to plant where and the spacing and nutrient requirements.

 

Vegetables	Amount	Vitamin K
Artichoke	1/3	Low
Asparagus	7 spears	Medium
Green beans	3/4 cup	Low
Lima beans	1/2 cup	Low
Beets	1/2 cup	Low
Broccoli	1/2 cup	High
Brussels sprouts	5	High
White cabbage	2/3 cup	High
Carrot	1/2 cup	Low
Cauliflower	1/2 cup	Low
Celery	2 1/2 ribs	Medium
Swiss chard	1/2 cup cooked	High
Chives	2 cups chopped	High
Collard greens	1/2 cup	High
Cilantro	6 cups	High
Corn	2/3 cup kernels	Low
Cucumber (remove peel)	1 cup slices	Low
Eggplant	1 cup diced	Low
Endive	2 cups	High
Kale	1/2 cup	High
Leek	1 cup chopped	Low
Bibb lettuce	1 cup chopped	High
Red leaf lettuce	1 cup chopped	High
Iceberg lettuce	1/2 cup	Medium
Mustard greens	1 1/2 cups	High
Shiitake mushrooms	5 mushrooms	Low
Button mushrooms	1 cup	Low
Okra	1/2 cup	Medium
Green onion	2/3 cup	High
White or yellow onion	2/3 cup	Low
Parsley	1 1/2 cup	High
Parsnip	2 parsnips	Low
Green pepper	1/2 pepper	Low
Potato	1 medium	Low
Radish	1 cup sliced	Low
Spinach	1/2 cup cooked	High
Yellow squash	1/2 cup slices	Low
Acorn squash	1/2 cup	Low
Sweet potato	1 cup	Low
Tomato sauce (bottled)	1/2 cup	Low
Tomato	1	Low
Turnip	4 ounces	Low
Turnip greens	1 1/2 cups	High
Watercress	3 cups	High

I think this qualifies for intensive gardening.

On the far left are 24 Jersey Giant asparagus plants, left of center are 26 Yukon Gold potatoes, right of center are 26 Kennebec potatoes and far right are 12 Butter Bush winter squash.

 

These are 20 Nemagold Sweet potatoes.

 

Here are 12 Endive, 6 per row. Lettuce has been harvested from front and back.

 

Between the SPs and Endive and on the fence is a Gardeners Delight cherry tomato.

 

To the left of the Endive and against the fence is a Fourth of July tomato.

 

These are my peppers, in front are two rows of three Big Dippers, in the back row there is one Sweet Banana, one Picante and one Red Bell.

 

Here are 6 Black Beauty eggplants.

 

In the foreground are 5 Little Cloud cauliflowers. Lost one to a wind storm. In the background are 5 Green Goliath broccolis. Lost one of these in the same storm.

 

Garlic, onions, spinach and lettuce were harvested form the bed in the foreground and is now ready for fall planting. The bed in the background has one Zucchini plant on the right and two Brandy Boy tomatoes on the left. The two tomato plants are over four ft tall and only have 4-6 tomatoes on each. That rate had better pickup or this year will be the last for Brandy Boys.

 

Soil test is in and I think I will have a BM

After I seen the third year core sample of the raised bed, I just had to get a soil test to see what was going on. I have always known that garden worms were beneficial to the garden. But I did not know just how much work they did.

Unless you follow my Journal there are three Posts that you should read to get the background on the raised bed soil.

1. First year core sample
2. Second year core sample
3. Third year core sample

Penn State claims a 4-5 day turn around on soil samples. I sent the sample in on Tuesday and received an eMail copy today and a hard copy will be sent via snail mail. I requested the standard test($9) and % organic matter($5) and eMail data($1) for a sum of $15.

I was interested in the PH and Fertility of the soil but I was curious as how much organic material was present since the only thing deposited in the beds was organic but the soil did not seem as it was only humus. As it turns out at 25% organic material, I have just been feeding the worms and they have been building up the soil. John

 

 

Three years of core samples

Four years ago I filled my new raised beds with composted lawn and garden debris rich with horse bedding. My gardening style with these beds has been no till and I top dress the beds each fall with composted horse bedding. As the red worms bring bottom soil and casings in to the beds I have to top dress less and less. The next three photos are of the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd year core samples in that order. In the first photo you can see what looks like soil and/or worm casing on the bottom and many recognizable wood chips and pine needles on the top. The core sample in the second photo fell apart when trying to remove it from the mold. It may have been drier or smaller particle size that caused it to fall apart. There was a good bit more material that looked like soil/casing and just a few recognizable wood chips and no pine needles. The core sample in the third photo looked homogeneous from top to bottom with no recognizable material. It fell apart easier than the second core sample and I am more convinced it has to do with particle size and moisture. When this sample dries out (to save on postage) I will send it to Penn State University for analysis. One of there tests is percentage organic material. Since the only thing I have put in the beds was organic, I think I can assume that anything that is not organic is either soil or worm casing. John

Second year RB/SFG core sample

This year’s core sample was taken adjacent to last year’s sample. There was only about an inch of recognizable compost on top and it spilled out onto the floor when I tilted the tube to remove the sample. When I removed the sample, it just fell apart. The bed is about 88% full of what looks like plain old garden soil thanks to the many worms. At the end of next growing season I expect the beds to be nearly 100% filled with soil/worm casing. Then it will be interesting how the moisture retention will be and how the plants perform.

A close-up photo of the core sample.

This is a photo of semi-finished compost that the beds were top dressed with this spring. As usual all comments are welcome.    John

One comparison between RB/SFG and conventional gardening

Last years squash bed was planted in hills. When looking down from above, it would look like double fives on a pair of dice. After the plants emerged the bed was heavily mulched with leaf mold and compost. The harvest was typical of my squash beds at 39-41 squash (depending how many times I count them).

This is the same area converted to raised beds filled with 100% compost. This is the first year for the raised beds in this area. Last years squash bed was 90” wide and this years RB for squash is 40” wide, less that 45% of last years bed. The number of squash in the RB 29 a substantial increase per sq/ft production. As usual all comments are welcome. John

 

My follies with trellising squash

I have been planting Burpee’s hybrid zucchini and butterbush squash for years. This year I decided to trellis the squash to conserve space. The zucchini was easy to tie up to the trellis when the vine was small but as the vine grew wider and stiffer it became more difficult. We had a relatively mild summer storm and this photo is of the top of one vine that had broken off of one of the plants. What broke off was about 1 ½” of the tip of the vine with about 2-3 small leaves and blossoms. I had hoped the plant would start a new branch but it eventually died.

Both zucchini plants had a problem with the leaves in back buckling and falling forward over the tip of the vine and damaging the new blossoms. I had to be vigilant at removing them from that area.

The clincher is, the plants were growing approximately the same place as last years non trellised squash. Last year the squash grew across the pathway and up against the next bed. This year the trellised squash leaves grew with in 3-4” of the adjoining bed, so I only saved 3-4” of space.

The Butterbush squash were planted about 10” in front of the trellis and a dowel rod placed from the plant base to the trellis. It was easy to tie the vines to the dowels.

It became obvious that the vines did not want to grow north although there was plenty of sun. In this photo you can see about four times the growth toward the south as there is to the north. I decided to let them go where they wanted and sacrificed the onions planted to the south of them.

The vines are dieing back and the squash are ripening. There will be about 25 squash, enough for my wife and me but not very many to give away. This is the same area that the squash grew in last year in a conventional hill planting and I will be doing a comparison post about last years yield to this years SFG style of gardening. As usual, all comments are welcome. John

A remarkable potato.

After the garden had been planted, I had a volunteer potato sprout. I soon pulled it out, after a few days, another sprout appeared, and I removed it. Eventually two more sprouts appeared from under the frame of the RB/SFG. I thought if that potato wants to grow that much I will let it go and see what happens. Well I needed to access the backside of the pepper and eggplant beds to harvest and the potato plant had to go.

 

I found a pile of potatoes on top of the path and a couple under the edge of the bed. That crazy potato had raised the bed from 3” to 4”. There is about 2” to 3” of wood chip mulch on the path.

 

That one potato plant produced 31/2 lb of potatoes not counting the many small ones. The scale looks like crap but weighs very accurately. The basket weighs exactly one lb. Make sure to read the rest of the post after this next photo as this potato also raised some interesting questions.

 

The next series of photos are of a portion of the stalk that I cut off that shows various views of potatoes that were growing totally off the ground and potato stolons above leaf branches. In addition, these are Yukon Gold potatoes that are not supposed to do well in a tower, now I am wondering why. Maybe another experiment is coming next spring. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John

I do grow veggies other than potatoes

I have been posting about potatoes so often I thought I should show you my other veggies. This is my asparagus bed. I planted two-year-old crowns and supposedly, I can make limited cuttings next spring. They look so spindly I sort of dough it.

The bell peppers are Big Dippers and are loaded with blossoms.

The Bibb lettuce is fantastic and will be my annual lettuce. It also did very well in the GH last winter.

The broccoli looks good and is about to develop heads. The three plants in front are purple cabbage.

I have not grown Brussels sprouts for a while and will not be able to predict outcome until late summer. And another three purple cabbage in front.

The Butterbush winter squash have sprouted and have to grow about 10” North to reach the trellis. I will tie them to the sticks to get them off the soil as soon as possible to help me combat the squash bugs.

Cauliflower is not showing any sign of heads yet but it usually takes longer than the broccoli.

The eggplant is chucking full of blossoms and looking great.

I free sowed the endive and thin it as we eat. As soon as I thin it, it fills back in.

Onion plants are just taking root and hard to see. I also planted 12 Alisa Craig onions that can get up to five pounds each.

Cannot say much about the tomatoes except they are on there way to higher places.

The Zucchini are on there way to the first rung of the ladder. I will see how this goes.

The sweet potatoes are growing slowly, the weather has been very cool but I hope the roots are developing well.

Ok, I have to say something about the potatoes. The ones in the foreground are the Kennebec and the ones in the background are the Yukon Gold. The fence to the right is four ft tall. As usual, all comments are welcome.

I dig potatoes

2009-05-26

 

While not yet, but I am looking forward in anticipation. The Yukon Gold potatoes are growing gangbusters.

 

They were planted 8”deep 16 days ago and are now 16+” tall.

 

I do not remember what day I planted the Kennebec potatoes but they broke through the surface about 4-5 days ago.

 

Which brings me to the potato tower; I planted one Kennebec spud in the tower 8” deep the same time as the other Kennebec spuds.

 

It broke through the surface the same day as the first Kennebec spud in the beds and I quickly put the first tier in place.

 

This is a close-up of the previous photo.

 

The next morning I filled the tier about half way and placed some compost up against the plant to the leaves.

 

This is a close-up of how I covered the plant. It is about 2-3” below the surface of the compost.

 

By the next morning, it had grown another couple of inches and I pulled some compost into the hole covering the stem.

 

I repeated this for two more days and the tier was full.

 

I added the second and last tier and will repeat the process until it is full. The tower is 20 ½” tall and that should be enough to show if the process works for me or not. As usual, all comments are welcome.    John

One thing leads to another

2009-05-17

 

The trellis in yesterday’s post is 15’ long and I used 16’ hog panels which gave me two12” pieces of scrap panel. I wanted to try growing summer squash vertically and needed to come up with a trellis to grow two summer squash plants on. I had some old fence posts on hand and some outdoor electrical cable ties and the two scrap panels was all I needed. Now if I can encourage the Zucchini to grow up the trellis, I will be in Hog Heaven.

 

Tonight will be the second night in a row with freezing or below freezing temperatures. I gathered up enough containers to cover the veggie plants but the apples are in jeopardy. All I can do now is to hope for the best. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John 

  

A trellis for winter squash

2009-05-16

I was calling my trellis the ‘Mother of all trellises” but that was being a little presumptuous. The cyclone fence around the garden was four feet tall and I thought that would be a little small for summer squash. My DW and I love the Butterbush squash and it vines about five or six feet so I wanted to increase the height of the existing fence to six feet high. The problem was the fence producers do not make couplers to extend the height of the corner or line post. I knew there had to be something out there I could use.

 

What I found was automotive tail pipe couplers and since line/corner post came at a minimum of six-foot lengths and I would be scraping two feet, so I also used two-foot lengths of tail pipe.

 I reinstalled the original top rail on top of the extensions.

  

The trellis will be holding about 110 to 120 pound of squash so I added a line post in the center of the span.

 

I added cross members also to tie in the seams of the panels.

 I checked Tractor Supply’s web site and they claimed to have cattle panel on stock. After driving 20 miles I found out they only had hog panel. The hog panel is made using the same gage steel and the same size, 36” X 16’ so that is what I used. I wish I had taken a photo before I unloaded the truck. Can you imagine hauling 16’ long panels in a Ranger with a 6” bed? You can see at the far end of the trellis where I added a diagonal support to the corner post. When I finish the fence and gates at the open end, I will also add diagonals at the corner and on the line post. We get some strong summer storms with high winds so a little support will not hurt. As usual, all comments are welcome.    john

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

While sitting on the porch having a BM

2009-05-13

While sitting on the back porch having a BM and waiting for my butt to catch up with me, I was recapping my accomplishments of the day. I mowed the lawn, planted the sweet potatoes, Peppers, eggplant and ran some errands. I started to plant with the sweet potatoes; I remembered a post by Granny about using vinyl floor tile for a template to space plants in a RB/SFG bed. Ok I made my template, now what do you do with a floor tile with a 2 ¼” hole in the middle and a 2” auger? You plant plants of course.

 

I cannot believe the condition of the sweet potato slips when you receive them. It is amazing that they survive the ordeal. Next spring I will be saving some of the smaller tubers and try to root them in time for planting. I need some information on how and when to try it though.

 

Last year a pesky wabbit wiped out the sweet potatoes after it was too late to buy replacements. As a result, a fence was installed until they are big enough not to be destroyed by the wabbit.

 

The eggplant came next; they are planted at one plant per 2.7 squares.

 

Then came the peppers also at one plant per 2.7 squares. Tomorrow I will plant the Cole crops. That will leave only the squash and the continuing planting of the salad bed. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John

 

Sometimes your mind is changed for you

While cleaning up the shop, I checked the potato chitting progress. To my surprise, some of the sprouts were turning black near the very tip. I do not know if it was the low humidity or the temperature variation but it never happened when they sprouted in the fruit cellar. I decided to plant them as soon as possible. 

 

My potato beds are 2’ wide and I use a folding rule as a guide to plant location. I will start 6” form the end of the bed with the first row and 12” from the end of the bed with the second row which stagers the plants from row to row. A bulb planter works nice in compost to produce a 2” hole 5” deep which is perfect for the small seed potatoes. 

 

Here you can see the full bulb planter and the hole I just made with the spud in place. I use the small end of a dial rod to poke the compost out of the planter and back into the hole. The pieces of mini-blind slats are used to mark the location of the last spud in a row. If I have to leave for some reason, it can be difficult to see where I stopped.

 

After all seed potatoes are planted, I top-dressed the beds another 3” bringing the depth of the seed potatoes to 8”.

 

I also planted the potato tower and top-dressed it. All potatoes that were planted today were Kennebec and were planted in the same fashion. 

 

I could not help noticing how the Yukon Gold potatoes were growing. They were planted two weeks to the day before this photo. If the Kennebec potato in the tower grows this fast, it will require daily attention and early in the morning before the sun hits the plant stem. I think I understand why some people say they got additional potatoes but it was not worth the effort. Nevertheless, I am going to try to do it correctly and we will see what happens. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John 

The Tomatoes are planted. (both of them)

We are supposed to have a day and one half with out rain and the grass is too wet to mow so I planted my tomatoes. Another attribute of gardening in a soil less mix is you can plant right after a rain and not ruin the soil. In this photo, I have dug a trench about 6” deep and about 10” long. I add about a hand full of garden tone and a tablespoon of Epson salts and mix them into the soil. Then I will trim the bottom leaves off for about 8” above the root ball and lay the plant horizontally in the trench.

 

I temporarily tie the plant to a stake until it grows upright on its own. Then I will install the tomato cages after any danger of frost is past.

 

As usual, all comments are welcome.    John

Chitting Potatoes among other things

About twelve days ago, I removed the Kennebec seed potatoes from the fridge and placed them in a standard nursery flat and covered them with another flat upside down.  

 

This photo taken yesterday shows the sprouts starting to grow. 

 

As you can see, the spuds are forming many sprouts. After all the sprouts are formed, I will remove all but the two nicest ones in an effort to reduce the number of small potatoes. It is claimed that this will increase the size of the remaining potatoes, we shall see.

 

Speaking of potatoes, I added four inches to the top of my sweet potato bed, bringing the depth to twelve inches (11”). 

 

Some of the plants are on the way to there new home. I have several to get rid of yet and mine will be planted this week or next. The GH will then be closed down until mid to late August when I will start the winter garden. 

 

As usual all comments are welcome.     John

Yesterday was a beautiful day

While yesterday was a beautiful day, I cut grass and got some planting done. The SFG/RB accessories worked great and I could have planted all day. I used scallions and radishes to make my grid, which should/could have been planted earlier. Oh well it will be there for the second planting. 

 

I planted two types of lettuce, Bibb and Little Gem along with direct sowing spinach and endive. The tomato plant is an Early Girl and should give me some toms very early. J

 

The winter onions look great but I only use these for onion sets that I grow all winter in the GH. 

 

My hardiness zone has changed form 5 to 5B. The minimum temps. and frost dates have not changed so the USDA has confused me again. I am going to take a chance on an early spring though with the planting but keep some buckets and hot caps handy in case of frost/freeze. So here is to a fantastic 2009 gardening season. As usual all comments are welcome.     John 

New Asparagus Bed

The asparagus crowns arrived yesterday. My goal today was to get them planted before the roots dried out.  I dug two trenches about 16ins apart and will place the crowns about 16ins apart in the rows.

 

The light colored material you see is wood ashes. They have been there for 3-4mo and should be well leached out. The crowns are planted about 5ins deep and as soon as the shoots appear, I will top-dress the beds another 2-3ins.

 

All the crowns are in place and all I have to do now is to water them good.

 

 

If the weather holds out long enough tomorrow, I will plant my Yukon Gold potatoes in the first two boxes. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John

 

SFG core sample

While I could not take, it anymore and just had to see what is going on down there so I took a core sample today. The SFG bed is 8” deep so I cut a piece of 3” drainpipe 8” long and drove it into the bed. I then sliced the drainpipe length wise to free the core. I was not surprised when the top portion just fell apart. I was surprised though when the bottom portion had a smeared surface. It had a good percentage of organic material but there seemed to be a material that was like plain old garden soil. Could it be worm casings?

 

I broke up part of the bottom portion just to look-see. There were several wormholes that did not show up on photos but they were active. I still cannot believe that they could make that much casing in a year’s time.

 This is a close up of the bottom portion of the core and it almost looks like soil blocks. Does that mean that through time the beds will fill up with worm casings? As usual, all comments are welcome.

 

 

Top dressing a raised bed

 
Having no formal education in gardening I am always questioning what I do. Recently there was a discussion on one of the forums about vermiculite. I do not remember the specifics about the discussion but it led me to this inquiry.

I had sent this email to the Schundler Co. the largest vermiculite/pearlite producer on the east coast.

Hi my name is John and I have used vermiculite extensively in the garden and a hobby greenhouse. I have read that vermiculite does not breakdown do they mean chemically or structurally? After about three years I cannot find any of it. Should I be replacing it after so many years?

This is their response.

It is a “soft” rock which is to say it may have just been crushed to the point that you don’t recognize it.  For aeration and water retention you should replenish it.

Now I get in trouble it got me to thinking. I have put literally tons upon tons of compost on my garden every year for 36 years. After all that time and compost the height of my garden has not changed. This leads me to believe that when compost is totally decomposed it must be about as thick as a layer of dust. Also I have learned that it takes a very long time for peat moss to decompose. Some of my friends from the forums are SFG purest and justly so they use the recommended mix of 1/3 peat 1/3 vermiculite and 1/3 compost with very excellent results. Can I assume if I had a 6” raised bed and filled it with the recommended mix and did not top dress it for 3 to 4 years I would end up with about 2” of peat with just a residue of compost and vermiculite?  If this is true then shouldn’t you top-dress with a mixture of 50% compost and 50% vermiculite and blend/till it with the remaining mix from the previous year to maintain the integrity of the SFG?

Any comments to set my thinking straight would be appreciated

John

SFG Accesory for Old F#%ts

Certain limitations are creeping in due to age. I can kneel on something soft but getting back up can be a problem. I made a kneeling pad to slip on the edge of my SFGs. The handles for getting back up are from a recycled lawn mower handle and I don’t know what the grips were on.

 

My plunge into Square Foot Gardening

Early December, 2007 I was in the process of building the boxes for the raised beds. I was a little apprehensive about setting them on top of excellent garden soil I had built up over a 35 year period.  They will be 8ins deep and filled with finished compost, hopefully before the hard winter sets in.

Mid December, My progress to date is, the two boxes on the left and the three boxes in the center are finished and in place. I am currently building the three boxes for the right. The poly tubing will be about six ins. below ground level and the soaker hose will be about three ins. below the bedding surface. Can’t wait for spring!!

Mid April, Every thing is in place and ready to plant. A good amount of effort later I’m still hoping I did the right thing.

Mid June, I’m feeling very good about making the move to SFG. Some people say you can’t grow vegetables in 100% compost or you should have between 5% and 8% compost well these are growing in 100% compost. Every thing is doing well except for two boxes because of a pesky wabit but I think he has moved on.