Garden Salad

A salad from my garden! The winter greens are especially nice and crunchy. We've had frost for the past two weeks, but not to grown level.

Mesclun

The mesclun is growing so well! I've gone out several times with a pair of scissors and cut a quarter of the square, enough to make a salad. In less than a week, it has gown back again.

Cabbage Caterpillars

Do you see the little cabbage moth caterpillars on the back of the kale leaves? We started out by picking them off, but we couldn't keep up.

A week later (on Halloween) all we had was skeleton kale!

Then the caterpillars moved on to the turnips to eat and grow fat. We bought some bt, but we haven't used it yet. The caterpillars seem to be only on one side of the garden. I want to get rid of them before the find the red Russian kale on the other side.

First Harvest: Radishes

We harvested half the radishes and ate them for dinner. It was fun to have all different colors. They were nice and spicy. I was surprised at the different sizes. We left some in the ground because they seemed quite small. I planted a second crop a few weeks ago and they're sprouted now. I think I'll pull up the rest of the radishes in this square and plant more lettuce.

Lettuce and Spinach

The lettuce in growing well. Take a look at the previous post and see how much they've grown in just three weeks. I can tell I disturbed the seeds by watering soon after they were planted, because the square is not evenly covered with lettuce plants. I'm looking forward to the day when I can take my scissors and fill the salad bowl.

The spinach is becoming recognizable. I think everything has slowed down some now that the days are getting shorter and the nights are cooler.

Growing Nicely

Can you see the onion sprouts? They're so tiny. They will become red and green scallions.

The mesclun is growing. I can start to see the different kinds of lettuce.

These are the sugar snap peas, the biggest plants in garden so far. They're supposed to grow to vines five feet tall, so I'm going to have come up with some kind of a support pretty soon. I may use an old tomato cage.

We're supposed to have heat wave of 100 degrees tomorrow. I just watered everything. I'll water again in the morning and drape the shade cloth over the cage before I go to work.

Territorial Seeds

I planted some more seeds. I couldn't find collards, turnips or kale here, so I ordered these seeds from Territorial Seeds in Cottage Grove OR (a blast from the past!).

The red Russian kale is my favorite kind of kale, so I'm looking forward to eating it. It's very tender and sweet. I've heard that collard plants get very tall and you can keep picking leaves from them. I hope that kale and collards will be my winter vegetable staples.

I planted these last weekend and the turnips and collards have already sprouted. I get just one collard plant in one square foot, so I hope it does well!

Thinning the Radishes

I thinned the radishes last weekend by pulling out the extra sprouts. I decided to save and eat the extras. I put them in a salad, but I couldn't taste them at all. Oh, well.

When I thinned the bok choi a few days later, I clipped the extras with scissors. That was faster!

Sprouts!

The radishes sprouted first, on Friday, in just 5 days. These are Easter Egg Radishes from Renee's Garden in Felton CA. They're supposed to be white, pink, red or purple. I bought a lot of seeds from Renee's Garden, thinking that because it's nearby, the plants should do well here. I can see why they say radishes are good to grow for kids. It's very satisfying to see them sprout so soon.

Now I have the hard job of thinning them. The author of Square Foot Gardening says to use scissors to cut off the seedlings you don't want. I may pull the radishes to put in a salad.

This is the mesclun--baby salad greens. I'm looking forward to a whole square foot full of little lettuce leaves of different kinds.

Squared and Planted

We put the grid across the top of the garden box to make it an official square foot garden. The squares look awfully small. It will be interesting to see how much food I actually get from it.

Planting peas. I just used my finger to poke holes in the soil. It feels like sticking my finger into a really dense, moist chocolate cake! (In fact, I've been craving cake ever since I planted.)

My dh built this cage to protect the garden, especially from the cat (who might think it's a giant dirt box just for him). I can also drape shade cloth over it if the weather gets hot again.

Detail of the garden cage. It's made of pvc pipe and mesh. The whole thing lifts easily off the garden box.

Filling the Box

I cut weed cloth to fit the box, then positioned it and set the box on top of it. I decided to center it against the edge of the patio, because I can see my new box from my kitchen window. That way I hope I'll remember to keep it watered.

Now it's time to mix up the potting soil. The method described in The All New Square Foot Garden worked really well. I was able to handle 8 cubic feet of soil myself. (Although my should does hurt a little now!) I spread out a big tarp and poured out my three kinds of compost and mixed it together with a shovel.

Then I added the vermiculite. The mixing method is to fold over the tarp and pull it so the soil rolls over itself. Then walk around to the next edge of the tarp and repeat till it's well mixed. This picture is the mixed compost and vermiculite.

Next I added the peat moss and mixed by folding and pulling the tarp.

Then I pulled the tarp up to the edge of the box and dumped the soil in to fill it up one third of the way. Next I thoroughly wetted the soil, and then continued to add layers. The whole process took me about one and a half hours to mix the soil and add it to the box.

Here's the finished 4 foot by 4 foot by 6 inch box, filled with soil. My calculations were good and the box is filled just to the top. Amazing!

The Box is Completed

Here's the box sitting on the patio. dh built it for me! It's glued and screwed together, with overlapping corners. With all the other weekend chores, I didn't have time to fill it, but I hope to get to that tomorrow. The weather has cooled down nicely, so maybe it's time to plant soon.

Gathering the Materials

We spent a good part of Saturday shopping for supplies for building the garden: Lowe's, Home Depot and Orchard Supply Hardware. I'm excited about the seeds. The little round carrots will grow in just 6 inches of soil. There's room for sixteen different kinds of plants, so I can still buy some more seeds. I think I'll get more lettuce and some kale and collards.

These are the bags of materials for the planting mix. It's made up of vermiculite, peat moss and compost. Eight cubic feet altogether to fill the box. No digging in my rock-hard soil.

Here are some miscellaneous supplies for building: screwdriver, drill, screws, wood glue. The wood slat are for making the square foot grid on the top of the box.

These are the redwood 2 by 6 boards for the sides of the garden box. Home Depot cut them for us. We started with 8 foot boards, and there was no charge to cut them in half. Good deal! As you can see, dh has already drilled pilot holes for the screws in the ends.

Before....

I'm getting ready to build a Square Foot Garden this weekend. This is space in my backyard where it will go. My sister-in-law who came to visit several weeks ago is so excited about her garden! So I decided to give it a try.

The idea comes from the book All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. This weekend my husband and I are going build a 4 foot by 4 foot raised bed, only 6 inches deep and fill it with the special planting mix described in the book.

It was over 90 degrees out today, so I'm not sure if it's time to plant my winter garden yet, but we'll be ready for it. Stay tuned!!