Square foot garden experiment and the teepee experiment

Finally I am trying square foot gardening in my garden.  It will be 4 feet by 10 feet and contain carrots, beets, onions, kale, collards, spinach, mustard and chard.  If all goes will it will give me greens and veggies for several months, hopefully well into winter.

The above image shows where the square foot garden is.  See the poles and cat litter bucket (my garden seat)?  That is where the north end of the square foot garden is located.  Today I planted 8 of the 40 squares.  Over the next week it will be finished, it looks like the weather isn't going to be cooperative for the next couple of days.  The two plants are my hoarhound and sage plants from last year.  We had such a mild winter this year that the sage plant never went dormant, it stayed green all winter.

The image below shows where the red potatoes have been placed.  I put them in a month ago.  They are hiding under that pile of old hay.  To the left and behind there is the place where the sweet potatoes are going in.  In front of the two green plants is where the strawberries will be.

Last but not least is the area where beans and peas will be.  I put up these bamboo tripods, or teepees, the other day to see how well they will stand, and to help mark the area so I would know where to put the square foot garden.  I needed to know how much area they will require.  I have never really lashed a teepee tripod before.  A little learning curve is all it took to get them ready.  I went to youtube and learned how :)  I'm using sisal twine for the lashings.  It was easy peasy.  All is good to go. 

Come on Summer!  Let's roll!

Spring 2012 Easter day April 8

So begins the new gardening year.  There isn't much to do yet but I have the rabbit fence up and planting plans on paper.  There will be new additions this year.  I will attempt  to grow everbearing strawberries and sweet potatoes, two things I have never grown.  This should be fun.

As you can see in the picture, I have the fence up and some bales of old hay to use as mulch.  I have begun to extend the garden towards the back (east) by a few more feet.  That new area is on the other side of the fence and will be growing tomatoes and butternut squash.

Inside the fence will be the usual beans, peas, red potatoes, some herbs...and some strawberries if I can get these to grow.  I am really looking forward to growing sweet potatoes.  I love them.  Last year I didn't have room for broccoli, carrots or greens, these are in the plans for this year, along with a short row of broccoli for fresh eating.  

For greens I will plant kale, collards, spinach, mustard, and chard.  They will go in a few plants at a time, every few weeks, so I will (hopefully) get a steady supply of some greens all summer and, weather permitting, into next winter.

The beans will be pole type, both green and yellow.  I really like the yellow ones and prefer the taste of them over the green ones but the green ones grow better and produce more in my experience.  

I will use last year's conduit for trellising this year but will buy some bamboo poles to make the rest of the trellises I will need,  There will be 9 or10 trellises, 3 for green/yellow beans, 1 for bantu beans, 1 or2 for italian peas, 1 for squash, 2 for tomaotes, 1 for sweet potatoes.  Using the bamboo poles I will make tripods @ 3 to a, row then span 2 poles across the top of the 3 tripods to support the growing veggies.  I think the bamboo will look much nicer than the metal conduit.  I have purchased 2500 feet of sisal twine to make the trellis netting for the veggies to climb.  More fun  hehehe :)

There are two other things I am planting this year.  This strange looking picture shows where they will be planted.  The picture shows the north end of the garden area where the hay bales are and the expanse of lawn between the garden and the street.  I have played with the picture a little to show where the garden will be expanded for next year, also to show where the red raspberry and blueberry plants will go.  At first I will plant just 5 raspberry plants and 3 blueberry plants.  The raspberries I have chosen are ever bearing so I can expand them next year by taking cuttings in the spring.  The blueberries are 3 different high bush varieties that will ripen over an extended period. 

Now that we are into winter, and it is almost Christmas 2011, I am planning next year's garden.  There will be berries added as well as a little more space for veggies.  I plan to plant 4-6 red raspberry plants,  3-4 high bush blueberries, and 30-50 strawberries.  The hard part about this will be waiting for an entire year to begin reaping reward from the berry plants.  "sigh" 

This year I managed to get 12 quarts of green beans plus a couple of pints, there are also 6 quarts of tomato juice and a few quarts and pints of canned tomatoes.  Last week I ate the last of my potatoes.  Hopefully next year will have a better tomato crop.  I also made something like 9 pints of green tomato relish, some of it with jalapenos in it "grin".

Oh and then there is the squash,  I have eaten and made pies from 6 butternut squashes, eaten all but one buttercup that is still in the cupboard where i keep the squashes.  There is still 11 butternuts and one buttercup in there.  Happy happy


I am thoroughly thrilled about all the fresh food I ate on an almost daily basis for over 2 months last summer.  I hope I can extend that to 3 or more months next year by planting a succession of cooking greens. 

I am pleased with the way this year's garden grew and am looking forward to an even better one next year, weather permitting.

The one main thing I will do differently is to feed my tomatoes differently, I think they got too much nitrogen fertilizer,  I will buy specially formulated tomato fertilizer next year.  There will be 3X the amount of pole beans and I will get to plant an entire row of the bantu beans and the italina fagiolina beans (I think they are peas, they have a flower similar to sweet peas, they are really yummy). 

Italian fagiolina beans

These were called beans when I purchased the seeds.  Well over the summer I have discovered they are more like peas than beans.  Their blossoms are like peas, their flavor is more like peas than beans.   This little bit in the bowl is some of the few I allowed myself to taste test to see if I wanted to grow them again next year.  I do.  They can be used the same way as bean or pea pods, or can be used as soup beans or peas.

They produce over an extended period so they will be good for fresh eating throughout the growing season and if they are left on the plant to mature into seed, the plant will begin producing more as soon as the mature pods are picked.  As of today there are still all three stages of growth on these plants, blossoms, immature edible pods, and older pods with mature seed in them. 

They are climbers like peas, they don't get very tall like peas.  So I think they are a member of the pea family.

Zucchini, Butternut, and Buttercup squash

Here is the first zucchini from the new plant that is replacing the one I had to destroy earlier in the summer.  I like to pick them small, around 4-6 inches.  I only use them for frying.  

 The zucchini plant is about half the size the first one was but it has just begun producing so it should be able to grow much larger, weather permitting.

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Yesterday I cut some butternut and buttercup squash from the vines.  The two butternuts  were on a dead vine and are not quite ripe but I think they will be ok to eat in a few months.  There are 3 or 4 more butternuts still ripening, maybe more, I have forgotten how many are out there now.  The vines keep growing despite my best efforts to prevent it lol.  I have stopped trying and they are overrunning everything around them :)  This is ok though, they aren't hurting anything, only making it a bit tricky to pick tomatoes and beans near them.

Two of the buttercups have been on the vine a lot longer than the rest of them and they feel much lighter than they should be, are they sun dried?  lol, we will see :)

second crop and intercropping

8/3/2011

The last couple of days I have spent ripping out the spent bush bean plants to make way for a late crop of spinach, beets, and hopefully collards, the time left for them to grow is short but if heavy frost holds off long enough there will be time for me to enjoy fresh greens, yummmmm

The bean and potato plants were mowed and caught in the bag then placed in the composter :)

I have also harvested about 2/3 of my potato crop for early ones.  I got about 8 pounds of them, many still very small, bite size.

As you can see in the foreground of the above image, the yard and part of the garden has been overrun with crab grass.  The real grass isn't growing, it has been too hot and dry so it's dormant.  The last couple of days we have had a little bit of rain but not enough.

Pole beans are about finished

Have not had any ripe cherry tomatoes and I have picked only a few partially ripe rutgers to ripen on the kitchen counter.  There are loads of nice green ones of all types out there though.  I planted 5 different types of tomatoes.

The foreign beans are doing very well, they have full pods and I have been picking and shelling the most mature/dry pods.  The image shows Bantu beans from Uganda.  They are in several colors, pink which turns purple when they dry, gray, and tan.  Next year I will be able to sample these beans, but for this year's crop, I am saving them for seed.  I started out with 15 seeds this spring.   This year's crop should plant 20-30 feet next year.  That's still not a lot for soup beans but it should give me a few small pots of beans :)

The Italian Fagiolina beans are very small.  They won't make much when they are all shelled.  I'm not sure I want to bother with them next year, my space is limited and they don't produce enough for what space they use.   But I will wait till next year to make that decision.  If I can, I would like to keep them as part of the garden.

7-22-2011 progress

I have canned 5 quarts of green beans and have another batch awaiting me to break and can, happy happy.

The first picture is of both the African and Italian beans.  You can see that the Africans, on the left, are filling out nicely.

The Italians are a bit surprising,.  They have a really pretty flower somewhat like a pea.  I will try to remember to get a pic of one if there are any more of them.  What is most surprising is the growth habit of the bean pods, (the second picture) I have never seen anything like it.  They stick almost straight up in the air and are long and very thin at this point.  It is truly different from what I am accustomed to seeing.  The only info I have is these beans are quite small for a dried bean, but that they can be eaten as young pods like green beans or can be used as soup beans once the seeds are developed and dried.  Oh, and that they ripen over a long period of time so if you want to use them as snap beans, you would have to be picking them every day, but....don't we do that anyhow with our usual varieties?  I plan to let them fill out the pods so that I can have more seed for next year. 

Here is the new zucchini plant.  Hope it will give me at least a few more zuchs before the plant succombs to frost.

These are the two Indian (Africa) that I have allowed to mature.  It looks like I should have let more of them grow.  I didn't know the mature size of them so decided not to let too many grow in case they were huge.  At this point they look like they won't be very large at all.

Here are two of my 6 or more ( I forget how many there are lol) buttercup squashes that are all at this size now.  Beautiful.

Butternut squash, at last count I found 5 like this one and a few smaller ones, I am culling the new ones that try to grow so that the remaining ones will mature to a nice size.

When I planted the squashes I  thought I would be happy with around 12 nice sized mature ones at the end of the season.  It looks like I will get very close to that number, probably a few more.  That would average 2+ nice fruits for each plant.  Yes, squash is technically a fruit.


The rest of the garden is doing very well, I have gotten over 5 pounds of potatoes by just reaching under the straw and picking them when I need a few for supper.  :) 

The tomatoes are growing rapidly now.  I bought two 50 foot soaker hoses and this is keeping everything green and growing in this too hot and humid weather we are having.  There are no red ones yet.

I found this nasty worm on a tomato plant.  It is a tomato horn worm that has been parasitized by a species of wasp.  This is a very good thing to find.  Poor worm :(  It means that these little cocoons will develop into more parasitic wasps and kill more horn worms.  This is the balance of nature at work.  I have not seen any horn worm damage on the tomato plants so either I am not looking under enough leaves lol or there isn't much to speak of.  By the way, the "horn" on these worms does not sting, they are quite docile, happy to have a tomato plant to munch on.