Luke's Square Foot Victory Garden

Long time since the last update...

2011-01-10T15:16:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess I let this blog go last year. Just a quick update -- while I was in Germany, we had a terrible heat wave and drought. The garden suffered and the overall harvest was about the same as the previous year, but with twice the space, so really not that great a season.

Anyway, I've begun to plan this year's garden and will place my seed order before too long. I'll try to be more diligent in updating this blog also!

June Update

2010-06-15T17:32:00.001-07:00

Things are cranking along. The spring crops are beginning to run their course, and I'm working on replanting some empty squares.

The lettuce is nearly finished. Maybe another week before it's all done. Same with spinach. And I've begun to tap into the last two squares of radishes. I know from last year that radishes planted in June or later here just don't develop, so once this round is finished, I'll wait until Fall for more.

I've erected a makeshift fence to try to keep the squash penned in. It's growing like mad and I have a number of small green squash growing (so I guess the bees did their job). Pulled the single square of turnips that was being enveloped by squash leaves -- got about a pound of turnips from the square.

I have realized the stakes I'm using for cucumbers are woefully too short as the plants are already nearing the top. Oh well, I'll know better next year. But I do have more cucs planted in the pea squares, in hopes that the peas fill finish in time for the cucs to climb the trellis.

I have a number of small tomatoes on the vines now. But I'm still worried about my spacing with these plants -- it's quite a dense mass at the moment and not the easiest thing to maintain.

I will be overseas on business for the entire month of July, so I'm trying to get things squared away so my wife will have an easier time tending to the garden. The good thing is that July is more or less harvesting and pruning with not much planting being done.

Harvesting

2010-06-08T17:26:00.000-07:00

No photos this time -- been pretty busy with other stuff. But the garden is producing nicely now. Steady harvest of lettuce, spinach (though this is nearly finished), radishes, peas, basil, parsley and even a couple small turnips.

I didn't realize how large the leaves of the turnips would get, so had to pull a couple of them to thin it out. Nearly a pound of spinach has been harvested -- the leafminers only put a small dent in the overall yield. Roughly 60 servings of lettuce, 22 ounces of snap peas, a bunch of parsley and many basil leaves have also been harvested.

My broccoli and cauliflower are healthy, but growing more slowly than last year. I was harvesting by mid-June last year, but it's looking more like late June for this crop -- I hope it's doesn't get too hot too soon.

Another small issue -- I thought I planted 2 vining squash, and hoped to train them up 2 stakes. I have 6 squares devoted to them. But as it turns out, this doesn't look like a vining variety. They're getting a little out of control, but are growing like crazy. I'll have to figure out a way to reign them in a bit.

The tomatoes are growing fast now, too. I'm out there pinching suckers nearly every day now. I'm having my doubts though that my spacing and structures are going to be sufficient. I'll try to get a photo next time to illustrate this.

So far, so good. The pests have generally left me alone so far, but I am still spraying BT every 7-10 days.

First harvest

2010-05-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

Well, the only casualty from that frost was one basil plant. I had it covered, but it still turned black and died. Other than that, everything else survived.

As of today, the garden is fully planted -- every square is occupied. I transplanted my peppers, squash and cucumbers, as well as direct sowed more carrots, radishes and cilantro. I also planted some cucumber seeds in my pea squares because I read somewhere that by the time the cucs needs the trellis, the peas are finished. I'm experimenting with that this year, since it would maximize the space and trellis usage if it works.

Harvested our first crops today -- 6 radishes and enough lettuce for 3 servings of salad. I forgot how much better homegrown lettuce tastes versus store-bought lettuce.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do about staking my front-row tomatoes as well as my cucs and squash. They want $2.50/ea. for basic wooden garden stakes at the store. And since I'd need about 15, I'm trying to figure out a free or cheap way to stake the remaining plants. I'd build more of my EMT trellises, but the plants in question are pretty close to their northern neighbors, and I was hoping to go with something smaller and simpler to avoid shade issues. I'll keep thinking. Still another couple weeks before anything is large enough to need the trellis.

Leafminers having a field day with my spinach again this year. Tried covering them with cheese cloth, but the birds destroyed that (I guess trying to use it for nest material). I just hope they leave enough alone for use to actually eat some spinach.

Overview:

Lettuce, spinach, carrots, onions, broc, parsley, tomatoes:

Radishes, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, beets, squash, cauli, carrots, peas, beans:

Frost warning

2010-05-09T15:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a couple days of strong winds and tonight we have a frost warning in effect, with overnight lows perhaps around 30 degrees. I ran out to Home Depot this afternoon and got a couple 1/2" PVC and some plastic and rigged up a makeshift cover for my tomatoes. I knew I was putting them out a bit early, but they were really suffering inside so I didn't have much choice. Hopefully my setup will survive.

The leafminers, my early nemesis, has returned. I keep finding their eggs under nearly every spinach leaf. I may have to cover those squares with bug netting or something this year.

Other than that, things are looking good. The carrots and beets have sprouted outside. Started my squash (which has sprouted) and cucumbers inside. My indoor-started cucs all shriveled up and died after transplanting last year, but I'll try again. I can always direct sow if these fail too.

Peas, cauliflower, radishes, beets...

Makeshift frost cover, onions, broccoli, lettuce, spinach...

Beets, turnips, carrots, radishes....

2010-05-02T14:52:00.000-07:00

It's too hot and I'm too lazy to take any pics today, but things are progressing nicely in the garden. Direct-sowed some more lettuce, radishes, carrots, turnips, chives and beets, and had my tomatoes and peppers out in the sun this weekend.

The tomatoes are getting really big, really fast. Too fast, in fact. They're beginning to outgrow my light setup. I think I may have to chance it and set them out early this week. There is no frost in the long-range forecast and I'm confident I could get them covered in time if a frost did spring up.

I'm trying some summer squash this year. I initially bought a pack of bush variety, but changed my mind and got a vining type and will try to go vertical with them.

Planting continues

2010-04-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

As of today, I have yellow onions, broccoli, parsley, peas and spinach out in the garden, and tomatoes, peppers and basil under the lights. Cauliflower and first round of lettuce is now hardening and will go out today or tomorrow. So far so good.

I do have a squirrel that seems to like digging around in my beds. He doesn't seem interested in the plants themselves, he's just digging holes. But I'm worried that some plants will get damaged in the process. I haven't actually seen him so I'm not sure how exactly he's getting in. I'll have to keep a closer eye on the situation.

I also may have found a source for free, composted horse manure, already bagged. This will go a long way to reduce my overall costs.

Ramping up

2010-04-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

As of today, I have onions and peas out in the garden. Parsley is hardening now and will go out tomorrow.

Inside, I have lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, basil, bell peppers and jalapenos started.

Got another few bags of wood chips for between the boxes, but other than that, all major projects are done. I'll get some new photos up once there's more stuff to take pictures of out there.

Done with construction

2010-03-24T16:49:00.000-07:00

Finally finished the major construction projects over the weekend. I'm very happy with how things turned out. Really feels like a garden now. The only thing left is to put a latch on the gate.

Nearly finished

2010-03-20T12:37:00.000-07:00

After a few more arduous days of work, I'm nearly finished with the construction of the new garden. Filled all the boxes, strung the grids, erected the trellises, layered wood chips between the boxes, and put up the fence. I still need to build a gate, but I'll save that for tomorrow.

Started my peppers a few days ago and will start my broccoli and cauliflower seeds tonight.

All in all, a pretty good couple weeks of work and things are really starting to come together.

Some may remember that I used $0.50 PVC elbows on my EMT trellises rather than the "proper" $5.00 ones. Well, after one season, they are holding up well. A couple popped off while moving them into storage, but they hammered back on without a problem and are holding well.

Filling boxes

2010-03-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

I was able to partially fill the last four boxes on Sunday. Still have a little ways to go, but should be able to finish next weekend.

Also strung my grid strings on 2 of the new boxes and planted 4 squares of yellow onions. My parsley seedlings in the basement are beginning to germinate as well.

Rain

2010-03-13T17:23:00.000-08:00

Spent several miserable hours in the cold, pouring rain this morning leveling and positioning the last boxes. Also started to fill them, but the weather began getting the better of me. I'm about 1/4 of the way done filling them. Probably need to make another run for manure/humus/compost to fill them. Hopefully the rain will let up a bit tomorrow so I can finish. I would have taken a picture but it was raining and blowing too hard. Maybe tomorrow.

Gathering supplies

2010-03-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

Picked up some more bagged manure and made a run to my vermiculite supplier and bought 4 bags. Just need another load of manure and some peat and I'm ready to mix my soil.

Leveled three of my four new boxes. It was a bit of a pain, and they're not perfect, but it should do. I'm sure they'll settle a bit as the season wears on.

Also been messing around with my layout. I think I solved my trellis-shade problem by loading one rear box with tomatoes and either trellis the north row and stake the front, or run the trellis down the middle and grow them up either side. Regardless, I will not be trellising the row of boxes south of those boxes and either set some stakes or put up small trellises (2-3 ft long -- sun will penetrate to northern box) in a sort of ad-hoc fashion as I need them.

So far, I'm very pleased with the progress so far. Another solid weekend of work, and all the major projects will be done. I'm hoping I can even get some onion sets in in time. I had my doubts that I'd make it a couple weeks ago.

New boxes are built

2010-03-08T03:57:00.000-08:00

Finished building the new boxes on Sunday. Painted them with boiled linseed oil this time to see if that will extend the life of the wood a bit. I still have to dig the boxes in and level them.

Also picked up my first load of manure (13 bags). Need about two more loads of that to fill the new boxes.

Also realized I have a bit of a problem with my layout plan. I have two adjacent 2x8 boxes running East-West. Directly in front of these is another pair of 2x8 boxes. The north side of all these boxes will have trellises. I was hoping to space these 2 feet apart, but I'm now realizing the trellises of the front boxes may shade the back boxes at certain points of the year. Trouble is, I need the boxes fairly tight to each other to save space, but I also need the trellis space for tomatoes, beans, cucumbers and peas. I'm wondering if 3ft spacing will be enough?

Good progress

2010-03-07T05:24:00.001-08:00

Over the past two days, our old metal shed was taken down, the wood foundation removed, some gravel shoveled out, and the ground leveled as well as possible. The ground has a slight slope to it and is not entirely even, but I think it should work. If anything, I may have to dig the high end of the boxes in a couple inches.

Last year's garden was four 4x4 boxes. I am reusing them this year (pushing them together in pairs so will effective be two 4x8's), and also adding four 2x8's which will have trellises along the north sides -- effectively 32 ft of trellis space. Total space will be 128 sq ft.

Last fall, on junk day, I found two huge coils of garden fencing with stakes. I should have enough to build a legit fence this year (rather than my jury-rigged chicken-wire cages I used last year). Gotta love free stuff!

It's been a while...

2010-01-28T04:09:00.000-08:00

I guess I got pretty lazy with the blog late last season! Anyway, I ended up with just over $300 worth of produce from the garden. I could have done better, but had to shut the garden down a bit early to get some backyard projects underway. Didn't have much of a fall crop.

I moved last season's boxes to a staging area and a new wooden shed was built where the boxes were. I'm in the process of moving the contents of the old, metal shed into the new one. When done with that, I'm taking down the old shed, and that area will become the new garden. Last year I had the boxes sitting on gravel, but this year I can sit them on the native soil, which is quite good. I will also be able to fence in the whole area rather than attaching those chicken wire panels directly to the boxes. That should make working in them a bit easier.

Last year I had 68 sq ft (including 2 SWC's which largely failed). This year will be 128 sq ft. I still have a lot to do, and need to get it done by early March, so I can get my onion seeds planted. I'll post some photos of the progress soon.

Lazy blogger

2009-08-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty lazy this month in terms of blogging, but rest assured, the garden is still producing. I've pulled a total of about 175 tomatoes (have canned a lot of sauce and salsa so far), 10 pounds of green beans, 3 slicing cucumbers (with 2 dozen baby cucs on the vines), and 10 pickling cucs (made 4 pints of refrigerator pickles), to mention a few crops.

The bell peppers have been strange -- I have 4 plants, only 2 of which have yielded some peppers. The others flower, but no peppers. I think I read somewhere that if peppers are exposed to temps below 55, the season is screwed up. We had a number of cool nights in June, so maybe that explains it. The Cayenne peppers are doing great though.

My tomato plants are all aflicted by what looks like early blight (although it's showing up late in the season). Yellow leaves with dark spots, that eventually shrivel up and die. The new growth still looks good (for now), and I'm still getting tomatoes, but this might be the beginning of the end. Walking around town, every garden I've seen with tomatoes has the same thing to varying degrees of severity. It's been a good run with them though, and I'm pretty pleased.

I transplanted my Fall brocolli and cauliflower today. I've been hardening them off this week in some pretty bad heat, and they've handled it pretty well so far. Considering I'll have to shut the garden down early this year to finish the backyard restructuring, I may not get any yield from these, but it's worth a shot.

It's been a while...

2009-08-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a while since the last update, and I have no new photos, but I wanted to post a quick entry to try to bring things up to date.

The tomatoes are coming in heavily now. Pulled almost 60 tomatoes (plus nearly 60 cherry tomatoes) so far. I've canned several pints of sauce and salsa, used some fresh spaghetti and pizza sauce, and used sliced tomatoes for salads and sandwiches. Even the plants in the SWC's, which look awful, are yielding some tomatoes, so maybe that endeavor won't be a total loss after all.

The cucumbers are coming steadily now. Made 3 pints of refrigerator pickles so far, with more to come. Two good sized General Lee slicing cucumbers have been picked as well.

Picked my first two bell peppers this week. Also picked a few carrots, which while fairly small, were good none the less.

The yellow onions were a bit underwhelming. Ended up with about 30 smallish onions from 4 squares (16/square). Definitely usable, but I was hoping for larger onions. They may have been slightly crowded, or it may have been poor quality sets I bought (from Walmart).

The next round of bush beans are well on their way. Probably about 2 weeks away from being knee-deep in beans again.

I think that brings us up to date. I'll try to get some photos taken this weekend for the next post.

Tomatoes, cucumbers & pole beans

2009-07-20T04:42:00.001-07:00

This is what I pulled from the garden this morning. An Heirloom Beefsteak, 7 cherry tomatoes, and four pickling cucumbers. Not bad for a Monday morning! I plan on making "refrigerator pickles" from these cucs and see how they turn out.

I'm also knee-deep in Kentucky Wonder pole beans. I harvested 3.5 pounds of them already from just 2 squares. And there are a lot more nearly ready beans on the vine, as well as the next wave starting to form. I had so many, I had to freeze most of them.

I've been keeping track of my harvest to get an estimate of the value of the produce I'm growing, using average store prices as a guide. So far, I've pulled about $80 worth from the garden. I'm pretty pleased with that, especially considering the tomatoes (a high value crop around here) are just starting to come in.

First tomatoes!

2009-07-17T05:50:00.000-07:00

Pulled my first few tomatoes today! I found 6 ripe cherry tomatoes buried in the foliage near the bottom of the plant. I hadn't noticed them ripening due to the dense leaves and the fact that this plant is caged.

They look good and are hopefully the first of many.

Stlll waiting on Tomatoes...

2009-07-15T03:57:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a while since my last update -- I've been busy with other stuff. And sorry there are no photos again, but since upgrading to a new version of my OS, my computer and camera aren't communicating very well. I hope to have it working soon, then I'll edit these older posts to include the photos I've been taking.

Anyway, since my last post, I've pulled out the peas which have run their course. I was a bit disappointed with the Mr. Big shelling peas. I only got about 7 ounces of peas from the 1 square. Not enough for a single meal really. The sugar snap peas were better (almost 2 lb. from 1 square) and we used them in salads, stir fry, eating raw. Next year, I think I'll skip the shelling peas and plant 3 of 4 squares of sugar snaps.

My first wave of bush beans are wrapping up now. I got one large harvest then a smaller one a little later -- about 2.5 lbs of beans from 4 squares. I have 8 more squares of them at different stages of growth for later harvests. My Kentucky Wonder pole beans are doing very well also. Another few days and I can start picking some of them.

My second batch of radishes were a flop. Not a single radish formed. Maybe it was too warm for them, plus I had something munching on the leaves. And my carrots don't seem to be developing. I pulled three and none were longer than 2 inches, and these were in the ground for 76 days when I pulled them. I have a few more squares going with them, so maybe there's still a chance for carrots this year.

The cucumbers are really taking off now. The National Pickling cucs have 2 or three cucumbers on the vine, and the General Lee's have some baby cucs forming as well. And the plant I nearly gave up on looks healthy as can be now, so all is well on the cuc front.

Still not a single ripe tomato yet. I have an estimated 175 tomatoes on the vine right now and, boy, are some getting big. A few have *just* started to change color a bit. And the ones in the SWC's are doing very poorly. The leaves are all turning yellow with crispy brown edges. I don't know what's getting them, but I'm not holding out much hope for them at this point.

So overall, things are going well. The cauliflower and broccoli I started indoors is germinating on schedule and progressing. The only issue I'm facing now is what to plant in vacant squares as I harvest. I don't really have anything I can put in right now in Mid-July, so I don't think I'm really optimizing my space at the moment.

Green beans

2009-07-06T04:56:00.000-07:00

The first harvest of bush beans is in full swing. So far have pulled 28 ounces of them from 3 squares worth. And I have 9 more squares of them well on their way, so we should have plenty of them for a while.

After a nice harvest of sugar snap peas a couple weeks ago, the next wave of them are coming in now. The shelling peas however seemed to have shut down. That's okay since I wasn't all that impressed with them. The yield was really too small to do much with. I don't think I'll grow them again next year.

The cucumber plants are really taking to the warm and sunny weather. The pickling cucs are heading up the netting. And the the slicing cucs are looking a lot better. The one I assumed was dead, is now putting out nice new growth too.

I also started a few broccoli and cauliflower seeds inside. With all the rearranging we have on the table for Fall, I'm not sure we'll get much of a harvest before we have to shut everything down, but there's no harm in trying.

Aside from that, not much else to report. I've just been watering/weeding/pruning for the last week or so. Still waiting on some tomatoes to ripen. I have a TON of them on the vine, though. If even half of them are usable, I'm going to have to learn how to can really quick!

Transitioning

2009-06-27T18:02:00.000-07:00

I have begun transitioning to Summer crops now that the Spring ones are finishing. I harvested the last of the lettuce earlier this week. Cut and washed it. We should have enough to last us through the weekend, and then that's it for fresh lettuce for the season. Planted bush beans, carrots and radishes in their place.

Also harvested what side shoots I could from my four broccoli plants and pulled them. Had about another half-bunch worth from the sideshoots. Planted some more bush beans and carrots in their place. My cucumbers have responded very well now that they're getting strong direct sun after being shaded by the broccoli for so long. Also cut the second cauliflower head (which was a bit smaller than the first, but still good), and replanted bush beans in that square.

Here are the peas (which partially blew off the netting during some wind last night), cucs next them, replanted squares where the broccoli were, peppers, carrots and bush beans.

Tomatoes, pole beans, bush beans, cayenne peppers, basil, swiss chard, parsley, cilantro, and not pictured -- carrots and bunching onions.

Tomatoes, bush beans and yellow onions.

This is the former lettuce patch. Now it's tomatoes, bush beans, carrots and radishes.

I have my money on these beefsteaks being the first ones to ripen.

The pole beans have grown past the top of the trellis. The one on the right reached over and is now growing along the top rung of the neighboring trellis.

After all the rainy and cool weather, it's finally starting to feel like June here in NJ. The warm weather crops should perk up now.

Cauliflower!

2009-06-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

Harvested the first of my two cauliflower heads. This one measured about 9 inches across and looks great. I could have waited a bit and seen if it got a little bigger, but I was impatient to have at least some cauliflower.

Here are some Ultimate Opener tomatoes. They look to be doing well. Might have a tomato or two by the 4th of July, which would be great!

Bush beans, flowering.

Here's my tangle of determinate tomatoes. Rutgers on the left, Romas on the right. I pruned a bit and that helped make some sense of the mess. Impossible to see, but there are some blooms in there.

Also spotted a ladybug crawling on my pole beans. Tried to get a picture but it was too blurry. I'm glad to have the help controlling my aphids. They seem to love my swiss chard and my peas. They're leaving everything else alone. I've been using a jet of water to wash them away and that seems to be keeping them at bay.

Rain, rain, rain

2009-06-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

It's been raining and raining and raining so no new photos to post. But I will summarize what's been happening since my last post.

The tomatoes continue to develop. I have small tomatoes on nearly all the indeterminate varieties now, and blooms on the determinates. I'm afraid though, that planting 2 determinate plants per 18 gal SWC was a mistake. They're starting to look like a big tangled mess. Also, one Ultimate Opener is starting to worry me a bit in that the leaves are curling a bit. I'll have to watch it.

The lettuce seems to be nearly finished. Just harvesting the last of it this week. The unseasonably cool weather has kept it from bolting so I think we'll get a roughly 6-week harvesting period from it, which isn't too bad.

We're getting a steady harvest of sugar snap peas and I picked the first of my Mr. Big peas today. I only have one square of them so the harvest will be rather small, but I'll know better for next year.

Both the bush beans and pole beans are growing quickly. The pole vines are about 4 feet tall now and most of the bush plants have tiny beans hanging from them.

I don't think the peppers enjoy this cool weather much, but they seem to be hanging in there.

Hopefully, this rain will let up soon and I can get some pictures taken for my next post.

It's starting to crank up now

2009-06-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

Starting to really get some crops going now. Harvested the first batch of sugar snap peas, three heads of lettuce, the first bunch of broccoli and more spinach. My first square of spinach started to bolt, so I quickly harvested the rest of the square and froze it.

Here's a head of buttercrunch and two heads of heirloom iceberg lettuce (including one freakishly large head). Also the first broccoli of the year. (And my daughter's lunchbox.)

My Ultimate Opener tomato plants have some small, marble-sized tomatos on them now. My Mr. Big Peas have lots of pods with peas starting to form inside. One tiny bell pepper, 1/4" in diameter, is hanging from one of my California Wonder plants. So things are really starting to come in now.

Besides all the harvesting and gazing in awe as the plants are starting to take off, I also tied some larger leaves around my cauliflower heads to blanch them. One of them is about the size of my fist and the other is a bit smaller.

Still battling some aphids on a few plants, but a jet of water from my water bottle seems to be keeping them at bay.

Peas & Pinching Suckers

2009-06-08T06:11:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend pinching the suckers on my tomato plants -- all of which have flowers on them now. Hopefully soon I'll start to see some fruits starting to form.

The peas are just about ready to start being picked.

And the cauliflower heads are beginning to form as well.

I haven't done much else with the garden this past week except water it and scan for pests. I've been busy with another backyard project involving digging out a gravel section and sodding it. This will be the new garden location for next year. A lot of work, but the end result should be fantastic.

June Update

2009-06-01T16:40:00.000-07:00

Been busy with other things and haven't updated in a while. But everything is going well with the garden. Still having regular salads and keeping an eye out for pests. Something is still chewing on my cauliflower and now a few broccoli leaves. I haven't caught them in the act yet and have been spraying BT.

Here's a broccoli head with a quarter for scale.

Those are pickling cucumber transplants on the left, which seem to be doing okay despite the shade it gets from the broccoli. On the right are General Lee cucumbers that I direct sowed after the transplants died. They seem to be doing fine also so far.

Tomatos, pole beans, swiss chard, cayenne peppers, basil, parsley, cilantro and spinach.

Tomatoes, cauliflower and onions.

Tomatoes and lettuce.

The peas are starting to flower.

I forgot to get a shot of the SWC's, but they are growing well, too. So, overall, no complaints and things are progressing nicely.

Aphids & radishes

2009-05-25T16:52:00.001-07:00

The aphids have arrived. Found a few clusters under my swiss chard leaves. I sprayed them off with water and will watch them closely.

With the help of my 5-year-old, I harvested my square of radishes. Thirteen of them -- about 6 ounces. Cut a few up and threw them in a salad for lunch.

The broccoli has begun to form heads.

The General Lee cucumber transplants have shriveled up and died. I direct sowed a couple replacements in this square.

The National Pickling cucumbers seem to be doing better.

Update

2009-05-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

Not much new happening with the garden. I put the peppers in today (after I took the photos), so now the garden is fully planted, save of 1 square I haven't decided what to do with. I did discover a problem with my layout -- I have my cucumber transplants sitting in the row behind my broccoli plants. They're getting shaded pretty bad. I just hope they get real tall real fast to get out of the shadow. I'll know better for next year. I think I'll probably direct sow them too, rather than transplant since they don't seem all that healthy.

Box 4, prior to planting the bell peppers. You'll notice you can't see the cucumbers, as they're behind the right two broccoli plants. The radishes in the front row are almost ready -- I can see the top of the root poking out.

Seems like the leafminers are leaving my spinach alone for now.

Lots of green here.

Lots of lettuce here. We're having salads on a regular basis now.

The SWC tomatoes seem to be doing well.

Frost!

2009-05-19T17:15:00.000-07:00

We had a light frost last night, and of course I took zero preventative measures. In a moment of cockeyed optimism, I believed the most favorable forecast of an overnight low of 41. Oh well, live and learn. By the time I got outside around 6:20, the only thing that was crispy with frost was the lettuce. Everything else was just wet. I'll keep an eye on everything for a few days and see if I sustained any real damage.

I also have my peppers out hardening. I'm hoping to get them out in the garden early next week. They are beginning to outgrow their plastic cups.

Harvested another few ounces of lettuce and spinach for salads tonight. Delicious!

First harvest

2009-05-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

Had the first harvest from the garden this weekend. Took 1/2 ounce of lettuce to put on my sandwich yesterday, and plucked 2 ounces of spinach to use for dinner tonight. Looks pretty nice.

Lots of planting!

2009-05-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

Did a lot of planting the last few days. Transplanted all my tomatoes (17 total - 7 varieties), basil and the last of the lettuce. Also sowed cilantro, green onions and more carrots. Both the bush beans and pole beans have germinated and are growing fast.

Here's a tour of the boxes...

I'll start harvesting some spinach in the next couple days.

Some leaf lettuce is just about ready for some harvesting as well.

I finished my Self-Watering Containers and planted Roma tomatoes in one and Rutgers tomatoes in the other. The jury is still out for me about these things. They are expensive to make, what with using 2 totes and and 2 cu ft of Miracle Grow Potting Mix, which isn't cheap. In the end, for the cost of making these two, I could have built another 4x4 raised bed filled with Mel's Mix and had more planting area. I'll see how it goes with them this season. It did allow me to plant 4 more tomato plants than I would have otherwise.

Beautiful weather

2009-05-11T16:42:00.000-07:00

A beautiful spring day here in NJ. I took advantage of it by mowing the lawn and building a backyard picnic table that we've wanted since we moved here. That didn't leave much time for gardening, but I did transplant the last of my lettuce seedlings and watered everything.

My tomato seedlings, hardening off on the porch. These will go into the garden on Thursday or Friday.

The four tomato plants I bought at Walmart. Two are Celebrity Hybrids, one cherry tomato, and one Beefsteak Heirloom.

Peas and broccoli, getting big.

Two squares of spinach. The leafminers haven't gotten to everything (yet!).

The lettuce patch, looking really good.

Pests!

2009-05-08T17:36:00.001-07:00

It finally stopped raining, but now I'm getting hit with some garden pests. My spinach is being hammered by leaf miners. I know the common recommendation is to pull the affected leaves, but my plants are still pretty small. If I pulled the bad leaves, I'd be pulled 50% or more of each plants total. In desperation I hit them with some permethrin -- definitely not the safest insecticide out there, but it was way cheaper than Neem. Besides, I'm still a little ways off from harvesting any spinach. If I can find some cheaper Neem, maybe I'll try it.

Also got a bit trigger happy and killed what I now believe to be a Sac Spider -- a highly beneficial garden predator that eats problem bugs. Oh well. At least I'll know for next time.

I planted my Kentucky Wonder pole beans and my Burpee Stringless bush beans yesterday and transplanted out some more lettuce.

Finally, I realized I started four Rutgers Tomatoes, thinking they were indeterminate, when in fact they are determinate. So now I have no room for them, and will have to buy a few tomato plants at the store to replace them.

Still raining

2009-05-06T18:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it's continued to rain -- haven't seen a glimpse of the sun since Saturday. So not much to report. It stopped long enough for me to go out and take a few pictures to show how things are growing.

Here are the peas and broccoli. The broc is really starting to take off now.

Here are some radishes starting to get going.

Some spinach, well along, and a second square just started. The parsley is getting nice and bushy.

And finally, the lettuce.

I'm also hardening off some lettuce seedlings for transplanting on Friday.

I'm also beginning to plan a project for the fall that will improve our backyard in general as well as improving and expanding the garden. It involves replacing our old metal shed with a slightly larger wooden one in a slightly different area of the yard (where 2 of my current 4x4 boxes are). This will open up about a 15 x 22 area of lawn that I can fence in and build more boxes. We've learned from neighbors that our entire backyard was a huge garden for 50 years or so, so I have a hunch the soil is pretty good. Building on top of this will allow me to use bottomless boxes to take advantage of this soil (the current boxes are lined with weed fabric and sitting on a patch of gravel).

Rain

2009-05-03T16:00:00.001-07:00

Nothing much to report this weekend. It's been raining pretty steady and when we did get a few hours of sun, I had to mow the lawn and started clearing some of the overgrowth from the rest of our property that lies across the brook. Looks like the town may actually be close to fixing the brook -- hauling away all the old cement and rubble and stabilizing the banks to stop the erosion. So I figure it might be a good time to get things cleared over there in preparation for possibly having our access restored. Plenty of room over there for a 3-bin composter, a few more raised beds and maybe some other things.

Speaking of the brook, I decided to name our garden "Gastonbrook Farm" since the brook that runs through the back of our property is called Gaston Brook (I just found out it's official name while talking to the borough engineer at the council meeting.)

Update

2009-04-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

The heat wave broke yesterday and temperatures have returned to normal. All my plants seemed to have survived it okay. One of the Iceberg lettuce plants isn't looking real healthy, but I'm going to give it a little more time to see if it recovers.

Three out of four swiss chard has sprouted. I'm a little confused with these. I planted what I'm fairly certain was one seed per hole, but it looks like 3 sprouts have come up from each. Not sure if this is all one plant or not. I guess I need to read up on them a bit more.

Spinach, also doing well. (One shriveled up and died. I resowed another seed there.)

Peas and broccoli.

I planted a second square of spinach, a second square of swiss chard, a square of radishes and started my cucumbers inside. Also finished my first SWC. It's a bit on the ugly side, but luckily no one will see the guts of it. The "one tote" design was a bit of a pain. Took forever trimming and trimming to make the lid cutout fit down inside. Walmart had 18 gal Sterilite totes on sale so I'm going to try the two-tote method with the pond basket wicking chamber for my second one.

Lastly, the fruit trees are flowering. And my new dwarf gala looks to have survived the transplant. It's leafing and I see some flower buds starting to poke out. The grape vines are also beginning to leaf.

Heat!

2009-04-26T09:50:00.000-07:00

I recorded 90 degrees in the shade here yesterday and looks to be about the same today. Too hot to do much in the garden, but I did manage to get out and give everything some water and set the peppers and tomatoes out on the back steps to soak up some sun.

I rigged up a shade screen for the lettuce. I don't think they were quite ready to face this kind of heat so soon. I think I'm going to lose 2 or 3 icebergs but the rest seem to be holding their own.

Here's a shot of my cauliflower. This one has a lower leaf that's turning yellow. Not sure what to make of it yet. The newer leaves look okay and the other plant seems fine. I'll keep an eye on it.

Here are the yellow onions, all doing well.

Spinach and parsley.

Snow peas (left) and Mr. Big peas (right). Looks like a bird took a dump on one of the snow peas. They seem to like sitting on the crossbar of my trellis.

Broccoli and peas.

Peppers and tomatoes, out on the steps.

Transplanting

2009-04-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

I forgot to take pictures today, so this will be text only. I'll try to get out there and take a few tomorrow.

Over the last few days there wasn't a whole lot to do with the garden, but I did get a few things done. I forgot to add some lime to soil when I planted my broccoli and cauliflower, like you're supposed to do to help prevent club root. So I sprinkled a little around the plants today and watered it in just to be on the safe side.

Today, I transplanted some lettuce I started three weeks ago to the garden. Some of the Iceberg looks a bit wilted, but hopefully it'll bounce back. Although we are going to have some unseasonably hot weather the next several days. I may try to rig up some sort of shade cloth for it. The Buttercrunch and Green Ice don't look too bad.

Also planted my first batch of carrots. I plan on planting a square about every 3 weeks or so.

Lastly, I had my tomatoes and peppers outside all day in the warm sun. They seem to love this weather and are growing stocky and strong.

New composter

2009-04-21T13:48:00.001-07:00

I picked up an Earth Machine composter cheaply from my county recycling center and set it up today. I shoveled the contents of my failed trash can tumbler into it. I have neglected the tumbler for a month or so now, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a bit of steam coming off the contents. The bottom of the can was a bit gross and slimy since there were no drainage holes there, and the whole thing smells a bit. I think I have too much "green" and not enough "brown" in there right now. I'll try to remedy that over the next couple days.

You can see just beyond the compost bin is a small creek. Our property actually extends to the other side, but the concrete bridge that connected the two banks washed away 6 months after we moved in. We've been trying to come up with some way to make a bridge so we can access that side again, but the span is about 19 ft -- hard to find treated beams that long. We'd love to plant a few additional beds there to grow some of the things that can get out of hand like squash, pumpkins, watermelon, etc. Would love to build a legit 3-bin compost pile there also. If anyone out there knows where to get 22-ft long treated 8x8's (or maybe a couple old utility poles) in central NJ, let me know!

Beautiful day

2009-04-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

Another beautiful day here, so I had all my plants outside to soak up a little real sunlight rather than the florescents. That was pretty much all I had time for today.

Indoor seedling update

2009-04-18T06:10:00.000-07:00

I haven't included many shots of my indoor seedlings, so here's an update on them. Fist is my tomato plants (started on 4/3). I'm starting a few for my mom's new garden, too.

Here's most of my first round of lettuce plants (also started on 4/3).

Finally, my pepper plants (started on 3/18).

This afternoon I began work on the first of two Self Watering Containers (SWC) that I will use for tomatoes. I'm working off the plans that use only one plastic tote (to save some $$). I have to say, these are kind of a pain to make. Lots of drilling and cutting tough plastic. I got the PVC sections cut and drilled, the lid cut to size and drilled full of holes. Still need to cut out the sections for the wicking chambers and fill tube.

Lastly, I started my last 20 lettuce plants in the peat pellets and potted up a couple tomato and lettuce plants inside.

Things are poppin'

2009-04-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

Went out this morning to find several spinach sprouts poking through the soil.

As well as some real pea sprouts (as opposed to the weeds I mistook for peas the other day).

Transplanted my broccoli and cauliflower to the garden with cutworm collars made from cut up cereal boxes.

Lastly, I planted the first of two squares of swiss chard. Here's the garden ready to rock and roll. It's exciting to see the squares starting to fill with plants.

Construction almost finished

2009-04-16T12:26:00.000-07:00

After a few days of cold and rainy weather, today was absolutely beautiful so I was able to get outside and get some things done. I put together the last trellis and erected it in its place. I found a pipe cutter in my toolbox and that certainly made cutting the conduit much easier as opposed to the hacksaw I used on the other ones. I wish I had found it a week ago.

Then I strung the trellis netting on the last two. What a tedious job that is -- tying all those little knots!

After that, I built the last chicken wire enclosure. I still need to put it up but have to cut some more clothesline and melt the ends first.

Lastly I transplanted some tomatoes and lettuce into some larger plastic cups.

Busy day

2009-04-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

Headed to Walmart first thing this morning to get another apple tree to replace one that died two years ago. Got a Dwarf Gala Apple tree for $20 and planted it next to out existing apple tree.

Then I built the third of four chicken wire enclosures, built and erected the third conduit trellis and attached the netting to the first trellis. I also put the broccoli and cauliflower outside all day to prepare them for planting on Friday. That was about enough for one day.

Here's the first pea sprout poking through the soil.

EDIT (4/17/09): Apparently, this photo is not of a pea sprout, but of some sort of weed. I only realized after the REAL peas began to sprout. I yanked out the weeds (3 of them).

Peas

2009-04-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

It's a cold and rainy day here, so can't do much work outside. I did go out and check my peas -- the first spout of my Mr. Big peas has poked through. These went in on 4/2. Nothing yet from the sugar snap or the spinach I planted on 4/7. It's supposed to be sunny tomorrow and Monday, so hopefully I can get the other two trellises up and build another chicken wire pen.

Trellis and transplanting

2009-04-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

Got the materials for the other three trellises and built one of them. Also test-fitted the netting on one. I still need to build two more trellises and two more chicken wire enclosures and then I'm pretty much done for the season as far as major construction goes.

Also transplanted my parsley (started 3/7) to the garden.

Trellis and hardening off

2009-04-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

Built my first trellis out of 2x2's and bolted it to the cleats attached to the beds. Still need to attach the netting. I am still a little concerned whether it's sturdy enough. I'm just picturing a a netting full of vines in a high summer wind snapping the thing off. I still have some time before the trellises come into play, so I'm going to think about it some more.

It was in the 60's today so I had my parsley, broccoli and cauliflower out all day. I'll probably leave the parsley out overnight now that it will be transplanted to the garden in a few days.

UPDATE: Went back to Lowes to brainstorm a bit and came up with another trellis configuration. So I picked up the materials for one prototype and threw it together at home.

This is 1/2" electrical conduit slid over 4 ft rebar pounded halfway into the ground (just like the book says). The key that makes this all an affordable solution is -- rather than using those metal conduit elbows that cost $5/ea., I used cheap 1/2" PVC elbows (threaded on both sides) that cost $0.56/ea. I just hammered them on the ends of the pipe. It seems the threads compress around the pipe when hammered on. I couldn't pull them apart at all once on all the way.

I swear I saw this mentioned on someone's blog someplace, so I can't take credit for it. I was just reminded of it as I walked down the PVC fittings aisle. I did a search but couldn't find the post, but if anyone reading this knows, I'd like to give credit where credit is due.

Time will tell if this will hold up, but I think I'm going to outfit the rest of the boxes with this type of trellis and see how it works out this year. There is some give, but I think that's good/expected. The rebar is 2+ feet into the ground, so I can't envision a situation where they'd pull out. I also like the fact that they're physically less bulky than the 2x2's so probably easier to store as well.

More construction...

2009-04-07T13:31:00.001-07:00

Today I put together the fence for the second box.

Also planted out one square of spinach (Giant Noble heirloom from Pinetree Seeds). You can just see the white marker in the right fenced in box.

Also had the parsley outside all day to harden. It was cool and a bit breezy, but they seemed to handle it okay.

Tomato cages, storm windows & bug

2009-04-06T15:53:00.001-07:00

I scored 4 tomato cages off Freecycle this evening. Not super tall (42") but I'm going to use them for a few plants. I'm going to run the majority of my tomatoes up trellis netting, but I'm going to stick a couple more plants elsewhere and see how they do in cages.

Also on Freecycle I've located a guy who has a few old storm windows. On Wednesday, I'm going to see what he has. Hopefully he'll have something suitable for making into a cold frame or two.

Lastly, when I was inspecting a few of my seedlings today, I noticed a tiny beetle crawling on one of my pepper pellets. I tried to take a picture of it, but it was just too small. About 1mm in size and sort of black and brown speckled. I only saw the one so too early to tell if I have a problem on my hands. Hopefully not!

Hardening off

2009-04-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

I managed to get my parsley, broccoli and cauliflower outside for a few hours today in the nice weather. The parsley is scheduled to go in the garden on Friday, and the broccoli and cauliflower in less than two weeks. Also got to Lowes and got a few more 1x2's for my fencing project. While I was there, I picked up a couple 2x2's for the first trellis. I'm still not sure if my trellis system will be strong enough. I'll have to wait until it's installed to really be able to tell.

Onions & Compost

2009-04-05T06:55:00.000-07:00

My four squares of Yellow Onions I planted from sets on 3/13 are doing well. Nearly all of them have sprouted now.

In the fall, I built a "tumbling" compost bin from instructions I found online. It's a 32 gallon trash bin with holes cut in the sides covered with window screen. Unfortunately, it has a few problems. One is - I should have drilled lots of small holes for aeration rather than the large, screen-covered ones. The screen has peeled off a number of them and there's no good way to reattach. Also, the lid is too flimsy and won't stay on well when tumbling it. I think I'm just going to invert the can, cut out the bottom and use it as a regular compost enclosure for now.

Seed Starting

2009-04-05T06:31:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that I'm using Jiffy-7 peat pellet greenhouses. I went this route for a few reasons. One was my uncle used the Burpee trays last year and complained about them. He said the chambers were too small and it was nearly impossible to get the plants out without either destroying the tray or destroying the root ball. So in looking for alternatives, I found the Jiffys and I liked that the tray and dome seemed to be decent quality -- good enough to last a few years. Also, the pellets have a netting around them to hold them together. This way, you can lift individual cells out as they germinate without disturbing any others. Also, they're very inexpensive. And next year, all I have to do is buy a couple packs of refill pellets to reduce costs even more.

Most seeds call for an ideal germination temperature of 70-75 degrees. I don't have anyplace in my house that gets this warm. I tried the top of the fridge, on top of the furnace, everywhere. Best I can do is a max of 65-68. So I resorted to sticking the tray on an ordinary heating pad for a few hours a day just to give it a boost. I know some say this isn't a good idea since regular heating pads aren't designed for this, but I keep a close eye on them and just use it for a few hours at a time.

What I've been doing is, once the seeds sprout, put them under the lights. Then, once they start to get their first true leaves, I'll thin them to one per pellet, then transplant them to a plastic cup. I remove the netting at this time since I've read reports of the netting impeding the roots.

Introduction

2009-04-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

My name is Luke. I'm 31 and live in Central New Jersey with my wife and two kids (ages 6 and 5). I've worked in IT for 7 years (most recently as a SysAdmin) until being laid off in Oct., 2008. After being laid off, my wife and I decided to fulfill a dream of ours of starting a vegetable garden in the backyard. Inspired by my uncle, who started started a small square foot garden in Maine last summer, I bought a used copy of Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening and started planning our garden.

Being technical by nature, I really like the orderliness and efficiency of SFG. We decided to put 4 4x4 boxes on a gravel area just off the patio behind our house. This space is largely wasted and previously had a small, neglected flower bed along the edge.

After a bit of clearing, leveling and digging, the space looked like this -->

I then bought the 8 8ft 2x10's from Home Depot, some landscape fabric from Walmart, and got to building using some deck screws left over from another project. And a couple weeks later, I had this...

Those 2x2's sticking up from each box are cleats to which I'll bolt the trellises when the time comes. Next came filling the boxes with some variation of Mel's mix.

As stated in the SFG book, "Mel's Mix" is 1/3 peat, 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 compost. After an inital search for vermiculite, it seemed like it was generally unavailable in central Jersey, or was obscenely expensive. Best price I found locally was at Agway, and that was $25 for a 4 cu ft bag. I just about decided I wasn't going to use it when I stumbled on a wholesaler 20 minutes away who also sold to the public. Price was $13.15 a bag, so I shot over there and bought 4 bags.

I then bought a couple bales of peat at Lowes and some various composts and manure at the local Agway (which is only 5 blocks away). After a laborious afternoon of mixing and shoveling, I got the beds pretty much filled. The next weekend, I bought another 10 bags of manure to top off the beds. I was skeptical at first, but this soil is absolutely beautiful -- light, friable, and holds moisture well.

I planned to grow everything from seed and bought 2 Jiffy-7 greenhouses, 72 pellets each, as well as a 25-pellet version with slightly larger pellets. Most of my seeds came from Pinetree Seeds. The nice thing about them is the price and the fact that the envelopes contain a reasonable amount of seeds. One of the advantages of SFG is supposed to be that you don't plant a huge row of plants, only to thin out 80% later on, so a small number of seeds is needed.

I threw together a simple 2-shelf rack made of 2x2's and one 4 ft florescent T12 light fixture from Walmart for $10. The other 3 fixtures came from Freecycle so didn't cost anything. This gives me 4 40W light tubes per shelf. Should be plenty of space for now. It's tucked in the corner of our partially finished basement. Stays rather cool (58-60 degrees), but the seedlings don't seem to mind it.

At the moment, I have parsley, broccoli, cauliflower, cayenne peppers, California Wonder bell peppers, four types of tomatoes, three types of lettuce, mint and basil started indoors. I also have yellow onions (from sets) and two types of peas planted out in the garden. I have a master spreadsheet with my garden grids, planting schedule, cost breakdown, harvest schedule, succession planting schedule, etc. EVERYTHING I do is based off this spreadsheet, and yes I do have it backed up since I'd be totally lost without it!

Today, I built the chicken wire fence around the first box. We have a lot of rabbits around here so keeping them out is a priority. It took me a while to come up with something suitable. For a variety of reasons we can't fence in the whole area at the moment, so I needed to come up with something to surround the individual boxes. So it needed to be either low enough to reach over to tend the plants or be easily removable. I ended up building 2ftx4ft frames from 1x2's and tacking chicken wire to it. These panels are placed against the box and tied at the corners. Seems like it will work. I need to build the rest next week.

Well, this was a long introductory post, but there was a lot to get up-to-date. Overall, I'm enjoying our first garden and it has really given me something to keep me going during my layoff. Now that the planning and most of the construction is done, when I do eventually manage to find work, I should be able to tend to the maintenance.