Garden Plan

The Layout

I thought that today I would discuss the plans we have for our garden, this year. Our square-foot garden plan calls for each of our six family members to have their own 4’ x 4’ garden plot. The layout will be as follows:

Each box will be approximately twelve feet in length, separated into three approximately-four-foot sections. The beauty of working with plants is that we aren’t all that concerned with precision. We will put a parent in each middle section, with a child on either side. That way, if someone needs help, we’re right there. Also, it will help to prevent quarrelling. Of course, you can never completely prevent it, but we do what we can to maintain harmony in the home. By making each section four feet square, you never have to reach farther than two feet to get to any part of your garden. Thus, you avoid compacting and disturbing the soil unnecessarily, thus helping it to remain aerated and healthy. I found a great resource for anyone looking to start a garden of your own, even a small one. The website is Garden Girl TV.com, by Patti Moreno. In particular she has a video explaining how to build a raised-bed garden. I also like the fact that she also raises small livestock and rotates the raised beds between using them for vegetables and using them for animals. This allows the soil to be continually fertilized (she still composts, though) and tilled. Talk about using nature to fullest! She has many other great tips on gardening and related topics. I highly recommend you check out her website!

The Soil

I’ve been refreshing myself on Mel Bartholomew’s techniques for Square Foot Gardening. Previously, here’s what my mind understood: You mix equal parts of Compost, Peat Moss, and Vermiculite to make the soil. I didn’t even know what the peat moss and vermiculite were for, but I was trying to follow instructions. Unfortunately, my efforts were a dismal failure, because I FAILED TO READ FULLY! There are quite a few details that I just plain missed. For example, it wasn’t until years later that I learned the peat moss and vermiculite are not for nutrition or fertilization, but for water retention. Also, I when I mixed my soil, I just did my best to mix it all up and then dump it evenly in my frame. I had read that with SFG, you don’t have to water as much. What I failed to read was that you DO have to water a lot at the very first, in order to saturate the vermiculite and peat moss!

Another important detail I missed was about the compost. When I read “equal parts” of the three ingredients, I went down to the store, and bought some of each and mixed them up, in roughly equal amounts. What I failed to pay attention to was the fact that one single type of compost is not sufficient. Mel advocates mixing compost from at least five different sources, including mushrooms, animal manures (from animals that do not have meat diets), and other sources. So, needless to say, this year will be a bit different.

The Seeds

We sat down as a family a few weeks ago to decide what we wanted to plant this year. Each of us picked at least one thing in particular to grow in our own section. My second daughter, Faith, decided she wants to grow pumpkins. Why? She’ll only have one plant to take care of. Yeah, we’ll just have to see about that. I mean she’s going to have sixteen square feet to work with. Pumpkins are typically thought of as sprawling plants, but they can actually be grown as a climbing plant, just like any other vine. You just need a frame that is strong enough to handle the heavy fruit. Here is a great video I found that discusses this, as well as some other great ideas. The best part (in my opinion) of the two videos that I have linked in this post is that they both show people growing very successful gardens in urban areas, with small amounts of space to work with. Also, while they use brand new materials that they have purchased at their local hardware store, you do not have to buy everything new. Many things you see can be made with substitute, scrap materials that you find. Use your imagination, but remember to match what you’re building to the size of the plant you will be growing on it. Also, if you use wood, be absolutely sure that you follow their counsel NOT to use treated wood. Treated wood will leach chemicals into your soil and by extension your vegetables. Untreated wood does not have this problem.

Ok, I kind of got away from seeds, there. Sorry about the digression, but I think it’s okay. Another aspect of gardening that I want to work with is companion planting. This is an aspect I have read and heard a lot about, and I have talked with people who have used it. I don’t know enough about it to comment at this time, but I will be spending some time educating myself. The one thing I do know is that my carrots and radishes will be planted together, mostly because my wife says so, LOL. So the plants we have decided on are:

·         Tomatoes (just can’t have a garden without these babies! Sam will be growing these)

·         Pumpkins (mostly for Faith)

·         Watermelons (Alexandria)

·         Carrots (Me)

·         Radishes (Also me, although Heather is the one who insists on them)

·         Eggplants (Billy, although we may decide not to do these)

·         Corn

·         Green Beans

·         Peas

·         Spinach

·         Cucumbers

·         Onions

We may choose some others, but that’s the list we have so far.

One Final Note

Well, that about wraps it up for this post. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them. I may not be a complete newbie at gardening, but I still have a lot to learn. Any help, advice, personal stories, etc. are most welcome. Thanks for reading!

Thank Heaven for Recurring Seasons

Another year, and...
what the heck happened to my plants?! Oh yeah. Life happened. Details? Well, I'm not going to bore you with a lot of them, but here are some highlights.

My last post was July 16, 2011. A couple weeks went by where things came up and I just pushed aside the blog. Then I received word that my grandfather was terminally ill. I live in Alabama, and he was in New Mexico. Some of my family had driven there, because they lived closer. I booked a flight, as did my sister. We flew into the same airport, shared a rental car and were able to spend a couple days with him in the nursing home. That was great, because when I first received the phone call, I was convinced that I wouldn't get to see him again. At least not in this life. I'm grateful I was able to tell him 'Goodbye' before he passed.

After that, work really picked up and we have spent the last several months working some long hard hours. It's been great, but hasn't left me much time to even think about blogging. Basically, that's because my priorities are ordered like this:

1. My family
2. My "day job"
3. My family
4. My church responsibilities
5. My family
6. Other stuff (which, for now, includes both gardening and blogging)

So, needless to say, all my "starts" have stopped. My herbs died. My tomatoes didn't die until it got really cold (we had a nice wet year, and they were outside... okay, they still ARE outside), but they stopped growing and never produced any fruit.

The result of my gardening experiment is a lesson reinforced... Don't start any type of a garden unless you are convinced of your ability and desire to care for it properly on a long-term basis!

2012 - Happy New Year!
As the title of this post suggests, I am looking forward to starting my garden anew. However, I will start earlier and plan it out better. I won't be doing a spur-of-the-moment job. However, I will still face the same problem I ran into last year. Namely, how am I going to make sure that whatever life throws at me doesn't become the death of my plants?

As of this writing, I don't have the answer, but I will spend some time this week thinking about it and let you know what I come up with.

Another obstacle I will have is that this year I am planning a few other projects that (at least for now) are completely unrelated to gardening. I hope to be blogging about those projects as well. So, if anyone can get me a Harry Potter-style "time turner" so I can be in two or more places at the same time, I'd sure appreciate it!

Well, that's it for now. Just thought I'd let everyone know what had happened. My goal for 2012: Blog weekly (beginning this Saturday, January 7th) and keep everyone informed of how things go. Thanks for reading!

 - Jim

Seeds Have Sprouted

Hello, once again! Thank you for reading. Another week has gone by (and a hectic one it was for our family, I might add), and my starts have progressed rather well. You may recall that at the time of my last entry nothing had yet broken the surface. Well, two days later here is what I found!

Gentlemen! Start your seeds!

Hello, there! A week has passed since I started my blog. Because I am experimenting this year, and because of my late start, I chose to start my plants from seeds, rather than purchasing plants that were already established.
I planted them in some starter pellets I had left over from previous years. (Truth be told, I still have a bunch more unused!) For anyone who has never used these pellets, they are a great way to start seeds, as they are small, portable, and individual. They are usually sold as part of a "mini greenhouse" kit in the garden section of most Wal-Mart stores as well as home improvement stores like Lowe's or The Home Depot. These came from a package of 25 pellets, with no greenhouse included. Much cheaper that way. I think I got them last year. I like them because once the plants are ready to "transplant" to their more permanent home, no actual transplanting is necessary. You just dig a hole where you want the plant to go and move it from the greenhouse to the hole. The pellets are a dried potting soil packaged in a thin, biodegradable netting that the roots can easily poke their way through as the plant grows.
When you first get the pellets, they are hard and dry. To use them, you simply put them in the container where you wish to start the seeds and add enough water for the pellets to absorb and grow to full size. Full size is about 1.5 inches (3.8 cm). Once the pellets have absorbed the water, which usually takes about 15 minutes, you are ready to plant you seeds. The pellets typically have a small indentation in the top center. I just place my seed in that indentation and cover with some of the surrounding soil.

This is a photo of six pellets in a small plastic container I had around the house. I think I picked up a package of three of these containers at Wal-Mart for under $2.00. When I snapped this picture, I had just poured the water in the container, so they hadn't absorbed the water yet. Some of the water spilled onto the pellets, which accounts for the different coloring you see. 

Once they had reached full size, I planted the seeds. As you can see from this photo, I decided to go with Sweet Basil, Spearmint, and a cherry tomato. (Sorry, honey, but I haven't planted any cucumber, yet. Hopefully, soon.) I planted two of each plant, one seed per pellet. I have never seen any reason to plant multiple seeds per hole, since it only takes one to grow, and almost all the seeds I have ever purchased were viable at the time of purchase.
I chose Sweet Basil because I love the fragrance and the flavor. Basil has a wonderful flavor. I add it to many dishes that I cook, from meat dishes, to soups, to spaghetti. (I make my own spaghetti sauce. Store-bought sauces are NASTY-tasting! Thanks, Mom for teaching me that when I was a kid!) It is also great when you want to make home-made garlic bread. Just place the amount of butter/margarine you need into a bowl, add the desired amount of garlic, and about one quarter to one-half that amount of basil. Basil has a way of making the garlic flavor pop out just right. Mix them up and spread on the bread. Then bake/broil it for a couple minutes and you're ready to eat it!
I purchased this package of Sweet Basil on July 2, the same day I started this blog. The package states that it has a germination period of 5-10 days. I planted my mini-garden on July 4th (Happy Independence Day, for those of us in the U.S.A.) so these should be ready to burst forth any day, now. I checked a few minutes ago, and none of my six plants has broken the surface yet.
I chose Spearmint for the same reasons as Basil (fragrance and flavor), plus the fact that I had a bunch of seeds left over from a previous year. Honestly, I don't expect these to grow, because I don't think they were stored well and are probably not viable anymore. However, this is my experimenting year, so here goes! The package says they have a germination period of 12-14 days, so I probably won't see anything for at least another week. When mixed with other seasonings, mint adds a great flavor to beef and pork dishes. It is also well known for its use as an infusion to make a delicious, relaxing herbal tea.
The cherry tomatoes I picked were all I could find as a substitute for what I was looking for. There is a variety called "Sweet 100's" that my family loves. They have a great flavor and the plant produces lots of fruit when it is kept right. Unfortunately, we couldn't find those this year, so I chose these instead. We'll see how they go. My family likes having fresh tomatoes growing on the vine that we can just pick, clean off and pop into our mouth. They are also great in salads or anything else that calls for tomatoes. I bought this package at the same time that I bought the Basil, so these seeds should be good! The seeds were normally priced at $1.00(USD) per package, but because it is so late in the season, they had been marked down to $0.75. The package says their germination period is 7-10 days, so they should be popping up very soon.

Here is the finished July 4th product. I used some paperclips and 3x5 cards that I had around the house to make the labels. What I really want to use are some popsicle-style sticks. I will probably pick some up today or during this coming week at Hobby Lobby. They sell boxes of them really cheap, and they can be used for lots of different things. I can then replace them, because I don't like having all those cards in the way.
As I said, right now nothing has broken the surface, but I expect that to change before next Saturday, so I will hopefully have some new pics for you. Take care, and let me know if you have any suggestions or ideas. Thanks!

- Jim