Mid-June Backyard Bounty

One of the lovely things about living in a place like north Texas is how easy it is to grow your own food.  Lots of heat and sunlight go a long way toward generating good growth.  As long as you water things well and watch for pests, you've got some good food on the table.

Though I neglected to replant one bed that I'd used for winter crops, I did plant two others with a variety of yummy summer delights: sweet corn, green peppers, luscious tomatoes, strawberries and watermelon.

If you've considered growing your own food but think planting beds is too arduous, you don't need to - just get a few big pots and have at it.  Many foods grow really well in containers.  In fact, here in Texas I have to keep my avocado and citrus trees in pots because they need to be brought inside in winter.  You can read more about container gardening by doing an internet search (including finding some inspirational photos), but click here for one blog with some good, quick information.

Here are a few shots of our backyard bounty:

Juicy tomato ready for plucking.

Second batch of sweet corn is almost ready to pick.  You haven't tasted truly sweet corn until you've tasted sweet corn from your own backyard.

One of seven watermelons now growing.  This one is actually growing in our strawberry patch.  The watermelon vines are really aggressive.

Granny Smith apple.

Golden delicious apple.

Lemons.

AAAaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

One week ago, I became fed up with the jungle of zucchini plants, cucumber plants and cantaloupe vines.  The zucchinis and cantaloupes never materialized, while the cucumber plants produced more cucumbers than I'll ever eat and threatened to take over the entire garden.  I ripped them all out, leaving just a sweet pepper plant, strawberry plants, basil and oregano.

In their place I positioned a few trees I'm growing (an avocado tree, a Meyer lemon tree and three baby Royal Empress trees) and planted pumpkins (which are growing very nicely already!).  I plan to plant the Royal Empress trees at my sons' school once the weather is consistently cooler.

I could almost hear that sweet pepper plant sigh with appreciation once it was no longering battling with the other monster plants.  Within a few days, out popped eight peppers.  Here is today's crop.

Now you might ask, "Meg, why did you put the green peppers in a sparkling Orrefors bowl that you were given for your wedding eight years ago and have never used?"  The answer is quite simple.  I'm feeling fancy today.  I even put on makeup.

Delicious Cucumber Straight From The Garden

My cucumber plant exploded in the last week with new cucumbers.  I plucked this one from the garden this morning and immediately had to taste it, given what happened last time.  Oh my goodness, it was perfect.  Not bitter at all and so delicious.

It is just amazing how much better fruits and vegetables can taste when they are so fresh, grown right in your own backyard.

Fresh Cantaloupe From The School Garden

Today the students enjoyed fresh cantaloupe that we grew in the school garden.  I planted the seeds this Spring and the plant exploded with cantaloupes this month.  

It was delicious and the whole process of growing something from seeds has been so fun and educational for the kids.

We've also got an enormous watermelon that's just about ready to harvest.  I can't wait!

Square Foot Garden - Why Cucumbers Are Sometimes Bitter

I was very excited to pluck from my garden my first two New Mexico Big Jim chile peppers and my first cucumber!

While I have to figure out what to do with the chiles, the kids and I wanted to taste that cucumber right away.

So, I peeled it, sliced it and put a bit of salt on the slices (the way my parents served it to me as a kid).  I popped the first slice into my mouth and promptly spit it out.  BITTER!  Ugh!  My older son kindly and dutifully ate his slice without complaint.  The younger one handed it back to me without tasting it.

I took out my gardening books and investigated.  What can make cucumbers bitter?  STRESS.  Lack of regular water, extreme heat or lack of proper nutrients in the soil can cause stress, rendering the cucumbers practically inedible.

I've been watering regularly with drip hoses and have been supplementing the garden with compost, but we've been grappling with 100 degree weather for a week - the very week when the cucumber bulked up - so I have my answer.  To help my garden with the heat, I'll layer in some extra compost and see if that helps.

Square Foot Garden Update - Mad Dogs, Englishmen and EcoMeg

It's 103 degrees F here in north Texas and it is humid.  Five minutes standing still outside and I'm sweating through my clothes.  Of course, that did not stop me from transferring the finished contents of my composter into my veggie patch.  My garden needed a pick me up.

I was delighted to find that my compost is lovely, dark and sweet-smelling, just as I had hoped.  After picking out some items that needed to cook some more, such as these onions that had actually grown rather than broken down,

I churned it up with my shovel, wet it down into a sort of a slurry and spread it over my veggie garden, tucking it in close to the stalks of all of my plants.  I could almost hear them sigh with appreciation.

Next, I inspected my plants, plucking off dead leaves and keeping an eye out for insects.  Things looked good.  I looked up and saw this:

My first cucumber!  A sight for sore eyes.

I finished my few moments in the heat by deliberately zipping this bee into my enclosure.  I need some pollination and don't feel like getting out my paint brush and playing bee myself.

Stay cool!

How to Automate Watering of Planters and Veggie Gardens

Rain is not something to be relied upon to keep your garden thriving in Texas during summer, unless it's full of drought tolerant plants.  I have a sprinkler system for my lawn and flower beds, but not for my Square Foot Garden or flower planters.  Regular watering can fall through the cracks when you're busy with other things.  So I decided to automate my irrigation and save my veggies and planters the stress.

For my Square Foot Garden, the solution was simple: one 50 foot soaker hose, some landscape anchor pins (to keep the hose in place), a hose timer and a y-connector with shut-off valves so I could still use my hose faucet for other things.   Problem solved and my veggie garden is very happy.

The problem was more complex for my flower planters.  I have two planters on my patio in the backyard like this...

... and two flanking my front stoop like this...

I had to find a way to automatically water them without marring their appearance or leaving hoses snaking through the lawn (this would be unattractive and would make mowing difficult).

I bought a $20 kit called Mister Landscaper that includes almost everything you need to hook a bunch of planters into your existing sprinkler system (or add a timer and attach it to your garden hose).

Taking the blue planter as an example, I located the nearest lawn sprinkler head (which was almost right beside the planter), unscrewed it and lifted it out of the ground.  This was the only way I could figure out what attachments I needed.  I took the sprinkler head with me to Lowes and asked the irrigation specialist what I needed to connect it to the irrigation hose in the Mister Landscaper kit. I had to dig a bit of soil from around the sprinkler head to get it back into the ground with the attachment, but it wasn't much trouble.

I extended the hose up the back of the planter and put a loop of drip hose through the flowers.  As you can see here, it's really unobtrusive:

Problem solved!  I did the same thing with my other three planters and still have hose and attachments left over in the kit.  Now my planters are watered at the same time that my lawn is.  Worry free.

Square Foot Garden - Progress Report

Things and humming along in my veggie garden.

I've got two, count them - TWO - New Mexico Big Jim chile peppers!  It's amazing how big these chiles get on such a small plant.  In fact, the NM Big Jim is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the producer of the largest Chile pods ever grown.  Foot-long chiles are not uncommon.  I'm not sure I even know what to do with so much chile pepper.

My cantaloupe is blooming and growing strong!

These monsters (below) are zucchini plants.  They are blooming and poised to take over the garden. Until growing them I had no idea how prickly the plants are.

Everything else is coming along, too.  I'm looking forward to eating more than strawberries from my garden.  Shouldn't be long now!

An Organic Square Foot Garden (Part 3): Harvesting

As you may recall, to solve my catastrophic drainage issue, I raised my square foot garden up onto cinder blocks and started fresh.  

 

I'm growing basil, oregano, broccoli, spinach, bok choy, two kinds of tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, romaine lettuce, lavender, marigolds, pole beans, cantaloupes, watermelon, radishes, carrots and arugula.  It sounds like a lot, but using the Square Foot Garden method allowed me to fit it all in to an 8x4 foot rectangle (plus two extra planters for the strawberries).  You'll notice that I haven't put in the square foot grid, but the garden was planned using that approach. Since this is my test year, I didn't plant as many individual plants as I will ultimately want.  Next year, since I now think I've got a winning strategy, I will erect more of these rectangles.

 

Since replanting, I've added mosquito netting, which has reduced damage from hungry North Texas insects.  That was a good move.

 

My zucchini plants are by far the strongest growers in the garden:

But the pole beans are doing very well, too:

The cantaloupe vines also took off - I'd really struggled with them before:

I find fresh, ripe strawberries almost every day now:

So, now that things are going well, my attention turns to harvesting. 

The method for harvesting fruits and vegetables varies by plant, so I'll take each of my garden's elements separately.  

 

I'll start today with arugula and strawberries, since I picked some of those today for our dinner:

Harvesting Arugula:

Arugula, it turns out, is a tricky plant.  If you continue growing it during high heat, it turns bitter.  If you continue to harvest it after 50 or 60 days, it turns bitter.  Some folks pluck individual leaves around the rosette of the plant.  Some folks wait until the plant matures at around 40 days then just yank up the whole thing.  In any case, successive plantings are helpful when growing arugula.  Today, I just plucked individual leaves to spice up tonight's salad.

Harvesting Strawberries:

Wait until the strawberry has no more white on it, then use your thumbnail or some garden shears to clip the fruit from the plant, leaving the cap and stem attached to the strawberry.  I harvest strawberries every day or two while they are in season.  Since they ripen very quickly, I keep a close eye on them.  This year, I only have four strawberry plants and this isn't nearly enough for my strawberry-loving family.  But since this is my test year, I didn't want to plant too much.  Next year, I'll plant more. 

To read my other posts about Square Foot Gardening, click on the Square Foot Garden tab, located below the blog's title.

An Organic Square Foot Garden: Good Drainage Is Critical

A few months ago, I set up my first square foot garden (you can read all of my Square Foot Garden-related posts here).  I placed it on a flat, mulched area.  While things flourished at first, after heavy, long Spring rains, the garden became over-saturated, didn't drain well and rotted.  All of it.  It was quite sad.

While I hate to learn lessons the hard way, the lesson was learned. 

Here's what I did (photo is pre-grid):

I kept it in the same spot since the light was right, but I combined the two 4x4 foot boxes and lifted the whole thing up on top of cinder blocks.  How? I bought a 4x8 foot piece of plastic lattice fencing from Lowes.  Placed this on top of wood planks, which in turn were on top of cinder blocks.  I lined it with weed barrier to retain the soil yet let the water pass through.  While I was at it,  I added more vermiculite, compost and peat moss.  I then went about the planting, then watered thoroughly.

Drainage problem solved! Just like a potted plant, I now water until it drips out beneath, then I stop. Makes it easy to know how much to water.

I am very hopeful for success.  I'll keep you posted.

Daily Photo: Radishes

I plucked these from our garden before dinner this evening.  Delicious!

An Organic Square Foot Garden, Part 2

Previous Related Posts:
An Organic Square Foot Garden (Part 1)
The Basics of Composting

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Spring has sprung here in North Texas!

After what seemed like FOREVER (to my toddler), our seedlings sprouted...

... and then eventually grew strong enough to be transplanted into the square foot garden boxes, where they endured one last freeze (grr).  Sadly, the watermelon and cantaloupe seedlings did not survive that and we had to start them over, but the others fared pretty well.

Things have warmed up a bit and the days are mostly gorgeous...

The garden now looks like this.  The Bermuda grass should emerge from hibernation soon.  Note the compost bin in the foreground - we are well underway with filling that up.  It only got stinky once before I realized I needed to add more grass clippings to dry it out a bit.  I also planted two apple trees along the slope beyond the boxes - one Granny Smith (pies!) and one Golden Delicious.  When planting apple trees, you typically need to plant two or more different varieties so that cross pollination can occur.  Otherwise the trees don't bear much fruit.

Our Golden Delicious apple tree produced its first blossom, which is very exciting!

I also decided to plant some strawberries.  Since I did this after I started the square foot garden, I just put them into separate planters and gave them plenty of room to sprawl, which they like to do.  Shortly thereafter, we had our first strawberry!

Here is what the individual "crops" look like now.  Our radishes are growing very quickly.  I'm really optimistic about the bok choy (can't wait for that stir fry!) and the spinach.  My onions are doing well.  The tomato and bean pole plants are taking their time.

The lavender and broccoli are also showing promise...

The carrots took a bit longer to emerge but are doing very well.  You can see here that they need a bit of selective pruning so they won't choke one another.  I've had to prune every crop a bit so that I didn't have too many plants growing in each square foot. 

And here is my romaine lettuce.  This also needs to be thinned a bit.

I can't wrap up my post about Spring without also including a few photos of the lovely blooms that are brightening the garden these days...

So lovely!  Have a happy day!

The Basics of Composting

As you know, I'm starting a Square Foot Garden.  You can read about my experiences with that here.  Compost is an integral part of this. 

Why Compost?
It's great for the garden, a cheaper and healthier alternative to chemical fertilizers, and it's environmentally responsible (you're recycling organic matter that you might otherwise put in a landfill).  Win-win-win.  You can read more about the benefits of compost here. 

Compost is just decomposed organic matter, and a garden thrives on it.  All you do is add the key ingredients (water, air and organic matter), turn it frequently, watch the mix heat up, and within a few weeks or months you have lovely, free compost to spread across your lawn and garden.  

What Can You Do with Compost?
A shorter list might include what you can't do with compost - but here are some ideas on what to do with it: 

• Put compost on top of your garden soil before the ground freezes in late autumn - it'll work to enrich the soil all winter.  It's not necessary to do it, but if you can work it into the soil at the same time, it'll do even more good.  
• Add it to your garden a month before spring planting.  
• Add it throughout the driest part of summer and as you harvest vegetables.  
• Combine it with potting soil when you start seedlings and when you transplant them into your garden.  
• Spread it across your lawn whenever you might ordinarily add fertilizer (e.g., before grass emerges from hibernation in the spring and during the heat of the summer - make sure you water it in so it gets where it needs to go).
• Put down a layer of compost before any routine mulching around shrubs and trees (for trees, add it out to the drip line).

What Kind of Composter Is Right for You?
There are lots of different kinds of composters.  You can build your own or buy one.  Click here to read more about the different types (I use this one.) 

Where Should You Place Your Composter?
You should position your composter or compost pile conveniently near your garden and near a source of water (e.g., garden hose).  If you're in a warm climate, you might want to put it in the shade so it doesn't dry out.  If you're in a cold climate, you might want to put it in the sunlight to help heat it up.

What Can You Compost?
The best compost mix is one part green stuff (materials that are high in nitrogen) to three parts brown stuff (the "fiber" for your compost - materials that are high in carbon).  You can also add other things in moderation. 

Green Stuff:

• grass clippings
• fruit and vegetables from your kitchen that are "past their prime"
• fruit/veg scraps such as banana peels, onion skins, potato/zucchini/carrot/apple peels, apple cores, tomato stems, cantaloupe or watermelon rinds, orange peels, corn cobs
• plain paper bags
• coffee grounds (no more than 10% of your total mix)
• tea leaves (you can leave the bag on but take the staple out)
• vegetable plant remains
• non-diseased plants that you've pulled out of your garden
• herbivorous animal droppings (i.e., not pet or human excrement)

Brown Stuff:

• autumn leaves
• dead plants
• cardboard & cardboard tubes
• old floral arrangements
• old straw

Other Stuff:

• egg shells (not the yolk or egg white)
• animal and human hair
• paper towels
• paper napkins

Do NOT compost: 

• meat or meat scraps
• large seeds or pits such as avocado pits or mango seeds (don't fret overly about small seeds like you might find in an orange or apple - the heat during the composting process tends to take care of them)
• dairy products
• fish or fish bones
• bread
• plastic
• fats/grease/lard/oils
• pet or human excrement
• synthetic fibers
• pasta
• nuts
• cooked food
• weeds that have gone to seed
• diapers
• diseased or insect-ridden plants
• glossy paper or magazines
• anything treated with chemicals
• cat litter

Tips

• Many people find it most convenient to keep a covered can on their kitchen countertop and add scraps there until it's full, then transfer the scraps to a larger composter outside.
• The processing time is "reset" each time you add new ingredients, so some gardeners find it helpful to have two composters so they continue to have a place to put compost ingredients while they wait for the first batch to process.
• Just as human digestion is aided by proper chewing, you should chop up your compost materials before adding them in order to speed the process.  
• The more frequently you turn the pile, the faster the composting process (up to a point - you probably shouldn't turn your pile more often than every 3 or 4 days so the microorganisms have a chance to work on it).  
• The compost pile should be kept moist, like a wrung-out sponge, so add water as necessary.  The best practice is probably to add water as you add materials - that way you're sure to get everything wet.   
• You know your compost is done when it becomes a uniform, dark brown, crumbly product with a sweet, earthy aroma (it should not smell rotten).

Trouble Shooting

• If your compost pile smells bad it either needs more air (so turn it) or is too wet (add dry materials).
• If your pile won't heat up, it's either too small, needs water or more green matter, or the pieces need to be chopped up.
• If your compost is killing your garden, check the pH.  Just as the human body gets out of whack whenever it gets too acidic or too alkaline, so does your garden if your compost isn't pH neutral.  Maybe it's just a matter of letting it sit for longer.  Most compost goes through a pH cycle where it is acidic early on, then becomes more neutral over time.  This trick can also help you solve the problem of garden soil that is too alkaline - put some compost on it when it's more acidic, then turn the soil.  The combination will yield a more neutral pH.
• If your pile attracts flies, rodents or pets, chances are you've put something in there that does not belong (e.g., meat or meat scraps, fatty/starchy foods, carnivorous animal droppings).

An excellent reference book is Let It Rot by Stu Campbell- I highly recommend it.  The EPA also has a helpful website on composting.


Happy composting!

An Organic Square Foot Garden, Part 1

I live in Texas.  It's a part of the country where you can grow many fruits and vegetables year round (different ones at different times of the year).  Until we moved here I had never really considered growing my own food.  Now I see the logic of doing it wherever you live, even if you are restricted to just a few seasons: knowing what you're eating (i.e., what it was grown in), doing something good for the environment, saving money, and enjoying the incredibly fresh taste of food that was grown just steps from your back door.

I was attracted to the concept of Square Foot Gardening because it yields an organized, attractive, efficient and super productive vegetable patch.  I highly recommend you read the book.  Another benefit is that it allows you to "start from scratch" so you don't have to engage in the laborious process of correcting whatever is wrong with the existing soil.  And I liked the idea of a raised bed because it lessened the possibility that my vegetable patch would be contaminated by runoff from my neighbors' yard (who use all manner of chemicals to control their lawn.)

Cost/Benefit
Being the practical person I am, I needed to run the numbers to see if it would really work for us.  I determined how much space I would need to grow enough food to generate the lion's share of what we consume.
 
Then I considered what it would cost to build it...

one Suncast tumbling composter $99 (at Lowes)
two 4x4 Frame-It-All raised garden beds $200
six 2-cubic-foot bags of Lady Bug Square Foot Gardening Blend soil $90 (special blend based on Mel Bartholemew's "Mel's mix" recipe)
one 3 ft x 50 ft roll of Landmaster Durable Weed Control fabric $13
one bottle of Liquid Seaweed (root stimulator for transplanting seedlings) $10
one seed starter tray $10
eighteen (mainly organic, some heirloom) fruit and vegetable seed packets $36
one roll of mason string $5
one roll of packing tape $1
...and for the canopy (to protect it from heavy rain, wind, cold, insects before flowering, birds...):
four lengths of 1/2 inch PVC pipe $5
one package of heavy duty zip ties $5
two 12x10.5 foot frost blankets $26
eight 2" metal spring clamps $24

total: $524
Note: I'm quite sure I could have spent a lot less on the composter and frames, but I chose the tumbler composter because it makes it easy to turn the compost and the type of frame I used makes it very easy to reconfigure or expand the garden later.

And compared that to what I expected we'd save...

These two boxes should support a good deal of our fruit and vegetable needs over the next year, especially if we use frost cover, make full use of the composter and carefully select what to grow during which seasons.  It's easy to see how the savings can quickly surpass the initial expenditure.  Consider that my family's typical weekly consumption of the fruits and vegetables I plan to grow is probably about $30.  I tend to buy organic, which costs more.  That amounts to about $1550 of savings a year, which means I'm saving $1000 in the first year alone.  Plus, we have the added benefit of knowing exactly what we are eating and experiencing the enhanced flavor of truly fresh food.  Giddyup!

After determining that it was a fiscally sound idea, I set about planning, constructing and launching my garden.

1. I  determined where my square foot garden would go on my property in order for it to have at least 6-8 hours of daily direct sunlight without ruining the look of my yard.  This also involved deciding what sort of container I would use.  Would I put it on my patio so I could see it through my kitchen window?  This would require putting a bottom on it so it wouldn't stain my deck.  Would I put it out in my yard?  I didn't want to tear up sod in order to put it in the grass, so I finally determined I'd put it in an unoccupied mulched area.  This would have the added benefit of making it easy to dismantle it if we had to.

2. I mapped out what I would grow and where I would grow it within my square foot garden.  Square foot gardens are typically 4x4 foot boxes.  This means that each 4x4 box would have 16 square foot boxes for planting (hence the term Square Foot garden.)  I decided to zero in on the vegetables and fruits that we tend to eat a lot of and paid attention to seasonality and principles of companion planting.  Not every plant grows nicely next to every other plant.  Sometimes one plant can make its companion plant taste bitter.  Good companions deter pests or enhance flavors.  

In the end, my spring planting map looks like this (visualize square foot boxes):


tomatoes, marigold, peppers, peppers
basil, onions, carrots, carrots
spinach, spinach, broccoli, broccoli
radish, bok choy, bok choy, lavender


lettuce, lettuce, pole beans, cantaloupe
oregano, marigold, zucchini, zucchini
watermelon, watermelon (given the size, these will occupy two entire rows - eight 1 foot boxes)


3. After a some thought and investigation, I went to Lowes and bought a tumbler composter.  Good compost is essential to a healthy and prolific vegetable garden.  I then went to an organic garden center and bought the rest of my supplies.

It took me 30 minutes to assemble the 4x4 frames so each looked like this (note the stake at the bottom left - this anchors the frame on four sides to the ground).  I highly recommend using a mallet to start the screw holes.  The planks are VERY hard.

It took me another 45 minutes to complete them.  Here's what I did:

I lined each frame with the weed control fabric...

 ... filled each frame with three bags of the square foot gardening mixture and used a rake to smooth it out.

I watered the boxes heavily and turned the soil as I went to ensure I got it good and wet.  I then measured and marked the frame at 12 inch increments in order to attach my string grid...

 

... until they looked like this...

Since we're expecting a cold snap later this week, I went ahead and put up my canopy to keep the ground a little warmer so I can plant some seeds at the end of the week.

I attached my PVC pipes and lashed them together at the top (where they cross) with heavy duty zip ties...

... then covered them with the garden fabric and secured the fabric to the frame with the spring clamps.  I'm sure I could have been tidier, but you get the idea.

4.  Then I determined:

• how many plants should go in each square foot (e.g., 16 carrots or one broccoli), 
• what needed to be started by seedling (tomatoes, peppers, onions, broccoli, lavender, oregano, watermelon) versus putting a seed right in the ground,
• what could be started in the ground now (carrots, spinach, bok choy, lettuce, cantaloupes, radish, cauliflower) versus after the last frost (marigold, basil, pole beans, zucchini), and finally,
• I enlisted my little boys to help me start the required seedlings.  They loved getting their hands dirty! I am hopeful that they will be excited to eat the food they grow - another great way to get kids to eat their veggies!

I am really excited about this project and I'll update you as I proceed.

***

The Basics of Composting
An Organic Square Foot Garden (Part 2)