Otter Disaster #36: Vegetable Guardin'

Here's another entry in the True Life, Two Fisted Tales of Otter Disaster!

Square Foot Garden: The Final Harvest

Denver is looking at freezing temperatures tonight and possibly snow tomorrow, so I picked the last of the veggies from the garden. Here is some of the harvest:



A few ripe tomatoes, the last two cabbages, a good bunch of jalapenos, a few radishes planted for fall harvest, and a really nice pumpkin. I also cut all the remaining tomatoes and left them on bits of vine hoping they will ripen and have a little flavor. Once they ripen, I'll quarter them and dry them in the oven. That is a pretty easy way to preserve them for long term storage while maintaining the flavor.



I still have some beets in the ground that I planted for a late harvest, but they really aren't ready. Friend Paul of the 5K Garden tells me you can cover them and they will winter over for spring, so I'm going to give that a try. Right now I have them covered with some cabbage leaves, but once I get the front yard raked I'll add some leaves to the coverage as well.



Aside from the beets, I've cleared both of the square foot beds and they are pretty well cleaned up for winter. Once I pull in all the pumpkins from my traditional beds I'll clean up the vines and try to get the compost pile ready to go in earnest.



All in all a fairly successful garden, especially considering the adoption of the Square Foot method for the first time, and a work schedule in mid-late summer that led to some neglect of the garden during some of the hottest periods of the year.

I was really pleased with my spinach, carrots, pumpkins, jalapenos, radishes, cabbages and onions. The cucumbers were also fairly successful. I didn't have much success with my green beans, and I think I've made my final attempt at growing green peppers. Year after year I end up with small, tough, and bitter peppers. I might give the green beans one more shot next year.

My attempt to get a second harvest of red radishes, icicle radishes, spinach and carrots was mostly a failure, again due to work pressures that led to late season neglect of the garden. I got a few radishes, pulled today, and the carrots never even sprouted.

My tomatoes were sort of a mixed bag. I didn't seem to have the sheer amount of tomatoes I've had in years past, and the fruit was smaller on average I think. I also had a problem in the SFG beds of large dark spots on the bottom of the fruit. I'd read that can be caused by calcium deficiency in the soil, but I specifically amended the soil for that because of the same issue last year in my traditional beds. It could be that I was overwatering, or there might be some other deficiency in my SFG soil mixture.

As for the Square Foot Gardening method as a whole, I was mostly pleased. It is a very organized way of putting the garden together and it does allow a lot of plants in a limited space. I may have used the wrong combination of compost or something, because while some plants flourished (Cabbages and radishes), others struggled as if they needed something extra (tomatoes, green peppers, beets). I will have to find a good compost, or amend the soil with some nutrients for next year. I'm also going to do a couple of deeper beds using the SFG method, specifically for potatoes, carrots and other root vegetables.

For the complete rundown on my Square Foot Garden for 2007 you can see all my posts on the subject HERE.

Square Foot Garden: Chili Time

It's been a while since posting about my SFG, but the Disaster Family has been enjoying fresh tomatoes and cucumbers for several weeks now. Fall radishes and beets will arrive shortly, as long as we don't have an early freeze. Might get a last harvest of spinach as well. Things will probably be moving into the cleanup/winterize stage very soon. I'm going to pull in a really nice harvest of pumpkins soon as well, and will be able to give some of them away I imagine. Once the first freeze comes, I'll probably do a nice long post-mortem post on my first year of Square Foot Gardening.

It's been much cooler here in Denver over the last week, and today it's overcast, rainy and cool. This weather presents the perfect late summer opportunity to throw together some of my harvest with some ground beef and pork, some spices, and a little chili powder to make a delicious chili soup.

Here's some of the harvest destined for the stew:


I always love that first batch of chili when the weather finally cools down, especially when I get to use my very own, home grown ingredients.

My recipe is fairly simple:

1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork
1 or 2 onions chopped
1 or 2 green peppers chopped
2 or 3 Anaheim peppers chopped
2 to 6 jalapeno peppers (amount to your particular taste)chopped/sliced
5 or 6 small or 2 to 3 large tomatoes chopped (or a can of stewed tomatoes if fresh not available.
A spoonful or so of minced garlic
2 cans of refried beans (Mrs. Disaster can't stand whole beans, and this solution actually makes a nice smooth soup, which is really nice for using leftovers on chili dogs)
Salt, black pepper, crushed red pepper, cumin, and chili powder to taste (Or just throw in the store brand chili seasoning packet from your local grocer)
Throw the whole mess into a slow cooker and cook on low heat for 4-5 hours.
Eat.

My chili is never quite the same twice, that's just sort of how I cook. I use the ingredients I have available, and adjust them til it suits me (and the Mrs.). Usually delicious with some corn bread or a fresh loaf of french bread from the grocery store. Leftovers are awesome on chili dogs and breakfast burritos.

Square Foot Garden: End of July Update

Well, I've harvested most of my beets now, pumpkin vines have all but taken over my traditional (non-SFG) bed, and I should have a regular supply of onions and carrots for the foreseeable future.

The big news, as far as I'm concerned, is the impending supply of fresh tomatoes.



I'll probably pick my first tomato tomorrow, and I have lots of pink all over my vines now.
My other vine crops are really coming along too. I've got some nice cucumbers:

A watermelon with some potential:

And a bunch of pumpkins:


I've got some Anaheim Peppers now, and I'm looking forward to making some salsa, learning to roast them, or both.


Jalapenos, and Bells should be following shortly.

I harvested a cabbage a few days ago, and I'm trying something a friend of my mother-in-law told me about. You harvest the head, leave the rest of the leaves intact, and you should get 3-4 smaller heads to grow. It looks like it's working:

I've got the beginnings of 3 small heads. You then harvest them when the leaves form into a ball (they will be smaller than a regular head) steam them and eat them something like brussel sprouts.

Moving forward, I'm going to be planting some more radishes (especially the icicle), more carrots, and a lot more beets. The spinach I planted in one of my traditional beds went to seed and I just turned those plants under to see if I can get a fall crop out of it.

Square Foot Garden: Big Update

It's been a while since I've posted about my square foot garden.

My radishes, the red and the icicle, have all been harvested. The icicles are really good, with a very tender root. They have a slow burn though, and are quite hot. Today I pulled the last red radish, as it was going to seed:

(All photos can be clicked to enlarge)


I have two square feet of spinach plantings, and may get a couple of meals out of them, but they really aren't liking the heat of July in Colorado. My green beans are also limping along with the heat and some persistent grasshoppers stunting their progress. I am hoping the early plantings will produce something worth eating.

Here are my square foot beds as they were first thing this morning:





My cabbages are coming along nicely and since spraying them for bugs, they are looking a lot better. My peppers are definitely behind where they should be at this time of year. They have grown quite a bit in the last couple weeks though, and have flowers now, so they will hopefully be producing soon.

I harvested my first few beets this morning as well, and will probably have them for lunch:



I have two square feet of beets planted, and am a little disappointed that the roots are not bigger. I'm not sure what I need to do to achieve that, and I'll need to do some research for next year. I had a similar problem with my icicle radishes. There were a few plants with huge leaves, but tiny little roots that were tough and inedible.

One benefit of the heat has been the rapid growth of my vine plants. Cucumbers, pumpkins and my watermelon vines have all exploded in the last two weeks, and I'm really looking forward to fresh cucumbers in the next month:



Last, but certainly not least, my tomatoes are starting to bear fruit. Fresh tomatoes are the reason I started gardening in the first place. In two weeks I will start harvesting tomatoes, and should be able to eat 2 or 3 fresh tomatoes every day until September or even early October.
Here is my first and biggest tomato:



He's pretty small right now, but I bet he's the first one I get to eat, and I really can't wait. The flavor of home grown tomatoes is so completely superior to anything you can buy at the grocery store that I rarely even buy tomatoes at the store anymore. I might get some in the dead of winter for sandwiches or something, but in general grocery store tomatoes are utterly flavorless and always disappointing.

Square Foot Garden: Summer Harvest, Progress, and The Thing that Ate My Cabbage

I haven't posted on my SFG in a while, so I thought it was time for an update.
I finally broke down and sprayed for insects today, because I mistakenly thought I was growing a piece of swiss cheese instead of a cabbage:



Both of my Square Foot beds are coming along nicely, considering my late start in planting and planning this year:





I discovered co-worker Brent is also a Square Foot Gardener, and posts pics of his SFG on Flickr. His beds make mine look a little pathetic. Very lush with the broccoli and herbs. I definitely need to plan better next year.

On the plus side I finally had my first SFG harvest, and pulled some very nice radishes last week, and a few more last night. Pictured below are the radishes along with some spinach and some spearmint that Mrs. Disaster likes to put in her tea.



The spinach is from my traditional beds and is about done. I taste tested some raw leaves and they are getting a little bitter, and the plants themselves are going to seed. I have a few smaller plants in one of my SFG beds and will have a little more spinach early in the summer, but I don't expect those plants to do too well in the heat of July in Colorado.

Looking forward, I will plant some carrots in the harvested radish grids for a later summer harvest, and I will definitely be doing a fall planting of spinach. I, along with Mrs. Disaster eagerly anticipate tomatoes coming on the vine in the next several weeks, and Little Disaster is excited about pumpkins starting to come onto those vines as well. I'm also hoping that my late start on my cucumbers still gives me a late summer harvest on those. I should have edible beets in the next few weeks as well.

Square Foot Garden: Something ate my Carrots.

Last night something stripped the leaves off several of my carrots. Probably a rabbit and not actually in the SFG, but still. I think he's been nibbling on my radishes as well.

Yesterday I built a cage/lattice for my tomato vines for the SFG, and I built two additional 1'x3' beds that are 10 inches deep. I built them for potatoes and root veggies, but I don't know if I will get anything into them this year. I may just buy some nice annual flowers to add a little color to the back yard, and work on the root veggies next year.

I also planted nine more bush bean plants, and finally filled all 16 square feet of my 'fence' bed. The other bed, my 'house' bed has one square foot left, and I haven't decided what is going in there. I may also have one of the two square feet available that I orignally planted to strawberries, because I don't think they are coming up. Maybe I can blame the rabbit.

Here are my grids showing the layout of the 'house' and 'fence' beds.

Miscellaneous Debris Part 2

Here is my
Technorati Profile

Official Square Foot Gardening Website Here.

Lots of Cute Otters (no disasters) at cuteotters.com

The Square Foot Garden

I like to garden. Last year I had a really good crop of tomatoes, some pumpkins, spinach and carrots, but I felt I wanted to do more this year. With plans to build a second 16 ft by 4 foot bed on the opposite side of my yard, I began looking for a good gardening book.
I found Mel Bartholomew's book The All New Square Foot Gardening. I was intrigued with Mel's notion that you could grow more stuff in less space. I also didn't relish the idea of digging out a fairly large bed, amending the soil, and rearranging much of my backyard landscape.

The idea of square foot gardening (SFG) is that you build a box 4'x4', 2'x2', 2'x4' or other measurment divisible into even square feet. You then create grids using slats, wire or whatever else that works into 1'x1' squares:



Notice also that the plants, (green beans in the photo) are then planted in a grid as well. Based on the size of the plant you grow 1, 4, 9 or 16 plants in any given square foot. It is a very organized approach to planting, and very easy to maintain. I also like the neat, orderly aesthetic of the SFG.

This is a considerably different approach than the rather chaotic results of my more traditional bed. I have planted my traditional bed as well to see which approach I prefer and the square foot method is winning out so far. Below is a side by side photo of one of my SFG beds. The left image was taken on May 25th and the one on the right was taken this morning, June 7th.



Progressing nicely if I do say so myself. . .

I decided to put in two 4'x4' beds using the SFG method. I thought it would be easy to fill them with crops and with 32 square feet to fill I was wrong. I still have a couple of empty squares that I may use for some later season crops(like fall spinach)
I have done three plantings of cabbage and two plantings of beets and radishes offset by 10-12 days so I will not have too much stuff ready to harvest all at once. I've also done two plantings of green beans with a third planned this week. Additionally there are 3 bell pepper plants, an Anaheim, two jalapeno plants, some icicle radishes, 3 tomato plants, and a third planting of spinach. The first two are in my traditional beds along with my carrots, pumpkins, and additional tomato plant and my sunflowers. I also started two watermelon plants indoors and transplanted them. One of them has died and I'm not too sure the second will survive either. We'll see.

I also planted strawberry seeds, both in my SFG beds (2 SF) and some indoors. I've only had 3 plants come up inside and none outside. I will probably be transplanting those soon.

I'm really liking the SFG method and I'm seriously contemplating turning all my traditional beds into perennial beds next year and building a couple more smaller, but deeper SFG boxes for carrots, beets and other root vegetables.

Here's one last photo of my other bed, the one with the tomatoes and peppers: