Happy Accidents

I've talked before about using the principles of square foot gardening to maximize the growing potential of small areas.  The quintessential bed is 4 feet by 4 feet.  This size is manageable and can be tended from any side without having to step into the planting area.  4 x 8 was a better fit for our yard, but still allows me reach across from either side of the bed, assuming of course that 4x8 isn't planted up against a wall.  It is really hard to reach across this 4 foot bed without trampling on something.

This was the same bed I had a bit of issues with wind and kids and clumsiness.  For some reason, a bunch of the stuff did not sprout.  I'm not sure if it was bad seed or birds or just the nature of gardening but it meant there were some open areas in the bed.  This gave me chance to add stepping stones to help for harvesting and garden maintenance.  In the remaining space I replanted what did not make an appearance before.  For now though, the beets are growing and I have ample arugula and leaf lettuce.

Why jump starting your seedlings isn't always a good idea

We fell for it.  The nervous excitement of the coming spring.  The pretty seed catalogs.  The promise of the earliest ripe tomatoes in town.  We started our seeds way to early and for us it was not the right move.  The ready availability of heat mats and grow lights made it all possible.  Here are the problems with this idea

-Seedlings get big fast.  It's all fine and dandy when they are little, but when you end up with 75 plants that are 10-14 weeks old, it's too much.  We ran out of room under our light, they were too crowded together which is not ideal.

These were scattered all over our family room

-Unless you intend to build a cloche over the plants when you plant them outside, it won't be warm enough to really help most of them grow and thrive.  We planted ours in early April and while it was not cold enough to harm them, the plants did not thrive.  If we had a short growing season, I can understand it would be worth the effort, but we are pretty fortunate to have an ample growing season.

-When you start them early you have to keep re potting them into larger containers.  This requires more material, time, and space.

-Bigger plants are harder to simply discard.  There is a process of picking the best seedlings and thinning them out that happens over time.  It's easy to toss a skinny two inch sprout.  It's not so hard to toss a plant that is a few inches tall and has 6 or 7 leaves.  When that plants is a foot and half tall with flowers on it is REALLY hard to compost it because there is no more room.  This is how one ends up with 26 tomato plants planted.  This does not include the 10 or so we gave to friends.  26 tomato plants.  Ri-damn-diculous.  I see a post in my future called "tomatoes, what the h e double hockey sticks were we thinking?"

In the meantime, I guess I better get comfortable canning tomatoes.

Peas and Thank You

One of our beds is home to green beans and  sugar snap peas.  The beans are a bush and don't need support, but the peas require something to climb. There are endless options of things to build or buy.
I chose a simple frame made from left over wood from another project.  On that frame I strung jute twine and then looped a piece of twine around each  plant.

 

At first I was cutting the twine after each plant, but by the end I realized I could just run the twine along the ground between each plant.  The next morning I went to check on them and it turns out peas were born to climb.  Give them something to climb and the small tendrils will wrap tight and the plant moves upward.

 

I did find this process somewhat tedious, but it was inexpensive and when our growing season is over all I have to do is cut down the twine and toss everything into the compost. With a trellis I would have had to untangle the plants from the structure.  I know this about myself, I am better at front end preparation so this seemed like the way for me to go.  

Provide support for your climbing plants.  Your peas for one will thank you.

Meanwhile back at the ranch err homestead err front yard

So it turns out planting a garden, maintaining the home, and caring for the smalls does not leave nearly enough time for writing about the experience.  The great news is we have an honest to goodness vegetable garden growing.  We've even harvested radishes already.  While I don't love radishes all that much, it's a great motivator to pull something edible up when it's not clear how this will all turn out.

In addition to our radishes, we have some meaningful experience under our belt and some important lessons for our future endeavors.  Among those lessons: starting things indoors too early is a big ole waste of time and slugs really do suck.  More soon!

Happy Homesteading!

The best laid plans

I have a 4x8 bed just outside my kitchen that I've been meaning to get planted for weeks.  Today was the day I went for it.  I planned the area out using square foot planting guidelines and went to work.

It was moving along swimmingly until I had help from the wind, a certain small that shall remain unnamed, and my own clumsiness.  I planned for an organized area with clear boundaries as to what I planted where.  That's not what I ended up with.  I know what I planted in the area, but it's going to have a more eclectic look than I had intended.

Notes to self for next time:
-wind and small seeds do not mix
-don't hold palm fulls of seeds while balancing precariously over the planting area
-don't leave seed packets and smalls unattended
-pay attention to the garden plan and try not to plant lettuce over the already planted arugula.


What planting mishaps have you encountered in your gardening adventures?

Self sufficiency through self service snacks

I want feeding my smalls to be quick and convenient, but prepackaged stuff is not cost effective.

I can portion out my big bags of stuff into smaller ziploc bags, but I do want to minimize trash.

I can use little glass containers, but those are not what I call kid friendly and pretty heavy to tote.

I could use stainless steel, but it's not transparent.

I want my smalls to enjoy their food but I want it to be somewhat nutritious and varied.

I want to spend less time standing at the kitchen counter playing the role of short order cook.

I want the kids to eat a specified meal and snack times, but I want to respect that their hunger may not follow my rules.

I want to end the conflict that ensues from the very reasonable limits I set around the consumption of things like dried apricots.

I want to foster independence in my kids but I am not enough of a free range parent to let them run amuck in the kitchen.  While my 4 year old is more than happy to scale counter tops to find knives and cut up his own stuff, I can't be convinced it will end well.

I'll own it, this dilemma of mine is undoubtedly a first world problem, but it's important to me and related to simplifying my life.  In this endeavor I invoked a self service snack box policy.  I will continue to make breakfast to order and a dinner that should appeal to everyone at some level.  For everything in between, here is my plan:

-Each day I  will fill boxes in the fridge with a variety of foods the kids like.
-When they are hungry, they can help themselves to whatever is in the snack box.
-If they want PB&J at 10am and a hard boiled egg for lunch, so be it.
-If they are unsatisfied with their options, they can have a banana.
-If they don't love dinner, they can finish their snack boxes.

I put these together today and the kids were happy to help themselves.

I landed on small plastic containers as the most reasonable option.  The kids can see their choices, they won't break, and it's for storage, not heating.  While it might be a stretch to relate this to urban homesteading, this is absolutely a lesson in making it simpler on me and encouraging the kids to practice becoming self sufficient.  Plus, with less time in the kitchen, I'll have more time for the garden!

Planting the garden, square foot style

We've begun planting two of our beds using the spacing guides suggested by square foot gardening.  The general idea is that you plant seeds in groups of 1, 4, 8, 9, or 16 per each square foot.  I made a simple template using a piece of scrapbook paper and a pencil to punch holes showing me where to plant.

For each square, I punched out the appropriate planting pattern and then planted and covered the seeds.  I used additional sheets of paper to help maintain spacing over the 4x8 bed.

Our beds are each 4 foot by 8 foot creating 32 square feet to work with.  In this bed we planted 3 squares each of red onions, white onions, garlic, turnips, radish, and kohlrabi and 6 squares of carrots.  When it warms up a bit more we will plant lemon cucumbers in the remaining 8 squares.

The second bed is for beans and peas and is being planted in a similar fashion.  The difference here is we are planting sections a few weeks apart in hopes of having a longer season to harvest.