Saturday, May 11, 2013

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.


Friday, May 10, 2013

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.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

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.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

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!