Mid-Summer Square Foot Garden Update

It has been a while since I updated my square foot garden journal.  I have been out of the country visiting my daughter who lives in the Arabian Peninsula.  I left my garden in my husband’s care and it was looking quite nice when I returned from my adventure in the desert.   I left my red checked Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book (which I received as a wedding gift in 1979) open to the vegetable freezing time chart as a slight hint for my husband.  He noticed the hint, but simply laughed.  Thankfully, there wasn't enough harvest to need preserving/freezing.  I had thought my corn might get ready while I was gone, but it appears my corn did not make at all.   The stalks look great, but the ears never matured.

Cornstalks looked healthy.  

The ears did not develop very well.
This is one of the bigger ones. 

Most of the ears are small like this one.

This is one of my sad little ears of corn.

 If anyone can tell me why this happened I would be interested in your thoughts. Could a lack of water at the proper time be the reason. I wasn’t here to keep it watered and I know my husband was very busy working night and day at his job.  He watered when he could, but it might have not been at a strategic time.  Of course all my square foot garden naysayers (along with my husband) are blaming my soil depth of only six inches.   Has anyone else in Texas had success in growing sweet corn in only six inches of Mel’s Mix?  Technically, it is Brenda’s Mix.   Living in a rural area, I had difficulty finding five varieties of compost like Mel recommends so I am wondering about the balance of my soil.

 On the upside… My squash plants are going crazy.   Since I was gone, I did not get a chance to train them to grow vertically, so they are growing everywhere.   I really was doubtful I was going to get the plants to grow vertically. I have lots of squash plant for the amount of fruit produced.   I never did a soil test, so perhaps I have too much nitrogen in my homemade soil.   Other plants seem to be doing great.  Everything has just overgrown its assigned space.   My eggplant plants have disappeared underneath the squash. 

I planted two squash plants with zinnias and marigolds.
  I was gone when I should have been training my squash to grow vertically.
By the time I got home it was too late. 

My pole beans seem to have the same problem as the squash. Good plant growth, plenty of blooms, but never enough mature beans to pick a “mess” of beans on one day.  (Does anyone know where that term “mess” of vegetables originated?)  I had to harvest green beans for a week to have enough for two people for one meal. They were delicious though.  Someone with more experience with the SFG method needs to let me know if my expectations are too high.  

While my squash and beans have produced moderately, my grape tomato plant has done better than expected.   The plant is huge and the harvest is plentiful.   So, I ask myself, why won’t my green beans produce more beans?

Growing Vertically - How to Build a Vertical Trellis for Your Square Foot Garden

Growing Vertically,

I just love my vertical trellises.   Once again I followed Mel’s instructions, and I am here to tell you that so far they are working great.  And they were so easy to build.   It is still early in the season, but they seem to be sturdy enough.   We made one modification to his plan.   Instead of tying all the little ties on each square of the nylon vegetable trellis to the frame, we purchased zip ties and used them to attach the nylon trellis to the conduit frame.   I have to admit this was my husband’s idea and at first I was a little skeptical, but indeed it was an excellent idea!   I did not relish tying each little square on the nylon trellis to the frame.   I believe this idea may also make it easier to take down at the end of the growing season.  I am hoping that the nylon trellises are sturdy enough to reuse next year.  

Look closely and you can see the rebar at
the corner of the raised bed. 

Conduit Trellis Frame

How we made our vertical trellises:  

Materials needed for one trellis:

2 - 6 ft lengths of electrical conduit

1 – 4 ft length of electrical conduit

2 – L - shaped conduit connectors

2- 4 ft length of rebar (Mel recommends 18 – 24 inches.  I may try the shorter length in the future.)

1 – nylon vegetable trellis

I purchased all the materials at a local home and garden center.  The conduit came in 10 foot lengths, but the garden center cut it for me into the lengths that I needed. 

To construct the vertical trellis I began by attaching one of the connectors to each end of the four foot conduit.   In order to position the rebar supports in the right place, I laid the four foot piece of conduit on the ground where I wanted my trellis and then using a hammer I drove the rebar into the ground about 1 – 1 ½ feet deep.   Next I slid one six foot length of conduit onto each rebar.  To complete the conduit frame I simply connected the four foot length of rebar to the top of the six foot lengths.   The connectors that I purchased had screws that I easily tightened to secure the two pieces of conduit to each other.   The final step was to hang the nylon vegetable trellis to the frame.   My trellis was bigger than my frame so I had to trim it to fit.  As you can see from the pictures, so far it is working great.

I still need to build a few more, but this project took less than 30 minutes to build.     

Best Square Foot Garden Ever!

I have never planted a garden and had such success as I am having with my square foot garden this year.   I am convinced that the secret is the homemade soil, Mel’s Mix!   The soil is so wonderful.  It is like the perfect soil.   I keep meaning to test the soil to see if it has all the right nutrients, but so far everything is growing so well that I have not slowed down and conducted the test.   I just want to share some pictures I took this afternoon to show you what I am talking about.   

 

You are looking at lush brussel spouts and cabbages.

Cabbages, lettuce, spinach, pole beans, and red potatoes!

I harvested spinach today.   This was my spinach squares just before I picked them today.   This was my second harvest.

 

Two of my four spinach 12 inch squares just before harvesting!

My potatoes have reached the top of the box.   I may only have to add soil one more time or maybe not.   They look beautiful and healthy.  On one of my Internet browsing journeys I read where some people grew potatoes in a box or container and all they ever got was a beautiful plant above ground, but no potatoes below ground. I sure hope that doesn’t happen here.   Waiting for my potato harvest will be like waiting for Christmas morning when I was a little kid.

I will probably add more soil one more time.
The potatoes will have 18 inches of soil to spread their little feet!

 

  My brussel sprouts are finally starting to produce sprouts!  

It's a baby brussel sprout!

 

One whole 4x4 square has been dedicated to GS90 Sweet Corn!   Sweet little corn seedlings peeked their heads through the soil this week and they are shooting up quickly.    Once the corn gets a little bit taller I am going to build a horizontal trellis to use a support for the corn.

 

If you look really close you might be able to see my corn shoots
 planted four per square.

 

 

 

 

Growing Potatoes in a Square Foot Garden

 

 

One of my favorite homegrown vegetables is new red potatoes cooked with fresh snapped green beans.   For the past several years I have had to rely on my brother-in-law to supply the potatoes.   This year I am raising my own potatoes in my square foot garden.   Since my raised beds are only six inches deep, they are too shallow to grow potatoes.   My husband built three 12 x 12 inch boxes from some scrap wood we had left over from rebuilding our deck.  I am really proud of my potato boxes.   Good job honey!  You really are becoming a pretty good carpenter. 

 

We placed the boxes over the three squares in my SFG where I planted my potatoes.  They fit perfect.   As the potatoes grow taller above the soil, I have been adding more soil.   The potatoes have grown almost to the top of the potato box.   Hopefully, when it is time to harvest, the potato boxes will be full of new red potatoes.   

Potato Boxes

As the potatoes grow, I add more dirt (Mel's Mix).

 

Ridding my Vegetable Garden of Fire Ants

Battle of the Ants!

 

 

I have been at war.  The enemy…Fire Ants.  When I first discovered fire ants invading my garden, I realized I needed to take action immediately. !    If fire ants invade my lawn I know what works, but that solution would not work in my vegetable garden.  I needed to find something safe and nontoxic.   On one of my favorite gardening forums, Garden Web, I learned several interesting suggestions for ridding your vegetable garden of ants.    I cannot speak to the validity of any of these methods except the two I tried.  

Ways to Rid Your Vegetable Garden of Ants-

Orange Oil

Instant Grits

Dry or Gardening Molasses

Coffee Grounds

Cornmeal

Sugar

Diatomaceous Earth

Pots of boiling water

Ant Poison with the active ingredient Spinosad

Being a true Texan and a former 4-Her I knew the Texas A&M extension service must have some valuable information for battling the pesky little critters.  I have included the link to their fact sheet.  It was interesting to see which of the above suggestions from the garden forum were actually on their fact sheet.  I was surprised to actually find boiling water on the A&M Fact Sheet.     

https://insects.tamu.edu/fireant/materials/factsheets_pubs/pdf/fapfs004.2002rev.pdf

I treated the infested area twice with cornmeal and although it seemed to slow the ants for a day or so, they never vacated my garden.    I treated the ants this past weekend with poison containing the active ingredient Spinosad.  On Monday there were still a few ants crawling around, but not many.   If I see any more ants I may try the boiling water method next.  

 



Cornmeal treatment for fire ants slowed them down,
but did not eradicate the pesky fella's.

 

 

My First Harvest

Woo-Hoo!  My lettuce is ready for harvest.   I am really excited to begin harvesting my first crop.  Fortunate for me this comes right in time for my new resolve to eat healthier and to eat fewer calories.  What better way to do that then eating a lot of salad.   Fresh home grown salad!

As excited as I am about my garden, I visited my sister’s (row garden) today.  She had some beautiful kale growing and already had fresh radishes.   I haven’t even planted radishes.  I bought the seeds, but the package instructions said to plant two weeks before the last frost.  That means it is now time to plant.   She does live 45 minutes south of me, so maybe that is why she got to plant earlier.  Hopefully, I can plant radishes on Monday. 

I cannot remember a spring with so many low temperature days this late in the year.   It is great for my spring crops as long as the temperatures don’t suddenly jump to 85 degrees.  I had to cover my garden several nights last week as the temperatures dropped into the low 30’s but this week seems to promise warmer spring weather. 

Replants are a success!

 I replanted my spinach since it wasn’t coming up.  I suppose the other seeds were still there just waiting for warmer temperatures or something, because now I have many spinach seedlings coming up in a totally random arrangement, not the well thought out and researched square foot garden plan.  I will have to thin them soon.   I also had to replant my sugar snap peas and this time I am not disappointed.

Phase II begins!

God blessed my little garden with rain while I was away today.    More rain is in the forecast.

I began phase two of my square foot garden during my spring break and I am very excited.  Adding three more 4x4 squares completed this year’s garden design.  My square foot garden design now has four squares on the back and two squares on the front. 

I am waiting until later in the spring to make more dirt and fill the new squares because I just don’t trust myself.  If I have dirt I will not be able to resist planting my summer crops.  I think all the garden centers get their plants too early on purpose.  They know we can’t resist them.  We buy them, plant too soon, and then we have to purchase more plants because the first ones succumb to the late spring frost.     

 Our last frost date is still three weeks away.  I will be patient, I will be patient, I will be patient!  

 

 

Another task we accomplished during spring break was mulching the walkways between my squares.  First, I covered the walkways with Scotts Pro Weed Block.   Then we bought 20 bags of cypress mulch and spread it between the squares about two inches deep.   Even with 20 bags we ran short.  I thought I had a picture of the mulch, but I guess I was wrong.  I will post a picture later. Perhaps you can imagine the black weed block covered with cyprus mulch. 

I am undecided about what I want to use to hold the mulch in place on the outside walkways.   I am thinking about planting marigolds or dianthus around the edges instead of using man-made edging.  Marigolds would be good because I know they deter garden pests, but the dianthus will be good because they will come back each year. 

 If anyone has suggestions for what to use for my garden edging, please share your ideas!

 

Spring Crops are making progressing!

 

 I wanted to share the progress of my Bibb lettuce.

 Bibb Lettuce planted from transplants February 24.

                                               

Bibb Lettuce - March 21

I am thinking salad for supper soon!  I better get the radishes planted!