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!

 

 

Warmer Weather Making a Difference

March 19, 2013

Tomorrow is the first day of spring and we are finally getting some typical Texas spring weather.  These warmer temperatures are going to help the garden grow!

A lot has been happening and not happening in my garden since I last posted.   The mesclun seeds (often called spring mix in the store) are sprouting and coming along nicely. The mesclun squares are going to be interesting because when I first planted them I did not label the squares.  Having forgotten what was planted in those unlabeled squares; I planted a second variety of spinach and then realized that I already had mesclun planted there.   I now have mesclun and spinach coming up in the same square.   I am going to give it more time before I do any thinning.  They are just tiny babies right now and they all have plenty of room to grow.   Since I have never grown mesclun from seed this is a new adventure for me anyway, so I will just watch and wait to see what could happen over the next few weeks. 

What is not happening is the sugar snap peas are not sprouting.    I have two peas that sprouted on time.  I dug under the ground to see if there were others trying to come up but I could only find one, so I have replanted sugar snap peas.   I have also had trouble with the spinach squares sprouting.  I replanted the spinach also.   I soaked the seeds for a few minutes this time to see if that would make a difference.  I am also trying to keep the soil more evenly moist.  I may have let my soil dry out before. 

Dry soil does seem to be my biggest problem.  I am wondering if I have made my Mel’s mix correctly because it is not holding moisture very well.   

My lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, and brussel sprouts are all growing and looking very healthy.  

Seedlings Appear!

Spring break has arrived and with it we finally have some decent Texas spring weather.  It was wonderful to work in the garden without wearing my husband’s camo coveralls.  I accomplished a great deal in the garden, but I am most excited about the emergence of a few seedlings.   I have a couple of spinach seedlings peeking their heads above the soil along with one little lonely mesclun seedling.   I also have two sugar snap peas emerging above ground.   Hopefully there will be more seedlings joining them this week as warmer weather is in the forecast.

Spinach Seedling
Emerging on schedule!  Hopefully others will follow!

Sugar Snap Pea Seedling!  Woohoo!

I also noticed that my arugula is flowering.  Since I have never grown arugula before I was surprised.  The temperature has not been out of the 70’s and only that for a day or two.   If you have grown arugula and have any insight you could share I would appreciate experienced advice.  I removed the flowers and other buds hoping to keep it from going to seed early.  I need to do some more research on arugula.  

Dry Soil 

I am having some problems with some of my soil being too dry.  It just will not retain any moisture after a rain or watering.   After making my dirt by Mel's mix recipe, I realized I had not use enough peat moss.  So I added peat moss to some of the 1x1 squares when I planted in them.  I think I may have my compost to peat moss to vermiculite ratio altered.  I am going to try and correct the problem by adding more compost when I replant the summer crops.  The 1x1 squares that have the original Mel's Mix soil seem to hold a little more moisture after watering, but not as much as I would hope.  I tried my best to follow Mel's recipe, but I did some guessing when it came to cubic feet on some of the bags that were sold by weight. 

Blessed with Rain

My garden is currently being blessed with rain.   God is so good!   I am afraid I have not done a good job keeping my seeds moist.  Between that and the cooler weather I may not have my seedlings emerging on schedule.   I have escaped to South East OK for a little R&R for a few days.  Had some great friends come to visit and see our little abbey in the woods.   Hope my garden is doing well without me.   I am really looking forward to getting back home to see if by chance I do have some seedlings emerging. 

New Planting and Harvest Record

I have created an excel spreadsheet to keep up with my garden records. Check it out from time to time to see my square foot garden's progress.

 

I notice that some people are posting their garden plans on their blogs. I tried drawing up plans before I started, but when it came time to plant, I found it more creative for me to plant a square and then to decide what to plant in the next square. Mel recommends planting every square with a different crop, but I think I like having several squares together of the same plant. I feel having the same plant in consecutive square will make harvesting will be easier. I may plant more than Mel might suggest because I like to preserve the harvest to eat lat

 

Protecting Crops from Cold Weather

SFG March 4

Weather in Texas Continues to Be Cold

These lingering cold temperatures may be helping some of my early spring crops, but it is requiring more effort to keep the plants from freezing.  Plastic cover goes on at night and off in the morning.  Back on again at night and off again in the morning.  There have been few nights when I did not have to cover my garden in the past several days.   This past weekend I decided to build a frame from PVC pipe according to Mel’s guidelines.   It was simple, affordable and took very little time.  

For the three current squares that I have planted, we purchased six ½ inch PVC pipe 10 foot in length. We slipped the PVC pipe into opposite corners of each 4x4 square and attached them at the top where they crossed with a zip tie.  It was that simple.   I thought I had enough plastic to cover all three squares, but I ran a wee bit short.   One of the squares is only partially planted so we were able to cover the planted squares with what was left of my plastic.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are using bricks, rocks, and 2x6 wood scraps

to keep the plastic from blowing in the wind

Hopefully we will see warmer night temperatures soon, but this week’s forecast doesn’t seem promising.