SFG Seeding Square - New Toy

My main garden is a raised bed garden which follows the late Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening principles. It was developed in the US so it uses English measures based on 12 inches to a foot. The beds are divided into "squares" or square foot sections and plants are planted in squares based on their space requirements. Plants are planted in a grid with 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, or 16 per square. If a plant requires 3 inch spacing, for example a radish or carrot, it is planted in a grid of 16 plants per square. Beets and bush beans are planted nine per square, giving them 4 inch spacing.

The Square Foot Gardening method is superior from a number of perspectives. It makes highly efficient use of space in the garden, important to me because of my small garden. It makes garden planing and layout simple. The Mel's Mix soil blend is light and friable. It dries out quickly in the spring so you can plant earlier, and it is easy to weed. When planting seeds, all you need to do is mark out the planting pattern on the squares and plant. I usually use my finger and an approximation of the spacing. Then I ran across this device on Amazon.



This is the Seeding Square, a very clever device that makes it simple to layout the garden. This was funded by a kickstarter campaign and is manufactured in Canada from a very tough plastic. It is washable and waterproof, so it won't be ruined if you leave it out in the rain. One device accommodates all spacing and planting depths. It is flat, easy to store, and comes with a plastic zipper case. The planting patterns are color coded and it comes with a planting guide, a combination dibble/seeder, and a funnel. The dibble is marked in inches and has an embedded magnet to store it in the slot when not in use.



The shape of the device is like a pizza box. The raised sides are pressed into the soil, marking out the sides of the squares. The funnel stores underneath when not using.



The Seeding Square is started in the corner to align with the sides of the bed. The dibble is used to make planting holes at the necessary depth. If you want to use the seeding funnel, you can now plant your seeds.



Here I am planting this bed with bush beans, with a 9 per square spacing (the yellow holes). The squares and 2 inch holes were quickly laid out. Given the size of the bean seeds I did not use the funnel and chose to insert them with my fingers. The column to the left was planted with pole beans that will be trellised. For them, I use an 8 per square spacing, just the inner two rows of red circles.



When planting carrots, the funnel definitely was handy. Above I am seeding carrots in the space allocated to the now sadly deceased shallot plants. The small size of the carrot seed and the relatively shallow depth of planting hole makes the use of the funnel very handy. Two days of planting have proven the Seeding Square very handy and well worth the somewhat pricey $29 US.

2016 Planting List

Most seeds are in hand and the seed starting and planting schedules are being worked out. The onions and shallots have already sprouted and are under the grow lights. The following is a list of what is planned to be included in this year’s garden, always subject to the gardener’s whim (whimsy?). Next is to complete the plot layout. I better hurry because given this seeming early spring, I could be out planting peas and spinach right now.

Beans

• Bean Bush Provider (PT)
• Bean Bush Jade (PT)
• Bean Pole Helda (T)

After last year’s mosaic virus disaster I decided to go back to bush beans for awhile, since they exhibit a higher degree of disease resistance. Of course, that is subject to seed catalog enchantment, so I succumbed to Territorial’s promise of some BMV resistance and ordered a pole bean to try, Helda, a Romano type bean.

Beets

• Beet Paonaza D’Egitto (PT)
  
• Beet Touchstone Gold (HM)
  
• Beet Shiraz (HM)

Beets are the same as last year, with the impulse addition of an Italian heirloom from Italy, Paonaza D’Egitto. I hope I have a repeat of last year’s great beet harvest.

Broccoli

• Broccoli Atlantis (J))
  
• Broccoli Blue Wind (T)
  
• Broccoli Spigariello Liscia (J)

I am trying a different strategy this year after the broccoli did not like last year’s hot, dry summer. Blue Wind is a standard type that produces heads very quickly and hopefully does well during the cooler, wetter part of early spring. Atlantis is a broccoli/Gailon cross and produces lots of small florets.  The Spigariello is a leaf variety grown for its edible leaves. So I am giving up trying to grow big heads of broccoli in exchange for hopefully more tonnage of broccoli-like shoots and greens.

Cabbage

• Cabbage Chinese Minuet (J)
• Cabbage Golden Acre (HM)
• Collard Flash (T)

Soloist did well the last two years but I am trying a new mini Napa cabbage, Minuet, this year. And Golden Acre is my first attempt at standard cabbage. It is an heirloom compact cabbage that can be grown with a 12 inch/30 cm spacing, making it suitable for raised beds and denser planting. Its disadvantage is it has a short harvest window and does not store well.

Carrots

• Carrot Yaya (F)
• Carrot Cosmic Purple (BC)
• Carrot Eskimo (T)

Nothing new this year, I will be replanting some varieties I planted last year.

Cucumber

• Cucumber Ashley (SESE)
• Cucumber Pickler Calypso (F)

I had a terrible year with the cucumbers, getting only a few small fruits. It was not bacterial wilt, the usual scourge, because the cucumber beetles were not a big problem Rather the hot, humid weather seemed to trigger other diseases that wiped out the cuke plants. This year I am trying Calypso, a pickling cuke with good disease resistance that Mike had insane good luck with last year. And Ashley caught my eye in the SESE catalog, which described it as a cuke with good disease resistance to help it survive hot, humid Southern summers.

Eggplant

• Eggplant Ping Tung (PT)

This is the only one I grow now. It is fairly early and seems a bit more resistant to flea beetles, but I still have too keep them covered most of the season.

Endive/Escarole

• Endive Dubuisson (J)
• Escarole Natacha (J)

I grow these every year and they always do well and virtually never bolt.

Greens (Chinese)

• Greens Pac Choi Win-Win (J)
• Greens Tatsoi (F)
• Greens Komatsuna (PT)

Kale

• Kale Nash’s Green (HM)
• Kale Nero Di Toscana (F)
• Kale Red Ursa (HM)

I almost tried some of the kales from Adaptive Seeds but then got attracted by some new kales offered by High Mowing. Red Ursa is a Frank Morton cross that looks a bit like a Siberian kale with the red veining of Red Russian kale. Dave of Our Happy Acres did a Spotlight on it. Nash’s Green is a field selection of Nash Huber of Washington State, a curly green kale. It is supposed to be very cold tolerant and a good candidate to overwinter, even better than Siberian kales. Nero Di Toscana repeats.

Kohlrabi

• Kohlrabi Azur Star (HM)
• Kohlrabi Winner (F)

These are a repeat from last year and I had good luck with them.

Lettuce

• Lettuce Green Ice (PT)
• Lettuce Red Sails (PT)
• Lettuce Buttercrunch  (PT)
• Lettuce Webb’s Wonderful (F)

This year I am back to my old faithful varieties. What is new is my first crisphead, Webb’s Wonderful, now that seed is available here.

Mustard

• Mustard Green Wave (PT)

Tried and true. Slower to bolt and so what, the flowers and stalks are tender and edible so I just keep eating whatever it keeps making.

Onions

• Onion Copra plants (DF)
• Onion Red Wing plants (DF)
• Onion Purplette (J)
• Onion Shallots Conservor (HM)
• Onion Leeks Takrima (J)

Copra and Red Wing are storage onions I will be growing from plants from Dixondale Farms. And this year I will be trying Conservor for shallots. I am not impressed with Ambition’s storage ability and still miss Saffron, which was a superior and very long storing seed shallot. Also new for me is Purplette, a pretty little fresh onion from Johnny’s with a purple blush. So far, the Takrima leeks are a pricey bust, one seed germinating, so I will likely be buying leek plants again.

Peas

• Pea Snap Super Sugar Snap (J)
• Pea Snow Green Beauty (BC)

I wanted to grow Green Beauty last year but Fedco sold out. This year I ordered as soon as the catalog was available online and still sold out. Re-ordered from Baker Creek and I finally have seeds.                                                                                                                                                 
Peppers

• Pepper Tiburon Ancho (J)
• Pepper Carmen (F)
• Pepper Revolution (F)
• Pepper Jimmy Nardello (BC)
• Pepper Hungarian Paprika (SESE)
• Pepper Super Shepherd (SESE)
• Pepper Lemon Drop (BC)
• Pepper Jalapeno (purchased plant)

 I already announced I am giving up on baccatam peppers, however much I would like to grow them. The exception this year is Lemon Drop since I already have seeds and I will try growing it in containers that I can bring inside. The only new pepper is Super Shepherd, a long red sweet pepper of Italian origin. It will be interesting to compare it to Carmen, which is a reliable and productive pepper bred by Johnny's in Maine. Bacterial spot was a problem last year and since it can be seed borne, I have to research seed treatment techniques like bleach and hot water baths in the next few weeks before I have to start seeds.

Radish

• Radish Celesta (HM)
• Radish D’Avignon (HM)
• Radish Korean Alpine (J)
• Radish Zlata (F)

Zlata is a repeat, a superior brown radish (similar to Helios). New are Celesta, a red cherry radish, and D’Avignon, a French breakfast type, both from High Mowing Seeds. Alpine is a Korean type radish, shorter and blockier than a daikon. If I get some, I plan to use them in pickles and kimchee.

Spinach

• Spinach Tyee (F)
• Spinach Escalade (HM)

I hope to have some luck with spinach again. Last year I tried starting seeds inside in 3/4 inch soil blocks. About half germinated which is apparently typical for spinach, so I planted twice as many blocks as I needed. The small seed blocks worked well and I had no transplant problems.This year I am going to try scarification and cold treatment first to see if I can improve the germination rate.

Summer Squash

• Squash Zucchini Dunja (HM)
• Squash Zucchini Costata Romanesco (R)
• Squash Pattypan Sunburst (PT)

These are the same as last year. The Costata Romanesco strain from Renee’s is definitely different and more productive than the heirloom seeds I previously used.

Swiss Chard

• Chard Magenta Sunset (J)
• Chard Orange Fantasia (PT)
• Chard Pink Passion (HM)

Repeat, sticking with winners.

Tomatoes

• Tomato, yellow Sunkist  (HM)
• Tomato, cherry Honeydrop (F)
• Tomato, cherry Bing (HM)
• Tomato, Juliet (J)
• Tomato, Sweet Treats (F)
• Tomato, Jaune Flamme (HM)
• Tomato, Rose de Berne (HM)
• Tomato, purchased plants

New this year will be Bing, a red cherry; Honeydrop, a yellow cherry (not the yellow pear of Russian origin with the same name); and Rose De Berne, a French heirloom producing medium size pink fruit. I still need a full size non-heirloom red slicer and will look for plants locally. That greatly limits my choices since the nurseries only grow/sell the crowd favorites like Jet Star and Early Girl.

Turnip

• Turnip White Hakurei (J)
• Turnip Yellow Golden Ball (PT)
• Turnip Royal Crown (PT)

These are all repeats. Hakurei is a superior white Japanese turnip, much better than the standard Tokyo Cross. And I found Royal Crown, an F1 hybrid, a much improved version of the standard purple top turnip.

The seed starting season is beginning. This weekend I have plans to start kale, kohlrabi and mustard. Next week it is spinach, then broccoli, cabbage, Swiss chard and peppers. We are getting into crazy season, juggling seed trays on the heat mat and under the lights. All this happens just as we are approaching tax filing deadline, which reminds me I have to do my own. The next four weeks will be interesting, but seeing green things growing under the lights makes it  worth it.

2015 Planting List

 

What a winter! Historic snow amounts and low temperatures. We have had 7 feet of snow in about three weeks (a foot of that this weekend) and are expecting another 1.5 feet Tuesday. Tonight it is supposed to be –6 °F (-21 °C) with high winds and –30 °F  (-34 °C) wind chill factor. Brrr.

 

All of  the seed orders are in and mostly delivered and safe inside. For those of you unfamiliar with suburban snow storms, mailboxes on the street are subject to being blown up by the town plows going by at high speed, throwing a plume of heavy snow that rips mailboxes off their supports and deposits them who knows where. The mere fact that my seeds have been safely retrieved and secured inside is a major accomplishment. The hell with the bills, my seeds are safe.

 

I am now working on the seed starting schedule, which is keeping me positive with all the nasty weather. Meanwhile, here is the planting list for Spring 2015, whenever (if ever ) it arrives. Seed vendor legend: BC=Baker Creek, DF=Dixondale Farms, F=Fedco, HM=High Mowing Seeds, J=Johnny’s, PT=Pinetree, R=Renee’s, SESE=Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, T=Territorial

Things I May Try in 2015

 

I have been thinking of some things I may want to do differently in the garden in 2015. I use the word “may” because I reserve the right to bail out on any or all of this. This is not my New Year’s resolution list.

 

Purchase Onion Plants

The last three years I have been growing storage onions  in my garden. I use seedlings because the results are much better than sets. After all, alliums are biennial and there is a risk with sets that the plants will bolt, plus you are severely limited in your choice of onion varieties. Starting onions from seeds is really not hard. They take a while to germinate and here you have to start them in February, but they do well in cool conditions (the definition of conditions in my house in February with $4 heating oil). But I did manage to do a bad job last year. Trying to plant black seed in black potting mix is difficult, so I just sprinkled the whole packet in a 4” pot. The seedlings were crowded and too difficult to thin, resulting in weak transplants, many of which died from transplant shock.

 

This year, I am going to try using purchased onion transplants, at least for the yellow and red storage onions. I will still have to start seed for the shallots and specialty onions This is an expensive  proposition, about twice as expensive as purchasing seeds and starting you own. What I am hoping to achieve is a much higher (more and bigger bulbs) and more reliable yield from the same garden space because I will be planting robust and healthy transplants grown by professionals. A lot of seed vendors sell onion plants and most seem to be grown and shipped  by suppliers in Texas (Dixondale Farms being one of the most prominent). And most of those seed vendors get about $15-16 for a bunch of 50-70 plants. Fortunately, Pinetree Seeds in Maine sells two bunches for $15.49 and you can mix and match. So, one bunch of Copra and one of Red Zeppelin for me. One of the many reasons I really like Pinetree.

 

Total War on Cucumber (and Flea) Beetles

OK, I have had it. This year, once again, my cucumbers were decimated by bacterial wilt spread by cucumber beetles. These pests feed on the leaves of cucumbers and their larvae feed on the roots. The leaf damage is not that bad, and cucumber plants can usually recover. What is worse is the beetles carry bacterial wilt disease in their guts and spread it to the plants. Once infected, the plant wilts and dies in just a couple of days. The little buggers are small and fast, and they like to hang out inside the flowers, so they are difficult to hand pick.

 

So in 2015 I am going to try using Surround for the cucumbers and eggplant, spread DT on the soil around the plants, and spray weekly with an organic spray like pyrethrin or Spinosad (I usually alternate these). Surround is an interesting material and it will be a challenge to use it. Surround is a finely ground kaolin clay produced in a magnetic centrifuge in Georgia by one company. It’s a patented process using fancy and expensive equipment, so the product is fairly pricey. Both Johnny’s and Fedco carry it, but Fedco is about $5 cheaper for a 25 pound bag. Shipping is another matter so I may try to find a local source.

 

The way Surround is used is a slurry is made with water and the plants are either dipped in it before transplanting, or you use a sprayer to apply it. I will probably try dipping the transplants and then use a sprayer to cover new foliage and touch up spots that are washed off. The film left by the clay apparently doesn’t affect the plant and transmits light. There are various theories on how it works, such as the beetles don’t see the plants, they don’t like the feel of it, they spend their time cleaning their little feet rather than feeding, but it apparently does work and is used by commercial growers. An option is to mix a pyrethrin with the clay slurry when applying, but there is no evidence that improves effectiveness.

 

Row cover for Brassicas and Eggplant

Obviously, row cover for brassicas, eggplant and squash makes a lot of sense, given  the plethora of pests they face. I have used squares of the stuff in my square foot garden, supported by arches of plastic tubing. Last year I had access to one of the unused plots in our community garden and reverted back to traditional, in-ground row gardening. I may have that privilege again and want to try planting brassicas and eggplant in-ground, so a row covering makes sense.

 

I ran across an article on the Grow Abundant Gardens blog with a nifty way to implement a floating row cover. Turns out Johnny’s sells a 10 foot wide Agribon AG-19 in rolls. This is wide enough that if you use, say, 10 foot sections of 1/2 inch plastic conduit as supports, you can create a tunnel high enough to grow broccoli, Brussels sprouts, eggplant and summer bush squash under it. The row cover helps with cool Spring weather for the eggplant and squash and repels the nasties for anything you plant under it. I’m going to give this a try.

 

Grow Peas on a Trellis

I am getting tired of the results achieved from my patented technique for growing snow and snap peas in a block. I have tried to select varieties that are short vined, such as Oregon Sugar Pod II. I plant them in a block surrounded by a low fence and hope they support each other as they grow. Good theory, but in practice they usually grow taller than the catalog claims and flop over. I get a big mess and it is hard to find the peas to harvest them

 

So next year I am going to try growing them on a trellis. In fact, they are going to get the 8 foot trellis I grew the Musica beans on. I think I will select a tall variety like Green Beauty from Fedco, which is supposed to grow to 8 foot and produce heavily. Instead of an occasional handful for a stir fry, I envision bags and bags of snow peas in the freezer next summer.

 

Mineralization

This is a topic somewhat new to me and big enough that I may save it for another post. Obviously, if we are eating our own garden produce, we want food that is “nutrient dense” and healthful. That’s why we garden. A key to producing nutrient dense food is having garden soil that has the right mix of macro and micro nutrients. According to Mel Bartholomew, all you need is a trowel full of “perfect” compost per square to produce healthful food. Of course, no one can define what “perfect” compost is and even Mel himself has admitted that sometimes supplements help. For example, he acknowledges that broccoli and beets are boron dependent and supplying a boron boost can increase productivity and eliminate hollow stems. I will write more later but mineralization will get increased attention from me in 2015.

 

Tomato choices

As I have said, I had access to an extra plot in the community garden and planted a double row of tomatoes. I am more careful what I plant in my square foot garden because of its limited space. So I took advantage of the additional space and planted some heirlooms. I planted four Brandywine, four Pineapple, and a Cherokee Purple, all heirlooms. At first, results were great and I got a heavy set of fruit, but they took their good old time ripening. Unfortunately, by late summer, most of the fruit cracked and anthracnose rot infected the cracks before the fruits ripened. I lost a large amount of fruit because of that. So next year I will put a bigger emphasis on selecting full size tomatoes that are more crack resistant. It doesn’t matter what the flavor is if the fruit rots before you can eat it.

 

 

 

My choices for 2014

 

This is a particularly busy time for me. I have a seasonal job doing taxes and I am very busy from mid-January to the end of February, and again the first two weeks of April as the filing deadline looms. At the same time, the seed catalogs have arrived and I have to do the planning and seed ordering for the upcoming gardening season. I did get my seeds ordered and they are starting to arrive. Given the winter we have had so far, it is nice to be able to think about warmer weather and gardening.

 

Each year I go through the same process, deciding what to grow next season. I have my own experience growing vegetables in my own garden, but the catalogs are very enticing with their color photos and descriptions. I’m also influenced by bloggers who are enthusiastic about a particular variety, and by the kitchen garden at Tower Hill Botanical Gardens, where I can see the variety actually growing in similar conditions to mine. So here is an annotated list of what I am planting in 2014, with an acknowledgement of what/who influenced the choice .

• Bean Bush – Provider and Jade are my reliable standards and I will be planting them again. The good news on Jade is a new grower has decided to continue to provide seed for the original, so seed vendors can still offer Jade rather than the replacement Jade II, which no one liked.
• Bean Pole – I will probably still grow some Fortex and Trionfo Violetto, which did well for me last year and are terrific beans. I am going to have to find some room and construct another trellis because I decided to also try some Romano beans, Musica and Gold Marie. These are grown by bloggers I follow and I was envious of  their harvests of these beautiful beans.
• Beet – I’m growing the red beet Boro again, but will substitute a new variety, Boldor, for Touchstone Gold beet. Here I was influenced by catalog descriptions of Boldor’s better germination rate and vigor.
• Broccoli – Last year was a tough year for broccoli in our area. We had a hard freeze after I set out the starts, which damaged the leaves and attracted a flea beetle assault. That was followed by weeks of heavy rains, followed by weeks of temperatures in the high 90s and drought. Not ideal weather for broccoli. This year I will try growing Bay Meadows, which is supposed to tolerate some extremes in weather, according to the Fedco catalog.
• Cabbage Chinese  - Haven’t grown cabbage before because it takes too much room, but have admired some of the Napa cabbages grown by various bloggers. Soloist is a miniature type Napa cabbage that hopefully will fit nicely in a square and even better in a dumpling.
• Carrots – I had poor results last year with carrots for lots of reasons. I will try again this year and will be adding Yaya to my choices, based on blogger reviews.
• Cucumber – I will grow Summer Dance and Jackson Classic pickling cucumbers again, based on my own experience with them. I will also grow Crystal Apple again, which did pretty well last year despite horrid conditions. I am adding Richmond Green Apple and Poona Kheera heirlooms to the mix, both impulse buys after reading catalog descriptions. Just have to find some room.
• Kale – I will be planting Beedy’s Camden again, a great Siberian-type kale that is robust and hardy. Nothing bothers it. I decided to try Nero di Toscana, a kale everyone except me seems to grow, just to see what it is all about.
• Kohlrabi – I tried kohlrabi last year and it was a failure, just like every other time I tried in the past. Going to try again this year growing Winner, a Fedco recommendation. I was blown away by the Azur Star kohlrabies growing at Tower Hill, but seed is apparently limited by crop failures, so maybe next year if I actually succeed in growing Winner. And this year I will start seeds in soil blocks and transplant to avoid the germination problems I had last year.
• Mustard – Green Wave will be in the garden again. New this year  is Dragon Tongue, a purple mustard from Territorial.
• Onion – My Copra and Red Bull onions were pretty successful last year and the few remaining in the basement are still  in good condition. This year I am going to try Patterson, a yellow storage onion from Johnnys, and Red Wing (which was unavailable last year after a crop failure). Add to that the Saffron shallots, which I will try to grow from seed after last year’s expensive failure with fall-planted shallot bulbs. And I am trying Pride bunching onions from High Mowing, another impulse catalog purchase.
• Pea Snow and Snap – The Oregon Sugar Pod II snow peas will be in the garden again. This year I am trying Sugar Daddy snap peas, which have short vines and good flavor, according to the catalogs. I prefer to grow the peas in self-supporting blocks rather than trellis them, saving precious trellis space for pole beans and cucumbers.
• Peppers – Did I mention that last year’s weather conditions were horrid? A late Spring, cold weather including some freezes delaying planting, torrential rain storms and flooding, disease and pests, and weeks of weather near 100F made gardening here a challenge and affected my peppers. Still I had a fairly successful pepper season. I think some  of the success had to do with my new pepper protocol. Peppers I will surely grow again this year include Jimmy Nardello, Pimiento di Padron, Tiburon Ancho, Lipstick and Red Cherry. Two new ones I am trying are described as “spice” peppers, Aji Dulce and Trinidad, from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. These are supposed to have the aroma and flavor of hot peppers like Habanero without the heat. Trying the first one should be interesting, who’s volunteering?.
• Radish – With the crappy weather, radishes didn't do well for me last year. I will probably try some again this year. New to the list is a radish I saw growing at Tower Hill, called Bora King. It is an elongated radish with a beautiful purple color and purple flushes on its foliage. I also bought on impulse some seed for Zlata. a Polish heirloom with a brown skin.
• Squash Summer – The PM was horrid last year and the strain we had was resistant to most methods of controlling it. Even resistant varieties like Dunja were challenged. Hope this year is better. I still think Dunja is an excellent variety, but this year I convinced myself to try Desert, an exclusive from High Mowing. It is similar to Dunja but can still produce during extremely hot weather like last year. I was put off by the price of $7.50US for 10 seeds but decided that was just the price of supporting local seed companies who develop new varieties that suit my climate. Another experiment this year is substituting Y-Star for Sunburst as my yellow patty pan. I’m still a big fan of Sunburst but wanted to try Y-Star. Costata Romanesco and Tromboncino will still be in the garden.
• Swiss chard – I’m trying Magenta Sunset this year, which I admired in the garden at Tower Hill. I will still be growing Orange Fantasia with it.
• Tomatoes – Tomatoes are a big topic. In my SFG, I am growing indeterminate varieties 1 per square, a single leader trained up a trellis. This works but I have had limited results, a topic that will be covered in Part 2 of my What Works, What Doesn’t blog, if I ever get around to writing it. Meanwhile, I have plans to grow 7 varieties of tomatoes this year: 1) Juliet is a favorite that did very well last year in horrid weather. I considered trying Verona, a Johnny’s variety that claims to be Juliet-like with larger size and better flavor, but decided against it this year. 2) Sungold is another favorite but prone to cracking. This year I will try Esterina instead, a yellow cherry  from High Mowing that claims to be sweeter and more crack resistant than Sungold. 3) Jaune Flamme, a French heirloom grown by Michelle and other bloggers, will be given a chance. Another impulse decision, 4) Sunkist, an orange medium-sized slicer from High Mowing that was bred In New Hampshire, will hopefully produce some tasty tomatoes. 5) I saw Opalka growing at Tower Hill and was very impressed with the plant and the fruit. This is a Polish-origin heirloom paste tomato that will replace Gilbertie and Striped Roman in my garden. Hopefully it does better than those two, from which I failed to get more than a single tomato last year. 6) I love the flavor of Black Cherry, but the last two seasons have produced a meager harvest from plants that struggled with weather and disease. This year I am trying Black Pear, an impulse buy from Baker Creek Seeds. 7) Finally, I am going to plant Big Beef again for a main slicer tomato. I hope to buy plants locally so I don’t have to start these myself.
• Turnips – I had some luck with Golden Ball last year but this year I will be growing Jaune Boule d’Or, a French heirloom from Baker Creek. Add to that the Japanese white turnip, Hakurei, from Johnny’s, in place of Tokyo Cross, which didn’t even germinate last year.

Garden Planting Schedule 2013

I finally have completed my 2013 planting schedule sufficiently to post on Google Drive and share. It is a modification of my spreadsheet from last year. I deleted the column for seed source because that information is in the Planting List.  Since I am using Square Foot Gardening, I have added two columns for number of squares allotted to the vegetable, and either seeds/plants per square or the number of plants I need to start indoors. Note that the file will be changing as I tweak the schedule.  I print off a copy of this spreadsheet and take it to the garden with me, along with the plot plan. The biggest hurdle remaining is completing the plot plan and figuring out where to allocate all of these vegetables I hope to plant.

 

One of the challenges I have is figuring out what to do with the new and uncommon plants I am trying. I am going to treat fava beans just like peas and plant them in late March. Kohlrabi will be started and transplanted on the same dates as other cabbage family plants like kale and collards. I also figured an August planting date for fall harvest of Kohlrabi. Then there are the Asian greens like Tatsoi, Fun Jen, and Hon Tsai Tai. Most of these can be grown in early spring and late summer/fall, but I have no experience with them.

 

We are having a snowy but not awful Sunday, perfect for thinking about gardening. I finally got my Copra and Rossa Lunga di Tropea onion seeds planted in pots today and nestled on the heat mat. I outsmarted myself flipping particular seed varieties back and forth between my Fedco and Pinetree orders and succeeded in not ordering the Red Wing onion seeds I need to plant today while double ordering the fava beans. Oh well, I ordered a packet from Pinetree and will just have to wait for them to arrive. I hope I like fava beans.

 

I decided to try seed blocks for seed starting this year and ordered 3/4”, 1.5” and 2” soil block makers. I also ordered a 20 quart bag of Johnny’s 512 mix, which cost me $12 plus $6 dollars for shipping. A $20 box of dirt! But I wanted to see what the real thing was like before I try mixing my own. Some use the Vermont Composting’s Fort Vee Mix, which is carried by a local hydroponic supplier, so I may also try that when my supply of 512 runs out. I also used the 512 for the onion seeds since it has compost and some fertilizer and the onions will be in the pot for a long time.

Planting List 2013

My seed orders are placed and most are in hand except Fedco, which was a group order and I must wait for that order to arrive and be distributed. Now to figure out where to put everything in the garden and plan the seed starting schedule. My planning tends to be impulse driven. More ooh that’s cool, where can I put it and less here’s an empty spot, what should I plant. I admit I’m a sucker for the seed catalogs with color photos.

 

The garden will be similar to last year, with a lot of the old reliable varieties and a few new ones. New vegetables I am trying include kohlrabi, carrots and broad beans. I am also planting an expanded variety of Asian greens, going beyond Choi to include Tatsoi, Fun Jen, and Hon Tsai Tai. Hopefully I can do some fall plantings of these so I get some greens into cold weather. I have not bothered growing carrots because they are so cheap, even “organic” ones. The trick was to find short carrots that will row in 5-6 inch deep raised bed without resorting to height extenders.

 

I had a miserable season last year with eggplant and peppers. This year I will try a couple of Ping Tung eggplants under cover in hopes I get a few. My unscientific observation the last couple of years is that the oriental types of eggplants seem to be less susceptible to flea beetle damage. For peppers, I have given up any hope of growing bell peppers and will stick to small peppers this year. I’m trying Padron, which Michelle grows with success, and a few other small fruited peppers like Jimmy Nardello. Hope I get some. I think I harvested three Jalapenos from two plants last year.

 

This year I will be growing four types of onions and starting my own onion plants from seed for the first time. Last year I purchased a 4” pot of red onion plants from a local nursery and tucked them in here and there. I was pleased that I got nice, large onions from these plants and still have a few in the basement. So now I am going to try growing my own from seed. The little I know so far is that right now is the time to start them, since they grow very slowly. I plan to start them in some kind of flat and will use the Johnny’s 512 mix I got for seed blocking since it has compost and fertilizer added.

 

Here is the 2013 planting list, hopefully complete and accurate (but always subject to change):

 

•    Basil Genovese, Siam Queen, Spicy Globe (purchased plants)
•    Bean Bush Provider (PT)
•    Bean Bush Jade (PT)
•    Bean Pole Fortex
•    Bean Pole Trionfo Violetto (PT)
•    Bean Broad/Fava, Windsor (PT)
•    Beet Touchstone (F)
•    Beet Red Ace (PT)
•    Beet Boro (HM)
•    Broccoli Di Cicco
•    Broccoli Purple Peacock (F)
•    Brussels Sprouts (purchased plants)
•    Carrot Shin Kuroda (F)
•    Carrot Mokum (F)
•    Carrot Caracas (J)
•    Cilantro Large Leaf (PT)
•    Collards Champion (HM)
•    Cucumber Summer Dance (PT)
•    Cucumber Pickling Jackson Classic
•    Cucumber Green Finger (HM)
•    Cucumber Crystal Apple (PT)
•    Dill Fernleaf
•    Eggplant Ping Tung (PT)
•    Endive Dubuisson (J)
•    Escarole Natacha (J)
•    Garlic German Extra Hardy (GM) –planted 10/2012
•    Garlic Chesnok Red (GM) –planted 10/2012
•    Greens Pac Choi Win-Win (J)
•    Greens Fun Jen (F)
•    Greens Hon Tsai Tai (HM)
•    Greens Tatsoi (F)
•    Kale Beedy’s Camden (F)
•    Kohlrabi Kolibri (PT)
•    Lettuce Green Ice (PT)
•    Lettuce New Red Fire (PT)
•    Lettuce Buttercrunch (PT)
•    Lettuce Forellenschluss (F)
•    Mustard Green Wave (PT)
•    Mustard Red Giant (F)
•    Onion Copra (PT)
•    Onion Red Wing (PT)
•    Onion Rossa Lunga di Tropea (F)
•    Onion Evergreen Hardy White (F)
•    Onion French Red Shallots (SESE) –planted 10/2012
•    Parsley Italian Flat Leaf (purchased plants)
•    Pea Snap Sugar Ann
•    Pea Snow Oregon Sugar Pod II
•    Pepper Padron (BC)
•    Pepper Jimmy Nardello (F)
•    Pepper Tiburon Ancho (F)
•    Pepper Red Cherry (PT)
•    Pepper Lipstick BC)
•    Pepper Jalapeno (purchased plants)
•    Pepper Thai (purchased plant)
•    Radish White Icicle Short Top (J)
•    Radish Watermelon (PT)
•    Radish, French Breakfast
•    Rosemary (purchased plant)
•    Spinach Tyee (PT)
•    Squash Zucchini Dunja
•    Squash Zucchini Costata Romanesco
•    Squash Pattypan Sunburst
•    Squash Summer Tromboncino (F)
•    Swiss Chard Orange Fantasia (PT)
•    Swiss Chard Flamingo (BC)
•    Turnip White Tokyo Cross (PT)
•    Turnip Yellow Golden Ball (F)
•    Tomato cherry Sun Gold I (purchase plants)
•    Tomato cherry Black Cherry I (PT)
•    Tomato Roma Gilbertie Paste I (HM)
•    Tomato Juliet (purchased grafted and un-grafted plants)
•    Tomato Roma Striped Roman I (BC)
•    Tomato, Cherokee Purple I (purchased grafted plant)
•    Tomato, Big Beef (purchased plants)

 

BC=Baker Creek, F=Fedco, GM=Green Mountain Garlic, HM=High Mowing Seeds, J=Johnny’s, PT=Pinetree, SESE=Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Garden Post-Mortem–Tomatoes

My raised bed garden was completed in the Spring by the addition of two 4x6 foot raised beds made from 1x8 inch red cedar boards. The 8 inch boards would give me a little more depth for plants like tomatoes while not busting the bank (Mel’s Mix is expensive). I added trellises along the long edges of the two beds and the short end of one, giving me room for 14 tomato plants.I planted indeterminate varieties and each plant was pruned to a single stem and trained up a cord on the trellis.

The trellis method worked very well. The one variety that gave me a little trouble at first was Pineapple, which had a number of closely spaced growing tips rather than a single dominant tip, almost like a determinate. As the plant got a little bigger, the issue resolved itself. Wrapping the single leader around the cord worked very well and, even with fruit on the vine, I had no slippage.

All of the tomatoes showed vigorous growth early in the season. Vines got to about a meter in height by mid-season. Then most of them stopped growing. I’m not sure if this was a fertilizer problem, or the very hot weather or the fact that disease was starting to appear. The only tomatoes that continued to flower and produce were the cherry types. A few plants started showing signs of late blight, so I started spraying with a copper fungicide with little obvious benefit.

My selection of varieties in 2012 was different from the usual, mostly heirlooms this year. In the past I have planted about half the available space with a main crop hybrid such as Jet Star, another quarter with a paste tomato such as Roma. The remaining space was used for a cherry and some  heirlooms. So if I got a few slicers from the heirlooms, that was a treat. I still had my main crop varieties to put a lot of tomatoes on my countertop. This year I got my 2-3 fruits per heirloom but had no disease resistant main crop tomatoes, so the countertops were bare.

 

Cherry/Salad Tomatoes

These types of tomatoes did the best last year and it should not be surprising to me that two of them are hybrids. I planted Sungold again because it is a terrific tomato. Very productive and very tasty. Both plants this year did very well while still showing some signs of early blight. Sungold is F1 and has resistance to Fusarium wilt and tobacco mosaic virus but not to the blights. Still, I will plant it again next year.

The Black Cherry I planted did very well despite showing some sign of late blight. It is not a hybrid, rather  it is open pollinated and was bred in Florida by the late Vincent Sapp. The vine was very vigorous, growing tall and setting large clusters of fruit. The tomatoes were mostly split-resistant and very meaty with great flavor. I’m definitely growing this one again. I also tried a Matt’s Wild Cherry, a wild variety found growing in Mexico, but did not care for it. Fruits were tiny if prolific, and the flavor was not very good, although it was disease resistant. Oh well, I tried it.

Finally, I grew a couple Juliet, an F1 variety my garden neighbor grows every year because her husband loves them. The plants were very robust and prolific, producing right up to cold weather. Johnny’s says they have some late and early blight resistance, which must be true because they stayed healthy all season. Unfortunately, the skins are tough and the flavor is bland unless they are fully ripened. Later in the summer taste did improve, but even so Juliet tomato is not a tomato I would crave for its flavor. I may plant it again just for its vigor and disease resistance and maybe try drying the fruits, which may concentrate the flavor.

 

Paste Tomato

The only paste tomato I planted was Striped Roman I grew from seeds bought from Baker Creek. I have complained before about my seed starting problems, but I wanted to try these so I selected the best two transplants and planted them. They grew slowly and I got a couple of tomatoes from each plant. I may try these again next year and hopefully do a better job starting them so I have good sized transplants to start with.

 

Heirloom Tomatoes

This year I planted Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, Big Rainbow, and Pineapple, all purchased plants. I had delusions of Black Krim being my “main” tomato and planted two of them. They did poorly, succumbing to disease early. The few tomatoes they produced split badly, so I only got to try a few which were not very good. People rave about Black Krim so I’m sure it’s a great tomato, just not this year in my garden. To add insult to injury, I gave away a couple plants to fellow gardeners who planted them in soil. Those thrived and produced a lot of tomatoes, most of which these fellow “gardeners” let drop on the ground and rot.

The three other heirlooms I planted grew well early in the season and set fruit, but then slowed down. I wonder if I didn’t fertilize them enough or if it was the hot weather. The Cherokee Purple did show signs of late blight very early (and it was a Bonnie Plant, since I couldn’t find a locally grown plant). The first fruit was badly cat-faced and the others cracked badly. But I really like Cherokee Purple and will plant it again for the few slicers I do get. Big Rainbow and Pineapple were great tasting tomatoes, just wish I got a few more.

Garden Post-Mortem Part 2

 

Kale

We had such a mild winter last year that the Beedy’s Camden kale survived and thrived in the spring. I had all the kale I wanted, but I needed room to plant new seedlings. So when the existing plants started flowering, I would harvest most of the larger leaves and plan to come back and remove the plant. When I did, the plant had new growth and I couldn’t bring myself to pull it. This went on until late summer. Meanwhile I planted the seedlings in the bed where they were shaded by the existing plants. What I planted was Vates Dwarf Curled kale seedlings I started myself. The Vates is a curly, dark blue-green kale that is very cold hardy. The plants have survived the cold weather so far and I did cut some leaves last week. I like this type of kale but next year I plan to go back to the Beedy’s Camden, it really is a great kale.

Mustard

I had good luck with the Green Wave mustard. It has light green, frilly leaves that are sweet and tasty.  It is pretty bolt resistant and I was able to  cut leaves for an extended period. When it did start to bolt, I cut off the flower stalks, which seemed to stop the bolting and eventually I got another cutting from it. What I probably should have done is just pull it out and replant it for the fall, since it is cold tolerant. I will definitely plant it again next year. And it wasn’t bothered by flea beetles, while just a few feet away my eggplants were being drilled!

Peas

I planted Sugar Ann snap peas and Oregon Sugar Pod II snow peas. I usually plant 4 squares of each and place a low fence around the bed for support. The problem with the snap peas is they tend to be too tall for this method to work and really need to be trellised.  The Sugar Ann was supposed to be more compact, described as a dwarf plant 10-24 inches high, Well, mine got leggy and then slumped over on the snow peas. The whole mess then started leaning over the beets, shading them. I need to come up with a better support strategy. Production was good, particularly the snow peas. I was really happy with the choice of  Oregon Sugar Pod and will plant it again.

Peppers

Peppers were a failure again this year, the second year I have grown them in raised beds. You would think peppers would grow well in the loose, well-drained soil mix I use, but the last two years have been troublesome. Both years the pepper foliage seems pale, almost yellowish. Plants fail to put on enough size to produce a lot of fruit. Of course, we had an extended period of hot weather that inhibited flower set that didn’t help. The peppers that have done OK are the Thai and jalapeno peppers.

Radishes and turnips

Radishes were almost a total failure this year. I had stopped growing radishes because of  cabbage root maggots, but the flies don’t seem to be a problem in the community garden. Most of the radishes this year just bolted and the few that got harvestable size were pithy.  Varieties planted were French Breakfast, Cherry Belle, and Icicle. I got just  a few of the French Breakfast. I assume heat was the problem and I will try planting earlier next year. The Tokyo Cross white turnips, planted in the same location and conditions as the radishes, did very well while the radishes did not. Next year I think I will plant more turnips and fewer radishes.

Summer Squash

I had a very good year for summer squash. I kept them covered until they started blooming, then uncovered them to allow pollination. The squash bugs did not seem as bad this year, although I did remove a lot of eggs from the leaves. I set out trap boards and early on the boards worked pretty well. I was also happy with the varieties of squash planted. I planted Sunburst again this year, a yellow patty pan that was very prolific. The Dunja zucchini was a little slow in starting but produced fruit all season, up to cold weather. And it was fairly resistant to mildew, as promised. Finally, the Costata Romanesco squash, an Italian variety,  produced early and very well until it succumbed to mildew and wilt. All are candidates to be planted next year, when I swear I will check the plants carefully every day so I don’t get anymore baseball bats.

 

Swiss Chard (Silverbeet)

Swiss chard was another winner this year after several years of failure. In years past something would eat the plants or seedlings and they never got started. This year my Orange Fantasia chard survived ( I set out four and two survived). This is a beautiful variety with orange stems and dark green foliage. I filled in the holes in the bed with some robust Bright Lights plants I found, and they also did well. I had cuttings up until hard freeze.

First Seed Catalogs Arrive

Not even the winter solstice yet and I have three seed catalogs in hand from three of my favorite seed companies and a fourth catalog arrived today. Of course, the holidays are keeping me busy so I may not get to fully enjoy them until after New Years. Still, I am able to occasionally flip through them, circling items that catch my eye.


First to arrive was the Pinetree catalog. Pinetree is a small, family-owned business in Maine that I have patronized for years. Besides the fact they are a local family business, they have other virtues. They offer small, inexpensive packets of seeds, some as low as 95 cents. Usually I don’t need a thousand seeds for my SFG and I don’t need to pay $3-4 for it. The Pinetree packets also give planting instructions in SFG terms, seeds per square foot, rather than seeds per foot of row. And Pinetree’s selection of seeds is good and includes desirable selections from breeders such as Johnny’s as well as heirloom and imported varieties. I have circled the Trionfo Violetto pole bean and the Tromboncino squash in this year’s catalog.



Next to arrive was the Johnny’s catalog. Johnny’s is another Maine-based seed house I have used for years. They grow their seeds in northern Maine and are active breeders of new varieties (like Bright Lights chard and Lipstick pepper). I like this and believe they are offering varieties that will succeed in northeast summers. Their catalog is full of technical information and is a valuable resource throughout the season. And being a victim of some bad seed, I like that Johnny’s certifies that their bean seeds are 100% halo blight free.  The downside is that their packets are expensive, but sometimes they are the only source for some of the newer varieties. This year they have a new cherry tomato, Jasper, which they bred and which won the AAS.





The Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog showed up next. It is a large, beautiful catalog printed on glossy coated paper with gorgeous photography. While slick and glossy and technically up-to-date (they Facebook and have an iPhone app), Baker Creek is dedicated to offering heirloom and organic seed free of GMOs and are heavily involved in the battle against GMO crops and corporate agriculture. They are located in Mansfield in southwest Missouri, east of Springfield. I get that way every year or so to visit my sister and I plan to make a detour through Mansfield next time. It’s not surprising given their location they are specialists in warmer weather crops. Their selection of eggplant, melon, squash and tomato varieties is probably unmatched.



While I was writing this article the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog arrived. I purchased my shallot bulbs from them last Fall. They produce a beautiful catalog with color photographs printed on recycled newsprint. The cover shows garden gnomes in a raised bed garden. They are located in Virginia and carry varieties that are optimal in the southeast US but most are generally useful for other areas. They have a good selection of southern heirloom varieties of greens (mustards, collards, turnip), beans, limas, okra, cowpeas, peanuts, melons, and tomatoes. They also carry a good selection of shallots, garlic, and a variety of multiplier and potato onions. Finally, they are dedicated to safe seed, GMO free, open-pollinated and organically grown where possible.

I have to mention Fedco Seeds, even though I don’t get a printed catalog from them, I just download the catalog. Fedco is a co-operative in Maine that is dedicated to organic, open-pollinated and untreated seed. They are also part of the lawsuit against Monsanto. They have a good selection and good prices. In addition, they accept group orders. Our community garden organization puts together a group order in late winter which gets everyone a discount and reduced shipping cost plus the organization makes a few bucks off the order. One item of note is that Fedco carries seed for Beedy’s Camden kale, which is a great kale variety to grow. Another thing I like at Fedco is their Mesclun mix, which is packed in two separate envelopes containing the mustards and the lettuces. Since the lettuces are slower to germinate and grow, you plant them a week or two earlier in a separate bed from the mustards.

What, AAS Winners in My Garden?!

Most of the planting is now done and I am getting excited about some of the heirloom vegetables I have put in this year, particularly the heirloom tomatoes and some of the heirloom Italian vegetables like Costata Romanesco. And next year I hope to try more heirlooms, particularly Italian varieties. I have come far from the days when I would peruse the Burpee and Parks catalogs and be seduced by the glossy color photos of the latest All-American Selections (AAS) winners, I smugly thought. But in taking an inventory of the garden I find I have a lot of AAS winners in my garden. None were consciously selected because of the AAS label but because I wanted them for their characteristics and appeal. Some won their AAS designation more than two decades ago! That’s a real testament to the value of the AAS selection process. Here are the AAS winners I am growing this year but didn't know I was.

Eggplant 'Fairy Tale' (2005)

There are so many varieties of eggplant (Asian, Middle Eastern, Italian heirloom) but garden centers around here mostly offer transplants labeled “Eggplant”or “Classic”. I wanted to try something new, so that meant starting plants from seed. Fairy Tale was one of my choices, a miniature violet eggplant striped with white. It looks like an Italian heirloom type but it is actually an F1 hybrid and the first eggplant to win the AAS since 1939. The plants are petite as well and should work out well in my SFG at one per square. Unfortunately, this is a Seminis variety that I may not buy again, although Johnny’s is not listed as a vendor of the Seminis seeds. Check here for a list of Seminis varieties to avoid.

Finishing My SFG - Adding the Final Beds, Part II

Finally it has stopped raining, although we still get a lot of cloudy and threatening weather. Over two days I took advantage of the weather to mix up two batches of Mel’s Mix and fill my new raised beds. The boxes are 4x6 by 8 inches deep, so doing the math that is 16 cubic feet of mix. Since 16 is not evenly divisible by 3, I rounded up to eighteen. One box required 6 cubic feet of each component. I happened to have bought two 6 cubic foot bags of coarse vermiculite, so that works out. Six bags of five different kinds of compost, check! For the peat moss, I bought one 4 cubic foot bag and one 2 cubic foot bag of Canadian peat moss and used the eyeball method to divide them.

The technique for mixing the ingredients is detailed in an earlier post so I will not repeat it here. Instead, I will offer a few observations. When mixing up a batch of Mel’s Mix the fourth and fifth times, I was considerably more relaxed and less anal than the first few times I did it. Practice makes relaxed. Mixing 18 cubic yards of mix is a heck of a lot easier than 24 cubic feet, the amount needed to fill three 4x4 boxes. Still, I figure I mixed about a half ton of Mel’s Mix, so it was a significant amount of work to fill the two boxes. Mixing 18 cubic feet when calculations called for 16 turned out to be fortunate, yielding an amount of mix that almost filled the beds to the top. Finally, I was at first skeptical about the #4 coarse vermiculite but I now like it and believe it makes the mix much lighter and fluffier than finer grades. Finer grades allow the mix to compact and settle more.

This picture shows 6 cubic feet of #4 vermiculite dumped on the blended compost. You can see the size of the pieces, some almost a half inch in size with very little in the way of fine particles.

Finishing My SFG – Adding the Final Beds, Part I

Last year I planted my tomatoes in a row at the end of my plot in the Bolton Community Garden since I had already built and filled 8 raised beds and planting season was well underway. The plan was to finish the implementation of raised beds this spring with the addition of two 4x6 raised beds. These beds were going to be used for tomatoes along the long side of the boxes, planted 1 per square and trained up a trellis.

I began looking at alternatives, buy versus build, cedar versus composite. I actually bought a couple of cedar raised beds from The Farmstead. They had a 4x6 box using 5/4 rough sawn white cedar lumber with mortise and tenon joints, 8 inches deep. These same beds are sold by other vendors, including White Flower Farm. The best price was from The Farmstead itself, $104.50 for a 4x6 including shipping. Unfortunately, the specification were a bit lacking. The quoted dimensions were for the total length of the side pieces, including the mortise and tenon. When you assemble the boxes, the interior dimensions are a bit more than 3x5 feet, or 15 squares, quite a bit less than the 24 squares I was planning on. I decided to keep the Farmstead beds and use them at home for strawberries and herbs. For the community garden, I decided to build my own beds.

The decision to build my own was based on the discovery that Lowes carried 1x8 cedar lumber (the Home Depot I checked only had 1x6 and I wanted a little more depth for the tomatoes, despite what Mel says). So the boxes were going to be constructed of 1x8 cedar (Lowes had 8 and 12 foot lengths, which was perfect). I also bought some 1x2 and 1x4 pieces to use as corner blocks and as braces for the bottoms. The beds are going to sit on blocks to keep them out of the standing water that we frequently get after a hard rain, so I would need a bottom. I planned to use hardware cloth rather than plywood for the bottoms, with landscape fabric to keep the mix in the boxes. Assembly in the garage was fairly easy, as shown below.

2012 Planting Schedule

The seeds are in and I have a rough planting layout for the 2012 season. Next is developing a schedule for starting seeds and setting out plants. I found Rachel’s post on her Grafix Muse Garden Spot blog a good starting point for information and I highly recommend a visit. All the calculations needed to develop the schedule are based on average last frost date for your area. A source of that information is Plant Maps, which lets you put in your zip code and find last frost and first frost dates. Bolton is hardiness zone 5b with an average last frost date of May 1-10 (I used May 7 for the date) and an average first frost date of October 1-10 (I used October 8). Note: the new USDA hardiness map shows Bolton to now be in hardiness zone 6a, so who knows if the last frost dates I used are correct. A few weeks probably doesn't matter and I use my own gardener instincts to adjust actual planting dates.

Next you need to determine the safe date to transplant based on the hardiness or tenderness of the variety. For example, tomatoes are safe to transplant 1-2 weeks after the last frost date, while broccoli can be set out 2 weeks before last frost. From the transplant date you calculate backward to the seed starting date. To do this you need to know the average growth time from germination and the time to germinate. The result is the seed planting date for each variety.

Given the last frost date, most of the information you need to determine a planting schedule is available on the seed packet or in the seed catalogs. With these numbers, you can calculate back to the seed starting date, or you can take the lazy way like I did and use one of several online resources. Johnny’s Seeds has a seed starting calculator here. And Maggie Wang posted an easy to use spreadsheet on the You Grow Girl blog here.

With all this help I now have a planting schedule I put on Google Documents. You can see my schedule here, which will be updated with actual dates as the season progresses. It is only a few weeks until the first seeds go into trays and I am really looking forward to the new gardening season. By starting my own seeds, I am no longer dependent on what I can find at the local greenhouses and garden centers.

Planting List 2012

It’s now March and winter around here seems to be finished, despite a sloppy storm going on now. It is supposed to be 50 degrees and rain on Saturday so any snow accumulation from this storm should rapidly melt away. We had a mild winter, almost a record mild one. There is no snow cover to melt and no super-saturated soil to deal with. So one’s thoughts naturally turn to gardening. I have my seeds in hand and a new grow light. The planting schedule is in preparation. Here is what I am planning to plant this year.

Dave’s SFG Planting List for 2012

• Basil
• Bean Bush Provider (PT)
• Bean Bush Fresh Pick (J)
• Bean Pole Fortex (J)
• Beet Bulls Blood (BC)
• Beet Red Ace (PT)
• Broccoli Early Purple Sprouting (BC)
• Broccoli Di Ciccio (BU)
• Brussels Sprouts (purchased plants)
• Cilantro Large Leaf (PT)
• Collards Georgia
• Cucumber Diva (PT)
• Cucumber Summer Dance (PT)
• Cucumber Pickling Jackson Classic (J)
• Dill Fernleaf (PT)
• Eggplant Barbarella (J)
• Eggplant FairyTale (J)
• Endive Dubuisson (J)
• Escarole Natacha (J)
• Kale Dwarf Blue Curled, Vates (FM)
• Lettuce Black Seeded Simpson (PT)
• Lettuce Red Sails (PT)
• Lettuce Buttercrunch (PT)
• Lettuce Red Romaine (BC)
• Lettuce Mesclun
• Mustard Green Wave (PT)
• Parsley Italian Flat Leaf
• Pea Snap Sugar Ann (BC)
• Pea Snow Oregon Sugar Pod II (BC)
• Pepper Bell Red Ace (PT)
• Pepper Bell Aconcagua (PT)
• Pepper Jalapeno (purchased plants)
• Pepper Thai (purchased plants)
• Pepper Anaheim (purchased plants)
• Pepper Black Pearl (PT)
• Radish Icicle
• Radish Cherry Belle (PT)
• Radish, French Breakfast (PT)
• Turnip White Tokyo Cross (PT)
• Spinach Tyee (PT)
• Squash Zucchini Dunja (J)
• Squash Zucchini Costata Romanesco (BC)
• Squash Pattypan Sunburst (Fedco)
• Sunflower
• Swiss Chard Orange Fantasia (PT)
• Tomato, cherry Sun Gold I (purchase plants)
• Tomato, cherry Black Cherry I (PT)
• Tomato, cherry Matts Wild Cherry I (PT)
• Tomato, Roma Striped Roman I (BC)
• Tomato, Cherokee Purple I (purchased plant)
• Tomato, Juliet I (purchased plant)
• Tomato, Moskvich (purchased plant)
• Tomato, Striped German I (purchased plant)
• Tomato, Black Krim I (purchased plant)

Sources for seeds this year are: FM, Ferry Morse; J, Johnny’s; PT, Pine Tree; BC, Baker Creek; BU, Burpee; F, FEDCO.

Building My SFG - Part I, Planning

The very first step, of course, was to plan the layout of the garden: the size and numbers of the boxes and the width of the paths. I measured the dimensions of the plot, then did the  planning at home on graph paper. I used the New Square Foot Gardening scheme devised by Mel Bartholomew in the book of the same name. Mel recommends 4’ wide paths between boxes, which would be nice if I had the space. But with a 15’ by 22’ plot, I had to make some compromises to fit in the number of boxes I wanted.

I took advantage of the particular location of my plot to maximize the amount of space for beds. Since I had wide community garden paths on three sides of my plot, I positioned the boxes 6 inches from the edges of those paths and planned to use the garden paths for access to my raised beds. On the fourth side, where I abut another garden plot, I also positioned the beds 6 inches from the neighboring plot. I figured I could use the paths within my plot to access the beds.

The first row contains two 3x6 boxes. The idea was to use these boxes for plants that take more space than a single square, such as summer squash, broccoli,and Brussels sprouts. These boxes were positioned 6 inches from the borders of the gardens, with two feet between them (rather than Mel’s recommended four). So far, this is workable while not ideal.

Next were two rows of 3 4x4 boxes. I skimped a bit (actually, a lot) on the spacing for these boxes. The plot is only 15’ wide, so paths between the boxes are only 12 inches. I figured I would be able to access squares in the boxes from the sides and only use the paths between boxes to get from row to row. What I didn’t consider is the vertical space taken by hoops for row cover and the trellises. When trying to squeeze between beds, my feet can traverse the foot wide space but my shoulders collide with the trellis supports. So I would recommend at least 2 feet between boxes if you can’t meet Mel’s 4 foot specification.

The last row will eventually contain two 4x6 boxes with 2 feet of spacing between them. These will be built next year and used for tomatoes trained up trellises. This year I just tilled the soil and used row cover to plant my tomatoes. So far they are doing great. Hmmm, should I really build the raised beds?

The next step was to look for suitable material to use for the boxes. The choices I considered were cedar or redwood dimension lumber, composite decking material, and standard framing lumber. Pressure treated lumber was ruled out. I did a tour of my local Lowes and Home Depot stores but found no cedar or redwood. I suspect they carry it or can order it, but I didn’t find anyone to ask. I found Lowes has its own brand of composite decking lumber that is fairly cheap if grey color is OK. I also considered pre-fabricated beds from various sources, but they were too expensive for my budget.

My final decision was to build the 3x6 boxes from composite decking, which comes in 12’ lengths. Three 12’ pieces are required to build the two boxes, for a cost of about $32 per box. Five of the 4x4 boxes were built from fir framing lumber at a cost of about $9 per box. I also purchased one 4x4 Suncast resin plastic raised bed from Lowes for $44 to give it a try.