Sunday, May 31, 2009

Harvest!

No pictures because I'm terribly lazy, but I had the first "harvest" this morning. The radishes are still a little small but that's fine by me- I picked them anyway (carrots are getting bigger as it is). Still don't have bed 2 completely finished, but it's getting there- one of my bags of soil was full of MOLD! It was terrible- it was much lighter than the rest of the bags so I just figured it had gotten dried out (fine by me) but when I opened it there was mold inside. Ugh!

Anyhow, I harvested about 7 radishes- a couple had not sprouted well so they didn't end up growing. C'est la vie! I really enjoy growing radishes but I'm not sure if I'll enjoy eating them- we shall see when I try these.

The greens are really starting to take off now, and my peas are trying to grip onto anything around them (note to self: Next year, don't plant in a square adjacent to onions!), so it's rather exciting :D

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Weeds from Bronwyn's Perspective

Weeds: Every gardener's worst nightmare (aside from animal pests and insects, of course).

Seriously. Who actually likes weeding? I know I don't. I hate it, actually. I hate it with a burning passion. Thankfully the regularity of the square foot garden makes it SUPER easy to tell when there are plants there shouldn't be, and once the seedlings come up you know to pull anything that doesn't look like those seedlings.

As I was weeding the TINY plantlets (nothing is going to get huge on my watch!) yesterday, I got one that had leaves which were no bigger than a dime, mostly smaller- but it brought a HUGE clump of roots when I tugged it out. This reminded me of the things I learned when I took Weed Science at Cornell- officially one of the most difficult and most rewarding classes I'd ever taken. I loved it. Weeds are INCREDIBLY interesting.

Thinking back, I've always kind of had a "thing" for weeds. Lets go back to elementary school- one of my favorite people and my go-to person for those cheesy Black History Month reports we'd always have to write was George Washington Carver. Yeah, the peanut guy- if you know anything about him, you also know that he wasn't all about peanuts, but he was also one of the original proponents of continuing to use natural means of keeping the soil productive rather than just pouring on chemicals or leaving the land fallow. Amazing man- I love him. But he had this wonderful quote that I quite enjoyed: "A weed is a flower growing in the wrong place." This was something that always struck me- especially considering that I was a big fan of dandelions- one of the green-lawn lover's worst nightmares.

We had a pseudo compost pile in my childhood home- it started out well but as often happened my father flubbed it a bit and then it became a place to dump the cat litter. It was fenced in and really was just a pile of.. stuff. On the chicken wire fence, what I always called "morning glories" would grow, along with a pretty little Solanaceaous (nightshade) weed that had adorable little purple flowers that were exactly like a tomato flower in every way except purple. It had green little fruits that I of course never ate even though I had no idea that they were poisonous- my mum told us never to eat anything (except for the black-caps) like that, so I didn't.

Now, anywhere else- those would be weeds. The "morning glory?" That was bindweed. Bindweed is a particularly awful weed that farmer and gardeners alike DESPISE, but when it's just growing up alongside a little fence it's lovely. And in crop rotations for farmers, you'll run into a situation where they're growing potatoes this year but there's a corn "volunteer" from previous years- that's considered a weed as well (this is also one reason why "round-up ready" crops have so much potential to be a problem, but that's for another post).

So with such a fuzzy definition of what a weed is, you can really only judge by characteristics a plant might have that would make them "weedy" in the average garden situation.
  1. Fast Growth- "weedy species" will tend to grow VERY quickly when provided with good conditions (like those in a garden). The whole idea is to grow fast so the weeds will be able to drown out the actual crop by blocking sun, sucking up water and nutrients, and in some cases just taking up space.
  2. Long Seed Life- These species have seeds that can sit in the soil for YEARS (some weeds will last 10+ years in the soil!) until just the right conditions present themselves- at which point they'll grow quickly and try to knock out the other weeds.
  3. Adaptations for efficiency- Like the tiny plant with the large root system I pulled- weedy species will tend to have something to increase efficiency, whether it be an extensive root system or adapted leaf structure. You'll see this in any plant, but especially weeds- their roots can change depending on where the water is. Shallow roots= water near the surface, but a good weed will also automatically grow deeper roots if the water is further down.
  4. Inhibiting compounds- this is something that's just now starting to come into light and is extremely difficult to study, but some plants will secrete compounds to inhibit the growth of other plants- indeed, it was originally thought that this number was smaller, but now there's speculation that MOST plants have some sort of behavior like this- wow! But if a species has a marked inhibitive effect on other plants in the vicinity.. that's a species with high weed potential.
  5. Hard To Kill- these are the plants with underground stems, clonal propagation, runners, prolific seed numbers, deep taproots... Stuff that'll come back in force if you chop it up with a hoe instead of pulling it in one piece, or anything that spreads out underground too quickly to stem. If it does this, there's potential for it to be a weed (Mint is one of these plants- that's why many places will suggest you sink a five gallon bucket into the ground and plant it in there.)


Are you fascinated yet? I just love this kind of thing. Weeds really are fascinating.. but since this post is getting kind of long I'll have to post more about it later. Just remember- if you see a weed that's a baby, pull it. It's just going to get harder later.

Review: Sta-Green Garden Soil

Sta-Green Garden Soil purchased from Lowes in Henrietta, NY

Grade (as of May 26, 2009): B+

I figured I would go ahead and write a review- I can always come back and edit if the soil turns out to not be a good growing medium, but my seedlings seem to be doing well so far so that's great.

The first of my 4'x4' square foot gardens is filled completely with the Sta-Green soil. It's fairly cheap- sold in 1 and 2 cubic foot bags. It took 3 2cf bags and 1 1cf bag to fill up the 6" tall bed. Components seem to be compost, peat moss, and vermiculite. I do not believe that there is much if any manure in this garden soil, but if there is it is well-rotted and has lost its smell, which is of course a PLUS in a garden. One downside to this soil is that there ARE chunks of un-rotted twigs and wood in it- not terribly huge, but enough to annoy me. It does look pretty in the bed, though some may prefer a darker soil with no vermiculite.

There are also little pellets of time-release nitrogen fertilizer in the soil (they claim it will feed plants for up to 3 months)- this was not a feature I was particularly interested in, but it seems to be par for the course with garden soils so I was pretty much stuck with it. The pellets are green, but not noticeable until you look up close. Nitrogen tends to promote a lot of quick foliage growth, so we'll see how this benefits the garden.

The texture of the soil straight from the bag is pretty good- It is not too heavy, or clumped together (which I found to be a bit of a problem with the Miracle Grow garden soil I picked up for the other bed because I had under-purchased the Sta-Green and Lowe's is rather far away, so we went to Home Depot instead), and seems to have excellent drainage. Water retention is not great, but this is to be expected in a raised bed and thus I don't count this point against it.

My only real complaint (other than the minor issue of the fertilizer) is that there seem to be quite a few weed seeds in the soil. Now, this is NOT unusual for things like this that you purchase- grass seed, non-sterile soils, etc. will always have at least SOME weeds, even if they say "weed free" on the package. Unless it has been sterilized to kill seeds, there's really no way for a company to guarantee that there won't be seeds. That's something you should learn to expect when purchasing large quantities of anything. Now some potting mixes and such are actually sterile, and they will not have weed seeds to worry about- but this is not the norm, and especially for garden soil, you have to be careful.

However, there were some weeds actually sprouting inside the Sta-Green bags and when I poured the soil out, there was green there. This is not my idea of cool, but at least I can catch them right away and toss 'em. Your mileage may vary, but overall, I'm happy with the soil and unless something changes I'm giving it a B+.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Big Week

Well, I'm going to get 4'x4' bed in and mostly planted by this weekend for sure. Well, if I get the soil. I need to send my aunt to Lowe's for that.

Today I thinned the lettuce while I was out watering, and tomorrow I'm going to thin the mustard greens and plant the two empty spots. I might put the cauliflower in- I'm not for sure on that one yet. Everything's coming really well, though. I think I can get away with not buying the brackets for the corners, but I'm definitely going to want to do that at some point this season so that the wood doesn't degrade too much.

By the end of the month I should have pretty much everything in the ground- this weekend or next we'll go shopping for plants. I need eggplant and tomatoes for sure, and I will probably pick up a pepper plant just to guarantee I have some peppers for my aunt- mine aren't growing fast enough. That means I need to spend a little extra time with my layout so I can make sure that everything that I want gets put in. I also need to devise some way to keep the grass from growing up around the edges of the beds, because it's near impossible to mow close enough and it makes for extra work if I have to spend time pulling or hand-cutting that grass, y'know?

I PROMISE I'll take photos tomorrow.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Sprouting

Well, it's been a couple weeks and almost everything is sprouted (at this point it's just the carrots- and they're starting to juuuust peek a tiny bit). The lawn is getting mowed tomorrow, so I'll be laying down bed #2 in preparation for this weekend, when I plan to put almost everything else in the ground. Average frost-free date was yesterday- though I think it got pretty darned chilly this past evening. I'll be monitoring weather forecasts, but hopefully things will go as planned. This'll mean that the corn is going in the ground, a few of the things I've started indoors... Memorial Day Weekend is when everything will be planted, so I still have a couple weeks to plan for that.

I haven't gotten to the store again to purchase things... It is just too stressful, so I am making a list for my aunt so she can go. I'm so happy she's willing.

Today I thinned out the root vegetables- namely the beets and the rutabegas. I really need to thin the salad greens but I'm kind of overwhelmed by the thought- I will put it on my to-do list for tomorrow. I just scattered the seeds in there because they're so small, but I think when I plant the second patch of each sometime this week I'll have to be a little more deliberate with my placement. I can't wait till the leaves are big enough to start having fresh-from-the-garden salads. Yum!

In non-gardening news, I've been rather depressed the last few days- probably in part because it is graduation season and as usual tons of my friends are graduating from various graduate programs, or from undergrad... Moving on, getting jobs- heck, some of them are even buying houses! Can you believe it!? And here I am just trying to be successful in the garden... Well, here's hoping I can do that, at least.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

All is not Well in the garden...

Ugh. The nails that I picked are rusting like a mofo. This is going to be a problem- I need to get to a hardware store, stat! I think I'm going to get those metal corner things? Know what I mean? And then just get screws and screw them in. I hope it doesn't fall apart before then, though.

*sigh* So far it looks like it's holding together *OK* and it's just one side that's not sticking, but it still stinks a whole lot. I don't look forward to having to fix it.

Salad Box Week 2- What got planted?

The Salad Box


Starting at the top, from left to right:

Row 1
Red Onions- I planted these for my aunt pretty much exclusively- I'm not an onion fan. Though I suppose they'll work well if I need to season anything.
Serge Peas- Again for my aunt- I prefer snow peas (I like to eat the pod) and she prefers shelled, so I planted this variety for her
Seeds of Change Snow Pea- For me! Yum!
Cheddar Hybrid Cauliflower- not in the ground yet.

Row 2
French Breakfast Radish and Red Core Chantenay Carrot- interplanted because I like the instant gratification of radishes though I don't think I like the taste- I'll be trying them AGAIN since you should try things every few years as your tastes change.
Mixed Mustard Greens (not seeded yet)
Lettuce Blend- Salads!
Detroit Dark Red Beet- For the aunt. I don't like beets- they taste like soil.

Row 3
Rainbow Carrot Blend- We'll see what kind of deformed carrots we end up with due to the shallowness of the box.. but I'm excited at the prospect of colorful carrots.
Mixed Mustard Greens- For my aunt- I don't know if I like them yet! We'll see when they get big.
Lettuce Mix (not seeded yet)
Laurentian Rutabega (or swede for you Europeans)- I haven't tried Rutabega in a long time but I remember liking it once when I was little, so we'll see. Experimental, but hopefully will be yummy.

Row 4
Red Onions- I planted these for my aunt pretty much exclusively- I'm not an onion fan. Though I suppose they'll work well if I need to season anything.
Serge Peas- Again for my aunt- I prefer snow peas (I like to eat the pod) and she prefers shelled, so I planted this variety for her
Seeds of Change Snow Pea- For me! Yum!
Laurentian Rutabega (or swede for you Europeans)- I haven't tried Rutabega in a long time but I remember liking it once when I was little, so we'll see. Experimental, but hopefully will be yummy.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Review: Garden Essentials Watering Can

Watering Can


I'm going to start this off by saying that I don't have a whole lot of experience with watering cans- when I was younger and gardening, we always used the hose, or in the case of my grandfather he would just use an old coffee can and dip it into the 5 gallon bucket of water. For my mom, watering cans were pretty much decorative.

That said, I knew I needed a watering can- my aunt has one, but it's metal and it only has a single stream nozzle and I *knew* that with the "loose" soil in my SFG box, I would need a "shower" type head, which diffuses the stream into a lot of tiny ones- like a big shower head. This is a lot gentler on the soil, and exactly what I wanted.

I found the above watering can, which is labeled as "Garden Essentials" brand, at the local Target near the now-defunct Marketplace Mall. A quick Google search found a garden supply place selling the brand but I could not find the specific one I purchased.

It cost me around $8- I've already tossed my receipt so I don't know the exact price. It's made from fairly sturdy plastic and holds 2 gallons. There are lines on one side marking volumes- if you're worried about that sort of thing. I'm not. I just fill it up, take it out, and if there's any left over (which there generally won't be since I'll keep watering until the water is gone- the excess will drain) I would just leave it in the can or dump it on the grass depending on when I think I'll need it.

As for impressions? I *love* this watering can. The handle is nice and big, easy to hold. The 2 gallons of water doesn't feel terribly heavy when you carry the handle- it doesn't have edges that cut into you. The nozzle easily turns to adjust- the only complaint I would have is that it isn't super watertight around the edges- it does let a little extra leak out. As a bonus, you can tilt the watering can pretty far forward and it'll still have a nice gentle stream - again, this is great for preserving the soil.

I'm a little concerned that the "concentrated" stream might be a bit harsh given how big the can is, but I haven't tried it yet.

I think with proper care this watering can could last pretty much forever- it's plastic so it will not rust- the only thing I see breaking would be the adjustable nozzle on the end, but I'm optimistic that it won't be a problem.

Grade: A

The "Salad Bed" is well underway

Wow, it's been a while since I posted. I should really fill everyone in on what's going on :D

I got the "grid" down last week the day after I built the bed- I opted to use nylon string and nails driven into the edges at 1 ft intervals. I then hammered the nails sideways so they would hold the string on- I will likely do more to shape them to the sides of the beds so they don't cause problems for people walking around/mowing the lawn/etc, but for now they're fine. I waited a couple days to actually get stuff planted, hoping against hope that there would be some rain so I wouldn't have to rig something up for soaking the soil, but nada, so I went down into the basement, located a too-short crappy garden hose my aunt had, and hooked it to the terribly leaky faucet in the garage, then dragged it as far as I could go and used the leaky nozzle to send the water sailing over the fence and onto the garden bed. I then had to make several trips with the small watering can my aunt had stashed around to get everything soaked once I planted it, but I planted everything that you can before the last frost date- which should be in a week or so, which gives me a bit of time to get the other bed down, but not much. The Corn and Sunflowers are coming in the mail probably today- which means it took FOREVAH for Gurney's to get my full order to me, but oh well.

My seedlings in the little greenhouses are coming along great, except for one thing- they're really TALL. I'm just going to let them bush out/fall over as needed in the confines of the space they have until I'm ready to pop them in the garden, but it's annoying- should have been expected, though. If there's no air movement around plants, they will tend to grow tall and spindly. Makes it extra good in commercial and experimental greenhouses that they have fans for air ventilation, because it keeps everything from getting spindly.

We went to Target yesterday, and though I forgot to buy toilet paper, I DID find an AMAZING watering can for only $7-8 or so. I found this one which was more obviously what I wanted- the kind with the "shower" type nozzle- but it was fancy recycled plastic and cost $25- more than I was willing to spend. There was a nice-looking 2 gallon can with a sort of spin nozzle so you could do a stream or shower, and I picked that up. I just used it this morning and I'm INCREDIBLY pleased. Just... WOW! Nice, gentle "shower" that doesn't disturb the soil, and because it's 2 gallons I didn't have to go back to get more water. Too bad it's not online at Target.com because I would really highly recommend it to everyone- it comes in different colors too, and there are smaller versions. I might go back for more.

Currently there are tentative plans for a third SFG bed- 8'x1', but I'm not sure if that'll happen. I need to get 4 more 2cu.ft. bags of soil if that comes to fruition, and the thought of going to Lowes again makes me ill. I don't know- that was a really stressful trip, I guess. And I still need materials for the chicken wire cages. Ugh. I wish that there weren't any deer to worry about so I just wouldn't have to mess with the cages.

Anyway, I'll try to get pictures of the "finished" bed as well as the great watering can and the blooming lilacs (Lilac Festival is going on right now!) for the next post. Tata!

Monday, May 4, 2009

A bed has been built.. mostly

The man who mows the lawn came today, so I was able to get one of the beds down. I ended up under-buying soil, so I am going to need 2 more 2cu ft bags, and 1 more 1cu ft bag to do the second bed, but I don't need that one ready for a couple weeks yet. I still need to lay down the grid before I can plant, and head down into the basement to find the watering can- there's no hose, so I'm going to be doing a lot of water lugging. Once I get the intial planting water out of the way it shouldn't be too bad. One watering can per day should probably do the trick.

First Bed nearly finished


It's filled in with Sta-Green Garden Soil from Lowe's. It has fertilizer built in which I'm not really crazy about, but it was the cheapest garden soil they had, and I suppose it'll give a nice boost to the plants.

I also need to get a chicken wire protection cage built pretty quick.. oh the hard labor. That bed is going to be my greens, root veggies, and peas- want to make sure nothing gets to them! Also want to make sure that Paisley says out. There are instructions on how to build a chicken wire cage to go over the bed in the book I have, so that's probably what I'm going to end up building. This is all stuff that once it's done will be, well, done- and I won't have to worry about it again. But still, it's a bit daunting.

I took Paisley (the dog) outside to enjoy the weather with me. She seemed pretty pleased.

Paisley "helped" with the garden

Friday, May 1, 2009

4 Started; Cauliflower, Broccoli, Cantaloupe, Cucumber

You'll notice that a couple of these are things that aren't normally started indoors- the reasoning for this is that they need to be at a fairy warm temperature to sprout and you want to get as much out of your growing season as possible. Since I have the nifty kit, I can get rid of transplant shock on the cantaloupe and cucumbers and have them even further along when it gets warm enough to plant them outdoors in a few weeks.

Green Magic Hybrid Brocolli- Broccoli really should have been seeded weeks ago, but I'm going to try it this way because it's a fairly short season crop. If it gets too hot and gets away from me in the summer, I'll just plant another crop to have this fall. Oddly there were only 2 varieties to choose from at Gurneys, so I chose the heat tolerant one. I seeded a full 6-plug "greenhouse" with these.

Cheddar Hybrid Cauliflower- I've never grown cauliflower, and I understand it's a bit of a fussy crop to grow, but if there's one thing in my life I'm okay with making mistakes on, it's plants. So I decided to have fun and try out a novelty item- orange cauliflower. I've got 2 plugs sown with this, I'll likely get at least 2 plants out of that (thinned) and I'll either have 1 or 2 squares of cauliflower in the garden. This one's a learning experience.

Gurney's Burpless II Cucumber- technically a pickler (I might pick some to make my own pickles partway through the summer- yum!) but will also be good for slicing when I let it mature. No real reason I picked this over another; Gurney's has a large selection of cucumbers to choose from. Seeded 2 plugs worth of this, may start another 2 in the ground if I decide I want more cucumbers. The 2 empty spots in my garden might currently end up being used for more carrots or something, though.

Sweet 'n' Early Hybrid Cantaloupe- I picked this one because, well it's EARLY. The thing about melons is they tend to be a long season crop, and while the Rochester growing season is a good 2 weeks+ longer than the Northern New York growing season, I'm also impatient. So I picked this one. Hopefully it will taste yummy and I'll be successful in growing it. The plan right now is to grow it against my aunt's backyard fence and train it onto the fence to get it up off the ground, along with the winter squash (spaghetti and buternut, both to be seeded in the ground) and tomatoes. We'll see.

Seed Starting..

The cat has chewed a bit on the containers so I'm going to have to start moving them during the night so he won't be quite so mischievous.

Seeds incoming!

My order from Gurney's arrived today, finally (well, most of it. The sunflowers and the corn haven't shipped yet but I don't need to plant those for a few weeks still). I've gotten some of the things I need to start indoors started- Broccoli may end up being a problem, but I can always plant that in the tail-end of the season if I run into problems with the heat. Tomorrow I'm going to try to get one bed down- with everything I need to plant right away. Also we're planning a trip to Victor to go to the Eastview Mall, so I'm not sure how much I'm going to get done. But I do need to do it.

I got these nifty little Seed Starting Kits that I'm actually quite pleased with, if still a bit miffed about the fact that my order took so long to get here. It takes all the mess and guesswork and ickiness out of starting seeds, and I'm hoping it'll also reduce seed shock when I transplant, which will be nice. They also sent me an extra packet of cantaloupe seeds- not sure yet what I want to do with them, if anything. I'm sure I'll figure something out.

I'll post later about what all I've got seeded, and take pics. In other news, my peppers have finally sprouted, which makes me feel better because I was getting MAJORLY worried that they never would.