AlexH

My apologies to anyone who subscribes to my blog for gardening related posts, I’ve been neglecting this blog, and the garden.  But here’s a note on my progress so far this year.

After my shopping spree at Seedy Saturday Vancouver, it took me a while, but I got my horseradish and Jerusalem artichokes potted up.  They are living in containers on the patio.  I’ve left a Brussels sprout plant from last year, and it is going to seed already.  I doubt that I’ll plant the seeds, but it’s fun to watch.

The Square Foot Garden in Tracy’s parents’ backyard has been cleaned up, but it needs a refresher of compost.  I cleaned out the compost bin already, but it needs some more.  I’ve got a bucket of coffee grounds from my office that is going to go into the compost, but it won’t be enough, so I’ll probably have to buy some.

So far, I have planted onion and leek starts, and moved the parsley that survived the winter into their new squares.  Some seeds have gone in as well: spinach, peas, chard, and carrots.  They’ve sprouted and are doing fine.  My only problem is that I lost my notepaper that I wrote down where I planted things.  Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to let things grow enough to know what is a weed.

This weekend I’ll be buying some seedlings, and putting the rest of the seeds in.

It’s been a busy time here as Tracy has gone back to work 2.25 days a week, but I have managed to do some gardening in my spare time.

I cleaned up my existing 3 squares in the garden and direct seeded a few cold weather crops like spinach, peas, and chard.  I also moved some parsley plants around and was happy to see that they survived the move.  I’ve also transplanted some store bought leeks and onion seedlings… the cashier at Gardenworks smelled them before putting them in the bag, then apologized, ‘Sorry, I’ll stop smelling your purchases now’.  Ok, thanks.

I started some other plants from seed.  A bunch of herbs, but it looks like they aren’t germinating.  That’s ok, the seeds were about 5 years old.  The cucumbers look like they have been the most successful, and I will probably need to pot them up this weekend.

That’s all for now, I hope to get some seedlings next week and get them planted for the long weekend.

Minerals Industry - Energy and Resources - Government of Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan has the largest potash industry in the world, accounting for about 33% of the world’s trade in potash. The potash reserves in Saskatchewan are massive. The exceptional size and quality of ore reserves combine with the lowest production costs in the world. By conservative estimates, Saskatchewan could supply world demand at current levels for several hundred years.

The earth has potash (the K in NPK) reserves for several hundred years. After that, where does it come from? Generally the organic source for potash is from wood ash, but I doubt that burning large areas of forest would be looked upon as a positive by the public.

Wow! I didn’t know what to expect when I bought the Brussels sprouts seedlings in the spring. They turned out to be very impressive. I planted two of them in the SFG section and two in a corner of the garden. The two unprotected ones were almost completely eaten by slugs. The two plants in the SFG section did quite well, although during the heavy rains we had in the spring, they toppled over into adjacent squres, then continued to grow upwards… killing any carrots underneath them. But I would say they were worth it, as I’ve picked about 60 sprouts so far from the two plants. I think that if I had staked them they would have been more productive, and definitely would have taken up less area in the garden.

Next year, I plan to make a row of them in front of the cucumbers, since they grow slowly enough that the cukes will make it up the trellis before the sprouts start to shade them.

Apparently the flavour improves after the frost hits, so I’m going to go picking again this weekend since we’ve had a cold snap this week.

So far my vegetable garden experiment is going well. But the question is, would I be able to scale it up to fully support myself for my food requirements? Right now I am working with 3 - 4×4 boxes = 48sq ft. My estimates at the beginning of the year were that I would need slightly over 500sqft to supply all of my fruit and vegetable requirements. Considering what I’ve grown so far this year, I don’t think that would be possible. I think that 500sqft for just vegetables would be practical though.

Beans:

My pole beans have done very well at producing green/yellow beans in just 4sqft. Doing it again, I would plant the same number of beans for green bean purposes in twice the area. Right now, it’s just too crowded on the bean trellis.

A happy accident this year is that yellow beans mature faster than green beans, so I have had a steady supply over the summer. I will definitely do that again next year.

This hasn’t left me with any dried beans, which is where I would get my protein if I was growing all of my own food. I’d probably plant the rest of my scaled up space with bush beans where I would get a large harvest of dry beans, and then all of the plants ripped out for a winter crop.

Current: 4sqft
Scaled: 8sqft green beans, 32sqft bush beans

Cucumbers:

I am very pleased with my cucumber harvest. They have been growing faster than Tracy and I can eat them, although we’re not eating them as often as we would if that was our sole food supply. It’s the first year I’ve grown cucumbers and the trellis has been perfect for the vines. The large 12″ cukes hang on the vines without any problems.

Once again, this doesn’t leave me anything to store for the non-growing season. I’m going to have to learn how to make pickles.

Current: 4sqft.
Scaled: 8sqft slicing, 16sqft pickling.

Tomatoes:

Tomatoes have been a big disappointment. I think the problems were threefold: not the right soil conditions, I left them in small containers too long, poor weather.

I planted 4 plants and haven’t harvested a single tomato yet. Since last year was so great with the cherry tomatoes, I thought I would be tired of tomatoes by now.

Next year, I’m going to use some plastic to raise the temperature and keep them dry.

Current: 4sqft
Scaled: 40sqft

Carrots:

A big factor with the carrots was that I didn’t get the seeds planted early enough. I’m just starting to harvest now, when I’d like to be starting my fall crop.

I planted 7sqft of carrots, but lost 2 due to the Brussels sprouts falling over during the heavy rains.

I have no idea how many I’d need to support myself. I think going 5x more carrots would work out, especially if I could get a spring and fall crop.

Current: 7sqft
Scaled: 35sqft

Beets:

The beets have done very well, both for the roots and for the greens. Again it’s a problem with timing, I am only starting to harvest them now.

Current: 6sqft
Scaled: 30sqft

Onions:

The onions were my second biggest disappointment this year. Like most other things, they were planted too late, and didn’t get very big. The heavy rains we got seemed to knock them over early because I had to harvest them already. The stalks had fallen over and were browning. They taste great though!

The big question for me is how do they keep? I could grow a lot more but if they all spoiled they would be much use. I think I’d want to make a lot of salsa, spaghetti sauce, and vegetable stock to use them up.

Current: 4sqft
Scaled: 40sqft

Greens:

Now that summer is here, I’m not getting any salad greens, but I did get some great harvests up until June.

Current: 8sqft
Scaled: 40sqft

Parsley

I planted 1 parsley ‘plant’ that I bought as a seeding, and I should have split it up into about 4sqft.

Current: 1sqft
Scaled: 4sqft.

Basil:

The basil didn’t do very well this year, and only one square really produced any plants.

I’d love to make a ton of pesto though.

Current: 3sqft
Scaled: 15sqft

Brussels Sprouts:

They haven’t matured yet, although the buds are forming, so I’m happy about their progress. Next year, they need to be staked because they flopped over in the rain and killed the neighbouring carrots.

The scaled up amount is just a guess! I have a feeling I’m going to get tired of them quickly once I can start to pick them.

Current: 2sqft
Scaled: 8sqft

Misc Flowers:

4sqft was used for marigolds and nasturtiums. They did their job, the only slug I saw all year in the garden was eating the marigold. The nasturtiums attracted a ton of aphids, and that was when I pulled them.

The other thing they do is attract pollinators, but I think I would try to get some more useful plants in like bee balm and echinacea as well.

Current: 4sqft
Scaled: 12sqft

Current Amount: 48sqft
Scaled Amount so far: 288sqft.

That leaves me with 224 sqft to work with in my imaginary garden. What would I plant?

Summer Squash:

I’ve never grown any kind of squash, so next year I’ll be growing zucchini. Each plant apparently takes up 9sqft, and one plant can supply a lot. I have a feeling I would be making a lot of zucchini bread.

Scaled Amount: 24sqft

Winter Squash:

Again they take up a lot of space, but the nice thing is that they keep forever.

Scaled Amount: 24sqft

Garlic: 12sqft

Peas: 40sqft

Broccoli: 20sqft

Celery: 40sqft

Peppers: 40sqft

Eggplant: 8sqft

Parsnips: 8sqft

Turnips: 8sqft

And after all of this, I’m still missing out on several vegetables that I’d like to be able to eat:

Asparagus: A permanent bed is required for asparagus because it’s a perennial. I’d guess 20sqft would give plenty.

Cabbage: I don’t each much cabbage, maybe 4 heads a year? But I’d probably make it 8sqft just to be safe.

Corn: 100sqft? There are issues with pollinating corn because it requires wind to carry the pollen between stalks. Growing it in a small space is apparently difficult.

Potatoes: I’ve never grown potatoes before so this is just a wild guess, 40sqft?

Pumpkins: I love pumpkin pie! 24sqft.

Bok choy and other Asian specialties: 20sqft

So add on another 212sqft for a total of 724sqft. And this doesn’t include any fruit, grains, or rice.

Things are starting to come together.   I’m going to post a longer article later with my ideas for next year but here is a quick summary of what has happened so far.

Beet harvest has been happening, I’m confident that I could keep a person continuously supplied with salad greens from what I planted in this small space.  I’m guessing a salad every other day from September -> winter -> July.  The hot days of August might be a little boring with only beet greens and swiss chard though.

Beans are starting to rapidly produce and I’m sure that I’ll be freezing a lot. Cucumbers are making good progress too.

I’ve been disappointed with my tomatoes so far, only 3 small ones have formed. Last year at the old house, apparently it was getting difficult to keep up with eating tomatoes for a family of 4 by this time of year.

Carrots are slow. I picked one because the top was about the diameter of a hot dog, but it ended up to only be about 3cm long. Doh.

Brussels sprouts are forming along the stem, but they are getting attacked by aphids.

I got mad at the parsley taking over the garden so I cut it down to the ground. It’s starting to sprout again.  The basil is starting to take off, and I’ve been pinching it back to make it bushier.  Hopefully the tomatoes will mature just in time for the basil to be harvested.

Onions are a disappointment.  They’ve all fallen over, either from the heavy rains, or crushed by giant brussels sprouts.  Not anywhere close to being big enough.

Wow, it was hot last night! So hot, I had to shut down the PVR:

Message from syslogd@ebi at Wed Jul 11 18:39:42 2007 …
ebi kernel: CPU0: Temperature above threshold

It seems like my plants are doing ok. There is a danger of the tomatoes dropping their blossoms before fruit has formed, but I don’t think that has happened.

And on a blogging note, there aren’t many times that I can have a post that’s in both the MythTV and Gardening categories!

B.C. swelters under record highs

Seven all-time temperature highs were set across British Columbia on Wednesday, with most of the records falling in the Fraser Valley, the Greater Vancouver area and on Vancouver Island.

I’m so excited that I got my first cucumber. It must have been some kind of freak accident because while there are male and female flowers on the rest of the vine, none of the other females have been fertilized yet. But it’s still early in the season, so I’m not worried. Trellising the cukes is so easy, and it saves a ton of space.

Nasturtiums, cucumbers, and basil are up too.  The transplanted basil doesn’t seem to be doing well though.

The transplanted lettuce is almost ready to eat!  Unfortunately I don’t know if it’s a cut and come again variety.  It’s supposedly a Little Gem variety, but people have different opinions on whether it should be harvested all at once, or a few leaves at a time.

My SFG is at my in-laws’ house, since our townhouse doesn’t have anywhere to grow on, and the maple trees nearby shade our deck quite nicely.  My father in law is already talking about expanding the raised beds, and he hasn’t even tasted the tomatoes yet!  He mentioned that we should add more beds, and that got me thinking about how I can do it cheaper next year.  The less grass he has to cut in the backyard, the better.  As long as I don’t grow any more beets, he’ll be happy.

I’m planning to try lasagna gardening, because filling the beds with purchased soil was very expensive.  My sister has some big trees in her yard, and she’s more than happy to give me bags of them to use for mulch and compost.  I hope to have the frames put together by August so I can put the cardboard down while it’s still dry, and I don’t have to deal with taking soggy cardboard from the recycling depot.  The compost bin should have some good compost by then, and I’ll mix in the vermiculite, Sea Soil, and peat moss at that point as well.  I’ll hit up Starbucks to get some grounds too.  In October I’ll get the leaves and build the pile.  Hopefully it will be ready by the early spring.  If not, I’ll save those squares for planting in May.

There won’t be any trellises on these beds because they’ll be in front of the existing beds, but there are plenty of things that I want to grow that don’t need trellises: summer and winter squash, potatoes,  and various herbs.  Then in the fall, I’m going to do a big planting of garlic.