Garden

Garden

Last Frost Date: May 13 First Frost Date: Sept. 30 Zone: 6

For 2011: Roma Tomatoes, Onions, Garlic, soybeans, rutabaga, leaf lettuce, onion sets. Order seeds first week of March. Planting runs end of March through early June. Set up 5-gal buckets for tomatoes. Get every thing else in the square-foot garden. Start saving milk containers.

Feb 15: Order Seeds, cold-frame plastic and hose-timer http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/tomatoes/paste/tomato-roma-vf-prod001008.html http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/beans/soybean/bean-soy-green-pearls-prod000601.html http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/onions/onion-collection-sets-prod000770.html http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/garlic/softneck/garlic-extra-select-prod000716.html http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/rutabaga/rutabaga-burpee-s-purple-top-prod000885.html http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/lettuce/lettuce-looseleaf-blend-prod000750.html http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/onions/onion-sweet-early-hybrid-prod001141.html

Roma Tomatoes 3.25 Onion sets 12.95 Garlic 8.95 soybeans 4.95 rutabaga 3.95 leaf lettuce 3.25 onion seeds 2.95 Total: 40.25

March 25: Sprout Tomatoes indoors in a plastic bag (like 1st grade), setup cold frame. April 8: Plant Onion sets April 23: Move tomatoes out to cold frame April 30: Start Spinach indoors May 7: Start Pumpkins May 13: Move Spinach outdoors, move Tomatoes outdoors (or wait a week if it's still cold) [or take down cold frame if that's how I'm doing it] May 28: Start Soybeans, Move pumpkins outside. June 4: Start rutabaga. Start onion seeds September 24(ish): Harvest Pumpkins

http://www.burpee.com/gygg/growingCalendarNoZipCode.jsp

Try leaving a few onions in the ground at the end of the season, supposedly they multiply like garlic and the bulbs can be separated and planted the next spring.

Design for fall 2011: Immediately after the growing season in 2011 (First week of October) I want to tear out the existing garden and put in a new one with more growing space. The new garden will have two rows, a back row that is two feet wide and front row that is four feet wide. Both will be eight feet long. There will be a three foot walkway in front of each. A small rabbit fence made of chicken wire will go around the whole thing. The purpose of the two foot wide row is to grow tall plants in the back, because tall plants will limit my access, I cannot reach the center of a 4 foot trench, hence it is 2. Because this was a short coming of my current construction, make sure to dig out and level the ground first. Once the plot is constructed, a single, regular garden sprinkler should be able to water the whole thing.

I may move from true square foot gardening to 5-gallon bucket gardening. I think it will be cheaper and more modular. I plan on putting the buckets on the porch roof.

Notes from 2011: I never ended up planting rutabaga, which is sad. Everything else at this point (mid-July) seems to be doing OK. I did get a late start on the tomatoes. I think I’m still going to get some, but next year I really need to get them planted earlier. I think they will do just fine in my office even though they won’t get a lot of sunlight. The buckets on the roof and the drip irrigation system are both working wonderfully.

I got a good yeild from the soybeans, both on the roof and the ground. I will plant exclusively soybeans on the ground next year. The garlic did ok, but did not get as big as I would have liked. I am going to try sowing garlic this fall to see if it does better next year. Tomatoes are just starting to get ripe.

Notes from 2010: Started late which was really a problem because it was so hot that many plants died from the heat. I tried to grow cucumber, zucchini, romain, basil and spinach. The Cucumber did excellent, the zucchini did ok, zucchini did pretty good, the cucumber did not do as well but I lost one whole cell to the heat. The romain and spinach completely died because I transplanted too soon and the heat. Some goes for the basil except that one of the four squares did survive. The cucumber and zucchini had such strong roots at the time of transplant that the dirt all came out with the seedling. The ones that died had very little root structure. Pumpkins: Start indoors two weeks before planting (early May) - soak 2 hours before starting the seed and plant point down. They need to be planted outside by the end of May(140 days to harvest)

   Start: First week of May
   Transfer: Late May
   Harvest: Second week of September

Roma Tomatoes: Start seeds indoors 7 weeks before last frost (March 25). Try starting them in a plastic bag with moist paper towel. Transfer outside after the threat of frost is past. 2 squares, 1 plant per square - try growing in a 5 gal bucket. Once the plant is 3" tall, remove leaves from the bottom 1". Experiment with removing the suckers, they will develop into their own branches. The theory is if you leave all of them, the plant will produce more fruit than it can bear, if you trim all of them you will have a very small harvest. Try to find a happy medium.

   Start: March 25
   Transfer: April 23 with cold frame, May 20 without.
   Harvest: ?

Onions:

   Ok, do this from sets! Plant sets 5 weeks before last frost date (April 8). Harvest onions when the tops have fallen over and dried. 4 squares, 4 in some squares, 9 in others, store cold and dry after harvest.
   Tops may fall over as soon as the end of July, have a plan for what to plant (broccoli or cauliflower may be good options)
   Sets: In order to truly grow my own onions, plant a bunch of onion seeds in the beginning of July in a container and harvest as sets right after the first frost.

soybeans: Pole beans, need something to grow on - plant in back row. (Start last week of May) Do 2 squares, 9 in one square, 4 in the other. Needs to be 60-70F consistently for a week. Keep picking the beans off. Yields in 65-100 days.

Garlic: Plant 2-3 inches deep. Plant in fall (September).

Rutabaga: Start in early June, harvest right around the first frost. The leaves are also edible.

leaf lettuce

Carrots: Greens are edible (but bitter) and can be used for tea.

Potatoes: Grow in a garbage can

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Long term

The objective long term is to be growing a great deal of our own food, >50%. The real trick here is going to be figuring out some of the more complex staples like flour, cornmeal, rice, vegetable oil and tofu.

Onions Carrots wheat oats rice corn tea nuts(?) blueberries raspberries apples rutabaga lettuces legumes:

- garbanzo
- kidney
- pinto
- soy
- peas
- red lentils

herbs:

- basil
- dill

peppers:

- cayenne
- chili
- bell

Zucchini: In 2010, I planted the seeds around July 7 and transferred them out to the garden on July 21. I was able to harvest zucchini around October 7. I didn't water the enough the last month, so I think they would have been bigger if I hadn't given up so soon. The plants are big, almost 9 squares, but I could probably trim them and keep them inside of 4 without any harm to the plant. I did get some cucumber beetles, but they can be countered with spiders.

Cucumber: 2010, same schedule as the zucchini, but these did even worse. They were particularly effected by the water and I only got one malformed cucumber. Next time, look up directions, there is a way to prune certain parts in order to have it direct more energy to growing cucumbers. Green House

I am going to build a green house on the roof using simple clear plastic (except on the one back wall, that will be black plastic). The design will be the standard rectangle with a triangle on top. It will hold two rows of buckets on each side, a total of about 32 buckets.

Weight analysis: I weight 200lbs and I can safely walk around on the roof. If I presume that my weight is distributed to the surrounding 9sqft, then the roof can hold at least 22lbs/sqft. The green house footprint will be 8ftx8ft for 64sqft. Assuming the structure weighs 300lbs, that leaves about 28lbs per bucket to stay below my known threshold.

Design: The structure will be 8x8 (2x4s) The front and back sides will be 4x8 rectangles The roof (front & back) will be 8x5.66, with two support beams. The sides will be laid out the same, but one will have an entrance; the layout will be a pentagon with 2 parallel sides (front & back) and 2 sides meeting at 90deg (roof). There will be support beams 1.5 and 2.75 from the center (on both sides), these will line up the support beams in the roof. Each piece should be build separately so that at the end of the season, it can be dismantled. The whole thing can be held together with brackets, bolts and wingnuts. A total of 36 2x4's will be needed. The sides will be build in such a manor that the one crossbar can be removed and the whole thing can be folded in half for storage.

Total surface area is 250 sqft (get more to be safe). http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/product/2597/plastic-greenhouse-film

UPDATE: After a few days of rational thinking, I nixed this idea and went back to the original idea of putting a small cold-frame on the roof. I only need it for a few weeks in the spring and it only has to be big enough to accommodate seedlings. It doesn't have to be a massive structure.

Need to Buy 2011: Hose splitter - http://www.amazon.com/Gilmour-13-Brass-2-Way-Connector/dp/B000FJYSHW/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I12R18N0WE2GSO&colid=3AK6W4BJFQG2M Hose Timer - http://www.amazon.com/Orbit-91213-One-Dial-Garden-Digital/dp/B001RCTWZE/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=IMAIJ7OCPN9B3&colid=3AK6W4BJFQG2M Miter Saw - http://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-DW715-15-Amp-12-Inch-Compound/dp/B000ASBCK4/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1YDUAI74CMTI2&colid=TC8ZPN17IY5S Drill press (nice to have) - http://www.amazon.com/DELTA-DP300L-12-Inch-TwinLaser-Crosshair/dp/B000IZC28U/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I298Z1823PRJOG&colid=TC8ZPN17IY5S Green house film - http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/product/2597/plastic-greenhouse-film Buckets - http://www.amazon.com/5-Gallon-Round-Nursery-Pot/dp/B001R1O8LS/ref=sr_1_7?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1298056123&sr=1-7

buckets: 187.6 Hose splitter: 6.75 hose timer: 25.24 green house file: 33.5

Also Need Peat Moss 2x4s Bolts & Nuts Ok - this would be a crazy idea, but just might work. I’m running into a density problem. In order to do SFG I have to be able to access the plants. But leaving walkways severely reduces density (by almost 50%). If I was to do raised beds on a rolling platform, I would not have that problem.

The LONG term goal of the project is to grow a significant percentage of our food - 50% is the 10 year (well, 8 now) goal, after that we’ll see. I’m concerned that the ROI after 50% may be minimal because I’m not going to start raising cows or open an olive orchard to get olive oil. A lot of food will simply not be feasible for me to grow.

One way of looking at this problem is that one square foot is roughly one meal. For a family of 4 this means 365*3*4*.5 = 2737.5 or rough 3000 sq ft of garden space. This means a garden about 50ft to a side with rolling beds, or 5250 sq ft with walk-ways, about 70 ft per side.

Potatoes may also curb this a bit. The trash can method looks like it can produce quite a few potatoes in a very compact space (< 4 sq ft) if I could be growing 50lbs of potatoes in that area, I would be way out ahead in terms of nutrients and calories per sq ft. Also, potatoes can be stored for a long time.