Square Foot Gardening and Tying the Knot

My last attempts at Square Foot Gardening

Better to know a knot and not need it, than need a knot and not know it. 

I have been absolutely fascinated be an animated knot tying website this week. I have spent hours (where I should be getting on with other things) glued to the computer screen watching stop motion images of loads of great – and useful – knots being tied.  Anchor hitches, Bowline, Munter Mule,Timber Titch, not to mention the loops, bends and stoppers and the perfect way to tie a tripod knot for the beanpoles  in the garden. 

There’s even an animated image on how to properly wrap a parcel. How cool is that? I’ll be using some of them in the garden this spring that’s for sure.

It gets better. As an added bonus the site also has a wonderful page about how to fold napkins for the table. All those times you see fancy napkins in a restaurant, now you can make forty five different ones to amaze your friends and family at tea time.  You have the Water Lilly, Diamond Silverware pouch, French Pleat, Three Corner Hat, Butterfly and loads of others to choose from.  It’s simple origami but looks great. Somehow I’ll incorporate a few of them into the garden, Maybe a folded swan on one of the raised beds.

Square Foot gardening

Talking of raised beds, I’ve been looking into Square Foot Gardening recently. I experimented with it myself a few years back and didn’t really think it was of use to me as I don’t really do things by the book. The book in question is the aptly named ‘Square Foot Gardening’ written in 1981 by Mel Bartholomew (RIP) and revised in 2006 adding that square foot gardening is better off being done in raised beds  as it’s easier to measure from the edges.

SFG seems to be growing in popularity though and I can’t really think why other than it’s for people who like being told what to do in a precise manner or people that need to section their lives off into compartments. 

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh as any gardening is good gardening, and I should just let people get on with things without me judging. 

Let me tell you a bit about the process and you can make up your own mind.

The Process

Square foot gardening is the practice of dividing the growing area into small square sections (in this case 1ft)  The aim is to assist the planning and creating of small but intensively planted vegetable gardens. It results in an orderly gardening system, from which it draws much of its appeal. The major criticism of SFG is that it packs the plants too close together, which inhibits root development, and thus water and nutritional uptake suffers resulting in stunted plants. 

Bartholomew initially used a 12’ by 12’ square with a grid that divided it into 9 squares with equal lengths of 4 feet on each side. Each of these 4’ by 4’ squares was then invisibly divided into sixteen one foot squares that were each planted with a different species. 

The number of plants per square depending on an individual plant's size. For example, a single tomato plant might take a full square, as might herbs such as oregano or basil, while most strawberry plants could be planted four per square, and up to sixteen per square of plants such as radish. Tall or climbing plants such as peas and beans might be planted in a northern row (south in the southern hemisphere) so as not to shade other plants, and supported with lattice or netting.

One advantage of densely planted crops is that they can form living mulch, and also prevent weeds from establishing or even germinating. Also, natural insect repellent methods such as companion planting (i.e. planting marigolds or other naturally pest-repelling plants) become more efficient with close spacing, which may reduce the need to use pesticides. The large variety of crops in a small space also prevents plant diseases from spreading easily.

Do you like rules?

This is what puts me off a bit and make is feel a bit like a strange gardening cult or money making venture from the author to buy their magic soil mix. Over the years the SFG system has evolved into a precise set of rules:

Create Deep Raised Beds: Typically 4 feet by 4 feet, with a square foot lattice placed on top to visually separate the crops. Beds are between 6 and 12 inches deep.

Use a Specific Soil Mix: One third each of compost, peat moss and vermiculite. This starts the raised beds completely weed-free as well as being water retentive and full of nutrients.

Don't Walk on the Soil: I like that one…

Plant in Squares: To keep the planting simple there are no plant spacings to remember. Instead each square has either 1, 4, 9 or 16 plants in it depending on the size of the plant. There are exceptions though and a few larger plants span two squares. Climbing peas and beans are planted in two mini-rows of 4 per square.

Solid Lines: String just doesn't do the job, the divisions have to be wooden or plastic.

Thin with Scissors: Instead of pulling up excess plants which can disturb the root systems of the plants you want to grow you snip them off with scissors.

My results from experimenting produced more of less the same amount of produce as conventional beds so I didn’t really see the benefit. I did find that plants don’t really conform to their square foot spaces either and tend to spread. Try planting one courgette in a square foot space and you’ll see what I mean. 

I'm also very confused about the Square Foot Gardening websites. There's the .org site which is full of Donate Now, Volunteer and Fundraising buttons and classed as a Foundation, it's all done as a charity and tax exempt status. Then you go onto the .com from the site and it's all about affiliate marketing, payment for training, commissions of up to 20% for sales referrals and a huge amount of retail products and books. It's not very transparent.

But if this type of precision gets you into the garden then go for it.

Sowing Times - The plants tell us...

I’ve started to see a lot of posts in my Facebook group about seed sowing.  Because the group is global there are a lot of different temperatures and local weather factors to take into consideration. Initially I thought the seed sowings were too early but realise for peas and beans, they should be in the ground already. 

 I’ve had this conversation with Leitrim based organic gardener Klaus Laitenberger before about how we wait a few weeks longer than the seed packets tell us when it comes to sowing as we are that bit cooler in the north West. Klaus realises that this is quite a complicated issue and has given it some thought. 

Klaus shares these thoughts with us.

“In Ireland February is officially the beginning of spring” Klaus begins.  “I never fully believed it as it is still is a very dark month, but in the last few years, February has been one of the best months of the year so I’m finally convinced that February is the beginning of spring.”

Sowing recommendations:

Klaus continues “It is very difficult to give adequate recommendations for sowing seeds.  First of all the climate within a country is quite different.  I often hear about the sun in Dublin and Wexford while we have our usual rain here in the north-west.  It’s also a good bit colder up here.  The inland counties tend to suffer more with sharp frost.

Photo: The plants show us what the season is......

To make it even more complicated – in every year the weather is different.  There was one year when the grass didn’t start to grow until May and Irish farmers had to import hay and silage from France. In some years grass growth could start in February.” 

So how do we know when to sow or plant our vegetables?

“I regularly travel around the country and I am always surprised about the different times when certain wild plants are in bloom.  The blackthorn usually starts around 4 weeks earlier in Dublin compared to Leitrim.

So this is where the phenological calendar fits in.  Instead of sowing at a given time of the year, you adjust your sowing to the occurrence of certain features in nature – here the flowering or fruiting of well-known wild plants.

Seeds of some vegetables need a minimum soil temperature of 6-7°C so they will germinate.  Others need substantially higher temperatures.  I was told that in the olden days, German farmers would take their trousers down and sit on the soil to check if the soil was ready for sowing.  Nowadays you could buy a soil thermometer instead.

Alternatively we could look at plants:

The first flowers that appear when the soil temperature has reached 6°C are daisies, coltsfoot and hazel catkins. In early spring it’s Forsythia and Primula flowers, Horse chestnut leaves and Gooseberry leaves. Mid to late spring we can look for Apple flowers, Oak and ash leaves, Lilac flowers, Cuckoo flower. Early summer we see Elder and Rosa rugosa flowers to mention just a few”

Courses

If courses are of interest to you this year, Klaus has a few set up to kick start the season at his home at Milkwood Farm in County Leitrim. On the 11^th of March there’s a “Complete Beginner’s Hands onGardening Course” and on the 12th of April it’s a day about “Growingin Polytunnels and Greenhouses”

The courses cost €65 per day which includes coffee and scones on arrival and a home-cooked lunch. Sounds good to me.

Repurposed Wheelbarrows

Planting up an old wheelbarrow

I’ve had my trusty wheelbarrow for over twenty years.

In that time this extremely useful and versatile tool has served me and the family well. When it was new and shiny with its coating of galvanized metal it was used mainly as a pushchair. I’d stack the inside of it with blankets, cushions, toys and water bottles then happily go shopping around the village. Sometimes even the dog would go in there to keep my lad company. We lived in Newport County Mayo at the time and I hear people still talk about the strange sight of “Barrow Man” and his family leaving a trail of toys along the pavement. 

As the barrow and my lad got older they went their separate ways and I was able to us the tool for its real purpose and over the years it has built many a raised bed and moved thousands of bags of grass cuttings and plant trimmings.

Repurposing

Although I have some fond memories of my time with the wheelbarrow, the time has come to repurpose the rusty piece of metal. The holes in the body are now so large that the spade gets stuck in it and you can’t scrape the soil out with your hands for fear of getting tetanus as there are some sharp edges in there. The tyre, it’s 3^rd one, also lacks the ability to keep air in it which makes mounting the kerbs with it a noisy, metallic affair as the wheel rim hits the concrete.

  

I haven’t the heart to throw the barrow into the recycling centre so I thought it could be turned into a decorative planter.  I thought it would be an improvement on the regular decorative wooden ones you see in front gardens adorned with a few lumps of turf. Not that I dislike those of course, it’s just that old rusty stuff appeals to me more.

 

The holes in the base are ideal for drainage.  I have some spare soil in the beds taken from a new set of slabs I have put down which can be used to fill it up ready for planting.  I have seen some examples planted up with succulents such as sedums combined with trailing plants along the edge. The effect is almost watery as the plants flow over the sides, so I might choose that style.

I could go for annuals such as petunias or pansies or even mix in a few structural vegetable plants. I can have a play later in spring. If it’s just filled with soil and no plants, it will look like I’m in the process of moving the soil so even that could be classed as an art installation. For now though, I have put a 6 pack of violas in there to make it look like I’m doing something.

Between the Cracks

My driveway and paths in the back garden are made from very old and very thin concrete. Over the years this has cracked everywhere and I keep thinking I need to get it all up and resurface. The problem I have is that I actually really like it the way it looks all weathered and neglected. Leaves settle in the dips, water forms into small pools when it rains for the dogs to drink from. Frost brings up even more delights as chunks of concrete keep being kicked off. I found granite sets near the washing line the other year hiding under patches of concrete too.

Initially I got a bit obsessed with trying to keep weeds from growing in the cracks as they are seen as being unsightly and can disintegrate the ground even more with their roots. 

 

Adapting

No more though. I’ve decided to embrace the ground and instead of clearing the plants, I’m actually planting more of them into the cracks - and I think it looks great. I’m enjoying the deterioration process until I can get around to resurfacing, which might be a few years yet.  

Of course it’s not the regular weeds going in like the dandelions, grass and cotoneaster dropped by the birds. I’m using less invasive and destructive types, which at the moment is chamomile and creeping thyme. I will be diversifying though and hope to get pennyroyal Mexican fleabane, wall bellflower, campanula, mind your own business and Corsican mint.

One or two steps closer to having a garden that resembles Steptoe’s yard.

Prize Parsnips and Bogus Baby Carrots

A bag of perfect ‘baby’ carrots

I was looking at prize exhibition parsnips this week.  It’s not something I usually hang my nose over but I was interested in some of the growing methods that are used to product the long tapering roots worthy of being a competition winner.  It seems the best method is growing them in 50 gallon drums filled with mostly sand. 

All of the obsessive allotmenteers who take part in this type of growing have their own secret additives but I did find out that the 2015 winner of the Dublin City scheme added vermiculite, ground limestone, calcified seaweed, compost and a top dressing of a granulated organic fertilizer. Of course I couldn’t find out the quantities so you’ll have to experiment if you want to be up there with the best.

Perfect

I mentioned a while ago about the sorry state of the root vegetable market. One point in particular was that farms producing parsnips actually look for “good” parsnips as they go along the production line and all of the rest are discarded and dug back into the earth.  It’s the same with carrots and has been for a while as the retailers are convinced that we will only but vegetables if they are “perfect” with no blemishes or irregular bits sticking out.

This is by no means a recent phenomenon. One American farmer back in the early 80’s by the name of Mike Yurosek realised that a lot of his carrots weren’t going to market because of their shape. The carrot business in the US was stagnant and wasteful, growing seasons were long, and more than half of what farmers grew was misshapen and like the UK market, retailers thought that customers wouldn’t buy them. So Yurosek, itching for a way to make use of all the misshapen carrots, tried something new. Instead of tossing them out, he carved them into something more palatable looking.

At first, he used a potato peeler, which didn't quite work because the process was too labourious. But then he bought an industrial green-bean cutter. The machine cut the carrots into uniform 2-inch pieces. They  have proved to be just the right size as they just  fit into your mouth.

The ‘unsightly’ carrots are  milled, sculpted and standardized  serving as an example of how disconnected we can be as at first glance (or second) you can’t tell them apart from actual whole peeled carrots.

Yurosek didn’t really know how these modified shapes would go down with his regular retailers so he delivered a few bags to a local shop. He suspected he was on to something, but hardly anticipated such an enthusiastic response. The shop phoned him the next day and told him that “We only want those.” From there most of his other customers went the same way.

The little carrot sculptures (or baby CUT carrots, as they're sometimes called to clarify, because they are actually NOT baby carrots) not only revived a once struggling carrot industry in America, but they also helped both curb waste on the farm and sell the Vitamin D-filled vegetables at the supermarkets. Today, baby carrots such as these dominate the carrot industry in the US. The packaged orange snacks are now responsible for almost 70 per cent of all carrot sales and we are not too far behind as more and more shops and cafes are selling them – because they are just so convenient. 

Snack

Why are these types of carrots so popular now? Maybe as we find ourselves with less time to sit down at restaurants or even cook at home, convenience has guided all sorts of decisions about food, especially when there is an option that requires little more than opening a packet. The fact that you don't have to peel them, wash them or chop them makes the carrot pieces an ideal healthy snack, in fact they are advertised as an alternative to junk food, rather than a different way to eat carrots. The packaging was changed to mirror that used for crisps. “Eat ’Em Like Junk Food,” went the TV adverts, which boosted sales by 13%.

At a time when most ugly vegetables go to waste, ugly carrots are carved, sold at a premium and marketed as ‘Ready Prepared Mini Carrots’. It’ll be interesting to see if we can convince our young to pick up a snack pack of carrots over a packet of crisps or a bar of chocolate. We should never underestimate the power of advertising; it might come although I think it might be a huge challenge making carved parsnips a popular snack.

I’m just wondering too where all of the carrot peelings go after they have gone through the machine at the factory?  All I know is that my scabby, dirty, misshapen carrot peelings go back into my garden via the compost bin, which is a good place for them to go.