got some dirt under my nails today :)

.... and it feels soooo goood!

Moving into a condo from a house is a transition in many ways... but for me the most concerning part was considering how I would ever be able to have my summer and fall vegetable garden given the fact that my yard had gone away. Turns out I moved into a community that not only has plenty of shared raised bed space up for grabs each Spring, but there's a meeting next weekend for those who want to discuss developing an area in the community that would provide about 3,000 square feet of gardening space (in the ground) once complete. Needless to say I am excited about that opportunity. That particular area is very rough with small trees and lots of brush and shrubs - heavy machinery will be required, but the HOA will pay for all of that and to plow up and amend the soil for the garden! :) Things really got better for me, actually, in the gardening department. It's almost too convenient, all of this.

As I was cleaning out my own personal bed (an 8x8 raised bed) I realized that this actually might be easier for me this year... there is a water spigot with a primo shower head literally within reach of my space, and I might actually have MORE square footage to plant in! At home I only had 40 and now I have 64! :) See, God is lookin' out. :)

Anyway so I got my summer garden in the ground today... we forgot that we left all our garden tools at Jason's mom's house, so I broke up the soil with a hand trowel and my hands, spread 160lbs of mushroom compost and worked that in with my hands, and planted. I'm trying to grow sweet potatoes for the first time. I am going to try to trellis them and see what happens. I am also going to put some in containers as suggested by Betsy on our front porch and see how they do. They're pretty much my favorite vegetable and I don't mind ending up with a ton because they keep forever!

In the ground:

From plants: sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes

From seed: cucumbers, yellow crookneck squash, zucchini, bush green beans, and peppers

If you want to know how to get your own garden started you can check out this post I wrote here. I use the Square Foot Gardening technique.

Here are some photos from today. Enjoy!

this is the community garden 

my spot before I cleaned it out today - weedy but there was a rosemary plant in there that I saved :)

Shiloh came down to help but didn't stay long... she was getting tired and grumpy.

Jason took a picture. 

the soil is broken up and ready for the mushroom compost

getting ready to plant the sweet potatoes

cucumber

:o)

Love Brooke

grow your own food (no matter where you live)

first year's garden right before harvest (fall)

proud mama :)

Hey friends. Well, I am starting this post here on what is probably the last full day we will spend in our house. I am not so emotional about leaving the house - although I will miss many aspects of it, the one thing I am most heartbroken about is leaving my garden. The gallons of sweat I've spent, volumes of dirt and weeds I've moved, plants I've nurtured, etc... there is no way to fully document for you the investment of both time and heart that I will not get to take with me. It is desperately sad.

first year's harvest right before the freeze

I will be harvesting the remainder of my greens and lettuces currently growing in the garden tomorrow. I am hoping I can transplant some of my collards to containers so I can eat off of them throughout the winter.

harvest of SOME turnips and collards for  this year's Thanksgiving... (Thanksgiving morning)

Gardening is such a therapy for me. I love being in the dirt and close to the earth. I love seeing things I have nurtured thrive and being enjoyed by others. I love serving my family foods that I've grown from seed.

tomatoes and lettuce for salad served up with dinner

Let me assure you, though... I do not intend to leave this place without disassembling the square foot garden beds, scooping up and bagging all the soil, and tearing out whatever perennials I can! :o)

radishes

I've been wanting to share with you all a way that you can grow a little or a lot of your own food regardless of how much space you have. I use the square foot garden "technique" in my vegetable gardening, and I find it to be a smart, efficient, and very natural way to grow your food. Benefits that I have personally observed of this technique include:

1. the ability to control your soil and maintain it's quality
2. weed control - weeds are basically non-existent
3. excellent yield in a very small space
4. pest control - how you plant your different vegetables can aid in pest control
5. insecticide use is completely unnecessary
6. the quality of your crop is excellent (good soil - good fruits/vegetables)
7. you can make your beds as accessible as you need them to be - you can build one wherever you want to put a garden provided you have that square footage available (deck, patio, front or back yard, etc)

There are many resources out there that will give you more details than I could possibly give you here - specifically Mel Bartholomew's ("father" of SFG) website and book on Square Foot Gardening. Mel's book is a great resource. I have not personally read it. I learned about SFG through my friend and very knowledgeable gardener David Hulsey. I researched it an implemented my garden using the basic approach I will share with you today. 

cucumbers

I promise you that you will have a satisfying and productive garden if you try the SFG way. I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience with it and found it to be as effortless as it could possibly be to grow my own food. 

Here's what you need to know on how to get started:

I will say that there is some up front cost involved. I'd say we spent about $80 on materials and soil amendments up front but we did not really try to find free stuff. This past season since my soil needed a do over I just spent some time at my friend's horse farm shoveling manure into bags and used up the compost I'd been, well, composting, since last season. I saved a ton of money this way.

You can keep your costs down by reclaiming materials and getting free manure and compost like I did this year.

Also, it is totally unnecessary to buy plants. Just buy seeds and save your money. 

It is also IMPERATIVE to know your hardiness zone and what to plant when. 

Build your raised bed(s)

We built two beds - one 4'x4' bed and one 4'x6' bed using 2x6s and 2x4s to secure the pieces at the corners. (lumber). You can also use 2x12s - ask your local Home Improvement guy and he or she can help you. A husband with a drill and some deck screws would also be helpful. My husband built ours in about an hour. You need about 12" of soil, and the 2x6s stacked on end provided that for us. 

If you live in an apartment or town house/condo (where I'll be living come tomorrow) and you have limited space, you can build a 1'x4' box or 2'x4'... if you need your boxes to be narrower to fit on a patio or walkway, those dimensions will work. You just want to make sure they're whole feet squared. Feel free to be creative about what materials you use to build the walls of your beds...  Here's a good tutorial on building your own box.

Compose the soil

Mel Bartholomew recommends that your soil be 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 vermiculite. 

When I initally composed my soil I could not find vermiculite, so the guy at Pike Nursery recommended a different blend, and I used 1/3 mushroom compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 cow manure. I had a great yield and no issues. The purpose of the compost is fertilization and the purpose of the vermiculite is aeration. I am not 100% sure about peat moss, except that it is partially decomposed sphagnum moss which is mined and somewhat increasing in the controversy of it's use. I would recommend researching it before using it, as I can tell you that it is not completely necessary to use it. You just need to make sure you have nitrogen rich, fertile soil that can breathe. This can be accomplished in many ways. This last season I used my own homegrown compost, horse manure from my friend's farm and perlite, which is similar to vermiculite, to aerate.

first year...

here's Shiloh spreading the free manure this year... (in garbage bags in background)

Mark off your square feet

This part is easy - after you've done the grunt work to build your box, fill it with your soil mix, you are ready to plant, except Mel recommends that you mark off each square foot with string or something so you can keep track of how much you're planting per square foot. This changes according to what you're planting and how much space it needs. A guide can be found here. 

I put nails in at each foot and strung basic twine or string across to mark each section.

Plant

This is the fun part. I'd advise you draw a graph that tells you where you planted what. Keep your seeds organized. DO NOT OVERPLANT - I know it seems hard to believe that one TEENY TINY SEED could possibly produce, on its own, a large, delicious vegetable to eat, BUT IT CAN. I would not put more than 2 seeds per hole and that's even pushing it. If you put more than one and they all germinate, you're going to be thinning, which can stress the roots of the plant you're saving. And you have to thin the seedlings, otherwise neither plant will grow to its full potential. TRUST THE SEED!! :o) 

I also prefer not to sprout the seeds first... too much work! Just put them in the ground!

Water daily until germination... 

Keep seedlings watered until they reach about an inch to two inches tall and then I think you can go to every other day or so. 

All you have to do now is sit back and watch your garden grow. Make a note when you plant of how many days until ready for harvest - should say on the back of the seed packet. I don't abide by these as strictly in fall but I do find that in summer when vegetables are subject to many environmental stresses it is important to take better care of them and get them harvested on time, or even early (green tomatoes will ripen off the vine) if appropriate. I kept a journal at first but found that to be unnecessary later. It's good for initial planning, though.

I'd love to answer any questions you may have about getting started. If you would like to ask me a question, leave it in the comments or email me at brooke dot m dot hammel at g mail dot com. 

turnip from this year

blueberries (not grown in SFG), squash, cukes and tomatoes from previous year

There is SO much more to learn about this, that I could not possibly have covered here. If you're interested I strongly recommend getting Mel's book, or you can email me and I will provide a human connection to the process!

Here are a few more pics:

gladioli

lantana in my garden being visited by a bee

Happy gardening!

Brooke

garden update!

It's been a square two weeks I believe since I planted my fall vegetable garden and as promised, here's an update on our progress.

We've had some very interesting activity in our beds. When I prepared the soil this year I used manure from a friend's horse barn and my own compost. Of course, compost is the result of decomposed fruits and vegetables, among other organic and biodegradable things, and it's natural to think that maybe seeds from those fruits and vegetables may linger behind, storing up life within themselves and waiting for the right environment so that they may release their energy and grow into food.

Now, I am not sure if the "mysterious" seedlings that have been popping up are from seeds in the compost, or if they were dormant seeds in the beds that came to life because the soil was attended to and amended. I do recognize the seedlings but am not sure of the variety of each plant. The sad part is, this is not the growing season for those fruits, so we may not get the chance of seeing any of the plants bear fruit at all, but it will be fun to watch and see.

I'm also starting a garden time lapse page so you can see our progress cumulatively.

this bed has collards, kale, radishes, strawberries and lettuce, along with other seedlings that have sprouted up that I will point out to you.

this bed has collards, turnips, lettuce and kale and also has some mysterious seedlings

here are the radishes (strawberries far left), and right in the spot where a radish plant should be is some kind of squash plant... at least some kind of vine plant TBD

in this picture you can see a kale seeding (I think... maybe collard) and a tomato seedling

growing up against the edge of the smaller bed are these two plants... not sure what these are but I do think they are vines? I dunno...

The type of gardening that I do is called square foot gardening. The approach involves building raised beds that are a good 10"  to 12" deep (2 2x6s end to end work well), filled with 1/3 vermiculite (for drainage), 1/3 compost and 1/3 manure. This allows you to have perfect soil without having to till up any of your own soil and try to amend it to work best for your plants. Also the nutrients in the soil are dense and contained. Another added benefit is that you can grow more food in less space, with less water, less seed and minimizes your watering needs. I also have only ever had to use neem oil to prevent any insects from affecting my plants, which is totally organic and natural. Because of the diversity of the plants in your raised bed pest problems tend to be minimal and contained to summer months (at least that was my experience).

If you live in an apartment, or in a big house with a lot of land, you can garden this way.

Here are some photos pf my garden over the last few years.