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Some questions about my first fall square foot garden
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Posted by advaya 6B (My Page) on Fri, Aug 6, 10 at 22:26
| I have a few questions as this is both my first year square foot gardening and my first fall garden. I have very marginal experience with gardening in the first place, lol.
I have been looking at many different websites, and also Mel's book, and everything has conflicting information. Which of these following seeds are good choices to start growing a fall garden? Also, I am in zone 6b and am having a hard time finding when exactly to plant most of these for a fall harvest. My father told me it would be okay to go ahead and plant any of these tomorrow, but I'm not so sure about that. And I've been researching into information overload. The other post in this forum about fall gardens helped me a bit, but I didn't want to hijack his post with questions about all my seeds.
I have one 4x4 bed and these are the seeds I have available to choose from:
Peas: Alaska (Wilt Resistant)
Cilantro
Leaf Lettuce
Spinach
Beets (chioggia)
Swiss Chard (A rainbow variety)
Radish (cherry belle)
Cabbage (Red Acre)
Kale (Lacinato)
Carrot (Chantenay Red Core)
Carrot (Scarlet Nantes)
Oregon Giant Snow Pea (dwarf)
Kolrhabi
Collards
(I also want to plant garlic but don't have it yet)
Thanks! |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Some questions about my first fall square foot garden
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- Posted by chudak 10 San Diego (My Page) on
Sun, Aug 8, 10 at 11:22
| I grow pretty much all of those over the fall-winter-spring...but I'm in zone 10. It rarely dips below 40 here. They are all cool weather plants and should do fine until the first frost (some will survive frost just fine). Starting them while it is warm in august will help them get a head start for when it starts to cool down in september and october. You'd want to get all these in within the next few weeks since they are all pretty much in the 40-60 day range before ready. |
RE: Some questions about my first fall square foot garden
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| Thank you so much. I went ahead and planted all the squares. I'm hoping square foot gardening works out well for me. It's so organized, and even though I didn't use genuine Mel's Mix (couldn't afford to buy more vermiculite or peat moss, so I used what I had plus two bags of compost and one bag of potting soil) the mix is still so soft and rich. I'm hoping for the best and over winter I'm going to make more beds. My father owns a sawmill and I have available quite a few boards that all he has to do is saw in half for me. They're boards he isn't selling or didn't need for whatever reason, but they're free and that's the best kind. I'm going to do some experimenting and fill some with the traditional square foot soil mix, and do others lasagna style (since I have both chickens and lots of compostable materials) and can fill those up over winter. Once that rots down I'm going to still use the grid and method of Square-foot gardening. |
RE: Some questions about my first fall square foot garden
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- Posted by chudak 10 San Diego (My Page) on
Mon, Aug 9, 10 at 10:31
| For what it's worth...I used mel's mix for several years and was never happy with it. I could never seem to keep it well watered and all my plants died from thirst. After watering for 15-20 minutes I'd find that only the top inch was wet and all the water was running off the sides either from the top or in channels under the surface. No matter what I tried (slow sprinkler, hand watering, etc) I couldn't keep the soil from drying out. Maybe it works for some...didn't work for me. When I rebuilt my raised beds this year when my backyard was being remodeled I had the landscaper fill them half full with some of the new topsoil he brought in for the rest of the yard and then filled them the rest of the way with just compost. I also added drop irrigation and started mulching my beds with straw. It seems to have made a difference... |
RE: Some questions about my first fall square foot garden
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| I never tried "pure Mel's mix". I merely incorporated vermiculite, peat and extra compost into my existing soil. (After all, I'd spent the previous 5 years of gardening amending my clay soil...I didn't want all the previous effort to go to waste, besides, I had finally gotten my mix to the level I was almost happy with it....it was crumbly...full of worms...and wasn't as compacted as it had been.) I have had no problems with moisture retention (of course, that's probably in large part due to the level of clay content) even when I don't water quite as often as I should (life can get down right ridiculous sometimes!). My garden takes only a small step back, but bounces right back when I water, or a big storm comes through. advaya, Your plant choices look perfect. Some others to consider: Parsnips and rutabagas...all root crops do well in the fall garden. Also, they tend to be sweeter after they are nipped by a hard frost. The starches turn to sugars so that they can survive the winter! Personally, I don't even harvest them until I am going to eat them. I just mulch over the top, and if a really cold snap hits....wait for it to thaw out. They are great! |
RE: Some questions about my first fall square foot garden
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| This was my first year to SFG & I used Mel's mix with fantastic results, but I think the success was largely due to "real" composted cow manure, not bags of compost from the big box stores. I'm growing most of what is on your list as a fall crop, also cauliflower & brusell sprouts. Another good forum is Mel's site, Square Foot Gardening. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Square Foot Gardening
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