(In the Garden #4)

Choosing Your Crops

Once you have prepared your garden square, it time to decide what you are going to plant in it. I recommend planting only what you know you will use. Even if everyone on the block is growing tomatoes, don't plant them if your family refuses to eat them. Prefer your veggies clean and in plastic from the produce department? Then fill your garden squares with different kinds of herbs and flowers.

It is a great gardening irony that home-grown lettuce and tomatoes do not share the same season. Lettuce is a cool weather crop and is usually done by the time tomatoes, a warm weather crop, are starting to ripen. Most vegetables fall into those two categories. Cool weather crops are best planted in the early spring and done by late June or planted in late August and harvested in the fall. Warm weather crops are not planted until after all danger of frost is past (late May/early June in the midwest).

Below are some suggestions and notes about good starter vegetables.

Tomatoes: (Warm weather crop) You can start your own plants from seed indoors eight weeks before planting outside, but I suggest buying tomato plants at a nursery if you are a beginning gardener. There are many varieties of tomatoes, but only two plant types. One is the determinate, or bush tomato, that only grows to a pre-determined height, branches out, and takes a bit more space horizontally. You can only grow four of these in a 4' x 4' garden. The second type, the indeterminate or vining tomato, grows well in a 1' square if grown upward on a stake or trellis. You can plant four of these tomatoes along the end squares of your garden and train them up an end support, pinching out the side shoots to encourage upward growth.

Pepper: (Warm weather crop) Another plant best purchased in a nursery. Plant 1 plant per square foot.

Green beans: (Warm weather crop) Two types of these as well: bush beans and pole beans. You can plant these seeds directly in the garden – 9 plants per square foot for bush beans, 8 plants per square foot for pole beans, which are grown on the end squares on end supports.

Leaf lettuce: (Cool weather crop) These can also be seeded directly in the ground, or you can purchase plants in a garden nursery. Plant 4 per square foot.

Spinach: (Cool weather crop) Seed directly in the ground only, 9 plants to a square foot.

Peas: (Cool weather crop) Plant seeds directly in the garden, 8 plants per square foot, grown on the end squares on end supports.

Swiss Chard: (Warm weather crop) Like spinach, sow directly in the ground only, but plant 4 per square foot.

Cucumbers: (Warm weather crop) Plant seeds or bought plants, 2 plants per square foot, but grow on end squares on end supports.

Onions: (Warm weather crop) Plant bought sets 16 per square foot. Green onions, also known as scallions or bunching onions can be sown by seed quite thickly with about 30 plants per square foot.

Carrots: (Cool or warm weather crop) Plant seed directly in the ground only, 16 plants per square foot. Soil needs to be very soft and loose to grow carrots, and short carrot types are best.

Radishes: (Prefers cool weather) Plant seed directly in the ground only, 16 plants per square foot.

Beets: (Prefers cool weather) Plant seed directly in the ground only, 16 plants per square foot.

Turnips: (Prefers cool weather) Plant seed directly in the ground only, 9 plants per square foot.

Tomorrow - Planting seeds and seedlings in the ground.

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.

- Lewis Grizzard

(In the Garden #3)

Preparing the Soil

Most vegetables need lots of sun. Choose an area of your yard where you are sure that the garden will get a least six hours of direct sunlight a day. Also, the closer the garden is to the kitchen door, or other frequently used access to the house, the easier it is to keep an eye on the garden.

Once you choose the location for the garden, measure off a 4' x 4' square (or a 3' x 6' rectangle, if you are short-armed). At this point you need to decide how much you want to invest in the actual structure of the garden block. Digging up a 4' x 4' section of lawn, removing the grass, and cultivating the soil below is the most inexpensive way to make a garden. However, if you have heavy clay soil or you would like your garden to look a little neater, consider making or buying a raised bed garden frame. This would be a simple 4' x 4' frame made out of 2” x 6” or 8” cedar boards, depending how deep a box you want. If you choose to make a raised bed frame, you don't even have to dig up your soil. Just spread about six layers of newspaper over the grass where you want your garden and water the area well. The newspapers will kill the grass and then rot by the time your garden plants have sent down roots. Put the raised bed frame over the wet newspapers, and fill the frame with bags of purchased topsoil, peat moss and mushroom compost. Some well-rotted manure can be added if you like. Mix the soil until it is uniform in texture. If you are using your own garden soil, it might be a good idea to dig some mushroom compost, peat moss, and or a small amount of manure into the soil to improve its texture and add nutrients.

Decide if you have a good sense of measurement, of what a 1' square looks like. Some people build 1' grids over their square foot garden to help them plant. Others use string to break it down into squares. I will sometimes draw lines in the soil just before I plant so I can “see” my squares. Use whatever works for you.

Square foot gardening also makes use of the garden space above your garden as well as the space on the ground. You can put a small fence or other support system on one end of the square to grow pole beans, peas, cucumbers, vining squash or indeterminate tomatoes.

Tomorrow – Choosing your first crop

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. - Margaret Atwood

(In the Garden #2...)

Basics of Square Foot Gardening

Square foot gardening is a method of gardening that gets you thinking about planting things in squares rather than the more traditional rows. It is easy to weed, easy to water, and once the soil is prepared, easy to keep going.

The original square foot method starts with a 4' x 4' block, broken down into 16, 1' squares. Each square can grow a designated number of a particular crop, for example:

1 tomato plant

1 pepper plant

4 lettuce plants

9 spinach plants

9 bush beans

16 carrots

16 radishes

The size of the garden square is based on the premise that once the garden soil is prepared, it will never be stepped on and packed down again. A 4' square can be reached into from any side since most of us have about a 2' arm length. But if you feel you are short-armed, make your garden a 3' x 6' or 3' x 3' rectangle instead!

The small size also makes the garden easy to protect. It has always been a challenge for me to keep the rabbits and deer out of the garden. I've invented a series of 4' panels with plastic fencing that I can easily use and remove to protect my squares. It is also easy to make mini-greenhouses out of plastic sheeting and wire if you want to try your hand at growing lettuce or spinach into November.

Tomorrow – Preparing the soil

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. - Marcus Tullius Cicero

(In the Garden #1...)

Introduction to Square Foot Gardening

My grandmother always had a vegetable garden in the backyard when I was growing up. It wasn't huge, but it provided us with lots of tomatoes, green beans, squash and kohlrabi. When I got older, I liked the idea of growing my own food, but, well, I'm kind of lazy, and gardening seemed like a lot of work. I guess you could say I liked the idea of gardening more than I actually liked gardening itself.

Before we bought our first house and finally had room to garden, I stumbled upon the 1970s PBS show, “Square Foot Gardening”, and the companion book that was published at that time. The author, Mel Bartholomew, came up with an easier, more manageable way of gardening. I decided that when I had my first garden, I would use his principles in planning and laying it out. I've had three different vegetable gardens in three different houses and have used the square foot method each time. Each garden varied in size and shape, but all were based on the square foot gardening principles.

Over the next week, I will be writing a series of short articles geared for those of you who, like me, may like the idea of gardening more than the actual work of gardening. It is my goal to inspire those sitting on the fence to jump off on the side of trying to grow vegetables for the first time. The month of May is a perfect time to start a vegetable garden, and it's not too late to plan one this week, especially if you are willing to start small. I will tell you how to prepare, plant and care for a 4' x 4' garden square.

Tomorrow – Basics of Square Foot Gardening

They say I'm lazy but it takes all my time – Joe Walsh, Life's Been Good

Hooked

When my dad died suddenly at the age of 38, he left behind a pregnant wife and a one year old. He also left behind two boats, a basement full of various kinds of fishing rods and reels, and drawers full of fishing tackle. Mom promptly sold the boats, kept the one year old (me), eventually had my brother and, for sentimental reasons, I think, kept the rods and tackle. I grew up thinking everyone's basement had a complete set of split bamboo rods - a surf rod, boat rod, spinning rod, a long, butt-less fly rod that came in two pieces - jumbled together with assorted fiberglass rods.

My father had been an avid fisherman as had been his father before him. The presence of the old fishing paraphernalia provided my brother and me with a connection to the man he never knew and I didn't remember. When Mom's parents moved in with us, my grandfather, who had enjoyed fishing with my dad, was instrumental in nurturing in two young children what turned out to be a strong hereditary disposition to fish.

What I would look like if I were blond and lived in Montana...

We grew up on the south shore of Long Island, two miles from the bay, six miles from the ocean. Grandpa would take us crabbing for blue claws in the canals off the bay and fishing for snappers with cane poles and bobbers. On weekends, Mom and Grandpa would take us to the fishing piers at Jones Beach State Park. We each had our own fiberglass rod with a simple boat reel. It was fine for pier fishing – perfect for dropping spreaders, weighted with lead sinkers and baited with bloodworms or clams. Sometimes we would be rewarded with a blowfish or small flounder. Most times we would pull up a starfish or a searobin. But we fished. We learned to bait hooks, unhook fish, untangle line. We learned how to be outside by the water and love it. We learned how to be patient and, sometimes, not to be patient. Driven by some mysterious, yet natural, blood tie, we became fisher(wo)men.

Soon, however, dropping bait straight down into the water didn't do it for me anymore. I wanted to cast. My first spinning rod and reel forced me off the piers and onto the beaches and shorelines. It also lightened my fishing. Gone were the spreaders with the heavy sinkers. Now I fished closer to the surface with lighter tackle, various bobbers and split shot. Live spearing on a hook would bring in snappers (small bluefish) and worms or dough on the same rigging would be be equally attractive to panfish in the brackish freshwater ponds nearby. There was a new excitement seeing that bobber dip below the water when an interested fish finally got serious about the bait. They were hooked. I was hooked. I added a surf rod and reel to my collection. I started studying knots. I taught myself how to wrap new guides on some of my dad's old rods, still in the basement. I fell in love with fishing and all things related to fishing.

My brother and I continued to fish through our teenage years. His purpose in learning to drive was so he could trailer a boat. I was always up for going fishing with him and his friends. I still loved it, but life was getting busy. College was coming up and all the distractions that came with it. Shortly before I left for college, I broke two of my spinning reels. Both reels snapped off at the stem, both on different rods, only a few weeks apart. Leaving home, leaving the ocean and going to school upstate in the mountains, I saw no need to replace them any time soon.

Fast forward 20 years. I was now a stay at home mom with three kids living in the Midwest. Our house at that time was across the street from a small lake filled with bluegills and largemouth bass. Fishing suddenly seemed like a good idea again. With the kids in school, I went out and bought myself a new spinning outfit and some rubber worms. On my first cast in 20 years, I pulled in a largemouth. All the fishing excitement of my youth came flooding back. I was hooked again...

Of course, the kids and husband all got rods and reels, and mom tried making fishing the family sport. They were entertained for a while, but none became the true heirs of the family obsession. I, however, continued to fish. My brother, still fishing and living on the east coast, started encouraging me to try his obsession, fly fishing. For him, “bobbers” were now replaced by “strike indicators”. (Frank, they're still bobbers!) Suddenly one day, it just made sense to try fly fishing for myself. I got a fly rod and reel and started to teach myself how to fly cast in the backyard. When I was sufficiently confident that I didn't look like a total fool, I headed for the lake. The bass and bluegill and crappie did not disappoint. They were more attentive to my new mode of fishing then they had been to my spinning outfit. I became a fly fisher. I started tying my own flies, and the satisfaction of fooling a fish with something of my own making was addictive.

I still fish, mainly fly fish. I now live in a house that backs to some small ponds with bluegill, crappie, largemouth and an apocryphal northern that someone manages to catch every now and then. Sometime in the late spring or early summer, I'll be at the kitchen sink, looking out the window, and see a bass jump in the pond. And then it starts. I just have to fish! Some evenings, I put dinner in the oven, a timer in my pocket and go out and cast a few before dinner. Other times I go out after dinner and fish until the dark or mosquitoes drive me inside. It's who I am. I like to think that my father would be proud...

God does not charge time spent fishing against a man’s allotted life span. - American Indian Proverb

Knowing Where to Stand

I am not a risk taker. I'm a big fan of seat belts, life jackets and bike helmets. I avoid airplanes. I stand back on train platforms, and walk well onto the shoulder of the road. The closest I ever get to reckless behavior is eating raw cookie dough. I like to organize my life so I have maximum control over safety factors.

I know I emit this need for minimizing chances of danger. My son, when deciding upon what high school sport he wanted to pursue as a freshman, asked “You wouldn't let me play football, would you?” He knew the answer before he asked the question, and went off to decide between the safer options of soccer and cross country, a sport he had already participated in in middle school.

It was his decision to run cross country that turned me into a spectator of distance races, a position that I took to almost professional lengths to perfect. Counting middle school, high school and college, I “trained” for twelve years as a skilled watcher of runners. I prided myself on knowing where to stand. I would print maps of race courses, studying them to figure out where was the best places to stand and watch for my runner, where to run to next and wait, and next, and finally where to get close enough to the finish line to see the last part of the race. The finish line is always the most crowded, and it's hard to get a good view, so I would usually opt to stand about a tenth of a mile from the finish.

Running is one of the safest of sports, barring undiagnosed heart conditions and aging joints, and race watching, one of the safest of spectator sports. (When was the last time you heard of a runner careening out of control and crashing into a crowd of spectators, or someone being hit in the head by a wildly thrown running shoe?) It is because I perceive running and race watching this way, that the explosions during the Boston Marathon hit me the hardest of any terrorist attacks in recent years. Why? Because I felt like I - me, my athletes and my spectator sport - had been personally targeted. Had I been watching that race, I would have been standing where the second bomb went off, my idea of the perfect distance from the finish line. I wondered how many of the victims of the bombing were like me, cautious people, non-risk-takers, confident that they were standing in a safe place, watching a safe sport. It was a good reminder to me that for all my careful choices and safe living, I have little control over my life. I think I know where to stand – in many different areas of my life - but the reality is that only God knows if the place I have chosen is safe. In the gospel of Luke I'm faced with the statement “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” So many of my choices, consciously and subconsciously, try to do just that – increase my span of life. I would do better to plant my feet before the One who actually knows about such things, the One who holds that book where all the days ordained for me were written before one of them came to be. It's only by God's grace and in His grace that I can truly stand secure. And if I'm standing in that place, then it doesn't really matter where else my feet may chose to stand...

In the long run, we are all dead. - John Maynard Keyes

Old Seed, Fresh Harvest

I have seedlings growing on my south-facing bay window. I planted tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, basil and parsley...like I do every year. Some years I make soil blocks and put one or two seeds in each block. This year I put seed-starting soil in old plastic trays. Almost every seed germinated. Not terribly unusual. What is unusual is that some of the seeds are as old as my son...he will be 28 his next birthday.

I ordered a lot of seeds the summer Andrew was born. I read in some gardening literature that the seeds remain viable for a long period of time if stored in the cold. I got a lidded plastic container, put all leftover seeds in the container and put it in the refrigerator...in that house...and in the next one...and in the next one. All the seeds I've bought since then have been stored in the same container. Some of my stored seeds are only a year old, some over 27 years old.

These old seeds give us hope for the spiritual seeds in our lives. We keeps seeds in cold places in our hearts, hidden away, dormant, and sometimes we don't believe there is life in them. Then one day, they get put down in the right soil, exposed to light and warmth and moisture and suddenly they seed out roots, shoot up stems, leaves and begin to grow. Such a long time, such a space between seed and plant, yet the germination is true, and the plant and fruit are real.

The older I get, the more I think I see how God's timing is so different than my own. He sometimes shows us a vision He has for us long before that vision germinates. Sometimes it's like looking at a seed catalog for years before digging the flower bed. Sometimes it's like hoarding the seeds in the plastic container in the refrigerator until the planting can't be postponed any longer. Suddenly, the time is now, even when it hasn't been now for years. Then the seeds come out, are planted, sprout and grow. And the time is right. And because the time is right, the fruit is sweet and plentiful and the harvest is abundant. The seed may be old but the crop is current.

Some may see a hopeless end, but as believers we rejoice in an endless hope. - Amish Proverb