The weekly Square Foot Update and some of the early bounty of the harvest

The garden is at it's peak for this year many things I've been very pleased with and a few that I won't plant again at least not the varieties that I grew this year. All in all it has been a great summer for the vegetable garden and the harvest is increasing everyday.

Weekly Garden Update

I'm starting to get enough produce from the garden that I can freeze some. So far zucchini, peas and beans. The blue podded peas are all filled out and I hope to pick them soon and dry them for winter soups. I was surprised to read in my copy of, Preserving the Harvest, that they should be blanched for three minutes in steam before drying them just the same as you would do if you were freezing them. Lots of mystery squash on the vine from the seed packet labeled, Fun with Winter Squash, the latest one that I discovered yesterday looks like Acorn squash, maybe a yellow variety. (Not shown in the video.)

Square Foot Garden April 23, 2010

Time to plant the peas. I'm planting two heritage verities Tall Telephone Garden Peas the king my father and grandfather used to grow when I was a child a very tall variety that they used to stake with alder brush for them to grow on. Mine are being grown at the back of one of my four foot square raised beds and I plan to build a frame out of 2X4 lumber and chicken wire for them to grow on. I added a liberal amount of seafood compost to each cell and worked it into the soil before planted the eight seeds recommended for each cell. One good thing about knowing exactly how many seed you have planted is it makes it easy to replace any seed that don't germinate.

My second variety of peas is something really different, Blue Podded Peas. They are an old heritage variety that actually have blue pods, that should really stand out in the garden. The seed catalog said they are not eaten as fresh peas but are dried and used in soup. Which is fine with me because I love pea soup. I just have one problem with that when I opened the seed packet the seed are brown, I hope that doesn't mean that I will have brown pea soup.

Square Foot Garden April 21, 2010

Square Foot Garden April 21, 2010, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

The day after I returned from France I got my light garden started and planted seventeen different vegetable varieties. Mostly heritage varieties and open pollinated, no GMO's here. I have been surprised to discover how many sources there are for these old varieties which are no longer commercially grown, all the way from seed companies that specialize in heritage seed to individuals that save seed from a favorite vegetable and share it through internet discussion groups. I have several more vegetables that I will be starting a little later on as well as several that will be direct seeded in to the garden, this is a list of the seed planted so far:

Italian flat leaf Parsley
Lettuce Gotte Jaune D'Or
Lettuce Merveille des Quatre Saisons
Cayenne Peppers
Brussels Sprouts Oliver
Cabbage Perfection Savoy Drum-head
Ground Cherry Golden Husk
Tomato Black Cherry
Tomato Buckbees New
Fennel Solaris
Swiss Chard
Broccoli Diciccio
Kale Toscano (Palm)
Red China Eggplant
Golden Beets
Deacon Dan Beets
Guardsmark Beets

Within 48 to 72 hours of planting both lettuce varieties had germinated.

As you can see I have gone heavily into beets this year, they are one of my favorite vegetables and in the past I have had great difficulty growing them. I plant them the germinate and are starting to grow nicely and the next time I go out to the garden they are all gone. I think my problem is the bunny rabbits or some other pest so this year I'm starting them under lights and will plant them in the area of the new square foot garden that is surrounded with rabbit fencing. In case it is some other pest I'm also going to use floating row cover until the plants are well established. Most seed packs say that beets are hard to transplant so this might be a problem but all I keep remembering is my grand father always transplanted all of the beets that he thinned out of the rows into additional rows of beets, they would wilt for the first few days but as long as they were well watered he always had good success with them. Mine are seeded into individual one inch cells so it should be easy to pop them out and transplant then without too much disturbance to the roots.

Today is day four since I planted my seeds and there are things coming up everywhere Swiss Chard, Brussels Sprouts, Ground Cherries and Savoy Cabbage. Things are off to a good start and I think the next item to be planted will be peas directly into the garden, they can be safely planted in the garden 4 to 6 weeks before the last frost date and right now we are about 4 weeks from our last frost date in late May.

The date on this video should be April 21, 2010, too late to change it now.