Archive for the tag “wood”

24 Oct 2011
6 Comments

Garden Update Photo Tour

Butternut squash female flowers

baby watermelon

first sunflower

Tomato grown sideways

Here’s a tomato trick, I’ve grown this tomato plant on its side, its original root ball is right next to the basil plant in the same square. The trick is to lay the entire plant on its side, and only let the leaves and branches out, this way all the buried hairs on the stem will develop into roots, giving the plant an extra strong support.

baby spinach and swiss chard

Raised Bed Tour:

Tomato and carrot bed on the top, and sweet potato bed on the bottom

Lemon grass in the middle

 

corn in the middle and zucchini on the corners

 

my herb bed

 

Posted in Square foot gardening and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
24 Oct 2011
2 Comments

New Compost Batch

Here is a new compost batch that I started last month, its getting well watered and turned.
I add layers of grass clippings (C+N), then kitchen scraps(N), then wood shavings (C), this way the dry wood shavings mask the scent of the fruits and vegetables which will attract less insects.

compost bins

The reason my grass clippings are N+C is because I leave them in the sun for about 2 weeks before I put them in the bin, this way the dried brown grass reacts with the still fresh grass to make fast compost.

unfinished compost


You can see that the wood shavings take longer to compost than the grass and kitchen scraps.

Compost tea

Im also making new compost tea to water and spray the plants with.

Posted in Compost and tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
08 Oct 2011
16 Comments

Garden Update

A lot has happened in the garden since the last post;
-All the raised beds are filled with Mel’s Mix.
-I installed trellises to help climbing plants grow vertically.
-I planted some of the plants started indoors back in September.
-I covered the 4×4 beds with a sun screen to protect them from the still very damaging noon sun.

I have so many spaces left to grow, Im planting new things every day,
Here’s what’s growing so far:

Rosemary from AlShaheen Nurseries in Almashatel
This is used so much in the kitchen, I have to grow it.

Opal Basil

Purple Opal Basil
This very pretty herb is as tasty as sweet basil, and adds interesting color to your garden.


Genovese Basil
This plant absolutely loves full sun, if you are growing one thing this year, please grow genovese basil!
Im going to grow so much, because it does so well here and is very rewarding.


Okra
This is a heat loving plant, Im excited to see if it will like the declining temperatures coming our way.


Zucchini,
you can see the older leaves suffered from the heat and sun damage. The yellowing on the edges of the leaves is an indicator of heat stress.
With generous watering everyday, especially before noon time, and with the shading from the sun screen, the plant was able to grow past the damage, and is now producing healthy new leaves.
I placed Zucchinis on the edges of the beds because they grow to be very large and overflow their squares.


Sweet Potatoes
The plant will soon have sprawling vines, and so I will construct a small trellis for them to climb, maybe not a big one like the other boxes. Im thinking of using some of my old bamboo sticks, as I have many laying around.


Tomatoes
I planted two of my tomato plants in the tomato potting up post. The one on the left is Gardener’s Delight, and the other is Brandywine. I’m going to plant basil and chives around my tomatoes as companion plants.


French Marigold & Sunflower
Marigolds are a good companion plant with almost all plants, and sunflowers will look so pretty on the edge of the bed, both attracting beneficial insects to pollinate my fruiting plants.


Corn,
Corn can help trailing plants as a support.


Sugar Baby Watermelon
This plant needs some space and a generous watering. As you can see it needs a trellis and will climb on its own. This grows very very fast.


Butternut squash
This plant also suffered from heat stress at the beginning of its move outdoors. The new growth is nice and green and Its growing very nicely along the netting.


Aside from me pushing the stem gently in and out of the netting, the plant is sending these amazing spirals that find the net on their own and coil around it, creating very secure knots.


I cant wait to fill the remaining squares! remember, this is all applicable to containers, so there’s no excuse to not growing vegetables at home.

Posted in Seed Starting and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
09 Aug 2011
2 Comments

Square Foot Gardening

What is square foot gardening?

A simple, unique and versatile system that adapts to all levels of experience, physical ability, and geographical location. Grow all you want and need in only 20% of the space of a conventional row garden.

Save time, water, work and money!

I am following the square foot gardening method, and I’ll be using it as a reference through out the blog.
Square foot gardening invented by the genius Mel Bartholomew! Learn more about it in his website , Or order his very very valuable book. It may come in downloadable PDF files too, if you search.

Here are the 10 things that make SFG different from traditional row gardening:

  1. Layout. Arrange your garden in squares, not rows. Lay it out in 4′x4′ planting areas. Companion plants can help each other grow bigger and tastier!
  2. Boxes. Build boxes to hold a new soil mix above ground. Your existing soil doesn’t matter! forget about it, and just worry about the new soil called Mel’s Mix.
  3. Aisles. Space boxes 3′ apart to form walking aisles. It makes it easier to walk and sit around the boxes, especially when your plants get really big and spill out of the boxes a little.
  4. Soil. Fill boxes with Mel’s special soil mix: 1/3 blended compost (please please make your own! The compost sold in Kuwait is a little shady) , 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite (All available in True Value).
  5. Grid. Make a permanent square foot grid for the top of each box. A MUST!
  6. Care. NEVER WALK ON YOUR GROWING SOIL. This is how the soil stays so fluffy and airy for the roots stay happy. Tend your garden from the aisles.
  7. Select. Plant a different flower, vegetable, or herb crop in each square foot, using 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants per square foot. You might, for example, plant a single tomato in a square, but you’d plant 16 carrots in another. Using this system, you can cram a lot of garden into a small space and still get excellent yields.
  8. Plant. Conserve seeds. Plant only a pinch (2 or 3 seeds) per hole. Place transplants in a slight saucer-shaped depression. This means you wont waste seeds! The traditional way is to plant lots of seeds then cut off the majority and leave the strongest.
  9. Water. Water by hand from a bucket of sun-warmed water.
  10. Harvest. When you finish harvesting a square foot, add only compost and replant it with a new and different crop.

Here’s how Im starting my square foot garden :


I decided how big of an area I want to use, I am placing my SFG on the roof of my house, which I made sure received at least 8 hours of full sun. I am going big and starting with lots of boxes. So after thorough planning I decided I want two 4×4 square foot boxes (which is the standard) two smaller boxes for root vegetables like carrots and potatoes, and one long box for herbs. You can download the guide I created for the carpenters here . Its not the most accurate illustration of what the boxes look like in the end, but the numbers are right.
You can change the measurements how ever you like, most importantly, you have to make sure each square is 1ft squared in size= 30 cm. Also Most vegetables require 6 inches of soil, I’ve decided to use around 20cm.

If the boxes are placed over a garden/soil, they don’t need bottoms. In my case, I have to apply bottoms since they’re going to be in the roof. The bottoms are waterproof 2cm thick plywood. The plywood has to have around 0.6 cm holes drilled in each square, plus in the corners.
My boxes have weird squares in the plywood because the carpenter mistook 0.6cm for huge 6cm holes, I had them fix them without problems.

Potato/Carrot beds:


One of the 4×4′ beds with the herb bed:

You can ofcourse build your own boxes, and a very detailed guide is in the book. Im sure its much more fun.I don’t have the skill or time, so I had the boxes done for 50KD total, 30 for the wood and 20 for the building.
The work was done by Ibrahim in Classic Design Carpentry :


 Don’t forget, you can collect sawdust for free and use it as a carbon source in your compost!

Maybe I’ll paint the outsides of the boxes with the kids before the season starts, what do you think?

Posted in Summer Planning and tagged , , , , , , , ,

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