I stopped into the Superstore this morning for some groceries, and popped into their garden center as I needed more compost for my potatoes.  I have been getting “good stuff” from the “real” garden center, but since I was there anyway I thought I’d see what they had.

At first, I saw just some no-name cow manure and a brand of sheep manure I’d used before and been very unimpressed with (for some reasons, there are large pieces of sea shells all through it).  Then I saw something I wasn’t expecting to see at all — mushroom compost!

Yup, President’s Choice (Loblaw’s proprietary brand) has bags of mushroom compost. It’s not cheap — $5.99/bag, whereas the unimpressive sheep manure is just $1.99/bag.  But this stuff is black gold. It’s worth twice that, in my opinion.

I only wish I’d known about this back when I was making all my Mel’s Mix.  It’s now too late to really mix it in to all the beds, since they’re all planted and settled in their ways heh… But I can use it to finish the potatoes, and for any topping-up and re-filling needed in the existing beds.  I have a bucket of Mel’s Mix left over which I’ll be using for topping-up as well (some of the beds compacted more than I expected so I’ll add more mix as the plants grow, especially so that the carrots will have more than 3.5″ to grow in…) so I think I’ll go ahead and mix some mushroom into that.  It will throw the mix a little off 1/3-1/3-1/3, but that’s okay.  It’s MUSHROOM COMPOST!!

But then the kids woke up — at 10:30 — and after breakfast (can you still call it breakfast when it’s nearly 11am?  I guess if McDonald’s can, then we can!) we headed out for some errands.

Wednesday is errand day.  In our school district, elementary school students get a half day on Wednesday.  It’s been like this since time immemorial — or at least since I was an elementary student growing up here twenty-odd years ago.  It seemed weird when we were living in Ontario, to learn that kids did NOT get Wednesday half-days there.  What kind of crazy, backwards place was that?

Anyway, there’s no half-day for Flipper, but it’s still a reduced schooley-stuff day, since we turn it into our errand day, and it’s nice for him to have time in the afternoon to play with his neighbourhood friends who are actually home.

Today, along with the usual bagels (discount dozen day!) and a trip to the library (only $15 in late fines this time…), we hit the Home Depot for some garden supplies and also stopped at Flipper’s dad’s, to pick up a fishing pole his dad got him for his birthday.

While we’re there, Flipper’s nana (that’s my ex-mother-in-law, for those keeping score) asked if I happened to like rhubarb.  As a matter of fact, we do.  Quite a lot, in fact.  They have a rather large patch, and as she said, “I just can’t seem to get rid of the stuff.”  Nobody wants all their extra rhubarb.  This boggles the mind.

So grampy and I went back to the patch, and he started pulling stems — he knew which ones he wanted taken out — and I’d cut off the leaves and put them in a bag.  By the time he stopped handing me stalks, I had 75 in the bag.  Yessiree, 75 stalks of fresh, home-grown, beautiful rhubarb.

I was hoping to at least get my strawberry plants into their pots tonight, but after making supper, practicing for the recital I’m playing for this weekend, and starting to deal with at least some of this monstrous heap of rhubarb, there just wasn’t time.

Rhubarb count:  1 batch (12 large and 12 mini) rhubarb muffins.  3 cups frozen.  App. 65 stalks remaining in the fridge.

Plans for tomorrow: rhubarb-apple-blueberry crisp, 12 more cups frozen, leaving about 40 stalks.  Hm.  Plant strawberries.  Practice for concert.  Arrange babysitting for Friday.  Write something for Eco Child’s Play… Hm, perhaps I should get up early…

I had bought all the wood last weekend:

… and stacked it neatly according to their destined boxes.  The bigger boards on the right are for the potato box, which is 10″ deep.  All the rest is just 6″.  All the boards are 1″ width — narrow, I know, but it should do the trick.  The six smaller boxes are 4′x4′, while the potato box is 4′x6′.

You can also see my baby plants on the deck getting some fresh air.  Hardening off is not going well, but we’re getting there.

I had also managed to acquire all the required ingredients for over 60 cubic feet of Mel’s Mix:

This is, of course, not all of it.  The rest, which includes five 4-cu.ft bags of vermiculite, more peat, and more manure, is inside the shed.  I was able to get four different kinds of compost: cow, sheep, marine, and chicken.  Couldn’t get my hands on horse.

So today, I dug out the drill, the wood screws, measuring tape and hemp twine, gloves, scissors, and a couple big pails.  And I built the potato box first:

Notice the tent in the background?  We got that second-hand for $100, it’s 10′x12′ with two rooms, worth $300 new, and has only been used for one weekend.  It was a birthday present for Flipper, to use as a backyard play tent, but we’ll all use it and it will be great for “real” camping too!

Anyway, to build the box I rotated the corners, kept the warped sides concave into the box (cheap pine boards, some of them are pretty curvy), and since these are 10″ deep I used three #8, 2″ wood screws at each corner.  I drilled pilot holes for the first few screws, but they went in so smoothly and easily that I tried one with no pilot hole, and it went in just as easily.  This happy discovery saved me quite a bit of time!  I had no issues with the wood splitting, even though it’s very narrow, except for one minor crack when I screwed directly into a knot in the wood.

Spurred on by this success, I built one of the smaller boxes.  The only difference was that I used only two wood screws on each corner:

These are all the boxes going in this area beside the house, so I stopped building for now and set to work filling these ones.  First, I opened my package of weed barrier cloth and cut a couple pieces to size.  I had contemplated stapling the barrier right to the boxes, but decided to try just laying them underneath and see if that worked.  So far, it seems to work fine.  That done, I started pouring compost into the potato box — since they’ll be growing in pure compost, I didn’t have to worry (yet!) about mixing any Mel’s Mix.

I did, however, pour the last of the Mel’s Mix I had previously made for the indoor seed starting into the smaller box.  And Pomme helped to spread it around.

Once I had about 2″ of compost in the potato box (that was 2 bags of sheep, and one bag each of chicken, cow, and shrimp), I added the grid by tying hemp twine to little nails along the edges of the box.  Since I am only growing potatoes in this box, I thought about not doing the grid at all, but then I decided it would help me to space the seed potatoes evenly.

I cheated a little bit though.  I made the grids 2′x1′, since I’m basically dividing the box into thirds for the three potato varieties I’m growing (Kennebec, Onaway – both white – and Norland, a red)  and that was enough to give me clarity for even planting.  I put two potato pieces in each square foot, then covered each piece with a scoop of cow compost.

The trick that I’ve learned in reading about SFG, is to start the potatoes near the bottom of the box like this, and as the plants appear above the soil, continue to cover them up again with more compost, until the box is filled.  At that point, you let the plants grow.  This gives a nice long underground stem — which is where the potatoes grow from.  Apparently, it maximizes yield in a small space.  I’ll alternate which kind of compost goes on each time so they’ll get a nice mix.

After a well-deserved break, and with Pomme down for a nap and Flipper playing next door, I started working on filling the smaller box.  I’ve read about mixing the ingredients on a big tarp, or mixing in a big plastic tub (several batches needed per box), but I decided I’d try mixing it right in the box.  We don’t currently have a wheelbarrow and I was on my own for the mixing, so it seemed worth a try.

First, I did the math and calculated that I’d need about 2/3 of a cubic foot of each type of manure, plus 2-2/3 cu.ft. each of vermiculite and peat moss.  I was able to find a plastic tub that held 2/3 of a cubic foot, and a larger one that held just about 2-2/3 cu.ft.   Using them as “measuring cups”, (and with my dust mask on when working with vermiculite) I poured the ingredients into the box:

… and promptly started to doubt my math.  It’s hard to tell from this picture, but it was an AWFULLY large pile of stuff.

But my Mathlete of the Year award in grade 9 and pile of medals for math competitions throughout high school (I know, I am such a geek) were not for nothing.  Once I smoothed out the pile things looked much more… accurate.

This hasn’t been mixed yet in the photo, I just wanted to verify the quantity before starting that job!

You can see in this photo that the potato box is already in shade.  This area gets sun first thing in the morning but is in shade by suppertime.  The back yard is partially shaded until about noon, then has full sun until nearly sunset.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other…

Mixing it within the confines of the box was a bit tricky, since there wasn’t any extra room.  But I scooped from around the edges into the center, turned the center, folded and mixed and shuffled, until it was pretty uniform.  Then I watered the whole thing down (using my thumb on the end of the hose because we don’t have a thingie for it yet!) and added the grid lines:

Success!

All that now remained was the actual plants.  This box is for greens and “renewable” crops that can be replanted (either with more of the same or something new) or maintain a continual harvest.  Carrots, spinach, summer savory, thyme, broccoli, leaf and romaine lettuce, and green onions.  The herbs, broccoli, and romaine were already started indoors.  The broccoli was strong and seemed hardened, while the romaine and herbs are still new sprouts but I figured I’d take the chance.  The rest of the veggies were planted with fresh seed.

And there is the finished product!

Now I only have to do this… five more times.  Eeps.

            ]]> http://motherbynature.ca/2009/05/my-square-foot-garden-building-day-1/feed/ 4 http://motherbynature.ca/2009/03/busy-busy-day-part-iii-vermiculite/ http://motherbynature.ca/2009/03/busy-busy-day-part-iii-vermiculite/#comments Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:48:26 +0000 heather http://motherbynature.ca/?p=508 Today was indeed a busy day.  Along with Flipper’s schoolwork and Pomme’s cutest moments, I also had… you know… a life.  Or trying to have one, anyway.

I got a phone call for another accompanying job.  I made dinner (okay, it was frozen chicken strips and nuked potatoes, but still…) .  And I planned my garden.

Last night, I ordered the last of the seeds that I need.  So all that’s left is getting the things I need for starting the plants that need to start indoors, some hanging planters, and the wood and soil mix for the square foot garden.

With that as a goal, off we went today to the local nursery.

One of the key components in a square foot garden is “Mel’s Mix”, supposedly an ideal growing environment that’s easy to care for and is probably best compared to hydroponic growth media.  It’s composed of equal parts peat, compost, and coarse vermiculite.

In the year that I’ve been researching SFG, I have come across dozens if not hundreds of horror stories of gardeners just absolutely unable to find coarse vermiculite.  According to Mel, it’s easy to find, available in large bags, and cheap.  And when folks would complain and ask exactly where they could find it, because they had searched everywhere, his response is generally a cheer (and, IMO, not very helpful) “oh it’s out there all right, just keep asking, you’ll find it!”  The right stuff, apparently, comes in 4 cu ft bags and is under $30.

I heard stories of folks having to settle for fine-grade, which works but not as well and tends to only come in small bags so you need dozens of them.  Or of finding the right stuff but it costing them $100.  Or just not finding any at all.

My online searching was so far a bust… I could find the small bags of fine-grade easily enough, but that was it.  The few places I did find with the right stuff were far away, with, obviously, exorbitant shipping costs.

So it was not without some anxiety that I stepped into the garden center.  I found the small bag of fine vermiculite almost straight away, and just at that moment a sales dude came to me asking if I needed any help.

Crossing my fingers, I asked if they possibly had any of this in bigger bags.

Why yes, he said, they had 4 cubic foot bags.

“Perfect!” says I, “that’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

Alright, he says, but first warns me that’s it’s a bit larger stuff than the bag I’m holding.

I’m almost giggling at this point.  “That’s great!  It’s the coarse grade that I need!”

So he went and fetched it for me and I forgot to even ask how much it cost.

Once I had collected some seed starting trays, we traipsed through the checkout (Pomme going gaga for the resident kitty asleep in a basket on the counter, and for the stuffed duck toys on display) and found that, indeed, the bag was under $30.

Well now.  That was easy.

I’ll still have to go back another time and get some compost and peat, but that can wait until I have the frames built.  And I can’t really build the frames until the snow is, you know, at least less than five feet deep.  Silly Maritime weather.  Ah, how I missed it… well… mostly anyway.

Fortunately the Vesey’s seed company lists both Hardiness Zones and Canadian Frost Dates by region, so even though I only moved back here last summer I was able to get accurate information for planning my schedule.

I’m planning to do a square foot garden, well, a couple in fact.  Probably two boxes 4′ by 8′, which gives me 64 squares to work with.  That comes out to a lot of food… along with the typical things like potatoes and carrots and broccoli, I’m going to try my hand at kidney beans.  Plus, of course, tons and tons and tons of tomatoes.  I plan to try three different varieties of paste tomatoes and compare them.  Roma, San Marzano, and some yet-to-be-decided variety.  I do a *lot* of canning of tomatoes and salsa in the fall, and had a lot of trouble last year finding enough Roma tomatoes locally.  I found some Amish-type farmers (I’m embarassed that I don’t know EXACTLY what their background is) at the Farmer’s Market, but they never had enough Romas to keep me happy!  I think I bought them out.  I need my own source, from my own garden, if I’m going to keep hubby happily in salsa all next winter.

I just have a few more seeds to get, and some sort of indoor propagation sets.  Then I need to figure out where to put them… every room in this house is bloody cold, we can’t really afford to heat up a room just for some plants.  And other solutions like heated propagation mats and grow-lights have expenses to them as well.  I’ll just have to look at all the options and figure out what makes the most sense.

Then I just have to keep the cats and the kids away from the baby plants…