my first sq ft garden

15 years ago

First time gardener here, but I have read months and months worth of posts on this website, so I hope not to be redundant with my questions. I live in a farming community so I hope to have a basic understanding of growing to give me a bit of a headstart.

Currently I have onions, lettuce, spinach, radishes, and beets growing.

Tomato seedlings are very slowing growing inside, very slowly. I posted questions about those seperately.

We have had a fairly wet beginning to the growing season here with little sun and very few days over mid-70's. The onions are nice and green, seem to be doing well. The lettuce is not germinating well, spinach is growing like mad, just about as quick as I can eat it! Radishes were nice and leafy until one morning, we now have fencing up. They aren't developing much more than the tap root yet, but I am chalking that up to the weather. Beets have not germinated well either. I figure my germination issues are due to colder weather and slow growth is due to little sun. Am I right or should I be looking for problems with my Mel's Mix (I live in a very small community and my compost choices were extremely limited (cow manure, one small bag of worm castings (that cost a fortune!) and a bit of humus.)

I will soon plant some shallots, cilantro, regular and Thai basil, potatoes, and carrots. My garden is 2 ft by 8ft and is meant to supplement our CSA box for our family of six. The potatoes and maybe a couple tomato plants will be grown in either barrels or I might try the tire method for the potatoes.

The only thing I am not really clear on is fertilizing. Is compost tea the only fertilizer I need and how do you make it?

Any advice is welcome!

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Comments (3)

timewind
15 years ago
In your situation I would suspect that I had a lot of Nitrogen and probably not enough of the other vital plant nutrients. Even after getting a good mix of composts I was apparently short on Phosphorus last year, and my radishes and carrots did not produce the nice, big, roots that they should have. I would add either bone meal (if you want to go organic and are willing to risk giving critters an incentive to dig up your garden, or one of the synthetic phosphorus supplements). Then there is Potassium, which can be supplemented by adding wood ashes, 'greensand' (no idea what it is, it's one of those things I keep reading about from time to time (apparently a ground up sandstone from long ago which is rich in potassium...)) (Thank you Wikipedia.) Anyhow, I suspect a little extra nutrition will go a long way for you. Hopefully I will be able to report on the progress of my radishes shortly. I added bone-meal this spring, and so far my garden hasn't been dug up, hopefully I mixed it in well and didn't leave any lumps...

Here is a link that might be useful: Information about plant nutrients.
arjo_reich
15 years ago
I would suspect that fertilizing would be a big help here as well. Just a little interspaced between the square - i put mine pretty much along the grid-lines - and then watered in would do you wonders.

I currently have two beds that were growing very slowly compared to the third bed and it dawned on me recently that because they tend to washout faster due to subsoil differences - two of them on only on 6" of clay above bedrock while the third has 18" of clay before you hit bedrock - as well as the fact that the compost for the two in question was from last years batch that they were a little nutrient starved.

In my case I put a little 2x strength fish emulsion along the gridlines of each and watered it in and in previous three days time I've seen almost double growth from the previous week.

Now I have a new problem, aphids are attacking my peas... :sigh:
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dirtdauberz5mo
15 years ago
Wood ashes at the base of your peas are supposed to help control aphids.
I really like the tire method for potatoes. Am trying it for the first time this year and plants look great, already four tires high on two of my four stacks.
There was another thread here or maybe in the vegie forum about radishes not bulbing up. The consensus seemed to be that the soil was too loose, provided no resistance, so the root just kept growing down long and skinny. My own experience seems to support this. I have radishes growing in three places, my conventional garden, lots of hard clay there, my sfg, and a container. The sfg and container are full of beautiful leafy plants, with little or no bulbs. The hard-pack clay radishes are amazing. Big bulbs that sit on top of the soil, with the long white root snaking into the ground. I have to pick almost every day to keep them from getting too large. So you might try something to 'thicken up' the soil where your radishes are. I'd post a link to the thread about this, but I'm a little PC challenged and don't know how. Sorry :)

my first sq ft garden

Comments (3)

timewind

arjo_reich

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