Tell me about your square foot garden!
polly_il
21 years ago
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polly_il
20 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Tell me about your gardening zone...
Comments (20)I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area, Oakland hills, about 25 miles from Romando. Here it is always 5 degrees warmer but much less windy and on the edge of the fog belt, so it is much sunnier. I truly wish Sunset would break up its zone map of area #17, which covers a large area where temps differ 15-20 degrees from one end to the other, with much less fog at the outer borders of #17, leading to much greater temp fluctuations on a daily basis. In many cities located 10+ miles from the coast, it's common to have a 25-40 degree difference between day/night temps, especially in summer. These cool nights are why roses and citrus do so well in the East Bay counties; almost everyone has a lemon or orange tree in the front or back. A number of older EBay homes have the unfortunate choice of giant redwood trees taking up an entire front yard bed - a once-popular but very poor choice for an urban lot. Gardening here is year-round. There is no 'off' season, which can be a bit tiring (no end, ever, to weeding!) but the rewards are HUGE. Some plants flower all the time - polygonum, lantana, aptenia groundcover, pelargoniums, osteospermums, cestrum, euryops, solanum jasminoides vine. Winter bloomers like hellebore (foetidus and argutifolius) can last 6+ months with flowers. Citrus blooms scent the air. Spring starts in mid-February, when the winter rains encourage the leafing out of freesias, nasturtiums, and CA poppies. The one month it's dreary - January - suddenly changes to those fresh new greens everywhere. The hideously invasive but pretty weed Oxalis pes-caprae shows up everywhere, turning even neglected gardens and vacant lots into a sea of soft clover-shaped leaves and nodding stalks of pale yellow flowers. Coleonema and rhaphiolepsis burst into bloom, and erysimums start flowering in yellow and lilac. Oxalis siliquosa, a non-invasive species, puts up little yellow flowers like the charmer it is. March is fast and furious, with callas and iris blooming, Japanese maples showing buds, azaleas and rhodies beginning to bloom. My roses start blooming in March (and are still offering a few blooms in mid-December). Daffodils are everywhere, as Oakland has given away free bulbs for several years now and people plant them in the median strips. Wisteria begins to show some green, but hardenbergia is far more floriferous and starts throwing out its purple racemes for an earlier and longer show. Leptospermum and ceanothus put on their once-a-year display of beauty, making them almost worth the 10 months of boring dull dark green the rest of the time. April and May are the showiest in my garden because nasturtiums and CA poppies have reseeded wildly. I yank them out by the handful to keep them from smothering my evergreen perennials, just leaving some to give those bright pops of color. The weather starts to warm because it's early summer now, so hydrangeas are leafing out like crazy even as the rhodies continue their show. Lavender - I have both English and Spanish - come into bloom. I have a single clematis and am glad I didn't plant more. They just can't compete with the evergreen vines, and their short bloom season just doesn't seem worth it. Out here, perennial morning glories are 45' monsters that crush fences while remaining in bloom for six months or more. My gladiolas are weeds - pretty, but weeds nonetheless, dropping bulblets everywhere. June is full summer here. The rains ended a month or more previous, and there'll be no more rain until mid-October. The soil warms up, so the dahlias will start and hydrangeas begin blooming, even as the nasturtiums and callas start to fade because they hate "warm feet". One of my bearded iris varieties is deciduous and blooms only this one month; unlike my other iris which are spring/fall rebloomers. Limonium starts to come up, always a good pairing with the roses for bouquets. My prized Lavatera olba "Aureum" blooms this month as well, with its gorgeous flower spikes of lavender-pink singles (it's related to hibiscus and the blooms are like mini-hibiscus, but multiples on single spikes). July dries out the garden. The nasturtiums fade, the CA poppies set seeds. But the roses are massive, the passionflower vines have encouraged lots of Gulf Fritillary butterflies. Ceratostigma gives bright burst of blue. Agapanthus send up their allium-like flower stalks: light blue, medium blue, purple, white. Cannas prove they are not really water hogs although they look better with summer water. The hills are all golden, and fire season is now a huge concern. August and September continue the same theme. The year-round bloomers keep trucking along, responding to deadheading by blooming again and again. Argyranthemums, aeoniums, Shasta daisies, dahlias, and chrysanthemums abound. Lavender reblooms in Sept/Oct. October is when the rains return. It's planting time in CA, even as the selection in the nurseries begins to fade. We can put away the hoses, but cleanup of deciduous litter starts now and continues for the next couple of months. The nights turn cooler, and we get some fall color from Japanese maples, Liquidamber (sweetgum) and Chinese pistache trees, even as the ever-bloomers keep up the flower show. November is cleanup leaf litter month, and enjoying the last of the heirloom tomatoes from the farmers markets. December is when we who live on hills worry about mudslides and flooded basements/garages; this and January are prime weeding time because the rains have sprouted all the chickweed, oxalis, dandelion, and Bermuda grass seeds. Mid- to late January is when the roses get cut back, and then it all starts over again....See MoreTell me about your vegetable garden
Comments (12)well.... right now we have a 40X60 veggie garden but we decided at the beginning of this year to make ONE more move (we have moved 4 times in the past 4 years) ARRRGGGGG!!!! So this spring I made a promise to myself to ONLY plant what I ABSOLUTELY cannot live without ....... since last year I got crazy and planted so much it felt like it took from sun up till sun down just to harvest it all!!! But so far I have 12 5 color swiss chard, 117 toms (8 different verities), 8 snow peas, 8 sugar snap peas, 6 collards, 6 spinach, 47 red onions (just regular bunching but I gave my mom some candy red ones that I got from dixondale this spring to try out), 6 edamime soy beans, 20 broccoli, 5 cauliflower, a package of mixed salad greens and 40 carrot plants (if my luck is anything this year like it was last year with carrots I MIIIIIGHT get half of a finger carrot worth from 40 planted) and 15 red potatoes. AND ITS ONLY SPRING!!!!!!!! I havent even gotten to my summer stuff yet. But I just cant turn down the chance to try something else. I even planted sugar snap peas, dill, sunflowers, arugula and lettuce for my chickens around their fence so they can enjoy some veggies all summer too. Ummmm not like I dont already give them all the cantaloupe and watermelon all summer long that the deer bust open. Spoiled Little Ladies! Hehehe but I just love how they follow me around clucking at me, asking what else i have for them. I would list all of the specific varieties but I dont have them in front of me at the moment. Oh, and thats the veggies..... i just got done making 4 new small beds with orange variegated and yellow cannas in them yesterday, planning on more beds later this week. My mom loves flower gardens and specimen trees so everytime she comes out to my house I feel like a failure that my gardens are bare and dont quite look like hers. Hehehe she felt sorry for me and came over with a very nice bouquet of her gorgeous spring daffodils to display on my kitchen table. She even dug up some tiger lilies for me to plant, I think that was her way of saying I need to add some flowers hahahaha. Ok I think I have officially crossed the line of just rambling so I will stop here! ~Danni Girl...See MoreTell me about your garden fountain
Comments (4)That is a pretty fountain, I have one similar to it. Here are some considerations: yes, it does splash a little, mostly if it's windy. Therefore, you have to refill it every few days or maybe daily. I would not locate it too far from a water source. Also, you need electricity of course. Therefore you have to run an electric cord so be very careful of that and usually folks bury it underground, inside a pvc pipe or something. And then don't dig and cut into it later. Also if your region freezes, you have to factor that in. We have several freezes all winter here in northeast MS. We basically take the top tiers of the fountain down and I beleive we should take the pump out, but hubby leaves it in and hope it works when we hook it up soon, after being frozen and thawed several times. I love the fountain, it does attract birds, and it is close to our patio/back porch. I think they address fountains on the water gardens forum so you might find more expertise there, I am by no means an expert on this. Laurie...See Morehelp me lay out my first square foot garden!
Comments (2)I like to throw in some marigolds and borage with my tomatoes. Companion planning literature claims that tomatoes love carrots. They're good companions apparently. Consider the front row of your tomato boxes (3x2's) containing a marigold square, carrots, and borage. Basil is also a good companion. The zuke will take over any of the grids you've mentioned unless you train it up a trellis (I've not been successful here) or let it spill out onto the ground. I "let" mine spill out. ;) It doesn't look pretty, but I picked 2-3 zukes every other day during the peak season. If you're bean is not the bush variety it will practically trellis itself. I'm convinced that beans must be a weed somewhere in the world! In general just orient the boxes so that the trellis is on the north side and you can plant based on the stated heights on your seed packets. Lettuce, arugula, radishes, carrots, chard, and some herbs can go on the south side of the grids. Good luck and have fun!...See Morefrankcassiesmom
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