The Daily Gardener Journal

7-INTRO TO SOIL-SPROUTS

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 14:21:04 GMT

I had some experience with growing soil-sprouts many years ago, but that was in very large trays and for mass production. What I have found, is that it is much easier for home growers to grow small amounts of greens, planting and harvesting daily, than to try to grow large quantities of greens. That is how and why I started TheDailyGardener.com to emphasize the little-gardening-everyday method that I recommend. The reasons that The Daily Gardener method works so well for soil-sprouts:

1. Uses little growing space, which is great for gardening in the kitchen, apartment, condo or dorm room.

2. Harvest daily fresh greens, requires very little fridge space.

3. No problems with spoilage.

4. Very little time from seed to harvest, just 7 days.

5. It is easy to adjust the amount of harvest, if you expect a crowd next week, plant another tray. If you are out of town next week stop planting.

6. Easy to grow method makes a great learning experience for kids.

7. This method would work well for small restaurants it is so easy to do, and nothing can define fresh better than cutting the greens right into a salad!

Would you like to try Soil-sprouting? It is easy, for complete instructions go to my website www.thedailygardener.com and see the detailed, step by step instructions.

9 BRUSSEL SPROUTS

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 13:17:29 GMT

One of the real treats that the fall brings is fresh brussel sprouts. The general folk wisdom says that brussel sprouts are best after a frost. I can attest to trying a sprout from my Dad's garden years ago, it was so bitter that I tilled all of his plants into the soil with a rototiller! My poor Dad. He explained that he was waiting for the first frost to harvest them!

My plants are 4' tall and loaded, I actually had to stake the plants because they began to tip, so I didn't want to take any chances in a high wind.

We had a frost, and snow for that matter, over the past few weeks so I am harvesting for plain steamed sprouts, and soups. My wife has a recipe she uses just for Thanksgiving so we will have planety for that special time too.

If anyone has a favorite recipe, let me know.

Check my website for soil-sprouts www.thedailygardener.com for tips on growing fresh greens all winter long.

8 Soil Sprout Salad

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 16:08:27 GMT

We have heard the story about George Washington’s recipe for cooking sweet corn: first boil the water, then pick the corn! My recipe for salad is in the same vein, mix the salad dressing, then pick the greens. There is no comparison to fresh from the garden greens like Bibb lettuce, Arugula, mesclun greens. Add to that the fresh picked cucumber, ripe tomato, red onion. Add to this the fresh cut soil-sprouts and there is nothing like it. And no worries about E-coli or any of that stuff!

My family, including the boys, loves the all sprout salads I make with equal parts of Sunflower Green, Radish Greens, Buckwheat Lettuce and Pea Shoots. Chop everything up in small pieces, about ½” long, basically bite size. We use any number of dressings and I particularly like sprinkling with grated in fresh Romano. Yum.

Each of the soil-sprouts have their own unique flavor. I will add the sprouts to about any salad mix. Romano lettuce mixed with the Sunflower Greens make a great Caesar Salad. The Buckwheat Lettuce mixes nicely with Oak leaf and Black Seeded Simpson. The Radish Green are spicey addition to sandwich, but you will still want chop the green some.

Try for yourself and create your own ‘house’ salad.

I would love to hear what you discover.

10 MY WINTER GARDEN BED

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 22:11:10 GMT

My winter garden bed is 3" x 6" trays. I plant Sunflower, Radish, Peas, Buckwheat for fresh green. I plant just enough to cut and serve daily.

For more information check out the website www.thedailygardener.com to find out how to plant each type of seed.

Soil-Sprouts Winter green

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 01:01:28 GMT

About this time of year I feel a growing anticipation, with fall coming, that the end is near. The long cold winter will set in and the gardening is done. Last year I started an experiment that kept this gardener ‘alive’ all throughout the winter. I rediscovered soil-sprouts, and grew terrific greens throughout the fall, winter and spring. With very little work, just a little effort everyday, I kept my family in gourmet greens, and eating healthy with the snow piled up outside. Actually, last winter we had more ice storms than snow storms but still while it was cold outside I was growing beautiful greens inside. Let me explain the experiment with soil sprouts.

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Soil-sprouts are similar to alfalfa sprouts or mung bean sprouts except that the seeds are grown in soil. The young tender greens are harvested by cutting the stems at soil level. Most shoots are ready to harvest in only 7 days. And most of the shoots will continue to grow for about 10 days before they need to be harvested, with the exception of Pea Shoots, but I am getting ahead of myself a little. The sprouts that I grow regularly, with great success, are Sunflower Greens, Radish Greens, Buckwheat Lettuce and Peas Shoots. There are others that I am trying but these four are the best, in my opinion. I like to try new seed varieties and anything I read about I will try. I heard about popcorn sprouts and have tried them, but the flavor is very strong for a salad and no one in my family likes them at all. Sort of like Wheatgrass is not really a gourmet green, I think it is more of a herbal medicine. What I am focused on is growing greens for the salad bowl and extending the garden season.

Would you like to try Soil-sprouting? It is easy, for complete instructions go to my website www.thedailygardener.com and see the detailed, step by step instructions.

Planting Garlic

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:46:45 GMT

10-15-06

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Today I planted garlic, the cloves are the individual garlic bulbs from the whole garlic head. Most everything in the garden is done; tomato plants, cucumbers, squash, beans, tomatillos, peppers, basil are all gone. That leaves cabbage, brussel sprouts, kale, broccoli, spinach, radish, lettuces, claytonia, hmm... now that I look at it, there is still a lot left in the garden growing! And there is still plenty to plant. Again, I am planting garlic, three varieties, two hardneck and one softneck variety. I started by adding bone meal and compost to one of my 4x4 boxes, marking off 16 squares and plant12 squares with 4 cloves per square foot. If you are counting, that is 48 individual bulbs or cloves. That would be the best and biggest bulbs of my harvest. If you have ordered garlic from a catalog or bought garlic from a nursery, break up the head into the individual garlic cloves, taking care not to tear the wrapper off. Some people do this the same day as they plant the garlic bulbs, I like to prepare them a week ahead so the paper wrapper can dry out before I plant. Either way, select only the biggest and best cloves and use the smaller ones for cooking.

I leave the back 4 squares, that would be on the North side of the bed, empty for spring planting of peas on a trellis. I push each bulb with my fingers deep into the soil with the pointed side of the bulb up, about two to three inches deep. I level off the soil pat it down and cover everything with straw. I don’t like to use hay in the garden because it brings in too many weed seeds so I use straw or leaves chopped up, about 3-6 inched deep.

There is something very hopeful about planting in October! I love to think about the coming spring right about now, it is a cool grey day, with sprinkles of rain. It tends to be grey and gloomy for the next few months, so keeping the Spring in mind, I plant for next year.

With the garlic planted and mulched, I cover the bed with a wire mesh from a trellis to keep our dog or the neighbors dogs from digging into the garden bed, the bone meal seems to attract the dogs, so if you have dogs in your neighborhood, it might be a good idea. Also I have moles that absolutely love my garden. This is not a good thing. I have had good luck with the windmill gizmo the thumps as it turns and apparently drives the critters away. Not far away, but far enough to leave my garlic alone.

Garlic is really easy to grow, from now until next August there is very little else that needs to be done. I do water the bed once a week and make sure there are no weeds, but it is unusual for weeds to grow because the garlic is planted close enough to discourage everything else. If the greens look a little yellow in early June you can side dress with compost, but in July when the leaves begin to yellow it means they are ready to harvest, so there is no need to fertilize the bed.

Enjoy visions of green shoots in spring!

Watering: loose the can and the sprinkler

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 22:53:37 GMT

When you plant with the Square Foot Gardening method, each vegetable that is planted from a set has a small dish around it. That is you put the plant into the soil so there is a small area around each plant that is recessed. When you water the plant the water is directed to the roots and is more likely to penetrate deeper into the soil directly around the small root ball. When I water I fill 5 gallon spackle buckets with water, I’ll do this so there is time for the water to warm up some before I water. I use a 16 oz. plastic container recycled from yogurt or something. This way I know how much water I give each plant. Also there are two more things just as important; there is no splash, so the leaves do not get dirty with soil, and the soil in between plants stays somewhat dry and less likely to sprout weed seeds, a dry mulch it is sometimes called.

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This time of year, July and August, I water 2 times a week, Saturday and Wednesday (Watering Wednesday I call it) even if there are thunderstorms during the week it is rare that the needs of a plant are met. Vegetables like onions and lettuce need a steady supply of moisture so they really benefit from the watering mid-week.

Note that the dish effect applies to plants that the packet says to plant in hills, the squash plants, cukes, melons, etc. I usually plant these so they climb a trellis anyway which means I plant 1 per square foot along the back, north side, of the garden 4’ x 4’ box. Cucumbers really like the trellis and I make a trench and plant 8 plants then when I water I just fill the trench with 8 to 12 cups of water. I have a Zucchini that likes to grow up on a vine called Trombone Zucchini from <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Italy, it is so vigorous and productive I just plant 2 plants in the same 4 squares across the back of the garden box. But when I plant a bush type Zucchini I will make a good sized dish around the three seeds I plant in the so called hill, this way when I water it penetrates deep into the soil just at the roots.

When I water my lettuce heads, I’ll lift a bottom leaf up and pour the water right on the base of the plant, that way the leaves don’t get wet and all the water goes right into the soil. Be careful though to pour the water gently so you don’t create a hole where you pour the water. Most plants a shallow rooted, enough that a hole could disrupt the root system. By watering carefully like this

If your are buying water from your town supply, it makes sense to use only what you need to keep the plants healthy and not water the whole surface area of a garden.

Most town water has chlorine in it, so by filling the buckets first the chlorine will have a chance to dissipate before you water.

I used to water with a sprinkler, I’d put a rain gauge in range of the sprinkle pattern so I could tell when I had 1 inch of water and move it. I happened that my well went dry one hot August so I had to use the bucket and cup like Mel Bartholomew suggested in the Square Foot Gardening book. I found that I really liked like doing it that way and I had time to check each plant, look for bugs and pull the occasional weed too. I never went back to the sprinkler.

How do you water, got any special tricks, I’d love to hear about it when you get a chance!

Bibb Lettuce

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:29:37 GMT

I like a lot of variety of greens in my salads. How about you? Do you have one favorite or do you plant a lot of different types of greens? Tell me which ones you like best.

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I like bibb lettuce the best. Hands down it has been the most reliable lettuce, year after year. I get a nice head of lettuce with big fat juicy leaves and no bitterness at all. Although Mel Bartholomew in the Square Foot Gardening recommends planting lettuce 4 per square, with bibb lettuce I plant one per square foot and let it spread out. When this lettuce first starts to leaf out I harvest leaves from the outside by gently tearing off each leaf with a sideways pull. As the weeks go on, I cut the whole head before it starts to bolt, but more importantly before the leaves get a bitter flavor. The leaves get bitter before you see the center start to push up, the first indication the head is bolting.

Here in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Vermont, Bibb lettuce can be grown all summer even when it gets hot in July and August. I will start another batch of sets in the next couple of weeks. For my family of four, sometimes five people I like to have 12 head to pick from either cut a head or harvest the leaves. So start a few lettuce sets today. Oh by the way, remember to let me know what lettuce is your favorite

Claytonia

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 14:17:16 GMT

I was introduced to claytonia by one of my favorite authors Ed Smith in the Vegetable Gardeners Bible, a book I recommend even though he does not use the Square Foot method, I forgive him, and like the book a lot! The claytonia greens have a small round leaf about an inch around with a tiny white flower in the center on a 3 inch stem. All of it is delicious, flower, leaf and stem, it has a mild flavor, a perfect addition to a salad. I like to pile it on a sandwich for a special treat.

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I start claytonia as sets in clumps of about four seeds per cell and transplant into the garden 4 ‘clumps’ per square, 6 inches apart if you plant in a grid or row. When the clump is about 4 inches high I use scissors to cut the bunch about a half inch above the ground. It will grow back over and over, and seems to be just as good with each cutting. I am starting a new batch now for the fall and winter because claytonia loves the cold. I will grow in my cold frame to over-winter some too.

I got my seeds from the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Cook Garden. The seeds look like mustard seed, tiny round balls. Since I plant two squares, I use two, four-cell seedling trays and put them in the half-tray pan with a clear cover for a ‘greenhouse’ cover to keep everything moist until the seeds sprout. I let this sprouts grow for about two weeks the transplant to the garden square. I hope you enjoy this as much as we all do! I am thinking about greens, and tomorrow I would like to explore different types of greens.

Can't find sets in July

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 22:27:05 GMT

It is July when I notice that the most common way gardeners plant a garden is to plant everything on Memorial Day and nothing after that. And most nurseries follow this lead and only have plants ready for those weeks in May when everyone plants a garden. After that if you want a new batch of lettuce sets, or broccoli sets for late summer and fall plantings you are on your own. With the Square Foot Garden method a major emphasis is on planting a little bit, frequently so you can harvest a steady supply of greens, radishes, cole plants, or even peas and beans. Because none of these vegetables bear continuously throughout the summer, I need to replant sometime in the first 2 weeks of July. For instance, lettuce turns bitter very quickly after it matures so even if the leaves look healthy and green they have a bitter flavor. The only solution is to replant every few weeks throughout the summer. I have observed lots of gardens where lettuce is planted in a mass and bolts all at once. Most of us small family gardeners only really need a dozen or 2 dozen plants to pick from at any one time during the season. So the trick is to time your plantings so that you have a continuous supply of fresh tender sweet greens all summer long. I like to have three of four varieties growing at once to add color and a variety of flavors to any salad. And don’t forget that nasturtiums are a great addition to a salad, if only for the colors it would be worth it, but the mild sweet flavor is a bonus. So now it the time to set up a place to start a few sets of lettuce and broccoli to keep the veggies coming on into the late summer and fall. Tomorrow I am going to show a picture of a great little salad green called Claytonia.