gardening

There are many like it, but this one is mine. I pulled it out of a small garden I am growing in an under-used flower bed in front of my house. It was one of sixteen growing in an area a foot on a side. This area is part of a larger grid, four feet on a side, which I put together back in the early part of April. The grid is in a box made of cheap pine boards, eight inches in height, and filled with good potting soil. It is one of two such boxes in the old flower bed.

I have been growing food here in downtown-ish Grand Rapids since the summer of 2006. That year it was hot peppers in pots. The next year was peppers and tomatoes in pots. Last summer I ripped up all of the plants I had put in previously – including prickly-pear cactus and indestructible yucca – and planted hot peppers and tomatoes in the flower bed. The peppers loved it, but the tomatoes did poorly. Grand Rapids soil tends toward sand and clay, especially in the proximity of old houses.

This year I tore out everything except two burning bushes and put in two square-foot garden boxes, each of them four feet on a side. Three days ago I filled in the last square in the grid with a small strawberry plant I purchased at the Fulton Street Farmer’s Market the day before.

For peppers and tomatoes, I purchased some specialty seeds from Amazon.com: thai birds-eyes, tabasco, and bishop’s crown. All of the tabasco sprouted, four of the thai, and none of the Bishop’s crown. I also have some Japanese Black Tomatoes, which are doing nicely.

So here is what I have growing in the boxes.

East box:

• butternut squash – 1
• black tomatoes – 2
• green onions – 25
• Lilac bell pepper – 1
• Tabasco pepper – 2
• Beets – 9
• Radishes – 16
• Carrots – 16
• Spinach – 9
• Broccoli – 4

West box:

• Beefsteak tomatoes – 2
• Zucchini – 1
• Tabasco pepper – 1
• Jalapeno pepper – 1
• Strawberry – 1
• Green onion – 25
• Buttercrunch lettuce – 4
• Pak Choi – 1
• Swiss chard – 4
• India mustard – 4
• Beets – 9
• Radishes – 16
• Spinach – 9
• Carrots – 16

Containers:

• Cilantro – 4
• Dill – 4
• Parsley – 4
• Okra – 2
• Basil – 2
• Thai peppers – 3
• Kale – 4
• Tabasco peppers – 4

I also have a few more peppers and tomatoes sprouting, as well as around a dozen Goji plants, for which I have high – if perhaps unrealistic – hopes.

My goal, other than to have a steady supply of fresh produce for the next several months, is to break even. That is, I want the retail value of the food I pull out of my garden to equal the money I put into the supplies and infrastructure.The potting soil was the most expensive part of the project, but also the most important. Using the square-foot gardening techniques has made this whole endeavor quite manageable for one person and, so far, the maintenance take about fifteen minutes a day.

Yesterday I harvested the rest of my radishes, a total of 32, at around an ounce each. So: two pounds of radishes. The greens are quite good sauteed in olive oil and sprinkled with Chipolte seasoning, The bulbs, of course, are excellent raw.

I will check out prices the next time I hit the Farmer’s Market, and see what it would have cost to buy two pounds of radishes. Not much, I expect, but I have already re-planted, and should be able to get three or four more harvests this year.

I will post updates as more plants mature. You can see the rest of my garden photos here on Flickr.

Yup. More roots coming in. Shouldn’t be long before there are shoots coming out the top.

In other news, two more of my avocado seeds have started sprouting. At the same time. The same day, even. So for all you people who want to know my secret, here it is:

1. Eat an avocado.
2. Clean the pit carefully, and set aside of a couple of days, until completely dry to the touch.
3. Carefully peel all of the brown skin from the pit. At this point it should come off fairly easily.
4. Cut the top and bottom from the pit; maybe a quarter of an inch each, but be careful on the bottom that you don’t slice into the seed inside the pit.
5. Now you should be able to see the natural split in the avocado pit. Carefully, very carefully, insert a thin knife blade a bit and just barely begin to pry the two halves apart. You don’t want them to come completely apart; just enough to weaken the seam between the halves.
6. Toothpicks around the perimeter, suspend the pit half submerged in a container of water as in the above photo.

The change here, from other online instructions, is the weakening of the seam between the halves of the pit. In most every failed attempt, the pit remained a solid whole and I think this prevented the seed from sprouting. This is not to say this method is foolproof, but it seemed to work okay for me (call it fool resistant instead).

I have two more pits waiting, and I will try with them too. I will post progress if and when there is any to report.