As I’ve stated before, I’ve had a slight rabbit problem in my garden.  Nothing too severe until the morning my entire lettuce crop was decimated.  On that day, it officially became “on” as far as my war against bunnies was concerned.  It’s sort of like an arms race.  You build the garden… the rabbits come.  You build the fence… the birds come.  You build a roof… the insects come… and on and on.  Well, luckily I’m just at step one.

I purchased some green coated wire fence that was 24″ high.  A roll of 50 feet was around $25 I think, which was more than I needed, but I’m sure I can always use the rest if I expand my garden in the future.  I also picked up six 24″ wooden stakes that came in packs of six for around $3.  So it was another $30 investment, but hopefully a one-time cost.  And besides… what’s the use of growing these crops just to feed the local lagomorph population.

I tapped the stakes in the ground, which was easy because it has been raining here off and on for the past week.  I then pulled the wire fencing as tight as I could between posts and attached it with wire (still left over from building my compost bin).  In retrospect it would have been better to have longer stakes because by the time they were tapped into the ground they were a bit shorter than the fence width.  I think it would have been more ideal to have the stakes be taller than the fence.  I left 12 – 18″ of space between the fence and the boxes to give me plenty of space to step in and tend to the garden or (hopefully) harvest vegetables.  Neither myself or my pregnant wife found it too difficult to step over the 2 ft fence into the garden.

Fort Knox

Armed with my new fence, I was really curious how effective it would be at keeping creatures out of my garden.  As far as rabbits are concerned, I had my questions answered just a few mornings later when I looked out the window and saw this:

Take that, bunny!

Success!  The rabbit walked back and forth at the front of the fence, but in the end just settled for munching on some grass along the driveway.  On a related note, the little guy has become very interested in chomping on some vines and young plants that are coming up in my backyard… which I’m more than happy about because I’d rather they weren’t there anyhow.

So this round goes to me.  However, I’ll be waiting patiently for the bunnies to regroup.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been excited about the prospect of growing corn in my Square Foot Garden.  Here’s a photo of my 13 day old corn seedlings taken on April 25.

Corn seedlings - 13 days

Fast forward 3.5 weeks, and we’re starting to get some serious corn action.

Corn plants - Day 35

Unfortunately, the corn plots are in the spot of the garden that gets the fewest hours of direct sun.  Probably only six hours.  However, the corn looks happy at this point.  Hopefully this will translate into some nice juicy, sweet corn in a month or two.  I’ll keep my ears open. 

Knee-high by... May?

Early on, a creature pulled up four of my young corn seedlings.  I re-planted some new corn seeds this week, so hopefully that will stagger my harvest somewhat.  In retrospect, since I had space for 16 corn plants, I should have planted 2-4 seeds a week so that I’d have a continuous supply of garden-fresh corn.  Live and learn!

It has been a while since I posted an update of the vegetable garden which is too bad because a lot is happening!

The SFG - May 18, 2010

For the most part it’s been a cool spring… and very dry for the past month or so.  However, the past weekend brought some 90 degree days followed by 3 days of rain.  Saved me some trips out with the hose.  All in all, the warmer temps have really caused things to come alive.

The main box

The red onions I originally planted in April have really matured and I can start to see some fat onions swelling from the ground.  The original yellow onions have been slow out of the gate.  We planted 8 more 2 weeks later and they’ve already caught up to the original ones.  Also, I have some radishes ready to be yanked up with some newer plants about 2 weeks behind.  And how ’bout that corn, ninjas!?

Onions, Radishes, and Corn

Unless I look back at photos from a month ago, I forget how much my pepper plants have actually grown.  The Anaheim and Jalapeno plants have put out flowers.  Can’t wait to see the beginnings of that first fruit.  My bell pepper plant has been a disappointment so far.  Since my broccoli was a bust (bunny munched), I have two empty squares that might be asking for a pepper plant.

Happy Peppers - Jalapeno and Anaheim

Here’s a nice photo of my current favorite plant… my Anaheim Pepper.  Can’t help but notice that lovely eggplant flower batting her eyes at you.

Anaheim Pepper now with Eggplant Views!

Clearly I was a bit late in getting my lettuce in the ground.  However, I must say that my romaine is starting to look pretty tasty.  I might have enough soon that I wouldn’t feel bad snatching a salad.  My other assorted salad greens look pretty lousy.  I’m close to pulling them up.  I have some spinach seeds and I’ve read that they can do ok during the heat of summer, so I might give that a try.  We’ll see how long my lettuce holds out.

San Francisco! (The Romaine's were here.)

I did not enjoy those first 90 degree (humid) days, but my cucumber plants sure did!  They had started to yellow, but with a taste of heat they perked right up.  Wishing I planted them on the back row where my trellis system resides.

Cukes are Rockin'

My bush beans have been a real success story.  I planted nine plants and they looked pretty sad a week ago.  But similar to the cukes, those hot days woke the dead.  Well at least for 3 of the 9 plants.  I pulled the other 6 and will replant some new beans… which probably is for the best so I have a nice staggered crop.

Return of the Beans

How many things in life bring as much joy as spotting the first tomato fruits of the season?  Not many.  Here are my Better Boys.  Sadly my Sweet 100s which reside next door are looking mighty puny.  Admittedly my biggest interest is in my Sungold plant which has really started to show some life in the past week, growing at least 3 inches and showing some flowers.  Have an extra spot in the back that could be used for another tomato plant.  Might like a nice heirloom variety.  Might like a Mr Stripey!

First Tomato Sightings!

I always thought that bunnies only ate carrots in cartoons, but not so.  I have replanted carrots twice and each time some nice true leaves pop up, a mischevious bunny comes along and has a nice munch.  I got some wire and stakes over the weekend to put up a rabbit fence… but so far I can’t bring myself to do it.  I love the easy accessibility of my garden without a fence… however I don’t enjoy the rise in blood pressure that comes from seeing a munched plant. (That was not munched by me.)

The Great Carrot Caper

And introducing my herb patch next to the front door.  Fresh herbs make me happy.  Sorry to my young rosemary bush who is growing like a champ but didn’t get a photo this time around.

The Herb Patch

So that’s a walk around the garden here in Mid-May.  I’ll try to do general updates at a minimum of every couple of weeks for the rest of the summer.  Thanks for stopping by!

As I mentioned previously, 1/3 of the growing material in my SFG is compost.  Unfortunatley, thus far I’ve had to purchase every bit of it.  Ideally, I’d like to “close the loop” and recycle all of the scraps and waste from the garden into compost which will nurture next year’s crop.  Not to mention compost is great for adding to any flower bed, pot, or planting project around the house.  It’s nature’s fertilizer; it’s 100% organic and (as I always appreciate) it is totally free!  Plus having a compost pile gives you a certain amount of “cred” in the gardening (or hippie) community.  You definitely want to compost your own.

So I set out to start a compost pile.  One option was to just start piling up leaves, grass clippings, and vegetable waste somewhere in the backyard, but that’s a little too chaotic for me.  However, I didn’t really have the time, energy, or funds to devote to a major construction project.  I did some web searching and reading and finally settled on a simple wire enclosure.

After a trip to the local hardware store, here’s what my materials / costs consisted of:

4 steel posts, (4′ length) – $11
36″ steel cloth (10′ roll) – $18
galvanized 19 gauge wire – $3

Materials for a simple compost bin

The wire was to attach the steel mesh to the posts.  However, it turned out that there was about 3′ of steel wire that bound up the roll of steel mesh.  Therefore, I was able to use that and return the wire that I purchased.  This made my total cost, $29 (plus tax, of course).  I know firsthand that purchasing bags of compost from a variety of sources and numerous bags of garden, potting, etc soil can really add up.  So the hope is that this small investment will pay for itself quickly.

I probably spent as much time choosing the ideal location as I did actually constructing the bin.  I settled on a nice spot in the corner of the backyard.  There it would be just hidden enough as to blend in somewhat with the wooded backdrop, however still close enough to be convenient from the kitchen where the most consistent source of materials (scraps) would come from.  Also, there was a perfect low hanging leafy branch to the left which would offer sufficient shade to protect my  composting army of wee beasties (bacteria).  Not to mention to the right is a little baby holly tree that I just enjoy looking at, so that was a plus.

The construction involved simply sinking the posts and unrolling the steel cloth around.  Luckily, the ground in my wooded back yard was extremely soft, so it was easy to sink the posts with just my foot (they were wings to accommodate stepping for this very purpose).  I knew I had around 10′ of mesh, so I estimated a little shy of 2.5′ between each post.  I was actually pretty close the first time, and once the steel mesh was unwound it held tightly around the posts on its own.  (Definitely recommend wearing gloves for this step… the ends of the steel mesh roll were very sharp.)  Using wire clippers, I cut off 3-4″ pieces of wire and attached the steel mesh to the posts near the top and bottom.  On the final corner where the ends of the steel mesh came together, I simply attached the ends (and not the terminal end of the mesh to the post).  That way I could easily “open” the mesh like a door to access the compost if reaching in from the top was difficult.

My completed compost bin... ready for anything.

I have an overabundance of leaves in the back yard, so I filled the bin up about half way with those and have been consistently adding kitchen scraps.  Strawberry tops, watermelon rinds, coffee grounds, egg shells, and corn husks have all found their way into the pile.  It’s satisfying to send kitchen scraps out to be composted  instead of to the landfill.  Every couple of days when I have the hose out, I will spray the pile a little to keep it moist and give it a quick turn to keep everything aerated.  Now there’s nothing to do but wait for nature and all of my little bacteria friends to do their job.

This visitor was spotted cruising around my Anaheim Pepper plant.  Apparently she can eat around 5,000 aphids in her lifetime.  He thinks he’ll keep her.

My Fair Lady Beetle

After a few “discussions” with the wife, I convinced her to let me try to grow some corn.  My original plan was to plant rows of corn in our front yard (best sun), but that was quickly nixed by the aesthetics committee (comprised of wife and I, her getting the tie-breaker vote).  As a compromise, I could plant some maize along the driveway in my SFG.  There’s just something manly about growing corn.  I’m sure it has something to do with those stalks or ears or something.

Since corn gets so tall, I figured it would need some additional root support to keep it upright on windy days.  Therefore, I planted my corn seeds in the open-bottomed box (specially designed for my friendly neighborhood root crops).

Without a doubt, my corn seedlings are the most talked about crop in the SFG.  Everybody wants to know how they’re doing.  So for everyone out there dying to know: early indications are that the corn is alive and kicking.  Growing like a weed… or at least a grass domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times.  The SFG handbook recommends a liberal four corn plants per square foot.  That seemed somewhat crowded for me, but we’ll see how it goes.

Corn seedlings - 13 days

My biggest concern is that SFG bed #1 is the first to become shaded due to the shadow of my house each day.  I would prefer that my corn get at least another hour or two of direct sun.  I’d say right now we’re at 6 hours a day, but we’ll see how it goes.  For now I hold onto every man’s dream of fresh, sturdy corn outside my doorstep.

In my last post I discussed building a Square Foot Garden.  While construction is certainly fun, planting is where the action is!  (Well, you might argue that watching the seeds grow or harvesting the vegetables is where the action is… but hey, it’s a process.)

Since I have no prior knowledge about what grows well, when, how big, etc, my goal this year is experimentation.  Plant a bunch of crap and see what happens.  Always a viable gardening strategy.  So I knew that, while 16 squares sounds like a lot… I needed MORE SPACE… so I constructed an additional 4′x4′ SFG.  However, for fun I decided to split it up into two separate  2′x4′ gardens.

Actually it wasn’t just for fun.  I wanted to grow some root crops which I knew would optimally need a little more soil depth than the 5″ in my original box with the cardboard bottom.  Therefore, I dug up the grass under my 2′x4′ box and, using a sturdy rake, loosened up the soil before dumping in my peat/vermiculite/compost mixture.

In all, I ended up with three separate boxes.  To keep everything straight, I “hired a scribe” (see photo below) to document seed locations while I planted.  My planting method was to place two seeds on the surface and push them down into the dirt with my finger about 1 inch and gently cover.  If they both sprouted, I’d cut one off (if I can muster up the nerve).  This is another advantage to the SFG.  Instead of dumping a whole bunch of seeds along a row, only a minimal number are used.  The rest can be saved for use next year or shared with a friend. (Anybody want some seeds?)  I’d actually love to get a seed exchange going in the future.

My trusted seed scribe!

Since all of the beds are divided into 1′x1′ squares, the number of seeds planted in each square will depend on the expected size of the mature plant.  Lucky for me, the total noob, there’s a handy chart in the back of the SFG book.  Large plants (like tomatoes) get planted 1 per square, while small plants (like carrots) get planted 16 per square.  Here’s my planting diagram for my 3 beds.

SFG Box 1 (2' x 4')

SFG Box 2 (4' x 4')

SFG Box 3 (2' x 4')

Seeds / seedlings were planted on April 12.  Here’s a photo of the garden less than two weeks later.

SFG - April 25, 2010

By this time, the radishes, red onions, corn, beans, and peas had already sprouted.  The tomato and pepper plants (which were transplanted) also seemed to take to their new home quite well.  So far so good!

I love the idea of growing my own fresh vegetables.  What could be more satisfying than planning a menu and stepping out the front door to gather the ingredients?  But is it possible to get a decent yield of high quality veggies when you live on a modest 1/4 acre ? I intend to find out.

Therefore, my major gardening experiment for the summer is my Square Foot Garden (SFG).  The premise is that you can grow lots of crops in a small space by having an optimal growing medium.  “Mel’s Mix”, humbly named for the author of Square Foot Gardening (and former PBS show host), Mel Bartholomew, is comprised of equal parts peat moss, vermiculite, and compost (ideally from a variety of sources).  Thanks to my favorite local gardening stores (5th Season and Southern States, Carrboro), I procured all of the necessary ingredients and dumped the appropriate ratios onto my favorite green tarp.  Having a wife or good friend to help mix them all together is highly recommended.

My wife... and equal parts peat moss, vermiculite, and compost. All important components for a successful garden!

The SFG construction is similar in many ways to a traditional raised bed.  Our goal is a 4′x4′ square.  I took four 2×6s in 4ft lengths (I purchased 8ft boards and cut them to size with my handy chop saw.  Side note: now that I have a garage, I finally have a dedicated saw station!  I started building the table that it sits upon 2 years ago but just got around to attaching the top boards for this project. Yeah, I’m slow, but having a dedicated spot for sawing sure makes things a whole lot more convenient.)  I drilled three pilot holes into the ends of the boards to keep the wood from splitting before attaching the planks with 2.5″ deck screws.

My compound miter saw... on it's new table constructed by moi.

Don't ever fly without a pilot... hole.

One purported advantage of the SFG and “Mel’s Mix” is that you don’t need to worry about your existing soil or weeds because you can attach a bottom to the box which prevents any residual weeds from growing up out of the ground beneath.  I admit, this is where I’m most skeptical.  It’s hard for me to believe that the plants will grow equally well in only 5″ of soil as they would if their roots had access to the ground below, but we’ll see.  The idea is that if the growing media is rich enough and retains water well, the root system will stay more compact and not have the need to grow down as deeply.  I’ll keep you posted.  Rather than going to the trouble to use plywood for a base, I simply recycled some cardboard from a giant box I’ve been meaning to get rid of.

SFG frame with cardboard bottom

With the structure in place it was finally time to drag over the pile of soil (thanks to my tarp) and dump it in.  Using some thin 4ft wooden trim pieces ($2 each from Lowes in the trim and moulding section for 8ft lengths) I subdivided my 4′x4′ box into 1′x1′ squares… this being the hallmark of the SFG.  Each square gets a different type of crop, and depending on how big the mature plant gets, you can house anywhere from 1 to 16 plants in each square.  Staring at those 16 empty squares filled with nutrient-rich soil… endless possibilities.

So many possibilities!

All in all, the construction is a pretty simple process.  The hardest part will probably be locating the vermiculite.  If you don’t have a saw, most home improvement stores will cut the boards to size for you.  (Which could also be handy for hauling if you drive a Prius.)

In my next post I’ll talk a little bit about what I planted and how everything is growing. (It is!)

Just so we are clear and you don’t expect too much of me… I know almost nothing about gardening.  I have no expert knowledge due to study or years of personal experience with growing things.  But what I do have is a child-like fascination with things that grow.  I have always had an intense amazement every time I plant a seed and then it sprouts. It actually sprouts!

Maybe you’ve experienced this.

It may sound odd coming from a scientist, but every time I plant a seed, there’s this part of me that just cannot believe that it will actually someday become a full grown tomato plant, or sunflower, or even a blade of grass!  But it never fails… I catch a glimpse of that tiny bright-green leaf poking through the soil, and I’m once again amazed by life and this world.

It turns out I love gardening.

I suppose I had some inkling that this might be the case, but only recently have I really had the opportunity to give “growing stuff” an honest try.  Perhaps I’m like an artist who has found his canvas… perhaps that’s a stretch, but still.

The past decade has witnessed movement from dorm -> apartment -> townhouse.  Limited canvas.

Almost six months ago, my wife and I moved from our tiny townhouse in Carrboro, NC (which is a wonderfully unique town) to a home in the suburbs of Durham.  It’s a pretty typical neighborhood… rows of mailboxes, HOA, proximity to big box stores and chain restaurants.  Simply, the American Dream.  As for our home, it is everything (well almost) that we wanted.  Multiple bedrooms, space to entertain, open kitchen, garage, privacy.  The last one being a critical determinant for me.  Easily we walked away from more than a dozen perfectly lovely houses after admiring the view of eight neighboring houses staring at me.  Deal breaker. This was one of the very reasons I was leaving my townhouse… I needed to be able to sit on my back deck and not have people able see me.  Maybe that sounds odd, but it was important to me.

So we knew at this point in our lives, the suburbs were where we needed/wanted to be, but we also needed at least a suggestion of solitude… some humble, outdoor escape from the hustle and bustle of work, socializing, and the many other obligations that fill up a calendar.

When we eventually visited our current home, it was love at first sight.  The house was at the pinnacle of a cul-de-sac backing up to woods, which backed up to a lake.  Meaning, I could sit on the back porch and not see a single residence.  Perfect. We made it happen, and here we are.

So right, gardening.  The previous (and only former) resident of  our home had no interest in going outside.  This, according to our neighbor, and the state of the landscaping when we moved in.  The front yard was generic shrub theme and the back… unkempt forest theme.  Lots of work to do.  And in the past six months, it has been a lot of work.  But I feel more energized and excited than ever about everything we have done and have yet to do!

So that’s why I’m starting this blog.  It’s a way for me to document the things I’m learning and doing for my own reference… but also to hopefully learn from others who know much more about this than I do.  (I know almost nothing.)  But more so, it’s to provide an outlet for my excitement as I attempt to create a garden getaway… in the ‘burbs.