Wouldn't you?

That’s only a relatively small part of it – just what I picked today. I’ve [...]]]> Yesterday, walking through the Vineyard on an incredible autumn afternoon after brunch at García’s at 4th and Mountain, Joe asked how my square foot garden experiment had gone.  I said I’d have to call it a success.

Wouldn't you?

That’s only a relatively small part of it – just what I picked today. I’ve harvested a bunch of Big Jim green chile peppers and a metric buttload of tomatoes already – and there’s a bunch of tomatoes, at least, still ripening. And that’s my third and final carrot!

It really is an experiment. I’ve never tried growing actual food before, much less using the SFG technique. And I got food. The tomatoes and chiles (and two prior, smallish carrots) I’ve eaten have been quiet good. A couple of friends have enjoyed the tomatoes. So, y’know … success.

Because I got a late start growing there were limits to what I could grow. Time and energy limits imposed by things like writing deadlines (those pesky, pesky devils) limited how much research on hot-weather crops I could do, and carry out the results of. So no more than about half the sixteen square-foot sections got used.

Mostly, those that got used have produced. Two tomato plants and the chiles did, obviously. I’ve got way more basil and tarragon than I now what to do with (yet.)  And I’m unclear what to epxect from, or do with, my Eyptian Walking Onion, although it’s hanging in there.

The only real clunker was the Cutting Celery, which seemed born to die, and in short order did. All the above plants I got as seedlings from Plants of the Southwest, on the basis that I wasn’t sure how much I had time to try growing from seed, given my mid-Juine start. I also planted carrots and cucumbers from seed. The carrots were not a dazzling success:  I got three. Or maybe four. Out of sixteen plantins in the square-foot section. One of two cucumbers did sprout and grow and even flower, although I think the flowers have died. While I haven’t given up on it yet altogether I’m pretty sure I planted it too late. Also it’s been wilty and temperamental. I may try some techniques Joe suggested for container-planting them next year.

As for Square Foot Gardening overall, I can say: do it. It’s incredibly resource efficient – and that’s counting your money, time, and effort as well as things like water and space. If you’re an urban-type gardener/farmer, as I am, it’s awesome: you could set up a 4X4 foot SFG on a largish apartment balcony. I of course have a backyard, and plan to put in at least one more SFG next year.  Likely two.

And get a much earlier start.

Also, if you’re an Albuquerque area gardener, especially try SFG. We have a distinctive soil type here: shitty. Throughout the Valley, where I live, and much of the Northeast Heights, we have dense clay. It has the workability of concrete and doesn’t drain for anything. Also, after you’ve busted your ass turning the awful, and stirred in your expensive soil amendments like compost and sand to get something other than certain death for a growing medium, in a season or two, it’ll eat your soil amendments. Clay reproduces, people.

At the minimum for Albuquerque I’d advise some kind of elevated, container bed for growing. My good friend Larry had great success with the Jeavons method from How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine. That’s really labor-intensive to do right, like reading through that title (whew!), but it works.

The real advantage to #SFG, even as creator Mel Bartholemew brags in his All New Square Foot Gardening, is the “Mel’s Mix” soil. You make it yourself from three inexpensive and (fairly) easy-to-obtain components. It works like a bloody charm, at least for me. And you don’t have to chisel it out of the damned ground the way you do when you’re trying to amend clay.

Our West Mesa, I’m told, is largely afflicted with sandy soil. While it’s not as horrible as the clay (it could hardly be, unless it actively attacked you) it poses its own problems. To our sisters and brothers across the river, verily I say unto you:  try SFG too!

Flying Subject Change – Friday night I was up rather late after dinner and cheesy SF movies with some of the ASFS crew: Craig Chrissinger, Jessica Coyle, Steve Kubica, Randy Tinkham, and Kevin Hewett. Which was fun as always. Emma was outside, barking. Some of the neighborhood dogs were going off too. Usually that means a stray dog, or occasionally human, is wandering the alley.

But Emma seemed unusually persistent and … focused. Also she seemed to bark a lot from the north side of the house, by the gate to the backyard.

Then she growled.

That got me moving. Emma doesn’t growl without what she considers good reason. Even given her professional paranoia, it makes things more serious.

So I equipped myself with a flashlight and some other useful items, and went out back to check. Nothing.

Noting that Emma continued to bark from the gate, I went out front. And down the tree out by the sidewalk climbed – a raccoon. It ran off to the south and into a neighbor’s backyard.

So that’s like three years in a row I’ve been visited by raccoons. I like seeing the little guys. I also understand they can pose a danger to my dog. They would be well-advised not to.

So far we’ve been fine. We’ll go with that.

Support your local vines!

Above you can see the vine-support frame I added to the SFG this afternoon. It’s made of two five-foot lengths of half-inch steel conduit for uprights, connected by a four-foot piece and a couple [...]]]> Pretty well, actually.  Especially since I started ignoring all the bloodthirsty warnings about overwatering. It’s the desert. Jeez.

Support your local vines!

Above you can see the vine-support frame I added to the SFG this afternoon. It’s made of two five-foot lengths of half-inch steel conduit for uprights, connected by a four-foot piece and a couple elbow joints held with set screws (the pair of which cost me more than any other SFG component, oddly.) The design, rock-simple as it is, comes straight outta SFG guru Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening.

While the basic design calls for using pieces of rebar sunk in the ground as support bases for the uprights, apparently that can require the addition of guy lines as the plants grow up the nylon netting (which, you’ve no doubt noted, since you’re quick that way, I’ve yet to install) to keep the wind from knocking the whole assembly ass over teakettle. Not wanting to screw around with extra stakes and lines, I went with the nuclear option Mel offered as an alternate:  three steel foot T-post fenceposts, clamped to the conduit with hose clamps. I know our Albuquerque winds.

Tomorrow, barring my old Nemesis, the Unforeseen (not to be confused with The Unnamable, a not very good 1988 H.P. Lovecraft adaptation somewhat redeemed by gratuitous nudity),  I should put up the netting and try to persuade my tomatoes to grow thereup.

On other fronts … I’ve been bad about blogging. I need to keep posting regularly to maintain the interest of all eight or so of my Faithful Readers (thanks, Faithful Readers!) I know, I know.

I’ve been … distracted. I might almost say, afflicted.  Computer woes, predominantly, have been eating up way too much of my time and energy. Not to mention annoying Hell out of me.

Soon I shall give an abbreviated account of my travails. Also I will, as threatened promised deliver cute so intense it’ll set the roots of Saraphina’s hair afire!

It's my SFG. Yeah, you know: me.

Don’t think it looks like much? It’d look like a whole lot less if I hadn’t bought some seedlings from Plants of the Southwest.

Also, appearances notwithstanding, it’s set on (mostly) bare [...]]]> So this time my TracFone decided to email the picture I took a week ago:

It's my SFG. Yeah, you know: me.

Don’t think it looks like much? It’d look like a whole lot less if I hadn’t bought some seedlings from Plants of the Southwest.

Also, appearances notwithstanding, it’s set on (mostly) bare ground, not uneven cement. Granted, our clay soil often feels like cement. But the ground’s actually more khaki color. Which, I suppose, only makes sense.

So far all I can say is I probably need to water way more. The rain we’re getting right now ought to help in a major way. But everything’s alive, if not exactly shooting skyward. The Genovese Basil seems to thrive best, for some unknown reason.

I need to call and check out those 55-gallon drums – see what they were used for, see how many are available. Thanks again for the heads-up, Mike!

Tired now. More news soon.

“WTF’s that?” I pretend to hear you ask.

This (photo credit Frostcall.com)

To start with, it’s the Seekrit Projekt I’ve been mystifying about these last few days. Yes, a huge anticlimax; I know. I just can’t resist tormenting Sara by tweaking her curiosity.

Basically it’s an intensive, organic, space and resource-efficient form [...]]]> I’ve got a Square Foot Garden!

“WTF’s that?” I pretend to hear you ask.

This (photo credit Frostcall.com)

To start with, it’s the Seekrit Projekt I’ve been mystifying about these last few days. Yes, a huge anticlimax; I know. I just can’t resist tormenting Sara by tweaking her curiosity.

Basically it’s an intensive, organic, space and resource-efficient form of gardening developed by a guy named Mel Bartholomew. He has a website devoted to SFG, and also a book.

If you’re interested in growing your own food, and especially in the increasingly trendy subject of urban gardening, you really might consider looking into SFG. I checked the book, All New Square Foot Gardening, out of the library and starting reading. Before I’d got halfway I’d ordered it on Amazon. Just to give you an idea of what I thought about it.

The basics are pretty, well, basic. You take four 2 x 6 boards (allegedly you can use 1 x 6s, but I can’t see how you’d screw ‘em together without splitting them), each four feet long. Since boards are usually sold in lengths starting from 8 feet, it’s easy to buy a pair and get them cut in half. Unless you’re me and shopping at the Lowe’s on 12^th Street, but that’s a story too long and off-pissing for me to tell right now, especially as tired as I am. You also need six inch-wide 4-foot laths. Fortunately they tend to come just that length.

You connect the 2 x 6s into a six inch deep box. You then fill it with something called “Mel’s Mix”: equal parts compost, peat moss, and something called vermiculite. The latter’s the “final ingredient” I crowed about obtaining in my last post. It’s not easy to find; I turned it up, pretty cheap, within a mile or two of my house.

The compost is by preference homemade. I had to beg some off my friend Larry since mine was, as mentioned, too damned damp to sift and measure properly. Fortunately he had plenty and was kind enough to share. Peat moss is peat moss, I guess; I bought mine at Lowe’s.

So you stir up 8 cubic feet of these ingredients and pour them in your frame. Then you divide it into sixteen square-foot sections with the laths (hence the name, yes.) And then: plant!

And I finally finished today. Poor Emma Dog did not get her walk; and I didn’t finish transplanting the seedlings I bought Saturday at Plants of the Southwest until after sunset. Kind of had to drive myself to get it done, but some of the plants were getting distinctly droopy.

Naturally it was too dark for my not-so-great cell phone camera to take pictures of. Hence the use of someone else’s as credited above. It’s particularly appropriate since it shows the mesh support for climbing viney plants, such as tomatoes and chile peppers. Which by amazing coincidence I planted.

Also got some seeds at Chase hardware for things I can plant at this relatively late point in the season. They’ll go in over the next few days.

When I let Emma out, having finished the transplanting, she trotted into the yard, saw the new addition 15 or so feet from the kitchen window, and stopped dead. She walked cautiously up to the SFG and sniffed it. Then she came straight back to me, apparently seeking reassurance that this new addition was okay, and not something she was somehow to blame for. Dogs are like that. They do assumed guilt like a human four-year old.

So, yay! I’m pleased to get this done and going. I’ve talked a lot about landscaping and gardening but not accomplished so much. That’s why I wanted this to be a going concern before I revealed what it was.

Will it work? I’ve no idea! That’s why we do things, or so I’m given to understand.

Stay tuned.