Tim's Square Foot Garden Blog

Cold and Wet October - Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Cabbage

Tim B. — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:09:38 +0000

Welcome to November. Here in Central Indiana it was one cold and wet October. There were two freezes and several frosting mornings over the past several weeks, but that is not too unusual for this time of year. Because of the cooler weather, some of the vegetables have taken their time to mature. The cauliflower has finally matured! The broccoli continues to produce a nice harvest, along with the cabbage. The cabbage harvest has been very good, with some harvested heads probably approaching 3 pounds. The lettuce growing under the plastic covered hoop is growing very slowly. It seems like all of the lettuce has grown very slowly this fall. The brussels sprouts are starting to get some size to them, and it will not be too long before harvest begins on them. Overall, I have been very pleased with the fall harvest to date, despite the cooler and wetter than normal weather. The broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage plants have been covered with row covers for about the last 2 weeks. They seem to like a little protection from the frost and freezes. Two celery plants remain in the garden, which are also covered by row covers. Check out all of the new pictures below. The gardening season is fast approaching the end, but I am still living in denial!!

Row Cover Over the Broccoli

Lettuce Growing Under Hoop

Brussels Sprouts Ready to be Harvested

Cauliflower Head Ready for Harvest

Cabbage Awaiting Harvesting

Broccoli Growing Under Row Cover

First Fall Frost, Green Beans Galore

Tim B. — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:34:11 +0000

The garden was visited by ole Jack Frost on October 11th. Most of the plants that I wanted to save were covered with row covers, but some of the ends of the green beans were still nipped a little (low temps did not get below freezing, which is good). The garden continues to produce very well for me. I must have picked around 15 pounds of green beans on October 10th, with more still on the plants!! The fall green bean harvest has been a big success. The weather has turned unusually cold and wet. It did not even get above 50 degrees today. The forecast is for near or below freezing low temps for tomorrow night and possibly the next night as well. After that, it looks like it will warm up to more normal temps, Hooray!! I am hopeful to be able to get the cauliflower and the rest of the broccoli to mature before it turns really cold. The cauliflower heads are still a little small, but they are getting bigger (a few are about 3 to 4 inches wide now). Despite the cold, the peppers are still producing, but they have nearly stopped growing with all of the cool weather (their days are numbered anyways). I am hopeful to be able to get a few more good pickings of beans before the big freeze. The brussels sprout plants continue to grow, with at least a few decent size sprouts on most of the plants. Harvest also continues on the following: Cabbage, broccoli, green onions, and celery. I will submit photos with my next blog entry. Happy Fall Gardening!!

Early Fall Garden, Another Garden Video

Tim B. — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:59:11 +0000

My early fall garden continues to produce a nice harvest. The garden finally received some much needed rain. The weather continues to be somewhat cooler than normal. There was some frost last week in parts of central Indiana, but my garden luckily avoided any frost. Harvest begins today on some of the August planted broccoli and green beans. Fall is just an excellent time to garden. One can take time harvesting, as the plants do not ripen very fast in the progressively cooler temperatures of fall. Harvest also continues on peppers, celery, tomatoes, pole lima beans, and green onions.

I made another garden video today (see below). Happy Fall Gardening!!

You may also click the following link to view the video directly from YouTube: Early Fall Garden Video 10-4-09

Everyone Should Plant a Fall Garden

Tim B. — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:14:52 +0000

Greetings, I hope everyone is enjoying the early fall gardening season. Fall officially begins on September 22nd, but if you are a gardener in Zone 5, it should have started back in July and August. More people should start a fall vegetable garden!! Fall is a great time of year to grow many of the cooler season plants like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, all kinds of greens including lettuce, green onions, and carrots. I also have heard of people growing turnips with great success in the fall. I have included pictures below of some of my fall crops. The broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower plants were transplanted out into the garden around the first week of August. The green bean seeds were sown about the same time. All of these plants are growing really well. I noticed small heads already forming on a few of the broccoli plants. The late planted green beans are also growing well and have started to flower within the last week. I should be able to get a good crop of beans before the first frost of the fall season (which usually comes around the middle or end of October). The late planted carrots are not germinating very well, so it looks like I will not have a very good fall harvest this year. The late planted lettuce seedlings are also not growing very fast, but I am still hopefull that they will start growing better with cooler weather. Harvest continues on the peppers, celery, and lima beans.

The weather has been really really dry, but temperatures have been seasonable over the last month or so. I am really hoping for some good rain soon. Happy Fall Gardening

August Planted Green Beans Growing in Old Corn Raised Bed

Fall Broccoli Growing Well

Nine Cauliflower Plants Growing Well in Old Potato Raised Bed

Eleven Cabbage Plants and Three Broccoli Plants Growing in the Other Old Potato Raised Bed

August Garden Harvest

Tim B. — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:33:37 +0000

The August garden continues to produce a nice harvest. The roma tomato plants continue to produce a nice harvest, although the leaf disease has spread to all six plants now. I harvested the first crop of “Eastland” baby lima beans about 5 days ago. The beans were a little smaller than I expected, but they were still good. More lima beans remain to be picked. The pole lima beans, King of the Garden, are just starting to mature, and I will probably start to pick some of those over the next few days. Harvest has started on the second crop of bush green beans with more to come. The green beans have germinated in the old corn plot as well as in the old onion plot. All of the pepper plants are growing like mad and I will be harvesting and freezing some of these. I planted my fall crop of Scarlet Nantes carrots 5 days ago (which is a few weeks later than I like). The broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage transplants are doing well and have started to grow a little. The celery is growing really well now, especially with all of this cooler than normal weather. I started my fall crop of lettuce seeds a few days ago, and some have already germinated. Labor day is now only 2 weeks away and Fall will be here before you know it!!

Summer Harvest Continues and Most of the Fall Crop in Ground

Tim B. — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:56:35 +0000

Summer harvesting is really underway now. The weather has finally turned more summer like. 5 days ago a bad storm went through the Indianapolis area and blew down all of the corn. As it turns out it was not all bad news as the corn was nearly ready to harvest anyways. There was one good quality ear of corn on each stalk of the NK199 yellow corn. I harvested a relatively small crop of roma tomatoes a few days ago. The tomato plants are starting to develop a leaf disease, probably due to the unusually cool summer. The tomato harvest looks like it will be down this year. Harvesting was completed on the potato bag today. I harvested 13 red pontiac potatoes from the bag. I think the harvest was pretty good considering I only planted 4 seed potatoes in the bag. A few of these red potatoes were really big (see pic below). Harvesting also has continued on the broccoli side shoots. The broccoli side shoots production has been higher than any other year so far (see pic bel0w). I guess it has been all of the cool and wet weather. I pulled up these plants yesterday to make room for the fall broccoli crop. Speaking of the fall garden, today I planted 18 broccoli seedlings, 9 cauliflower seedlings (in one of the raised potato beds), and 12 cabbage seedlings (in the other raised potato bed). Even though it is very hot outside, now is the time to get these in the ground. I will need to make sure that these seedlings get plenty of water until they get established. I hope to be planting carrot seeds within the next week or so. I will also be planting more lettuce seeds soon. Yesterday I planted green beans in the bed were the corn was growing and planted more green beans where the onions were growing. Green beans seem to do really well in the heat of late summer.

Harvest from the Potato Bag

Broccoli Side Shoots Growing Like Mad

Onions and Potatoes Harvested, Other Updates

Tim B. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:25:13 +0000

All of the onions were harvested yesterday and one of the potato raised beds were also harvested. The potato harvest from this new 20 inch high and 4 ft square plot was pretty good (see pics below). The nine Yukon Gold seed potatoes planted in this plot yielded nearly a full old beer box. One of the chickens, Nugget, could hardly wait for the harvest to complete, so she could scratch around in the rich soil.

The onion harvest was also good this year (see pics below). The yellow Candy onions produced very well, with many medium to large onions. The Red Candy did not produce as many large onions, but it still netted a decent harvest. I wish I could find a red onion that grows as well as yellow Candy. I do like the fact that Red Candy is a fast maturing variety, just like the yellow Candy. They both matured about the same time this year. Overall, I harvested two 5 gallon pickle buckets full of onions. I pulled up the onions, cut off what was left of the green tops, trimmed the roots, and then placed them on fencing elevated by several bricks to dry in the sun for about a week. I will then sort them by size and place them in mesh bags and store them in the basement.

I harvested all of the small topsetting onions and pulled up the “mother” plants and discarded them. I am drying the small topsetting onions in the barn over a small piece of fencing.

A few Roma tomatoes were harvested a few days ago, along with the first harvest of green beans. This first harvest of beans is a little down from years past, probably due to the cool rainy weather. Speaking of the weather, it has been very cool for the last week or so. Yesterday Indianapolis recorded a high of only 71 degrees, which was an all time record, for the date, for lowest high temperature.

I harvested a few cucumbers a few days ago. at least 2 of the Diva cucumber vines have withered and are near death. I suspect that I might have some vine bore problems, but I have not been able to determine for sure. The other six cucumber plants are growing reasonably well and have started to push on many new flowers. Harvest also continues on the lettuce, peppers, celery, broccoli side shoots, and cabbage. Happy Gardening!!

Potato Harvest From New Raised Bed

Nugget in Newly Harvested Potato Bed

Onion Plot While Harvesting

Onion Harvesting Activity

Harvested Onions Drying Over Elevated Fencing

Harvested Topsetting Onions Drying In Barn

Summer Harvest and New Video!

Tim B. — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:35:15 +0000

The summer garden continues to produce a nice harvest. Harvest has started on the spring planted cabbage, although the heads are a little smaller than normal, they still make very nice cole slaw. The green beans are starting to mature and they I will start picking them within the week (Yum!). The spring planted broccoli continues to produce some nice side shoots. I started picking celery stalks last week. Harvest started on the next crop of lettuce (Green Towers and Buttercrunch). It finally rained, which was good, because the soil was beginning to dry out a bit. I have not had to do much watering so far this year. Most of the onion tops have fallen over, so it will not be long before the bulbs are pulled up to dry. So far, it looks like the new Red Candy onion has produced just mediocre size bulbs. The “old” yellow Candy onion variety that I have grown for years looks like it will produce another good crop of onions. The top setting onions have also produced a nice crop of top setting bulbs, which will be planted back into the garden this fall. For those of you who live in or close to my zone, zone 5, now is the time to start planning your fall garden.

I have now moved into the video age and have just uploaded my first garden video onto YouTube!! See the link below to view the video or click on in the embedded video box below. Please let me know what you think about the video. I hope to produce more videos as the gardening season progresses. Happy Gardening.

You may also click the following link to view the video directly from YouTube: A Quick Garden Tour, July 3, 2009

Mid-Season Garden Report

Tim B. — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:43:03 +0000

Well, it is probably about time for the mid-season garden progress report. The spring garden was a success. Most of the spring crops did well, despite all of the heavy rain. The spring crops that have been harvested include lettuce, green onions, broccoli, and peas. Side shoot harvest continues on the broccoli. The spring planted cabbage has not been harvested as it is just starting to head up. Some of the onion tops have started to flop over, which is a sign that they have almost finished growing. The spring planted potatoes are maturing now so it will not be too much longer before harvest begins on these. The potatoes grown in the fabric bag seem to be growing quite a bit better than last year. The weather has turned cool, at least for the last few days. Before the cool down, it was rather hot and dry. Rain is now needed in the garden. My rain barrel is now empty (sad) and I have been watering with the hose now. Despite the dry conditions, the garden continues to grow fairly well. The warm season crops are growing like crazy. The NK 199 corn that my brother planted has started to tassel. A few of the roma tomato plants have small green tomatoes on them. The peppers are growing nicely and the banana peppers have been producing harvestable size fruits for the last several weeks now. All of the beans have really started to grow and the bush green beans have started to flower and a few of the plants have little beans visible already, so it won’t be long until fresh green beans (YUM!!). Harvest was completed on the spring planted peas and the plants were removed and replanted with bush green beans about 6 days ago. I will be starting seeds of broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage today or tomorrow for the fall crop. Several pictures of the garden have been added to this blog entry. All pictures were taken today. Happy Summer Gardening!!

Bush Beans and Pole Lima Beans

Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, and Cabbage

Corn Beginning to Tassel

Lettuce, Onions, and Celery

Potatoes Growing Well in Fabric Bag

Tomatoes, Beans, Peppers, and Cucumbers

Hot Weather, Broccoli and Pea Harvest Start

Tim B. — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:33:07 +0000

The weather has turned hot, but it has still been rather wet. Despite the heat and the rain, the garden is growing well. The official first day of summer (Summer Solstice) begins tomorrow. Broccoli harvest began on June 12th. The broccoli heads are maturing fast with all of the heat. The pea harvest began on June 13th, with more to come over the next few weeks. After that, they will be done and the plants pulled up to make way for more green beans. This year’s pea harvest has been better than normal. With the heat kicking in, the warm season crops like peppers, tomatoes, beans, corn, cucumbers, etc. are really taking off . I planted some lettuce seedlings this week to replace the spring crop of lettuce that is fast approaching the end. I will be harvesting the last of the green onion crop today. I have also been harvesting radishes and a few more banana peppers. I will be starting the fall crop of broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower seeds in another two weeks for planting out into the garden during the first or second week of August (I cannot believe I am already thinking about fall).

I have noticed that this year’s spring vegetable crops are not as full flavored as they normally are. I think all of the rain probably had something to do with that. Despite that, they are still far superior in taste and quality than any store bought produce.