If you haven’t already started, it is planting season again, folks! This weekend, I put in some good hours getting my garden prepped and ready. I really enjoyed the day of hard work. It was a little windy in Boulder, but my dog Nala and I spent Saturday finishing the construction of our newest square foot garden, and I even planted a few early crops (which my wife is convinced was committing plant-o-cide since the weather is set to drop below freezing before the week is over… clearly, she’s underestimating the winter-protection-thingie that I’ve built to slide over and insulate our fledgling plants. It’s such a burden being right all the time…).
For the first time this year, I have added a vertical trellis to our plot so that we can grow poll beans, and so that our melons and winter squash don’t take up as much room as the Fat Bastard from Austin Powers (they do tend to monopolize space… kind of like Starbucks franchises). I never knew that you could make watermelons, pumpkins or butternut squash grow vertically, but not only do the fruits not fall from the vine, they thrive when hanging. The trick is just building a trellis that is strong enough to support their weight.
I built mine with 1/2 inch conduit pipe, re-bar stakes and garden trellis netting. I think it looks great (luckily, my wife does, too… thanks babe!), and it was fairly cheap and easy. The basic idea is to use two 5′ tall posts and a 4′ crossbar connected with elbow connectors to build a frame. Then stand the frame up on two re-bar stakes and tie the trellis netting to the frame. If you do it right, this should be strong enough to hold any vegetables that you can grow (although I wouldn’t try giant pumpkins).
We also planted peas and spinach outside and started several other seeds indoors. In general, your garden should have a start date based on your average “last frost” date, but it is probably time to start outside in most parts of the country. It is defiantly time to plant seeds inside. A good gardening book like All New Square Foot Gardening will tell you exactly how and when to start each seed, but we chose to start our cabbage, swiss chard, herbs and chili peppers inside by the window this weekend.
Enjoy the sunshine, get your garden growing and hope that the rest of the week is as nice as this weekend was. Cheers!
Square Foot Gardening Links
-Square Foot Gardening Foundation
