Wait, June is over?

Hey all!

It's been awhile since I last wrote, so it is time to update you on what's been happening at Roots lately!  We're mostly done planting, so we've been doing a lot of work caring for the plants that are already in the ground.  In other news, many of our farmers are well under way with their plots!  In addition, Jodie, another Roots intern, and I have taken over a plot in the community garden adjacent to the demo farm, which I will discuss further below.

Over the past couple of weeks, we've been doing a lot of weeding.  With all of the rain and hot weather we've been having, the weeds have taken off.  As a result, I've become very familiar with using a stirrup hoe. We've also been busy hilling and mulching our potatoes.  Hilling is the process of shoveling more dirt on top of existing potato plants to give them more space to grow.  Potatoes will keep growing as long as you give them space, so hilling can help grow larger potatoes.  Potato plants are very hardy, so you can almost completely cover them over with dirt and they will pop right back through.  It's pretty neat to watch!  Hilling also removes most of the weeds in the potato beds, so it kills two birds with one stone.  After hilling the potatoes, we covered the beds with straw to prevent the weeds from returning.  Weeding and hilling is not glamorous work, but it is necessary for keeping the plants healthy!

Potatoes after hilling and mulching

One process that we got to take part in this week is what Neal, our Gardens and Growers Coordinator, calls a farm walk.  A farm walk is part of the monitoring, planning and coordinating process of a gardening or farming operation.  As you might guess from the name, a farm walk is when you walk around the farm and assess the condition of your plants, equipment, and facilities.  From that, you derive and prioritize a list of tasks for the next few days.  You do that by writing out a list of everything you would like to get done and then list those tasks in order of importance.  These tasks could include general maintenance and care as well as solving unexpected problems.  Then you set up a schedule for accomplishing those tasks according to the time and resources (such as labor) that will be available.  It was interesting to learn more about the organizational side of running a growing operation.  It's something that is very important to have for a program like this to run smoothly.  It's also very practical and can be applied to almost any type of operation or business.

One of the tasks that we planned out in our farm walk was thinning our radishes.  Crossing this task off of our list was very fun, because it allowed us to literally see the fruits of our labor.  Some of the radishes are already getting fairly large, so we got to snack on some of the ones that we thinned out.  They were spicy and a little sandy, but delicious!  In the picture below, you can see where some of the radish plants were growing very close together and needed to be thinned.  The particular section of the bed in this photo is also an area where the germination was a little spotty.  In the majority of the bed, however, the plants were growing in quite thick.

Radish plants, before thinning

Our lettuce and mesculin mix are also growing quite well, and might need to be thinned out soon.  The reason that some of these plants are growing in so thickly is that the EarthWay seeder, which I told you about in a previous post, tends to drop seed heavily.  It would be possible to plant those seeds by hand, but we decided that it would be a more efficient use of our time to plant heavily and then go back and thin later on.  Many of our seeds are donated to our program, so we are often unaware if they were stored and taken care of properly.  As a result, germination of these seeds can sometimes be spotty, so it is usually safer for us to plant heavily and then thin the plants later.  Our pole beans have sprouted as well, and are looking healthy!  We did not, however, have very good luck with our spinach.  We have found small spinach plants sprouting in many places that they shouldn't be, and very few of them in the bed where we actually planted them.  We think that this is because many of the seeds washed away in the heavy rains we received after we planted them.

Lettuce!

Mesculin mix

Pole beans

As I mentioned above, Jodie and I have taken over an empty plot in the community garden adjacent to the demo farm as part of our internship.  This will be a great way to get even more hands-on experience by growing our own plants.  At the beginning of the week, we spent some time planning the layout and choosing what types of plants we wanted to grow.  We decided to start by planting tomatoes, peppers, and broccoli.  For those plants, we acquired some starts and transplanted them in.  We will also be direct seeding some carrots and bush beans.  We are also going to leave a couple of beds open to put in some fall plants, which we will decide on soon.  We put in the majority of our transplants on Thursday, so we are well on our way!  Many of our tomatoes are already producing fruit and will probably need to be trellised very soon.

Our peppers (on the left) and broccoli (on the right)

Tomatoes

As part of taking over the community garden plot, I decided to experiment with a growing method called Square Foot Gardening, which some of you may have heard of.  My dad showed me a book about it, and I thought it was pretty cool and decided to try it.  

The idea behind square foot gardening is to be able to grow the same amount of food as a traditional garden, but in less space.  As a result, square foot gardens are great for people who don't have enough space to put in a traditional garden.  Because of their compact size, they can also be easier to manage than traditional gardens.  They are also great to use if you have poor soil. Mel Bartholomew, the author of the book I read, recommends putting together a mix of compost, vermiculite, and peat moss, which you can buy in bags at most gardening centers.  Square foot gardening, therefore, can be helpful in addressing some common limiting factors for growing produce.

To build a square foot garden, you build a wooden box and fill it with your soil mix.  Bartholomew also recommends placing standard landscaping fabric beneath your box to prevent weed growth.  You then lay out a grid showing each square foot of your box.  Every plant needs a certain amount of space, so each square foot can hold a certain number of each plant.  One square foot, for instance, can hold one pepper plant or nine bush bean plants.  A standard box is 4 feet by 4 feet.  This is a very basic explanation of the process, so if you are interested in learning more, I recommend picking up Bartholomew's book.  

I put together two 4' x 4' boxes for our plot.  One is six inches deep, and the other is twelve inches deep.  I planted the same varieties of plants in each box and in traditional rows to be able to compare yields later on. As we take care of our plot, I will also asses how easy it is to maintain the square foot boxes as compared to traditional rows.  After putting them together, the boxes look great!  I'm excited to see how things turn out.  So far, they really do seem easier to manage.  I found that planting the boxes was much easier and faster and planting the rows.  I didn't have to constantly move down the row, and I also didn't have to rake out any weeds or debris.  

12 inch deep square foot box, planted with peppers, broccoli, and tomatoes

Six inch deep square foot box, planted with broccoli, peppers, and tomatoes, with space left open for direct seeding

The beginnings of our community garden plot

If it works as well as advertised, square foot gardening could be a great way for people to grow their own produce.  Bartholomew's book is clear, detailed, and thorough, making it easy for beginning gardeners like myself to grow their own food.  There is no produce more local than food that you grow yourself!  I'm excited to see how my experiment (albeit a slightly crude one) turns out!  

Thanks again for reading, I will post again soon!