How To

2016 Life of Sweetie Sweet Corn in a 4'x4' Compost-made Garden

Corn planted and covered to keep out weed seeds and animals.

Let's take a look at this fast-growing corn.

Mid-season growth.

Animal damage... What should we do?

Net designed to enclose 4'x4' of corn.

Totally covered and tied on bottom to keep out intruders including damaging insects.

Ready to harvest.

A beautiful ear of corn.

Harvest continues, mostly 3 ears per stalk.

Compost as soon as you can after harvest.

Chopped corn interspersed with lots of leaves; then, topped off with more leaves.

Screen covered compost keeps all insects and critters out.

Annual Garden Planting Schedule for Central Minnesota

Fall: Spinach, Egyptian onion and garlic.

Early spring: Most Onion seeds by February 1.

Sprout in the winter months.

Mid-March nursery starts:
Peppers, eggplant, leeks, early "Copenhagen" cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, mustard, greens.

Mid-April nursery starts:
Tomatoes, broccoli, celery, late "Flat Dutch" cabbage, cauliflower, purple kohlrabi.

Early outside planting after mid-April:
Peas, onion sets, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi, mustard, and lettuce.

Late outside planting: Beets, parsnips, lettuce, cabbage plants.

Later outside planting:
Broccoli, endive, tomatoes, peppers, melons, celery, eggplant,
Pre-sprout corn, beans, squash, cucumbers.

Summer nursery starts (July 4):
Beets, Chinese cabbage, carrots, rutabagas, turnips, lettuce.

Late summer planting: Winter radish.

September planting: Radish, turnips.

Note for nurseries:
The new LED daylights work better than any other lights and at less cost.

New Generation Yard Garden: Compost-Made 4’x 4’ Garden

Tools needed:
Plastic surround, shovels, buckets/sacks, wheelbarrow, four 3-foot stakes, (re-rod)
16 feet of 2” x 8” lumber for the base; 80 feet of 2” x 2” strips for top composter
Compost materials: leaves, grasses, coffee grounds, egg shells, kitchen waste.

Gardening World Wide will supply:

Farm plastic surround cut to size from Feed Stuff Bagging, Waverly, 9 mil thick.
Trailer to bring compost materials in and remove excess soils + transport machines.
Backhoe, 13” bucket, to ease the work of digging 2 feet down into the 4’x 4’ space.
Wide tire 4-wheeler to transport materials over your lawn to trailer.

How to:

Build a 4’ x 4’ of 2” x 8” lumber to remain in place; twenty 2” x 2” four-foot lengths for movable above ground composting.
Level the area by placing the frame in place and staking each inside corner up to 24 inches deep upon completion of the digging.
Remove the frame, then dig vertically 24 inches surrounding the total inner perimeter of the 4’ x 4’, putting the removed soil into bags/buckets for disposal or on the trailer for removal. Work towards the center to remove soil, also making certain any soil left is weed-free!
When sides are as true vertically as possible, place the plastic vertically held into the corners with the stakes, then setting the leveled frame in place with top 10 inches of the plastic to the inside of the frame. The attached plastic apron will lay flat on the ground surrounding the 4’ x 4’ to impede weed growth next to the unit and allowing for easy mowing. (Vertically insert the exterior 2-3 inches of the apron in surrounding ground upon completion of the unit. See picture.)
Now you are ready to begin adding composting materials, layering all the different gathered materials. The natural heat of summer and the bacteria decomposing will get your materials hot in just a few days.
Add the 2” x 2” lengths on top of the frame and continue composting until full; and then start saving materials for the next season. Moisten as necessary.

Year two and subsequent years: Dig in another unit or add as many as you have materials for. In mid-season, take the top off the composter built last year to add to the new unit and do a planting in the one built last
season. One 4’ x 4’ unit will always be composting, while the others are getting a new 6” layer of quality soil each year for weed-free nutritious vegetable gardening.

How to square foot garden

Copy arranged by Sharla Peterman based on the All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew.

A) Pick the location

Avoid trees and shrubs due to roots and shade.
Pick an area that gets 6-8 hours of sunshine daily.
Have it close to the house for convenience.
Area should not puddle after a heavy rain.
Existing soil does not really matter since you will be planting above it.

B) The 3 Steps

Build a box.
Add Mel’s Mix of 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 vermiculite.
Add a grid & start planting

C) Follow the 10 basics

Layout- Arrange your garden in squares, not rows. Lay it out in 4' x 4' planting areas. (Other arrangements can be used.)
Boxes- Build boxes to hold a new soil mix above ground. Soil should be 6” deep so use boards that are 6-8” high. You can build 4’x4’ boxes, 3’ x 3’ boxes for kids, or any size that fits your area (but 4’ or less across.) If you want a movable or deck box, attach 1/2-3/4” plywood to the underside and drill four drain holes.
Aisles- Space boxes 3' apart to form walking aisles.
Soil- Fill boxes with Mel's special soil mix: 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite.
Grid- Make a permanent square foot grid for the top of each box. A MUST! (You can use wood lathe, old blinds, or string to mark a tic-tac-toe type design.)
Care- NEVER WALK ON YOUR GROWING SOIL. Tend your garden from the aisles.
Select- Plant a different flower, vegetable, or herb crop in each square foot, using 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants per square foot. If the package says to plant every 12 inches, plant one per square foot, package says 6”, plant 4 per sq foot, package says 4”, plant 9 per sq foot, package says 3”, plant 16 per sq foot.
Plant- Conserve seeds. Plant only a pinch (2 or 3 seeds) per hole. Place transplants in a slight saucer-shaped depression. Cool crops (lettuce, cabbage, peas) can be planted April to May. Warm crops (beans, tomatoes, pumpkins) can be planted late May to early June. Plant cool crops again in August for a fall harvest.
Water- Water by hand from a bucket of sun-warmed water.
Harvest- When you finish harvesting a square foot, add compost and replant it with a new and different crop.

How to compost

Quality compost is the essential ingredient that you will need to add to your Square Foot Garden every season. To generate this ‘brown gold’ collect the ingredients in a container near your kitchen sink.

Composting directly in the garden is what we suggest; fortunately our garden is large and thus we are able to keep 2 to 3 units in action. To do this, we have 2-inch lumber 4-foot lengths, or one could use scraps from pallets to build a ‘Lincoln Log’ type unit. We simply alternate between our vegetable scraps, collected leaves and grasses, varying the ‘brown and green.’

For your Square Foot Garden, we recommend that you crush the egg shells, add the coffee grounds (remove filter) and chop fruit and vegetable leavings into smaller pieces. Some folks have gone so far as to grind the product up in the blender before adding to the compost pile!

Work with one unit a season. Do not stir or mix. Next season start another square by removing the lumber and placing on another unit. Start it with the topping of your first unit and continue adding throughout the season. For potting soil, sift the base compost through ½ inch screen. Here is an illustration of the composter.

How to build an arch trellis

How to build a nursery system

Following the lead of Square Foot Gardening, we start many plants in vermiculite, and when they have 2 true leaves, transplant to a pot with starter soil medium. Since the early 1990’s we have rolled paper pots, going a step further than what Mel describes on page 152 of the SFG Answer Book.

Collect an empty toilet paper roll and mark it ½ inch in from one end.
From a standard newspaper, cut each sheet horizontally in 4 strips.
Roll the paper around the toilet paper roll leaving ½ inch of the roll exposed at one end, and overlapping on the other end.
Hold in place after rolling, and punch the other end in so that it is fully covered and when looking inside, that it is dark. Pull it off the toilet paper roll.
Make 4 of these units, fill with potting soil, place in a plastic Cool Whip container with a rubber band around and transplant each seedling with pencil to the paper pot. Water the plant in and place into the floating box.

The floating box can be small or large, like a kitchen sink tub, or built of wood and lined with plastic so as to hold rainwater. We build boxes: 2’ x 2’.

Collect builder styrofoam, use 2 inch thickness for larger units. One inch thick would work for smaller units or double the two. This is a floating unit sized it to fit into your box and easy to check for moisture level as when it floats, it is good.

Punch holes every 3-4 inches in the styrofoam and punch in polyester soak-up cloth strips.
Spread soak-up cloth over the entire top of unit. Top off with weed mat material to ward off roots from clinging to the cloth. Make the weed mat a little larger so as to keep roots from going down into the sides of the nursery box.
Place the quad-unit of plants on the soak-up box; maintain balance.
Upon maturity, plant each separate seedling unit entirely into the garden.

A 2’ x 4’ unit under a 4’ fluorescent light is excellent for indoor plant growth.

When the weather is nice, you most certainly want your nursery box outside in the best sun and in a sheltered place. For top cover protection, create an umbrella with solar plastic and place over the nursery box at a slant, so as to allow rain to drain off and sun to shine in.

How to eliminate weeds

Eliminate weeds from growing into your box garden by placing plastic at the base.

What:
Cut a piece of plastic (9 mil food-grade sheet plastic preferred), 14 inches wide 16.5 feet long, to surround under the borders of the box garden (4’x4’).

Why:
When we eliminate weeds from growing into the box garden, this is what is going to happen:

A study has shown that with quality soil, weeds can be prolific if allowed to grow inside the box garden. The plastic underground barrier will detain weed growth. Weeds outside the border cannot draw water from inside the garden.

If weeds are not eliminated, it will take more than 4 times the water.
Save time from complicated watering problems as soil dries from the bottom in many cases.
Nutrients are not lost from the growing area creating healthier food itself. Certain nutrients are robbed from the soil and cause nutrient loss in some vegetables.
Save labor in the long run.
Soil will now, for the first time, regenerate with the variety of vegetables, instead of degenerate.
We now can grow varieties that will require this type of high nutrient soils in which we have grown in the past and maintain a high nutrient level. People are now trying to develop new vegetable varieties that require high soil nutrient levels and with this added feature to your garden, we can create new varieties.

How to install:

Dig a ditch in the ground 49 ½ inches square forming the base of your 4’x4’ box. Dig straight in 12" deep all the way at the borders removing all soil and getting all weed roots out of the square.
Pack the soil so that you can keep the soil parallel for the lining of the plastic. Use sand on the outside of the box while packing at least 2-3 inches perpendicular as you backfill with the remaining soils. For the inside, use the existing soil leaving soil to pack tight.
Fold 2" of the plastic inward that will be under 2” framed 4’x4’ box.
Now pack the soil a little at a time working from the bottom up packing garden soil on the inside and sand on the outside to keep the plastic perpendicular.
Level off the soils. Inside the box, add your best garden soil mix to prepare for planting.