Re: Brown Thumb in Utah with Questions

Title: Re: Brown Thumb in Utah with Questions
Square Foot Gardening List - http://myweb.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

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Square Foot Gardening List - http://myweb.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
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Dear Square Foot Gardeners,
 
        My name is Sandy and I live in Utah.  I have tried growing different plants (flowers, bulbs, vegetables) at various periods in my life.  All without success.  I definitely have a brown thumb, not a green one.  My parents were wonderful gardeners, successfully growing a variety of plants.  They started with flowers and grass in just a small front yard and a slightly bigger backyard at our attached house in Bronx, New York.  My father even took over a portion of a vacant lot on the corner of our block so he could grow vegetables in addition to flowers.  I've always wanted to grow something successfully.
 
        I have read most of Mel Bartholomew's book Square Foot Gardening.  It seems like it might be the answer.  It appears to take little space and a lot less work.  I think I'll be brave and give gardening another try!  There are some questions I have and I would like to hear from both newer square foot gardeners and experienced ones.
 
        Question 1:  Did you start with only one 4 foot by 4 foot square?  Or do you need two squares?  My husband says I should do at least two since there are two of us (since my teenage daughter isn't going to help, I'm not including her), but I don't know if that's too much for my first time.


I started with four squares (actually two rectangles) for my first vegetable garden, although in truth some of the area was unplanted and other parts were given over to the coleus that my three-year-old grabbed one day as we returned from the garden store and stuffed in the dirt. I didn't have the heart to move them to where I had intended them to go, and frankly, they grew as well as anything. I chose to do so many squares because we like broccoli and other cole crops and they take lots of space.

 
        Question 2:  I am uncertain about what to plant.  Mel says tomatoes, beans, corn, lettuce, zucchini, cucumbers, and Swiss chard are the easiest.  Should I just stick with these?  Should I only try one type of plant for my first time, such as tomatoes?


Definitely try a mix. Probably not everything you try will work well for you and for your garden. So if you try a mix you can say, next year I'll try more of this and none of that. If you grow that zucchini you will definitely need more than one square since they take a bunch of room.

 
        Question 3:  To grow tomatoes vertically, I know I need to create a frame of 1.5 inch black plastic pipe or metal pipe and attach string to it for the tomatoes to grow on.  Have any of you built the trench Mel suggests in his book and did it work well?


Yes but I don't grow my tomatoes on it. Green beans are really easy and they get my trellis. My tomatoes are staked.

The trellis works well and it only took a few minutes to set up this year. I used electrical conduit for the poles and cross-bar. For the corner connectors I tried something unique  that worked really well. Although electrical conduit is cheap, electrical conduit corners are expensive. But plumbing PVC corners are cheap. But plumbing PVC corners have a wider inside dimension than the corresponding outside dimension of the electrical conduit, since the walls are thicker for the PVC. So I bought the corners, spray-painted them flat gray so they would look like the electrical conduit and not stand out with their whiteness. Then I got two 14" lengths of clear flexible plastic tubing about the same diameter as my corners and threaded it through. So the L shaped corner has 6" lengths of tubing sticking out of each hole that I thread into the innards of the electrical conduit. It holds the whole thing up really well and is easy to assemble. Cheap too, except possibly for the $4 extra I spent on the spray paint.

 
        Question 4 (don't worry - this is the last question):  I looked at a colored zone map and (if I picked my zone correctly) I believe our last frost won't be over until June 1st.  In the meantime should I just set up my 4 by 4 and double dig adding whatever I can find in one of the local nurseries to my clay soil?  Should I also start the seeds indoors now and then transplant them when June arrives?  Or is it better for beginners to start the seeds directly in the ground where they will grow rather than transplant them?

I wouldn't recommend starting seeds indoors your first year mostly because there is so much to know and to set up. Lights, temperatures, having the space to do it. It is a great second-winter project though. I think you will have the easiest time buying seedlings from the nursery with the exception of those green beans which will start from seed in the ground and probably give you no trouble at all.
--
Katherine Wendt
DataWiz Solutions
toll-free 1-877-DATAWIZ (328-2949)
703-288-1151
thefolks@memberstoaction.com
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