Harvest Time.

Radish leaves growing close to a foot in length, fortunately still very tender.

Swiss chards, Zuccini, lettuce and argula.

Have it for lunch, with my wife, simple salad sprinkle with red wine vinegar, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, salt, pepper, parmesan cheese and age old goulda cheese. Yum Yum Yum.

Salad Spinner

With all the salad greens, what I need is a good salad spinner.

Did a couple of research on the web. The reviewed on OXO was excellent, and it seems like there are no downside to it. Well, it convinced me and I'm set to buy OXO from Bed, Bath and Beyond, and lo and behold, I was exposed to a few more other choices. So on the spot evaluation, I compared OXO with Progressive (if you want more details - I attached the ads on this blog.).

4 decision criteria:
1) brake to stop spinning - how to quickly stop the spinning basket. Progressive is so much more user friendly with instant stop. While OXO, you have to press a black button to create friction between two rubberised materials for it to stop, depend on your pressure. Also, it seems like the wear and tear on the OXO braking device will not outlast the bowl itself.

2) OXO has a 2" to 3" protruding housing in the middle of the cover, this is to house the mechanism for spinning. it may not be good for the greens as it took up some space. As for the Progressive it is flat.

3) The cover handle, OXO is more superior as the cover is more easily remove. Progressive lacks the grip to open the cover, but it is not too difficult to open it.

4) Price OXO is $10 more expensive than Progressive. Watchout, there are 2 different sizes for OXO.

So 3 out of 4 points, I chose Progressive.

Just added a trellis yesterday, with the helped of my 4 yrs old son. Notice that I used a pvc right angle joint, it should hold it together. If not, I will drill a hole right through the joint and use a nail to hold it.

Also planted Korean melon and water melon.

Added a new SFG

Took me closed to 30 minutes to build this frame, made from composite wood. Originally, looking at this orientaion, decided to change to the one below.

Now I have 2 frames, and I had already plant bell pepper, bok choy and basil. All from seeds. Need to install drip system, maybe tomorrow.

Slowly replacing lawn with SFG, and redirecting precious water to edibles vegetation than to grass (lawn).

Update on the tomatoes. beautiful, with plenty of babies. May need to add more chicken manure this weekend.

Pole Bean climbing steadily up.

This baby landed on my lunch plate. (Zuccini)

Beautiful corn and growing straight up, it is the fastest growing plant within this bed.

Don't know what kind of bugs is feasting on my radish leafs. I suspect that it may be slugs.

Swiss Chards.

Salad Greens (from seeds) growing beautifully. Snip off the outer leaves for my lunch.

Look at this, I removed the front shade. Added 3 more vegetables, brocolli and pak choy (chinese vegetable). As you can see that the frame for the shades can be easily dismantle, made from pvc pipes.

Look at this, my lunch.

Yummy, salad greens from SFG, mixture of swiss chards (baby), radish leaves, zuccini, and lettuce.

As you can see, some bugs is ahead of me, feasting on my radish leaves.

Cutie, cute cucumber.What a bouquet of flowers. ( Cucumber of course.)

In the first picture, obviously a bug must be having a feast.

Tomatoes on the trellis.

Look at that cute baby tomato.

Egg plant growing pretty well, behind it are 2 corns, and the cucumbers are on the right.

On the front left is swiss chard, radish behind chard.

Zuccini, it grow to a length of about 3" and it start to turn yellow. Hmm, something is missing or lacking. Waiting to taste it.

The plants are doing very well. Cucumbers are strong and healthy, waiting for it to climb up the trellis. Corn is catching up real fast.

Weather gets too hot and left out in the sun for too long. Affected plants water melon and swiss chard (color), wilted. Quickly spray some cool water and hope for the best recovery.

Korean Melon is sprouting.

Preparing new seedings for a new square frame, yet to be made. Have to scrounge for materials first.
Seedlings - Roma tomatoes, various kind of bell peppers, water melon, korean melon, basil, thyme, cauliflower, brocolli, and color swiss chard.
Some seeds took forever to sprout

Look at how fast it is growing.

Beautiful radish seedlings.

Planted Giant Red Celery (seeds) yesterday, in one of the empty square.

Corn is growing very well, they are in the middle row.

Added a green nylon netting, about 75cts a yard from Walmart, width is 72 ".

Next, Swiss Chard is not losing out to radishes.

April 30th, 2009

Wow, the joy of seeing the first sprouts. These are radish. Note the watering system. Planted corns in the next square.

April 28th, 2009

Using PVC pipes, build a frame around the bed, to protect seedings from birds and other creatures. The weed block will protect the seedlings from direct sunlight.

Add automatic watering systems into this bed.

April 25th, 2009

The poor cucumber plant was wilted due to the hot weather.

Build a temporary shade, out of remaining weed block. Also planted radish, spinach, swiss chard, salad greens (mixture) from seeds.

Another 2 potentials waiting to be converted to SFG grid systems.

April 24th, 2009

This is an old raise bed with Zuccini plants, 2 tomatoes and 1 bush beans. Planted before reading SFG. Will be converted to SFG grid system and fill with Mel's mixture after the season is over. Likely target is for fall replanting. Look at the soil contrast.

April 24th, 2009

The tomatoes plant and the bush beans are planted before I knew about SFG techniques. Since the plant are still small I decided to follow the SFG's trellis. On the far left, you can see the old tomatoes cages, wondering what to do with them now that I believe that this trellis will work better.

April 23rd, 2009

This is my first Square foot gardening project.
The frame was taken from previous raise bed.
It was 3' x 6'. painted with some left over exterior paint.

After filling up with Mel's mixture - 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 vermiculite.

Planted 3 Japanese cucumbers, 3 lemon cucumbers and 2 egg plants.