What We Love Most About Square Foot Gardening

We really do like square foot gardening, really.  We get so excited to see new growth and the beginnings of tiny vegetables forming.  The peas dont even make it in the house theyre so good and, yesterday, I lopped off our first zucchini and threw it right on the grill.  Its just a lot slower than growing in aquaponics and we are not the most patient people you will ever meet.  But Im pretty sure weve found the best outdoor gardening option for our family.

Why?  The soil mixture retains water like a sponge.  And I have not had to weed my gardens.  Not once yet.  To me, its a miracle.  I cannot tell you how many gardens weve tried to grow in the past that ended up overrun with weeds and dried up when we went on family vacations.

Before watching my video (riddled with the background noise of dogs and children), Id like to share a few things about us:

1.  We have a small yard in a small subdivision.  It gets even smaller when trying to find a place that gets full-sun all day, our options were very limited.

2.  We have a horrible track record when it comes to gardening.  A few years ago (and at a different house), we spent hundreds of dollars starting a garden and our only harvest was a few measly carrots that looked like thumbs. 

We sincerely hope that this encourages all of you out there to try gardening.  Dont let living in a subdivision, past failures, or lack of time hold you back.  You CAN grow your own food!





This post has been shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, Natural Living Monday, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, The HomeAcre Hop, Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop

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What is Square Foot Gardening A Brief Overview

Our little homestead is located in a suburban subdivision in southeastern Michigan.  That basically means we have a short growing season and barely anywhere ideal to plant a conventional garden.  Most of our backyard is taken up by our pool and the septic field.  Sooooooo, raised beds it is.  But even better than that, square foot raised garden beds.  Why, you ask?  Here is some information that caught our attention and sold us on the idea to be square foot farmers.


Square Foot Gardening is very intensive.  You can plant more veggies in a smaller space than in a conventional garden.  There is also little weeding (yay!) and because the special soil mixure retains water extremely well, we have less of a chance of killing our plants (we need all the help we can get).


Here are the key elements to square foot gardening:


1.  Raised Beds:  Garden box frames should be no wider than 4 feet x any length, and 6 to 8 inches deep.  We opted for 3 x 6 raised beds.  Todd built ours using free pallet wood, click here to learn more about that process. 

2.  Special Soil Mixture (Mels Mix): 

1/3 coarse vermiculite
1/3 peat moss
1/3 blended compost  (your backyard compost pile is the best option for blended compost, otherwise, you have to obtain several different forms of compost)


3.  The Grid

1 foot by 1 foot grid and must be permanent.  On top of each frame place a permanent grid that divides the box into one foot squares. The grid is the unique feature that makes the whole system work so well.

4:  Plant Spacing:  Depending on the mature size of the plant, grow 1, 4, 9, or 16 equally spaced plants per square foot. Choose fruits and veggies that make sense for your family and for the intensive planting style of the Square Foot Garden.

Here is a great resource for knowing how many plants to plant per square.  Numbers will vary slightly depending on which website you use.
http://plantandplate.com/p-downloads/PlantandPlate-SFG-planner.pdf


TIPS

Here are a few tips that really helped me when planning and planting our gardens:

1.  Plan out your garden first on paper.  I planned out our two beds on this piece of paper. 

This helped me determine how many seeds to buy and start indoors.  Which leads me to the next tip,

2.  Start your seeds indoors, especially if you have a short growing season.  We also got a great jump-start on our tomato plants by using the cloned clippings from the plants in our aquaponics beds.  We started out with plants almost two feet tall!  Learn all about that easy process here.  Best way to start tomatoes in my opinion!


3.  Plant the tallest plants on the north side of your square foot garden beds, especially the veggies that need trellises or supports to grow.  This helps the shorter plants get all the sun they can. 


4.  And here is the most important tip, the tip I read and forgot about, and did not follow.  So please dont be like me.  Water your soil BEFORE you plant your seeds!  I know thats a good idea in any garden, but this soil mixture is the thirstiest, spongiest soil you could ever hope for.  It took me FOREVER to water after I planted, especially since I didnt want to wash away the fragile plants I had just planted.


Learn more and meet the inventor of the Square Foot Gardening method: 
http://www.melbartholomew.com/what-is-square-foot-gardening/






This post has been shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, The HomeAcre Hop, Natural Living Monday, Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop

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What to do with mint

Our Mint Eradicator
This past summer I havent spent much time in my garden. I was out of the country for work several times, a family member passed away, and I had a big project that caused any number of late nights.

In the mean time, my aquaponic garden grew like gangbusters. Unfortunately, I let a friend give me some mint. Shes a kind-hearted soul who hates to let any living thing die.

Luckily for me, my daughter acquired a rabbit this fall named Silver. Hes a chinchilla colored rex buck (for those of you who know rabbit terms). Luckily for me, Silver loves mint. So I can pull it out in big handfuls and hell happily munch it down. We have enough mint from this past summer to keep Silver happy for quite a long time yet to come.

My last post was about making emergency lights for Hurricane Sandy. Luckily, our power didnt go out for long and the storm passed us by. I had a chance to spend a long weekend up in New York helping clean up homes in Queens, which was hit particularly hard by the storm.

Hope you have a great holiday season! Ill be back posting about aquaponics again in the new year. Greenhouses, solar heaters, and more!

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What To Do With a Picked on Chicken

What do you do when one of your chickens starts to get picked on? In every flock of chickens there is a pecking order and sometimes the weaker smaller birds will start to get bullied, mean old chickens. We have not had any issues with this until just recently when we started noticing a lot of feathers scattered around the run and coop.

I started to investigate a few days ago and witnessed one of the larger chickens chasing the smallest one around and literally pull its feathers right out! Not just one at a time but bunches at once. I hoped that it would just lay low and heal up and all would be well in the SSL flock. I could not have been more wrong, by the next day there were more feathers and more bald spots on the hen.

I was starting to get concerned especially since it is winter here in Michigan and temps were dropping into the teens at night. Each day I would check on the hen and see that it had bunkered down in one of the nesting boxes; basically hiding from the rest of the chickens. I tried to feed it some scraps of food and gave it water.

Last night I went out to put the chickens in for the night and I opened the box to check on it and noticed blood all over the tail and wings. It was time to do something to help this little egg producer.

After some research and based off of what I have seen once the flock draws blood they will not stop until the hen is dead. There is something about the look or smell of blood to them that makes it irresistible and they will actually eat the chicken alive basically. Now, I know what some of your are thinking, take it to get slaughtered or put it out of its misery. Well, no, not going to happen here. Number one I live with 4 girls in this house and if I wanted to continue to sleep inside I dont think that is an option. Number 2, the meat is no good at this age and this chicken still has a year or two of egg production left so I want to save our investment. And, oh yeah, I dont like to see the little runt chicken suffering!

At this point the only thing you can do is separate the chicken from the flock in some way. In our case, the easiest thing to do is to bring it inside our basement or garage and let it heal up. I had and old dog crate that will work just perfectly. Since our garage is a mess right now the basement seems like the logical choice.

Is it weird that I now have a pet chicken in the house? The answer is, yes! But, it is nice to be able to go down and collect an egg without having to go out in the cold so there is that to think about. Maybe I should move the coop inside too! Dont tell my wife that I said that or seriously, it will happen.

I will give an update on this little hen down the road after a full recovery. My only further concern is will it happen again? I may have to separate the bullying chickens for awhile when I reintroduce this one but either way I will take you along and let you know how it turns out. Good luck to all you chicken owners out there and as always let me know if I can help anyone out there in anyway. Have a good one!

Check out the full video here

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What is Aquaponics

Aquaponics is a system in which aquaculture (the raising of aquatic animals for food) and hydroponics (the growing of plants in water) are integrated to cultivate both plant and aquatic animal life in a controlled, sustainable environment. Although the specific species of plants and animals may differ depending on each system, all aquaponics systems center upon the symbiosis of aquaculture naturally providing plant life with vital nutrients, and hydroponics acting as a natural filter of toxins for aquatic animal life. 

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Sincere Flattery

I spent a few minutes today catching up on favorite youtube channels and blogs. In the process, I stumbled across a video that looked unusually similar.

There was the bulkhead fitting created out of electrical conduit connectors. The standpipe had the Affnan-style flared mouth I figured out how to make out of standard US plumbing fixtures. The bell on the siphon had the same cap and a series of slots sliced into the base, as Id done.

On the other hand, I didnt see a media guard. And instead of using the single 45 degree connector to exploit the coanda effect to form the siphon-starting water plug, the author of the video had a traditional 90 degree connector, but with a 45 degree connector at the end. From a hydrodynamic point of view, the 45 degree connector at that location wouldnt do anything useful. The video creator didnt cite any prior influences on his design, so its not clear if he even knew his "design" was completely derivative of what Id posted. Then again, he didnt repeat my faux pas of calling a standpipe an "upstand." ::blush::

Its not like I do any of this for money or even fame. I really do just want to make aquaponics accessible to the maximum number of people. But it was surprising to see myself so completely copied, if copied imperfectly. Heavens knows Ive learned much of what I know about aquaponics because of the generosity of individuals who made their information available on the internet. But there are a couple of ideas that werent out there before I posted them.

Im reminded of a wonderful poem my mother wrote. In later life she went back to college to complete a Bachelors Degree. In one of her college textbooks, she found her poem, attributed to "Anonymous."

The Gardener
by Pat Chiu

If you were a gardener, your child the seed,
Your task it would be to nurture and weed
way wild things that threaten distruction and strife
and prepare the young plant for the rigors of life.

But a daisys a daisy. A rose is a rose.
The child must be true to its form as it grows.
True to the form from the maker sent
And not to the will of the gardener bent.

There are so many people to whom I owe my understanding of aquaponics. And in some cases they may have been leveraging knowledge from others of whom I never knew. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.

May those whove learned from my little contributions go on to further the journey. Upward, towards more effective and efficient systems, and forward, towards ever-more affordable ways of doing this kind of gardening.

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Simple Suburban Life What Its Like To Be Married To The SSL Family Dad

You know him as the do-it-yourself, gardening, chicken farming, computer geek.  But there are a few things about the SSL Family Dad that you may not know.  

Hes the man of the house, literally.  Hes completely outnumbered by me and our three daughters.  Even our dog, cats and chickens are all girls. He does a great job handling all of us, and hes not above doing a last-minute pony tail, or helping our youngest get in and out of her princess dresses ten times a day.

He says he hates it, but he really loves to shop.  But only at Home Depot.  You see, whenever we go to one of my stores, he stands around looking like the saddest person on the planet.  But send him into a Home Depot to buy a single item, and he never makes it out in under an hour.  Whenever I tease him, he says he has to think about his project, and talk to the sales guy, and walk up and down every single aisle, and plan things out. Thats called shopping, my dear, and you love it.  

He doesnt buy any clothes for himself, EVER.  If he owns anything post-high school, it was either a free t-shirt from church, purchased for him by me, or given to him as a Christmas present from his mom.  He also went from the Army, who provided him with everything he needed to wear, to a job at a company that provided him with uniforms, so he really never found a need to buy his own clothes. Hes the lowest maintenance guy I know.

If I were to sum up the SSL Family Dad in one word, it would be DEVOTED.  Everything he does, he does with everything he has.  Hes either all in or all out once he makes up his mind.  I like that about him, because I tend to be wishy washy.  And after all these years, Ive also never heard him tell a lie, not once, not ever.  Nothing in him has the ability to be dishonest, you can count on that.  Its refreshing, and an unusual quality in people these days.

Hes a loving, committed husband.  On the days I have to work, he makes me breakfast and brings it to me while Im getting ready.  He packs our lunches, feeds the dog, signs school papers, starts my car, hes the glue that holds our house together the days when I have to work.  Hes the glue no matter what day it is.  Even if my roses come from our local grocery store, he makes me feel like the luckiest girl in the world every morning because I get to wake up next to him.  I wish every person could feel the love I feel from him.

Sometimes to thank him, I pour his coffee for him, too..........

Hes the best dad, period.  He loves his girls and everyone knows it.  They know it.  Hes sensitive to their emotions, but hes tough on them.  And when he promises them something, he never goes back on his word.  Ever.  They know when he says something, he means it, and they trust him. Thats huge. 

And holding him together at the core of who he is, is his love for the Lord.  Its the reason he does everything he does.  God is the reason why he loves me, loves our girls, why hes honest, trustworthy, and hardworking.  No, my husband is not perfect, nor is our marriage perfect, but he strives to please the Lord everyday of his life.  And that is what makes him the best catch, and the best SSL Family Dad.

And his favorite team is MSU (in case you didnt already know).

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind" ~Luke 10:27

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Garbage 101 Paper or Plastic It All Depends on What Youre Going To Do With It

We all want to be environmentally friendly and do the right thing for our planet, dont we?  But how do we know which choices will leave the smallest footprint, and which items to throw away and which items to recycle?  Finding the right answers are hard and when you do, they may surprise you.

The SSL Family Dad and I love to watch Ted Talks.  If you havent heard of Ted, click here.  Ted talks are available on all different topics but we seem to migrate to those dealing with sustainability and farming.   One talk we watched earlier this year really changed the game for us, and I just love it when that happens.  I love it when information just hits you over the head and changes the way you look at life forever. 

This talk is so powerful, I think you should watch it right now and then finish reading this article because I will never do this topic the justice it deserves by trying to explain it to you myself.  For those of you who are worried about burning up your data for the month like I would be, click HERE for the transcript of this talk.

And for those of you who didnt have time to watch or read it, Ill recap for you but only if you promise to watch or read it later.  Its seriously THAT good.

The speaker, Leyla Acaroglu, states that "everything at some point comes from nature, and its how you use the material that dictates the environmental impact....what we need to do is we need to learn to do more with less."

Biodegradable materials, such as paper bags, do not decompose in a landfill the same way they would in nature.  Landfills are anaerobic (meaning no oxygen) and biodegradable materials emit methane gas when they degrade. Some facilities actually capture the methane gas and use it to generate power, which is a good thing, and gives us an alternative to fossil fuels.   Bottom line is, if youre going to pick the paper bag but take it home and throw it in your garbage destined for a landfill that does not generate power with its methane gas, then youre not picking the best choice for the environment.  Landfills should be our last resort for items we cannot reuse or recycle. 

Reduce, reuse and recycle.  Sounds so "elementary", doesnt it? 

So the best answer to the great paper or plastic debate is actually neither.  The best option is to use reusable bags instead.  But if you really need to pick one, pick paper.  And reuse that paper bag, and then compost it.

Writing this article has forced me to look at everything were doing now with our waste as a result of this talk we watched, and I have to laugh because it seems that a majority of what we do here at Simple Suburban Living is centered around our trash.  That surprised me, a lot.  But it also reminded me that we are being good stewards of our planet by being good stewards of our garbage.  Here comes Luke 16:10 again, "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much."  Its so true, isnt it?

Weve made some serious changes around our little homestead this year with regards to what we do with our trash.  So this week, well be sharing how our family reduces the amount of our waste that ends up in a landfill.

Were calling it Garbage 101.  (And dont forget to watch that video!)

This post has been shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Homestead Blog Hop

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