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Starting Seeds

In order to have a continuous harvest, you will plant on a contin- uous schedule. But it's very easy. Remember, you're only planting a few square feet at a time. If you have transplants ready, it's very easy to put them in, then give them a drink of water and a little shade.

You can either purchase the transplants or start them yourself, and I've developed a seed starting method that is very simple and easy.

As a n example, if you want a continuous supply of leaf lettuce, you should plant seeds every week. T o have several varieties, start a different variety every other week.

Use inexpensive containers such as margarine cups. Wash and dry them, then drill four drain holes through a stack of them, using an electric drill with a quarter-inch bit.

Fill them with coarse vermiculite, sprinkle on a few seeds, and cover them with a thin layer of vermiculite. Set the cups in a pan with about a half-inch of warm water. The vermiculite will soak up the water and keep the seeds just moist enough t o sprout. Label each container and keep the pan in a place where the temperature is about F. around the clock.

When the first sprout appears, put the container into strong sunlight or under a fluorescent light.

Maintaining constant temperature is no longer important. It can drop at night. The roots can be kept moist by keeping the cups in a pan or tray with about a quarter-inch of water in it.

Drill holes in margarine cups, fill them with vermiculite, and set them in a shallow pan with a little 70-degree water in the bottom. Keep it at that level to keep the vermiculite moist.

When you start your seeds, the temperature of about F. is important. Light is not important at this point, but the minute those seeds start to sprout, the cups must be put in full sunlight. The only other important factor is moisture. The vermiculite must be con- stantly moist, but not sopping wet. Never submerge the cups. Just set them in a shallow pan or tray of water so they can take up moisture constantly.

Transplanting

As soon as the seeds are up, they should be transplanted into four-packs or individual containers. Do not wait until the secondset of leaves branches out, as is recommended in all the garden books.

That is much too late. The plants will become rootbound and will go into deep shock when they are transplanted.

Depending on the dexterity of your fingers, transplant them just as soon as you can safely handle them. This is done by digging around the plant with the pointed end of a holding onto one of the tiny leaves with your fingers. Lift it carefully. If you can take some of the vermiculite clinging to the roots, that is preferable,

and deep enough so the roots of the seedling don't touch the sides.

Carefully lower the seedling into the hole. Don't stuff the roots in or let them hang out the sides. They should extend all the way down into the hole. Then gently fill in the hole with your pencil.

Arrange the containers in a tray with a small amount of water in the bottom and place them in the shade for at least a day or two.

Once the plants are over the shock of transplanting, they can be brought out into the light, and perhaps on the third day back into full sunlight. D o not leave them in darkness or they will try to grow towards the light and will get very leggy by the end of three or four days.

Remember, your little seedlings are still babies: they need care and protection from the sun and wind, from extreme hot and cold temperatures, and from pests. They need warmth and moisture.

Keep a little bit of water in their tray and use a good potting soil mix, which will suck up that moisture.

Growing Transplants

Your next project is t o grow those seedlings into good-sized transplants.

If they have been growing for more than two weeks in the same container, you might add a liquid fertilizer t o the water, particularly if they are the "leaf' type of plant, which needs extra nitrogen.

Don't keep them in these containers too long or they will become rootbound. The standard six-packs will encourage the plant roots to grow round and round, eventually becoming rootbound.

Styrofoam containers with pyramid-shaped holes and open bot- toms offer one solution. These are sometimes called speedling trays.

When they are suspended in air, so that light and air can get underneath the container, the roots will be pruned by the light. They won't grow out into the light and dangle from the container, but will stop growing out and branch out higher up. This promotes extremely strong root growth in the plant, which will transplant very easily.

These containers can also be watered from underneath by setting them in a tray filled with water for a couple of hours. Then they must be taken out, or the roots will grow out into the water, eliminating the big advantage of this type of container.

Transplants can be raised outdoors in warmer weather. If you don't have a greenhouse, you can set up a nursery area with one of the wire frame covers and have plenty of transplants ready to go in the garden every week.

Assure a continuous harvest by always having seedlings ready to plant.

After transplanting, if it's early spring late fall or you're having heavy rains, put a plastic-covered wire frame over the transplants.

This will let in lots of light and air, but will keep the heavy rains off the tender plants. It will also protect them from rabbits and deer and anything that wants t o nibble on them.

When setting out transplants, use the "cup and saucer" method.

Form a shallow depression around the plant as you set it in the ground. This allows water to seep down to the roots. Water imme- diately after transplanting. Some people like to use a manure tea or a weak solution of water-soluble fertilizer.

The next thing you should do, particularly if the sun is going to be out that day or the next, is to provide a wire frame shade cover.

The best time of day to transplant is whatever time you have available. With the square foot system, it's no longer critical to wait until sundown or to start early in the morning. By providing the shade cover and watering immediately, you can transplant at any time of the day, at your convenience.

Sowing in the Garden

What about those vegetables that are sown directly in the garden.

These include the root crops-radishes, beets, and carrots-and vegetables such as corn and beans. Here the procedure is even easier. You divide each square foot either in half or thirds eachway.

Then you make the holes and drop in a pinch of seeds. How many in a pinch? Two or three. Cover with soil and water with a fine spray watering can.

Snip off Extras

Most of them will sprout, and you don't want them t o crowd each other. The minute they're up, use scissors to snip off the extra ones, leaving just one per hole. That way there'll be no crowding, and you'll have no trouble distinguishing your plants from any weeds that come up.

Cut, don't pull up, extra seedlings, to avoid damaging other seedlings.

If you see any weeds, pull them up with two fingers. This gives all your plants a much better start, and, again, they will grow much faster than in a single row garden.

Harvesting

One of the biggest advantages to square foot gardening is that the minute you harvest each square foot, you can prepare the soil and replant it. This gives you a continuous crop, and in many parts of the country you can replant the same square foot four or five times per year.

I like to think that the square foot system is more adaptable to our modern way of life. We get out to the garden about every day to see what's ready. We harvest it, and then we plan our meal around that.

It's like going to a salad bar in a restaurant. Rather than ordering a side dish or a certain salad, you select what appeals to you, and that becomes your meal. By picking whatever is ready, you harvest it at its peak, its perfect taste and perfect size.

Since we're attuned today to eating more vegetables raw, it be- comes even easier to have a variety of raw vegetables from the garden in a salad or as an appetizer.

Cooked vegetables can be either a main dish or a side dish. You can even pickle several vegetables and serve them as an appetizer the next evening. Or eat them as a snack-what could be better for the health of you and your family than to munch on fresh vegetables rather than junk food? You might even get to like them a little better when the harvest varies from day to day, instead of having the same old thing for weeks on end.

Another advantage of this system is that plants harvested before they reach full size don't need as much room to grow. For example, Swiss chard. Many people who read about putting four plants in one square foot, knowing how huge some of those plants can grow, immediately assume they're crowded and won't d o well.

One method of harvesting Swiss chard is to keep cutting the outer leaves.

If they harvest continuously by cutting off the outer leaves on the stalks, they will find that the plants d o very well indeed in the space of four per square foot.

The same is true of parsley. One square foot of parsley usually produces all that a family can eat, and if you harvest continuously, it produces all spring, summer, and fall. When the cold weather sets in, you can dig up your parsley plants, put them in pots, and move them indoors to become houseplants that will produce all winter.

Harvesting under the cash system is a little different, but only because we're looking for more volume. Under that system we might harvest the entire plant of Swiss chard by cutting off all of the leaves, including the medium and smaller ones. We just have to leave the center of the plant still growing so more shoots will come out. More on this in a later chapter.

Replanting

With vegetables that are harvested only once, such as radishes and carrots, you'll replant each square foot as soon as you've completed the harvest.

You d o this by:

1. Adding a trowelful of compost, manure, or peat moss and a light sprinkling of fertilizer, either 5-10-5 or a prepared balanced or- ganic mix.

Turning the square over with a trowel. Remember, the soil has remained very loose and friable because you never walked on it.

3. Smoothing it out with your hands.

4. Deciding what you're going to plant next.

Popping in either seeds or transplants, and watering them.

And that's it. You're all done. It couldn't be simpler, and yet you've harvested, rotated the crops, improved the soil, and made a succession planting, all in a matter of a few minutes. You didn't write out any charts, or study anything, and yet you did all those good things without even thinking about them, because the square foot gardening system is so automatic and so foolproof.

A large mesh makes it easy to harvest tomatoes grown on it.