How Many Pounds of Potatoes From One Raised Bed?

How many potatoes can you grow in 12 square feet?  Each year we add a little more garden space and are always impressed with how much food you can actually grow in such a small space. This year we decided to grow some potatoes in one of our 3' X 6' raised bed gardens and the harvest was excellent!

We chose to use seed potatoes to start our plants and planted them in early May. Potatoes are a great item to grow in colder environments since you can start them well before the last frost date. Up here in Michigan that is important! Each seed potato can be cut into a few pieces and planted one per square foot. We have had a total of 12 square feet available as this raised bed was also going to have some cucumbers along one side of it.

 

 

After about 2-3 weeks we started to see all of the sprouts coming up and from there they took off! The plants got to a height of about 4' and in Mid July started to die off. This is how you can tell they are almost ready to harvest and you can really start digging them up at this point right away. We decided to let ours die back all the way before harvest just to make sure they got to full maturity.



This has to be one of the most fun veggies to harvest! We got out of gloves and told the kids to get ready for a treasure hunt. Once we cleared away the dead plant stalks we were ready to dig up our bounty. The kids loved this part! As we dug through we were very surprised at how large many of the potatoes were and how many we were getting. All in all we ended up with about 35 pounds of perfect Yukon Gold potatoes.

The next step is to just take them inside, rinse off the dirt, and lay them out on some paper to dry for a few days. Once they are good and dry they can then be stored in burlap or paper bags as long as they have adequate air ventilation and are in a cool, dry, dark place.

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The Invisible Trellis - An Inexpensive Raised-Bed Trellis System

Check out this video to see how to build a very simple and inexpensive trellis for any size raised bed garden. Using some scrap wood that I already had I was able to keep the cost of each of these below $1. These are great for growing peas, cucumbers, pole beans, or any other vining crop.

In our case we have six 6' X3' raised bed garden boxes that were made from free pallet wood. I choose to run a trellis down the long side of each box so that I could maximize the amount of climbing crops I could grow. Our family loves pickles and peas so that will be the main use for them this year. This is also the best angle for the sun so that as the vining crops get bigger they will not block out the smaller crops in the box below.

I started by cutting 3 2X4's into 6' pieces and 6 2X4's into 45" pieces. This will make the trellis about 48" tall from the height of the dirt but you can make them shorter or taller of course. Next I ripped down the 2X4's into 1 3/4" wide strips (cutting each one in half long ways).  At this point you have made all the cuts that you need for six trellis's.

There are many different ways to connect the frames together but I choose to use a half-lap joint in this case. this will be the strongest joint that will withstand the wind and weight of the fruit hanging in the wind here in Michigan. I used a circular saw to cut each joint down 3/4" by making several close cuts at the ends of each board. I then chiseled out that area until it was fairly flat. These don't have to be perfect and if you mess up a bit you can always sand them flat once they are secured together. Check out the video for more details on this step.

Next I overlapped the half-lap joints and pre-drilled some holes making sure things were square before I drilled. Wood glue is used to secure the joints together along with some 1" wood screws. Once the glue has dried you can get them painted with whatever color you would like. I recommend using a deck stain or other sealer so that they withstand the weather.

At this point you are ready to secure them to the ends of your raised beds. 2 1/2" deck screws were used (2 in each leg) to secure them to the boxes. Next, make a mark every 3" starting at the top and working your way to the bottom on the outside of each leg. Using whatever size drill bit you have around (I always break my small ones) drill a hole at each mark at least big enough to get the fishing line through.

I am using 60 lb. test single filament for this step but you can use whatever size and strength line you would like. You can also use string or any other type of cord here if you would like. I chose fishing line since it is clear it makes them almost invisible during the off season when nothing is growing on them.

Start feeding the line through from the bottom hole and work your way up to the top using one single piece of line for each trellis. If you prefer you can also use one piece for each run back and forth but I chose for less hassle and just weaved the single line back and forth through each hole until I was at the top. Tie it off and the ends or tie a knot so that it cannot slip back through and you are done.

This trellis should be long lasting, stand up to the elements, and look a bit nicer than the standard lattice that you could pick up at the store. Plus, these look much nicer when nothing is growing on them which for us up here in Michigan, is most of the year!

Things you might need for this project:

                

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Inexpensive Raised Bed Soil Mix - Fill Your Garden For Less

This year, I challenged myself to fill our raised garden beds for under $20.  Last year, we used Mel's mix to fill our two raised beds and vowed to find a less expensive way for the future. For those who do not know, Mel's mix is a great solution for square foot gardening. It consists of one part compost, one part peat, and one part vermiculite. The only issue with this mix is if you want to do this on a larger scale or with larger raised beds you will spend more money filling the beds than you will recoup over your first few years or gardening! The biggest issue we had was finding a good source of the vermiculite and had to order it online. We also sourced the rest of the fill from local big box stores and bought everything by the bag. All in all this turned out to be over $60-70 per bed that we filled and was way more than we were willing to spend. We knew that this year we needed a better solution and I hope we have found it! I spent a lot of time trying different mixes researching different options and this is what I came up with.

There are three main components of a good raised bed or gardening soil. The first is nutrients, you have to have a good base of nutrient rich soil. In our case we are using a composted manure for the majority and will also amend throughout the year with worm castings and our backyard compost. This provides all of the N-P-K macronutrients as well as the micro nutrients needed for most plants to thrive. Compost is available from local farms, big box stores by the bag, and free if you have your own compost pile!

The second component is something to allow the soil to retain water and also provide aeration to the soil. In our case we are using Spagnum peat moss to fulfill this need. Peat is one of the best things for retaining water and nutrients as well as providing aeration for the soil and roots. This helps to prevent the compost from clinging together and drying out and also provides needed air the roots of the plants. The peat moss was the most expensive part of the mix but since we aren't using that much we were able to still get some benefits of the peat without breaking the bank.

The last main components is something to provide drainage. In my case I chose to use sand because it is locally available, cheap, and does a great job at keep the soil loose and allowing water to drain through. You can get sand from any landscape supply for the best price or by it in bags just about anywhere.

The ratio that I chose to use is 60-70% Compost, 15-20% peat, and 15-20% sand. This gave me a nutrient rich soil that is light and fluffy, does not compact, and holds moisture very well. Only this years growing season will tell the full story of how well this works out for us, but just working with this soil over the past week has me with high hopes.

The total estimated cost for the this soil mix was approximately $ .92 per cubic foot.  For our 3' x 6' beds it cost us around $14.00 to fill each bed.  This is just an estimate and your costs will vary depending on time of year and how you are able to source the sand and compost. This is a huge leap in the right direction for us as we are expanding our small homestead gardening operation this year by quite a bit. With plans to double our gardens again next year this soil mix has the potential to save us a lot of money and provide excellent soil for our gardens!

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Pallet Garden Update and FAQ - How Did They Hold Up?

How did the reclaimed pallet wood garden beds hold up? It has been a year since we have put these free raised beds into action and they have done us well so far. Throughout the last year this project has become fairly popular and there have been some common questions that I thought I would try to answer here.

Will the pallet wood  hold up to moister over the long term? This is a very valid concern and one that I, quite honestly, shared as well. They have only been through one year so far but as far as I can tell they have held up perfectly. I do not see any signs of rotting where the soil has been in contact with the wood and the outside of the wood has aged nicely. Only time will tell the full story here but I would guess we can get about 5 years out of these before we start noticing any issues.





Aren't pallets treated with chemicals that are unsafe for your garden? The wood that we are using from the pallets was all heat treated and this is something you should look for when using it for food production. We also lined the first set of beds with greenhouse plastic since the wood had some oil staining on it we didn't want in the soil.





What soil mix are we using? Last year we decided to try the square foot gardening method with these raised beds. With that came using the Mel's mix soil mixture that consists of 1/3 compost 1/3 peat and 1/3 vermiculite. This is a very nice soil mix however it can get pretty expensive to fill beds of this size and vermiculite is hard to source locally. We ended up having to order ours online  and it was not cheap! In an effort to keep costs down after we had already ordered the vermiculite we ended up probably not putting in enough compost and good nutrients and added more peat as a filler. Needless to say in the end the growth we had was not stellar. We were happy with our little gardens but this year we want to focus on filling them for less and increasing production.

I will have another article soon with our new method of soil fill for the four new pallet beds that I have just built, stay tuned for more on that. We are focusing on locally sourced and bulk materials rather than as much big box store products.





Do you put landscape cloth in the bottom of the beds? This question comes up often and then answer to that is yes and no. With the two original beds I put together I did line the bottom with cardboard before I filled it up. However, I do feel that this is largely unnecessary and I don't think it really serves a purpose.





Would you use screws rather than nails to construct these next time? I was surprised at how well the nails held up with the original two that I constructed and so I continued to use nails with the rest that I have built. The fact is, I suppose screws would hold better in the long run but that brings up the cost significantly since you need quite a lot of screws for each one. I used drywall nails that I had laying around for the first few and some roofing nails for the rest and they seem to hold up just fine.

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Easiest Way to Take Apart a Pallet - Using Power Tools

Ready to get started on some free or cheap pallet projects? Once you have all of your pallets brought home get ready for some frustrating disassembly!

In this video I briefly discuss the method I have been using to take apart pallets to get useable wood. There are many other ways to do this very same thing but this has proved to be the quickest and easiest for me.

The first step is to just lay out the pallets on a flat surface and start making cuts on the inside of the outermost supports. Using a jig saw or circular say is best and you can quickly have those outside supports removed from the pallet. As with any pallet project, make sure you check for nails ahead of any cuts!

The next step is to use a Sawzall or reciprocating saw to free each slat from the middle support. I find this to the quickest way to get the most useable wood as long as you don't mind the nail head being left in the center of the board. Rock the slat back and forth to free up a small gap and slide the saw blade (metal cutting blade) between the slat and the support to cut the nails.

If you prefer to pull the center nails just slide in a pry bar to pop the slats off and then pound out and pull those center nails. Either way works just as well but I prefer to pull less nails!

Using this method you are left with a selection of 36"-39" slats that are ready to be used in any pallet project. Now if you are going to do more finishing on your final product like sanding or planning you obviously need to make sure to pull the center nails instead of cutting them with the Sawzall.

There are many other options out there such as pallet pullers and special pry bars. My suggestions is to take the money you would spend on that specialized tool and get yourself a good wonder bar or used Sawzall instead. These tools can be used for much more than just pallets and are a necessity for any homeowner.

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Where to Get Free Mulch

What is the lowest price you can get on landscaping mulch? Free! We have been sourcing free mulch for our garden beds, landscaping, and trees for a few years now and will never go back to bagged big box mulch! Although they do have some pretty colored wood chips in a bag (what are they using to dye that stuff anyway?) we have found the ultimate place to get the same product for free.

Last year I did a post on dressing up our trees and preparing them for winter and I also did a post on planting our fruit bushes and vines. In both occasions I used this same supply of mulch but thought I would go into more detail on where we are getting it from.



We have spent many years buying bags of mulch from the big box stores spending up to $100 per year to dress up our flower beds and around some of our trees. One day while at our local rustic city park we noticed the big pile of wood chips off to the side. I couldn't believe that they would just pile all that there for anyone to take. I called the city to be sure it was ok to load up my truck and have since made many trips to this park to get my annual fix of mulch.

Different times of year yield different grades of mulch so you have a choice of what you want based on your use. I have noticed that if you go first thing in the spring you have your choice of last years wood pile which has been semi broken down and would be great to sift through to amend garden beds. You also have the years first trimming which is usually shredded pine branches and needles from cleanup around the city and the recent Christmas season (city pickups up Christmas trees I believe). Later during the summer you have fresh mulch coming I each month with varying colors and shades that is perfect for landscaping.



Many people are trying things like the back to Eden gardening method or deep mulch gardening.  There is no need to pay for truck loads of wood chips and mulch when you have access to free resources like this. Some cities may even offer deliver for you for a small fee or even free depending on where you live. This is just another great free resources for starting gardens landscaping with sustainable materials, or just adding to your orchards.



Give your local city hall or township offices a call to see where they put all of there tree trimmers for the year. I'll bet you'll be surprised at how eager they are to get rid of them!

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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 (Mel's 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 don't be like me.  Water your soil BEFORE you plant your seeds!  I know that's 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 didn't 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/






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