Prepping Potato Tower Plot

I decided to place the potato tower next to my square foot garden.  I have been thinking of expanding my square foot plot. This work will be the first step towards the new plot preparation.

I measuring off a 4' (1.2m) x 4'(1.2m) area next to my original plot. Right away I ran into a problem. There appeared to be a square foundation from a basketball backstop in the far corner. This won't hamper the area for the potato tower but will need to be removed to expand the garden area.

My plan was to dig down 2" (50mm), cover the area with weed control fabric. I happened to purchase some of the same fabric at a  garage sale last year for $3.00. The fabric is a 4' (1.2m) roll and I am not sure of its length, but I was confident there was enough for this project.

I went into my garage/dumping ground/workshop and found a piece of 2" (50mm) x 2"(50mm) lumber which actually measures 1.5" (38mm) square and I cut the length to 4' (1.2m).  I planned to use it to flatten the area to the same depth.

Once I was near the depth of the plot, I put the 2" x 2" x 4' wood in the work area.  Both sides were deep enough but the areas between needed to be adjusted. I worked the wood back and forth as if I were screeding concrete. Taking soil from the high areas and depositing in the low areas. I pivoted the wood and made an arc from the bottom towards the concrete foundation. I repeated the same action on the other side until the whole area was flat.

I then put the roll of weed barrier fabric in the flattened area. The roll was 4' wide and I rolled out 4' and cut the fabric.

The plan was to cover the fabric with pebbles. Pebbles will keep the fabric in place and won't allow weeds to grow.

The day I was working on this project there was a slight breeze and the fabric was lifted out of the area several times. To keep the fabric in place until I purchase the pebbles, I figured I needed to pin down the fabric with some kind of staple.

I brought two wire clothes hanger from the house. These wire hangers are fairly stiff and can be shaped with just a bit of force.  Without untwisting the hanger at its twisted joint, I made my first cut quite close to the twisted joint. I figured a 10" (25cm) length would be sufficient to make the staple. 10" lengths would give me close to 5" (125mm) for each leg of the staples to tap into the ground.

My out stretched hand from tip of my pinky to the tip of my thumb is approximately 10".

I used my hand as a measuring tool and cut the hanger wire into four pieces.

I took all four wires and estimating the center, bent the wires slightly. If they didn't look close to center I would have straightened them and tried again, but my estimate was close enough.

I finished bending each wire individually. If you are unable to bend the wire barehanded, by all means use the pliers.

I placed the staples on three corners of the fabric, tapping them into the ground with my heavy ball-peen hammer.

On the corner with the concrete foundation I used two staples.

I cut the other wire hanger to make four additional staples, one I used near the concrete foundation the other three I used to staple down the potato tower.

Time to fill the tower and plant the potatoes.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

First Planting 2012 Square Foot Garden Plot

My original plan was to plant by 17 March 2012.  That didn't happen.

On 18 March, I placed seeds into plastic sandwich bags along with damp paper towels to begin germination atop my refrigerator.

Why the top of my refrigerator?  The process of refrigeration involves warm air.  Warm air is blown from the bottom of the refrigerator up the back and exits across the top.   I placed the seeds I wished to germinate atop the refrigerator to take advantage of the exiting warm air.

17 days later, the seeds had germinated.  Each bag was labeled with the contents - vegetable, name, days to fruit and germination start date.

You can see the roots have grown through to the other side of the paper towel.  Not something I wanted to happen.  I had waited 17 days.  What did I expect?  Of course the roots would be long after 17 days.


I originally wanted to use unbleached coffee filters, for two reasons-

1. No bleach would be present that might damage the seedlings
2. The paper of the filters is less porous, not allowing the roots to grow through the paper

Alas, the day I started the germination project, I had no coffee filters in the house.  I made due with what I had, paper towels.

4 April 2012 and I was ready to plant my seeds in the square foot plot.  I began with the following supplies - 

1. a 10 qt /9.5 l bag of organic seed starting mix to use as a bed for the new seedlings
2. a huge stock pot I found in the trash to use as a mixing vessel
3. a 6" /15 cm shovel
4. a supply of water

I dumped the starting mix into the stock pot.

added water to damped the starting mix

enough water that when the mix was compressed, it retained the shape of my hand.

The next step was to stake the garden.  I brought out a bucket of stakes I used last year to create the 1' x 1' /30cm x 30 cm grid within the 4' x 4' /120 cm x 120 cm plot,
a heavy hammer, in this case a ball peen, and twine.

I beat the first stake into the corner of the plot and extended a tape measure to 4' /120 cm and placed four more stakes along the tape measure at each 1' /30 cm increment.

When driving stakes it is important to hold the stake far from the end, so as not to strike your hand rather than the stake.  Another tip is not to hold the stake with an iron grip, so that if you do miss the stake and hit your hand it won't do as much damage or alarm the neighbors with all the yelling and swearing.  Wearing a glove also has the advantage of keeping the blood and broken bones together in a neat package until you arrive at the emergency room.

Once the stakes were set on the first side of the plot, I repeated the same process on an adjacent side.

Again on the third side.

And finally the fourth side.

It was time to begin stringing the stakes.  I tied the end of the string onto the stake with a clove hitch.

Then finish it off with a half hitch to keep the string from untying.

I went around the stakes until the string crated a grid of 1' / 30 cm squares.  There by getting its name "Square Foot Garden"

Each square was ready to plant.  Well almost.  I smoothed the surface of each square, removing any large objects from the surface.  In this case, I removed some of those roots I said didn't need to be removed from the soil when I mixed in the organic matter.  I also removed all large leaves from the surface.  They would smother the tiny seedlings.

I then formed three trenches and placed starting mix in each trench, tamping down the damp mix in each trench.

I tried carefully to remove each seedling from the paper towel in which it was entwined.  Some seedlings didn't make it and broke.  Those seedlings that were successfully freed from the towel were placed in the trenches leaving approximately 1" /25 mm between seedling.

I then covered the seedlings with starting mix and lightly tamped the mix atop the seedlings.  It wasn't necessary to have the leaves of the seedlings above the mix surface, they would find their way to the surface on their own.

I continued from square to square, flattening, smoothing, trenching, filling, tamping, planting, covering and tamping.

I photographed each square with the type seedling planted, for later reference.

One of the squares has half one seedling and half another.

These are the pea squares before I covered them.  I changed the direction of the trenches for no good reason except I liked the design.

Here is the plot fully planted, ready for water.  I watered by hose with the spray head set on shower.  I have a valve between the spray head and the hose.  I find this valve is a much better regulator than the squeeze handle of the spray head itself.  I watered until the plot was thoroughly moist.


My first planting of my square foot garden for 2012 was complete.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Square Foot Garden Plot Prep

I planned to plant my first seeds into my square foot garden on St. Patrick's Day.  That day came and went and no seeds were planted.  There was still plenty of work to do on the plot.


At the end of last growing season I covered the plot with shredded tree leaves that fell on the lawn in the front of my house. Most of the leaves were from Ash, Norway Maple and Copper Beech trees.  I reversed my leaf blower to suck the leaves through the blower where they were shredded and deposited into a 40 gallon/151 liter trash can.  I then carried the leaves to my backyard and dumped them onto my square foot plot.

This is the square foot plot covered with shredded tree leaves on 14 March 2012

I placed an old tarp on the concrete patio surface to keep from staining the concrete.  I then shoveled the shredded leaves onto the tarp.  You can see the depressed soil in the plot.

There were approximately 1.75 cu yds/254.85 liters of leaves piled upon the plot in late Oct 2011

I used two different shovels for this project.  A pointed spade and a square mouthed shovel.  Both have long handles.  I don't like the shorter D handled shovels.  My back pleads with me not to use them.

The pointed spade is used when digging into a pile or into the soil.  The pointed end cuts better than the square end.  The square mouthed shovel is used on smooth hard surfaces, like the concrete of the patio or for straightening/smoothing the walls of a hole.

As you can see the shredder didn't do the best job of turning the leaves into small pieces.  My leaf blower/leaf shredder is over 10 years old and the plastic blade is most likely dull.  These clumps of leaves must be broken up.  The leaves will not break down if they are left in clumps.

I loosened the soil in the plot.  Using the pointed spade, the soil remained in clumps held together with roots from last years plants.  Break up these soil clumps, too.  It is not necessary to remove the roots.

I placed a few shovels full of leaves on an empty part of the tarp.

I then placed a layer of plot soil atop the pile of leaves.  I continued to layer the two components until I had a lasagna-like pile on the tarp.  I mixed the pile until it was as homogeneous as possible.  Making sure the leaves are coated with the clay or sand and no clumps of any kind remain.  I then shoveled that pile into the square foot plot.

  I keep making lasagna piles until I had enough soil to raise the bed about 1'/30 cm above the lawn part of my yard.  If you can call that green surface a lawn.  I then soaked the soil until it was really, really damp.  The fact that the bed is raised, compared to the bed last year, means I won't have the drainage problem I had last May when the rains came for days on end and I lost quite a few of my plants.

To compare the soil structure with my last soil test, I filled the same container 1/3 full of the new soil mix.

  I then filled the container with water, leaving about 1"/ 2.5 cm air at the top in order to help mixing the soil and water into a suspension.

As you can see from these two side by side containers, there is much more organic matter in the container on the right.

I found this little guy in my first shovelful of soil from the square foot plot.  Earth worms will eat the organic matter added to the soil leaving behind nutrients more readily available to the plants.  They also aerate as they borrow thorough the soil leaving channels for water flow.

An interesting fact about earthworms is that there were no earthworms in the Americas until the voyages to the new world with and after Columbus.  The earthworms hitchhiked from Europe in the earth loaded into the ships as ballast which was later unloaded onto the soil in the Americas.

You can hear about that in the book 1493, Columbus Shaped The World To Be, Charles C. Mann

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved