Fall Garden Update (Square Foot Gardening)

I just realized that it's been two months since I last wrote an update about my fall garden.

I still have not purchased Barbara Ellis's The Veggie Gardener’s Answer Book and I'm still a fan of Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening (click here to view all my posts on that book).

The fall garden has been as productive as the summer fruit and vegetable garden (with yellow pear and grape tomatoes, full size tomatoes, summer squash plants, eggplant, and more) and I've gotten used to eaten salad from greens freshly harvested, making stir-fry with bok choy or mibuna asian mustard greens straight from the garden, crispy roasted homegrown kale, delicious baby ox heart carrots, spicy hot scarlet globe radishes, and I'm looking forward to lots of winter squash.

I highly recommend Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, and Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening to anyone considering gardening.

Perennial Vegetables by Eric Toensmeier

I want to cultivate taro to eat here in Maryland and need some advice.

Ans great as Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening is, the fruits and vegetables listed by Bartholomew are pretty run-of-the mill -- no taro or other asian fruits or vegetables!

And while Better Homes and Gardens Step-By-Step Successful Gardening is certainly helpful for learning about gardening basics (fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs, vines, you name it!), the content is also pretty standard.

I've been told to get these books to learn about taro cultivation:

• Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener's Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy to Grow Edibles by Eric Toensmeier
• Taro: Mauka to Makai by The College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Any thoughts?

I already know that people grow taro (otherwise known as kalo and elephant ears) here in Maryland for landscaping purposes, but I want to know whether I can grow it to eat and whether I need to buy a specific variety for eating instead of just landscaping.

Fall Garden with Square Foot Gardening - Updated

My fall vegetable garden is looking great!

The arugula and radish look about ready to eat; the lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, kale, and asian greens (Mibuna mustard greens and Prize Choy bok choi) are all coming along quite nicely. And the winter squashes (Burgess Buttercup winter squash, Uchiki Kuri winter squash, and Delicata winter squash) are just beautiful small plants with large leaves that are growing rapidly.

I’ve also just planted the peas along side my tomato plants (I'm hoping to train the vines up my tomato cage) and planted more of the lettuce, arugula, and radishes alongside my broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage plants -- I'm trying to master companion planting after reading Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening and Better Homes and Gardens Step-By-Step Successful Gardening.

I've also just updated my fall garden map. Take a look:

What do you think?

Fall Garden with Square Foot Gardening

I've just laid out and started planting my fall vegetable garden after reading Mel Bartholomew's All New Square Foot Gardening. Take a look:

What do you think?

Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long by Eliot Coleman

A friend just recommended Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long by Eliot Coleman to me after hearing about my fall vegetable garden plans.

Any thoughts on how it compares to Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting by R.J. Ruppenthal and All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew?

Also any thoughts on these books that I've just heard about:

• Bountiful Container: How to Create Container Gardens of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Edible Flowers by Rose Marie Nichols McGee
• Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch
• Gardening with Heirloom Seeds: Tried-and-True Flowers, Fruits & Vegetables for a New Generation by Lynn Coulter
• Perennials Short and Tall: A Seasonal Progression of Flowers for your Garden by Moya L. Andrews
• The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden by William Alexander

Also, any thoughts on Taro: Mauka to Makai by The College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii at Manoa?

Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew

I've just received a copy of All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew which should be helpful with my fall vegetable garden. So far I'm planting from seed (from Seeds of Change, Meyer Seed Company of Baltimore, and Johnny's Selected Seeds):

• Red Russian kale
• Tom Thumb lettuce
• heirloom Green Deer Tongue lettuce
• heirloom arugula (Roquette salad)
• hybrid spinach, smooth leaf
• Little Finger carrots
• Oxheart carrots
• Snowball cauliflower
• Waltham broccoli
• cabbage
• Scarlet Globe radish
• Sugar snap peas
• Cascadia Bush snap peas

I'd also like to get some sweet potatoes, fingerling and new potatoes, asparagus, and strawberries next year and garlic, onions, and Chinese cabbage in my fall garden this year. I'm looking at:

• Burgess Buttercup winter squash
• Uchiki Kuri winter squash
• Delicata winter squash
• Mibuna mustard greens
• Prize Choy bok choi
• Mustang onion
• Red Wing onion
• Yellow Granex hybrid onion
• Georgian Crystal hardneck garlic
• Georgian Fire hardneck garlic
• German Red hardneck garlic
• Polish Red softneck garlic

And I also want to look into planting taro (also known as elephant ears or kalo).

While my summer fruit and vegetable garden with yellow pear and grape tomatoes, full size tomatoes, summer squash plants, eggplant, and much more turned out quite well without much help -- just Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and Bill McKibben's Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future -- I'm eager to learn more and expand my gardening efforts.

I would welcome any recommendations for books similar to these.

I've heard good things about Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting by R.J. Ruppenthal.