Hello from Switzerland

Hello everyone!
Happy to be here. I will attend to the online course on February 5th and I'm yearning about it. But at the same time l wonder how I will it be possible to learn so much stuff in a so short time? I confess I just received Mel's book one month ago.

Anyway I must say I have read quite a lot about SFG in the past 6 months. And that I'm not totally new at gardening. Yes I used the traditional single-row method –which in fact is more multi-rows method here in Europe as I understood from the description of single-row gardening in Mel's book–, but I have been gardening in a 100% organic way with absolutely NO chemical and NO digging! I'm too lazy for that for sure ;-) I followed the rules of crops rotation and companion planting.

I made also my own pest control products based on plants extract like garlic, horse tail, nettle. The only concern with my garden is the clingy, clayey aspect of the soil. It's not that bad, ok, but carrots don't grow in such a sticky earth. So when I learnt about SFG I though that would be the solution to that issue as well as raising productivity.

Having a very small planting area (250 square foot), I almost applied some of the SFG rules without knowing it, I think. I sowed basilica and lettuce between rows of tomatoes, inserted onions in between carrots, I tried everything to gain as much space I could.

Now one more thing to challenge, is the fact that I don't own a car. Guys, I will collect all the material I need for my beds without a car. I still don't know how, but I'm confident I will find the solution to that. I will write and tell you how I in a few days / weeks!

For now it's quite cold here (about -5°C / 23 F), and we are still having snowy episodes, but soon it will be possible to head to the garden and install those famous 4x4 boxes!

Now about becoming a SFG instructor myself: as towns get more and more densified here in Europe, it becomes harder for people who live in urban areas to find a place to grow vegetables not too far away from their home. I think SFG is just the perfect answer to make people willing to start producing their own vegetables and experimenting something different from what they heard about gardening, and that with almost no risk of getting downhearted by too much work.

By becoming a SFG instructor, I also would like to make gardening accessible to people who are not in good physical condition. My aim is to build raised cultivating beds to allow people who suffer from their back, or disabled people to grow vegetables with SFG.

By now the main challenge I see in the process of converting my garden into SFG is where can I find a good mix? or rather where can I find all the ingredients to prepare a good SQF mix? I am making worm-casting compost in my kitchen because outside is too cold, feeding these eisenia with every vegetal waste I can find, just to discover one needs tons of green waste to make a gallon of worm-casting compost!

I hope these few words will set a picture of my motivation and purposes. I'm looking forward to hearing from other participants and I feel I'm going to spent hours here reading all that exiting reviews on that forum!

A big hug from my garden gnome

Karine

Nain de Jardin

Where in Switzerland are you? I've only visited the lovely city of Geneva.

What an ambitious and worthwhile future I see for you. Sounds to me like you need to get a friend (with transportation) also interested and the two of you share sources and supplies. Is there a farmer's market in town where you can make contact with local farmers bringing in their wares to maybe also bring in some manures and straw to your home to start a compost heap?

Kay

Thank you walshevak for the tips and kind support!
You're right, there is indeed a farmer market in town and I could also find farmers not two far from my home who might be willing to help by providing horse manure or stray.
Nice to hear you came once to Geneva! I live in Lausanne, 50 miles away from Geneva on the shore of the same lake. But Lausanne is smaller and much much steeper.

Umfff, by just reading my first post I see i wrote basilica in between tomatoes (LOL)! Of course it's basil I meant not basilica Sorry for my bad English, I'm sure you all have corrected it!

Hello Karine!

Please don't apologize for your English. I've spent a total of 6 years in Germany and 4 in Italy and NEVER became fluent at either language.

When we lived in Stuttgart we traveled to Switzerland several times - mainly to Konstenz, Zurich and Kandersteg. Greens are greener and blues are bluer in Switzerland - lovely!

Once, when my mother visited we went from Stuttgart down to Switzerland, over to Liechtenstein, Austria and then back up to Munich in one day. She was THRILLED that we could travel to FOUR countries in such a short time.

Best wishes on your online certification.

Kim

Welcome, Karine, to the SFG Forum. I'm sure you'll find lots of tips and ideas that will help you into SFG.
Hope to see pics of your garden in the future.
Good luck.

Karine, I forgot to mention. Mel is very big into Square METER Gardening too. That makes lumber acquisition easier in most parts of the world.

Welcome Karine, it seems we have something in common. I am also working on the certification! It sure is fun glad you found the forum! Always happy to see new faaces here, keep us posted on your progress!

Dear SFG friends!
thank you for all your comments. SFG forum is really a warm welcoming place.
To complete my presentation, here some pics of how my garden looked like last summer. At that time, I hadn't heard about SFG, but as you can see, a lot of mess there! I can say I'm not really the single-row obsessed type.

Foreground: carrots, lettuces, green pepper, happily growing together.
Background: kohlrabi in good company of so-tiny-you-can't-almost-see-them celeriac, and then huge sunflowers. Mulch added elsewhere.
Is kohlrabi the right name for this kind of cabbage in English? Raw and sliced in a fresh salad they were simply delicious.
Other picture: red spinach, borage, swiss chard, tomatoes, basil, zucchini…

My garden is a plot that is part of a community garden. Before, this place was occupied by a sterile lawn where it was forbidden for kids to play. We asked the township authorities to turn it into a planting area, and the accepted our request.

:-x
Karine


https://i.servimg.com/u/f17/18/08/69/75/photo_15.jpg
https://i.servimg.com/u/f17/18/08/69/75/photo_14.jpg

Gorgeous garden! And yes, those are purple kohlrabi!

GG

Awesome pics! Thanks for sharing! It will be exciting to see pics of your new square foot garden! GG is right those are kohlrabi! And you borage is beautiful!

Hello Karine,
Welcome to the site.
Khol Rabi is a Germanic name for cabbage raddish which kind of sums it up.
It comes in green or red ,my biggest was just over 125 mm in diameter and was grown in real home made MM . It was as sweet and tender as ever I've had them.

Would you be so kind as to do a writeup on the internet version of becoming a certified teacher please. I for one would love to hear how it all panned out.

Getting your materials for the mix ..well the manures might be easier than you first think .
Years ago when I camped on the banks of Lake Constance in Neyon 9 sp ) there was a travelling circus with all sorts of animals . People were queuing up for the droppings and bedding.

If vermiculite is a problem Mel does indicate in his book to use neat compost instead
Peat can be substituted with chopped composted coir too.

Though from personal experience , I offer that you're better off with the real goods as it makes things so light , easy to use and water retentitive.
Have you found the composting threads on nthe home page menu listing ?

So excited to find all of your story shared here - Karine - and we are thrilled to have you on board as a soon to be certified instructor.

Your garden is gorgeous and looks so healthy - I can feel us all envisioning even how much more glorious food you'll be growing by adding in some of the SFG method!
I can taste the crispness of your kohlrabi - yum!

Welcome, Karine, you certainly seem to know what your are doing, can tell by your results.
I would be interested in your pest control using horsetail; I have tons of the stuff in the area I am in.
I have only passed through Switzerland on my way to Italy, but we did stay overnight. Lovely scenery and wonderful tasting milk and cheese.

Hi gardeners!
here are some news after what seems a very long time since I completed the online certified instructor course in March. All swept up by my enthusiasm, I think I kind of put the cart before the horse. I had much to do (more than I had thought) to put all that new knowledge into real life. Some months and bags of compost later here is some results:


I scattered egg shells in a despaired attempt to keep slugs away from my celeri (not very convincing).



Some weeks later: zucchini (upper left) has become big. Green cabbage has been eaten –by me– and new ones are in (broccoli? I can't remember what I've sowed). Broad beans have been removed. This time I'm using blue granules of ferric phosphate against the slugs. They say they are compatible with organic gardening. What do you think? I'd rather eat the slugs than that stuff even if indirectly in my vegetables.

Another 4x4 bed: I'm looking forward to eating those corns


Have a nice day everybody!

Looks great! I have a question about your first photo, it looks like you have a type of pea there. What is it?

Hello, Karine, from sunny, hot California.  Your garden looks so healthy!   

To answer your question about ferrous (iron) phosphate.  It is approved here for organic gardening.  Sluggo for snails and slugs, and Sluggo Plus with bacillus therengis / BT, for snail, slugs and several plant eating pests, are our products.  What I personally do, and this is just personal, is I sprinkle Sluggo Plus around the outside of the boxes.  For inside the boxes, I put some little plastic trays of bait on top of the Mel's Mix or mulch.

Karine your garden is so beautiful and looks so healthy!  You have done an amazing job!

That's a good return for someone setting up from new Karine  ...well done !

 Tell me , what did you use to stop the Cabbage White Butterflies laying their eggs and turning your cabbages / brassica's into green net skeletons with their caterpillars ?

I've just come back on line after a short break sorting out a funeral and disposal of their effects and have  found that  my brassica's are devastated by the caterpillars ,  they look like green rolled up fishing nets , despite me giving them all a blast of vegetable use insecticide to hopefully take them safely through the  period of my absence .

I feel for you Plantoid. I soaked my collards and kale in BT and even had them under tulle before going away for a week. Had some beautiful kale plants. Came back to lace. Pulled the collards and soaked the kale. The centers are sending up new growth, but I have to stay on top of the BT spray. Normally I would have just replanted the collards (fall transplants are just now in the nurseries) but I'm not doing a fall garden for me this year.

Kay