Sanderson's Urban SFG in Fresno, California

CapeCoddess wrote:Looks awesome, Sanderson! When I grow up I want to have a garden like that! in photo number three is that a bucket brigade full of wood chips? If so, where did you get those wood chips?

Thank you. We get the plain wood chips at, of all things, a cement ready-mix business that also carries rocks, pebbles and other materials. The chips are common pine/fire for playground covers.

Great job on your garden beds!
Are the night lights solar, battery, or electric plug in?

Hi, Rose. They are electric on a timer. Mel wanted beds close to the house where there is usually a hose for watering and the plants can be easily tended. Little did he know that an electric outlet on the back porch was a bonus. I have had cheap solar lights along the walkway and a few beds as safety points. But, the Christmas lights just cheer up the garden.

I have been brief on here, recently, due to harvesting, blanching and freezing, dehydrating, mulching the beds and building the last 2 compost piles!

I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with much of the hard work.  Two things have cheered me up.  First, I'm going to be using E-Z Straw as mulch next year instead of spending hours chopping up bedding straw.  It's a messy job here on the back patio a which means I have to keep cleaning.  Second, and the most important, is that I am transitioning to bagged compost.  No more runs to the Farmers' Market and hours of chopping buckets of spoiling produce.  No more mowing alfalfa hay and bedding straw with fines covering everything.  No more collecting leaves and the mold attacks I experience.  No more runs to the horse area at Fresno State for horse manure.  No more runs to Starbucks for coffee grinds.  I'm really proud of myself for all of the cages and tumblers worth of compost I've made, turned, testing temperatures, etc.   It's such a relief to be able to stop the harder labor and simply enjoy the SFG beds.  I'll be turning 71 soon, and I think I've done or tried everything in the ANSFG book.

Shade cloth up.  Dragon Tongue beans in the left bed, onions and cotton in the right bed.  I'm getting rid of the 1'x4' herb table top bed.  I want/need more space on the patio.

We installed panels along the west side for the long vines of winter squash and bird nest gourds.

Almost immediately, this appeared!  A hybrid spaghetti squash?

The yellow squash plant bit the dust so there are now white vincas in the small bed.

A garden view.

Another view.

Cleaning up the back patio has been a priority.  I still have a lot to do but I did get everything hosed, much of the tools put away, and the windows and screens washed.  Despite the congestion and clutter still present, I can finally take a wider shot of the BTE tomatoes.  As you can see, the 1'x4' herb beds is just in the way.

And, a wider shot of the beds off the patio in the other direction.  Herb bed photo-bombing.

My "Johnson-Su compost bin using rigid leach field/french drain pipes from Lowes.  I thought a large covered storage bin was full of fall leaves but there were only 2 bags worth.  Hence a really short Jj-Su

Peppers, Snow Fairy tomatoes and eggplant.  

Snow Fairies taken 6-22.  Producing red tomatoes daily.  This is the tomato from which I must save seeds this summer.  

Tomato BTE row.

Lookin' good, S. My gardens have lots of holes, so I'll be replanting, tomorrow -- still lots of summer left to start new stuff.

Sanderson - you have a lot going on there.  Does this mean when I turn 71 in two years I can stop making compost.

Is there a particular reason you need to save the Snow Fairy tomato seeds other than to save money???

Yes, I give you permission to stop composting when you turn 71.

Baker Creek and other seed sites did not offer them this year. BC said they were unable to source them. I got the seeds originally from Audrey, then ordered a pack from BC. They are the first to ripen and last to produce. They are only about 2" in diameter.

I can't believe that July 7 was the last time I posted here!

We have had a few days break in the weather, in the 90"s.  I've been getting up with the sun and working a few hours, then napping during the heat, then a little more work in the evening.  

One thing I decided is no more composting.  Composting for 6 years has been very rewarding.  But, it is now too hard to enjoy.  I'm just going to buy as many different types of bagged compost as possible.  This is my 13th round of compost in the Lifetime Tumbler, one (1) 33-gallon rolling bin full of its screened compost with a second rolling bin from the last of the hot method compost cage, and 3 types of bagged compost.  There is a good compost made in Sacramento that is no longer available in Fresno.  Next trip up there, I will try to get a couple of bags.  It's made from tomato waste, rice hulls and sawdust composted with nitrogen.  Or I can try Whole Foods next spring.




I removed the walking onions from their beds, amended, and planted re-planted a few bulbs and bulblets.   I advertised for free walking onions on Craig's List and got a taker who lives up in the high foot hills.  She is a row gardener but wanted to try them.   I asked her how many square feet she was giving to the onions and she replied that she has an acre!!    


We installed cattle panel over the west side walkway and the winter squash and birdnest gourd love it.  They help shade the hot west side of the house.  Here are my hybrid spaghetti squash.  I wonder if they will have the spaghetti characteristic and the same flavor.



Cotton is blooming and forming bolls.  

That's all I have for now.  Oh, I sold 10 hanging basket frames, around 25 of the pots I bought when I first started SFG and the strawberry mini-towers.  At the same time, it was our turn for the Neighborhood Cleanup by the City.  We set out the 1'x4' table top bed, the frame of a former mini green house, and clay pots.  Poof!  The professional scavengers swooped them up.




Slowly, whittling things down to just gardening with fun.

Wow.... Wish I lived nearby... I woulda scavenged your place too, lol!

I get it, sanderson...I am a single woman, and I can’t do heavy lifting stuff.  So it has to be easy.  My kids got me a compost bin this year as my pile just gets overtaken every year by weeds, so I am giving it a try.  I mainly do coffee grounds, leaves, and kitchen offing’s.  We’ll see!  

I only have my 4x4 and repurposed windowboxes, and the 8 containers for hotties (melons and squash) on the south end.  All I need!

Knowing one's limit is half the fun of gardening.

sanderson wrote:Knowing one's limit is half the fun of gardening.

Not when you can't get more than half of it to produce. The only thing that saves me is a long growing season, so I have time to recover from my all-too-many mistakes.

Suz! NOT mistakes! Learning experiences. It takes time to find what works for YOUR micro-climate in YOUR yard... And what works in your yard may not work in the neighbor's...

AtlantaMarie wrote:Suz!  NOT mistakes!  Learning experiences.  It takes time to find what works for YOUR micro-climate in YOUR yard...  And what works in your yard may not work in the neighbor's...

Thanks, Marie -- I needed that.

I sold the 80-gallon lifetime tumbler to an experienced gardener! The black beast is gone and all I have left is the cubic yard bin. I felt sad seeing the tumbler go, all of 20 seconds. Not doing any more composting at my age is a huge relief. I can't even explain how happy I am. I composted for 6 years and made 13 cubic yards of hot Berkeley compost and 13 tumbler batches, each tumbler batch filling a 33-gallon rolling bin.

Getting rid of composting and deciding to go with E-Z Straw for mulch will greatly reduce the number of work hours for both Ken and I.

Sounds good, Sanderson!  I have set a goal to quit composting on my 80th birthday, so that gives me a few more years.  I've been composting since 1972, and its kind of gotten to be a habit. Ha!

But Sanderson you were my composting inspiration!!!

I love making my own compost but it is a lot of work. If I could find a good source fir buying it I would go that route as well  I don't expect that I will find such a source here. I may have to resort to just piling stuff up and letting it compost over a long time without the effort of turning the pile.

TD, What about making another lasagna coffin? That seemed to work well for you.

OG, I don't really have a choice. The air quality is bad unless it rains. And, every time I work with my composts, I get a deep cough, maybe from the mold or fungi. Anyway, I enjoyed the journey but am hanging up my manure fork.

Next week I will be starting the winter veggies and sowing one bed with Strike or Super Snappy bush peas. I can't believe that I will be removing summer veggies in a month!

sanderson wrote:
Next week I will be starting the winter veggies and sowing one bed with Strike or Super Snappy bush peas.  I can't believe that I will be removing summer veggies in a month!

Ooo, thanks for the reminder -- gonna start peas, today.

Just direct sow.

I need to harvest and do some prepping.  Just one problem.  How in the world did my fore mothers do it!

The compost bin and tumbler have found new homes.  The space looks so empty, but I feel so good about it.  I can't wait until I can get out there to clean up and spread new wood chips.  Also on the plus side, the cage went to a charter school and will be used as part of gardening.  






On the down side, the aphids just killed the winter squash plants that are right up to the neighbor's yard.  Just an unusually bad year for aphids and red spider mites. Not to mention a couple of brazen roof rats that enjoyed dinner every night.  They would just stare at me.  There's only one now, and I think it has moved away.  

I feel your pain on the squash. I have one producing Mediterranean cuke and that's it for any kind of vine crop this year.    No squash, no melons, no zukes, no pumpkins -- just a lot of work for nothing.

A new stage of the SFG garden, replacing the 2'x8' table top bed.  It was built fall of 2014, back when we used only 1/2" exterior plywood as the bottoms.  It started to fail last fall and Ken shored it up underneath to get through the winter crops.  With rain expected Sunday night, we started working on this project Friday.  Then Saturday, light rain interfered off and on, and this evening it was finished.  Ken did the heavy work and I did the slow, tedious work. As I write this, it's finally really raining.

First step was to remove the drip system, the PVC frames (in the background) and the last of the winter plants.

Then, removing the Mel's Mix, bucket by bucket, carefully storing in on clean plastic sheeting.

This is literally the hole that Ken shored up from underneath last October.

Cutting up the bed was Ken's Job.  Demo job!

Leveling the wood chips and laying down cement board.  I keep telling people that SFG beds can be set on a concrete patio so I thought this would be a good experiment.  Maybe 1/2" cement board (not the Hardy Duraboard) would work for preventing pesky roots, tenacious weeds and moles from coming up through the bottom of on-ground beds??

Frame in place.

Using plumber's tape, I made straps for corner and long side cup holders for the PVC frame.

Rolling out the durable weed fabric.

Mel's Mix back in, bucket by bucket.

Final steps of replacing the drip system, the PVC frame and brand new grids, 2 sections of 2'x4'.

Wow that looks great. Well done both of you.