Sunday, April 26, 2009

More Planting Today

Today Marie and Taylor planted the okra (they had to soak the seeds first) and beets. The okra is in box 2, grid G1 and H1. The beets are in box one, grid A3.

The last two grids will have Basil and Squash. The only reason we have not planted squash is because we are looking for the running vine variety, instead of the round plant.



Saturday, April 25, 2009

Updated Garden Tracker

We made some updates to the grid as some things were planted this week and weren't recorded. I've also updated the crop data to the right of your screen.


Box One


Box Two

A friend of mine asked me if it was too late to get started on their own Square Foot Garden. The answer is no as crops grow three of the four seasons. So get started now! You can have radishes in a few weeks!

I See Leaves of Green!

Wow, things are sprouting up all over!


These pictures were taken around 5:00 pm. We aren't getting quite as much sun as we thought we would, but it is still only April. This is box one.


The green bell pepper plant is still the champion! He's growing like a...er...weed. I expect we'll have a pepper in May.


The radishes really came up fast! I can't believe it!


The tomatos are looking strong. No issues with the leaves.


Ok, we must have bought the Wandering Radishes because they are popping up in places where we didn't put them. We do have a three year old, though.


Box two is doing well, except for the cilantro.


The strawberries are putting out new leaves as you can see here. The look very strong. The bad leaves were there when we bought them.


BEANS! Yes, that is a baby pole bean.


The peas sprouted today as well.


The garden is doing well. We still have some empty spots. Marie has planted some green onions and carrots. Here is the updated planting diagram.


This is box one. Nothing has been added, which is a good thing because the radishes are taking over.



I'm not sure where the onions and carrots went, so I'll get Marie to update it again.



Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Sprouts!

Our first seeds have sprouted! The radishes are first out into the sun. The are not much bigger than 4 mm across and bright green. We've had a lot of rain lately so things should get a good start. Its still not really warm here, which is very odd for this time of the year. I hope everything lives. Our green bell pepper is getting quite large! Only the cilantro appears to be dragging behind.

Marie and Taylor planted spinach, more radishes and salad greens. She is soaking the okra seeds.

Seeds are from Ferry Morse

Okra - Clemson Spineless #80
Mesclun Gourmet Greens Mixture
Spinach - Teton Hybrid

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Garden Photos

The family spent the late afternoon planting in the garden. Our neighbor's children brought their spades and helped us, as well. It was big fun for everyone except the earthworm and the caterpillar who both met with their untimely end. And with someone else's "end" when I found out about it.



Marie is keeping records of what we plant so that I can transpose it to the blog. I've not gotten to the point where I drag the wireless laptop out in the dirt yet, but it could happen.
Taylor is beginning to learn about the plants. She has the very important job of watering and planting, but she doesn't like it when she gets her hands dirty. It will take time and some yummy strawberries to change her mind.

Box number one is getting there. It is about 70% planted now and the dark, rich soil is starting to settle.

You can see the one big bell pepper plant and the marigolds coming along nicely.

Both boxes are getting some sun. I've not added the trellis yet.

My guess is that a large portion of the garden will go to feed our resident Blue Birds. There are three blue eggs in the nest and the momma gets quite upset when we go to the garden.

The bell pepper was not looking good when we planted it but it has revived and thrived. I look forward to stuff bell peppers this summer, and some southwestern omelets!


Today's Planting

We planted more crops today. Home Depot was having a $1.00 sale on plants so we purchased two pots of strawberries, a nine pack of tomatoes, a yellow bell pepper, rosemary, and cilantro. Here is how the gardens look now...


Box 1 has the tomatoes, cucumbers and pole beans on the trellis side. I've not built it yet, but plan to in the next week. We still don't have all the "varieties" recorded yet, but will this week. I want to make sure we write them down so that we know what we are growing.


We wound up with more tomatoes and cilantro than we needed, so we through them in some of the empty boxes for now just in case we lose one of the main plants. We can eat the cilantro at any time. The strawberries are very strong looking plants and I hope we didn't plant them too late.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Getting Started

We started the new family project today. It is called a Square Foot Garden. We bought a book that my friend Rex Stutchman suggested and got started. It looks like a fun way to get some fresh vegetables without me having to plow the south forty, which we don’t have to begin with. It cost about $80 for all the supplies (about $5 per square foot) and we assembled it in about an hour. Easy enough.


The first step is to find a sunny spot in the yard and clear and level a place for the 4 x 4 foot box.

With the aid of my right hand person, we built a 4' x 4' box using pine 2x6 planks, screwed together with 3" deck screws. We laid the box on weed cloth. Taylor says "job well done."

Mixing the soil comes next. Because our soil is in very bad shape, the square foot garden works wonders for us. We mixed 1/3 vermiculite with 1/3 compost and 1/3 peat moss.


The book says to use a variety of composts, so we bought several different bags.

Taylor, with the help of her mommy, mixed the compost, vermiculite and peat moss together in a wheel barrow for easy transportation to the box.

Daddy took the wheel barrow to the box and filled it full of the soil, leveled it and soaked it with plenty of water.

Daddy then watered the garden and marked off the 1 foot marks for the cross strips.


With the cross pieces added, we now have an official Square Foot Garden! Marie liked it so much and we had so much extra soil that I build her another one as well.



Friday, April 10, 2009

All New Square Foot Gardening


Written by Mel Bartholomew

Product Details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Cool Springs Press (February 14, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1591862027
  • ISBN-13: 978-1591862024
  • Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 0.7 inches

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Greetings And Welcome!

My friend Rex told me that his family is starting a garden and they are using the Square Foot Garden approach. I told Marie about it and she thought it was an excellent idea for our family to make one as well.

The reason for the blog is to tell you about what we are doing and to document our progress as we go through the seasons this year. We wanted to track the kinds of crops we grow and what we did right and wrong so that next year we'll have an even better garden.