Sunday, January 30, 2011

Square Foot Dreams

We're actually underway... my sister-in-law, Jes, and I are embarking on our very first square foot garden. Our awesome neighbors (and dear friends) are allowing us to use their yard to grow our plants. They are tending two of their own 4x4 gardens, while we wrangle ours.

I've always considered myself to have a black thumb, so I'm honestly going into this with pretty low expectations. It would be SO WONDERFUL though, if we could grow and eat our own food!

This was our original plan, and we pretty much stuck to it except that we decided to swap the locations of the carrots and herbs, and we're going to do only one square of cucumber, and add a square of squash.
And here's our cute little box that our neighbor built for us. We filled it with a combination of top soil and a mulch type mix (sorry for my lack of detail!).

And this is what it looked like at the end of yesterday. We're going to fill the empty squares with bell peppers, squash, tomatoes and cucumbers in a few weeks when the risk of frost has passed.
And that's what's happening so far!

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Exited for you. Hoping it works out.

Kathy Stedman said...

too precious! and it WILL bear fruit you will see ..just love it, keep the bugs and weeds out :)

Rachel said...

How fun! It'll be exciting when things start to grow and you can pick them! :)

Matea said...

I <3 your sq. foot garden!! You're pretty much the raddest person ever :)

Cerissa Stone said...

I want to wish you the best of luck in your little garden...we are trying the "sqaure foot" idea this summer, but on a much larger scale- prolly like 40x60!! I cant wait until the weather breaks so we can get started on all of it! Seeing that we are in Ky its going to be a long while still, we still have plenty more cold and snow to get through!!!!!!!!!!

April Emery said...

oh what a great idea! i may have to try this myself!

Unknown said...

Will be planting cucumbers and kale for my juicing. How wonderous to watch a seed sprout and produce all that we need out of the soil. AMEN - a sister blogger, Barb who loves your transparent sharing on FACEBOOK! God bless your family and garden with a bountiful harvest.

brittany said...

the mister and i just started our first square foot garden last year and just ate the first tomatoes. not bad. the beans were very delicious and they grow super fast. the key is growing the corn a bit first, then growing the pole beans to climb up the corn for stability. smart, huh? we made the mistake of planting our corn at the same time, so the beans were taller... the lettuce and broccoli proved to like the florida cold weather. good luck! ants were the downfall of our watermelon, pumpkin, and corn. if you're doing organic gardening, diotomaceous earth works well for bugs and is still ok to have on something you're going to eventually eat.

Meredith said...

Good luck! Here's a tip from our own square foot garden last year--cucumbers, squash, and melons spread REALLY fast--it might be a good idea to plant them next to squares of broccoli, radishes, peas, lettuce, or other early crops--they'll finish before your cucumbers/squash will, and then your cucumber/squash will have more room to spread out.

Good luck!

Sara said...

Furthering Meredith's comment, you might want to see if there is any way you can trellis up the cukes. And maybe start a cage or some way to control the tomatoes right away too. They grow super fast!
I can't believe you have already planted! Under our thick layer of snow, a summer garden feels like a far away dream. Someday we will grow veggies Elliot Coleman style (author of the winter harvest handbook).
We saw you and Dave perform at Bethel College a couple of weeks ago- remember all the snow?
I know this is an inappropriate place to say, but we all love your music. My boys are always walking around humming your tunes (they are ages 12 and 5). They keep quoting "S is for storm trooper", (from you your stories at your show) and this past weekend we had dinner with our church friends the Hetlers. My oldest saw it written on the calendar and thought it said "Dinner with the Hellers" and was super excited! Funny, ay?
Anyway, I love that you are crafty, thrifty and desire home grown food as well! Awesome! Enjoy those veggies. I can't believe how rocky and dry the earth beneath your frame looks! Hurrah for raised beds!

Unknown said...

Praying God will bless you abundantly through your garden as He blesses us abundantly through your music!

kindsey said...

i have an awful black thumb! i tried growing a small strawberry plant & it was a disaster. i couldnt even keep my terrarium in good shape! but i would love love to grow my own food as well. praying it's super abundant!

Jen said...

How awesome!!! I'm going to have to try that out, I grow a veggie garden each year, and I think this way would be way easier:)

http://handmademom.blogspot.com/

audrey.ale81 said...

Raised bed gardens are much easier to tend to, and a lot easier to maintain. My garden was saved last spring from a rainy weekend by the raised concept. Good luck!

Betsysmile said...

Hi! I've found that George Brookbank's book on desert gardening is chock full of tips. NOT that my first garden was a total success, but that was last summer. There was enough of a harvest that I'm excited for this spring and summer to arrive! Happy Gardening :)