Square Foot Gardening

It's sunny and warm! Time to plant my little garden - hopefully I'm not doing it too early but I can't wait any longer, it's very nice out today and I'm itching to get going :). A couple years ago I discovered square foot gardening in large containers on my deck and have had great success - the idea is to plant in one foot squares instead of in rows, eliminating a lot of wasted space between rows and being able to cram a lot of things in a very small space. Oh, and it certainly makes weeding and picking easier!

 I made grids out of 3' bamboo garden stakes held together with twist ties, you can make it out of whatever you want or don't use a grid at all - I like how organized and orderly it looks with the grid. After preparing the soil (weed and rake smooth) lay one grid in each of your containers - change how many squares you have depending on how big your area is, I have 9 (1' each) squares in each of mine (so I guess they are roughly 3' square containers). That gives me a total of 18 squares to plant in.

both containers ready to be planted with the grids in place

 I made a list of what I wanted to grow and then made a plan of how I wanted to lay them out. I drew it out on paper first before buying plants and seeds to see how much I needed to get - instead of showing you my hand drawn chart though I went online and found a free square foot garden planner so you would see a much prettier garden design - it was fun playing around with the interactive designer playing around with what plants to put where. Click here for the site I used. Anyway...after knowing where I was putting everything I planted it today and it's already so cute!

I bought some fresh seed packets but also used a couple left over from last year - you are supposed to test the old seeds first by seeing if they will germinate before planting in the garden but it takes a few days to do and I have no time or patience for that...I stuck them in the ground and it is what it is, they'll come up or they won't.

can you see how I did the trellis? It's the 2 red
tall tomato cages in the back with sticks
running between them.

I like to make my own trellising for beans and peas using whatever materials I have, it changes every year - this time I used tall tomato cages and ran sticks thru them (attach the sticks to the cage with twist ties) to give the plants climbing support. Sometimes I make teepees out of 3 tall stakes tied together at the top, or put a bunch of sticks in a row and wind twine between them for support...or just buy some trellis's and save yourself the trouble :).

I also LOVE silly garden crap - gnomes, scarecrows, signs, wind chimes, whatever. This is an easy place to put all that tchotchke stuff, no one really sees the garden and it makes me happy.



















If you don't have the space, time, or the inclination to put in a big ol' garden maybe give square foot container gardening a try - I love it and in a very small space I am growing a lot! I have beans, peas, carrots, beets, 6 tomato plants, cukes, summer squash, sweet peppers, lettuces, and some marigolds. Will keep you posted on how it all goes thru the summer - can't wait for harvest time!

PS: farmer Jill says don't forget to water after planting :)