My square foot garden

My husband and I decided to give gardening a try (again!). Well, last year's failed attempt wasn't really our fault. I was in a bad car wreck last April and broke 3 vertebrae right smack in the middle of my back. Yeah, it was even less fun than it sounds like. Anyways, we decided to try again this year, and we started early so we could enjoy some of the yummy cool weather crops like onions, lettuce, and carrots.

I'm going to give a quick overview of the process and them break it down into more detail in future posts, so check back next week!

We researched several gardening methods before deciding on the Square Foot Gardening Method. It's awesome. This book is pretty much the gold standard for this method and it was extremely helpful. I highly recommend it. Basically, you build a 4x4 box from untreated lumber (or any size really, whatever works for your space), fill it up 6in deep with "Mel's mix", plant your veggies, and watch them grow! Of course, you do need to water occasionally, but the beauty of this gardening method is that it is soooo much less work intensive than the traditional row-method.

The "Mel's mix" that you use as the soil in your gardening box is made up of:

• 1/3 peat moss
• 1/3 compost
• 1/3 Vermiculite

A word to the wise- Vermiculite (the element of the soil mix meant to retain water) is VERY expensive. If you look around at Vermiculite, you will find that it has a cheaper cousin, Perlite. DON'T BUY EITHER OF THEM. First, Vermiculite is just too darn expensive, and my money tree in the back yard died a long time ago (maybe I should have planted it in a square foot garden! But, alas, I didn't). Don't buy the Perlite because it just doesn't do as well at holding water in your soil.

Substitute oil dry, instead. It is very absorbent and best of all dirt cheap! You can pick up a 40lb bag of it from your local automotive store for about $7. A comparable bag of Vermiculite will run you at least 4-5 times that much.

This is a picture of our garden as of yesterday. Our box measures 4x4 and is 12in deep:

With our grid added, you can really see the prinicpal of square foot gardening at work. Each veggie is planted in its own square foot (16sq ft in our 4x4 box), and the number of plants per square depend on the spacing needed between each plant. Typically, you can have 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants per square foot- but more on that next week!

We have small seedlings in every square, and they are all growing well. Yay!! More pictures of each individual square to come! Also, Sunday is National Tortilla Chip Day. What??? You didn't know???

Well, now that you're informed you need to celebrate properly by making homemade tortilla chips and a yummy dish to go with them. Look for that post tomorrow! Ta ta for now!