Square-Foot Gardening

Back in April I met a friend of a friend who has now become my friend... confused? Her name is Jessica and she is a such a neat lady! The first time I met her I was at her house and she showed me her square-foot garden and told me all about the fruits and vegetables that she's harvested from only 16 square-feet. I was shocked and intrigued at the same time. The idea of being self sufficient is scary, my family is so far from it! We would be in serious trouble if we were no longer able to go to the store and buy our food.

Jessica introduced me to the book, "All New Square-Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew.

I went out and bought it the next week! This man is a genius! He figured out that most plants only need 6 inches of soil to grow. He also came up with the perfect mix for soil, 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite and 1/3 compost... that means no more pulling weeds!! So we built our little garden, put in the soil, made a grid and planted the seeds.

Of course, now we are in the waiting and watering stage. Everyday I go out at about 10 or 11 (after the water in the hose is warm from the sun) and I water my cute little garden. I planted corn, summer squash, cilantro, basil, peppers, onions and lettuce.

Here is my garden 3 weeks after we built it.

The corn, basil and lettuce sprouted.

I didn't plant all my seeds at once because I wasn't sure about the spacing for my squash and onions. I ended up moving my cilantro (I had to replant seeds) and planting my onions and squash at the same time.

Due to all the rain over the last 4 days everything in my garden has sprouted and is doing well! It did hail this weekend, so my amazing husband went out and covered my garden with a tarp every time the weather turned bad. My corn took a beating, but I'm hoping that over the next few days it will perk back up!

This is my garden now!! You can see the corn in the top left boxes, the lettuce is in the bottom left and the summer squash is the 3 row over and 2nd square down... everything else is too small to see from so far away. It's so gratifying to watch as these tiny seeds become plants! I'm sure the first time I taste food from my own garden it will be pretty wonderful!