16 square feet

This summer instead of planting just tomatoes in my barrel containers I wanted to try something new and big.  My husband and I got a kit at Home Depot and we put together two garden boxes.  We stacked them on top of each other and filled them with dirt.  It sat that way for a long while because I was determined to try the square foot gardening that I had read about.  I picked up some small lengths of wood and made a grid like Mel Bartholomew writes about in his book All New Square Foot Gardening.

5/15/10

  I wanted to try some new veggies, some carrots and beans and peppers so that's what I planned along with wildflower seeds from my daughter's wedding (she gave away as favors), a sunflower plant I got at Trader Joes ( the card said I could transplant it), lettuce, two different kinds and some cucumbers.

6/13/10

6/30/10

Some of the seeds germinated quickly but as you can see some of the squares were empty. It was all very exciting - the miracle of birthing vegetables.

7/9/10

We soon began snipping lettuce leaves and gathering beans to eat.  I love that my kids would go out and pick the beans right off the vine and eat them.  The carrot stems were getting so long but they still hadn't grown an eatable carrot.  No peppers at all yet.

7/24/10

Cosmos wildflowers are getting really big.  Getting lots of beans but no carrots or peppers yet.  I noticed a baby cucumber.  That was exciting!!  The sunflower didn't make it.  I don't know why but it made me sad. 

By this time I still had an empty barrel contain next to the sq.ft. garden.  I threw some squash seeds into it.  In less that 2 weeks I had squash blossoms!

Yesterday I harvested this:

8/13/10

I'm a gardener.