Our Square Foot Garden

When to plant?

Dan — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:00:09 +0000

So, now that the garden is built and the compost is composting, it is time to plant. But what? And when?

When we lived down in NC, we had picked up a copy of Month-by-Month Gardening in the Carolinas by Bob Polomski. Well, since I don’t have a copy specifically for Virginia, I’ve decided to use the Carolina version for now… really, southeast Virginia can’t be all the different from coastal NC, can it?

Well, and remember that I’m an engineer when I tell you this, I took some of the information and gantt-ized it: Veggie Planting Schedule.

The Tao of Compost

Dan — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:00:34 +0000

A key ingredient of SFG seems to be Mel’s Mix. The mix is one part peat moss, one part vermiculite, and one part compost. The peat moss and vermiculite, I bought at a local home improvement store (note to self: find a good garden center).

The compost selection, however, was lacking. Besides, it’s just silly to spend money on something that is easy enough to produce with yard and kitchen wastes. Because of that, I went in search of information… yeah, I know that making compost is a simple enough process, but as an engineer trained in math, logic, and science, it’s hard for me to work without a “plan.”

Here are a few links I found during my searching:

Time to buy a plastic drum and break out the two-by-fours and PVC. We’re already saving our kitchen scraps.

Hey! That’s my Garden!

Dan — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:39:20 +0000

Well… here is our first attempt at building a SFG:

And here’s a labeled photo showing what we planted where:

The biggest problem we had was figuring out the spacing. We’re just sort of winging it…

Welcome to our garden!

Dan — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:28:10 +0000

Cynthia and I have decided to start a garden. Given that our small lot is dominated by a pool and play area for the kids, we needed to find something that was more space efficient than a typical garden.

Mel Bartholomew to the rescue! http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

According to Mel, Square Foot Gardening provides 100% of the crop yield in 20% of the space. I’m no gardener, so I’m ready to put SFG to the test!