The Beginning

With a recent diet change and stronger focus on eating healthy, I decided to start a garden. I've wanted one for a long time, but recently found the book All New Square Foot Gardening. With this method, it finally seemed possible.....not so overwhelming. On 09/04/09, my dear hubby helped us build the boxes that we would need. It was a family affair and we started with a 4'x4' box and a 5'x2' box.






Next, we needed the soil. With the Square Foot Gardening ("SFG") method, you use 1/3 Vermiculite, 1/3 Peat Moss and 1/3 Blended Compost. This is known as "Mel's Mix" in SFG. I bought all of my products at Home Depot and A&P Nursery. After mixing all of the ingredients together, I put 4" on straw in my boxes and then filled them up with Mel's Mix.

On 09/19/09, I finally began planting. I started with two 1-pint tomato plants (a Husky Red Cherry and a Patio), one 1-gallon Patio tomato plant, and one 1-gallog bell pepper plant. The rest of the garden has been started from seed. In the 5'x2' box, I planted the small tomato plants, green beans, Sugar Snap Peas, Little Marvel Peas, Alaska Peas, Cauliflower, Broccoli, and Brussel Sprouts. In the 4'x4' box, I planted my larger transplants (Patio Tomato and Bell Peppers) as well as salad cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, iceberg lettuce, green leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, bibb lettuce, parsnips, and yellow squash. The kids also planted some snapdragon flowers.