My Vegetable Garden

I have been waiting for way too long to be able to share this post with you all, but wanted to obviously wait for convenient timing before giving up all the tips and tricks for having your very own Organic Vegetable Garden! Warning – you will never be able to enjoy grocery store vegetables nearly as much after you taste your own crop. Proceed with caution ;)

My husband and I don’t have a big backyard by any means so we had to really make a sacrifice when we decided to convert 60% of it into a garden. For us it wasn’t a hard decision because of the rewards. Since we live in a relatively newly developed area, our soil was like clay. Unless we were growing cacti, nothing was going to happen unless we did something with the soil. Instead of digging out all the grass and dirt, we decided to build up!

Growing up both of our fathers had enormous plentiful gardens (I was tied to my fathers hip as a kid, so I definitely picked up a bit of a green thumb from him). With the abundance of space we had (living in the country), he would sow seeds into a long trough without a care in the world for needing to optimize space. Obviously, we don’t have that luxury with the limited space – which is how we discovered the MOST AMAZING BOOK IN THE WORLD; ‘Square Foot Gardening’ by Mel Bartholemew.

As compared to a traditional row garden, a Square Foot Garden (SFG) produces 100% of the harvest with only: 40% of the cost, 20% of the space, 10% of the water, 5% of the seeds, and only 2% of the work. It is extremely easy to understand, user friendly/great for beginners, efficient, easy to protect (from pests and weather) and economical!

The basics for setting it up (you will find all of this is much more detail in his book):

Boxes: To build the boxes, we used 2×8 pieces of wood and made each box 4′ (wide) x10′ (long). The length is up to how much space you have, but we kept the width restricted to no more than 4′ because it was easiest to access all the veggies from either side. Any wider would potentially neglect the ones in the middle if you can’t reach them. We decided to make 4 of these boxes.

Aisles: If building multiple boxes, space them 3′ apart from one another to form walking aisles

Soil Blend: Even if you have good rich soil where you live, I would strongly recommend making this soil mix as it negates the need for any fertilizers or enhancements (keeping your veggies organic): 1/3 Blended Compost (we use an Organic Mushroom Compost); 1/3 Peat Moss (if you can’t find this, you can augment with a traditional Triple Mix, just don’t buy the cheap clumpy stuff); 1/3 coarse Vermiculite.

Grid: Make a square foot grid for the top of each box. We put screws on all sides to wrap the string around and keep in place.

Care: Never ever, ever walk on your growing soil! Tend to your garden from the aisles.

Select: Plant a different flower, vegetable or herb crop in each square foot, using 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants per square foot.

Plant: Poke holes for seeds with your finger, add some vermiculite to the hole and conserve seeds by only using a pinch (2 – 3 seeds) per hole. Cover with a little bit more vermiculite and top with a thin layer of soil.

Water: Water with a watering can during germination from a bucket of sun warmed water. If you don’t have a can, you can turn the hose on mist. You just don’t want too much pressure on the freshly planted seeds or it will blow them away.

Harvest: When you finish harvesting a square foot, add compost and replant it with a new and different crop.