Square Foot Garden Update

I'm in love with my garden...this is the first time ever I've liked gardening.  That guy Mel Bartholomew is RIGHT--Square Foot Gardening is easy (relatively speaking).  If I can do it, anyone can.  I've never ever had a green thumb or any interest in changing that.

Until now.  I was really inspired by the Whole Life Challenge and also the idea of growing my own produce so that we would have fresh, natural stuff and the boys would eventually get to see and understand where food comes from.  It's been a learning experience for me, too.

I planted various types of kale, spinach, lettuce, and chard as well as broccoli, cauliflower, and parsley that I started from seed indoors in March.  EVERY SINGLE SEED planted came up.  There are very specific layouts for each veggie within the grid (broccoli is planted one per square foot, lettuce four per square foot, etc.) so it's easy to tell if your seeds sprout or not because you know exactly where they should be coming up.  The only loss was one broccoli or cauliflower plant (I'm actually not sure which veggie it was!).  The seedlings were looking very leggy and scrawny after starting them inside.  If I start seeds indoors next year, I'll have to rig up some sort of grow lamp system.  Despite their poor looks, I put them in the ground anyway to see if they would survive, so to have only lost one is not bad at all in my opinion.  But we'll see if I can keep them alive!

Anyway, last weekend I spotted a bunny eyeing my plants and I was like, "UH-UH, NO WAY Peter Rabbit" and I went all Mr. McGregor on him.  That same day Carlos and I build our first cage for on top of the grids to keep animals out.  I had intended to do this anyway, but Peter Rabbit spurred us on.

Even though we followed the instructions in the Square Foot Garden book, our first cage is an embarrassment.  It looks horrible.  But rather than throw it out and start from scratch we decided to use it.  But as you can see, it's lopsided and shoddily done.  Oh well.  We tried, really we did.  That's what happens when you only have an hour and a half nap time to get anything done!

Sunday during nap time we built the second cage, which was much easier because we ignored the book instructions and used common sense.

Here's a comparison of the two cages.  The first attempt is in the background.  The second attempt, although it is still nothing special, is actually quite neatly done.  The best news was that we only used one roll of chicken wire (that stuff is expensive!) so we can return the other unopened package.  I could also remove the PVC pipe supports, but since they fit under the cage, I think I'll leave them there.  That way it's extra support for the cage and I don't have to find storage for them in our already way too crowded garage.

 Here they are again:  First one

And second one

I can't wait until some of the stuff is ready.  I can already see the form of the spinach and kale and some of the lettuces.  I thought lettuce was supposed to grow super fast, but it's been slow coming up.  So far the spinach is winning the race.

If I don't screw it up, these two boxes will supply produce for two adults for three seasons.  I'm pretty sure this first year won't be as efficient as future years, but if all goes well, we'll have more veggies than we probably can eat!

I can't recommend the Square Foot Gardening book enough.  It's awesome.