Spring Garden

We started planting our spring garden about two weeks ago. I've been reading "Square Foot Gardening", like a mad woman. I'm already half way through. My plan is to try to have a better garden than last year. I am learning a lot! "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew is a great resource to have.

To go along with the book, I would also suggest this fantastic website... littlehouseinthesuburbs.com. They have a great FREE planner you can print out. After printing the little planner you have yourself a guide book that tells you exactly what to do and when to do it.

that's my kinda book!



We currently have 3 (4x4) boxes.

It takes a lot of planning in the beginning, but I am hopeful that it will get easier the more I learn. I basically am starting from scratch, trying to make sure I have a plan and work the plan.

I learned how to make containers to sow indoor seeds in. You simply use rolled up newspaper.

Find something that is the desired size you want your containers to be. Here I used a spice container as a model.

Then you simply roll it together. Carefully remove the spice container and...

then wet the bottom and fold closed. Fold the bottom like you are wrapping the ends of a cylinder shaped present.

Fill each seed container with potting soil.

Figure out what you want to sow. Sow your seeds in your new seed containers. We put at least two seeds in each container just in case one didn't grow.

Then all that's left to do is to water them. We put lots of water to soak the whole seed container. Once the newspaper was thoroughly wet it stuck together nicely. You just want to be careful when you water your newly sown seeds, that they don't float to the top of the soil. A few days after we did this I noticed one of my seeds laying on the top of the soil, so I just pushed it down again.

We were also able to get our beds ready.

I thought this was a cute picture of Seth and Noah sitting on the peat moss. They were taking a break after working hard at getting that stuff down to the garden.

Here they are spreading the new mix into the box. I love it when they work together on a project. It may not always be fun, but it's good character training to learn how to work together. They learned the importance of having a good work ethic and how when one person doesn't work hard it makes it harder for others.

The weather was beautiful and we were able to accomplish much.



Here we are checking our plans to see which square we need to plant next.



We planted broccoli, cabbage and onions.



I love the squares! They look so neat.



I can't wait to get more planted in the boxes.

I have definitely fallen in love with square foot gardening. Once you figure out when to plant what, it is so easy. My favorite part... NO WEEDS to pull. If you have never tried this method of gardening I would highly recommend trying it. Get the book! Don't try to be frugal. You will use the resources in the back of the book a lot. It will keep you from planting broccoli, which is a cool weather crop, in the middle of summer, like I did last year!!