My Mini Square Foot Garden

I’ve been anxious to garden for a month now.  It started in the middle of February with snow still on the ground when I went to a class at a local gardening shop about Square Foot Gardening.  It’s a way of vegetable gardening where you can get  lots of veggies in a small space.   I decided I would give it a try.

2 weekends ago it was beautiful in PA, perfect gardening weather….It was sunny and warm and I got up early and I got right to work.  I stopped at the hardware store & the garden center and came home with a car load of supplies!

The class I took in February referenced a book called “All New Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew.  I bought the book at Barnes and Nobel a week before to decide what to plant and got lots of good tips for how to build my garden.

I call my square foot garden a “mini” because I have a city home with a flower bed in the back and there isn’t enough room for the full 16 square feet that is recommended in the book.  So my square foot garden is a 4 square foot rectangle in my flower bed.

To get started, I constructed my 4 square foot garden with 2-4ft pine board that were 8in high and another 2-1ft pine board for the sides.  I added peat moss, compost and top soil to the box I created to fill it up with nutrient rich soil.  I sectioned off the 4 square feet so I knew where to plant in each section.

I then planted 4 strawberry plants (just the root system) in the first square, 12 carrot seeds in the second square, 1 broccoli seed in the 3rd square and in the 4th square I added a dark bucket, full of water to attract heat and moisture to my homemade greenhouse during the early spring when the temperatures are still a bit cold.

Last I used plumber tubing (yep, I don’t know what it’s called, I just went to the right isle in the hardware store and pointed to what I needed)… and I made two arches and put heavy duty painter plastic over the arches to keep the heat from the sun in my greenhouse during the night.

So I have been watering my veggies with a mister and dreaming about eating them in the weeks to come.  In just 7 days I have already gotten a strawberry sprout peaking out of the soil and a broccoli sprout too!  Its quite encouraging but since this is my first try, if I don’t succeed, I’ll just plant seedlings in early may and try again.

The great thing about the book is that it tells you how long each veggie will take to get to harvest.  When these spring plants are done,  I’ll be planting a cucumber vine where the bucket is now and peppers and spinach.  The strawberries can stay in all season… They are my favorite!

I’ll keep you posted as the season progresses.