Week 1

I was so impressed with Catherine's documentation (and success!!) of her garden and seeing Kristen's blog and the square foot garden blog, I decided I should document my garden this year too. So here goes!

On Saturday I tilled the garden. It was a bit muddy, but it was a good workout. It was my first time using my tiller (Jared had done it for me before). Jared and Kailey helped me get a few wheelbarrow loads of compost from the front yard to spread in the garden. Then I planted peas all along the outside of about a quarter of the garden.

On Sunday I completed the garden plan. I think I am going to try square foot gardening in a corner and put some of its practices into use in other parts of the garden as well. We'll see. I measured the garden on Saturday and put the layout into an Excel spreadsheet with the things I want to plant.

On Monday I tilled in the compost (my first time starting the tiller successfully on my own or that part would have been done on Saturday while Jared was taking Kailey to a birthday party and Taden was sleeping). And Kailey helped me fill some pots for starting seeds inside. We planted broccoli (much too late, but thought we'd give it a shot anyway...along with the peas that are too late too...), onions, basil, butternut squash & marigolds. I also made a call to the Master Gardeners to ask about the bitter cucumbers and yucky beans as well as gofers; they were nice and are sending me some articles. I am very worried about that stupid gofer because I think he got to my artichoke! And I noticed some mounds out by the swing set. Gggrrrrr. The Master Gardener (whose name I have now forgotten) told me some ways to poison it and also suggested trying the wire baskets around the root ball (she didn't say root ball, but I can't remember what it's really called). But also said a raised bed is good...another point for square foot gardening I guess.

Today we bought all kinds of seeds. I figure I can start a few things indoors with seeds and if they aren't looking very good I can get some starter plants instead. We got corn, carrots, beets, spinach, tomatoes, onion sets, red potatoes, garlic, cantaloupe, bush beans & white potatoes. Some I will start indoors and others I will plant directly into the garden.

I signed up for the newsletter that the girl, Emily, of the My Square Foot Garden site does, but I am thinking I signed up for the wrong zone. Last year just after I set out all the plants I had started indoors, it froze. So I think I will follow her orange plans instead. And fudge a little where I'm behind. :)