Today 6/3/13

What made me smile today:

I went to a baseball game and a father with 2 boys was sitting about 3 rows ahead of us. During the national anthem he made sure they stood still. After smacking one on the head to be quiet, the father then motioned the boy to follow his example and put his left hand over his upper right chest.

I guess it's the thought that counts.

Today

Watched a little girl who was probably a young 3 with her father in Lowe's. She was carrying a plunger that was about 2 inches shorter than she was, a hook which I thought was dangerous to give a kid, and a bag of unopened Doritos. It was all she could do to keep hold of everything. She was oblivious to anyone around as she sauntered following her father to the checkout. She was enjoying seeing anything at her eye level--the Energizer bunny on a display, the big keys pictured on the key maker--and made a comment about everything she saw to no one.

Her father kept turning around, "Laura, come on."
"OK."
"Laura, hurry."
"OK."
"Come on, Laura."
"I'm coming."

She reminded me of a niece and I smiled.

Square Foot Garden pt. 3

 

This is the current state of the square foot garden. I've made a few additions. I was using tomato cages I made in Michigan out of pvc, but I brought only 2. The trellis is official SFG but I had assumed it would be expensive to do and felt I'd spent enough on the boxes and mix. However, the electrical conduit, rebar, and nylon trellis roping was actually quite cheap.

 

 

I had a lovely purple pepper forming when it was suddenly gone. Apparently the abundant number of rabbits in the neighborhood started looking at my garden as a smorgasbord. I then added the rabbit fencing with the stakes at the corner. It is not SFG official.

 

I have five tomato plants in with one being a cherry tomato. I had planted a cherry tomato in a pot earlier but now realize it is a yellow tomato. In my mind tomatoes are meant to be red. I also have four pepper plants--a green, a yellow, and orange, and a purple. Two squares have beans (9 per square) and 6 squares have okra (1 per square).

 

I also added four zinnias as I thought they looked so nice at the nursery and I like the color.

 

Square Foot Gardening Pt. 2

The mix is mixed and placed in the boxes and the tomatoes and peppers are planted.

What I have learned.
1. "Mel's Mix" is sold pre-mixed at Home Depot. For the cost of the 3 items (peat moss, vermiculite, and compost), the time to mix, and the effort to mix, I think it is worth buying the pre-mix.
2. The book says to put the 3 items on a tarp and pull corner to corner to turn it over and get a good mix. This is heavy to do. I got it done, but for the second box I ended up turning a lot of it with a shovel.
3. There is a reason the book says to use a tarp. I used a plastic dropcloth and on the stony patio this ended up not working so well. It also ripped with the heaviness of the mix.
4. It was heavy to drag the mix to the box and try to get it in the boxes.
5. It would be better to put the grid on after filling with the mix.

Most important things I learned:
6. I'm all prepared to help others build and fill their boxes.
7. I had a lot of fun in the "dirt" today!

Square Foot Gardening Pt. 1

With a smaller back yard I am making a switch to gardening this year and trying the square foot gardening (SFG) method. I am not completed but wanted to share what I've done so far as I'm very excited about it.

Here are most of the supplies ready to go.

 



 Maybe not a conventional way of doing so but here I'm building one of two 4x4 boxes. I was working on it alone and wasn't sure of how to do it but this worked for me.

 



 This is one box completed. The author says if you don't have the grid it isn't really SFG.

Saturday I leveled out part of the yard, put down the landscape fabric, and placed both boxes.

The next step is to make the "soil" mix, but all of the items are dry so the book recommends not doing it on a windy day. Of course, now that I'm ready to mix it we are having 15-25 mile winds with higher gusts so am having to wait to mix it. I may end up mixing it in the garage but then that means making multiple trips to the backyard with 5 gallon buckets of the mix so not real excited about that.

More updates coming as the process continues.