So hubby and I (more hubby than me) put together a box out of wood. We just used the cheapest wood we could find. It's semi-rough cut, a little warped. but for $1.25 per piece we couldn't beat it. Then he took up the sod that was inside the box so it would sit atop the sand. It looks like dirt there but trust me it's nothing but freakin' sand that is everywhere here. Then we set the wood down and filled it with good rich potting soil. He added the stakes (I'm still not sure as to why, but
this morning I found kitty prints so I might use them to try and stop kitty somehow, not my kitty by the way) And I used
bamboo that I had left over from last year to make a simple grid. The red orange things are yarn (from my overflowing craft closet) that I used to tie the
bamboo together in a rough 1 foot by 1 foot grid. The first box is 4 foot by 6 foot. Then we did the same thing (minus the bamboo part) over by the fence. This box is 2 foot by 6 foot.
I decided to put in (from top left to bottom right)
yellow pepper,
purple cabbage (they call it red cabbage here),
orange pepper,
carrots,
bush beans,
salad mix (just a mix of different small leaf lettuces),
sweet onions,
zucchinni,
lettuce (mixed again but the larger heads lettuce or maybe not from the links it may be the same thing just different packages, lol well I guess we'll find out),
eggplant,
yellow squash, and
spinach. I've never done the
purple cabbage, or the
eggplant before so that is going to be a double trial there since this is my first step into
Square Foot Gardening (SFG).
So in the little bed I use 2 by 2 areas and made mounds of dirt. I didn't see a need for using the bamboo here because I'm putting the larger plants over here. So from left to right I have
yellow squash,
eggplant, and
zucchinni. I put in three seeds per mound and then I may thin them later if they need it.
So for some dorky reason I didn't get a picture of the garden planted. I will get one tomorrow and replace this one with it. (Changed on 4/7/09) The farthest row will have all
beans in it. One square being planted each Monday. The next row is empty (for the moment),
yellow pepper,
orange pepper,
lettuce. Then the third row (counting toward the bottom of the picture) has
carrots,
cabbage (four plants),
sweet onion and empty. The fourth row has empty,
cabbage, empty, empty. I'm not real sure what I'll plant in all those empty spaces yet but I'll get it figured out. Now the last two rows are going to be
salad mix (the one I think is smaller) then
spinach. I've planted the far right ones so far. I decided that I was going to go ahead and try
SFG this year since I couldn't ever get a decision on if I was going to be able to get a garden plot. One week to the day after putting it in I found out that the garden plots are being redone and that I will now be able to get one! Not willing to look a gifted horse in the mouth, I'll be happy to take both! Now the only question is where will I fit it in, lol!
Remember there is always a silver lining, it just may be very thin so look hard!!
Not much to say about it, other than we're enjoying the salads at the moment. Can't wait for the tomatoes to turn red so we can add them. Squash has lots of blooms on it as does the zucchini and the fruits are finally starting on those. In a couple of days the beans will have enough that I can add them to what we're having for the night, just no enough for us to have just green beans. They'll have to be mixed in (like added to a soup). Check out the pictures below! I took the pictures from my bedroom so you could see how big the plants have gotten. I don't know if the eggplant is going to survive since the zucchini kinda went crazy. (It's the plant on the right. No I didn't do anything special to it. I honestly don't know why they do that to me. When ever I plant the stuff it goes wild on me and we end up with lots of zucchini bread frozen for the winter. Its a favorite with my family so I'm lucky there. But I didn't do anything except put it in an area that I know holds more water than normal. It gets sun for only about half the day. I didn't add any fertilizers, or use anything for bugs either. We're working on animals in science and the habitats of those animal. Our youngest is really into bugs so I can't really kill them. 
The purple cabbage is a first this year but it seems to be happy. There are eight plants in the middle there and I'm a little worried that they're going to crowd each other out. I'm not sure if the carrots are still under there or not. And the same goes for the onions. I guess I'll find out this fall, lol. The beans on the far right side are all happy as well. And as you can see the lettuce and spinach is looking sad since we can't stop ourselves from picking at it. I need to put some more in. My wonderful parsley is in the round container. The chives and oregano keep disappearing (I think thanks to our youngest daughter) before they can really get going. I've put in two sets of seeds and they'll start and then they disappear again, lol.
Our hanging gardens aren't liking all the rain here lately. You can see the yellow leaves on the tomatoes an cucumbers. Although I don't think we'll put cucumbers in them again. They don't seem to be doing very well. The tomatoes all wanted to grow upward and have finally started to turn upside down due to their weight. I think they also needed much more sun. We don't really have a place that we can put them that they would of gotten a lot of sun. I'm glad that we got a plot. I added a bunch of tomato plants out there. Oh well this is the girls science project that goes along with our history on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Well we need to know that just because a science experiment doesn't go the way we had hoped that there is still something to learn. The flowers on tops are beautiful. The primrose on top of our oldest
's closed up because we had yet another rain starting. Enjoy the view as we do!
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