My green thumb, or the Black Thumb of Death as I like to call it, began its hibernation faze when I was about fifteen and has yet to really recover. This was the year after I planted a huge garden in my longsuffering parents’ backyard and then promptly discovered how much I loathe weeding. But I am now older and therefore oh so much more mature. Plus, I have acquired a taste for fresh, local vegetables to cook with and a general irritation with paying wads of money for them or driving all over town to the Farmer’s Market. Handy solution: a garden!
Small problem: our backyard is tiny. I was pretty sure this was going to be the death knell for my gardening dream, but then a bunch of my friends got all hung up on this crazy thing called Square Foot Gardening and my garden fantasy was reborn.
The idea is pretty simple. You know how all your seed packages say things on the back like “Space two inches apart in rows eighteen inches apart”? Well, instead of planting in rows, you plant in one foot squares. Instead of planting in eighteen in rows, you plant each seed two inches apart in all directions. So you can fit 36 carrots in one square foot.
You build a 4′ x 4′ box on a pedestal and then fill it with brand new gardening soil (he has some special mixture but we just bought bags). You mark off your box into 16 one foot squares and then plant one crop in each square. Since you have new soil that is separate from the rest of your yard, it doesn’t have so much in the way of weeds and is all full of nutrients plants like instead of whatever old brown stuff you have in your yard. The box dimensions make it so that you can reach to the center of the box from wherever you are around the outside.
We don’t have a decent spot for a box, but happily we already had planters all around the deck that were about 2′ x 10′ on one side and 2′ x 6 on the other. George has been planting stuff in there practically since we moved in, but he sweetly transplanted all his things elsewhere in the yard so I could take over the planters.
Last weekend we planted basil, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, green onions, lettuce, strawberries, and a sunflower before the weather decide it needed to have a 50mph windstorm. Charming! It’s been raining ever since, but hopefully we’ll be able to put in the cucumbers and snow peas plus more tomatoes and peppers shortly. The kids have been enthusiastic (well, George less so until I told him he was responsible for the strawberries), and I’m looking forward to yummy things! Yay for spring!
Rachel
Fiendish friend for effusive fun!
