9 square feet of garden

In this post, I will show you our new garden, which is built along the guidelines laid down by Mel Bartholomew in Square Foot Gardening . This book was introduced to me by one of my colleagues at the Tower Theatre, who is also building his first box this weekend. Good luck, James!

We decided to follow Mel's technique for intensive gardening as closely as we could, in order to give it the best chance of succeeding as intended. There are a few idiosyncratic recommendations in Square Foot Gardening - such as the soil mix and planting methods. Other recommendations follow more traditional lines, such as raised beds and watering by hand. I used money given to me by my parents, Judy and Steve, and my grandparents, Maw-maw and George, for my birthday to finance this project. Thanks!


In this picture, Maddy poses with the bags of various delicious (for plants) goodies that we bought to fill the 9 square feet box that we made from lumber that we bought from the Habitat for Humanity store in south Sacramento. The lumber cost us $2.18, and is about as good as that price might suggest, but we aren't looking to be gardening in this box in 10 years' time. The box was built with tools that Tim gave us when we asked to borrow a screwdriver. Thanks Tim!



The soil mix recommended by our Mr. Bartholomew is 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 composts, 1/3 peat moss, but I like bogs, so we went for a non-peat moss containing soil amendment. I think the end result would please Mel. Mel also recommends blending your own composts, and using homemade compost where possible. Our compost pile is just weeds and bits of asparagus so far, so we bought 2 cubic feet of composted steer manure and 1 cubic feet of worm castings. Our vermiculite is not from Libby, but vermiculite can still irritate your lungs, so we covered our noses and mouths with bandannas.


That bag hasn't got vermiculite in it, Maddy! But I guess the dust could come off the garden still. Way to be safe! Once the box was filled with lovely smelling (for plants?) rotted stuff, we leveled it off, and made a square foot grid using four strips of wood.

Different plants are planted at different spacings, according of the Gospel of Mel. We planted 3 square feet of corn, at a spacing of 36 square inches per plant (four per square foot). We also transplanted 2 chili plants (intended for Peter's Proprietary Chili Pepper Chutney) - a Fresno and an Anaheim. Go California! The chili plants go one per square foot. Also transplanted was a tomato plant of unknown variety. We planted 16 carrots and 16 beets as seeds in a square foot each. Finally 8 lettuce seeds were planted in half of a square foot, with the remaining 8 to be planted in a week or two, to stagger the harvest. We would have done that with the carrots and beets, but we got too excited in the beginning of planting.
Maddy is pretending to be me in this picture, by wearing my cap. Sneaky.

Well, that's all we did, apart from watering everything in. We'll keep you updated with the progress in the coming weeks, as well as showing the rest of our garden.