Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

How does your garden grow?



When I was visiting my sissy a few years ago, she had a book laying on her coffee table about square foot gardening.  Have you heard of it?  Check out this cool website for more info.  Basically the idea is simple.  In a large, more traditional garden, tons of prime real estate is being used up by paths between rows so you can walk through your garden to reach all of your goods.  Why not create something that you can reach all sides of?  No need to process the soil that you will be walking on, right?  That's kind of a waste of time, energy, and money.  A 4' X 4' garden is plenty of space to grow quite a number of different things, and really can look pretty if you want it to. 



Our first year of attempting this method, we made two gardens and have since expanded to three.  Something is planted in each square foot of the garden, and trust me when I say that this produces PLENTY of goods for our family.  The soil is rich in nutrients - it's a mixture of peet moss, vermiculite, and compost, all which we've bought locally at a reasonable price.  We've planted tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, green peppers, banana peppers, peas, beans, carrots, lettuce, pumpkins, zucchini, and watermelon.  There is nothing like picking something and eating it, knowing that it came from a tiny seed you planted in the ground with your own two hands.  And the taste of these fresh veggies doesn't come close to comparing to what you can buy in the grocery store.



I think we are on our fourth (or is it fifth?) year of gardening.  I do enjoy the hobby, but I absolutely hate bugs.  Hate them.  I feel like little things are crawling on me for two days after I spend time out there.  GRODY.



Morgan did help a little with all the weeding that had to be done, but she also doesn't get along well with creepy crawly bugs.  Besides, there were much more important things to do.  Like look cute.



And do cartwheels.  Outside of the fence.  Away from the grubs and centipedes that she found.
So, most of our things are now planted for this year, but I want to go pick up a few tomato plants (those just work better if you plant the established plants) and I might just find something new we haven't tried yet that I'll pick up too. 



Do you garden?  Do you prefer flowers or vegetables?  I'd love to do more with flowers, but the pesky deer like to eat them.  So I'm kind of restricted to the perennials that were planted in our yard by the previous owners, that seem to not thrill the deer.  They are pretty, don't get me wrong,  but I'd like to get creative every now and then!

Hopfully I'll be able to follow up with more pictures in a few weeks of lots of green stuff growing here!

XOXOX

NH

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