We’ve been trying to garden. Shoot anything grows in Kentucky. There’s no bare ground anywhere. If nothing is planted there, weeds will be there in a couple weeks – it’s supposed to be easy, right?
Well, we haven’t had tremendous success in previous years. Last year, we tried a new technique called square foot gardening, which was mildly successful. We planted the garden in too shady of a spot, so it didn’t do the best, but we could tell the plan would work.
The square foot gardening technique is to do everything in 4’x4’ raised beds that are 6” deep. The soil is an equal mixture of vermiculite, peat moss and compost. It makes for a very loose soil which holds water well and is exceptionally easy to weed. The other idea, is that instead of planting things in rows, you plant things in 1’ squares. Certain plants take 1 whole square, others are planted 2 to a square, other 4 to a square, all the way to 16 per square.
This method makes it immediately identifiable where weeds are, because everything is laid out in such an orderly way. Also, it makes for a very varied bed, with all sorts of interesting things growing next to eachother. Here are some pictures of our garden. Note how each square is laid out and the variation between squares. You can also see where things aren't growing like they should.
Last year, we had 6 beds and tried to grow a variety of things. None of the broccoli, cabbage or cauliflower made it. We had some mild success with the tomatoes. The chard did wonderfully. The beets were fantastic. For a while the peas were doing well. The beans did OK when the wood chuck didn’t get to them first.
The carrots we mostly ignored, but in the end (after they had been in the ground for about 5 months), we harvested them. They went well in the soup we made. We learned several things, one of which was – have good compost. The compost we had was pretty weak, and plant them in good light. I also felt that the 6” depth that was recommended was a little short, the carrots certainly didn’t do well.
This year we made a compost bin, made 4 new square foot gardens that were 8” high and actually found some vermiculite. We also moved the beds to a sunnier part of the yard. I treated the wood with linseed oil which is a natural preservative. We also started lots of seeds indoors in February or so, many seeds didn’t quite make it, so we tried a separate round.
Around this time, we discovered that the chives from last year that didn’t do much of anything had a good winter and just came right up, nice and thick. We transplanted the whole thing and it worked well. We have all the chives we need right now.
I made a fancy compost bin and dutifully put leaves and kitchen scraps in it all winter. It didn’t compost very well though.
I put off planting the garden until we had pretty much decided we were going to stay in this rental property all summer. Then out of the blue, we got a call from the sellers of a property we had made a low offer on back in December. They said they would sell it to us for the amount we offered. I was just finishing up the garden when they said that. Well, we’re buying that house, so I’ll have to move the garden 5 miles, which should prove more challenging than moving it 200 feet with only one growing plant. Still, I intend to give it a try. The new property has a lot more space for gardening, plus it has an established, very happy pear tree and an asparagus patch.
I'm growing several new plants from seed for when we make the new garden - hope it won't be too late.
Compost bins are supposed to get so hot that they kill seeds. You can see from this garden (that has nothing actually planted in it) that not all the seeds in the compost died. Lots of mystery melons in here. I’m thinking of doing worm composting (vermi-composting). For whatever reason, compost wasn’t readily available from stores this Spring. It’s made it complicated to make new mix for our raised beds. Still looking forward to having a garden though.
Well done Levi!
Color (gray scale actually) studies.
