Thoughts on our first season of square foot gardening

   

      

Although there are still tiny greens and spinach and even tinier carrots in our square foot garden, the season's pretty much wrapped up. We cleaned up the yard last weekend and put most of the garden to bed. Here are a few thoughts, in random order, on our first major experiment with the SFG method...

(1) Very low-maintenance, especially weeding. Once we got the boxes built and the dirt/compost mix in, it was hardly any work at all. I'm looking forward to next March when I can stick in seeds and starters and some new compost and get going right out of the gate.

(2) In terms of produce, we had lots of hits: several rounds greens, beautiful big broccoli (too bad the first heads matured while we were on vacation in July), chard, cukes, spinach, snap peas, beans, onions. The strawberries did nothing all summer, then surprised us with tiny red treats in September and October. All of the herbs did well, except for the cilantro (why can I never grow cilantro?), and the dill, which burned out too soon. Onions and carrots were tiny, but tasty.

(3) Also, a few misses: radishes (first batch was great, nothing after that would grow), peppers (red, green, and jalapeno - had a few of each but not as many as I expected). Tomatoes were thinner than usual this year, too. Green beans started out slow but came on in late August and Sept.

(4) I planted a lot of greens and spinach to get a fall crop, but no go. All that I have after 2 months in the ground are very tiny lettuce bits and spinach leaves. October was cold and rainy, so they had no chance to develop at all. Next year I'll look forward to experimenting with a fall/early winter crop. 

(5) Plans for next year: add kale, more chard, more greens of all kinds. Try again with everything else and see what happens. We're also going to start doing our own compost. Anyone with ideas on how to do a good compost heap that won't attract creatures or our own dogs, let me know.

Comments

[D(Jx3)]

This post is pure pornography. I lust for such a garden. And such veggies. Damn!

[Jenn]

We bought a giant rubbermaid-type bin from one of the home improvement stores. I was mostly concerned about the toddler and the smell. This did the job on both fronts. It also seems to be creature-free, and I'm thinking the lid would keep the dogs out too. Good luck!