Square Foot Gardening

Gardening will be another topic I'll post about at length. Back in the day, just about every home had a garden. During war times, planting a Victory Garden was a family's patriotic duty.  There's a lot to be said for that.

Growing your own food is hugely satisfying! You actually know where your food comes from!

Believe me, you don't need a huge plot of land and a green thumb to get something growing. If you have an apartment balcony, you can grow a tomato plant in a 5-gal bucket! Some of my friends will be posting about their experiences with gardening in a city.

My favorite gardening method is called "Square Foot Gardening". It's a way to grow a lot in very little space. Here is a link to the "official" Square Foot Gardening website where you can read all about this innovative way to garden.

Square Foot Gardening

For me, the beauty of this way of gardening is that you don't have to spend a lot of time digging up a huge plot of land and it doesn't matter what your native soil is like. Square Foot Gardens are in raised beds that sit on top of what ever ground you have.

I just started plotting out where my garden will be.

This house came with a well-established perennial garden, which you can see on the right in the photo above. Note the tall deer fence around it.

My vegetable and herb garden will go next to it. That area has great exposure to sunlight. It's on a slight slope which will help with drainage.  Those black planks you see are the sides to prefabricated raised garden beds. I found them on Craigs List for $10 each.

Next week, I'll show you how I built raised beds out of lumber. It's not hard to do and you don't need any carpentry skills.