Square Foot Gardening Update

A couple of weeks ago I put together a blog post introducing you to my family’s new hobby, Square Foot Gardening. To be honest, I was rather surprised by the feedback I recieved. I mean, for a blog filled with these sort of many-man hobbies of guns, cigars, and booze, I wasn’t expecting much the post to get much traction. Since that post did so well, I thought I would continue to provide updates of our progress.

At this point our Square Foot Gardening Raised Bed Planters have been filled with a soil blend. As I said before, I had to cut costs due to an impromptu design change and went with plain old top soil blended with two types of compost and peat moss. The end result is dark, loose, and smells great.

I’ve installed a couple of string grids in one of my raised bed planters (I grossly underestimated how many hooks I would need) and began getting plants into the ground. So far I’m growing Baby Romain Lettuce, Red Onion, White Onion, and Garlic.

I was also able to install and hookup a rain barrel so that we were a bit more environmentally friendly when it came to watering our garden. After one day of light to moderate rain, our rain barrel is full and bloated. I have mixed feelings about adding another one to catch overflow but I don’t necessarily have the room and it may look a bit odd.

Because we have so many animals in the area, I’m thinking about putting in a Compost Tumbler when funds allow (they seem rather expensive for what they are). Ideally it will work faster than a typical compost pile and won’t attract animals looking for kitchen scraps.