Square Foot Gardening–The basics

I have never been a gardener.  Yes, I admit it.   But, I love to garden.

I hate weeds.  I hate hoeing.  I hate the heat of the sun in the garden. 

But, I love garden food. 

And, I am trying really hard to fix healthier foods for my family.   So, last year we started square foot gardening. 

If you hate weeds and hoeing, this is the thing for you.

I’m not going to lie and say its easy, because it still takes work.  But it is easier than regular gardening.

Here are a few reasons why:

Weeding is super simple- just pick each one out as they come and no hoeing.

Watering is quick and painless.  I don’t even usually get the hose out.  I just leave a bucket sit next to the garden and dip cups of water out and put it exactly where it is needed.  Plants love sun-warmed water so this is perfect for them.

Planting is easy because each thing is planted in a one foot square.   You know exactly what and where the plants are.  (This helps with weeding if you aren’t sure what is weeds and what is plants.)

Are you interested in trying this?  

The most work you will do is building your boxes and getting the soil ready.  The good this is you only have to do this once.  After that, you just add compost and replant. 

I read a lot of books last year when I was getting ready.  My favorite was Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew.  It was the most informative and easies to understand.

I am going to blog about each step of the process but today I am sharing the Basic 10 steps for square foot gardening.   These are taken from the book above.   You can also check out the Square Foot Gardening official website here.

THE 10 BASICS

1.  LAYOUT - Arrange your garden in squares, not rows. Lay it out in 4'x4' planting areas.

2.  BOXES - Build boxes to hold a new soil mix above ground.

3.  AISLES - Space boxes 3' apart to form walking aisles.

4.  MEL'S MIX - Fill boxes with Mel's special soil mix: 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite. (This is super important.  We tried this in two boxes and just regular dirt and this works so much better.  Don’t waste your time and money on regular dirt.)

5.  GRID - Make a permanent square foot grid for the top of each box. A MUST!

6.  CARE - NEVER WALK ON YOUR GROWING SOIL. Tend your garden from the aisles.

7.  SELECT - Plant a different flower, vegetable, or herb crop in each square foot, using 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants per square foot.

8.  PLANT - Conserve seeds. Plant only a pinch (2 or 3 seeds) per hole. Place transplants in a slight saucer-shaped depression.

9.  WATER - Water by hand from a bucket of sun-warmed water.

10. HARVEST - When you finish harvesting a square foot, add compost and replant it with a new and different crop.

Square Foot Gardening

We have just started getting our square foot gardens ready for this year.  I thought I would re-post what I wrote last year so you could see how much fun it was getting started.  Next week I will be writing about how to mix your own soil and what you will need to get started on your own square foot garden.

Happy Homeschooling (and gardening)!

Hope you enjoy reading (or re-reading) about our adventure in Square Foot Gardening.

It's time for a change. . .

I am so excited.  I have been invited to be a part of something that is going to be a huge hit.  I know it is.  You'll see in a few weeks what I'm talking about.

In the meantime, I'm going to be making a lot of changes to my blog.  I hope you enjoy them.   I will still be sharing our homeschooling ideas and times with you.  I will no longer be a part of the homeschool crew that I was on for the past 3 years.  That saddens me.  It was an amazing time but I feel that I no longer have the same ideas as the company.  But, remember, I've got a great thing coming.    Make sure you come back to see soon.

I am going to focus on sustainable living and how our family learns while trying to achieve this.  We will talk about gardening (square foot gardening mainly), curriculum, chickens, animals, recipes with non-gmo ingredients and all kinds of stuff.  It's going to be called Sustaining Grace.  This is because I believe that without God my life would be nothing.  Thank you to him for everything I have. 

Can't wait to get started. . . . .

A productive day

Usually Monday's are rough on me. It takes me awhile to get going after the weekend. Today has been a pleasant surprise. The kids have behaved pretty well, did the schoolwork that I gave them and are now making up songs on the keyboard.

I babysit one little boy on Mondays. He was really good today and him and my kids had a lot of fun playing hide and seek and singing.

After he left, I made dough for enough homemade bread for 8 loaves. This is a recipe I got from Mother Earth news and we all really like it. You can see it here. It is great because you can leave it in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Of course, ours won't last near that long.
This picture is from their website. I don't cook it quite this done. We like it less crispy.

I then went out to the gardens and picked cucumbers and peppers. I hope I have enough peppers to make some more pepper jelly. I made it about a month ago and we have ate most of it. It is so yummy on cream cheese with crackers. I'll have to get a red pepper to add to mine so it will be pretty. I'm wishing now I would have planted different types of pepper plants. I definitely will next year. I read somewhere that red, yellow and orange bell peppers are really green ones that have ripened more. Interesting, huh?

Hope you are having a great week. I'll post a picture of my jelly when it's done. Thanks for stopping by and God Bless.