Square Foot Gardening

So last spring and summer I did a little planting. I grew some tomatoes, peppers, herbs and flowers. I got lazy and let everything die. I told myself I was a brown thumb and wasn’t going to plant anything this year. We had to go to Lowes for some mulch for my husband’s roses. I decided to pick up a few things to plant and we headed home. That night I got online and started reading about the best way to garden. Then I found this on square foot gardening!

From Frugal Dad!

I could do that…my husband could help. We could make this during the week he has off. No big deal and only $50.

So we head to Lowe’s. We were able to find the screws, line, peat moss, compost and seeds (just bought what I wanted to plant.) They were out of Vermiculite and their saw was broken. My husband suggested he buy his own saw…with great big puppy dog eyes. We thought about it but then when they were out of the Vermiculite and I knew we had to go somewhere else anyway, we decided not to. We ended up going to Home Depot for the cut boards but they also had no Vermiculite. I got online and found out Vermiculite is hard to get. Home Depot has it on their site but they will charge you a lot for shipping. The bags itself are not that expensive but after shipping, I was going to have to spend over $50 just for what I needed. Some stores in Nashville and I knew I could call around local nurseries but I really didn’t want to do that.

My husband was able to build the bed for me just fine.

But I still had the problem with the Vermiculite. Now I know I didn’t 100% need it. I read up on some forums. Some people said you had to have it, others said you didn’t. I decided to check the Lowe’s site because I knew they carried it too but the local Lowe’s was out. Turns out the other Lowe’s in Clarksville had 12 bags of it. Yay! So we took a family trip to the other side of town and I bought my Vermiculite.

On Saturday morning, I got everything together, mixed up my soil and started planting. I did end up having to buy more compost as what I had did not fill up my bed. I made sure to buy a different kind as I have heard mixing different types together is a good idea.

I have a cute Gardening helper too. He is really into planting. He says he will help me with everything but the lettuce because they are growing it at school.

We decided we are going to plant all sorts of things this year. It would be awesome if everything grew but knowing how brown my thumb really is, we will see. I think most of the fun will be in trying.  Plus it will give me something to focus on during the deployment.  Right now I go out every morning to tend to things.  It isn’t a lot right now but I know it will get more busy as things grow.

We have some seeds started in the garden and some we have started in little boxes that we will transplant later.

My son also wants to plant an apple tree. From what I have heard, these take a really long time. So if we are successful, we might see fruit by around the time he is 12 😀 Like I said, the fun will be in trying.

I am finding that there is a lot of good information out there on the Internet about gardening. Google is very helpful. I am also learning a lot from The Square Foot Gardening Forum and My Square Foot Garden.

What are you planting this season? Do you have a square foot garden?

* If you are Military both Lowe’s and Home Depot have a 10% Military discount.