The Garden

Last year, my mom told us about a book by Mel Bartholomew called Square Foot Gardening. I got the book and decided to try gardening in boxes instead of having to dig through our rock-filled clay. We covered the ground with weed cloth and made the boxes. I didn't have to weed at all. I loved gardening in the boxes. I was able to grow more in the boxes than I was in the rows the previous year.

This Spring, we had a hearty growth of weeds underneath the weed cloth. I had to pull up the weed cloth and pull all of the weeds. We brought in a load of gravel last week and covered the weed cloth. Hopefully this will keep the weeds from growing.

I realized this week that I like the gravel for multiple reasons. We have had three days of rain, and I am still able to walk around the garden without getting muddy. Ellie can also enter the garden. The first year we had our garden, she loved to dig in it, so I was giving her a bath often, we finally had to put up a little fence to keep her out. I also like the look of the gravel with the wooden boxes.

So far, we have planted onions, 4 varieties of peppers, 3 varieties of tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, watermelon and corn. We still have a box full of herbs and strawberries from last year. I am still planning on planting more cucumbers, 4 varieties of squash, beets, radishes, cantaloupe, honeydew, and eggplant this weekend.

One of my favorite things about gardening this way is the ability to grow vertically. I will grow my squash, tomatoes and cucumbers on the trellis' that I made from electrical conduit. It looks so neat in the Fall when the squash is hanging from the netting. I think Mel Bartholomew is a genius for coming up with the idea.

I look forward to watching the garden grow, and hope we will have a good harvest in a few months.