Square Foot Gardening, 201

I'm ashamed at my lack of blogging this winter. It's strange...as much as I dislike this season, you'd think I'd be blogging every day just to get my mind off how lame I feel. But no, I really have no excuse.

Now.

I need to get focused. Last year, I started gardening- it was my "practice" year, but I still ended up having a very productive garden. I kept a logbook of my progress so I could see where I went wrong and things I could change. One of the things I realized that I did wrong was that I started waay too late. So, here it is, February, snow still on the ground, and my square foot garden still covered in snow, and I'm actively planning out my 2009 Square Foot Garden.

For those who haven't heard of Square Foot Gardening (SFG), it's an amazing gardening method that combines space saving techniques and organic ideas to net the perfect quantity of food for your family. And with produce costs being what they are right now, as well as this questionable economy teetering on a new depression, who can scoff at the idea of being self sufficient. (Next goal: talk Brandon into letting me buy chickens! Ha!)

Last year, I borrowed my dad's book, Square Foot Gardening, by Mel Bartholemew, and built 3 4'x4' of my own raised bed boxes. This took up about an 8'x20' plot of my back yard, along with a 2'x5' plot along my garage. In this, I planted peas, radishes, a bell pepper plant, 2 banana pepper plants, a jalapeno pepper plant, onions, cantaloupe, cucumbers, pumpkins, asparagus, strawberries, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, potatoes, squash, green beans, celery, tomatoes, basil, mint, and beets. Offhand I think that's about it. I had some failures, which I'll try to fix this year, but I had a lot of successes. And all this was entirely organic.

First things first- the dog(s). I need to figure out how to keep them out of it. Or there will be no garden. (And maybe no dog, if I get mad enough...!) Last year, I put up a simple 2' chicken wire fence that did the trick. But only a decorative 1' edging fence around my asparagus and strawberries along the garage. This was a joke to Penny. I found my asparagus plants that I so tediously plucked asparagus beetles from and nursed back to health laying root up next to a dog hole. And (thankfully after my harvest) I found Penny inside my SFG, working on new holes. I'm not sure my temper can handle much more of that. But dogs are dogs, so I need to do a better job dog-proofing this year.

Secondly, maybe the most difficult thing, is that it takes just about an engineering degree to plan correctly to get the most from this garden. Every plant flourishes in a different growing season. When one is finished producing, you pull it, compost it, revitalize the soil, and start something else in it's place. You also have to take into consideration the size of the plant and the placement of it, because you pack so much into these small squares, a tall plant would block out the sun if planted on the east or west side of a shorter plant. Also something to consider is growing time. I used a 3'x3' square for my squash last year, but it took nearly all summer to grow. Had I been comfortable with this method, I'd have planted a quicker growing plant (maybe carrots or radishes) around the seedling that would be harvested long before the squash were big enough to steal nutrients or sun from it.

Thirdly, I want to start on time this year. I should be starting seedlings indoors soon. And along the same lines, I want to build a cold frame to garden earlier in the season, as well as later. According to the book, there should only be about a month out of the year that you're not actively gardening. (I want to smack myself for not snatching up some discarded windows I saw along the road last fall. But I'm sure I'll find more.)

I also want to save rain water this year. Last year I talked about making a rain barrel to collect rain water for my garden. Maybe even hooking it up to soaker hoses under my SFG to supplement my watering. But I know rain water can be very acidic, and might do more harm that help. But something to try. Also along the lines of minimalism and conservationism, I have been wanting to start composting. I have to admit I'm a little nervous about this, because, well, it kind of grosses me out. But I know it's a great idea, so will at least try this year.

Lastly, my great idea last year was to hang my tomatoes. This wasn't from SFG, just an idea I got from a friend. I took 4 hanging baskets, cut holes in them, hung tomato plants from them, bought a hanging stand, and placed it in the corner of my garden. This might have worked wonderfully, had I not taken it to the next level and added a companion plant (basil and mint) to the top of each basket. I couldn't water it fast enough. Everything died. There were just too many ideas in that hanging display, lol.

So here starts my new project for the year. And probably the topic for most of my following blogs. I would love to hear your thoughts or ideas.