We’ve taken up a new hobby — gardening! This year we’ve planted a vegetable garden in our back yard. Because our yard is small and sunshine is not plentiful we went with the Square Foot Garden technique. We’ve got three raised beds, each with sixteen squares. Two of our beds are on concrete and one is on grass.
After spending much of the early months of the year looking through vegetable seed catalogs we settled on heirloom seeds from Bakers Creek and Seed Savers. We’re going to attempt to grow:
- a variety of lettuces
- onions
- carrots
- red and yellow beets
- a variety of tomatoes
- a variety of peppers
- peas & beans
- cucumbers
- strawberries
- watermelon
So far we’ve got the lettuce, strawberry plants and sugar peas planted. The tomatoes an peppers are still inside under the grow light.
We’re optimistic about this garden as we’ve never put this much thought into the process. In previous years we’ve gotten a few tomato plants from Home Depot and planted those in the back yard, but typically by early August they’ve dried up and we only got a handful of tomatoes.
At the end of every month this growing season we’ll post an update on the garden project. Does anyone else have any experience growing a square foot garden? We’re really new at this, so any gardening tips will be appreciated!
Those tomato seedlings look great! Much better than my tomato seedlings. My seedlings never get that tall or get leaves that well developed until they are outside in the sun. What is your seedling setup like?
Maybe try a few potatoes. My son loves digging through the ground in the fall searching for them. And they are really productive.
We just have a 2 ft. fluorescent grow light and then the seeds are in Burpee’s seedling disks. I’m not a fan so far of the Burpee seedling disks though because when I go to transplant a plant into the garden the dirt crumbles and it is hard to get a plant out intact.
We’re considering potatoes, if one of our squares dies off this month my husband wants to put in sweet potatoes. (Only because on an episode of Top Chef “Masters” Michelle Obama said they were her favorite from the White House Garden — my husband is such a goof.)
I really like sweet potatoes. I was using the Michelle Obama comment to “sell them” because supposedly they taste fresher from a garden, and that might make you (Sarah) more likely to appreciate them
Thanks for posting this! I had never heard of this method until I saw your post. I have always wanted my own vegetable/herb garden, but I’ve been struggling with how to do it. We live in a rental house.…so while I do have plenty of space, but can’t exactly go digging up the yard. This method would be perfect for my patio/deck, and I wouldn’t have to tear up the yard. Thanks again for sharing, and I look forward to seeing your results!
Fresh sweet potatoes are some of my favorite things ever. And they grow great in the Heights. Good luck with the garden.
This is year 2 of my square foot gardening adventure. I really like it and got pretty good yields last summer. It was a breeze getting seedlings planted this year becasue the soil mix is so workable. Have fun!
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