Planting my Square Foot Garden

Planting is my favorite part of gardening – I like it even more than harvesting the produce!

Every time I dig into the warm earth I’m taken back to my childhood when my grandma would give me a tray of annuals, trowel and half-full watering can, then point me to a section of her flower bed. I insisted on wearing a pair of her gardening gloves – no matter that they were too big for me – and remember how the scent of her lotion would mingle with the cotton of the gloves and the scent of the warm, rich earth. The sound of water being trickled into each hole like she taught me is still the same today as it was so many years ago, as is the hope and anticipation each little seedling represents.

 

During our traditional Mother’s Day trip to the greenhouse for annuals Teacher and I also picked up a couple of vegetable plants and seed packets for the garden. I don’t usually plant the garden until Memorial Day, but after all the work we did getting the soil ready I couldn’t wait to plant something new.

These little guys will hopefully grow into mighty tomato plants and produce lots of tomatoes for us.

 

Hopefully the marigolds will keep the rabbits out of my garden this year. I thought it was high enough they wouldn’t get in but I was dead wrong; last year they thought my garden was a fresh salad bar!

In addition to the marigolds I’ve got broccoli, cucumber, dill, another tomato, peppers, onions, and lots of seeds.

 

Here’s my garden plan. Yes, I know there are some plants outside of the garden; that’s because instead of planting a full square of those veggies I’m going to include some flowers as natural pest control.

I created my plan at GrowVeg.com. It’s a great site that lets you plan your garden the “drag and drop” way, and also has detailed information about tons of plants, built-in crop rotating guides, email reminders, and much more. So far I like the 30-day trial enough that I’m seriously thinking about subscribing.

 

I’ve got to take a moment to show you something else cool from GrowVeg.com: a plant list based on your garden plan. For each plant it tells you how many to buy, how many fit in a square foot, when to plant, and when to harvest. Cool, huh?

 

OK, back to the garden…

It’d been overcast all day, and as I started planting there was thunder in the distance. I wanted to get the plants and seeds in the ground before it rained so I wouldn’t have to water them and got done just as the first huge drops started falling.

I didn’t get a photo of the garden once I was done because I was thinking about dodging raindrops and getting inside before the heavens opened up. But I did get a photo of this…

 

Yikes, I’m glad I got inside before the storm hit! If I’d known hail was on the way I wouldn’t have planted anything. My poor, poor baby plants!

 

Stay tuned… I’m not done planting yet.