Tomatoes & Peppers ....

I planted some sweet peppers and 3 varieties of tomatoes (Valley Girl, Striped German, Sungold Cherry) yesterday. I bought some locally-grown organic plants from Sweetwilliam Farm in Upton, and put them into a raised bed with some marigolds I picked up on Friday at Lowe's, on yet another trip back for more organic garden soil!

I can't wait until next year when we will have lots of our own compost, made mostly with composted rabbit, goat and poultry poop!! Speaking of poultry poop, our BABY CHICKS arrived yesterday, too!

What's growing ....

Last weekend we planted our first 2 raised bed Square Foot Gardens, using the formula prescribed (1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite). One bed is 6x2 and the other is slightly larger because it's cut at an angle, so the back is 6' and the front is 8' (it's against a fence).

Tori & I planted these with corn, beans, radishes, several herbs and lettuces, sunflowers (all from seeds) and a few transplants, including tomatoes, cayenne pepper (Chip chose this plant!), red cabbage and chives.

Here are some pictures of what's up as of this afternoon ... (not much, which was a bit disappointing, but we're still figuring out the watering requirements with this type of gardening mix ---it's not the same as with regular soil).
Radishes:

Corn:
(also some mesclun and basil, but the pics are too blurry to see.)

I can't wait for the beans to sprout, and to grow up the teepee we constructed from bamboo poles!

The box we planted today contains garden soil and compost, and we planted cucumbers, summer squash, corn (I'm going to experiment with a THREE SISTERS GARDEN ... I'll add some beans once the corn is up) and we left some empty boxes because I'd like to get a couple more tomato plants, and maybe a pepper (NOT cayenne!) plant ...


Here's the sunflowers from the little plastic cups I planted with the kids at my Library StoryTime 2 weeks ago:
They're now in front of the fence surrounding the garden.

Welcome to our Garden!

I decided to start a blog to share our experiences as we begin our adventure with gardening! After several years of wanting to have a garden, but feeling that we just don't have the space or the right conditions for a garden in our small yard, a friend told me about Square Foot Gardening so I checked it out ~ and was intrigued! I read about it on the website and then borrowed the book from the library, subsequently purchasing a copy of my own.

Last month we built 2 raised beds, then began the search for the 'ingredients' to fill them! The compost and peat moss were easy to find, but the vermiculite was a bit trickier to locate! After trying several farm and garden centers, we finally found what we needed at Weston Nurseries. (We made a return trip last weekend for more ... and they were sold out!)
We mixed the contents of all the bags . . . filled the boxes . . . .
then last week (Memorial Day weekend), we began planting!





We built and planted a third bed this weekend, but this time, after not being able to get vermiculite, just decided to fill this box with some purchased garden soil and mixed in some compost.
It will be a good experiment to see which boxes grow better!



Right now I am sunburned and exhausted, but too excited not to begin this blog! I will post pictures and write more about our adventures as the season progresses ...