Gardening 101

When thinking about planting a garden - there are two main starting points:

1. How much space do you have?  You will want most of your garden in direct sunlight for the majority of the day - there are also many things which will take partial shade (lettuce/carrots/etc).  Garden boxes and containers can be built in just about any size.  Figure out how much space you have.

2. What do you want to grow?  You need to figure out what types of fruits and vegetables you want to grow in your garden.  We started by figuring out what we eat a lot of, followed by what we want to eat but don't want to pay exorbitant prices for, and lastly just what would be fun to grow!  We are very blessed to have a ton of room and have planted just about everything we wanted - if you have a smaller space you will want to pare your list down.

3. Now to build our boxes we used Mel Bartholomew's method Square Foot Gardening.  Things like carrots go 16 to a square, beans 9 to a square, tomato's one per square so you can fit a lot in one 4 x 4 box. 

We bought 2 x 6 x 8 pieces of lumber at Home Depot and had them cut them to 4' in length (they do this for free).  Take them home - pre drill holes in the ends of the wood then screw together with 3" screws.  (Pictures to follow).  To make the lattice on top we bought wood lath in the outdoor garden section of Home Depot cut them in half and attached with small screws and nuts then screwed into the main box.  Lastly we stapled weed cloth to the bottom and placed it where we wanted it!

Then you have your box!  That part is really easy and cheap - our four by four boxes cost about $6 each. 

On Monday I will let you know how to fill your boxes with "homemade" soil which is the only thing keeping my plants alive it is the bread and butter of the Square Foot Gardening method.

If you are really wanting to garden and plan to use containers or raised garden boxes I highly recommend getting Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening book* as it has tons of tips for different situations plus a full list of how many plants to plant per square and the planting and harvesting schedules.  It is a great tool!

Happy Reading,

Ash of All Trades

*Disclaimer:  The links in this post and on my blog may take you to a website where I receive points or rewards for your purchases.  The costs associated with purchasing through one of my links are the same prices you would receive by going direct.  If you do not wish to use my link please head the website directly!