We started planting our garden two weeks ago, and a week ago the first sprouts were seen.  The kids ran in to tell me this morning about how many other things are popping up now – it’s so exciting!

Square foot gardening is so space efficient that I still have lots of space to plant more, and I’m not yet sure what to put in.  But here’s what we put in so far: 6 tomato plants, 4 pepper plants, two zucchini, two crookneck (yellow) squash, two cumber, 2 pole beans from plants, 3 sugar snap peas, carrots, onions, and herbs.  The herbs include three kinds of mint, dill, parsley, oregano, basil, sage, fennel, and thyme.

I found out about a two day plant sale on Mother’s Day weekend, that had amazing prices for all of the above.  It was hosted by an organization that helps mentally challenged adults, and among other things, has a greenhouse where they teach them to garden.  It seems that twice a year they have a huge sale and sell the plants that were grown by them, and the proceeds go back to help those same adults further progress.  The woman in charge told me that people wait all year for it because the prices are so good.  Each plant was a dollar (!), so I bought more from starts than I would have otherwise.  I also got the carrots and onions, which I wasn’t planning to grow.  There were several carrots and onion growing in each pot so I decided to see what would happen if we separated them and replanted them individually.  Hopefully they’ll do okay; I can’t tell yet.

Then we planted seeds: 2 ‘squares’ of bush beans (9 in each), 2 squares of lima beans, radishes, swiss chard, lettuce, and beets.  Pole beans produce throughout the growing season, but bush beans just produce for about two weeks, and then that’s it.  This is the first set of bush beans, and we’ll plant some more in a couple of weeks.  We’re also planning to do a second planting of summer squash so when the first ones die off, we’ll extend the squash harvest. 

We started from seed some cherry tomatoes, eggplant, lemon cucumbers, and peppers and will transplant them if the seeds grow well.  We also planted some marigolds throughout the garden, to keep bugs at bay.  I’m not sure which bugs marigolds work best to keep away, but they look nice!  

Then we planted some squash seeds from a squash we ate.  After planting them, I learned that the non organic vegetables in the store are grown in such a way that their seeds often don’t grow normally.  So I’m assuming that’s not going to work, and will replant something else in that spot.  I’m really amazed by how space efficient square foot gardening is, and hope that we’ll get a decent amount of veggies.

Avivah