My first garden was a REAL learning experience. Luckily I started with a small 10 X 15 ft garden, or I'd have had many more problems. I learned a lot, with minimal hassle, so that's all good.
I already have plans for a completely different 2013 GARDEN. My sister suggested SQUARE FOOT GARDENING. I got a book and read about it and it makes PERFECT SENSE. The main problems with "Farm Style Gardening" is it wastes water, wastes soil (you need wide paths) and it tends to produce more than you can possibly use and not in a timely fashion.
That was what I experienced during my first attempt with 2012 GARDEN . First we got several dozen radishes -- what do you do with a lot of radishes? A few yes, but DOZENS???
Next we got BUNCHES of lettuce. We used what we could but the rest went bad. Salads and sandwiches don't really go through the lettuce very fast when there is only two of us. Suddenly we were ALSO up to our earlobes in CUCUMBERS. Again, not a thing you really need to have a lot of for any reason.
When the tomatoes came, THAT was cool. Lots of things you can do with tomatoes. And I did: Salsa, marinara, chili, stew -- the freezer was FULL and they kept coming! AAGHH! ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES. My sweetie blanched some and we froze them after we ate enough marinara to make room.
HOWEVER . . .
With SQUARE FOOT GARDENING there is no waste and no over-production. It's definitely a new way of looking at growing things, but it is exciting to me. Over the winter I will be building (low talent carpentry, really) three 4X4 foot frames for my 10 X 15 garden. That will be 48 one square foot planting cells. THINK of the variety of things that will be possible. And no wasted water, no fertilizer, no weeding.
2014 GARDEN will probably be on my PATIO!
I'll check in to let you know how the 4X4 frames are doing after the holidays.
Happy Turkey day. / Merry Christmas./ Happy New Year!
