Square Foot Garden

This year we are forging ahead on a big garden idea. We want to make a large corner of our yard into a raised bed, square foot garden. It is said that you can grow the same about as in a traditional garden, but only use 20 percent of the space. Since we have a pretty small yard this seemed like a great idea for us. I wish I had taken a first "before" picture, but we had already started when I thought of it. In the following area you can see the basic area for the square foot garden. Our yard was decimated of grass when the city installed a sewer system this winter/spring so now when there is no grass seemed like a great time to start. There was a big pile of rubble, rocks, grass clippings etc. in the back area. Most of it is cleaned up except for the rocks.

And now we have a nice level clear area. We will be making one long box (18x2) to go along the back of the property. Basically from the shrub over to the right 18 feet. This box will have a vertical frame along the back to hold vine plants such as squash, cucumbers and tomatoes.  Then we will have 6 4x4 boxes coming out from that with 3 foot walkways between them and a foot wide border along the outside. So it should cover an area of 20 feet by 17 feet.

Tom and Ellie have actually built all the boxes and most of the grids to put on top of them. Here they are working on the long 18 foot box.

I thought you might like to see a picture of the design that I made for the garden. All I have to do if figure out a place to transplant the rhubarb to since it is in the design area.

Here are two boxes that I have laid out what will be planted and how much in each square foot.

Ellie has really gotten into this project as well. I am seeing lots of pictures of her square foot garden plans :).

The next post of the garden will hopefully show the laying of the groundcloth and the box placement. Then we will have to mix the soil and add it, then the mulch for the walkways.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing this little glimpse into our garden project.