So Much Has Happened....

I think I told you all that I was going to give the idea of Square Foot Gardening a try for my new veggie garden. Of course I won't hold exactly true to it because I always have to add my own touch to things. LOL But it will be the basis for my bed.

I finally decided on the edging around the raised beds that I will use. The bed boxes are supposed to be 4'x4'x8" with no floor. Just sitting down on the ground. Space the beds (as many as you want) so there's enough room to mow the grass in between or walk easily without having to do a balancing act to not fall into one of them. The idea is that you can move around the bed and keep it maintained without having to step into it. The square foot part comes in by putting up suspended dividers that will divide the box into 16 foot square sections. You plant one thing (or several if they're small) in each section. I will put down a sheet of weed block cloth under the soil. I can't trust that the grass will not come up through even 6" of soil.

Fill the beds with the perfect soil combination and DON'T till it in. Just build the retainer sides for the box, fill it and start planting. Doesn't that sound fantastic? The recommended perfect soil is 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 peat moss which sounds fantastic. I will use something similar but I also have to use up about 15 bags of garden soil that I bought last fall and didn't use.

So, back to the edging... I considered the following:
**railroad ties---too heavy and may have contaminates
**treated 2x8x10' boards---expensive per foot
**untreated 2x8x10' boards---still too expensive per foot
**cement block with 2 big holes 8x8x16 --- $1.41 per block...getting more reasonable per foot
**landscape timbers---8'x4"x 6" with two rounded sides. Pretty, stackable, I used them as fence around the front beds but would need at least two layers so still pricey
**solid cement block 4"x8"x12" --- They were miss marked at the store so I got them for $.63 each.

I settled on the latter. Too good a price to resist. They will be delivered by Home Depot tomorrow. Now all I have to do is buy the soil.

CONCLUSION: These veggies will be the most expensive we've ever eaten, but I'm having a wonderful time. Next year will be more cost effective.

Also went to the nursery and bought a small Acer griseum, Paperbark Maple, one of my favorites. Hmmmmmm. I may be repeating myself from last post. Sorry.

Here's a picture of my tomato and pepper seedlings from today.


They are nearly 7" tall and have as many as four true leaves.


Tomorrow I'll start transplanting them into 2 1/2" newspaper pots. That's another story that I'll tell after I've gotten them transplanted.

I also started a whole new tray of seeds, squash, cucumber, basil, more tomatoes, oregano, thyme and parsley.

The long planter with the chives, lettuce and cilantro is now to the stage where I can carry it outside in the daylight but I'm still bringing it inside at night because dips too close to low 30's at night still.

Well, that's enough of the gardening escapades of Coneflower for tonight. Talk to you all again soon.

One more thing. Today I finally planted bulbs for my tiny early iris. I'm only 5 months late. It will be interesting to see what they do. Keeping fingers crossed.