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THE NEW GARDEN

So a while ago I wrote about how dismally my square foot garden was faring in contrast to my neighbor’s raised garden bed. I speculated that the reason was that mine wasn’t getting enough sun and that I had a slug problem.

This weekend, on a whim, I sought to fix the problem once and for all being the not-willing to fail type. So a trip to Home Depot and the local gardening center got me started and I finished everything this afternoon. Here’s what I did:

1) I harvested everything that was left out of the “old” garden. I got about 2 big salads worth of greens, a small bunch of Swiss chard that I will saute with garlic and raisens in a few days, and some very baby carrots.

2) I dumped out all the old soil so I could move the garden to a sunnier place. My husband cleared a spot that is much sunnier but still in our backyard and leveled it. I didn’t want to use the same soil because it had too many weed-seeds since I hadn’t followed the square foot gardening method to a tee last time and I was determined to follow it this time which leads me to…

3) I bought the Mel’s Mix stuff that I was supposed to get the first time around: 3 cubic feet vermiculite, 3 cubic feet compost of two different kinds, 3 cubic feet of peat moss. I mixed all these ingredients on a tarp just as the book instructs. (My kids helped with that part.)

4) My husband and I nailed the weed barrier fabric to the bottom again because it ripped out when I dumped the old soil out. We moved the box to the newly leveled, sunny spot.

5) I filled the box with the Mel’s Mix today. Wow is that soil nice! Then I replanted a fall crop of seeds, which I bought from the local nursery. These seeds aren’t the cheapo seeds like I had gotten before. They are formulated to work here in my part of the country.

6) Used the new spray nosel attachment to hose to give it a nice misty water bath to get it started. Oh! That just reminds me that I forgot to put the sluggo around the perimeter. I’ll have to do that tomorrow.

I also drew up a quick diagram showing the 16 squares and their contents so that I can refer back to it when needed. That way I didn’t have to put all those ugly tags in each square identifying the contents. Here’s what I planted for my fall crop with the number of square of each in parentheses:

• Carrots (2)
• Bunching onions (2)
• Regular onions (1)
• Swiss chard (2)
• Romaine lettuce (3)
• Gourmet lettuce blend (2)
• Spinach (savoy) (2)
• Kale (2)

I have to admit that I have no idea what kale is so that’ll be an interesting crop! I managed to do almost the entire project without the kids messing it up this time. There was a slight incident right at the end where my 3.5 year old thought it would be helpful to poke 2 holes in the soil with a wooden stick (and this was after instructed not to touch!!) but I think it will create minimal damage. Next up: secure the permiter from varmin, dogs, and kids, with some chicken wire.

You may know from a previous post that I have a square foot garden. In fact, this is the second year that I have gardened with this method. I thought it was going really well. That was until my neighbor invited me over to see hers. Wow! Major difference.

First off, she didn’t invite me over to brag or anything, it was actually because I asked her why there might be little holes appearing in my lettuce leaves. She replied that it was most likely slugs or snails and that she had just the thing for them (Slugg-o I think it was called). So I followed her to her backyard where I beheld the most spectacular raised-garden bed I have ever seen. We are talking perfect plants popped up in neat rows. We are talking plants that are about 1 foot taller than the same ones in my garden.

Humbled, I took the Slugg-o back to my miserable, crummy little garden-ette where my little lettuce plants were growing, with holes in almost all the leaves, up to about a height of 7 inches, max. Then she came over with two heads of bib lettuce, fully grown. Why? Because she had 10 heads ready to harvest, “and I couldn’t possibly eat that much” she said.

So now I have a heap of absolutely beautiful lettuce leaves drying on my kitchen counter, awaiting incorporation into tonight’s dinner salad. While I feel a bit of pang over my obviously inferior gardening skills, I at least will take comfort in the generosity of my neighbor in sharing with me. And I will eat a nice oriental salad with raspberry dressing, walnuts, and mandarin oranges. So at least there’s that.

Incidentally: here is what I learned about my garden. The number one thing it is lacking is full-sun. In my neck-of-the-woods we need all the sun we can get and I just don’t have enough where I put the box. So next year I am thinking of - gasp - putting the thing in our front yard! That is the only place that gets full-sun in my yard. It would be semi-shielded from the street given that we have a privacy berm out there.