Gardening, Gardening, Gardening - gotta love Spring

Even though I woke up to a small amount of snow this morning, my crocus, daffodils and tulips are poking out so that means Spring is on it's way!!! I couldn't be more thrilled!!!

I have to admit, my life after quitting my full time job about 4 1/2 years ago has changed dramatically. I've learned to appreciate where every dollar goes just a little more.

One of my favorite things to do is garden. Let me caution you though, I'm still a novice. Two years ago, my dear husband built me some square foot gardens (raised bed gardens) and they have been absolutely wonderful.

We brought all the soil in so there are no weeds. I will get a few weeds throughout the year because we have secondary water and weed seeds sometimes come through that, but they are so easy to take care of because the soil is loose and easy to grow in.

Living in Northern Utah, I can plant peas, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes and potatoes. I'm sure there are others, but as stated above, I'm still a novice. So far I have my peas, carrots and broccoli in and I have my potatoes ready to go in the ground in the next day or so. I'm not planting all of these things in my garden, but at least I've gotten started. The last couple of years I've been late getting my veggies in and they haven't done as well as I had hoped.

This year I brought in more compost to give my gardens a boost. I'm really crossing my fingers that this year will be better than last - I guess that's the hope for every year :0)

My family uses a lot of produce that we get from the Bountiful Baskets co-op. I always have stems, peels, rinds and fruits and veggies that have gone bad before we could get to it. Rather than throwing it away, I try to add it to my compost pile.

Last Spring, I picked up a composter. Now it's not pretty and it was just a $50 investment from Sam's club. I wish I had something a little fancier that I could turn by hand, but this is the box I ended up with. I'm really hoping to get some good compost out of it this year. This will be nice to add to my gardens as well.

Planting a garden can really help your pocket book in the long run. Not only that, but you can make planting a garden a family event. It's something you can take pride in and show your kids how a seed can be so small, yet produce something wonderful to eat. There's nothing better than to prepare a meal using fruits and veggies that you've pulled out of your garden.

If you'd like more information on planting a garden - check out the USU Extension website. You can find a lot of information on this website. Even the proper way to can and preserve all that yummy produce that you've grown.

How does my garden grow?

It's summer and blogging sometimes seems like the last thing I get around to doing. My kids are busier than ever and time seems to escape me. I wanted to blog about this a while ago and you know how it goes....it just didn't happen.

I guess I'm trying out the new "craze" in gardening this year - Square Foot Gardening. I asked my husband for these for Mother's Day and am very happy with the very managable gardens.

You have to know that my husband is a perfectionist when it comes to design (he's a graphic designer). I very much appreciate his time and careful planning as he laid this out. Because our yard is slightly sloped in this area, he wanted to remove the grass and build up the area in which the garden boxes sat so it would be level.

He placed the bricks just slighly larger than the boxes so that when he did edged it wouldn't ding up the wood around the boxes too much.

So not only did he lay the bricks he also got a piece of ply-wood to lay out over the bricks for support.
This had to be the most expensive part of the garden. The "dirt" is really 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 compost and 1/3 vermiculite (which can be a little expensive).

In total, I have 5 boxes. 3 of them are 4x4 and 6" tall and the other 2 are 2x4 and 12" tall.

I decided to do a mixture of flowers and produce. The deeper boxes are for my carrots and potatoes. I did some starts earlier in the season and some survived and some didn't (it's definatley trial and error this first go around).

I was pretty disappointed when we had nearly 3-4 weeks of non-stop rain in June. My plants did not die, but they weren't doing a lot of growing either.

This is my garden today.

Yes, I still have a few open holes that I need to fill. Some squares did not get planted and some were plants that did not survive. I also like the idea that you can plant every couple of weeks - notice my carrots. Half the box is growing and several weeks ago I planted 2 more squares and the little tops are just poking through (this way, I don't have a million carrots all at once - each square has 16 carrot plants). I was quite surprised at how well my potatoes have done. I think they are on steroids (they are the plants that have nearly overgrown the box).

Potatoes on steroids - BTW - does anyone know when you pick potatoes? My gardens were planted on Memorial day (end of May and these are Lasoda Red potatoes).

This is the trellis that my husband added for me. The trellis needs to be placed on the north side of the box with the climbing plants in those squares (north side because it won't shadow the other plants). I've already started weaving my tomato plant through the squares. I found some great trellis netting with 7" squares that will easily allow me to stick my hand through and pick any produce that may be growing. It is also very strong and will hold up through the Utah winters and summers.

I will continue to take pictures of my garden and post how my garden has grown. I'm no expert gardener by any means, this is certainly trial and error for me. I figure that I will learn a few things along the way and will be better at this next year.

A special thanks goes to my husband who worked hard to make my gardens sturdy, level and beautiful! So far, besides the flowers I've planted broccoli, tomatoes (1 cherry and some big ones - can't remember the names), 1 Jalapeno pepper, 2 green peppers, 2 celery, 1 mint plant, 1 cilantro, 1 lettuce, 3 cucumbers, 1 eggplant, 1 yellow squash, a bunch of carrots and potatoes.

Anyone interested in Square Foot Gardening - can check out the book I posted in the beginning or check out Mel Bartholomew's site.