Garden 2011

My good ol' friend, Amber and I have been talking a lot about preparedness since the onset of winter.  Early in the winter we talked with our hubbies and her mother and decided we really wanted to make an effort for a decent garden.  Bishop Aldous (bp of their ward) and his wife have a very nice garden and then Sis Aldous often cans food from it to save for winter.  We decided to ask for their help to get us started.

Bishop recommended the Square Foot Garden method.  I had heard of this method when I was studying horticulture at BYU, but never paid too much attention to it.  So first I checked the book out at the library.  I nearly read the entire thing and told Jake that I really felt it was the best way for us to accomplish what we wanted in a crop.  So we decided to buy our own copy of the book.  He read that copy (which is a newer version) and also saw the vision.  

In March Jake and Frank started fixing up their backyard and making the boxes.  They laid them down and then mulched in between.  In between all of the rain storms we had this summer, Prune (Amber's mom) and I started mixing the soil - compost, peat moss and vermiculite - and filled the boxes.  That took a few days!

This week I started to string off the square feet in each box and Prune and I went to the nursery to buy some of our plants.  Although we bought some plants, the idea of this style of gardening is to start everything from seed.  So we also jumped in and started planting seeds.

 This is the upper level of the garden.  It has 5 boxes - 3 are 4'x4x and 2 are 3'x3'.

 Here is the lower portion of the garden.  There are 6 4'x4' boxes.

It may not seem like much, but I'll give you an idea of how many plants we will have in the garden once everything starts growing...

(*each of these numbers is a plant)

18 tomato - various types

5 cucumber 

6 pickling cucumber 

3 squash 

3 zucchini 

6 red pepper 

3 jalapeno pepper 

8 green pepper 

16 garlic

32 onion

32 carrots

32 turnips

16 radishes

20 lettuce - various types

8 cauliflower

18 spinach

117 bean 

36 lima bean

and we'll also add some potatoes to the mix

So as you can see, we will have a lot of veggies throughout the summer.  I really hope it works well for us and that we are able to eat healthy and free for the season as well as be able to can things for the winter.

Wish us luck!