What flowers go best in a SFG?

AvaDGardner wrote:Want some seeds? Someone just gave me a bag of them! PM me your addy (this offer is open to anyone).

We use them to attract pollinators to the comm garden. They are a cheap and easy plant and give you lots of seeds! We put their seeds all around the outer areas.

Disclaimer: I do not know how large these things will be. The seed giver said they were 'Mexican' sunflowers. Whatever that means!

I can tell you the shells are huge.

We don't put them in our plots. Just around the property.

givvmistamps wrote:Shorter sunflowers might work. I'd offer you seeds, but the sunflowers my son picked grow 10 to 12 FEET TALL!!! That might not work, even in a bed that'll be lower than the next terrace up.

And how cool that you terraced your boxes up a hill!

I just had them pictured in my head a few years ago and got my hubby to build them (if I attempt to build anything the carpenter in him takes over, lol) Then he just builds them for me. I didn't know about SFG then but it must have been fate. The rest of the boxes are the perfect size, I'll take a picture tomorrow and show you. Did you see the picture of my new one?

I had to go back and look, but I do remember seeing the box your husband made, now. That's really cool, a larger version of what's sold in the SFG online store. You can plant the flowers up top, then put veggies around the parts you can reach easily. I look forward to seeing it planted!

My husband can use tools, but he's not overly handy. I used to be really good with tools, even made my living assembling things for a while, but now I'm not able to do heavy work like that. (Otherwise I would've built my boxes as soon as we bought this house two years ago!) I've known about SFG since taking an organic gardening class in college 13 years ago, but never had a place where I could grow more than a very small container garden. So I stuck with flowers and herbs most of the time. I'm thrilled to finally get my SFG going after all this time, even if it is smaller than I'd like it to be this first year.

Well I am happy you get to start your square foot garden, do you live in a city? I live 5 miles out of town and have 2 neighbors. I have 2 acres of space to grow on and lots of places full of sunshine! But I live n SD...

We're in a suburban neighborhood on a 1/4 acre lot which our house seems to take up nearly half of...but our "city" is really more of a large town. Downtown is maybe 2-3 miles away (2 as the crow flies) and we can see the fireworks on the 4th of July from the street in front of our house. They're distant, but we don't have to deal with crowds and walking a long ways from a parking lot! Having lived in big cities, this place seems tiny to me, but I tired of big cities long ago.

What's nice is, we have an empty lot behind us, then the lot across the street from that is empty too, so we can see the lake and wetlands from our back porch/yard. (We just don't appreciate the skeeters.) And we get enough sun to grow things in this hot climate in spite of all the trees on that 'empty' lot to the south of us. I'm learning that 6 hours is PLENTY of sun for most full-sun plants, because it's so intense.

It sounds like you've started finding ways to extend your growing season, which is great. Maybe you can upgrade to a true greenhouse eventually...or build a Florida room onto your house. If built correctly, that could extend your growing season by a lot and be warm enough for you to enjoy the sun on a winter's day!

Someday we will upgrade, maybe in a few years but this will definately be fun to play with for now!! What's a Florida room?

Oh man, it's been tough keeping up with the boards with all the recent posts!

A Florida room is also known as a sunroom, conservatory, and several other names. Back in NC and VA I always heard them called Florida rooms. Look at this wiki link:http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunroom My aunt has one in northern NY, and she uses it to protect her tender perennials in winter and that's where she starts her seeds. She also has a nice seating area in there, so on sunny winter days she can enjoy the sun and greenery when there's snow on the ground. Sometimes these rooms have glass all along an entire wall or two, and even an angled part going upward toward the roof. How it's designed is dependent upon just how much light you want, and how much you're willing to spend on heating it. I've seen them with wood stoves in them, and a pot of water is always kept on that to maintain some humidity in the air for the plants. (It's better for your skin too.)