Hello, Glad to be here!

Glad to have found these forums! From April to Oct I'm practically attached to my ANSFG book! LOVE it! I gew up with my parents gardening... our photo albums had as many pictures of their blooming gardens and boutiful harvests as they did our baby and toddler pictures. Many of our pictures were taken in front of the garden or particular crop of focus. I grew up LOVING fresh grown foods. When I was older, my parents moved from the city to the country, and had two HUGE gardens that dwarfed their original. Mom would trade or sell her surplus. They also canned and stored a lot of it, as well.

Although I was surrounded by it, and helped out, they never really taught me, so I was really clueless when I had a family (5 kids) and home of my own and started gardening. Tomatoes were always the only thing I was ever guaranteed to be able to grow, and I always stumbled into other items, with disappointing results. THEN I learned about Square Foot Gardening and it made it all so simply and straight forward!

Last year was the first year I put it into practice, and due to an over abundance of rain in our area of the state, plus the fact our garden was in the low end of the yard... it spent most of the spring and summer flooded -- even with the boxed in raised beds-- sadly, and it was the first year my tomatoes failed and all the other plants and seeds we invested in pretty much failed, as well... except the marigolds! WOW, did they do well! We were so excited to see 3 generations of marigolds growing form deadheading the originals, then deadheading the offspring! That was rather fun for the kids.

This year, I planned out the garden even more, starting a little earlier and hoping and praying that we wouldn't hit record rain fall (and actually it has been total opposit). For the first time ever, I have been able to grow plenty of Cucumbers, and green beans. The kids and I are loving this! Still having very bad luck with tomatoes as I have narrowed it down to some sort of rodent snipping my plants clean... possibly a chipmunk. At least, it's not the deer this year!

I am to the point that I am scheduling the information from the book into my iPhone calendar, to remind me when to plant seeds for continuous harvest. I'm so excited about next year!

Done with my babbling book! So excited to be here and learn!

  Bless!

Welcome to the forum, glad you found us! What exactly did you use in your Mel's mix. You might be able to ammend it to address the drainage issues. That's a great way to use your phone for planting reminders!

cheyannarach wrote:What exactly did you use in your Mel's mix. You might be able to ammend it to address the drainage issues.

I did it by the book, and hasn't been an issue. The low, back part of our yard is where we get the most sun in the summer. Usually, it's a great area to grow in, being the last area to dry out, and getting water run off. Normally we don't have drainage issues, just had record rainfall for every month last year, and it became too much, even for a raised garden. This year, it's the exact opposite with drought conditions, but my garden has done well.