Hi from the Mississippi Gulf Coast

I'm new to the forum. The coast is hot, humid and host to an abundant variety of garden pests and soil-borne veggie diseases. My attempt at a traditional garden last summer resulted, at first, in a new passion for me - nothing could take the stress away from a hard day at work like escaping to my garden to check on my beautiful veggies. Then the insects (stink bugs, leaf-footed bugs, tomato hornworms and army worms to name a few) attacked my garden with a vengeance. Blossom-end rot and what I can only speculate was some kind of wilting disease probably brought on by heavy rains took another toll. I was so disheartened that I swore off gardening.

Then I happened upon Mel's book and was instantly intrigued at the method he devised. The others in my family (hubby and three grown sons) are skeptics who have good-naturedly indulged my desire to try the new method, but not without lots of eye-rolling and doubt that it will work. They plan on planting another traditional garden (which I have assured them I will NOT be breaking MY back weeding this time!). So I am secretly hoping to show them up. We shall see.

I'm hoping the Mel's Mix will help eliminate the soil-borne diseases. Insects will still be a problem, I know, but hopefully being able to use a floating cover at first might help. I'll be reading all the posts about how to deal with insects, for sure.

I'm later getting started than I'd hoped, but should have my first 2 4X4 foot boxes filled with Mel's Mix and ready to plant by this weekend. My excitement at my new square foot garden project is probably one of the few things that could make me try to overcome my shyness about posting online - hopefully I'll get better as I go along. I just had to join when I found this forum!

Sherry, Welcome and we are glad you joined us. This is a great group of people and they are helpful too.

Congratulations on your new SFG.

Your family will be jealous when you sit there sipping sweet ice tea and they are hoeing and weeding, trying to keep things going.

Keep us updated on your progress. And Please share pictures, we them.

So glad to have you!! Can't wait to hear how rewarding your SFG is!

Hi Sherry and welcome. I live in Gulfport. This is also my first year at SFG. I've been at it since January and I can't remember when I enjoyed anything more. I don't have many answers but if you have any questions pertaining to growing veggies on the coast, PM me and if I have any info I'll be glad to share it.

Welcome to BOTH of you along the Gulf Coast! It's great to have you guys here.

Sherry, I don't know what to say about soil-borne disease, but hopefully changing things will do the trick.

You will find we are all eager to help. I would suggest stopping into your regional forum when you get the chance. Odds are someone there is having the same issue you are at the same time of year in there. You may have more luck with local issues in there, too.

Anything is worth asking around here. And, pictures are worth more than 1000 words when it comes to a garden. You've put in the work, now brag about it!!

Hope to see you around the forums.

Thanks for the warm welcome, guys. Thanks to the vermiculite database, I located the large bags of coarse vermiculite at a store not too far from me - fairly reasonably priced according to other prices I've seen posted here - $17.99. I hope to get by there on my off day. Then it should be a go for getting my soil mix in the boxes this weekend, as long as the weather holds out. I can't wait to get something actually PLANTED!!!

I do plan on posting to my regional forum soon. I've already been reading the posts over there. I love that feature of the forum. I'll try to figure out how to post pictures soon - hope I'll have something worth posting about! I greatly enjoy seeing everyone else's photos - great for inspiration!

Take care and happy gardening!

Welcome to the forum! I love the MI Gulf coast - Waveland, Bay St. Louis, and the rest! The area is beautiful! I often wonder if Trapani's came back to that little building in downtown Bay St. Louis by the bridge - the had the best food!

So very glad to have you here.

I bet you will show up the traditional garden without hardly lifting a finger! You can just sit and what they curse and fight with weeds while you're sitting back drinking some sweet tea! Just keep your All New SFG book handy and post and questions you might have.

Perhaps later in the season you can post some comparison shots of they row garden vs. your SFG?

If you have any specific questions about pest control do give me a holler better yet, post that question in the pest forum. I have a passion for organic pest control and have accumulated a lot of information I am more than happy to share. You'll find that most of us around here feel that way.

Hi ashort & dizzygardner,

Thanks for the welcome. ashort - There was nothing left of the little building for Trapani's to come back to after Katrina. They did rebuild - if you google "Trapani's and Bay St. Louis," there's a page that tells about it. I didn't know if it would be appropriate to post a link here, but you can google it.

Interesting idea, dizzy, about posting photos comparing their garden to mine. They haven't started getting the ground ready for the big garden yet, so we'll see how that goes. I think the extreme heat, hoardes of insects and heavy rainfall make it harder to have a traditional garden here than probably most areas. I don't expect the square foot garden to solve all those problems, but am hoping they may be a bit easier to manage using sfg techniques. Can't wait to try it, anyways!

WOW. The shear number of typos in my last post is really quite sad. I was in a hurry though. I'm surprised you could even make out what I was trying to say. I'm a terrible typist!