DON'T LAUGH!!

I have the best of intentions - it's just that my follow-through isn't always top-notch. I put my grid down tonite - if you'd call it that. It's just yarn strung through eyes. And they aren't even straight! Ah well. And of course I put them in after I planted the lettuce - oops. It looks awfully goofy, but I'm hoping for good results. I might try for lathing when I go the big orange store next.

I added broccoli, leaf lettuce, and one row of carrot seeds today. My peas are coming up, as are the onions. No sight of the spinach - well, maybe a tiny, tiny one. They are in the 4 middle squares! We are expecting sun and 70* weather for the next few days, so hopefully everyone will be happy. And I'm just tickled that the lettuce is still there - the deer haven't found it yet.

And I finally bought the book last night - I know, I rarely do things in the proper order. I gave up on waiting for the library. But I'm glad I planted when I did. This really is so much fun! And I'm the only one at the community garden with plants in already. Yea me!

n.

I used nylon string and nails for my grids and they are still going strong this year (I figured it was cheap enough if I had to replace it each year, I didn't care). I think it looks great!

At least you have grids. So long as they work it doesn't matter what they look like.

I used string too!!!

I'll take a photo of mine and post tomorrow. Talk about wonky! I used some stout wire that had been rolled up. I laid it on the soil and fastened with zip ties. I straightened and straightened and straightened, but the durn thing still wants to curve. So I have curvy squares. But you know what? The plants are still happy.

Wow, I like it. I think it looks great! That's awesome you beat everyone on the first up. Don't think you are backwards at all. I read a newspaper article about SFG and started planning, read an article in a magazine and picked up pallets, then bought the book.

looks great!

i used string, too. only i used a staple gun to attach it all. works for me.

How do I take the pictures I uploaded into my personal garden and place them here or wherever people can look at them and give me pointers??


My eagerness gets the better of me on my planning sometimes.


Thanks!

Echoing - "Yay you!!!" It looks lovely!

sunshine0408 wrote:How do I take the pictures I uploaded into my personal garden and place them here or wherever people can look at them and give me pointers??
My eagerness gets the better of me on my planning sometimes.
Thanks!

Hi,
Look for the 'How To' forum towards the top of the index page. Somebody wrote some pretty good step-by-step instructions on how to post pictures from either your computer or from your personal album.

Happy Gardening!

Not a whole lot of change, but some seedlings have broken through. the onions are growing great and so are the peas. woo hoo! i don't usually do well with seeds, so this is very exciting for me.

this morning was the annual meeting with the community garden folks. lots of interesting information, but very little pertaining to actual gardening. more to do with when to call the police and what to do if a train stops over our drive for more than 20 minutes. hmmm... i found out there are over 150 plots, with only 20 or so still open. one guy has 9 of them - and they are 625 sq ft each! wow. so far i only have 1 4x4 box, but i have room for 9 (if they are all 4x4). i hope to have 3 or 4 by the end of the year.

i didn't water yesterday after a day of watching 3 neighborhood girls in addition to my own and since it was supposed to rain today, i didn't water today either. i hope it actually rained. i was at my mom's with my brother & nephew - hurray! the garden looked pretty good this morning, so hopefully my babies are fine.

Happy Easter!

n.

I only use string, kite string that is. For me it's the best way to use so I can remove it and add compost to my soil in the spring. Much easier mixing all that in without the grid on top! Can't imagine any other way!

We love our kite string

Happy SFG'ing!

Jen in NE Indiana

I just used some yarn I had lying around. It is straight though. I measured to get the squares even and just used thumb tacks to wrap the yarn around. In the middle I couldn't use thumb tacks because of the plastic connector so I just used a small adhesive hook. This isn't the best photo to show the grid but I can't take a better one right now because it's supposed to go down to 30 tonight and I put my plastic cover back on.

Hey SFG in Chicago - gorgeous boxes! So far I'm happy with my yarn, with the exception that I planted before I put the "grid" down and my lettuce and onions aren't in their boxes. Ah well.

Tonite I made burritos for dinner and used my own lettuce!! It's so very exciting!

Hey I often do things out of order too. So great to be able to eat things you've grown. My lettuce is a little too small yet, but I started it a little late I think. The one in the pic, 3rd square from the right is one I bought. I've since planted my own starts but they're still tiny. I'm new to the midwest, I'm from FL so I don't really know what I'm doing yet.

wow AWESOME boxes!!

And then frustration set in. I bought the materials for box #2 last night and tried to pre-drill the holes in my living room before going down there today. However, my electric screwdriver said "not so much". I don't own a drill, so did the holes mostly by hand. Got everything re-loaded into the car and went down to the garden. Got most of the screws in, but gave up on a few. I'll try to borrow a cordless one from a friend to finish my corners. Then I realised that I left the weed blanket at the house! Oh bother. Well, we'll try to go back down again tomorrow and finish it. I still need 1 more bag of compost anyway.

I found a little store by me called "1 Small Garden". It's on Rt. 50 in Terrace Park. I spoke with the owner on the phone yesterday and was excited to see what she had. They offer cedar boxes in 4x4, 4x6, and 4x8. Stopped in today after dd's track meet and nearly choked - they want $85 for a 4x4 box. Granted, it's cedar, and it's lovely, but... Ah well. I think box #3 is going to be my butterfly garden and thought a "prettier" box would be appropriate. Perhaps I'll get one from the foundation instead. Actually, thinking as I type, that's a great idea!

So here is today's pic of box #1. I'm still tickled with how well everything is doing. Except that someone is eating my leaf lettuce already. I hadn't planned on protection already. (Also part of the frustration.) Dd added row 2 of carrots, another kind of spinach, and a few more peas. The white stuff is egg shell I spread around the broccoli to help keep unwanteds away. At least it's a picture=perfect day in Cincinnati!!

DD asked this week if she could have her own square foot garden, so on Friday we went to the orange store to get more wood. I got some for me, too. We did not go to the garden Friday evening because it was SUPPOSED to rain. Didn't make it yesterday, either but I did work really hard in the backyard. My Monarch Waystation is going to be gorgeous this year.

This morning we went down to the garden and discovered that my trellis for the peas failed. One of the stakes was just plain gone; the other one was broken in 2. I thought about a solution while assembling kid's 3x3 and my new 4x4. I thought perhaps we would go back to the local hardware store to get trellis parts. Then just as we were leaving, we decided to go back to Burger Farm. I needed more compost & mulch anyway and remembered they have really cool, colorful trellises in various shapes. I ended up buying an orange one that could make a square, but I just have it folded in half. I love it and we will be getting our tomato supports there when it gets to be tomato season.

I dug 2 of my lettuces out for the kid's bed. She is so excited:



Here is Bed #1, coming along very nicely:



And here is a view of all 4 beds:



Bed #2 will be a sauce garden - tomatoes & herbs. And Bed #3 will be a monarch garden with lots of milkweed and some nectar plants. I can't wait!

I am physically exhausted, but feel very satisfied with a weekend of good, hard work. I wish I could remove my hands and send them to a spa. I think they might hurt more than my shoulders. It was utterly gorgeous in southwestern Ohio this weekend! I even bought a new rose bush! So very exciting! My bleeding hearts are gorgeous, the alliums are opening, and the milkweed is coming along fine. Hip, hip hurray!

I used nylon twine and roofing tacks to make my grid. I like it being moveable, so I can stir the soil underneath.

If you need a small frame for a square or so. I discovered the little wire fence sections sold at dollar stores. It comes about 6 sections for $3. The wires that go into the ground are 12" apart. Perfect for the SFG! Then I take an old kitchen towel and some clothes pins to attach to the frame. Voila a small shaded area for your block.

We finally got rain today! Even after all of the February snow, our water table is down by 2 1/2 inches, so today's rain is very welcome. My rainbarrel is almost full again! I got the new rose bush planted today between rain storms. It is in full bloom, so I hope I don't shock it too much.



The early spring garden is coming along. We continue to get yummy salads from it. I thought the peas would be higher up their new trellis by now - yes, boffer, i uttered "stupid peas" this week, just not in front of them. I'm still not sure about the broccolis.



In the sauce bed (no pic this week) I have added 2 basils, a parsley, and I finally found 12" nasturtiums so put a few of those seeds in today. Tomatoes will come in a few more weeks. I'm beginning to play with the idea of heirlooms, but am terrified of starting them from seed (I don't know why!).

The kid's bed still just has 2 lettuces. We started watermelon seeds this week. We'll probably start sunflowers next week.

And the milkweed seedlings are coming along really well. I put common in a pot and in the ground this week. The tropical is growing slower. I think the butterfly and rose will be transplanted this week. Monarchs should be here in about a month. I've been following their progress through Journey North. I will have plenty to feed those caterpillars this year! Oh, and I heard frogs sing today! We'll be looking for tadpoles soon! Hurray!

It's supposed to rain again all weekend. We still need it, so I can't complain; however, I sure wish it would wait until Monday. Ah well. So we went down to the garden this evening and did a bit more than just maintenance. The early spring bed is coming along great. Another yummy salad tonite - this time I added a baby onion. It was in the carrot's box, so I didn't mind pulling it. I can finally tell that the broccoli is growing.



Here is my poor sauce garden. The parsley is very happy! I didn't even look for the nasturtiums, so I don't know if they are coming up yet or not. The basil actually still has some green leaves on the inside, so it might not be totally dead yet.



Then I put in the 4 tropical milkweeds to the monarch bed that I have been growing from seed. I forgot my scissors, so the beautiful green-yarn grid did not go in tonite. The eyes are in, so we were able to judge the squares better this time.



And here is the kid's bed. The watermelon seeds actually might be growing, so we should be able to transplant them into the bed in a few weeks. She still hasn't decided what to put in the front row.



After watering and inspecting, we walked around and looked in everyone's rain barrels for tadpoles. We heard many frogs singing last night, so we thought "maybe tonite", but it wasn't meant to be. We did get to meet Ed, who has several plots at the other end of the community garden. (He doesn't know how many beds he has!) He was putting in tomatoes and talked with us for quite a while. It's so nice to meet the other gardeners and get "tours" of what they have.

I even got paid to plant at work today! We had some water line work done yesterday and they asked me to put the day lillies back in the ground. It was great to be outside! What a gorgeous day!!

Monday night we brought home some frog eggs from a neighbor gardener's water barrel. By Thursday they were all hatched and now we have over 100 tiny tadpoles! I've never raised this many.

Since our garden is in the middle of a field, we have a lot of weeds. And of course many of them have sprouted in my gardens. I spent much time this week weeding. The good news is they are so easy to pull out! Fortunately everything got mowed yesterday, so the problem is slightly under control - for the time being. As fot the ants, I didn't notice as many today. Hurray! And I even saw a grasshopper hanging out among the spinach!

We added a daisy to the kid's bed. She got it free at the civic center garden sale last weekend. It might be too big for where she wants it, we'll have to see. I put a common milkweed, fennel, and a purple coneflower in the butterfly bed. I bought a dahlia today that will go in there too, once it gets warmer. We're supposed to drop in to the 30s tonite. Ugh! I also bought a Rutgers tomato today! I've read many posts about them and thought I'd give them a try. One of the kid's lettuces is getting moldy / wilty in the middle. It will have to be pulled this week. Bummer! Everything else appears to be doing quite well. The marigolds and nasturtiums are coming up. Just waiting for the peas to do something exciting!

In the backyard the peony has bloomed and the clematis has exploded! The roses are doing great and the milkweeds are too. What a great spring! Yea!

The stunning peony:



The clematis:



The kid's bed:



The early spring bed:



The sauce bed:



The butterfly bed:

What a great day! We went to my favorite greenhouse and bought some flowers, then managed to get a ton of things planted today. I got 2 more beds put together out of the free wood from work, but they don't have any mix in them yet. Hopefully tomorrow.

The tadpoles are doing great. They are growing quickly. And we found a monarch egg down at the garden. The kid really wants to bring it home, but I want to wait until the tadpoles have turned into frogs and have been released. I have a feeling I won't win this battle.

I have made friends with several other gardeners down there. We all seem to feel that there is no place else we'd rather be. And we love to talk about what we have growing! Ed, who must be in his 70s, made me show him the egg today and then show him my butterfly garden. I love how interested he is!

To the kid's bed we added a cherry tomato, a beefstake tomato, a snap dragon, and some marigolds. She planted everything herself and is very excited about it. Once the watermelon gets a bit bigger, it will go in the back row, along with a sunflower. I don't know how well everything will do as far as shade, etc., but I love how interested she is and how proud she is!



The spring bed is really lovely. I even saw a flower on the peas today!! The lettuce is begging to be trimmed - perhaps a salad for lunch tomorrow? The final row of carrots was added earlier this week.



The sauce bed got 2 tomatoes - the rutgers and a roma. Also 2 new basils, a banana pepper, a green pepper, and some cilantro. The nasturtiums are coming along very quickly.



The butterfly bed added a dahlia and a cosmos as nectar plants and 4 butterfly weed seeds along the front (I'm not holding my breath here - these seeds don't play well for me). I took a cutting of my swamp milkweed on Monday and hope to add it to the back row in a few weeks.



Here is a shot I took the other day of the whole thing with the new wood laid out where I hope it will go. I have another of the little pre-assembled boxes - these will hold the butterfly bush and oregano - each of which need to be contained.



My backyard has no square foot gardens in it, but... it's so lovely with the roses blooming - the salvia and clematis, too.



Here is how it looked just 3 months ago:



Lots of pics this week. It all makes me so happy - and sore , sunburned (I only forgot my back), and very tired, but so very happy.

ttfn

beautiful. I wish my flowers would start growing, planted so many and I have nothing yet.

If you want a cheap fence idea to go around your boxes, home depot etc have the little metal ones about 12" high for only $3-5 each section. I used them around my rose garden.

I love to see all the gardens growing.