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June 25, 2010
Square Foot Gardening
It's been awhile. Okay, a long while. But I'm back with new projects, chief among them a brand new square foot garden.
So what does gardening have to do with knitting? Not much, not yet. Although I do see a dye garden in my future. Like knitting and spinning, gardening is something I've always wanted to pour myself into. If homesteading had merit badges, gardening is yet another badge. Like knitting and spinning, it's a huge slippery slope of learning adventures. Which is why I find it so compelling. Whoever took up spinning and just stopped at one fiber, one technique, one wheel even? So here goes...
Although I've done square foot gardening before, this is the first time I've maintained this many boxes so close to my front door. After playing around with different organizing schemes I came up with box names and ABC 123 designations. The idea behind this is that I could add a record marked Tilly B3 – Lemon Verbena and write a journal entry that I could easily track back by box and location for the following season. In the case of Lemon Verbena, I want to grow tons more. Having kept records on its growth habit and what I can use it for, I have something to base next year's decisions on.
For example, let me introduce you to Tillie. Tillie is my herb garden, or rather my "introduction to herbs" garden. Besides the dried up herbs I buy at the supermarket I know very little about herbs. I planted Tillie on May 25th. I'd love to say I raised the seedlings myself but no. Not this time. I bought all my herbs at Countryside Nursery. I chose them based on how pretty they looked, how familiar their names sounded and their smell. Having bought plants instead of seeds enabled me to choose them based on my senses rather than a description in a seed catalog. Not a bad approach for a newbie.
It's hard to resist filling up the whole square. Gardens always look so wimpy when you first set them up. Just one month later...
This is what Tillie looked like this morning. The only plant that hasn't spread is the Dwarf Lavender. I want more Lavender, much more, so I planted a different variety, 'Lady' Lavender, next to the Dwarf. Seeds this time, not plants.