The above photo does NOT reflect what prompted cat calls from a passing mini van yesterday as I plotted and worked my SQUARE FOOT GARDEN RAISED BED.
As a matter of fact I was more astonished by what actually DID prompt it!
I had never seen this mini van before (a weird occurance in deed in such a small town that I live....)
Honking of the horn and some spirited hollering did not shock me as much as what was yelled:
"Squirrely Acres!" with a thumbs up in my direction!
SOMEONE has recognized me from here! [NONE of my neighbors know I blog here...:)]
I was their minor celebrity.
WHAT THE....?!?!?!?!
(One of my friends was talking about this phenomenon just the other day - I have NEVER considered myself to be an individual to be celebrated outside my most intimate circle. And in THAT circumstance they all just tend to put up with me instead of applaud my behavior...)
In a bewildered, but thankful, fog I stumbled back to my crouched troll position at my square patches of earth.
It never ceeses to amaze me the reactions I get to my approaches to gardening.
"What the HECK are you DOING?" is the most common.
"You KNOW...." followed by the most asinine of advice for something they know nothing of....
Abject silence accompanied by wide eyed stares and gaping mouth.
I personally do not see anything so crazy about it.
In fact I see symmetry, and order and lines and graphs when I make a square foot garden.
When it is all laid out it is kind of self explanatory - I think.
Maybe it's just Indiana.
Folks are used to seeing thousands of acres being raped by huge hulking machines into these monocultures of small countries inhabited by grain people.
What is square foot gardening?
Well, quite simply it is marking out your garden beds in square blocks instead of the customary rows.
Usually I incorporate intensive gardening methods. compost/compost tea, and mulching in this simple tiny island of a food factory.
As in some previous years I incorporated my own version of hugelkultur this time around.
I have been doing this for so many years now that I do not worry if my squares are not even and actually square.
Close is good enough.
My gardens are my heaven, so I do not want stress in the making of them!
It is perhaps hard to see from the above photo that there are 16 squares laid out in the raised bed.
Four of those squares in the upper corner have been left blank - I will be transplanting a tomato in that 4-square patch when the last frost date passes.
If you imagine numbering each square from left to right and top to bottom 1 - 16 you can easily plan out what you would want to grow in each tiny field that is created by the grid of hemp string I have used.
As you can see in the squares that would be numbered 4, 12, and 14 I have already transplanted cabbage seedlings.
The other squares have various lettuces, greens, carrots, and radishes that I simply sowed the seeds in their respective tiny fields.
As the lettuces mature and need to be removed, I will have room for other things to put in their open fields.
A way to help keep the open fields of tomato and the edges of the cabbages free from weeds better you can put some lettuces in those areas also.
So basically we made these raised beds at the last minute last year because of lack of space and I was too lazy (or smart?) to try to wrestle the roto-tiller.
The frames were made from scrap lumber, then a layer of black plastic was laid down to choke out any weeds, then we dumped top soil in and broke it up with hand tools, then a layer of very mature and aged horse manure went on top.
We watered it and waited about 5 days to put in the tomatoes we planted in there last year.
The two beds you see pictured held 8 tomato plants and generated TONS of tomatoes for slicing, juicing, canning, and sharing!
We also have an oblong raised bed that we did the same thing with but was our HOT PEPPER bed!
We had 16 pepper plants there and probably will never have to buy hot peppers again!
The twin bed to this one that I planted up yesterday will most likely be my herb bed, with a tomato or two tucked in it also.
I love this kind of garden because it is ever changing and you can have succession planting to keep you eating out of the garden most of the growing season.
As for the hugelkultur:
After our wood lot was cleared each time we brought a new load in for cutting, I had to get rid of the debris somehow.
I got the bright idea of filling up the sunken raised beds with this almost chipped and dust of wood that was left over.
I figured it would soak up any runoff from my neighbor's yard up the way (we had major flooding last year in some rain storms - even in the middle of the drought!) and help stave off any drought we may have this summer.
THEN, we added MORE topsoil and then another layer of aged horse manure, then just for giggles threw some left over potting soil on top of that!
Soon we will be getting some green mulch from one of my tree trimming friends to help feed and keep this tiny farm moist!
-Suzanna
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