On Easter Sunday, my family came home from morning church services ready for the challenge of spending our day constructing two new 4’x4’ square foot garden beds together! It was a rare opportunity, as all of us were home at the same time that day, and we all know many hands make light work!
I’d already spent Saturday driving all over town gathering the necessary materials. I’d ordered the vinyl garden beds during the 12 Days of Christmas countdown sale at Costco.com, so they’ve been in the garage waiting for this day since December. I went to Lowe’s and got all the peat moss and organic compost I needed. Then I went to Home Depot for the vermiculite. The first store only had one bag, so I had to drive across town to get enough for this project.
As soon as we got home, we all changed clothes and got to work. First, hubby had to clear the ground of grass and build the garden frames so we could figure out placement. Then I got to work putting down a shallow layer of rubber mulch underneath the garden beds for drainage and then rolled out some weed block fabric…enough to cover the surrounding area to create a weed-free perimeter.
Next, we all set to work mixing up the ingredients on a giant tarp. We each held a corner of the tarp and took turns tossing the contents to the middle until it was all mixed up. The kids also enjoyed “walking” through it with bare feet in order to mix it some more.
Next, we gave it a good watering and mixed it some more before dragging it into the garden box and dumping it out.
After repeating the whole process for the second garden box, my husband laid a brick border around the perimeter of the weed block fabric. Then I began dumping out bags of red rubber mulch to cover the space. I didn’t have enough, and we arrived back at Home Depot, only to discover that they were closing earlier than their website said they were…ugh!
I had to wait until Monday to get the rest of the rubber mulch to fill it all in. This gave it a nice, professional, finished look. I was really pleased with it! Next, I made a few trips around town throughout the week in search of some starter vegetable plants and herbs. I started out with a few from Lowe’s, but they were nearly $4/plant, but with 32 squares to fill, that was way more than I wanted to spend this year. So after asking around to my neighbors via the Next Door app for recommendations, I discovered a local garden center I didn’t even know existed called Mike’s Garden Center, and it was just a few miles up the road. They had a great selection and very low prices, so I was able to really fill up my garden pretty quickly! I only have about 6 empty squares left. I’ll come up with something! I ended up planting various types of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, okra, kale, broccoli, strawberries, red-leaf lettuce, yellow summer squash, zucchini, rosemary, dill, flat-leaf Italian parsley, and stevia. Then I made a trip to Walmart for some affordable tomato cages and a trellis support for the climbing cucumbers and squash. I got everything in the ground just in time for a round of daily rainstorms that gave everything a good soaking! Perfect.
The last thing I’m waiting for is the irrigation system I ordered. In square foot gardening, you divide each planting section into 1-foot squares. My hesitation in starting a garden here is that north TX is known for how hot and dry it is most of the year. So my solution for both the garden grid and the need for regular watering was to order a pre-made irrigation system that serves both as your divider grid and your watering system! It’s designed especially for square foot gardens. Brilliant! I discovered it on someone’s blog. It’s from a company called Garden in Minutes. It’s supposed to ship out this weekend, so hopefully, I’ll be able to get it installed next week and be good to go! I’ll add another photo once that’s installed.
Next year, I plan to start all of my plants from seeds grown indoors in my Miracle-Gro Aerogarden. I bought a seed starter tray made especially for my Aerogarden Ultra that will let me start up to 50 seeds at once! Everything grows so fast in the Aerogarden that it will make transplanting easy, and it should yield me some good, healthy starter plants. It will be a whole lot less expensive, too! I can’t wait to try it.
We’re less than 2 weeks into the garden, and we’ve already started harvesting strawberries. I have lots of small peppers hanging already, and everything has plenty of healthy blooms. I even have a tiny head of broccoli beginning to form! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that our garden will be a success!
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