Sunday, April 11, 2010

Spring Cleaning

It's spring again and after discovering how easy it is to prepare our Square Foot Gardens for spring, I'm eager to get everything planted! Yesterday we put some seeds in three of the beds, only to discover today that the dogs ran through them for some strange reason. They didn't bother them at all last year, but for some reason last night they tromped through them, so we're going to have to erect some kind of temporary fencing to deter them.

Last year I lost interest in the garden toward the end of the season and it got very little care, but somehow it still produced a wonderful harvest of tomatoes and beans, along with a handful of okra and some herbs as well. The sunflowers did wonderfully in the bed my husband built just for my flowers and it was really gratifying to see the little birds feeding on the seeds when the weather was cold and snowy. We got more snow this year than we have in the previous eleven years that we've lived here. The biggest storm dumped nineteen inches of snow! This spring is unseasonably warm so hopefully I won't lose the greens that I planted (at least the ones that survive the dogs stomping all over them!).
Here are some pictures from yesterday's cleaning and planting.






I put this Italian and Greek Oregano in last year. They were tiny plants I bought from Miller Farms and they both took over the entire square they were planted in! My husband pulled them out and divided them, then planted them in the bed in pots to stop them from completely taking over.


My son brought a cabbage plant home from school. According to the paper they sent home with it, this cabbage will grow to be bigger than my son's head! We'll see...

This little Brussel Sprout showed up beneath all of the weeds and tomato plant stalks. I'm going to let it grow as a trap plant.

I'll try to do a better job of updating my blog this year. Happy gardening!