The Box is Completed

Here's the box sitting on the patio. dh built it for me! It's glued and screwed together, with overlapping corners. With all the other weekend chores, I didn't have time to fill it, but I hope to get to that tomorrow. The weather has cooled down nicely, so maybe it's time to plant soon.

Gathering the Materials

We spent a good part of Saturday shopping for supplies for building the garden: Lowe's, Home Depot and Orchard Supply Hardware. I'm excited about the seeds. The little round carrots will grow in just 6 inches of soil. There's room for sixteen different kinds of plants, so I can still buy some more seeds. I think I'll get more lettuce and some kale and collards.

These are the bags of materials for the planting mix. It's made up of vermiculite, peat moss and compost. Eight cubic feet altogether to fill the box. No digging in my rock-hard soil.

Here are some miscellaneous supplies for building: screwdriver, drill, screws, wood glue. The wood slat are for making the square foot grid on the top of the box.

These are the redwood 2 by 6 boards for the sides of the garden box. Home Depot cut them for us. We started with 8 foot boards, and there was no charge to cut them in half. Good deal! As you can see, dh has already drilled pilot holes for the screws in the ends.

Before....

I'm getting ready to build a Square Foot Garden this weekend. This is space in my backyard where it will go. My sister-in-law who came to visit several weeks ago is so excited about her garden! So I decided to give it a try.

The idea comes from the book All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. This weekend my husband and I are going build a 4 foot by 4 foot raised bed, only 6 inches deep and fill it with the special planting mix described in the book.

It was over 90 degrees out today, so I'm not sure if it's time to plant my winter garden yet, but we'll be ready for it. Stay tuned!!