Vegging Out – Part II

I have finally taken the leap & planted my veggies in the ground! Eek! I know it sounds silly, but this was kind of a big deal for me, mostly because I have an uneasy feeling that every deer within a 10 mile radius is going to feast like there’s no tomorrow. And I’ll be left with a bed full of half-chewed leaves.

But anyways, let’s get to how it went down. First, I chose the area that I wanted to use, then Tom & I cleared it. I loosely referenced square-foot gardening guides, and decided to try a 3×6 area:

clearing the future garden space of leftover straw from the grass seeding

Tom used the end of a shovel to section off the area, and then we began digging up the grass. We added 4 bags of topsoil and mixed in 1 bag of manure. We bought the cheapest topsoil and manure we could find at Lowe’s (the brand is Gardener’s Pride). Once it was spread around to our satisfaction, we drew 1×1 foot lines in the soil with the edge of our shovel so I could break down plant placement within each square.

1×1 foot sections — ready for planting!

I lined up my plants, and once they were in the right spot, in the ground they went! Here’s a shot of the final product (before we draped them in netting to keep the critters out):

the finished product

I won’t insult your design-savvy eyes with the rudimentary Microsoft Word table I drew of the bed plantings. Just know that I have it for reference 🙂  Hopefully, in the next few weeks, we’ll be reaping in crops of tomatoes, green bell peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, cantaloupe and strawberries!

Have you ever tried square-foot gardening? What was your experience like?

2 thoughts on “Vegging Out – Part II

  1. Jonathan

    I’ll be interested to know how that square foot thing works for you…it’s been our experience that most plants want much space than that!

  2. twopurplecouches

    Yea, I’ll let you know. I didn’t read a whole lot on the square-foot method – just a few quick tips. But I am a little skeptical. Some of the sample diagrams suggested planting 4 strawberries per square foot, but my strawberry plant easily takes up a whole square. We’ll see…

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