Our Spring Square Foot Garden

Our little Square Foot garden is producing like crazy thus far, with the spring crops and herbs doing well with the recent rains.

You can see the butterhead lettuce, broccoli, onions and a few Swiss chard plants here, along with some very happy thyme and sage in the foreground.   Our onions, especially, have been growing like gangbusters.

The only disappointment thus far has been my snow peas, which are barely straggling along in terms of growth.

No idea why, the weather this spring has been fairly mild to cool, which is usually just the sort of conditions they like.  And I've been watering on days when we haven't gotten rain.

You can see in the picture at right that they are still relatively small along the trellis netting.


In case you are wondering, the half-buried milk jugs are a hand-made drip irrigation system I decided to try out last year which worked well for tomatoes and peppers -- I could get some compost tea and water directly to the roots of the deep-feeders.  I plan on expanding it a bit this summer since it worked out well last year, and I've been saving empty milk jugs this winter to make it work.

It's just a little 4x8 plot, but we've been able to plant quite a bit in it this spring.

You can see how the trellis is put together with the galvanized electrical conduit as a frame, and the nylon garden trellis netting strung across the top and down the sides.  I attached and stabilized it with electrical fasteners, the plastic kind that self-tighten as you pull them taut.

It's worked out really well, and has been very stable, even in high wind.  I drove some fairly hefty rebar stakes deeply into the ground, and then threaded the conduit pipe on top, so the rebar acts as a stablizer.  I've never even had it bend in a strong wind, because that provides enough give to keep it sturdy.  At least thus far, anyway.

But the nylon netting is sturdy enough to hold up vining, indeterminate tomatoes and cucumbers at their heaviest in the summer, too.

Haven't gotten the tomatoes, peppers, and basil in yet -- but that's coming soon.  In the meantime, we'll be harvesting lettuce, spinach and onions for salads and hopefully at least one mess of peas before the hot weather hits.

How is your garden growing?

(All photos are mine of the garden early this morning before the rain started again.)