Category Archives: Square Food Garden

Square Foot Garden

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The weather has final decide to allow Spring for at least a few days! So we have spent several hours a couple of evening planting our square foot garden. This year we have added two additional pieces. The middle one that does not have a grid is for sweet potatoes, I forgot to save one to start with this year and have searching at several stories, I discovered that these plants will not be available until May. We are hoping to double our crop from last year!  Otherwise we are using a combination of starting from seeds and purchasing plants this year. Hopefully this will be the last year that I have to purchase soil to use in the garden. I don’t plant to add any additional boxes but instead we are looking at eatable landscape.

We have a separate bed for our cantaloupe and watermelon on the back side of the house where there is no shade at all. I was able to start the canto loupe from seed this year so I am really excited to see what we get.

Upfront we have tomatoes (started from seeds pear and beefsteak, cheery tomato plants were brought), squash, cucumbers, cabbage, broccoli (started from seed only one surviving), green peepers, a spicy peeper, dill, cilantro, chives, basil (all herbs from seeds).

We have spent a total of $300 on soil and $60 on plants. This is around $100 more than if we joined a coop but the cost next year will be significantly lower. In addition to cost saving the kids really enjoy this activity.

Finally a couple of pictures….

 

Wordless Wednesday- Square Food Garden Additon

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We almost doubled the space we had by adding two new beds to our square foot garden. The front one will be for squash and the middle for sweet potatoes.  We saved huge on this project by re-using wood. Most of this wood was from the deck I had replaced ten years ago. I ended up never getting around to burning it. So it has been in the very back of the yard for years. We have gradually pulled out and used most of it!  Total cost is $7.00 for the box of screws!

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Oh My Sweet Potato!

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Just because I thought it would be neat for the kids, I picked up a small 6 pack of sweet potato plants this spring. Over the spring and summer, both Matt and I have commented on how beautiful the flowers were. In fact, I liked the appearance so much that following the principle of beauty of square foot gardening, I was going to add a small bed up front for next year to grow again. Matt was not all that impressed and wanted to wait to see how much we were able to produce.

This week, we have had several night of freezing temps and our beautiful sweet potato plants were dead, even black, from the cold so I knew I need to dig up and see what we have……

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I am truly amazed, for $1.68 we grew almost enough for several meals!  I actually have most of the small ones in the oven baking right now so we can enjoy for dinner!  I am so excited as this is the most veggie with the least amount of work!

Zach and Kendall helped to dig up the potatoes. next we made an assembly line for washing and sorting them. It took almost an hour to complete the process but both of these guys LOVED it!   Now sweet potatoes are a definite for our garden next year!

Square Foot Garden

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photoI haven’t written much about our Square foot garden this year but we have been enjoying cucumbers, a few green peppers and tomatoes. I have even been able to freeze some of the extra tomatoes to use during the winter. This year we tried something new and moved our watermelon and cantaloupe to the back side of our deck. I was hoping that this sunny spot would work well. It has! Above you can see our first harvest! We are so excited to eat these.

After the success of this year we are already making plans for bigger and better next year. We will be adding a box for squash only as they take a lot of room and I would like to be able to freeze some for use in squash casseroles.  We also will be spreading out the watermelon and cantaloupe plant as the watermelon have really overtaken so this will allow both more room to grow. The plan is to replace the 3 spots for squash with more tomatoes plants.

If you recall we did not participate in the co-op this year and have not really missed the extra vegetables as we have received several gifts of produce in addition to our garden.

I do have quite a supply of zucchini from last year so this was not a big deal either. We are continuing to clean out and re organize our freezers which should help with decisions as to what to plant and plan for in the future!

 

Wordless Wednesday Square Foot Garden

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We finished with most of the planting last Friday evening. I ended up purchasing most of the plants as only cucumbers grew from the seeds we planted!

 

Random Thoughts Thursday- 5/16/2013

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  • Both little girls had eye appointments last week and we received some good news, Kendall’s eye are stable, corrected to 20/20 with glass so she will not need to be seen again for six months!  Lily’s weak eye has improved as well and she will no longer be patching!  She continues to need to be seen every 3 months but she is so excited to stop patching after 3 year!
  • All of Zach’s dental bill have been processed by the insurance company and after requesting refunds, which I will turn around and pay on the remain bill, we only owe an additional $93. This is a huge relief and praise as the original bill I received last week was $696
  • Budgeting this month has gone really astray. I am struggling to get a grip on the coming in but more importantly on the amounts we are spending. I know that a significant amount is school/end of the year related but man I wish it would slow down.
  • Haley is fast approaching Graduation from high school. She presented her final English project today and has a presentation next week that is very stressful for her. But she is counting the days till she walks across the stage. She also is searching for a job for the summer.
  • Matt has been working on the car, Haley purchased from Amanda, hopefully it will be completed and ready to drive by the end of May.
  • I have a student who is shadowing  me this week and starting next week will be “taking over my caseload” to complete her education. I did not realize until this week how difficult and stressful my job can be! But I still love it!
  • The only success I had with starting  my garden from seeds this year was the cucumbers. I hope to replant the other items this week.

Week In Review

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Just when I am getting in to a good groove and keeping up with things, I get so busy again that I don’t even know where time goes. This was one of those weeks.  Highlights included:

Monday- Matt picked up Zaycon chicken and Lily had tumbling practice. I did manage to exercise this night.

Tuesday- Matt had a Church Board meeting-Haley played in the schools powder puff game, Amanda came over to hang out for several hours. Squeezed in a second night of exercise

Wednesday- Church night.

Thursday- I spent most of the morning working on budgeting and bill pay. Matt made several contact regarding his business. After picking up Lily from school, we headed to Winston for groceries and a meal at Olive Garden.

Friday- Senior night at Football game followed by Fireworks.

This week has also been the first in a month that I have worked over my hours so it really was hectic.

Finally on Saturday, I had some time to catch up, I spend time cooking a couple of meals for next week, cleaning, laundry. The weather in NC is supposed to turn cooler to the point of freezing this coming week, so I decided to go ahead and pick all the veggies from our Square foot garden and prepare it for the winter. I did leave 4 pepper plants and one tomato plant in case the predictions are wrong.  Both Kendall and Zach helped with picking of the veggies as well as pulling up plants and adding dirt to the garden. They said this was the most fun they had all day!  A picture of what we were able to pick:

 

Square Foot Garden

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It is my blog and I can change things as I want to!! I had all intentions of posting about my Square Foot Garden on Monday this week. I even took pictures to show it. But life happened.so here is a picture

  

I have not talked much about our Square Foot Garden this year. First I planted too early and frost killed most of it. I did replant a second time and we have received a small batch of veggies. However, while on vacation, I pulled up all the dead/dieing plants, since then we have noticed a huge change. We are currently able to get a dish of green beans a week (3 weeks), green peppers  (small but awesome) jalapeno, freezing these for use this winter and some really GOOD looking tomatoes. After thought and debate we decided that next year, the plan is to make the garden deeper. We are adding a second wooden layer around the entire box which in turn will  make use double the amount of dirt. I hope this helps as the kids are saying that things from the garden taste better so we want to foster and encourage them to eat as many veggies as they can hold. Any other suggestions?

April 29? Huh

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This honestly has been one of the busiest months I can remember in a long time.  I now remember why I made blogging one of my goals. I get so busy that I just don’t have enough time in the day. So once again, I am offering an apology and going to make an effort to do better. I really like random list so that is my pick of the day. Here is a random list of the things going on in our house.

  1. Our square foot garden that looked so good in this post, now is dead except for the broccoli and the tomato plants that are in separate containers.  In the past two weeks, we have had temperature swings that included 4 night of below 32 and days like today which the temp is 80. So I did cover everything the first night it was freezing but it still managed to kill most of it.   I am planning to replant the garden next Saturday. According to most web site and the almanac April 30 is the last frost day, so hopefully things will survive this time.
  2. Last Monday, we spent most of our time, re-organizing and moving our master closet. My plan is to post pictures on Wednesday, if I can remember to get them off the camera.  The total spent for the entire thing was less than $10. The room is 8×8, but feels larger now, this morning both Matt and I were able to get dressed at the same time. My plan is to purchase 2 more wire shelves from IKEA and then the room will be complete and very usable!
  3. One of the main reason, I have been so busy is that I agreed to coach the “Zone Teams” in Bible quizzing. Quizzing is for 7th-12th graders. The teams I have been working with over the past 6 weeks was the top 11 quizzers from our zone, which is approximately 30 quizzers from NC. Haley placed 6th this year and is the one of the reason I agreed to coach. In addition the competition was held at our church yesterday (April 27th). Not only was I coaching our teams but I also was in charge of the housing, food and organization for this event which include teens and adults from NC,SC and Ga. Haley ended up 10th out of 20 and I am proud of her. But honestly, I am so thankful it is over. I have been spending at least 30 minutes a day with this for the past month. I do have to say that there is no way I could have done it without the help of Matt and some great ladies from our church. The ladies supplied most of the food and one even had a play date for Kendall and Zach from 7:30am yesterday. I have some pictures from their day and will try and get a post together with those soon!
  4. I am really enjoying the produce box we are picking up each week now. This week we were given a recipe to try with the spinach. Spinach is not a veggie that I have ever purchased but I am actually enjoying trying different recipes with it. This week it will be a “green calzone”.  I have been able to freeze several serving of broccoli and strawberries. I am actually very proud of myself for using all the produce and so far, nothing has gone bad.
  5. My work has been crazy. I have actually worked around 28 hours for 3 weeks and last week, I enjoyed both Monday and Thursday off. The other news is that starting in January 2013, part time benefits will change. So far the changes that I am aware of are that Medical and Dental benefits will no longer be given. They are unsure if I will even be able to purchase these and if I am able to purchase then it will be at double what I am paying now. My first thought is that I should just go full time, the problem with that is that at this point, I am not sure that will be offered. I have decided that God will provide and maybe this is his way of directing my path. Please pray with  me that if I am to go full time this offer be presented in the near future or that something else opens up for me.
  6. Matt’s unemployment is ending. We received notice of this on Friday. We had expected this transition to occur at the end of June but instead it will be the second week of May. A major change for us financially, especially with the moving up by 8 weeks. Matt is currently working on establishing his web design business. Please pray for our peace and God’s direction in this area as well.  And of course if you are aware of any business, church or person in need of a website or even a updated website, email me!
  7. We are planning on a major yard sale during the month of May, Lily and Kendall are planning on a lemonade stand. My goal is to clean out the attic and some of the building. We have boxes of clothing, several pieces of furniture as well as an assortment of toys that need to find better homes.
  8. I LOVE my bathtub- so do the kids both Kendall and Zach are jumping in right now as a special treat!