I use the Square Foot Gardening technique developed by Mel Bartholomew as a guide for my gardening.
My 8′ x 4′ pine box (32 square feet) is raised and gridded using twine. I use Mel’s plant spacings (how many seeds to plant per square foot), but I don’t use Mel’s Mix (1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite). Instead I go in for the premium soil mix of organic leaf compost, peat, sand and screened soil the community garden gets delivered from a local farm every year. I started my plot with this soil the first year and it was amazingly productive.
What’s in my garden this year:
Herbs
- Basil
- Cilantro
- Dill
- Garlic Chives
- Parsley
Flowers
- Borage
- Calendula
- Cornflower
- Sunflower
Veggies
- Beets
- Carrots
- Collard Greens
- Cucumbers – new this year
- Onions
- Kale
- Lettuce mix
- Spinach
- Tomatoes
- Zucchini – new this year
Favourite purveyor of organic seeds and plants: Urban Harvest! Great seeds and plants and very helpful staff. They even let me exchange an unopened seed packet (I picked up a black boy cornflower seed pack instead of blue boy).