Upsy Daisy!

I bought myself a tomato plant today.  I started seedlings or planted from seed everything but tomatoes.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe I wanted to make sure my tomato plant had the best start.  I chose a variety called Early Girl.  It's supposed to grow to maturity in 50 days.

I decided early on that I was not going to plant tomatoes in my SFG.  My mother had one of those Topsy Turvy planters last year and her tomato plant did absolutely amazing in it.  So, to save some space and make my garden a little more interesting, I bought a Topsy Turvy and planted my brand new tomato plant in it.  I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it.  I'll post one tomorrow.

Now, it's still a little early to plant tomatoes in my zone (5a), so I've covered it with a blanket for the night.  It's only going to get down to +1C overnight, but with the wind it's supposed to feel like -5C.  I don't want my tomato to get a chill.  I hope the blanket works.

I'm also going to plant my peppers and cucumbers in the Topsy Turvy.  I have to wait until almost the end of May in my zone though.  We'll see what happens.  Hopefully it works out as well as I hope it will.

Call me crazy, but I bought a strawberry Topsy Turvy too!  Hey, I should buy stock in this company.  Hmmmmmm.....  Sorry, I digress, back to the strawberries.  The Topsy Turvy has 15 holes in it that apparently can have 2 strawberry plants in each, for a total of 30 strawberry plants.  I bought 3 packs of 10 strawberry plants and will plant them in the planter some time this week.  My 2 year old loves strawberries, so these will go over really well.  I hope to get some berries this year, but I know I may not get anything until next year.  Fingers crossed.

Wind, Wind Go Away!

The wind was blowing today as I tried to plant some seeds.  Luckily, I didn't lose any.

As you can see, my SFG is full of Mel's Mix and it has a grid.  So, off I went this afternoon to plant some seeds.

Here's my SFG filled with Mel's Mix and ready for planting.

Planting my bush bean seeds.

Hopefully this little guy will yield a lot of yummy beans for munching on this summer.


Besides the bush beans, I also planted broccoli, carrots, mini head lettuce, leaf lettuce and spinach.  I have bunch onions, cooking onions, leeks, eggplant and sugar pumpkin seedlings in the house waiting to be hardened off and planted in the SFG.  I also have some pepper and cucumber seedlings that I will be planting in upside down hanging planters.  I'll buy a tomato plant from the nursery and plant that in another upside down hanging planter.  There are 30 strawberry plants here waiting to be planted into a fourth upside down hanging planter too.  I'll post pics of these planters after I have them planted.

I gave my seeds a drink and tucked them in for the night.  I can't wait for some sprouts to pop up!

The Box is Built! Now where did I put those seeds???

First off, let me introduce myself.  My name is Kimberly and I live in Ontario, Canada.  I have two beautiful daughters (2 1/2 and 9 months) and a wonderful husband that supports my crazy ideas.  My latest "crazy idea" is to build a square foot garden and grow my own vegetables.  I'm trying to eat healthier and save some money, so why not?  Plus, it is a great way to teach my oldest daughter (and the youngest eventually) that carrots grow in the ground, not in the freezer section of the grocery store.

I learned about the square foot gardening method from Mel Bartholomew.  You can check out his website here:  http://www.squarefootgardening.com/.  I also recommend his book: All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space.  It's very informative.

Anyhow, back to my square foot garden (SFG).  Who knew it would be so hard to find vermiculite?  You would figure that it would be easy to find.  Nope!  I called around to local garden centres and finally found a source.  Whew!  Now I can make my "Mel's Mix".  Mel's Mix is a combination of 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite and 1/3 blended compost.  I used sheep, cattle and shrimp compost mixed together and plan to start my own compost this summer so I can use that in my garden next year.  But that's a whole other can of worms! (no pun intended)

The next step was to build the box.  This is where my husband comes in.  He spent the whole afternoon today building me a beautiful 3x4 foot box.

Isn't it amazing?  I think he did a great job!

Now all I have to do is fill it with my Mel's Mix, put on the grid and start planting!  Wish me luck that there's no rain tomorrow so I can get some planting done!