My rows were always crooked and the soil always full of clods. I hated the heat and humidity that soon followed. I didn't like hoeing. I didn't like leaning over. I planted the wrong thing in the wrong place and didn't attempt to educate myself about gardening. I always promised my husband I would take care of the garden, but he always ended up doing it when the weeds took over. I felt guilty and it made me hate the garden even more. It always went to grass and weeds until my husband HAD to do the hoeing and weed pulling. It didn't produce much and if it did, I let so many things go to waste.
Last year was the first year we planted nothing. NOTHING. No garden, no patio tomatoes. NOTHING! It was nice. No guilt. No hard work. No worries about putting up extras. (As if we ever had any!) There wasn't a garden ball and chain following me everywhere I went.
We had been eating healthier - not perfect, but but much better than the SAD. We decided would just go to the farmers market while on our nightly motorcycle ride and get what we needed. We would buy enough for a week and live happily ever after. Life was grande!
Well, this years we have had a very mild winter in Iowa. Towards the end of January, I was having visions of Spring. That pesky garden bug came back. We hadn't had 'fresh' veggies available for a few months, and our eating habits were waning. I started thinking about food and health and organics and that led me to confronting the dreaded question. Do I do something about our food supply??? Or have an easy Spring and especially, Summer? The farmer's market is just once a week in our small town and they don't have a huge offering. It's also pretty expensive.
I dared myself to look into organic gardening, just to see what would happen. In my search, I found Square Foot Gardening. I ran into site after site after site. I had never heard of it! I found myself reading constantly about the idea of fresh, beautiful veggies. It said it was easy! No weeding! Abundant crops! No long rows! Attractive, manageable plots. You can't get lost! I can't remember getting so excited about being outdoors in a LONG time.
Now my husband knows me through and through. I get an idea and go gung ho, then I don't follow it through or he ends up dealing with it. Did I dare bring it up to him? I knew I had to get my facts and figures straight before approaching him. Not that he ever turns me down, but I didn't want him to think I was nuts. I was so excited and positive about SFG that I started giving him some tidbits of information and reading some things aloud to him, just to get a feel for what he thought. Finally I told him I think the book would be worth investing in. He liked the idea!
He works very hard and I try to not bog him down with some of my 'projects', so I decided to find some low cost boxes that I could put together myself. After looking into this I decided upon these boxes from Home Depot. I hoped they were sturdy and I liked the price.
Into February and March we STILL didn't have winter, so I was pumped. If I was going to do this, I was going to it correctly, but as frugally as possible. I wanted him to be proud of me and know that this wasn't one of my fly by night ideas.
As of this writing, we have 4 - 4x4 squares and a few early things planted. I will put details of each step and more pics in a separate blog. This is my first attempt at blogging, also, so as with the garden, I will learn as I go.
I hope this encourages anyone with doubts about a SFG to take a chance and DO IT!
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