This fall appears to be the best garden attempt for me yet. Harvest time hasn’t come yet but things are looking very promising in the second square foot garden. Cherry and Juliet tomatoes are growing in abundance. Green peppers are popping up. The eggplant is blooming. Winter squash is producing female flowers. Corn is getting ready to produce. The okinawa squash keeps on producing new growth. The only downside is that it is way crowded in there! When planning the fall garden, I used the square foot garden’s recommendation for spacing. However it is getting too crowded. The typical 4 feet by 4 feet garden is split into 16 one foot grids. Many of the plants growing need at least 1 1/2 of a grid or even two grids. I think that for next season I will break up the garden into 9 grids to allow extra space for big plants. Like the first garden I started in May, I also put a weed cloth down before filling the garden with dirt. The weed cloth was to put down to be a barrier between the pristine new soil and the yucky nematode filled soil below. After a recent organic gardening presentation I found that roots need lots of room to grow down and putting the weed cloth down inhibits plant growth. An experienced gardener assured me that as long as the plant is taken care of and healthy, nematodes will have little affect on my crops. I guess I will experiment with this in the spring but until then I cannot wait to reap the benefits of my hard work!
Growing With Leala 