I found my first potatoes today
A couple of my “unauthorized” potato plants died away. I don’t know if it was because they came from organic potatoes I bought at the store, instead of actual seed potatoes, or if I have too many bugs eating their leaves. But I thought I should cover the large plants with more straw, and used some from the area where the non-existent plant was. I decided I could use that space to transplant something that is crowded. And maybe I will. But as I was digging, I found these little baby potatoes. I was surprised that they were under the dirt, because I thought they’d grow in the straw. But maybe I added the straw above the tuber line. Anyway, here’s a picture of my first baby potatoes:
How exciting is that?!
My corn is “knee high by the Fourth of July” (but the squirrels will eat it before I’ll get the chance):
Here’s a picture of my “monster squash”:
And the whole Square Foot Garden:
Here are my garlics:
And here’s my niece, Petunia (for whom prayers were answered on three occasions) with her natural, wild hairdo (first time I’ve ever seen her ungroomed). She has “bed head”. Those things that look like ears aren’t:
Most of the pictures will enlarge if you click on them.
Here’s an easy alternative for someone who would like to have a Square Foot Garden, but isn’t good at hammering nails into boards, or doesn’t have a yard — or a yard with a sunny spot. This is my sister-in-law’s patio garden made from cinder blocks. (She thought that maybe next year, she’d have a different mix of flowers with taller ones in the back against the second level of blocks.)
I didn’t take a tape measure, but it seems that 8 cinder blocks arranged as she has the lower row would make a 3′ Square Foot Garden which could be divided up into 9 square feet areas. And the holes in the cinder blocks could grow something else like herbs, marigolds or nasturtiums to repel garden insects. Something simple and small like this could even be put on a driveway.
In other words, an enclosure of 8 cinder blocks in the position she has them (but one level) could be divided up into 9 square feet, and there would also be 16 places to grow things around the edges in the holes, plus room for a pot in each of the 4 corners. So a lot of different things could be grown in that little bit of space with very little work or expense to set up.
(But I just Googled, and found that standard cinder blocks are 8″x8″x16″. So, to be able to divide it into actual 1′ squares, you’d need to go with a 4′x4′ garden, with 3 cinder blocks on each side — where they meet on the inner corners. So that would be 12 cinder blocks, with a total of 24 holes for bug-repelling flowers or herbs, or whatever you’d like that might trail, and cover the gray blocks — and 16 squares for growing different veggies or whatever. Some forums I found mentioned painting them. But I’m wondering about paint chemicals leaching into the growing area. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, if the holes were filled with flowers instead of food. Also, I read on one of the forums that herbs do better in plain top soil, than Mel’s Mix of 1/3 compost, 1/3 vermiculite & 1/3 peat moss, which apparently is too rich for herbs. I don’t know if that’s true, but thought I’d mention it, FWIW. I’m thinking of trying the cinder block idea in the side area of my driveway, which is currently where I still have a pile of topsoil that I bought a couple of years ago, and can’t park my car in anyway. That might be more humane than burning grass or digging dirt in the new area where there are some ant hills. Maybe I’ll use that area for potatoes next year, and try the straw thing on top of the dirt — maybe laid over cardboard.)