I decided I’d post pictures of the progress of my Square Foot Garden all on one page. I may be missing some, but then again, they may be redundant, or taken from different angles on the same days. So I’ll try to be selective.

(These dates aren’t necessarily correct. My computer’s photo file seems to show dates a couple weeks earlier than real time. That may have happened when I got a new computer around June 23ed. For example, pictures I took on 7/10 show up as being taken on 6/28. So I’ll try to backtrack. But if I can’t, it doesn’t matter. The progress will still be in chronological order.)

This was taken sometime in April, after I burned the last of the leaves to clear the grass, etc. I ended up digging out the dirt where the Square Foot Garden was going to be, so I could be pretty sure that no roots were left, and so I could sink it to driveway level, so my neighbor wouldn’t hit it with his snowblower next winter:

April 22nd — I happened to have 2 12′ long pieces of quarter round, which I decided to cut into 6 4′ pieces, to mark my garden into square feet areas. I got 2 2×8’s which the guy at the lumber store cut in half for me, without extra charge. I ended up laying down newspapers under the Mel’s Mix, just in case I didn’t dig up all the roots from what was growing there before:

May 3rd:

May 17th:

May 26th:

June 1st:

June 4th:

June 12th:

June 18th:

June 21st:

July 4th:

July 10th:

This year, the potato patch (or at least the straw that covers it) is right up to the west side of the SFG, which doesn’t give me room to reach in easily from that side. It (especially the straw) also creates extra shade for some of the plants that are already overshadowed by my “monster squash” and amaranth, which is pretty tall, and will get taller. Next year, I’ll sacrifice 3 feet of space on that side, so I can walk. (It won’t be so bad, since I’ll be planting something else in this year’s potato patch, anyway.) It’s even more difficult reaching in from the south side with the fence. But I may keep that for climbing plants. Maybe I’ll just wait until they actually need to climb before I put it up. Or maybe I’ll use poles instead. (I could take the fence off for a while, until the plants actually need a place to climb.)

For those who are interested, other than a lone nasturtium in one of the squares (which I didn’t have the heart to transplant, but which has huge leaves), this is what I planted, from front to back, left to right:
1) yellow crooked neck squash, zucchinis, cucumbers, peas,
2) lettuce, amaranth, yellow bell pepper, red cabbage,
3) cilantro, green onions, beets, bush beans,
4) cayenne pepper, jalapeno pepper, carrots, broccoli.

(Some of the seeds must have washed into other squares, because I have a stray carrot in the jalapeno square, and some stray amaranths in neighboring squares. I don’t feel like “weeding” or transplanting them, especially since the squares they ended up in aren’t crowded. Since I’m the only person who gets to admire it up-close, it doesn’t bother me.)

As I mentioned elsewhere, I will probably add more Square Foot Garden boxes in the future. (My problem is coming up with 16 different things to grow.) But even this year and in the recent past, I did use some of Mel’s ideas with my other areas. For example, I used Mel’s Mix in my tomato pots this year, and have grown things intensively in the older garden, like the original beans I planted this year, 9 plants to a square foot. And my tomato cages form a Square Foot Garden of their own, without a box. I find that the bean plants not only help crowd out weeds, but that they hold each other up. And I like the idea of building up, instead of digging down — not only because I don’t want to injure earthworms, but because I have a lot of gravel under the dirt by the driveway.

So, next year, if I have more than one frame, I’ll concentrate more on companion plants — for example, separating the squash family, the cabbage family, the onion family, etc., from things they don’t get along with. And since I want to grow a lot of beans, and since they get along with everything, I can include them in each frame instead of planting them in the older part of the garden.