Let’s Launch: Square Foot Garden, 2011 Edition

Welcome, spring.  Can we safely say that you’re here to stay now?  Because I’ve got some gardening that needs to be done.  When it’s cold, I become a lazy gardener.

By winter’s end, the 2010 square foot veggie gardens had become this hot mess:

Tres embarrassing. I got a little lazy with the garden in the fall, and never cleaned it out.  And that brown grass the builder planted is clearly trying to eliminate me from the Better Homes and Gardens tour.

So one warm day in March, I got to work and yanked all the dead plants out of the garden.  I mixed up the dirt, turning it and loosening it with my bare hands.  Oh, that cool, damp soil felt so rich and yummy on my hands.

And looky here, what did I find amongst the dead leaves and plants?  Last year’s Brussels Sprout plant, which had been massacred by pests, seems to have weathered the winter in one way or another.  I’m not sure what it plans to do, but it’s cool to see that it survived.  As did the strawberry plants and some of the swiss chard.

Enough oohing and ahhing over the pretty dirt.  Time to get serious with the greens.  Have you seen the price of lettuce?  Outta control.

I made some tiny little holes in the soil and filled one entire 4×4′ raised garden box with seeds for microgreens (whatever the heck they are), arugula, and spinach.  To mark the rows I found some little scrap pieces of wood and wrote on them with sharpie marker.  Please, hold the applause.  I know it’s a very fancy, sophisticated way to label a garden.

And when I was done, I could gaze upon this site from my studio window.  Fresh gardens, nasty brown grass, and a pile of scrap pulled from the gardens.  What, you thought I’d put away the stuff I cleaned out of the planters?  I’m much lazier than you give me credit for.

Then we went on vacay.  When we came home, I had some lovely little sprouts to greet me!

As I inspected their progress, the cat inspected the progress of the rest of the yard.

He gave me a failing grade on the herb garden.  It looks like it needs to be triaged to the top of our outdoor cleanup list.  STAT.

In other news, beautiful little flowers have sprung up all over our yard.

Ryan is telling me that they are something called “weeds” and apparently are unwanted in our yard.  I think he’s full of baloney.   Why take grass when you can have these?

What’s blooming in your neck of the woods?  Or does your yard, like ours, still look like you’re a finalist in the “2011 Redneck of the Year” awards?