Tonight I harvested an entire salad – lettuce, celery, carrots, and cucumbers!  That, plus the peas that went into the main dish made for an interesting discussion at dinner.

This was year one.  So, over the next few Thursdays I’ll go back to the beginning and bring you up to speed as to where we are now including costs, space, and plantings.

In the meantime, I have learned a few things so far:

• Do not plant peas and broccoli next to each other.  When I pulled out the spent broccoli plants, I lost a few pea plants that had hooked onto them.
• Celery doesn’t like this space.  We had a smaller garden at a previous house that celery did very well in.  But, this space is much sunnier.
• The chipmunks like our strawberries.  We’ve gotten next to none to reach edible stage intact.  Interestingly, they haven’t touched anything else.
• I need brackets for the vertical supports.  That’s probably obvious from the picture.  My first pass didn’t quite work, but I have a new plan (most likely for the fall when we have better access).
• The pumpkin plant is taking over.  The above pictures were taken a week ago.  It’s gone way further since then.  Pumpkin was not in my original plan, but our kindergartner brought one home from school and the carrots hadn’t taken in one square so I threw it in.  Thankfully its not taking over anything really important.
• I gave up on watering one square at a time as needed.  Hence, the sprinkler in the picture.

So, there’s a sneak peak.  We’re getting way more produce than I thought we would when we started.  Some things we will plant less of next year; some things we’ll plant more.

I read Mel Bartholomew’s book and took square foot gardening rather literally.  We have six boxes that are 4′ by 3′.  Honestly, I think this is plenty for us even though his book states this should only cover the adults.  Either way it fits the space well so I’m not feeling the need to expand any time soon.