Outdoors - April 5th

 I started my compost last summer.  I started in a five-gallon bucket.  I filled that bucket up more than ten times and it kept breaking down.  I thought I would never fill that bucket up.  It was amazing.  I almost wish I could see how big of a pile everything would have made before breaking down.

I didn't want to spend $100 on a composter so I used a garbage can.  Holes were drilled throughout and on the bottom.  Before I planted in my garden I sifted my compost.  This is what was leftover.

I ended up with about a five-gallon bucket of black gold.

Here are my leaves I collected last fall to add to the garden.  I attempted to make an area to save the leaves so they would blow away or get peed on by my dog!  :)  I left it open because I was doing a terrible job.  Jeff is going to have to make this right.  Once it's done right, I'll share it.

The black bag next to the leaves is Alpaca poo.  There is an Alpaca farm near my house where you can shovel the manure for free.  They will only give you the old stuff which is good.  The fresh stuff has too hot and would kill everything.

I added the molded leaves, old Alpaca, and my compost to my three 4X4 Square Foot Gardens.

Here are my three Square Foot Gardens.  The closest one has not been divided yet, but you can see the other two have been.  I only divided two because I'm only planting my cool weather crops right now since my 50% last frost date is May 6th.

When you divide a Square Foot Garden, you create 1X1 squares to plant in.  You don't plant in rows.  Each plant type you have to look up to see how many plants you can plant per square.  You can actually get more produce in a smaller area because you don't have rows and you don't ever step inside the garden.

This process also makes it to where you pretty much never have weeds.

Here's a closer look of the sections.

If you look really close.  I mean really, really, really close.  You can see some of my Bok Choy.

So far I've planted:  2 squares of Bok Choy - 4 plants each for a total of 8

I have 4 squares for Spinach - 9 plants each for a total of 36 plants.  I'm succession planting so I'm planting 6 plants every 1-2 weeks

I have 4 squares for Lettuce - 5 plants each for a total of 20 plants - I'm succession planting so I'm planting 5 plants every 1-2 weeks

I have 2 squares for Peas - 8 plants each for a total of 16 plants - I'm succession planting so I'm planting 4 plants every 1-2 weeks.  I need to build a trellis for my peas to climb on.  I bought some cedar and tomato netting.

I have 1 square for my Onion sets - 9 plants each for a total of 9 plants.

I have 2 squares for Carrots - 16 plants each for a total of 32 plants.  I'm succession planting so I'm planting 8 plants every 1-2 weeks.

I have 16 squares per garden totaling 48 squares.  I've accounted for 15 of the 48 squares totaling 121 plants.

You can see how you can have a lot of garden in small spaces if you use the Square Foot method.