Future Salads and Salsa

As May neared, the pressure to get the seeds and seedlings in the ground mounted.  One chilly Wednesday morning right after breakfast, my daughter, Fiona, and I headed outside to get it done.  We had already strategized what seeds would go where, and squarefootgardening.org had helped me decipher how many of each type of seed to plant.  I should pause to say that the website, while it has just enough information, isn't really meant to be definitive.  You're really supposed to...well, buy the book.  Guess if I'm going to?

So, back to those seeds.  Our choices were based partly on the vegetables and herbs my mom and I are most likely to use in cooking, partly on what there was room for, and partly on what struck Fiona as fun when we were standing in front of the seed packets.  In seed form we ended up with:

• Radishes
• Mesclun greens
• Green lettuce
• Peas (bush)
• Cucumbers
• Carrots
• Onions (they were actually tiny onions, not seeds)

In seedling form we have:

• Tomatoes
• Basil
• Thyme
• Jalapenos
• Parsley

All this is fitting in a 4X4 foot garden plot, mind you- crazy, right??  I have no idea what volume we'll end up with, but either way, I foresee yearly footage added on to what we have now, so we can adjust accordingly.

  

Meanwhile, on that damp morning, Fiona and I used screws and twine to mark off the square foot sections of the plot.  The seedlings went right in, then I used my finger to poke the appropriate holes for the seeds.  For instance, you plant 16 cucumber seeds per square foot, so I just eyeballed it and made 4 rows of 4 finger holes, dropping a seed in each one.  Fiona patted down the dirt.  Voila, garden!  

Why, Virginia, your child has no face!

And now... the waiting....