my love of graph paper

Any excuse to use graph paper is a good one. Our last weekend was a chilly one so while I couldn't spend as much time outside as I would have liked I did get to embrace the garden by drawing and redrawing it on graph paper. I did one version that was a foot for every square. Then I zoomed in on the garden and made every foot = two squares. This gave me enough space to written my veggies and make my color blocks look more impressive.

Square foot gardening is an easy way to get started gardening or a way to garden in limited space or in my case space that isn't mine. One of the things I like most about the idea of square foot gardening is that you can use companion gardening to improve the vegetables flavor and deter common garden pests. You could probably do a similar thing in a traditional row garden but since I never heard of it until I started researching square foot gardening it is obviously more beneficial in square foot gardening. This logic is very similar to "everything you read on the internet is true".  Fool proof stuff I am working with here.

When I started drawing out the grids I wanted to put something different in each square. Then I started to get overwhelmed. So I condensed it down to some of my favorites and veggies I use the most in the kitchen. When I wrote out the shopping list it is still a long list of veggies and herbs.

The drawing shows all the raised beds we will have and the plan for the gravel pathway we are putting around the beds.

zoomed in 4 squares =1sq. ft.

I am going to end up growing 25 different things in the garden. It will end up being more since I am planning on growing a few different varieties of tomatoes. I think the plants I am most looking forward to are peas, strawberries and cherry tomatoes because I love eating them right out of the garden. Though the potatoes are the experiment I am looking forward to the most. It makes me giddy like a kid to think about growing potatoes. Something about a tower of dirt giving you potatoes is fascinating. 

I will keep you posted on the actual garden building as we progress with filing the beds, laying the path and spreading the wild flower garden. I have a few other garden projects up my sleeve for this summer.

If you want more information about square foot gardening you can find it here.

Do you have gardening plans this summer?