Inch by inch, square by square...

One good thing about moving to St. Louis is that I can now have a garden!  Longtime readers may remember the mobile square foot garden I made last year.  In Texas gardening was a near hopeless endeavor:  my yard had 25 trees, no sun, and the soil was a few inches of sand (like a beach!) over red clay.

Here in St. Louis my yard gets a lot of sun, so I have a perfect spot for a real 4'X4' square foot garden.  So far I have tomatoes, green onions, green beans, and strawberries.  I've only had to water one time so far, since it's rained every few days.  The soil in my yard is much better than that in Texas, though a bit sticky like clay.  But I've been able to actually grow snapdragons in the yard, rather than containers, and have planted blackberries and blueberries which are growing well.

For more information on square foot gardening, check out Mel Bartholomew's book Square Foot Gardening or visit the square foot gardening website.

My mobile garden

Last summer I was standing in line in the garden center of Walmart, when I struck up a conversation with the woman behind me. I was admiring her flowers and she started explaining that they were an addition to her "Square Foot Garden." "Have you heard of square foot gardening?" she asked. When I indicated that I hadn't, she began explaining the main tenets of SFG, with the ardent passion of a true believer.

I kept meaning to look into it, but only got around to it this spring. I checked out the SFG website and ordered the SFG book from Amazon. I got all fired up and ready to go, but there was one BIG problem. The typical square foot garden is built 9 to 16 square feet...a small space, right? But I literally do not have 9 square feet that get sufficient sunshine all day, much less all summer. With about 25 trees on my lot, and given the ever-changing position of the sun, every promising spot eventually winds up in total shade.

Spurred on by the thought of eating a homegrown tomato, I began to consider possible solutions. Maybe I could make it smaller, maybe I could make it portable...voila, the Mobile Square Foot Garden!

As the Beatles sang, "I'll follow the sun." As the sun moves north and then south during the summer, I can relocate my garden as necessary to try to keep it in as much sunshine as possible.

So I managed to make two squares for tomatoes and one for green beans.

Hoping for a bountiful harvest!