PLANT FOOD

If you’ve been following along at home, your little square foot garden plot is now about six weeks old and needs some plant food/fertilizer. We’ve been giving Miracle Gro Organic Choice a whirl, and while a bit whiffy on the nose, it seems to be ok.

We got it for about $10 ish. I’m not sure this is what I’ll stick with, but for this mini series of articles I wanted readers to get it locally, and preferably all in one stop shopping. So that is what was at the Lowe’s on Semoran Blvd and Lake Margaret Dr. where we purchased almost everything for this project.

Just use about 1 plastic picnic spoon per square and water well. Follow the bag’s suggestions for the next application.

PHOTO PROGRESS

If you followed the same sunny planting plan we did with the bush beans and flowers, it probably has progressed a lot like Julia’s home garden. Hers is in partial shade.

Here it was at 2 weeks old:

Here it is at 6 weeks old:

The corner flower transplants have settled in well:

The lemon yellow on the marigolds is great:

So’s the pinks on the petunias:

In the middle we had teddybear sunflowers from seed. Something’s been nibbling on the leaves a bit, but they are out and on their way:

The bush beans on the sides have had their white blooms already and are busy turning into little bean pods. We’ll be harvesting them in a few more weeks when they are about 4-5 inches long.

Over at the church cinderblock plot planted in the same style, we also fertilized even though it’s a bit younger than the home garden. (It’s a lot easier on me if all my kiddie gardens are on the same schedule!) This one is out in full sun all day, and I think it would be a wee bit happier with slightly less Florida sun since concrete can get pretty hot. But it is still doing fine.

Here it is when we planted it:

Here is how it looks now:

The bush beans here are just starting with the white bean blooms. No pods yet:

We did orange and yellow marigolds for the corners in this plot. They are doing fine but need a little deadheading to remove old blooms.

Of course, if you go with a 4 ft x 4 ft plot in cinder block style instead of wood, you get a little more planting space in the cinder block holes. We stuffed all the holes with radish seeds and we probably can think about harvesting soon. It’s a good quick crop for kids since it is so fast.

CONCLUSION

That’s it. We met all three goals we laid out for our little gardeners at the beginning of the series.

1. Set up an organic 4 x 4 ft SFG correctly
2. Plant it up
3. Grow something for a while (Whether or not the plants last the season or we get to actually harvest anything edible is bonus.)

It’s actually looking pretty good that we will get a little harvest from both the wooden style and the concrete cinder block style!

All the kids I’ve been gardening with are having a good time, and one of the babies who barely talks in full sentences yet recently greeted me with “Hey… you… we dig?” when he saw me coming. He can’t even say my name right yet but he’s ready to hit the garden plot!

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