How does your garden grow? With only 6 sq. ft. of garden, here is my garden design for you.
Small gardens are the easiest to start as a raised bed. A trip to the hardware store, for the following and this garden can be complete in a day.
Needed Materials:
2- 2 x 6 x 6 Untreated Lumber
3- bags Garden Soil
2 - Tomato plants (indeterminate)
2- 5′ T-posts
1 - Rosemary plant
Seed packet of each: Sunflowers, Spinach, Nasturtiums, Bush Beans, Squash & Chives.
Many of the hardware stores will cut the lumber for a few extra cents. We need one board cut in half and the second board cut into 3-2′ foot sections.
Back home assemble your boards in your preferred location. My preference is to plant my garden east to west, but it really doesn’t matter. The only thing you need to remember is to plant the tallest plants on the North side of the garden so they will not shade the other veggies.
Place a heavy layer of newspaper (remember do not use advertising or color sections of the newspaper) inside the newly constructed 3′x 2′ frame, water the paper, then open the bags of soil and fill. Voila!
Let’s get to the fun stuff. We will plant the sunflowers 8″ apart on the north side, drive the t-posts in the location where we will plant the tomato plants. (approx. 9-10″ in from each side.) Oh, I should tell you I use t-posts for they work much better for staking the tomato plants than those cages. I chose an indeterminate variety of tomato plant so you will have fresh tomatoes throughout the summer rather than an overload of tomatoes at one time with a determinate variety. Plant your tomatoes, then sow your chives in between. These two plants are good companions.
Plant 6 bush beans 3″ apart and 3-4 squash seeds which you will thin to one plant later in the season. Note cucumbers could be planted instead of squash, but I would use a small trellis for the cucumber to grow upward. Oh and make sure the trellis is not in front of the tomato plant.
Okay, now we will seed the spinach and nasturtiums 3-4″ apart along the front border. You say you want to leave this for tomorrow? Why, because if you soak your nasturtiums in warm water overnight they will germinate faster. Oh you gardening guru…
These seeds are some of the easiest to grow. This garden will provide a wonderful salad, with spinach leaves, peppery nasturtium flowers, fresh tomato slices, and a lovely bouquet of sunflowers for the table.
I almost forgot, the Rosemary plant doesn’t belong in the design, if it is not kept well pruned it can grow half the size of this garden. Then why is it there, because Rosemary is for Remembrance. It’s the only way I could think to remind myself to remind you to water the garden after it has been planted.
I’ll show you a few photo’s of my fields this week and what is currently being planted and that will conclude our gardening series, for awhile. If you have a question, feel free to ask you can e-mail me or leave it in the comment section and I’ll do my best to answer.
Happy Gardening!
{ 4 comments }
Few! I think I will go small!! I was made fun of yesterday by my father in law (neighbor). He told me that I couldn’t plant the things I wanted to and that nothing will grow. Then he laughed at me for doing a soil test telling me that the soil need lyme and somthing else, I wasn’t listening because I was walking away. Men…..huh. I will not share my tomatos with him :) Great post thanks!!
Andrea, you’re just the wiser. I would rather spend $3.24 to know whether or not my soil needs lime; rather than spend time and money on a hunch. I’m sorry he laughed at you but believe me your garden will show your efforts.
Ho-lee cow, what you can do with a tiny space. Not so sure about the bush beans, but everything else is perfect. Thanks Ang! I am posting some pictures of my progress for you this morning (I hope).
Okay, Ang, I posted pictures and such at my Bumpkins blog (click my name).
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