How the Garden Grows

Our little square foot garden is growing, growing, growing!

I took this photo just after we planted everything on May 13th...

And this photo was taken this morning. It's so fun to see how big everything is getting. And all I have to do is watch and not water too much!

We recently added two more things to the garden:

 Mesclun Mix Lettuce. I'm hoping this will go well with the other type of lettuce I planted, something like Red Oak.

And the other addition was Sparky Mix Marigold Seeds. We heard these are great at keeping unwanted pests out of gardens. I planted them mainly around the edge of the box--not all of them. There were a whopping 315 seeds in that little package!

And look at that, they've already sprouted!

Which may be a good thing because something has seriously taken a bite out of my zucchini plant.

Any of you more experienced gardeners know what's doing this? Have any other ideas on how to keep pesky pests away from our little plot? Please, share away!

Growing Our Green Thumbs

I have one house plant that a good friend gave us when we moved into our tiny place almost two years ago. It's still alive--a fact I'm proud of! Oh, yes, and two cacti on the front porch, but those are so hard to kill that they don't count. I had a jade plant, but killed it. Root rot. Bummer. I basically watered it to death. So I'm 1:1 on plants.

Maybe vegetables will be better suited to my watering habits. I sure hope so, because yesterday we built a square foot garden! Imagine me jumping around with excitement. That's how thrilled I am about this! This was something I really wanted to do last spring/summer, but with everything else that we were dealing with, it just didn't happen. So, I am extremely glad that we made time for it this year.

I followed frugal dad's post to gain some instruction on how to do this. He's got a lot of great information over there, so check it out if you're interested in doing something like this yourself. It was extremely simple and easy.

We don't own a table saw. If you don't either, don't let that stop you from accomplishing your gardening dreams. Our local lumber supply store cut the wood we needed down to size--for free! We created a 4' x 3' raised bed using untreated douglas fir and plywood.

We started with one 2" x 10" x 14' untreated board of douglas fir. It's important to use untreated wood because you don't want any toxins seeping into your soil. We had it cut down into four pieces to create a 4' x 3' box. BJ then put the corners together using 3" wood screws (2 for each corner).

We used a 4' x 4' square sheet of 1/2 in. untreated plywood for the bottom. We had it cut down to fit our 4' x 3' box. We fastened that to the bottom of our box using 2" wood screws around the edge (12 total). Then we drilled some drainage holes in the plywood using the 1/8 drill bit (20 evenly spaced holes).

We also had one 2" x 4" x 8' piece of douglas fir cut in half which we placed under the bed to raise it off the ground. We did not screw this to the bottom because we knew the box would be pretty heavy once the soil was in and it probably wouldn't move. We made sure the 2 x 4's didn't block any of our drainage holes.

Then we filled up our raised bed with soil. We really had no idea what to use, so we went down to our local hardware store and basically told a few of the gardening pros to just tell us what to buy. They recommended two brands: Happy Frog and Fox Farm Ocean Forest. Both are organic and full of good stuff for plants, but Ocean Forest is a little better. So, we filled the bottom layer with one bag of Happy Frog followed by two bags of Fox Farm Ocean Forest and then a top layer of special plant mix also from Fox Farm. The really good stuff in the top layers will drain down and mix in with the slightly cheaper soil from Happy Frog--or so we were told by the ladies at Ace Hardware. We really don't know anything about gardening, but we're learning!

Then we marked off our little square foot plots using small nails and twine.

Then we planted our vegetables. As you can see, we bought the plants this year. Next year, we'd like to try growing everything from seeds, but this is just fine for now. If the roots were really bound up, we gently broke them up a bit and then put them in the bed. Each square foot plot hosts a different veggie/herb/fruit. I went with two types of tomatoes, strawberries, zucchini (which I planted on an end so that it will spill over the side as it grows), cilantro, oregano, basil, parsley, chives, and lettuce. I still have two plots to fill--one for rosemary, which I have to find elsewhere and something else. I'm just not sure what yet. We watered everything, stepped back from our work and called it good.

Here's the real reason I wanted to grow some tomatoes. I love the way they look once they've grown all full and leafy on one of these wire cages. Once it gets about a foot tall, we're supposed to pop this sucker into the bed and "help" the tomato grow up and around it. Mmmmm...can't wait to eat those!

As I said before, this was extremely easy! So if you're at all thinking about doing something like this, GO FOR IT! If we can do it, then I know you can. One of the reasons we chose to create a raised bed instead of just digging directly into the ground is that we live in a rental. We didn't want to do anything too permanent, and when we move, we can just take our little box with us.

When it was all said and done this project ran us just under $100 (Plants $15 / Soil $38 / Lumber & Supplies $45). For us, it was worth it. Now we just have to try not to kill anything! I'll keep you posted!

Diapers, Diapers, Diapers

Ah, the controversy of cloth diapering vs. disposables.

Sheesh, there are a lot of opinions out there! You'd think choosing cloth or disposable was like choosing life or death. This is one issue I don't want to draw a line in the sand over. I do prefer cloth, mainly for two reasons. The first being that, in the long run, it's cheaper. The up front cost can seem daunting, but keep in mind that if well taken care of, the cloth diapers should outlast the use of several children. The second reason is that I don't really like the idea of adding another several thousand diapers to a landfill. That said, we have used a mixture of cloth and disposables up to this point. And really, you just gotta do your own thing!

Before Grace arrived, I purchased 1 package of disposable diapers. Someone had recommended using disposables that first week at least since most newborns are pretty busy pooping meconium, and the thought was "who want's to deal with cloth diapers and super sticky, tar-like poop"? Plus, all the cloth diapers I had at the time were too big for Grace, and I didn't want to spend a small fortune on more in newborn size.

So, I purchased 1 package of Seventh Generations chlorine free diapers. My assessment: they were terrible! I would never use them again. They were super stiff and when wet just bunched up and got really hard. I didn't even use the whole package. I then moved on to using either mom to mom, up & up (Target), or Walgreens generic brand--all of which I've found to work just as well as the more expensive name brands at a much cheaper price.

What I should have done, and I will try, Lord willing, with baby #2, is use a cloth diapering service for the first month. The diaper service can provide smaller cloth diapers until baby really fits the ones we already have. All the benefit of cloth without the work, giving an exhausted mom and dad one less thing to do. A dear friend recommended this to me, unfortunately just a little late. Her mother in law has gifted her this option with each of her children. What a great gift idea!

Like I mentioned, we have been using a mixture of cloth and disposables now for a while, but this next week I'm shifting to using mainly cloth. I would've done it sooner, but I only have about 10 small size pocket diapers. Grace has easily gone through the whole lot in a single day, and at times I've been too lazy to do diaper laundry every night. She's pretty close to fitting in the medium size, which should last until she's potty trained--and I have a ton of those. Although, I'm sure we'll still use disposables from time to time. They are convenient when traveling, and when you've got a babysitter. I know some people are intimidated by cloth diapers. How do you put them on? Aren't they more of a hassle? But really, pocket diapers are SO simple!


I went with Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers, but there are tons of other great brands out there. I had found a ton of "gently used" ones on craigslist before Grace was born. That may gross you out, but it didn't me. They were in great shape, and hey, if you're really trying to go green, then buy used. I did try out some Happy Heinys pocket diapers that are supposed to fit from birth to 3 years, but I found that they were way too big on Grace initially. This was mainly around the legs, so they often leaked. However, this is an even cheaper way to go than buying specific size cloth diapers and many people are happy with this option as well.

HERE is an excellent source for all kinds of baby paraphernalia. I abhor having to pay for shipping, but guess what, it's free on large orders. And, get this, they will let you return diapers! This is what really got me because it meant I could try out several different kinds and then return the ones I chose not to use in exchange for more of the specific type I did like. What a wonderful policy!

If your interested, you'll find a great series all about the ins and outs of cloth diapering at SimpleMom (I love this website!). I found it really helpful in the beginning!