Garden Progress

I've made a few changes this week with my square foot garden.  I bought some strawberry plants and broccoli plants and put them in.  You can put 4 strawberry plants in a square foot, and one broccoli.  The other three broccoli plants are in my conventional garden plot on the North end of my backyard (picture 2).  You also see some 1/2" PVC pipes that I've criss-crossed, and connected at the cross with a zip tie to form a frame so I can cover it with either heavy plastic (a painting drop cloth) to protect from hail or high winds, or a blanket to protect with frost.  Since we had one freezing night last week, I had to use my blanket!  Also, last night we had a nice rain shower, so I collected the water from my downspout, and filled my 5 gallon bucket.  Sun-warmed rainwater is supposed to be best for your plants.  You also can see five of my onion sets have sprouted!  I planted 11 more, since you can fit 16 onions in a square foot.  They'll probably sprout in a couple weeks.  Two squares, where I have spinach and lettuce seeds, are covered with thin plastic (and rocks to keep it from blowing away) to keep the soil moist until the seeds sprout.

Here is my conventional garden.  Three broccoli plants are next to six potatoes I put in the ground.  A stick marks each place I put one in, topped with some extra cut up potato that I figure wouldn't hurt as extra fertilizer.

My conventional garden is an experiment.  I have never worked with such clay-like soil.  This plot has been topped with a couple inches of compost, brought in when we had our yard professionally landscaped.  I have spaded up about 1/4 of the small garden space.  I'll get to the rest when I have the time and energy!

Here is an area I was so anxious to plant before it occurred to me that perhaps I should spade up the soil first.  I just made a row with the hoe, and put in the seeds.  I have about 6 snow pea seeds that have sprouted in this row you can sort of see (one close up, and the others down the row).  This part of my garden gets the most shade, so I don't have high hopes for it.