Done! (Almost). This weekend I planted all of my seedlings, and a bunch of seeds. Last week I was mixing together the soil in the raised bed according to a recipe, but I lacked vermiculite. I couldn't find it anywhere and I got some advice that it wasn't necessary with good peat, so I ended up buying a few bags of topsoil from Traverse Gardens to fill up the bed. My soil contains a lot of peat moss, a little vermiculite, my personal vermicompost, sheep manure, seaweed, and whatever is in Ross Traverse's soil mix (peat, compost). It feels pretty light and moist, much better than the actual soil in the ground.
While I was out there I bought a few plants to transplant... I somehow waited way too long to start my squash and cucumbers, plus I saw lots of cool plants there. I have planted in the garden now nine tomato plants (three different kinds), a few winter and summer squash, green and yellow beans, cucumbers, broccoli (mine), and corn! I'll be very impressed if I grow even some tiny little corn cobs. I also sowed seeds of carrots, beets, turnip, spinach, Swiss chard, kale, and mesclun mix. Later I put in some little onion bulbs I bought.
You can see in the pictures a grid placed over the bed in string. I used the grid to divide the garden into different plants. Using the Square Foot Gardening method, I planted either one 12" apart plant, four 6" apart plants, nine 4" apart plants, or sixteen 3" apart plants in one square. Each tomato plant gets its own square, whereas turnips and onions go sixteen to one square. Some squash are supposed to get two squares each, but I have them a bit tighter. While planting I tried to take into account companion planting, and put things that will be picked more often (greens) on the outside. I also put the tomatoes over on the side that gets more sun (due to houses getting in the way of the sun), and put the plants that will grow the tallest at the northern side so that they won't block the sun from the smaller plants.
I'm very excited to finally have this planted! I have two square feet left which I haven't decided how to fill, and I still plan on getting some potatoes in some plastic containers I have. I'll check back in as the garden grows!
-Rick
