Just had to rave about how much I love my garden, despite the fact that it's square foot garden raised beds wrapped around the outer perimeter of a yard slightly larger than the one parking space beside it. We have 0.08 acres upon which a house sits, and in that little yard, right now are flowers everywhere, blooming amongst mammoth fringy dillweed "trees" and equally tall lacy cilantro that are blooming and about to make luscious coriander for my cooking this fall. Our salad bowl has stayed full for weeks, along with mixed mustard and turnip greens on the stove, and the spiky turnips and peppery mustards have kept pests from being a problem for the lettuces despite long chill rainy weeks interspersed with hot humid days. Usually that's disease weather for gardens.
We've got zucchinis and yellow squash about to take over where the turnips and mustard left off, the chard keeps coming til fall, green beans and tomatoes are overtaking tomato cages, wire fence, and vertical trellises. And everywhere, herbs, flowers, and other things are blooming, and beneficial insects are humming, and every evening when I go out into my garden to carefully harvest more lettuce leaves, or pick some snow peas or sugar ann snap peas, I sigh with contentment. The sage, dill, cilantro, and green onion repel pests and add beauty.
I compare to my neighbor's bare, square, utilitarian patch of rows of tomatoes, peppers, onions, and so forth, and can't imagine getting joy from looking at or working in that square of tilled soil with rows of identical plants standing at attention. I don't see much in the way of beneficial insects, and he has already had to spray for diseases and pests, and his plants just aren't thriving. And it's ugly, and takes up most of his backyard.
Yay for the ancient French Intensive method, the idea of interplanting and companion planting, placing flowers and herbs amongst vegetables, and using raised beds so as not to step on and compress the soil and then need to till and expose it, and thereby reduce its fertility. Our earthworms love our garden, and we love them, and not stepping in our soil or needing to till it helps them do their job.
Everyone compliments me on my garden, and it has reduced my grocery bill, yet I had never had more than a houseplant before two years ago, so hurray for the Square Foot Method!
