In the beginning ...

Like many things in my life, this all began with my friend, Annabel. Last Spring, Annabel asked me if I would help her set up a small garden. Because the ground next to her house was very poor for a garden, we decided to make a small raised bed. This was located on the very open, south facing side of her house, which insured maximum sunlight for most of the day. Using some boards that were at hand, we managed to construct a bed that was about six feet by three feet and about ten inches deep.

Next, we went to a friend in the country who runs an organic sprouts operation. We got enough organic soil, peat moss, and horse manure to fill the space we had made. This amounted to about four hundred pounds of material. We spread a thick layer of newspaper in the bottom of the bed (we found the Times&Transcript to be extremely useful for this purpose), and then filled the bed and thoroughly mixed the components of our soil.

At a local plant nursery we bought tomato, cucumber, and pepper transplants. We also got seeds for swiss chard, beets, carrots, and parsley. I planted these out with the taller growing plants in the back of the garden. A handful of bone meal was put in with each transplant. We used tomato cages for supporting the tomato and the cucumber plants. Annabel got a watering can and the garden was off and growing.

As things turned out, the garden did really well! The soil in the raised bed was heated nicely by the sun, and the south facing location was ideal for growing things. Even though the garden didn't receive meticulous care, most everything grew very well and there was a pretty reasonable harvest in the end. Based on our experience, I have become quite keen on raised bed gardening. So ...

This year I decided that I was going to try a raised bed garden of my own. At the end of last year's gardening season, we disassemble the components of Annabel's garden and stored them in my backyard for the winter. I scrounged around for some additional lumber and managed to construct a raised bed that measures six feet by five feet.

Instead of using newspaper this time, we turned the sod within the enclosed space with a spade and then put in the soil from the original raised bed. I borrowed a friend's small rototiller and tilled this thoroughly. At my local garden centre I purchased equal amounts of organic soil, sheep manure, and peat moss. This amounted to an additional four hundred pounds of material, which was thoroughly tilled into the raised bed. And that is how the Thirty Square Foot Garden began.

This blog is the story of that backyard garden and my attempt to encourage growing food at home. For many reasons local food production is much preferred to depending on the supply chain to bring us vegetables from thousands of kilometers away. I hope to explore many of the issues that face the home gardener who wants to grow at least some of their own produce, both for the well being of our planet and also for the joy of gardening.