Introducing the Tazewell Garden Project

Alternate title: Julia, Julia, how does your square foot garden grow?

Spring means spring break planting, and planting means evidence seeds, and seeds mean sports term plants. Edible plants. Plants that save you money, keep you healthy, and bring you back to the land.

But what if you don't have land -- you know, like me? No matter. You can undertake square foot gardening in any limited space, as long as you have vision, creativity, and a handy roommate named Jacob who has two green thumbs to your black ones.

Thus I present to you a sprouting series on Italian Mother Syndrome called The Tazewell Garden Project. In this series, I will take you through our mini-farming adventure with plenty of photos, the occasional piece of actionable information, and a determination to make you hungry.

So what is square foot gardening anyway? Basically, you build a box, fill it with soil, mark off a square foot grid, and apportion your favorite food/flowers/herbs to each square based on their growing needs. It's perfect for people with limited space, poor soil, and/or no inclination to dig up their lawn.

Jacob was inspired to take up this cause after buying a used book on the subject and getting his old familiar feed-store itch to connect with the land. I was inspired to go along with it because I kill everything except cacti (remember the mum?) and want to break that trend.

So, this first round of pictures takes you through our earliest seed-starting and box-building about three weeks ago. (See FrugalDad for excellent box building instructions.) I'll do my best to keep you following in real time, particularly as the warm weather sticks around for good and everything (god willing) starts to grow.

Oh, and for the record, I will not call this a Victory Garden until I am actually victorious over it. You are my witness to the pledge. And in return, I'll mail you a cucumber.

Note on slideshow: Click on "full screen" icon in lower right and then "show info" in upper right corner to see the captions.