Summary

I’ve always wanted to grow vegetables and fruit at home, so this summer I decided to start a raised bed, where I’d be able to grow a number of plants without having to dig up the entire garden.

I decided to follow the ideas of “Square Foot Gardening”. This was based around the concept of planter allotments that would be 4 square foot; Square Foot Gardening is basing the layout of a planter around square foot sized cells.

Planning

I decided to first plan out what plants I wanted to grow in the end. I came up with the following:

I then bought a Planter kit from Quickcrop and just enough soil to fill it. I settled on the 6x4 foot planter with trellis, as I wanted to grow butternut squash and tomatoes and they need support to grow tall.

Current Progress

As you can see above, the plants are only just moved out, having been sprouted indoors in the last few weeks.

Future Plans

Closer to August, I will need to order some garlic sets, as they are overwintered. I also have ordered some cheap wooden dowels to better mark out the square foot cells and will reposition plants as needed, which is only possible right now as the plants are still very small.

I may infact be able to order the live plants I need from Quickcrop, but will need to check that it is not too late in the year, which I fear it is.

I also plan to replace the pumpkins with potates after this year, as the variety I have is Atlantic Giant and am only growing them for the novelty, instead of taste, like the butternut squash.