I received my lot at the Fenway Victory Gardens (FVG) in mid July 2010. I didn't expect to get a garden until next summer so I had a lot of catching up to do quickly. I had planned a raised bed container garden because I wanted to assure my new veggie garden was organic. I decided on the square foot gardening method and planned my garden online with the grow veg design tool. First however I had to tackle the horror of a long abandoned plot. Fortunately, my neighbor who also just received his plot agreed to build a new fence with me.
Divide and tackle worked great and we soon had two freshly tilled plots and a fence. I had many battle wounds from removing the invasive climbing roses and Virginia Creeper. Finally I was able to build my boxes and start pulling the ingredients together for Mel's Mix. 
The soil mix is supposed to be 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 compost. Easy, right? Except the peat moss is sold in 3.9 compressed cubic feet, vermiculite in 2 cubic feet, and the compost by weight. I figured I'd do 4 cu ft each of peat moss, vermiculite, and compost. Small problem: does the 3.9 compressed cu ft. on the peat moss bag mean 3.9 final volume which has been compressed or 3.9 cu ft which when open will be 8 cu ft? Well, I think I got it wrong the first time around. And I'm still not sure. I didn't write down in which container I put the first blend so I have no idea which worked best. Although I think the overpeated box was the first row left and the pepper leaves were yellow and not as lush compared to the others although it produced just as many peppers. 
I am writing this blog now to try to maintain a better record for the future so I can learn from my mistakes or successes. I was in such a hurry to get everything ready and planted before the summer was gone that I didn't take the time to record anything. 
By the time I had the boxes ready and full of soil I had to scrounge for transplants. I planted a lot of peppers, overgrown and leggy tomatoes, pineapple sage, basil, curry plant, tarragon, purple sage, globe artichokes, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, strawberries, carrots, snowpeas, and flowers.
I sowed the carrots in my stacked box but the seed packet spilled so it was definitely a carrot explosion. I'm thinning madly but not sure if I'll get mature carrots in time.
The peppers really did amazingly well with bells, pimientos, yellow hungarians, jalapenos, nardellos. The herbs did great although most of them (tarragon, sage, curry plant) I didn't use for cooking. The broccoli were an excellent late September harvest. I had a huge basil supply and have enough pesto for the winter.
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| Sides of arbor up! |
This week I am fixing my gate, adding an arbor, attaching garden quilts to the PVC so I can use them for season extenders, adding mulch to the beds, and of course weeding. My tomatoes are still mostly green so I'm hoping with the quilts they may be able to withstand the cold weather long enough to ripen.
First blog post covered 3 months of activity! Hopefully I'll keep this updated....
