Square Foot Garden: Prepping the bed

"We are stardust. We are golden. And we got to get ourselves back to the garden"- Joni Mitchell

Somehow, here in the middle of February, spring found Portland. Signs of spring, as my daughter would say, are everywhere. For instance, this slug we've already found creeping in our new plants:

"It feels all sticky" she says with no qualms

So, my gardening adventure begins again. The bedraggled vines of finished veggies, the forgotten last tomatoes of last October-- mere memories as I flip through the seed catalogue, plotting the great comeback that is SPRING.
And while I hope, with grad school coming to a close this May, that soon I'll have sewing projects to share and crafting successes to celebrate- I thought sharing this gardening adventure post worthy as well. Not to mention, a record for when it starts again next spring.

This is year three in my fabulous garden plot. With no sun in our own yard, I use a community spot at the neighborhood middle school. Year 1- I threw some things in and had a cherry tomato that took over everything. Some good harvest, but lots of missed opportunity. Year 2- I discovered square foot gardening. My math heart could not resist. Squares, math, order, LOVELY. But still, lots to learn. So now, Year 3, I'm ready to make even more of my space.

The bed had a few remnants of my attempts at winter crops. Not wanting to say goodbye to my garden last year, I planted some carrots. I think they would be something great if I gave them another month, but I'm not willing to do so at the expense of waiting to get other plants in, so out they came.
We dug up the soil turned it all, then got ready to add another layer of new compost. The school will do this as a service, but not until community service day at the end of April. Since I just discovered that peas can go in NOW, I couldn't wait.
So, here's where we started:

New dirt waiting to join the old

We brought in three bags of good garden bed compost and spread it out and worked it in with the dirt from last year. I don't plan on fertilizing much beyond that. 

Then we started putting in the grid. The idea here is to plant things by the square foot, not by the row. We just stuck thumb tacs in every 12 inches into the frame and wrapped string around each one. M continued to spread dirt for us. 

laying out the grid

Now, that's a beautiful garden. Ready for anything. We put in a few peas today. Yeah! Soil temp for peas only needs to be 40 degrees and the Oregon State extension services says to plant them in February. Who knew we could get this rolling so soon! Soon to come- radishes and potatoes- also cool weather starts.

 And so it begins! Spring! Garden! A life outside grad school! But for now, I need to hit the books again.