Oh, my heavens! Those are gorgeous! You're already an old pro. :-)

Thanks for sharing and welcome to the joy of SFGing!

~Angela

Ribbit - thanks for sharing your pics, and welcome to our forum! You'll love it here, because we help each other tremendously. I've even learned how to cut a watermelon properly! Thanks to my good friend - Granny. I really love the way that you staggered those boxes. It gives it a complex look. I wouldn't be concerned about the ants...I've got tons. Make sure you visit my new blog, as I've put tons of photos on there. You can click on the various categories on the right, and can get to certain topics quicker.

EG

Here is a link that might be useful: EG's Garden Blog

I think your approach is commendable (start small and then just ever so often add another one, and another one, and well you get the picture) It will be subtle enough that they will hardly notice ;)

I'd like to see photos in a year or so and I suspect that "dog lot" will look more like a maze of boxes, of course when it does look that way, you can tell DH that it's an exercise course for the dawgs :0

Your plants look very healthy too. Great job.

Oh, wow! Just WOW! Those look wonderful! You are going to get so much from those boxes! And it doesn't matter at all if the tomato plant doesn't grow, it's green and alive, and that's all that matters to a four-year-old!

I have an unused chain link dog kennel in one corner of my garden. The puppies never spent any time in it, they were always on our laps instead, so I'm incorporating it in the garden to use as a trellis, clothes drying area (see my blog later this week on that subject!) and quiet area for me!

Keep up the happy gardening!

This message was brought to you by the letter !!!!

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Granny's Place

Aww, shucks. Thanks guys. Not that I really expected you to come out and tell me that it stunk or I had royally screwed up, but it's nice to have the encouragement.

EG, I've been a frequent visitor to your blog. It's been a tremendous help in making me realize that I really could do what I wanted to.

rjinga, I was already thinking of adding another box this spring in line with the top box...thinking that by March the man will be deep into football withdrawal and if I made the boxes look like a field goal I might just have a chance at getting away with another box.

Granny, even though the boy inspired the "garden man" thing, I've come to realize that in the ten minutes I get to spend down there a day no one is calling me Momma or tattling or crying. There's no laundry to do, papers to grade, dinner to cook or moldy leftovers to ferret out from the fridge.

I'm still planning on doing my zuchini, vine cucumbers, beans, peas etc in pots, but wondering what to put in the boxes come spring/summer since down here in GA, things fry up in July/August. Any advice? The space gets sun from about 8 AM to 2:00 PM and the shade is perfect for the heat of the day. We were thinking of putting lettuce in the spring and then bush beans, cukes, and radishes. The man also wants a pepper plant or two. Any other advice on what to plant (keeping in mind I'm not adverse to adding another box):)

I"m in GA too, Okra loves the heat, eggplant love the heat that would fill them up :) Basil is fun to grow for kidlets, the bees and butterflies come around and lit on their flowers. It get's big though as do the okra (I"m relatively new to eggplants) Peppers do great in lots of sun for me.

ribbit - I'm thrilled that you visit my blog, and also that my thoughts and photos have helped you. I like helping people. Like yourself and rjinga, I also have to deal with the extreme heat during late summer. Next year, i'm planning on planting a little sooner. I agree with rjinga on the okra. It really thrives in the heat. Another veggie to consider is cowpeas (shell peas). Of course, because peppers are actually a tropical plant...they love the heat as well. Care must be taken to water consistently, though. Failure to do this will cause Blossom end rot.
If I may make a suggestion - instead of building more boxes right now, i'd construct some type of trellis for the existing boxes. As you can probably tell...I've really got a thing for trellises. lol Anyway, if I can ever assist you - just ask.

EG

ribbit, I found a way to grow my lettuce through the heat without bolting. I did a pole bean tepee, and I set lettuce seedlings next to the center pole, where they get some shade. It's a bit difficult to get to them, but they are in there! I had to begin a brand new garden the second week of July, and we have temps up into the high 90s and low 100s. I was successful growing mesclun and mixed lettuces by suspending a 4x4 sheet of white lattice about a foot above the plants. It allowed enough sunlight and water, but reflected the heat away from them. Beans, beets, carrots, basil, onions, parsley, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers have all done well for me through the heat.

BTW, does "ribbit" refer to frogs by any chance?

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Granny's Blog

Interesting, Granny. You wouldn't happen to have a picture of that lettuce teepee, would ya?

I'm also from a high heat summer area. It's plain 'ole desert, actually, just cactus and mesquite trees grow here naturally... uggggggggh...

~Angela

Okra, huh? ....okra done poorly is the thing nightmares are made of. I don't know if I've got the gumption to try cooking them.

rjinga, I figured you for a Georgian when you used the term dawg. Let me take the opportunity to say GO DAWGS! I've got my one year old and four year old so brainwashed it's beautiful.

EG, I wanted to do some trellising, but I think that at least for this first year unless I can think of a way to anchor the trellis to the box and still provide plenty of support. Just using string makes me a bit nervous yet I want to stay away from the rough edges of metal so the girl can get in there this summer and I don't have to freak out if she's hanging from the trellis which I have no doubt she will be.

Granny, ribbit is just one of the first words of both the boy and the girl. The boy in particular would wake up in the middle of the night and run through his list of animal sounds he knew. He always got to ribbit and repeated it for about 5 minutes until he fell asleep. 32004 is his birthday. Since this was technically HIS garden figured I'd give him credit for the name I chose as well.

ribbit - I can help you come up with something for a trellis....no problem! I don't care for the trellis materials that Mel suggests using. I think it's fine for beans and cucumbers, but most people want to grow larger items as well. Let me know what veggies you intend on trellising later, and i'll help you come up with something.
Also, fried okra is to die for!!! Especially if you fry squash, green tomatoes, and pieces of real bacon with it.
Sorry for not feeling the whole "Dawg" thing....I'm a die hard Auburn fan! Sorry....

EG

And I a Washington Husky fan, so Go Dawgs! Hehe

Welcome an pardon the silliness, we mean well.

I can relate to okra nightmares and I can't relate to those awful temps!
Good luck and check back often.

I left you a message in another post, ribit. But in case you missed it, get your sweet self over to join the OT post. We have a lot of fun there!

I asked about the frog, as I have a frog garden at my home in AZ. I said every time a plant died there, I was going to plant a frog's behind on a rock to replace it. I have a LOT of frogs sitting on rocks now!!

Granny

LOL- I love your comment about the tomato plant and your 4 year old. Some things are worth doing no matter what others think! :)
Great job on your first sfg!

Here is the tepee as it began (click to enlarge):

What it looks like now:



and if you look real closely, you can see some lettuce growing inside...not much, as I had just picked all the outer leaves for my rabbit:

If I were to do it again, I would make the pole much taller (mine was a broken ski pole I found in the garage) and leave the entire east side open so the lettuce could get morning light. As it was, I thinned those four lettuce plants out of another bed the evening of a 100F day, planted them in there, and they actually lived!

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Granny's Blog

Granny, I love that teepee you made! Thanks for posting the photos. I noticed that your beds look like they are two boards tall instead of one. Did you have to put a lot more of Mel's mix in them to fill them up? I was just wondering because I would like to have higher beds like that but don't want to spend more money on vermiculite. Thanks!

Ooooh Ribbit, your pictures are AWESOME!!!!! Thank you for sharing! Great job on your SFG's! I am also a new convert...my SO and I are a tad behind the game (as usual) but we built our boxes and planted seeds for fall veggies over Labor Day. The seedlings are just starting to poke their little cotyledons out and we are sooooo excited!

His 5 and 3 year old also LOVE the boxes....I'm posting pictures of the "pre" to this, but over the weekend we let them paint the boxes with their names (with adult help), designs, and typical 3 year old artistic talents, ie, large smears. Our boxes are on the side/near the back of the house, I really hope the neighbors don't find their painting masterpieces too much of an eyesore...I've learned from other forums on this site that some homeowner's associations would have a FIT at that!

My favorite is the box I painted "Merit's Carrots"....Merit is the 5 year old and thought that was awesome! I am really having a ball teaching these little ones the same things my grandfather taught me about plants, watering carefully, etc. Every day they run out to the boxes to check on the "babies" and see if they need water! soo cute!

I haven't taken pictures yet of the artistically complete boxes but will try to do that soon...

{{gwi:1284841}}

auntwendy - yay! We have another person in the forum. Welcome.....it's good to have alot of people in here! Your boxes are textbook....they look as if Mel made them himself! I like the high rise additions for carrots. I went with the short carrots for my first fall garden. That way - I wouldn't have another "project" to add to my already growing list. Anyway, again...welcome!

EG

Here is a link that might be useful: EG's garden blog

Oh, wow...you newbies are putting us old fogies to shame! Those look great, auntwendy9, and how do others expect those little ones to express their artistic talents? You just let them do what they want, a pox on the neighbors!!

shunter, I'm not a 100% sfg-er. Im more of an intensive planter who uses some of Mel's suggestions, but (like anutwendy9's children) just have the urge to be creative. So I make plans all winter, then come spring I just go out and plant wherever my old mind takes me! Anyway, I don't use Mel's Mix, I used 50% topsoil and 50% compost in the beds I planted this summer, and I'm using 100% compost in the new beds that will remain unplanted until next spring. I plan on adding chopped up leaves to those beds if they are available before I leave for AZ.

Years ago, I saw a big pole bean tepee in a Sunset Magazine. They had left one side open, and had a little stool inside for their toddler to sit in the shade. Wouldn't you just love to sit inside a bean tepee??

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Granny's Blog

Ok, coming clean....

EG, Yes, I'm a Dawg fan, but if you really must know I'm an anyone-who-has-a-chance-of-beating-florida-fan....so that includes you!!! So WAR EAGLE...or GO TIGERS...or whatever you guys decide this week. :) Sorry, EG, I had to. However, I'm always on your side when you play FLA.

On an off topic, two of your players two years back, Kenny and David Irons were my students in high school. BOY, I could tell you some stories.

I'll catch up with everyone else and read on the OT post this evening after I get back from open house. I have about 140 students. I expect I'll see 4-6 parents. *sigh*
Ribbit.

Cool...I can't wait to hear about it!

EG

Hehe, we really are sheltered here in the PNW. There are other Dawgs than the Washington Huskies? Odd. Who knew?

And Auntwendy! Great looking beds, I really like the areas for root crops at the corners. Very well done! Best of luck and ask away!

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure!

Thanks EG, Granny, and Sinfonian for the kind words! That's one thing I have loved about this forum is how kind and enthusiastic and helpful the participants are. You guys are awesome!

My boyfriend told me that as of this morning "there is something green in every carrot box"! Here's to hoping it's actually carrot plants and not something else blown in....the winds were really high on the day we planted our seeds!

Ahhhh...a subject dear to mine and Sinfonians' hearts. Carrot thinning. Because I had nothing more important to do one day, I did some experiments with carrot seeds. If you'd like to see the results and the comments, just click the link below :-)

Actually the messy method might turn out to be the best for a sfg. I mean, if one is only doing 1 or 2 square feet it's not so bad.

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Granny's Carrot Experiment

Ribbit, I know I'm coming in late here, but I'd like to suggest you trellis your tomato with something, even if it's just an upright stick. Tie it to the stick with string and then RUTHLESSLY cut off extra limbs.

I have to give credit for my current success with maters to Sinfonian, since he posted some time ago about cutting limbs and suckers off his mater plants. (I can't spell the plural of tomatos/tomatoes today). Anyway, I had 3 Sunmaster mater plants that weren't doing anything, so I followed Sin's advice and cut off all but about 6 arms, then tied the bigger stems loosely to my trellis. I now have about a dozen really pretty maters on the vine and they are actually ripening! YAAAAYYY!!

I love that your 4 year old has opinions on where things should go in the garden! :)

Thanks for the link to your carrot experiment, Granny! Actually I was so glad to see Sinfonian write that he just sprinkled the packet and thinned later, because that's exactly what I did! Hoping for the best, I guess but I got impulsive and wanted to be finished. I'm anxious to go over to my boyfriend's today and see what kind of "green things in all the boxes" he's talking about....

Love my SFG's!!! I'm so happy I stumbled across this site and Mel's book!

auntwendy9, sprinkling is my usual method, but I do it by putting the tiny seeds into a salt shaker and "salting" the garden. It does give me better spacing than trying to scatter the seeds with my fingers.

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

Well.....i'm ashamed to say how I planted my carrot seeds. Granny, I figure you already know.....

auntwendy - you're very welcome...

EG

EG, I have no idea...and for some reason I'm afraid to ask.

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

Granny...wha? lol

auntwendy - I do things the hard way, most of the time. If you've seen photos of my previous plantings - then you'll know that these carrots will be no exception of what I normally do....I made 16 little holes in each square, and put exactly 2 carrot seeds in each hole. No more - no less. I like for my garden to be neat looking. I will thin to 1 seedling, after I determine which one is the healthiest.

EG

EG, that's as bad as my gluing carrots onto a kleenex! And I thought I was weird.

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

Wendy - Awesome garden! Welcome to SFG and our forum here! Update us when you get to see all the green stuff in all the boxes. :-)

Granny - WOW! Thanks for the pics... I am DEFINITELY going to have to do teepees. What a great way to help shelter greens...

EG - Ooooooh, don't tell me you're killing 'em extra carrots.... you murderer!

~Angela

Welcome Ribbit! My 5 and 7 year olds have a great deal of say in my spacing too, lol. I grew ALL of my tomatoes in 1 sf this year by accident. The tomatoes were tiny, but they all did produce. The juliettes will NOT stop producing. They just get bigger. Canning a billion jars tonight. Chopping all day today: blech!
Granny: my little guy just went "WOW" when he saw your teepee. Ours is more of a chaotic mess of beans, lol.

carolynp, I think you should make a giant bean tepee for your little ones to sit under next year! You might have to make it big enough for two stools, though *g*

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

Not only am I new to SFG but also to blogs and forums! I am learning so much and I love seeing all the pictures of the gardens. I am so addicted now - it's actually Granny's fault. I found her blog accidentially and then I visited her favorite blogs and then others favorite blogs and so on! Thanks for all of the great info everyone!

Can you tell me how to find the Georgia forums?

Welcome, Betty in Georgia!!! I think I've seen you somewhere before *g*. I am so happy to have been a part of your conversion, and you are going to love it here (especially the OT threads, those are my favorites...we like to get friendly).

OK, look up at the top of this page, there is a green bar that says Blogs, Forums, Photo Galleries, etc. Hover your mouse over "Forums" and you will see "Garden Forums" as one of the choices. Click on that and it will take you to a listing of all (and there are a LOT!) of the garden forums. Scroll down a ways on the page and, on the left side, you'll see "Georgia Gardener".

Or, follow this link:

Here is a link that might be useful: Georgia Gardener

Hi Granny - I didn't know it was gonna be that easy! I have had so much fun this week just reading blogs - I had no idea there were so many. The more I read the more I want to plant so this weekend we are building another 4x4!!! Just from last week I aleady have baby lettuce and a few spinach leaves have emerged! Thanks for helping me out - you are a wealth of information.

I got my first picking of spinach today, from seed planted 8/23....less than a month ago. It's not a lot, but nice sized for salad tonight. I "stole" a few greens from the rabbit's food box to go with it; baby romaine, a red oak leaf and red leaf lettuces.

Daughter went to the doctor today, and she doesn't think the baby will come early so I might be able to tend to my garden until frost after all. Mr. H is getting antsy to head south :-(

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

Hey bettyinga! I'm in GA as well! Take some pictures of your garden when you can! I'd love to see them.

I'll don't know how to post the photos but I'm sure my daughter will show me how. We built another bed this weekend - a 3x4. I need to do a grid this time before I plant. I picked up Mel's book from the library yesterday and it said you must do the grid. I didn't on the first 4x4 cause I was too anxious to plant so I probably didn't plant it properly.

I used cinder blocks for the beds and we planned to use caps/toppers to cover the holes but they are more expensive than the blocks so we decided to fill them with gravel instead but I was wondering.... could I fill the holes with Mel's mix and plant garlic and onions? It seems like a waste to not use that tiny space.

Betty, you can plant herbs, marigolds, nasturtiums to tumble down the sides...the walls/holes can be as pretty or prettier than the garden itself! I often wish I had concrete block beds, as herbs and nasturtiums don't care so much for the rich soil I use in the beds. In fact, Mr. H is showing some enthusiasm for one 4x4 when we get to AZ, I might just do it with the blocks.

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

Granny - nasturtiums growing over the sides would help soften the look of the blocks. On one of the threads, I saw a picture of a cinder block garden with marigolds planted in the holes and it was beautiful. Great ideas - thanks!