It’s been 3 months since my kids and I made the decision to try building a raised bed vegetable garden. After 2 months, we weren’t having much luck, having only harvested a few peppers from the garden. Now we’re well into the third month, and despite our desire to avoid using artificial fertilizers, we decided to start using a low dose once weekly.
We decided to use standard MiracleGro fertilizer, dosed as directed. Application has been done by simply dissolving the powder in a 5-gallon bucket filled with water. The mixture was poured around the perimeter of the garden. Compared to our 2-month pictures, you can see that most of the plants have put on at least an extra 30% of growth. We’ve also started to get a regular harvest. Looking closely, you can see a handful of banana peppers peeking out under from the plant in front. Notice the geranium in the center right of the garden. That was my youngest child’s idea — a pretty flower for Mommy. Always sweet, he is.
Today was one of the bigger harvests we’ve taken. For a family our size, it’s not bad. While it’s not going to feed us for the winter, it does give some fresh vegetables that we can just go out to the garden and grab for daily use, which we have been doing with regularity. Unfortunately, I’m the only person in my house really serious about eating peppers, so I may need to look into jarring or freezing some of them. The other thing you’ll notice is the purple bell peppers. That’s something you don’t see in grocery stores very often. They are more firm and crisp than standard green bell peppers, or for that matter, the standard red and yellow bells.
I mentioned the corn, which you can also see. I’ve attached a picture with a ruler just to highlight what I’ve got to believe is the accidentally smallest ear of corn. Obviously it wasn’t ripe yet, but somehow I don’t think it was going to get any larger at this stage. I’m not sure how but we managed it, but we sure botched something. Figuring out how to get this right next year will take some reading, I think.
Overall, this has been a fun experiment. We’re going to go for a Fall harvest, which means we need to get some cool season vegetable seeds in the ground shortly. Hopefully that harvest will go a little better.
As far as trying to avoid the use of artificial fertilizers with the square foot gardening soil mix goes, I think it would work better if the growing mix were prepared several months in advance the compost could age. I’ve struggled with several of the plants falling over in the loose growing mix, and I can’t help but wonder if plants would have grown better if the compost were aged for 6-12 months before plants were introduced.
