I promised in a previous post to give some details on the soil I used to build my Square Foot Garden (SFG).  This won’t be a very long post, but it might help those who are building one.  By the way, my SFG has been growing for about two weeks.  I’ll post a picture at the end.

The basic “Mel’s Mix” for SFGs is one part Peat Moss, one part Vermiculite, and one part diverse Compost.  The diverse part is important, since a bag of composted cow manure has a more limited nutrient set than homemade compost that contains all sorts of random stuff.  Since my compost “heap” is more of a compost “everybody throws junk in it without asking me”, I decided not to use it.  At some point I’m going to clean the heap out and start over, but that’s for another day.

So, to fill my two frames, I went to a couple of local suppliers- the Greenfield Farmers’ Cooperative Exchange and the Hadley Garden Center.  Between the two, I picked up:

• 1 – 3.8 cuft compressed Peat Moss by Fafard
• 3 – 2 cuft Vermiculite by Hoffman
• 1 – 1 cuft Shrimp & Seaweed Compost by Fafard
• 1 – 30 qt Forestry Compost by Fafard
• 1 – 30 qt Garden Compost by Hudson Valley Organics
• 1 – 34 qt Composted Cow Manure by Moo Doo
• 1 – 1 cuft Penobscot Blend Compost by Coast of Maine
• 1 – 1 cuft Dark Harbor Blend Compost by Coast of Maine
• 1 – 2 cuft Bumper Crop Organic Soil Builder by Master Nursery

Now, it looks like I screwed up here, since I think I wound up with 6 cubic feet of Vermiculite, while the compressed Peat opened up to about 8 cubic feet once it gets out of the bag.  The Compost, all rich with a diverse assortment of stuff, wound up being over 8 cubic feet.

So, in theory, I had about 22 cubic feet of material at a blend that was close to Mel’s proportions, but not exactly.  My two frames are 4′ x 4′ x 6″ or 8 cubic feet each.  The two “top hat” boxes are 2′ x 2′ x 6″ or 2 cubic feet each.  This adds up to 20 cubic feet.  If I did everything right, I should have leftovers.

So, I put everything on a tarp and mixed it according to Mel’s instructions, though not as thoroughly as I was by myself and I have to be careful with my back.  All that dirt, even dry, was VERY heavy!

Once that was done, I used a shovel to fill my boxes.  I filled each one about half full and wet it down.  Then I finished filling it.

Once each 4′ x 4′ fram was full, I put down the lath grid and set the “top hats” on each frame.  Then I started filling those…

Guess what?

I was short.  My guess is that information I got about Peat Moss expanding to 8 cubic feet was wrong.

Luckily, I was only short by a bit, so I used a bag of organic potting mix that I had handy.  That topped off the top boxes and I put the grids on those and wet everything down again.

Then I planted stuff!  So, as promised, here’s what my SFG looks like after two weeks:

Down front are a bunch of greens- lettuce and kale.  The one square at the bottom right is beets.  Behind that is onions.  The two square in the front of the top hat are carrots, with potatoes behind.  The square behind the onions and its partner on the left are broccoli.  In the back are bush beans.

In the rear frame, the front half is empty, waiting for more greens (i’ll plant them in a week or so).  The top hat is the same.  The rear half of the lower level is broccoli, except for the two corners which are bush cucumbers.

So far, so good!  My square foot garden is taking off!