The Beginning

This year we tried the “square foot gardening” method of raising veggies for The Kitchen Island. Webster was skeptical at first but he’s starting to see the benefits now! Herewith, The Kitchen Island’s kitchen garden!

To get started, we had to remove most of the old soil and replace it with a mix of peat moss, vermiculite and compost. Once that was done, Webster headed out to his work shop and cut a bunch of narrow strips of wood from which we made a lattice-like structure so that we could partition off the bed into one foot squares.

Close up of the lattice partition

Old Bed (front) vs New Bed

As you can see above, we used the Square Foot Method and the new mix only in one of the beds. The tomato plants in the old bed were planted about two weeks before the new bed was readied and planted. We were eager to see how the two beds would produce and it wasn’t long before we got a sense of how this was going to play out.

YIKES! An Explosion !

Is There Any Comparison?

But, of course, we had help….

The Pollenator!

The Wonder Dog Trying to Find Something to Get Into.

We planted onions, two kinds of peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, Roma, heirloom and monster Jersey tomatoes, corn, peas and sunflowers for color! We added herbs and carrots to an old chimney flue-liner…

Zucchini Getting Close!

Herbs and Carrots in an Up-cycled Chimney Flue-Liner.

The First Haul

A Few Days Later…

Stay tuned! Peas and peppers have just come in and the tomatoes are about to arrive. Webster is beside himself searching high and low for a couple of salt and onion bagels! Thank God one of his countless sisters is arriving from Gotham in about two weeks. She generally appears with a dozen Manhattan bagels and a bottle of Artezin Zinfandel. (Although I understand that this time she will be accompanied by her husband and no less than three of her five children. She may need TWO bottle of zin just to get here!)

The Wonder Dog Considering (VERY briefly) Going Vegan…