We are using the square foot gardening technique, in a raised bed. This is really popular in Northern Virginia for a couple reasons. The first is that you can grow more vegetable plants in less space. The second, well, is Virginia clay, the predominant type of soil around here. It's not completely unarable, but it's a b!tch to dig holes in. We opted to set a cedar box on top of our existing soil, and use the recommended blend of 1/3 topsoil, 1/3 compost and 1/3 peat.
This is what the garden looks like filled with soil and the square foot boxes marked off with kite string.
Come spring, we'll put a mulch border around the outside of the box, and we needed the bricks on the one side to make it level.I started most of the seeds inside in a Jiffy Box that I got at Home Depot. Some germinated quite nicely, others not so much. I filled the empty squares with direct seed, just to see what would happen. This is what it looks like fully planted.
For the fall/cool month plants we've got:3 squares sweet corn (4 plants each)
2 squares cucumber (2 plants each)
1 square tarragon (1 plant)
1 square turnips (9 plants)
2 squares summer crookneck squash (9 plants each)
2 squares broccoli (1 plant each)
1 square dill (1 plant)
4 squares Romaine lettuce (4 plants each)
