My 8 year old daughter and I are doing our very first garden this year. I'm about as far from a green thumb as you can get, but earlier this year I decided I wanted to give gardening a shot. I wanted a hobby that is outside and requires movement. I have too many hobbies associated with the computer and my rear is starting to show it! I also wanted it to be rewarding and fun for my daughter...without it being too much work for me.

In doing research on gardening I stumbled across this forum and knew right away we'd go with SFG. I'm a cheapskate by heart, so it took me a while to make the financial commitment to get started. During that time I lurked here and in the vegetable forum and decided that it's worth it. I even went fancy on the wood and got the cedar boards.

We live in a very small town surrounded by cornfields, so I'm sure our lush little garden is going to be eaten alive by bugs and stray cats. I've bookmarked a thread or two here about pest control...thanks!!! Honestly, I care much less about the yield than the process, for both myself and my daughter. I'll be happy if we grow one single tomato. It's my daughter's favorite vegetable, and I'd love to see her eat one she grew herself.

We are starting with one 4x4. I used 1x10x4 cedar boards I found at Menards. All I had to do was rub it down with vegetable oil, slap some brackets on, and we were set. I picked up the mixins for the soil last weekend and have been itching to rip into those bags.

I declared today G-Day and we got to work moving the box out to the backyard after dinner. We were stringing the grid after sunset, so we're waiting till tomorrow evening to plant a few seeds. We're going to start with spinach and raddishes from seed. I have tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, chives, sage, lavender, and a few other things started inside in peat pellets. We've transferred some into larger containers while we wait for it to get just a tad bit warmer.

We rent our house, so I really like the small space used and the clean look of it. My landlord is my neighbor and his son mows my yard. I'll be much happier having him work around this box than worry that he will weed wack my chives on accident.

The spot I chose is where a shed sat for many years. It was torn down last year and the slab it was on was broken and taken away. A pile of dirt meant to fill the hole left by the slab sat in my back yard for a few weeks last summer and grew the biggest, most interesting collection of weeds I've ever seen. I put down two layers of landscape cloth and plan to put down more strips of it around the bed, then mulch over that with dried out grass clippings and other random yard mulch (of which I have an endless supply).

This website has been incredibly helpful in getting us started up. Thank you all for sharing your knowledge and pictures! We'll be sure to post updates and pictures from time to time. Here are a few to start:

Gotta build a place for these guys to go...

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It's G-DAY!!!!

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Getting the strings on in the dark was fun!

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It's just not the same without the grid!

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