Adventures in gardening: Spinach

Two years ago Matt and I (and by Matt and I, I mean Matt) built a raised garden bed in our backyard. That year we only planted three vegetables in the garden: cucumbers, beans, and carrots.

Last year we were slackers and grew weeds. But, we did a great job at growing those weeds.

This year, we were really motivated and decided to try our hands at Square Foot Gardening. We divided our garden into square feet and then put one type of vegetable in each square. This method allows you to grow more vegetables in smaller space. Here is our layout (starting from the front):

Row 1: bell pepper - bell pepper - carrot - carrot - carrot - onion - onion - onion
Row 2: bell pepper - bell pepper - snap pea - snap pea - snap pea - bean - bean - bean
Row 3: tomato - tomato - lettuce - lettuce - cauliflower - cauliflower - spinach - potato
Row 4: tomato - tomato - cucumber - cucumber - broccoli - broccoli - potato - potato
So far everything is coming up and growing very well. The kids have especially enjoying helping us water and weed the garden. They have been fascinated watching how fast the vegetables have grown. Michael especially has been really into the garden so we even got some books from the library about gardening.
Today, we got to enjoy the first fruits of our labor. Michael and I went out and picked the spinach leaves that were ready to be harvested and we ate them for dinner. We had a spinach salad with our grilled steak and baked potatoes. It was delicious! We are excited to be able to eat more of our fresh vegetables as they become ripe! :)