Plants, the other green!

Now that I've got the dirt figured out, I needed to plan what I'm going to actually grow. Since I'm only doing a grand total of 12 square feet, I want to grow things that will give a high output per square. Also, I want to grow things that are bit more interesting, unlike boring potatoes. Though being from Alaska will make growing just about anything interesting.

I'll forego spewing out the whole list of stuff I was thinking, but here are some of the more pertinent decisions.

Straw, rasp, black, blue berries,: No. I would really like to grow berries because they are yummy and can get pretty expensive at the store, but if i were to dedicate one or two squares to them, I'd probably get no more than a single handful the entire season. If that.

Tomatoes: Yes! I don't think my wife would have let me do a garden without growing tomatoes. Normal bush tomatoes take up a lot of room per plant. 4 squares with a cage in the middle. I don't have the room for that, but I read somewhere the people have had success doing vine (indeterminate) tomatoes in a single square using a trellis. So I'm going for it.

Squash, cucumber: No. These just take up too much space! And I just didn't really seem interested in them.

Lettuce, spinach. Yes! You can pack these suckers four to a square, and can harvest leaves periodically, preventing the "oh crap! I have 5 metric tons of stuff and can't eat it all!"

Carrots: Yes. Similar to the lettuce, but I'm going to plant half of a square first, wait 2 weeks or so, then plant the rest. You don't have to harvest all the carrots at the exact same time, but staggering them should still help us eat them all before they go bad.

Watermelon, cantelope: No, Way to big, never really was in the running.

Herbs: Yes. They don't take up much space, and even though I've got a ton of dried herbs in the cupboard, I've never really cooked with fresh herbs.

Sweet peppers: Yes. Hurray for warm climates! I really like bell peppers, they are pretty expensive at the store, and they are definitively a more 'exotic' plant from my perspective.

And to recap, I decided on...

• 2 sf tomatoes (two plants)
• 2 sf sugar snap peas
• 1 sf green onions, harvesting all but 4 to transition into regular onions
• 1 sf sweet peppers
• 2 sf herbs (cilantro, oregano, basil, chives)
• 2 sf lettuce (romaine and butter)
• 1 sf spinach
• 1 sf carrots

A salsa and salad garden it would seem! Yum!