Garden-in-a-Box - Planting the Gardens

This is the second year that we are doing the Garden-in-a-Box program through the Minnesota State Horticultural Society. Last year, our club received ten kits from the MSHS which included:
- 4'x3' bag
- 10 bags of soil per garden
- 1 bag of organic fertilizer per garden
- variety of plants - vegetables, herbs, and flowers
- tomato cage
- fencing (which we didn't use)
- spray nozzle for a hose for watering the garden
- support from the MSHS

Olivia planting her garden.

Three of the kits went to families who wanted to make a three-year commitment to the program. The other seven kits are at our farm for youth from our club to work on. Whoever works on the gardens can harvest and keep the produce.

Sophia planting her garden.

This year our club received four more kits for new families who expressed an interest in being part of the project. They each received the same things we did last year, although the garden is a bit smaller: 3'x3' and uses a different bag.

Olivia deciding where to place the plants.

For the kits at the farm that are in the second year, we received:
- 2 bags of compost per garden
- 1 bag of organic fertilizer
- variety of plants - vegetables, herbs, and flowers
- tomato stake
- support from the MSHS

Sophia planting strawberries.

At the farm, Sophia and Olivia each planted a garden; my sister planted two; and I planted the remaining three gardens.

Sophia wanted to customize her garden with two rows of strawberries.

Gardens 1-4.

Olivia had some extra room in her garden, so she tried planting some seeds of vegetables that she had never eaten before - like beets; and some vegetables that she doesn't care for, but wanted to see what they looked like growing in her garden (like mesclun).

Garden 1 is Olivia's garden.

What is interesting to see is that we each had the same core vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Yet, each one of gardens is so different in terms of the way we arranged the plants and seeds.

Garden 2 is Sophia's garden.

In some of the gardens we did both onion transplants (that were grown by seeds) and onion sets. It will be interesting to see and taste the difference between the two types.

This is Garden 4 - one of the gardens I planted.

We had some extra seeds for herbs this year and planted it around some of the plants we received from the MSHS. For example, around the cilantro and basil, we planted the seeds in a circle.

Gardens 5-7.

Again, it was not only a way to use up the seeds, but to see the difference between growing herbs from seeds or transplants.

Garden 5 is one I planted.

The other interesting thing we will be watching this year is the amount of sun and shade each of the gardens receive. We are wanting to know how this will affect the quantity of produce harvested from each garden.

Garden 7 is another I planted. This one has 4 rhubarb plants in it.

One is a transplant from another garden and

three are from ones I ordered from Jung's and

Chisago County Master Gardeners.

I was happy to see the chives come up this year again - both from a planting I did many years ago and also in a container garden we did last year.

Chive blossoms on the plants that are several years old.

We added some seeds for basil, dill, and cilantro to the container garden and hopefully we'll have a lot of fragrant herbs to enjoy this summer.