Square Foot Gardening: Creating A Kitchen Garden In A Small Backyard

Spring has sprung around the Lowcountry and over the past couple of weeks I have been busy working in my back-yard oasis to prepare for the season of “Easy-Livin” in The Land of Palm Trees. In fact, as I write this blog, you could say that I am already working on that “and the Livin’ is EEEEzzzzzy” theme. With the threat of severe weather arriving early this afternoon, I took advantage of the comfortable temps this morning and got my chores done early, now I am enjoying a wonderful breeze out of the Southwest and waiting to be run inside by the storms approaching from the West.

This week I successfully completed all of my prep work for the two existing small kitchen garden plots in my backyard here at White Gables. After the late fall harvest of my second crop of tomatoes and peppers, lettuce, cabbage and herbs I put the plots to bed covering them with leaves and other clippings from the lawn. Throughout the winter months the yard waste decayed and two weeks ago I added a couple of layers of fully cooked compost from the compost bin in the corner of the yard and plowed the plots under using the roto-tiller attachment on my weed machine. This week I created new crisp edges for the plots and raked and tilled the soil once again preparing the beds for planting.

My backyard is not real spacious; therefore I have had to adapt my gardening style to more of a square-foot approach. We have managed to create a very inviting green space within the confines of our fenced in yard that includes a Southern border planting with tropicals, Jasmine, Confederate Rose, Bay Trees, Rosemary, Oleander and low palms. I am preparing to plant grapes along the western border on the inside of the fence. At my wife’s request, my two sons and I built a foundation rose garden along the garage last year as a mother’s day present, and of course there are the two small kitchen garden plots, one measuring 3 foot by 4 foot and the other measuring 8 foot by 4 foot. That is a lot of green squeezed into a smallish back yard, but yet there is still enough lawn to give me and the lawn mower about a 10 minute workout. I should add that the lawn in the front and side yards take me a bit longer to mow and trim. But you get the idea, square foot gardening is not about bulk but is instead about planning and yield.

The nice thing about this approach to vegetable and herb gardening is that it isn’t extremely time consuming and you can do it yourself with some basic tools, a little bit of knowledge and, of course, permission from your HOA. The first step is choosing a location, one that is sunny at least 70% of the day, but ideally shaded or partially shaded during a portion of the blistering afternoons. Once you have chosen your location, it’s time to remove the sod from the plot. Since you are dealing with small areas, like 3x4, 4x4, or even 4x8 foot squares, sod removal can be done with a spade. I always have thinning or unhealthy areas somewhere in my lawn so the sod that I remove is usually put to use in patching somewhere in the lawn. Our soil is part sand and part clay, not necessarily in that order, so I added a lot of garden soil, manure and compost to my plots during the first 2-3 years of their lives. Honestly, don’t expect your first year of kitchen gardening on a newly prepped site to be the best, but it is worth the effort, especially if you approach it as a work in progress.


I have also discovered a great website to assist with my planning and charting of my gardens. Gardeners Supply Company provides a great planning guide that allows you to customize plans to fit your space. These images are from the website and represent the two gardens that I am growing this spring. For the smaller garden plot I have planned a “Cooks Favorite” garden with onions, peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach and beans. The larger plot will feature a pre-planned high yield garden from the website.

We will supplement our kitchen garden produce with membership this summer in a local CSA (Community Sponsored Aggriculture) like this one from Gruber Farms. We are so fortunate that our local farmers offer this program, it is an excellent chance to support the local farming industry, and enrich your families diet with locally grown in season fruit and vegetables.

Good News!!!

Much of what I write about in From The Land of Palm Trees deals with day to day living in the Lowcountry as it relates to leisure activity. Occasionally I will remind the reader that most of us who live year around in “Vacation Land” have jobs and lives that include mundane routines and responsibilities like sorting recyclables and putting the trash at the curb on certain days, and doing lawn and garden work.

Of course, I would much rather write about fun things like golf courses.

Or trips to the beach.

Or boating.

It's a whole lot more interesting to write about good times in one of the world’s foremost tourist destinations, but the mission of this blog is to present a taste of what life is like when one chooses to be more than a visitor in the Land of Palm Trees. And for many of us who call the Lowcountry home our lives take on a sense of regularity and worldliness amidst all of this sand, sun and fun. You know, we read the local newspaper daily and we watch the local newscasts, we have church homes, we belong to civic organizations, PTO’s and we vote in local elections. We bank at neighborhood banks and even get our teeth cleaned twice a year. In much the same fashion that you live your lives in various cities and towns all over the country. OK, granted, it’s a little different going to the dentist or eye doctor in an office that is decorated with wicker furniture, palm leaf patterned fabric and tropical color schemes, but you get the point.

To the tourist or visitor the historic streets and picturesque landscape of Charleston and the surrounding areas provides a picture worth the memories. Us locals, whether native or transplant, take a lot of pride in our city and the travel, tourism and food awards that it garners. But for most of us, life here is not just about being a tourist in our own town. We also focus on the livability qualities of the Lowcountry. For instance the balance between being a hospitable host to the cruise ship industry but at the same time keeping an eye to the fragile nature of the ecosystem of the coast that we love so much. We are attentive to the transportation infrastructure, the health care system and the public school system.


We get excited when we read good news about the local economy, just like we do when we read about yet another foodie award for Husk. That was the case yesterday when I picked up The Post and Courier and read the front page headline LOCAL ECONOMY ON THE UPSWING. I was even happier when I read the first few lines of the article: “The Charleston area is seeing a stronger economic recovery than the rest of the state and most of the nation.” Even though the experts quoted by the report state that not much improvement is expected in the real estate market over the next 2 years it was still welcome news for residents of the Lowcountry to hear that all signs indicate that recovery is here, especially for a home owner like me who expects to grow old on the shores of this beautiful coastline. Unfortunately, we moved to the Lowcountry and purchased the home we currently live in just before the huge de-valuation in the real estate market. Since then not only have the numbers of homes selling plummeted but also the selling prices have decreased significantly. In 2006 close to 18,000 homes were sold in the tri-county area, last year in 2011, the number sold was half of that. In many neighborhoods homes are selling for upwards of 30% less for the same home today as opposed to say back in 2007, ouch, especially if you bought in 2007. But there is a silver lining to that dark cloud, mortgage rates are at an all-time low and there are some FABULOUS homes for sale at drastically reduced rates, and if you are fortunate enough to be a buyer in this market, now might be the time to make a move. Especially based upon the modest growth in the local economy being forecast by the experts. I have heard stories about the real estate boom of 2003 and 2004, when folks were purchasing home packages and having the value of the property and home appreciate 15-20 % before the house was ever completed and they moved in. With some of the drastically undervalued real estate available today, it would seem that a buyer may be poised to see their investment pay off quite well for them over the next 5-10 years.


As if that wasn’t enough good news, yesterdays paper also reported that the US Navy is expanding their local involvement with a doubling of the current nuclear submarine training program currently operating at the Naval Weapons Station in Goose Creek.


Now all of this news may not be as entertaining for the reader of my blog as reading about a day at the beach or on a boat, but it should be encouraging not only to anybody who is lucky enough to call the Lowcountry home, but also to anybody who is considering a move to the Land of Palm Trees. I for one am glad to hear the news, it makes it that much more fun to live and play in Vacation Land.

And The Day Lives On; In Infamy!

February 10th is not a particularly happy day in the Hammond Family. As my siblings and our children carry on our lives at various spots between South Carolina, West Virginia and Illinois we will each pause today to remember that this is the anniversary of the day that both of my parents lost their courageous battles to cancer, the bitch. Shocking isn't it, that one could lose both parents to the disease, but on the same day, separated by three years casts an ominous shade on this day in history.

My parents, Jack and Helen, built a smallish ranch style house in a burgeoning new neighborhood in the country 12 miles from town in Fairmont, West Virginia. To give you an idea of the type of people they were, this house was to be covered in stone, field stones to be accurate. Over a 3-month period they would drive the family car all around the countryside, asking permission from farmers and land owners to collect stones out of their fields and meadows, load them into the trunk of their car and deliver them to the house site for the stone masons to lay the next day. The result, a stone house with a stone covered exterior that is absolutely gorgeous. The entire house was covered with stone, including the attached garage, and the cost to them for the stones that covered the house? A couple of tanks of gas, calloused hands and a lot of sweat.

My childhood wasn't perfect, my parents weren't perfect, so I have an excuse. For that I am thankful. It is early in the morning, about the time of day in 1998 when I received the call from my mom and dads next door neighbor, Joan Perry (not the Charleston SC one), who had served as a second set of parents along with her husband Frank; that's the way things were in our neighborhood. I will never forget that morning and the kindness and compassion in Joan's voice as she told me that my father had passed away.

The temptation is to look at this day as dark and dreary, but alas, although I deeply miss both parents and have grieved their loss to us on earth, it is also a day to celebrate their lives and as our faith comforts us, their heavenly birth. So today, I remember and reflect. I feel sadness, yet I am comforted to know that they are free from the pain and suffering that gripped their earthly bodies throughout their fight. And therefore, February 10th isn't as dreaded of a day as one might expect. Reverent, yes, Infamous? Not a chance.