square foot gardening

I have been a fan of square foot gardening for many years. Here's a site in France, le potager de Marie, that is a great online resource for the process, the rationale, and full of suggestions for planting schemes, etc. Only drawback is if one does not read French. If however you do, check it out. I think it's marvelous. Since I'm starting to read those seed catalogues and daydream about this season's possibilities, I thought I would revisit Marie's excellent site.

And here's a calendar to guide you in planting according to the phases of the moon. (This site is also in French.) Follow the link to the guide on how to use the calendar (mode d'emploi). Many of the disappearing skills and knowledge of some of our ancestors have turned out to be not so foolish after all. Here's an article by Ann Cleary that gives a brief explanation of how biodynamic gardening includes the effects of the moon and cosmic forces on plant life.

Another interesting concept in planting is phenology(study of the seasonal timing of life cycle events). By collecting the data around events like bud opening, and flowering of certain marker plants, we can not only see the effects of global warming on our gardens, but plant at times when one might avoid damaging frosts or insect infestations, for example. Here's a resource from the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service for sources of phenological data that may be applicable in your area. And here's a partial list of garden activities that can be timed according to phenology.

Another couple of little daydreams I have include raising a small flock of rare-breed chickens for both eggs and meat, and bee-keeping. I'll keep you posted as I work toward getting those endeavors off the ground.