Kaleidoscope: My Square Foot Garden Part 1!!

Welcome to Part 1 of my newest adventure!!!

Follow along with me as I create, sow, and harvest my square foot garden! What in the world is a square foot garden, you ask? It's just that-- a garden sectioned into one-foot squares so you can grow a bunch of stuff in a small space. I'm keeping up with my expenses versus my grocery savings this summer and will give a full report in the fall.
Why would I do this? Well, I'll tell ya--when I bought this house one of the things I was looking forward to was having a garden. This will be my second summer in this house and over the past year I figured out that having a garden like my mamaw had--in the yard already present--was not going to happen. This damn dirt is weedy and rocky and no good for tilling. So, I did my research and found out that I could have an above the ground garden. (Who knew that veggies roots don't actually very far down? I sure didn't!)
So, first things first--I had to get some seeds started indoors. What fun! I got carrots, lettuce, broccoli, squash, zucchini, herbs, beans, cucumbers and spinach. I used the standard Burpee box thingy with dirt included. Let's take a look at pics from February 29:

Here's what I had a couple of days later:

A BEAN SPROUT!!!

Here's what they look like TODAY, March 7:

They are HUGE I tell ya, HUGE!!!!

Next, my pops had to build the garden box because I had to get the dirt ready for planting. Why? I heard from a friend that I needed to go ahead and get the dirt in the box and to start 'turning' the dirt weekly. Why? I have no idea, but my mama says it's so the dirt can get warm.
Anyway--pops had to build the box. It is a 4ftX4ft untreated cedar box with reinforcements. There was no map, instructions or guides, he's just clever like that. If you want a pre-made kit, we'll sell you one with all the wood cut to the proper sizes; all you'll need to do is put it together with included screws. Seriously. I moved it to it's designated spot in my backyard (the spot that gets the most light) and put that black stuff that is supposed to keep weeds out (but doesn't) at the bottom. We'll even throw in the black stuff for FREE if you order a kit.

Viola!

**Anyone who knows me, knows I'm not good at math. If I could do math I'd be a doctor instead of an attorney. I say this so you understand why there are so many extra bags of dirt in the next set of pictures. I thought a 4X4 would need 16 cubic square feet of dirt. And as it seems, that is certainly true SO LONG AS the garden is a foot deep. Mine is six inches deep, so I only needed 8 cubic feet of dirt.

I actually used a combination of peat moss, top soil and garden soil and Zachary even pitched in to help: