It’s a variation on Square Foot Gardening techniques. I say variation because I follow the philosophy of planting in squares instead of rows, but I don’t use a permanent grid. I make my grid with masking tape.

The Grid in living color

The grid is more colorful than usual because I ran out of regular masking tape and had to use painter’s tape instead. It doesn’t matter; I picked up the grid as soon as I was done planting.

It may not look like much now, but this part of the grid will fill up with many shades of green. I planted beans and two kinds of lettuce. The outer border might be marigolds. I say “might” because I salvaged the seeds from dried marigolds on La Petite’s apartment porch. If they come up, I’ll have marigolds to attract pollinators and repel pests like wild rabbits.

Jalapeno peppers to be

Here’s a close-up of one row (column?) in the grid: pepper plants. These are jalapeno peppers. I have a batch of yellow banana pepper plants started, too. I just need to figure out where they’ll go.

So, readers, do you use square foot gardening or traditional rows? Or do you use something entirely different?