Jeanne de Bont Henk Lamers
Square Foot Gardening 2025
Because we wanted to accurately track our vegetable and herb harvests, we weighed each batch after harvesting. The amounts were recorded in a black notebook. On the left page, you can see an example of this.
The records included: – the date – the weight in grams – the harvested product – the Square Foot –– gardening box it came from
The next step was to create datasheets summarizing the entire harvest for the year.
These data sets were then imported using the Processing program language. With this language, we designed the graphics and generated the final charts for this brochure.
In 2025, the yield was significantly higher than the previous year. This will stabilize at some point once we have sufficient experience with the entire process of sowing, growing, and harvesting. Growing seedlings is now going increasingly well. The seedling pots are kept in the living room for a while, and when the seedlings emerge, we move them to the greenhouse. It is actually too warm in the living room to grow plants, and there is not enough light. Last year, cucumbers were the most popular and successful crop. The zucchini mainly produced beautiful flowers but take up too much space in the greenhouse. We will only grow them outside from now on. We didn't like the type of red peppers we had last year Westlandse lange rode. They made a lot of mess and were far too hot. The Szegediner, Capsicum annuum, remains our favorite pepper. They are perfect for making Tabasco sauce. In 2026, we’re going to plant more baby pumpkins to make soup.
The high yield has created a new problem: what to do with all those fresh vegetables? This has led us into a whole new area, namely the preservation of vegetables, fruit, and herbs. It is a very interesting area where we still have a lot to learn. Over the years, many techniques have been developed to preserve crops, such as: preserving, bottling, juicing, vacuuming, drying, fermenting, freezing, pasteurizing, sterilizing, smoking, sugaring, salting and brining, storing under fat, storing in alcohol, and ensiling. We have started with fermenting and preserving, so we still have some work to do in the coming years.
Jeanne de Bont | Henk Lamers
