GARDEN - A plot of ground, usually near a house, where flowers, shrubs, vegetables, fruits, or herbs are cultivated.
GARDENER - Any person who gardens or is skillful in gardening.
NOVICE - A person who is new to the circumstances, work, etc., in which they are placed; a beginner.
We all know the meaning of these words. But it helps to spell them out to really know what this blog is about.
I am a beginner at gardening. Not that I've never grown anything before. I've had flowers around my house, and I remember being asked to pull the beans in my Mom's garden when I was young. "Hated it!" But I myself have never had a vegetable garden where I grew my own food. Real food that I could actually use to sustain myself and family.
So, I asked my guy friend, CS, if I could use his back yard for a garden, (I live in town with no yard to speak of). He said YES.
We started talking about it and decided on raised bed gardening. We have three, 6' x 9' beds. Here are the frames:
Making sure to keep enough room between for the lawn mower, we set them down with the handy dandy skid steer that CS owns (what a great back saver).
Looked up, on the web, how to best prepare them for planting. Put in the weed paper first, then a layer of old hay, then field dirt (CS has about 100+ acres of farm land) and then top soil, which we bought. I know, a farmer who owns 100+ acres, had to buy more dirt..... I don't want to hear it. We needed good new dirt. Not something that's been growing crops for more than 2 generations.
We finished with these:
We will be starting tomatoes and sweet peppers from seed and they are growing now:
I'll keep you posted on the progress. Vegetable layout to come.
