4/18/2013

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.