Let's Garden

Well, not yet, but let's THINK about it, okay? I especially need to start thinking about it because this is what I have to work with ...

I have a blank canvas, and it needs some prep work.

While in Portland I saw a little book on my brother's fridge called Make Your Place: affordable, sustainable nesting skills by Raleigh Briggs.

Photo credit

It contains lots of information about how to use natural ingredients in Health and First Aid, Non-Toxic Cleaning and Body Care Products, and Gardening. The book doesn't contain a lot of things that I will use on a daily basis, but it has an excellent section on gardening. And it got me dreaming and planning. I especially enjoyed the section on "The Buddy System" (vegetables and herbs that grow well together). I am getting a vision. I hope that I can make it look like I have it in my mind.

The kids and I are going to actually be using the Square Foot Gardening curriculum for science in the Spring.

We will have three raised beds going down the center of the space. One will be devoted to our Square Foot Garden. One of the other raised beds will be a Salsa Garden (all veggies and herbs that go into a salsa) and the other will be a Pizza Garden (all veggies and herbs that go on my favorite veggie pizza). The right side of the garden will be lined with flowering herbs. The left side along the fence will be lined with butterfly and bee attracting bushes. And there will be roses at each end. Oh, I can't WAIT!

In the next couple of weeks I will be laying down plastic in the entire gardening area to start killing the grass. I will be working on my compost pile (although it won't be ready until next year). In a month or so I will be marking off my raised beds and prepping them before they are actually built.

I am so excited! I can almost feel the sunny spring days.

I will be blogging my very slow progress with Carol's Linky "Help for the Hopeful Gardener" at Home Sweet Life.