Documenting a novice gardener's lifestyle project dedicated to growing - food and people.
If your looking for expert gardening advice you're in the wrong place.
If you are an expert, jump in and help us out. We are curious, willing to learn and really just want to put home grown tomatoes on the family table.
After a week of beautiful weather and lots of optimism about my newly planted square foot garden we took a beating last night as temperatures dropped and the snow started falling.
This is what I awoke to:
Not sure what the damage is yet but I am glad I have seedlings and containers that I brought indoors.
Had a dream that killer rabbits came during the night and ate all my plants. Think I’m going to fortify my square foot garden and build a fence around it this week.
Took this close-up picture today and just had to share it. This is a Roma Tomato plant that I started from seed last week. It’s a beautiful sight.
Since I started my gardening project last fall I’ve done and learned quite a lot, but the most surprising thing so far has been how much I’ve enjoyed composting. I mentioned this to a few people and got some strange and even worried reactions. I haven’t figured out why seeing the steam rise while feeling the heat coming from the innards of the pile of decomposing waste on a cool morning is so satisfying. But it is.
I just used a large portion of the compost to fill my new garden and it was like reconnecting with an old friend. All those egg shells and carrot peelings along with the grass clippings and leaves that usually linger in the borders were now being put to good use. It was quite therapeutic.
I heard from some of the more enthusiastic folks at the master gardener presentation that there was such a thing as a ‘master composter’. Perhaps that’s something I should look into. I wonder if it pays well…
Here’s a picture of the beauty after she was emptied:
A wonderful and productive day here. The sky is blue, the sun is out and it’s about 65 degrees. Lovely.
I put the soil mixture in the new box last night and watered it thoroughly so I could start planting this morning. The soil mixture is not exactly as prescribed but is pretty close. It’s an approximately equal measure of compost and peat moss with a slightly smaller amount of coarse vermiculite, then finished off with a bag of organic soil mixture (containing compost and peat moss) and all nicely mixed up. I’d guess that it’s about:
I had a tough time finding the vermiculite here this week and finally found it at a nearby garden center yesterday. It was only available in small bags and was pretty expensive at $6.99 for an 8 quart bag. Not that I have ever bought it before but I wasn’t expecting it to be that much. Anyway, I got 2 bags to throw in the mix.
The string dividers were also added to split the box into 1 foot squares and I put the PVC frame up along the back edge where the tommies are. Then I added my plants and seeds.
Here’s what it looks like now:
a quick video promoting Jamie Olivers ‘Food Revolution’
Join the ‘Food Revolution USA’.
British chef Jamie Oliver is bringing his campaign to get kids eating real, healthy food to the US.
Sign the petition
more good info for the North Texas gardener. This is a better website than the dcmga
go info for North Texas gardeners
I attended my first ‘master gardener’ presentation this week. The Denton County Master Gardener Association is putting on a series of seminars and this week the subject was square foot gardening. The guy presenting did a good job and related a lot of the generic square foot gardening information so it was specific to our area here in the North Dallas suburbs.
First the bad news - it turns out that the bargain I thought I had with the scraps of wood for my boxes wasn’t such a bargain after all. I was told not to use wood that had been ‘treated’ as the chemicals can leak into the soil. Not sure what the effects might be but as I’m intending to put food on my family dinner table I thought it best to err on the safe side. I went to Home Depot and bought untreated wood and quickly put my new 4ft by 4ft box together on Thursday evening after work. Ironically the guy at Home Depot told me I should use treated wood because it would last longer and he shrugged of my ‘what about the chemicals getting into my tomatoes argument?’. I guess everyone’s got an opinion.
I also purchased some PVC piping and put together a frame which I’ll run string across for my tomatoes and cucumbers to climb up. It looks a bit wobbly so I just hope it stays upright.
Random thought….I think I was the youngest person at the Master Gardener event and in spite of feeling pretty good about that, I was a little disappointed that there weren’t more from the 25-40 age group. Perhaps we need to start a ‘young gardener’ movement. Who’s with me?
