Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Ghosts of Gardens Past

First True Garden:

While I had always been a container gardener, this real garden was a birthday gift from my husband. He built me 2 raised beds which together looked like an hexagon split in half.

It was such a cute little garden but also riddled with flaws. The main issues were that it was too wide for me to reach the center for weeding, we had filled it with the worst/cheapest bagged dirt we could find (sigh) and there was no easy watering system.
Later that year we had our son and moved into a new house. (BYE first cute, but flawed garden...)


I skipped one season of formal gardening. 
Reasons: 1. New Baby 2. New House 3. Accepted in to Veterinary College 
I don't remember that time very well. We existed in a constant state of sleep deprived chaos.


Second Real Garden:
In 2010 I set up a Lasagna/No Till Garden at our new/current home. 
I was so excited about this style of gardening which was not only recommended by my Gardening Guru Grandmother (the GGG), but also promised a great yield with little to know weeding. HURRAY, right?
Well, maybe it worked for The GGG (Whom I love dearly and also has the greenest of all thumbs), but I fought slugs, misshapen veggies and the most weeds I have ever had. This was not the style of garden I wanted.
Three things I kept from this incarnation of the garden were the over all shape, the neat drip line/soaker hose combo irrigation system and my beloved compost pile.

By the end of the season this garden was a JUNGLE!

Garden Design
 Starting the layers

Cutest Helper EVER!
Finished 2010 Garden

The first version of My Beloved Compost Pile (MBC)

(now this pile is a BEAST!)


My Current Garden:

So for the 2011 season I built on top of the previous years catastrophe, covering it with weed block and framing it in with 12X2 untreated lumber. 
We had a 50/50 mix of Compost and Garden Soil delivered
I built the frames


Filled them with soil and laid in my irrigation lines

Filled them with frost sensitive plants

And took off for a Spring Break Trip to California!!! (WEEEEE)
to my great surprise everything survived and the garden is now thriving. 

Next time I'll try to list everything I'm growing this season or maybe just list my favorite gardening podcasts.. who knows

Bye For Now!!!

7 comments:

  1. Thanks, I think it's just my natural cuteness shining through. So obviously that means I'm cute just like "The Shining" was cute... Wait NO! I'm not cute like "The shining!" I'm cute like a ladybug.

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  2. Very cool! I want to come eat at your house this summer, but NOT your peppers! Nice blog GGG is going to love it.

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  3. That Pepper sounds CRAZY HOT! I wish I got a banana pepper instead. I may get one but, I'm running out of space.

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  4. What is on the outside of the wood? IS that Hay or mulch? How big is the space for your garden (total size)? Looks like 20x20?

    Very cool site too - gives me inspiration when starting mine here in AZ in the next couple of weeks.

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  5. Thanks!

    "What is on the outside of the wood?" Weed blocker fabric
    "IS that Hay or mulch?" Wood mulch
    "How big is the space for your garden (total size)? Looks like 20x20?" I think it's about 16 x 20

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