Community Garden

Here's the community garden plan. My excitement rubbed off on several others and now there are two others with "Square Foot Gardens". Matt joked that they were "drinking my kool-aid!".

I'll post more picture from the community garden hopefully later today.

Planning Geek

In order to fully understand the Square Foot Gardening concept, I had to create a plan. I needed to know what I was planting and when each plant needed to go into the ground. You'll notice I'm not the most technogically savy (I can't even seem to get two picture to work in the same post!). The easiest way for me to create "squares" was on excel. So, here's the layout of the back yard garden.

The blue is planted earliest, followed by teal and then green. It keeps me straight as to what needs to go in the ground when.

The corn on the side of the diagram is going to be planted in earth boxes. This is another totally genius way to plant without a lot of space. It's our first year, so we'll see what we can grow!

I need a calendar, we're making progress

I'm trying to figure out how to keep track of all my crops. Lots of the seed packets indicate a number of days to maturity. This is great and all, but I have like 15 different crops to keep track of, not to mention the fact that they are all being planted at different times.

So, I'm going to do some internet research to try to find a calendar that would indicate when things would be ready.

Over the weekend, we set the blocks and had dirt delivered to the community garden. It looks AWESOME. It smells horrible, kind of like fresh manure and dirt. This is a good thing, but it still stinks.

I've started planting in my plot and will take pictures in the next couple of days to show what I've planted. The community "spirit" that this is generating is wonderful as well. We've really been able to get to know our neighbors. Just wait till this summer and we're sharing all our produce. I can't wait!

Let There Be Dirt

This weekend my brother and sister-in-law were visiting from Chicago. The boys had great plans to smoke some ribs on the grill while Abby and I were going to take the dogs for a "Easter Beg Hunt" to the businesses in the Short North.

There are lots of technicalities to smokin' ribs and therefore they require lots of attention. Sitting in our back yard all afternoon only made us think more and more about our garden. So we decided we could at least get the dirt in the boxes.

Using the recipe from Mel Bartholomew over at The Square Foot Gardener I purchased my dirt. I had to change the recipe just a little bit as they don't sell vermiculite in large bags at my local Lowes. So, I mixed 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 manure/composte, and 1/3 vermiculite and topsoil mix. We had to buy everything in bags and mix the soil in the squares.

The dirt has settled and is now ready to be "squared off" and planted. I can't wait!

Community Garden

'Cause I'm not geeked up enough, our block decided to create a community garden.

We even have a facebook page. Check it out!http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Columbus-OH/Italian-Village-Community-Garden/78234581824

Here are some preliminary pictures. More to follow along with a planting diagram.

Getting Ready

So, I've been reading my Square Foot Gardener book. The temperature is rising and it's getting closer and closer... I'm SO excited. I LOVE vegetables. This past weekend my husband and I spent a couple of hours preparing the area where we are going to put our two raised beds. This involved moving some plants around. (I mentioned before how much my husband loves it when I move plants around in the garden. He thinks I'm crazy. He's also much more decisive that I am!)

After clearing the spot we took 4 2x8x8ft boards and cut them in half. Then we screwed the ends together and created these! The stakes mark where the string will attach to create 1ft x 1ft squares for planting. Up next is dirt. I'm headed to Lowes or Oakland Nursery to buy the mix I need. On the website they recommend a mixture of 1/3 Peat Moss, 1/3 Vermiculite, 1/3 Compost. After this we should be ready to plant. Broccoli here I come!

Tulips = Spring

Check these out! How pretty! These popped up over the weekend. This just means it's getting warmer. Yeah.