Mid-March Weekend
It's been a good weekend. I got to go to a mini prayer retreat on Saturday, and we had a baptism service at church today.
The girls and I did some work on the yard this weekend. The weather has been beautiful, and unseasonably warm and sunny.
We're planning to have a garden this year, and the warm weather makes me want to get started on it now. The danger of frost isn't past (we still had ice in shady areas just a couple of days ago), but I think there are some things I could start doing now, if I could just figure out what they were and how to do them. Many flowers are blooming, and my herbs are beginning to renew themselves.
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I've never had a vegetable garden of my own before. Realizing this weekend that a good-sized spaghetti squash ends up costing close to $10 (even at a fairly low price per pound) has strengthened my resolve to plant one. Now that we have to buy almost everything fresh and organic, produce is by far the largest portion of our grocery bill. Having readily available fruits and vegetables that we know are safe and haven't been treated with corn or soy derivatives would be really wonderful for us.
This week I hope to cover the area where we plan to plant the garden with visquine and/or cardboard to kill the weeds. I've been told that should be my first step, anyway . . . but I'm wondering if I should do something to the weeds or the soil first.
I did start a compost pile a few weeks ago, but I'm not really sure how to best care for it so it will turn into good fertilizer as quickly as possible. For now I'm just feeding it all the fruit and vegetable scraps, and the dumpings from cleaning out the hamster cage.
Soon the girls and I will start some seeds indoors. They are so excited about the idea of a garden. Today they helped me cut the dead stems off some of the flowers in the front yard.
Baby E enjoyed being outside, too, and wanted to help with what we were doing. She is picking up a handful of new words every day. Some of her recent aquisitions include "please", "I do!", "don't" and "amen."
The girls and I did some work on the yard this weekend. The weather has been beautiful, and unseasonably warm and sunny.
We're planning to have a garden this year, and the warm weather makes me want to get started on it now. The danger of frost isn't past (we still had ice in shady areas just a couple of days ago), but I think there are some things I could start doing now, if I could just figure out what they were and how to do them. Many flowers are blooming, and my herbs are beginning to renew themselves.
#################################
I've never had a vegetable garden of my own before. Realizing this weekend that a good-sized spaghetti squash ends up costing close to $10 (even at a fairly low price per pound) has strengthened my resolve to plant one. Now that we have to buy almost everything fresh and organic, produce is by far the largest portion of our grocery bill. Having readily available fruits and vegetables that we know are safe and haven't been treated with corn or soy derivatives would be really wonderful for us.
This week I hope to cover the area where we plan to plant the garden with visquine and/or cardboard to kill the weeds. I've been told that should be my first step, anyway . . . but I'm wondering if I should do something to the weeds or the soil first.
I did start a compost pile a few weeks ago, but I'm not really sure how to best care for it so it will turn into good fertilizer as quickly as possible. For now I'm just feeding it all the fruit and vegetable scraps, and the dumpings from cleaning out the hamster cage.
Soon the girls and I will start some seeds indoors. They are so excited about the idea of a garden. Today they helped me cut the dead stems off some of the flowers in the front yard.
Baby E enjoyed being outside, too, and wanted to help with what we were doing. She is picking up a handful of new words every day. Some of her recent aquisitions include "please", "I do!", "don't" and "amen."
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Posted by purple_kangaroo at 11:56 PM[Permanent link]
4 Comments:
my mom in law just ays down layer upon layer of newspaper to kill weed where she wants a bed. it works great and you can till the paper right in afterwards. it teks a lot of paper though, so there's that.
there are a couple good cold weatehr crops i know of, broccoli and kale especially. Squash and tomatoes are pretty successful to transplant from starting inside though.
You can get a product called compost accelerator which is just additional bacteria that will help break down the food scraps more quickly. Or you can buy some earth worms from a bait store.
Unfortunetly the best way to prepare teh soil is to really aerate it in a deep bed. This is a lot of work- but will really make a difference in yeild and weed reduction. You can do it by hand, or rent a tiller for a day from a hardware or home improvement store.
Can't wait to hear how everything goes. Good Luck!
Bridget, thanks for the info. I've heard the newspaper idea suggested, but since newspaper ink is soy-based I would be worried about getting that into the garden soil.
I definitely plan to borrow or rent a tiller, and I'm planning to go out with the girls and collect some worms to add to the compost pile.
http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-3-79-829,00.html
This web site has some good info on composting. The article above talks about what is safe to put in the pile and what is not safe.
I think we still have a tiller you could borrow.
Thanks for the link, grandmac. That site has a lot of good info.
I'm talking to Steve about bringing the tractor over to till the garden . . . thanks!
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