GARDENING!!

2fit4fat

I am so excited to have some good outdoor space to garden this year (instead of just doing it all indoors like I had to the last few years)
I am going to be starting some of my seeds this week, wondering if anyone else does gardening out there?! if so do you do organic?! also traditional?! or different?! I love hearing about new ways people come up with.

AmyRhubarb

I love gardening! I have three raised beds, one 4x4 & two 4x8. I do the square foot gardening (sort of), mostly for my winter crops (I'm in central California, so can grow things all year!), but summer crops like tomatoes & squash take up more space. It's all organic, although I do have to treat around the outside of the beds for slugs & snails sometimes. Sneaky little buggers and they do so much damage!

I joined a Seeds of the Month Club last year and I love it! It's from averagepersongardening.com and all the seeds are non-GMO and he heirloom varieties. I have had much better results with those seeds than the ones I get at garden centers. The club gets you 8 packs of seeds your first month, then they send 4 packs every month after that. I have a huge collection now, and so many varieties of things that I might not have purchased on my own. Fun to grow new things, and the extras are great for trading to other gardening friends.

I love going out to my garden to pick fresh things for dinner!

DesertFlowersCanDance

Wow! I'm going to be moving in to my first house in just 3 weeks (yeah - I'm 53) in the high desert Ca area. Thank you for these ideas and website!

I will be also building raised/container gardens.... I am so excited!

:flowerforyou:

beckys19

We're gardeners too... I'm going to be getting "All New Square Foot Gardening" book. It was recommended by someone here a little bit back, and has tons of awesome reviews on Amazon.com. Anything I can do to reduce the square footage of the aera I have to weed is good!

I will be planting asparagus (though won't be able to harvest any until 2014), garlic, tomatoes, peppers (sweet and chile) maybe some beans and zuchini and some other stuff. Tons of herbs: cilantro, dill (I LOVE making refrigerator pickles!) sage, thyme, basil, etc. Check out info on companion gardening, garlic and basil go well with several plants and are natural pest deterrents.

Last year as part of a MOPS project we made 'Easter grass' (a disposable aluminum roasting pan with soil and grass seed to hide eggs in), and after Easter I planted it with chives. About 2 weeks ago I decided to bring it in since I didn't want the wierd winter messing with it too much more, and now I have tons of chives!!!

Athijade

I'll be getting my garden cleaned up and ready to go starting this week. My root vegetable seeds/starters and my lettuce/spinach seeds need to go down sometimes in the first week or so of April. So, I have a lot of work to do before then! Need to clean out the beds, get some fresh dirt to mix in, mix in fertilizer where needed... ect. Our last frost date is April 30, so not too long now!

I will be trying more of a square foot gardening idea this year. Last year I didn't have a very good yield and I actually think it was because I had too much room between things. So, packing it in more this year to see what will happen!

What I will have:
Lettuce (Head, Leaf, Arugula)
Spinach
Tomatoes
Hot Peppers
Sweet Peppers
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Squash
Bush Beans
Radishes
Beets
Carrots
Potatoes
Onions
Raspberries
Strawberries
Herbs (Oregano, Cilantro, Sage, Rosemary, Parsley, Basil, Chives, Dill, maybe more)