Garden 2013
 

I've got some potatoes on the windowsill to sprout, and we just picked up some seeds. Early? Maybe. But I'm always fuzzy on timeliness, and I still need to build some raised beds.

I remember once reading about a style of raised bed that was designed around the gardener's ergonomics, rather than around an arbitrary square geometry. It was sort of kidney or C-shaped, and you could sit in the middle and do all your weeding from more or less one point. I remember it being made out of brick -- which is convenient, there's a lot of free brick around here. I want to say it was from the southwest, or Latin America, and the name started with an 'A'. That last part might be totally bogus.

Does this ring any bells? The woman of the house is always easier to convince when I can show her some example of an idea of mine having been done successfully by someone else.

I was told we're getting 5-10" of snow tonight so, yeah, I'm against gardening©

Yep. Pretty dangerous drive home this evening.

Good reminder gvidas!

In my new homestead I can't really garden, although I don't know who'd notice. Maybe I can work out how to do one of those tomato vines in a hanging pot deals.

We are doing the hay bales again this year ,
also a hugelkultur , a small one just for a test ,
and carol had me put her raised bed AGAIN this year

Ut you should try the hay bales , they take Little room and seem to work Great

I don't think he'll get much sun where he is... in a ravine with a high canopy of mature trees, as I remember.

Borrowed a heating mat to try for seed starting this year - seems to work very well. Also bought some high (7") clear covers for the trays to keep moisture in. 2" of wet snow this AM, we are all SO ready for spring...

6" of snow. whatever.

Zip, have you done Hugelkultur before? It seems like an interesting idea.

I think I'll try hugelkultur principles with some raised beds this year. Put a wood frame on the raised bed, place the wood and soil in it, finishing with a decent depth of soil, and let the interior wood slowly rot. Would there be problems with that?

The nice thing is that it would allow more height in the raised bed (easier on the back) without having to initially put in so much soil. And the rotting wood would keep the soil lighter.

It might be a season or two before that interior log rots. It's gonna need moisture. Not too much, not too little. And time, maybe a little oxygen.

We had the town drop off a huge load of wood chips a few years ago. For two years we had a nice pile of chips for paths, for another two years we had semi-mulch chips, and the following year we had pretty lovely soil with chips in it.

Had we mixed some soil in things would have gone quicker, but solid wood takes a few years, at least, to turn into honest to goodness soil.

I've got a limb/branch/stick pile up against the back fence. Maybe I should pull everything out into the sun, dig up the nice soil that's probably under there, and spread it on top of the pile, and have a go at this.

Someone should write music to go along with that post. I can hear it as a Junior Brown song, Guit Steel Blues

Folks I am just the grunt labor .when it comes to gardening ,
Every body has their tallents. gardening atnt one of mine ,
Hell I killed a cactus once

Well it was him or you.