It finally stopped raining in Oklahoma and the plants are getting their first taste of summer. Look what a couple days of 80 degree weather and no rain will do.
Our first fruit of the year!
In case anybody wonders how to collect a stack of receipts and find out how many pain pills and muscle relaxers one can take I have the blog for you!
1. First you remove sod and plant it neatly in the empty lot next to you in hopes of replacing the field of weeds with nice Bermuda grass.
2. Second you continue to remove several inches of worthless Oklahoma red clay and fill in the mosquito reservoir in the empty lot next door.
3. Third you have 5 tons of dirt dumped in the empty lot next door.
4. Fourth you haul 5 tons of dirt one wheel barrow at a time.
5. Fifth is a real treat where you start collecting credit card receipts and digging holes!
6. Sixth is where you decide steps 1, 2, and 4 are worth repeating and you create another garden that you orgianally weren't planning - transplanting the shrubs from the front yard to the back yard.
7. Seventh is where you redo the island peanut shaped garden for the third time because now it looks pathetic compared to the new masterpiece.
8. Eighth is where you empty 12 bags of black mulch making sure not to mix it with dirt, because black shows dirt really well.
9. Ninth is where you take before and after pictures and vow that we are done - forever!
Why build one garden when building two is twice the fun! Here is the clean canvas.
After a first failed attempt to organize flowers, which looked like a sparsely planted cemetery, we created this.
Something tells me that the small plot of grass between the house and the sidewalk will turn into the botanical gardens before the end of summer. Yay for me!
My proud accomplishment!
Devy can't wait to make holes in my garden. Those onions were awesome on my nachos!
Last night the stalks got their first taste of Oklahoma wind storms. We had recorded 74 mph winds less then 3 miles away. All the stakes held and all the leaves are still attached.
The marigolds were planted after war was declared on some ants. The entire perimeter of the dirt had colony after colony of ants. I'm not sure what they were, but they don't like ant poison and don't like marigolds. Round 1 goes to me!
My wife thinks its funny that I spent so much time planning my crop placement and wanted me to post this spreadsheet. She forgets that I'm a Project Manager and that planning is my job. If enough thought is done upfront then little intervention is needed later. It's hard work to make it look so easy during execution.
I found another great site on crop placement HERE and used it to help with my spacing. I decided to use the last one for aesthetic reasons - the taller plants are further from the house and the shorter plants are closest to the house.
Yes I do this for about anything I do and it drives my wife crazy - and she still argues with me about stuff!
After 2 tons of dirt moving and several trips to the dirt store - the garden is built! For those of you who don't know I moved over 4000 pounds of dirt, sod, and clay on my "vacation". My back hurts, my hands are scared, and I think my wife is ready for me to go back to work.
I've laid out the grid with string - all we need are plants. The onions are planted the lettuce seeds have been spread, and everything else is sitting in the seed starter kit. The spare bedroom looks like some high school kids illegal grow room. I credit the growth to the heating pad you can't see in the picture that sits under the grow kit.
No comedy in this posting - just a place to put some links.
Square Foot Gardening
A gardening technique where rows are substituted for square foot plots. Google Square Foot Gardening and images of some impressive Square Foot Gardens.
Who knew being a farmer was hard? I've always lived by the "work smarter not harder" philosophy, but when you are a fish out of the water that is just not possible. Build a raised garden - how hard could that be? If you knew what you were doing probably not that hard. Someone who is clueless with a few beers - it takes 3 days.
I chose the Lincoln log approach with landscaping limbers, reinforced with 1/2 inch rebar and 6 inch nails. It looks real nice, but a pain in the butt lining up the holes and the timbers. One thing is for sure, this should withstand the next tornado season.
Behold - my first major project of our new house. A 16 by 4 - 1 foot raised garden planter. Next comes the garden ready dirt mix that I found at Minick Materials.
We're keeping it simple the first year - since nothing will probably grow anyways. We chose generic things and used a seed starting kit that looks like a tiny greenhouse.
This is my first attempt to blog so be gentle. First off I have no imagination so my blog must have a theme otherwise I'll never make myself consistently write something. This year I'm building a garden and going to grow thing and then eat them - my favorite thing to pass the time.
We have a huge backyard that is...empty and boring. What better way to do something about it then build a huge garden planter that will look ugly and white trash in a couple months with a half baked garden. My wife is having second thoughts about this already.
We decided to keep it simple and build a 12 foot by 4 foot planter. Just playing around we tried a 16 foot by 4 planter and just may end up going bigger. What's better then a an ugly white trash half baked garden then an even bigger ugly white trash half baked garden.
Before we could finish a thunderstorm rolled in and I first start to wonder if little plants will survive an Oklahoma spring storm. Less then 2 weeks ago a tornado touched down less then a quarter a mile away and destroyed a Target and Chuck E Cheese.
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