Springfield Locavore: Month From Hell Over; Garden Plans Take Shape!

Good grief, the last few weeks have been nuts!

Spring arrived on March 20 -- huzzah! Dawn and I immediately came down with a stomach flu. Ugh!

Then our computer sickened and died, quite definitively. Ugh! We have a new computer now, but it's still not 100% setup the way the other one was.

Then Dawn's parents traveled from out of state to visit, but her dad came down with the stomach flu and wound up in the emergency room from being so dehydrated. Ugh!

Then our 4-year-old son Orlando came down with the stomach flu! Diarrhea, vomiting, and high fever. Ugh!

Everyone seems to finally be well at last!

One side effect of Dawn's parents coming to visit is that we have temporary use of their pickup truck! They've left for a 2-month trip to Europe, so during that time we'll have their pickup truck available for hauling stuff. For example, stuff for the garden! Lumber for building raised beds; bags of peat moss, vermiculite, and compost; perhaps a better wheelbarrow! (In addition, we'll be picking up cork and bamboo flooring for the house, among other things.)

Garden Plans Finally Taking Shape!

It's already deep into April, and I still haven't made a start on a garden. Part of that was the previously mentioned weeks of sequential sickness, but there's also the simple fact of being paralyzed by indecision.

Although we have a full acre here, much of it has problems. The slope of the land in the backyard is all wrong, so large areas have standing water after a rain. Of the areas which drain well, a large portion of that is shaded. So that means I can't just put the garden anywhere. Plus there are several trees that need to come down, so I don't want to put the garden where it will be in the way when we're ready to have those taken out.

Then there's the question of which gardening method to use. Should I go with Edward C. Smith's W-O-R-D system (Wide rows, Organic methods, Raised beds, Deep soil), which he explains in The Vegetable Gardener's Bible? Or should I try Patricia Lanza's lasagna gardening, which she explains in Lasagna Gardening? Or should I go with Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening, which he explains in All New Square Foot Gardening?

For this year, I think I'll be going with Square Foot Gardening (SFG), primarily because it looks like it will require the least amount of preparation (which it's too late to do) and because it should be the most portable/temporary, since what I do next year (and where) might well be quite different.

In a way, Square Foot Gardening is container gardening on a very large scale. In this case, the containers are (typically) 4 foot by 4 foot beds, created by taking 2"x6" boards and fastening them together, with an optional plywood bottom to make the whole thing truly portable. Rather than improving the existing soil, you use 1/3 each of peat moss, vermiculite, and compost. According to Mel, all you need is a 6" deep bed, because the mixture is so dense in nutrients. We'll see.

The "Square Foot" part refers to laying a grid of 1'x1' squares over the whole thing, with each square foot then being its own planting area. That gives you 16 planting areas in each 4'x4' bed.

Anyway, no tilling or digging is required (unlike the W-O-R-D system) and no gathering together of compost materials is required, nor is there any expectation that you will be doing anything to improve the underlying soil (unlike lasagna gardening). I may well try one of the other methods next year (or incorporate bits and pieces), but because I'm getting a late start, will be plenty busy with the house (replacing every foot of flooring in the house, for one thing), am unsure about where my garden will be located next year, and am fairly new to gardening, I'm going to go with Square Foot Gardening because it looks like it will be the easiest and is explained in the most "paint-by-numbers" fashion.

That's the only kind of painting I ever learned!

Comments

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Hi, Wally! Wow, what a month you all have had. Glad for you and yours that it's over.

Don't push yourself too much to garden if you have too much else going on this summer! Moving, with illness in addition, would be about all *I* could handle.

Plus, some key piece of advice from permaculture, is to wait one year, and observe observe observe. Your noting of where water pools, for example. There could be plants that are just right for each area. But it takes time to get to know a piece of land well.

Sounds like you've done some research, though, and know what you're getting into. :)

May the Force be with you!

Posted by: Don Smith Moorman | April 28, 2009 at 07:10 PM