Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Next Year's Garden

Isn't it beautiful?
We've decided to stay in our crappy little house for another two years.  I know, it may not make sense to those of you who know us.  It's a rental.  It's small.  It's on a busy street with no trick-or-treaters, but we are staying put and doing other things besides, packing, unpacking, hanging curtains (I'm still doing this after a year!) and looking for missing stuff.

SO

There has to be a garden.  The area shown above is along the back of the house walkway between the patio and this weird stone foundation-like square in the ground.

I'm using the technique from  this book  which I've used before and it is awesome!
The technique calls for no digging or tilling, but rather layering organic materials and letting it sit over a season and having lovely, rich soil for planting.  It works!  You can use just about any plot - even hard packed areas with crappy stuff underneath.  You start by laying wet newspaper over the area and then add thick layers of peat moss, barn litter (manure), compost, yard waste, grass clippings, and other organic stuff until it's about 12 inches high. Then you let Mother Nature take over and wait for it to "cook".  The worms below will come up through the paper and turn and tumble through it all creating a lovely lovely growing medium.  So far I've gotten about 4 layers down and plan to have the rest finished before the end of the month.
THEN I CAN DREAM ALL WINTER ABOUT WHAT I'LL GROW!
That's the best part.



Today's Best Thing Ev-va:  Finishing Nick's sock - first one. (see yesterday for picture)
Today's Tasty Treat:  Real home made mac and cheese from Martha's website

and Today's "SQUIRREL!!!!!" Moment: Realizing my house is covered in a thin layer of dust from long neglecting this lovely exercise...  So I'll use the 15 minute timer technique and dust in one room for 15 minutes every morning till it's done... Actually we ALL KNOW it's never done.  You just begin again... which is why mine isn't done at all, but my sock knitting is!  

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