Down by the Station, Early in the Morning

The Uncorporated Garden 2011: This Year's Plans

In 2010, we put in three cherry tomatoes and two bell peppers in the back; carrots and Gerber daisies and marigolds and cukes out front. In the fall, I dug out the back bed, expanded it and the area around the (cut back) lilac, and turned over the beds out front. The kids thought it great fun to poke around and find worms.

This year, I have a plan set up for our six planting areas. In no particular order, meet the beds!

The Lilac Bed, with unknown spring bulb

The expanded Back Bed, with various bulbs

The Raised Bed, sometime home to neighborhood chipmunks

The North Porch Bed - not much to look at now

The West Porch Bed, with containered chives

The Planting Boxes - the long ones are specifically for the kids

A bonus bed for something tall!

I'll post later on the specifics of each bed, but overall we're hoping to produce tomatoes (cherry and Roma), bell peppers, green beans (bush and pole), carrots, radishes, okra, cucumbers, basil, cilantro, oregano, chives, thyme, and rosemary. We'll definitely salt in some marigolds here are there, and there may be some other herbs, but that has yet to be seen.

I'll also keep a running list of garden tasks, more for myself than anything. Tasks so far:

• Mark out planting locations in the back bed done
  
• Clean out leaves from all beds
• Turn over soil
• Add topsoil, sand(?), compost
• Save eggshells and coffee grounds
• Transplant mums from raised bed to west porch bed
• Buy seeds/seedlings

But first, we need to wait for things to warm up! We're still nearly two months out from our average last frost date, and we're still dropping below freezing some nights, so it's still planning at this point.

This may be our first bulb to bloom - any day now!

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We are ostensibly homeschooling our two kids (ages 2 and almost-5), although it's been rather informal so far. We are however seizing opportunities as they arise to reinforce reading, math, and other basic skills, with the hope of laying a solid foundation for when we ramp up a formal curriculum.

This garden update is part of The Homeschool Village's Garden Challenge - we will continue updating through the growing season. Photos of the garden beds were taken March 30, 2011. Check back to see our progress!

Previewing the Uncorporated Garden 2011

I will never again take for granted having a piece of land in which to grow food. Discussions of health, convenience, and food security aside, it's just plain fun to go out and dig in the dirt. And if I'm going to dig in the dirt (sorry - the soil), I might as well get something productive out of it beyond just pretty flowers.

As a family, we have lived in four places over the last six years. When my wife and I started out, we had a "garden apartment", which allowed us a small garden on the north (!) side of our unit. We got lots of shade from the surrounding buildings and the garage, but I think we managed to eke out some flowers. I remember specifically having some spectacular (for us, anyway) sunflowers that were the result of some forgotten birdseed.

Just before Isaac was born, we moved closer to my workplace at the time. We had a second-floor apartment with no garden space of our own. It did have a balcony, though, that overlooked an ecologically-poor stream (but it was so nice to have the sound of water outside). We had a couple of container gardens out on the balcony (north-facing, again!) in which we grew flowers and a family of ducks.

During our 18-month housesitting adventure, we finally had a decent plot of land (just shy of an acre), but it wasn't ours, so instead of ripping up the acre of golf-course grass and planting veggies, I got the privilege of mowing and mowing and mowing and mowing and mowing. For the record, grass is (mostly) evil. Just sayin'.

If only he was really cutting the grass!

I stuck a few spring bulbs in the flower beds, and had a container of chives, but beyond that the gardens were fairly ornamental. I suppose I could have done some significant container gardening, but my work schedule never permitted me the time to get it organized.

Here in Saline, we have garden space on both sides (south and north) of the townhouse, and even a raised bed that a previous resident constructed. It had rhubarb and ornamentals when we moved in; the back garden bed had hostas, century plants, and others. I like rhubarb, but I'm the only one, so in the larger interest of starting fresh, we cleaned out the beds and did our own thing.

Someday, I'll have enough space (and construction capital) to build an herb spiral, but that will have to wait a few years.

Herb Spiral illustration from The Saturday Evening Post

Next time: Last year's efforts and this year's plans

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We are ostensibly homeschooling our two kids (ages 2 and almost-5), although it's been rather informal so far. We are however seizing opportunities as they arise to reinforce reading, math, and other basic skills, with the hope of laying a solid foundation for when we ramp up a formal curriculum.

This garden update is part of The Homeschool Village's Garden Challenge - we will continue updating through the growing season.

70 Degrees of Freedom

I remember working in the office when the first warm day of "spring" (whether official or not) came along. I would stare longingly out the window at the people playing in the park across the street and usually I would come up with an excuse to walk downtown for lunch.

This year, I got to spend a warm St. Patrick's Day with the most important people in my life: my wife and kids.

After a picnic lunch, playground time, and birding at Gallup Park in Ann Arbor, we came home to get a couple chores completed. When Tiffany left for a dinner shift at the restaurant, the kids and I loaded up the wagon and headed out to soak up some rays on a walk around town.

Three and a half miles later, we were back home and none the worse for the wear. My feet are a little sore now, but I'll get over it. It's so good to be back outside again!