Thursday, February 4, 2016

It's 2016! What's new in the gradual garden this year?


I just realized that it's been ages since I wrote a gardening blog. I'm guessing it has something to do with the fact that I write about gardening all the time on Examiner. Or maybe it's that whole not enough time in the day thing. Or maybe I'm just feeling lazy these days. Who knows? At any rate, here's what's happening in the gradual garden this year.

Right now, I'm starting tomatoes and peppers and a bunch of other seedlings because it's time. But also because I'm already wishing for gardening season. Aren't we all?

Sweet dreams are made of peas.... who am I to, well, you get the idea.

I'm also trying to decide whether I should keep going with the bucket planting or do conventional raised beds instead. I like the buckets because using them makes the whole plant portable. It's nice to be able to shift them around when they need a different level of sunlight or some other location issue crops up.

But sometimes I wish they weren't portable because they're heavy little suckers, you know?

Planning to get a load of compost/potters mix this year. Going to make and fill some new raised beds, regardless of the fate I decide on for the buckets. Gary has an idea for a bed design that he wants to build and I'm not one to refuse whatever help he can give me in the garden. Plus, we need more grow room.

Anyone want to help wheelbarrow it all to the back yard? Anyone?

Anyway, let's talk about the pictures above. I think we're going to expand our fence line this year to add those new raised beds. Also (and I'm quite excited about this) we've been thinking of building a taller, fenced in garden like the one we had at our old apartment in the back yard. We drove by the other day and it's still standing and being used by the other tenants. I guess we're not as bad at construction as we thought. LOL

So what we may do (time and money dependent) Is to simply expand the garden space we have while simultaneously turning it into a taller fenced in space that we can convert to a simple greenhouse later on.

Ah, the greenhouse.... Every gardeners DREAM! Did that make you sing my corny pea song again? If so, my work here is done.

Anyway....We may not get to it this year, but I'm hoping that we can. Can you picture it? I think it's going to be awesome! So grateful to be able to make my humble gardening dreams come true on occasion. And maybe I help my readers out with my hair brained schemes. If not, at least they're worth a morning chuckle, right? Even if you're only laughing at my awkward attempts at humor.