This week has been spring break and boy did I need it. If you saw my post last week and that was a testament from a woman who needed to go home and have some away from school time. I'm going to do a separate post on spring break, so I'll skip to this past weekend.
Matt's job has this cool schedule where he works 9 hour days so he gets every other Friday off. We typically plan something or other during this time, may it be a project or a trip, even smaller trips like seeing our parents. Or a home and garden show. His Fridays off are typically Matt and Shanna days. We kicked around the idea of going to Fredericksburg, Texas like we did last year and tour the wineries. Well we got a late start on planning and there weren't many options in the cabin department left. Then we thought about going to Eureka Springs, Arkansas but the idea of traveling all day on Sunday to get home and then all day on Monday to get back to school wasn't that appealing. So we decided to take the money we would have spent on a trip (and the time) and use it towards building our garden because we enjoyed it so much in Midland.
I love gardening. I think it's really fun, and a life skill that is important to have. I'm also concerned about climate change and I don't necessarily think the world is going to end (at least I hope not) but it isn't unreasonable to think that food costs could drastically increase due to changing climate (and increasing populations) so it couldn't hurt to save some costs by having a garden. Eventually I want to do a "Grocery vs. Garden" cost post. I am pretty confident that the actual plant cost will be less than I'll spend on vegetables this summer. And in about a hundred years we will probably be able to cover the costs of the garden plots.
So Friday we went outside and started thinking about our plan. I had a picture in my head, but no idea how to execute it. We also wanted to build for the purpose of cost consideration, longevity, and aesthetics. Obtaining all three of these is not easy. So we made our plan and headed to Lowe's.
Too much. That's how much it cost.
So this is the before. This is the side of our yard. We have lots of slopes and strange things that break up our yard. This section also gets the most sun light. This is also the section where we would ever put a pool. I suppose I wont be getting a pool.
Matt designed 3 plots. We bought cedar wood because it is rot resistant. It smells really nice too (priorities). These suckers are also really heavy. Matt had to do all kinds of wizardry to get these level because our yard is strangely sloped. I am glad I married an engineer because I would have just left 'em. Honestly, I probably would have just dug some holes in the ground and then put some pavers around it, added a little top soil (who am I kidding? I probably would have bought like 10 bags of miracle grow not knowing what I was going).
Then we lined them with landscape fabric to prevent the weeds and grass from growing through. This was my job. It was like wrapping an inverted present. Matt likes to check over my handiwork. Apparently I don't use enough staples.
While Matt cut all of the wood Pistol and I would supervise. Pistol is a master supervisor.
The last person who owned our house had a bunch of pea gravel along one strip behind the house. We have been very curious as to what on earth to do with it because it's hard to walk on and you can't put any furniture on it. We had an estimate done to have them remove it and put in concrete. That wasn't in the budget. So, I had the idea to put some of it at the bottom of our garden plots to allow for drainage in the garden. I learned a thing or two in my plant and soil science class back at OSU. I hope. So we put in a layer at the bottom. Then we covered it with top soil. A lot of top soil.
Then we tilled in 1 bag of compost for two of the plots. It smelled really bad. Like fish or something. Something bad. Oh.... and you might ask: Shanna, why are you wearing sweats?? Wasn't it nice this weekend? Oh, it was extremely nice Friday and Saturday. But Sunday. Sunday was a dreary no good for working in the garden day. Had to finish the job though! Also I'd like you to take note of my pink John Deere working gloves. My dad bought them for me. Perhaps out of shock that I wanted working gloves. Dad, if you're reading this, this project was NOT the first time I have worn them (maybe 1 of 5).
Now let's talk about compost. If you want to read about some of my initial composting you can read about it here. I love composting. I take the discarded vegetables from cooking or juicing and I put them in a little bin under my sink. A lady at the sustainability conference that I went to in L.A. back in October gave me a whole box of the composting bags that line the bin instead of the 2 or 3 they gave to passers by. Then I take the bag out to the composter and Matt also puts yard waste out there. We left our last composter at the other house because I believe there was "no way in hell" we were moving a bin of dirt to Oklahoma. I mailed the new homeowners a pamphlet on how it worked and why it was an asset. I hope they kept it. Any way, the new composter is cooler because it turns with a lever and our last one didn't. I had to hand turn it with a rake standing on top of a bench and it was really a mess at the last house. Also, there's actually humidity in Oklahoma and water is essential for the organic breakdown process to work. All I did in Midland was essentially petrify a bunch of bread and vegetables. I would water it weekly, but it wasn't really working. But I was diverting material from the landfill!
Okay, so here's what it looks like in the composter. This is about 7 months of materials. On the left you can see one of my green composting bags and eventually it will just turn into part of the mix (about a dozen already have!). See how dark it is? That means it's nutrient rich and prime for adding to the garden because it will help my plants grow.
This is what it looks like from a better view. It's behind our garage so I can just walk back there and dump my stuff in. It's literally easier than taking out the trash and it makes me feel like a good little environmentalist. And it's science and I think that's fun.
Here's a bucket full of compost from the composter ready to be added to the garden. I was extremely excited about this because I wasn't sure this project was going to work. I was sort of afraid I was just going to have a barrel of rotting vegetables, and not in a good way. This really didn't smell bad. Is essentially smelled like dirt. It smelled significantly better than the stuff we bought at Lowe's. I got two bucket fulls for my garden. It wasn't a ton, but it freed up some room in the composter so I could add more things over time, which I was starting to need. This is prime free stuff, folks!
This was just 1 bucket full. Now, we have 3 plots. Matt agreed that I could use the third plot as my "experiment" plot. I want to use it to learn. So this is the plot where my compost will be used. I also want to plant seeds in here because it's a little harder to grow plants from seeds than the pre-germinated ones you get at the store. I also want to yield an actual garden, so 2 of the plots are going to come from the more tried and true (by us) methods. But who knows? Maybe this plot will be the best? At the end of the day, I'll at least learn things first hand from this plot. What works, what doesn't.
If I could get Matt to let me put a chicken in the back yard we would really be in business!
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