Step One

This is my first blog ever, so here I go...


I will be dedicating most of this blog to my love of gardening, my continuing effort to become more self sustaining, improving my organic practice's, and helping out the local wildlife.

Our current veggie garden is a 10'x 16' space that faces South West. With the radiant heat from the concrete wall and the southern exposure it's a pretty toasty place. We typically grow WAY to many tomatoes, 2-4 varieties of peppers, onions, greens, beans, peas and some edible flowers in this space, stuffing herbs in where ever there is left over room.

This year is the big expansion for the veggie garden. We removed a chain link fence that once (conveniently) kept the pets and kids out and we are removing another 128 sq ft of lawn to bump the garden from 160 sq ft to a grand total of 288 sq ft. The two varieties of potatoes, 2 varieties of onions, carrots, corn, peas, peppers, and basically anything else I can cram in there will be in this new space, leaving the older section of garden wide open to the many tomatoes, eggplant, beets, greens...well that's all I can think of for now but I know there is more.

I am truly excited about this wonderful new space but at the same time, I am intimidated. Will I be able to keep up with the weeding and beating back the grass I always battle?

The chickens will be arriving the end of May and we are starting to clear out there eventual home and starting to plan the construction of their coop. The prospect of fresh eggs is terribly exciting and my daughter (a budding young gardener) just can't wait for our little chicks to arrive.

We should be getting the sod cutter tomorrow and removing the grass, then comes the amending of our VERY sandy soil, and when I say VERY I mean we have a beach for a yard. We live at the foot of the beautiful Pikes Peak and what was once a ocean floor geographically. At least we are far enough away from the mountain as to not have to battle the clay and decomposed granite! If I had to choose, give me my sand any day.

A truck load of Alpaca poo, some good compost from my work, alfalfa pellets (yes rabbit food), free grounds from Starbucks (thanks gals), and a quality granular fertilizer (organic of course) should do the trick to bring my soil (or lack there of) up to par for the veggies. Extra compost of course for the potato section.

Sod cutting adventure to come!