Monday, March 14, 2011

The 2011 Garden

Tilling up the yard at my friend Rob's house in
2010.  Hopefully this year will be easier!

After moving into a new home in August, we were delighted to get the OK from our friends Rana and Hilary to start our garden on their land just 3 blocks away.  Ideally, we would want it on our property, but we don't have the size or sun exposure to grow anything meaningful.  The site where we'll be planting, however, is an empty double lot with full sun and permission to tear up as much space as we want!  I think our friends have merely failed to think this through completely, but we're taking it and running!

We have been spending the long, cold Minnesota winter planning out what we are going to grow, how much space we will need, options of a small CSA with our friends and a whole bunch more.  It seems like we get newfangled crazy ideas on a daily basis.  You'll notice that we are very much "idea" people, but sometimes fail miserably with follow-through!

The main focus for this year is going to be a vegetable garden, but we also intend to raise 3 egg-laying chickens (as allowed by our city code).  My family thinks I'm absolutely crazy, but they'll change their minds when they start getting delicious, organic eggs.

Anyway, back to the garden... since we have free reign to grow as much as we want, we're going to try to make this year's garden as bountiful as possible without going overboard and getting ourselves in too deep.  We have roughly a quarter acre of space to work with, which will be plenty to supply ourselves and some of our friends with fresh food this year and hopefully to fill a small freezer with goodies to last until next year.  We will be starting the seeds inside and will transfer them to the garden when the time is right.  We'll be growing it all organically and have several ideas for natural fertilizer (compost, manure). We'll also be making and using a rain barrel to save on water.

Look for a listing of our 2011 crops to come soon!

No comments:

Post a Comment