Saturday, May 19, 2012

There'sThere's More Than One Way to Skin a...to Grow a Garden!!!


So, here we are in Colorado Springs, 6000 feet in the air. It is beautiful...however, the back of our house is all stonework. The research began almost immediately...how on earth was I going to grow anything, let alone an entire garden. Well, enter the web site, Pinterest. It is here where I saw hundreds of images of gardens in every way, shape or form which you could possibly imagine. It is here where I realized that if you want to grow a plant or a flower, that just about any kind of container will work....from a wooden wine box to a plastic liter bottle...anything. It is here where I saw raised garden beds. Basically, a raised garden bed is a large bottomless box which is hammered into the ground and filled w/ soil. It separates your herbs from your veggies or flowers, or whatever your plan may be. It is very neat looking. So, my thought was, if I get a raised garden bed, I will have to put a bottom or floor on it and actually raise it. A good thought. Lo and behold, there I was @ Lowe's one day, and they were selling raised garden bed 'kits'....cedar...affordable....and it had a trellis! I looked @ Home Depot and this one was much nicer. I bought 2. Putting it together was easy, but I needed help w/ the floor. We went back to Lowe's and bought double thick flooring, literally. The garden bed is 4'x4', so thankfully, cutting a large sheet of the flooring in 1/2 was a perfect fit...again, thank you Lowe's. I called in help to actually put the floor on...enter Michael Steiner. If I could have done it myself I would have, but, he's got the power tools. Construction 1-0-1. The floor was on and the drainage holes were drilled. (Someone will be the recipient of some fresh herbs before summers end!)Finally, we were @ Home Depot just last week and I bought 2 wood pallets to  'raise' the garden beds. It was a perfect match. After 50lbs. of compost, 8 bags of 2 cubits of MiracleGro, I was ready to start planting...which I did, yesterday!!! I'm just getting warmed up, but I did buy Honeysuckle for the trellis, Greek oregano and Greek basil. It looks beautiful and I have room for 2 or 3 more raised garden beds. This is a mighty good start. The bottom line is I am thrilled and hopefully, everything will actually grow!!! The learning curve continues...more to come!!

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