It’s started! The cool weather heirloom test garden!! Maya’s Garden!!

Maya, my young neighbor, is combining the garden with a school project on architectural landscaping. Pretty cool for an eight-year old. Already, she is taking copious notes.

I’m manual labor. I’ve pulled all the summer veggies as production had grown to a snail’s pace, of which there were several in the garden. It’s organic so we just have to realize that bugs happen.

We have four raised beds, each 4 X 8 ft, which as I calculate will give us 128 sq. ft. and hopefully enough to at least partially feed the two families. Because of the limited space in my suburban garden, we’ll plant the beds by the square foot method rather than in rows. Because it’s so easy to reach across the 4 ft span, there is no need to waste the growing space on rows to walk in while weeding and harvesting.

Each bed has been augmented with a ¼ of a box of organic, granular vegetable fertilizer, two bags of Bumper Crop, a bag of worm castings, and a cup of Natural Soil Humate per bed.

I went over to Flowerdale Nursery this morning where Carlos Ruiz was teaching a class on Winter Heirloom Gardening. I now have an idea of not only what I do to prepare the beds each season, but why I do it. Since my soil is heavy clay, a full and fluffy compost helps it drain better. The compost also gives good bugs in the soil new stuff to eat. Those nifty little microbes will then poop their hearts out giving even more nutrient to the plants. Of course, then we will eat the plants and so on and so on.

The whole concoction is now simmering for another week and then we actually plant!