The frames themselves are fairly simple. Just regular lumber screwed together. DO NOT USE TREATED LUMBER – the chemicals will leach into the soil and contaminate the plants. The wood is sitting on TOP of the ground, so it should hold up for a long time. The fencing posts ARE treated (we couldn’t find non treated ones), but they are 0n the OUTSIDE of the framing (and aren’t sunk into the ground) so leaching shouldn’t be a problem.

Filed under: container gardening, Our Garden, Square Foot Gardening, Vegetable, Water conservation | 1 Comment »

Our biggest worry with square foot gardening was that things would be too crowded, too shaded and too…. everything. Well, so far it’s doing great. So far the only casualty has been sage. We have no idea why that died. The other has been basil, but they’re not dead, only growing much slower than usual – probably because they’re a little shaded. Everything else is healthy and thriving.

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In our city’s newspaper, The Winston Salem Journal, today’s edition (both print and online) carries an article about our yard. David Bare, the Gardening columnist, visited us last week. He’s a fountain of gardening knowledge and we read his column religiously. Plus, I think he probably knows every serious gardener in the county.
Anyway, it was a nice visit. And it turned into a nice article. Here’s the online address of the paper (0ur section, of course): http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2010/apr/23/222035/time-spent-fixing-soil-first-pays-off-big-for-coup/

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Gardens change.   All the time.  Plants grow…. or die.   Bulbs naturalize and spread.   Things need thinning.  You change your mind about a certain section.  Or, like us, your own life is changing.   Our garden has seen many many stages.  For most of its life, it’s been a sun garden.  Lots of flowering plants that needed [...]

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I love our town.  I’ve probably mentioned that we chose Winston Salem.  We made a list of what we wanted and then tried to find the place that had as many of those attributes as we could find.   Winston Salem was it.  Nearly thirty years later and we’ve not been disappointed.  Although a few years [...]

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There are so many things to love about spring: the colors, the smells, the warmth of the sun…   But another thing Sherry and I love are the sounds.  We open our doors and windows and the house is awash in the sounds of ….. SEX.   What?  You think those birds are just singing because it’s [...]

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The gist of square foot gardening is this:  You build an open bottomed box and fill it with a good planting mixture of soil and compost.  Mark it off in one foot squares (see photo).     In each square foot section, plant one herb or vegetable – a different herb or vegetable in each square.  The smaller [...]

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We planted several trees a couple of years ago.  They’re doing well.  It’s amazing really, how many trees we have on a just fifth of an acre.   We tend to have Japanese trees.  I know we should plant natives, but they just get too big.  So we have Japanese maple and dogwood and cherry trees.  [...]

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When we first moved to Winston Salem, we rented a house two blocks from here.  We wanted to explore the city for a year or two, learn the neighborhoods, test the commutes, before we decided on where to buy a home.  Two blocks makes a lot of difference. Understand that two blocks from here is [...]

Filed under: Our Garden, Planning a Garden, Urban Gardening | 2 Comments »

Well…. we had quite a bit of snow this week.   As the song says, “the weather outside is frightful…”  We don’t know if the kids (and grandkids) will be able to come home this week or not.  We’re playing it by ear.  The weather channel calls for rain on Christmas day, but it’s going to [...]

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