Last year was the year of trying the Intensive Gardening method. Double dug raised beds.. brought in quality soil to fill them.. heavy (organic) fertilizer and very intensive irrigation. It worked.. somewhat. It was good for hobby gardening. There was definitely no money made by the end of the year.
This year I’m going back to the ‘old school’ methods. Spreading out and using the land that I have. I have just under half an acre, so there really is no reason for me to do intensive gardening.
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Here is what my garden looked like last year. Well.. this was a few days ago, nothing growing but the garlic, but it shows the raised beds I used last year. |
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And this is the beginnings of my new garden! This awesome guy on craigslist that rents out his tractor by the day. I asked him if he just did work himself for small projects like mine, and sure enough he agreed. He came over one morning and in about half an hour had sod transformed into the beginnings of a new garden bed. Some of the best money I’ve ever spent, that’s for sure! |
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Here is the final product after I’ve made a few paths for myself to get around in. I blocked it off into roughly 6′x4′ blocks. |
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Same thing from another angle. The plot in the foreground will be my landing/staging area. It will be either mulched or graveled. Maybe I’ll put a nice little garden chair there or something. A gardener needs to just sit and relax every now and then! |
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Here is some of our locally produced waste seed meal. Since this is Seattle, that would be Coffee grounds. I stopped by my local Starbucks and picked up a bag one day, and another bag a few days later. |
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You can see there is some espresso grounds in the mix as well. I’m going to have some highly caffeinated worms! |
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My blueberry bush was right in the middle of where the new garden went in, so I trimmed it back and moved it to a different spot on the other side of the house. This isn’t the right time of year to make cuttings to propagate (as root grow takes place in fall and winter) but I decided to give it a shot.. why not. If it fails I’ve lost nothing, and if it works, I have 6-8 free blueberry bushes! |