anyone doing any gardening? [View all]
we bought a new old house in May of 2019 and the lawn was depleted and part of it was used to keep dogs in cages. A lot of dogs.
Since then I began to work on a food forest, a totally new concept to me, and I had two and one half truck loads of wood chips delivered (free) to spread over the area. It's an area about 60 ft long and 20 feet wide from house to property line.
I began a garden in a "U" shaped area where I had the logs from a pine tree moved to. I had to have the tree taken down due to it leaning toward the neighbors house and it would have been a hassle to leave it up, Anyway, I ended up with a 12 ft x 12 ft x 12 ft area that I began lasagna gardening in. 2 inches of cardboard, 2 inches of leaves, 2 inches of box store topsoil, 2 inches of hay, a layer of compost, and more hay and topsoil. Then I planted 6 collard plants, 3 jalapeno pepper plants, 3 hungarian pepper plants, three squash plants (from seed), four tomato plants from seed, two cherry tomatos and two larger ones from tomatos I bought at a veg stand. then I planted beet seeds, 18 of them, only 8 lived and are growing, the other previous plants are growing and beginning to produce fruit (or veggies, whatever).
I planted 6 pineapple plants along the fence line, in dirt, and covered the ground around them with chips. They look great. Can't wait for a taste of the first pineapple of the year.
In separate raised beds and tubs I have Okra, beans, carrots and lettuce mix. All are at least growing, the carrots take forever but that's ok too.
Well, I just looked back over that scree and realized I'm very lucky to be semi retired. I live in the West Central Coast area of Floriduh and this is the first year I've ever had enough to eat from my own ground.
The wood chips were placed over cardboard to a depth of 10 inches, they've shrunk to a thickness of 5 inches in just 5 months.
the soil is transforming in an amazing way.
Best of everything to my friends on DU. May your hands get dirty (occassionally) and your hearts be full .
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