Following a week of both mid 70 degree weather and an inch of snow here in North Texas, E. and I started our long planned kitchen garden...in the front yard. The back yard is just too shady, and I can no longer grow anything back there but some herbs and lettuces in a couple of small places. We really like the idea of growing our own food, there's nothing like a homegrown tomato, and just running out the door when you need a few sprigs of herbs is a great luxury. Besides having really fresh, locally grown food we also know what chemicals have ...and haven't!...been been put on and in our produce.
So, we rented a tiller at Lowe's...(this is funny, because I have a small farm tractor with a big tiller attachment on my land, but that's 2 1/2 hours away)...and added about 1/2 a ton of organic amendments to our black clay soil. I can't wait to plant and bought both a 6 pack of cauliflower and an early girl tomato (that I'll have to keep protected for a while) and 2 packs of seeds, added to the collection I already have, when I went to return the tiller this morning.
Our front yard potager is 12x16 feet. We'll see how that works for us this season and add as needed. One thing that I am concerned about is having the garden be visually pleasing as well as productive. I want to be able to go out there and say, Ah, that's really pretty. And I'm sure my neighbors would like that too. We just have to put up the wooden borders now and some stepping stones, then we can start planting early spring seeds.
(Just to clarify, I say E and I started the garden...actually, he did all the hard work of dozens of passes with the tiller and lugging all the bags of compost, etc. Thanks!)
A
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