Aside from spending time with my wife, baby and mother-in-law, I got a lot of good stuff done this weekend. It began with a nice informal seed seminar at Johnson's Garden Center. I know that sounds sort-of lame, but it was very interesting. For someone that knows nothing about starting seeds, I learned a lot. And I got to meet a nice lady that operates a large community garden at a church just West of the river, near Indian Hills pool. If I'm fortunate enough to have plentiful starting plants, I'll be donating my extras to their garden. They'll have nearly 1600 square feet of ground, and they'll attempt to plant mostly Native seeds. Native, as in, Native American. She was a member of a tribe (didn't know which one, though) and she had been attempting to get seeds from all the other nations. Pretty cool stuff! Here's a pic of my instructor at the seminar.
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| Seed seminar guide. |
I later spent a bunch of money on some necessary equipment for starting seeds. Good news, though, is I won't have to buy the stuff later!
On Sunday I ended up working to complete my fence that was started a few weeks ago. With the snow and cold weather, I've been inside all cooped up. It was super nice getting out in the 53 degree weather to do some manual labor. Here's the finished product:
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| New picket garden fence |
I finally got my tables made in the greenhouse. Simple design, and will end up being very effective. I'm not much for waste, so I constructed my tables out of my old fence that I tore down to put up the new picket fence. Reclaimed materials is green and much cheaper than buying all new product. I'll have plenty of space to lay out my starting seeds and other potting materials. I also plan to store some other garden stuff in the green house so I can reclaim some space in my garage. Here are some photos of the finished products!
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| Sunny day in February! Working on my tables in the green house. |
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| Ready for table tops. I'm using reclaimed fence wood. |
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| Looking out from the green house. |
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| Ahh. done, and it really looks good. Ready for rock in the floors. |
Last step to prepare the green house is to get some gravel. Then it's ready to use! We only need the weather to stabilize and warm up a bit! Going from -16 degrees on Thursday morning to 53 degrees Sunday is crazy!
The next step is to begin to plan what I want to grow. There are tons of good veggies to eat, but not all will be a good idea to put in my garden. I learned about some basic things to consider at my seed seminar. And I picked up the latest version of Kansas Garden Guide, published by the Kansas State University Extension Office. It offers lots of good ideas for planting. I have to get the tiller services so I can get the ground turned over right away. I forgot to do it last year, as I was busy with my new baby! My next post will hopefully be about what I've chosen to grow. Maybe a layout of my garden. Cheers!
