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Welcome to my gardening website! |
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I am fairly new to gardening. When I was growing up, we had a couple of gardens but I was still quite young so I don't remember too much about it. My husband, children and I had our first garden in 1998. I chose to have what is called a 'square foot' garden. It's a way of gardening in which the garden plot is divided into 4' by 4' squares. Each square is then divided again into 1' by 1' sections. The benefits of square foot gardening is the ability to grow more produce in less space, thereby reducing weeds. Also, since the squares are not walked on, annual rototilling is not necessary. The squares are tended from paths surrounding the 4' by 4' squares. All plants are within arms reach. I am also an advocate of organic gardening. I used composted cow manure on our garden last year as well as a homemade soap spray to fend of pests. |
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| I also learned about companion planting, where certain flowers, herbs, and vegetables can be planted next to one another as a natural pest deterrent. I chose basil, marigolds and geraniums as some of our companion plants. Most of the items I grow are annuals but the strawberries and chives are perennials and will return year after year. | |
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| This was our first garden in 1998. You can see the marigolds on the left; behind them are the pumpkins. The vertical stand was for the peas. We grew radishes, peas, tomatoes, basil, geraniums, watermelon, acorn squash, carrots, cucumbers, green peppers, onions, strawberries, chives, pumpkins, summer squash, zucchini, green beans and cantaloupe. | |
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Some pictures of the vegetables grown in our garden: |
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cucumber |
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summer squash |
green peppers |
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pumpkin |
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| From our first year of gardening, I have learned what we would like to grow in the next growing season. This year, we are planning to grow nearly everything as last year excluding peas. It just takes to many of them to make a meal for our family! I plan to plant more and less of certain items: more green beans, less green peppers. | |
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Here is a diagram of our garden plan: < not available yet > |
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Our garden in September 2000. |
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| UPDATE: I've been doing some canning this year! More information to come soon!! | |
tomato
